The Prophets(97)

Well, shit. If their fate was to be found in two piles of dust that would be swept up and scattered, then damn it, let there be a storm beforehand. Let the blood run down and the heat, too. If the Snap was to come, at least they would have known what it was like to be each other, be really in each other, before the brokenness was brought to bear.

This was the balm. And this was the thing that made the ax necessary even though silly ol’ Isaiah didn’t wish to carry his own. Everything was worth it for just a few more seconds of Isaiah’s singing, so it wouldn’t fade so quickly when they parted.

Timothy smelled wrong. Not exactly like whips and chains, although that was there, too, underneath the softness and assurances. Mostly, he smelled like hound dog, fresh out of the river, splashing against fish, wagging its way back onto shore.

“Did you hear me, Sam? I said that once my father is dead, I will set you and Isaiah free.”

But this was a trick of surrender and Samuel refused to buckle. What would they have to wait, forty, eighty seasons? Hope that they survived, intact, the hours; weren’t sold off, maimed, or murdered, whimsically, beforehand? Worst of all, trust a toubab to keep his word—in exchange for what? How many times must they lie with him, endure his affections, however sweet, rise with the smell of hound upon them for a time that might be mirage or fleeting? Whoa, then, man. Whoa!

“I admit,” Timothy whispered to him, “I have much to learn still. But I know this: You are a people. Love is possible.”

Never ask a man his thoughts before he has had an opportunity to come. He’s liable to say whatever is expedient, whatever shall remove obstacles to his orgasm. Speak to him after, when he has been released from the throes, after the spasms have subsided, and his breathing has returned to normal. Wait until he has rested and wishes to scour the previous act from his body and mind. Ask him then, when calm has crept back into his lungs, for that’s when it’s most likely that the truth will prevail. Samuel, however, refused to shoulder such risk. The heat rose up in his back and spread like wings. Malice couldn’t be found anywhere except in the faint smile curling upon his lips. Do it, man! Go on and do it!

“You can look at me, Sam. It’s okay.”

Samuel knew there were two things you never looked in the eye: dogs and toubab. Both will bite, and only from one of those wounds is there a chance to heal. He had never wanted to be with Isaiah more than now. He and Isaiah shared each other. He thought Timothy should know.

“They said we was something dirty, but it won’t nothing like that at all. It was easy, really. He the only one who understand me without me saying a word. Can tell what I thinking just by where I looking—or not looking. So when he look in on my inside . . . the first time anybody or anything ever touch me so, everything in my head wanna say nah, but nothing in my body let me.”

Timothy stepped back and looked at Samuel.

“I understand. If nobody else understands, I do,” Timothy said.

He touched Samuel’s face. Timothy’s smile was telling. It confirmed for Samuel everything that his intuition had already revealed: he didn’t have to be able to read to know that toubab were blank pages in a book bound, but unruly. They needed his people for one thing and one thing only: To be the words. Ink-black and scribbled unto the forever, for they knew that there was no story without them, no audience to gasp at the drama, rejoice at the happy ending, to applaud, no matter how unskillfully their blood was used. The first word was power, but Samuel planned to change that. He bent his fingers to tell a tale that would make the audience scramble for cover.

“Maybe tomorrow you and Isaiah come and visit me together?” Timothy asked softly.

Samuel snapped.

It was as though the room had become untenably wide, like he had all the room in the world to move, to spread limbs, to jump, to hold his chest in glee. From the first time since walking into that house—they called it big, but it, too, was empty, which made its crimes easy to discover.

In this wideness, Timothy shrank in his view, but his pitiful entreaties stretched to meet the size of the room blow for blow. This made Samuel catch a fever that ignited his forehead. The shape of his fury, because that is what his face became, was a scythe: curved, sharp enough to slit the throat, its edge pointing mercilessly back at its wielder. But that didn’t matter. It never does.

He reared back and his fist came quicker than he thought it could. He knocked Timothy to the floor and the thud tipped the lantern over. Timothy let out a small whimper. Samuel reached behind his back, snatched the ax from its hiding place, and with one quick swipe, he put it deep into Timothy’s temple.

He watched as the blood sputtered and ran down Timothy’s face. It began to form a puddle on the floor. There was no scream, not even a whisper, but the face contorted and the mouth moved, tried to form, maybe, a question. Samuel turned away. He knew that Timothy, in his last moments, was confused, needed to have an answer, and Samuel would ensure that he would never get one. In that small way, this charming young man who fancied himself blameless would know a fraction of what it felt like. Haints did. Countless people whose voices could be heard even if their bodies were nowhere to be found, who followed them all around and would give them no rest because they, themselves, couldn’t rest. The tiny word left on their lips made rest impossible and so they pecked at them not realizing that they had the same question, too.

The body jerked for much longer than Samuel anticipated. Finally, there was a sound that came out of Timothy’s mouth, not words, not the question that Samuel would certainly ignore, but more like rainwater spilling into a hole. Then, suddenly, his body stopped moving altogether and the expression of agony was gone and he looked more peaceful, like someone sleeping with his eyes open.