The Voices of Martyrs Read online

  Imogene didn’t bother to hide her disapproval at the half empty bottle of unlabeled whiskey. Her low slung breasts filled out her evening dress. With a forlorn face of uncried tears, she skulked about as if on a barefoot walk atop shards of glass. Her left arm crossed her chest almost propping up her cigarette-clutching right hand as if protecting her, or blocking his view. He hated the way she looked at him, with a mix of pity and resentment.

  “They all use me,” he began, not really talking to anyone in particular. Stagger had let his conditioning slide. Still firm and imposing, one could still see hints of flab along his once finely cut flanks. “Some people see me fight and win and feel good. Some people want to cheer for my defeat to feel good. No matter what I do, I’ll make people happy. If they ain’t got whatever they need by now, all my boxing ain’t going to help nothing.”

  “So, you took the money,” a slow cloud of cigarette smoke encircled, her voice clotted with disgust. “You have no soul if you can do this.”

  “Fifteen thousand is a lot of money. We can live the sporting life for a while on that.” He wanted to be somebody powerful, somebody with clout. To be the man worthy of the way she used to look at him, with stolen glances smoldering with admiration and spent passion. “Look at you: drawn to the life, bought, and traded by the players. Might as well be on an auction block your own damn self.”

  “So, you blaming me now?” Imogene drew her hair back behind her ear and finished her cigarette.

  “I don’t think you’re hearing me.” Stagger sighed. The moment passed. Eyes hardening, he straightened then fixed his gaze on her. “You giving out misery like it was on sale.”

  “Like you’re so different. You’re just mad because you’re theirs and you just won’t admit it. You’ve turned us both into niggers. At least I’ve accepted it.”

  The back of his hand raised. She flinched, knowing terror lit her face, and he hated himself for being the cause of it. An apology bubbled up as his hand lowered, but his throat grew thick and choked it off. Anger still managed to squeeze through. “You see what you almost made me do? Go on now, get out.”

  In the gloom, Stagger resigned himself. Some things were meant to be, though he had only a dim notion of what he should do.

  §

  Movie stars, gangsters, politicians, sports, and up-and-coming boxers filled the stands. Every seat sold out, the aisles choked with gangs of rowdies and howling pandemonium. Little boys climbed out over the rafters of the pavilion, anxious to see the fight.

  O’Leary came in at 190 pounds, Stagger at 209, with “The Dock Saint” being the taller of the two by half an inch and having a two-inch reach advantage. The Irishman was flat-footed while Stagger could cut off the ring. The tall clodhopper, with wisps of reddish blonde hair and a toothless smile, was discovered harvesting beets. He had the bearing of a school bully, the kind of boy who abused opposing players and accrued constant penalties for misconduct during sporting events.

  Escaping the latrine smell of cellar runoff, every name was hurled at Stagger as he approached the ring. With a resolute grimace, Stagger hardly blinked. Fighting in front of hostile crowds killed the dream of fair treatment, not that it mattered.

  “You flat-chested coon.” O’Leary was a mockery of everything he was about.

  Coming out quickly with his hands up, Stagger moved under the punches, then countered with a left hook followed by a series of jabs. Despite the hard banging to his ribs, O’Leary could take punishment and keep coming. He threw a combination, but Stagger deflected most of the blows with his gloves.

  O’Leary’s shadow moved independently of him, countering Stagger’s shots. The shadow, despite the lights, withdrew into O’Leary, winding itself around him. All trace of O’Leary disappeared, his skin darkened in a penumbra of hate. Features flattened into unrecognizable shapes except for eyes that became white slits of anger, The Shadow’s maw revealed shark-like teeth, rows upon rows, ready to grind his flesh and chew his spirit. A roundhouse right connected with Stagger’s face; the blow heard at ringside. His legs buckled some, but the ropes caught him.

  Strong, impervious, fast, patient, the unrelenting Shadow showered him in punches, each blow jolting him. Stagger’s face burned. He was no longer able to feel his feet. In the next moment, he found himself sprawled out on his back. The crowd counted in unison.

  “2 … 3 … 4 …”

  “No witty rejoinder?” The Shadow asked. O’Leary couldn’t have spelled rejoinder on his best day. Stagger merely glared at him as the ref checked him out. “Say something, damn you.”

  Stagger willed himself to his feet. “My name is Stagger Jackson.” Dancing in and out before the Shadow could react, Stagger worked its body. The Shadow’s sides heaved for breath in jagged sears. But by the eighth round, a sinking feeling of despair settled on his corner. He was losing points with every round.

  “Box, damn you,” Nan begged, his fists clenched as if he was ready to hit Stagger himself. “Let him come after you.”

  “I can get him.” Blood trailed down Stagger’s face. A cut had opened over his eye during the fifth round when he dodged into the Shadow’s uppercut. The ringside doctor battled to stem the bleeding.

  “Not if you don’t jab. I’m going to throw in the towel.” Nan’s gaze was dispassionate and unfamiliar. The thin veins of his eyes a maroon frieze of rivulets.

  “You throw that towel, I’ll kill you myself. You just do right by my family. And Imogene.”

  In the twelfth round, Stagger felt two ribs go with a roundhouse he wandered into. The Shadow continued to grind him down one punch at a time, one round at a time. The Shadow drilled the cut over his bunged-up left eye with surgical precision opening up the wound into a geyser. The scent of blood only further fired up the crowd.

  “4 … 5 … 6 …” A tapestry of hoots and hollers, the crowd counted the next time he hit the canvas. He remembered the bonfire underneath his father, the flames crept up his body long after he stopped dancing. The flames licked the rope, and the remains of his body, a charred shade barely recognized as human, tumbled into the pyre. All to the renewed cheers of the crowd.

  After every trip to the floor, Stagger came up smiling. Hands slack at his side, he’d walk into another haymaker, cheered by ring-siders—in the full throes of their bloodlust—every time he got up.

  “Just stay down,” Nan yelled. “They’ll kill you.”

  “My name is,” he said between swallowed breaths, “Stagger Jackson.” Blood poured from his shattered nose and busted lip. His face reduced to lacerated welts of raw meat, he hardly looked like a man anymore. The murmurs of the angry dead, a susurrus of voices rose to a dull chorus in the back of his mind. The Shadow reeked of smoldering wood and overcooked meat.

  “6… 7 … 8 …” The crowd became little more than a mob. A contagion of madness spread among them. No matter their station in life, they thought and acted as one, shadows of themselves, ready to sell souvenir bits of him for the asking.

  In the seventeenth round, he was slower to get up. His ghastly, bloody mouth spat out another gold capped tooth. The Shadow still punched with the strength of a mule’s hind leg. Stagger locked him up, feeble jabs working its body, to stall out the fight in a clinch. The creature carried him to punish him. The ref had been paid well and didn’t once move to stop the bout. Nan had already cleared the ring. A big, awkward left hand landed.

  “My name is …” Stagger took a drunken step backwards, his eyes rolling up in a stunned, hopeless gaze before he spilled forward.

  “7 … 8 … 9 …” The crowd cheered. “10.”

  Stagger’s leg twitched a few times before it stilled. With the erupting pandemonium in the ring, he slipped into the waiting darkness and dreamt of where he’s move to spend his pieces of silver since he bet against himself. Someplace bright with no room for shadows.

  Present

  The Ave

  Muffled cries woke Prisoner #935579 from the light slumber that masqueraded as sleep. Th
e deck lights illuminated the upper tier of Cellhouse C; enough for the Correctional Officers to measure their steps, but they reduced the cell dwellers to shifting shadows. The brutish shade in the opposite cell hunched in familiar fashion.Knuckles whitened on the bunk rail as the recent arrival in Derrick Mayfield’s cell took an involuntary ass pounding. His own fault, really—only a few days in, he failed to grasp any of the rules of survival. He smiled, he chatted, and he trusted—the same get-along/polite maneuverings that served him well on the outside but marked him as a wounded gazelle to the hyenas that stalked these corridors.

  Some men were destined to be punks.

  The smothered screams echoed through the night. Prisoner #935579 eyed Officer O’Reilly, who ignored the ruckus though his station was only a few cells away. A bull of a man and former Navy, O’Reilly was reknowned for his harshness—another schoolyard bully who found a profession to vent his cruel streak. A scar snaked up from the corner of his mouth along the side of his face, contorting even his mildest grimace into a demonic sneer. An inmate gave him that gift the last time he interrupted a midnight tryst. “Animals rutting in the night,” as far as that hack was concerned.

  Prisoner #935579 buried his head in his pillow. That was life on the Ave. Allisonville Correctional Facility. Level Four. The A-V. The Ave. Prisoner #935579 remembered the day he walked the forty-three steps of the loading plank, in handcuffs and leg irons. Rows of black faces lined up for inspection, like an auction block manned by hostile hacks barking orders. First they took away his name, then told him when to eat, when to sleep, when to shower; but the chains were the worst.

  The Ave allowed few emotions, but Prisoner #935579 knew the hate. He hated through clenched teeth, the kind of hate that scratched, kicked, and lashed out at the world in blind fury, if only to break the tedium. The kind of hate that led to the fight between cells earlier this evening, ending in frustrated men hurling their own excrement at one another, staining the bars and cells yellow and brown, stinking up the whole tier. Officer O’Reilly swore to let them stew in their filth until breakfast.

  Sleep without relief eventually claimed him. The incessant jangling of metal cobwebs shattered the night-time tranquility of the forest. Prisoner #935579’s tongue traced the bloody bruises in his mouth. He drew his chain-weighted hands close, studying the scars left by the metal cuffs. His back, scarred from the many-tailed whip of a man with a scar reminiscent of O’Reilly.

  Steam rose from the chorus of men that marched alongside him. Tribesmen, familiar as brothers, stumbled through the forest not cooled by the still air. Branches of thick underbrush scourged them as they trod along the path that no outsider should know, but the Scar-Mouthed One did. Few chose to come to the sacred forest, a place of mystery to the faithful, peril to the unbelievers. A forlorn, gnarled tree grew at the center of a clearing—the Tree of Forgetfulness. The Scar-Mouthed One spoke in the tongue of the Igbo people. The Scar-Mouthed One commanded them to march around the Tree seven times. The men dragged themselves around the tree, their legs robbed of the strength to move. One man wept as he staggered.

  The Scar-Mouthed One knew the Igbo well. None walked around the Tree except to sever their memories, or have them stolen. Memories—of their family, their village, their motherland—gone. Another man cried out, met by the wail of the many-tailed whip. The man stumbled, tripping Prisoner #935579. On his knees, Prisoner #935579 clutched a handful of dirt from mother La’s bosom. He stood, ready to curse mother La and die, then he heard the voice—the voice of his father and all the fathers that had been.

  “Listen, son of our sons,” the voice whispered, a breeze through tree leaves, a roar only Prisoner #935579 heard. “The leopard and the hyena hated each other. No one remembered why, but the hate was ancient. One day the hyena was about his hunt, when he came across the leopard sleeping beneath the shade of a tree. The hyena attacked the leopard from the rear. The hyena proved too much for him. As the leopard lay bloodied and battered, he said ‘you can destroy my body, but my spirit will be free.’”

  “What would you have me do?”

  “Reclaim your name. Never forget who you are.”

  Prisoner #935579 woke up to the thin cries of the broken fish.

  “My name,” he whispered, “is Ashanti Tannehill.”

  §

  “Prisoner #710001. Prisoner #935579,” Officer O’Reilly introduced the two, escorting them from the newcomers tier back to Cellhouse C. He shoved the man to start him along. “You two are now roomies. Ashanti here will help you acclimate to your new home.”

  Wintabi Freeman.

  The hacks obviously thought it amusing to pair up the convicts with African sounding names. Anything to fuck with us, Tannehill thought. He studied Wintabi with a cautious glare. Older, at least judging from the gray sideburns and burgeoning bald spot. His eyes flashed with a warrior’s fierceness. Wintabi was different from the other fish Tannehill had seen walk the halls. He wore the prison-issue blues—blue pants and blue shirt over a white cotton T-shirt—with the dignity of one noble born. He carried his bedding and toiletries with an easy gait, confident yet threatening—the menace of experience.

  “Your house, youngblood, which bunk?” Wintabi deferred when they reached the cell. Even with this gesture, he retained control.

  “I’m cool with the top.”

  “Lettin’ you know what’s what, I’m a lifer,” Wintabi said, setting his things on the bottom bunk. “I’m gonna die up in here; ain’t got no illusions about that. Seen the insides of Leavenworth, Marion, and am just up from Angola.”

  Tannehill would’ve sighed, if he allowed himself to show any reaction. Lifers had nothing to live for, and worse, nothing to lose.

  “Jus’ so we clear, I don’t wanna be peepin’ your ugly loc ass anymore than I got to,” Tannehill didn’t want to let a lion in winter set the rules, but his bravado rang a little hollow to his ears.

  Wintabi smirked. “Just so we clear, I ain’t one o’ your dawgs, prags, or niggas. We stuck in here together. I’m just lookin’ to do my bit in peace.”

  “A’ight, then, we understand each other,” Tannehill said. “Welcome to the Negro Warehouse. What’chu in here for?”

  “What’s it to you?” Wintabi folded the corners of the sheets under his mattress with deliberate care. “You lookin’ to bond with me? We gonna stay up and do each other’s hair later?”

  “Just like to know the quality of motherfucka I’m bunkin’ wit.” Tannehill looked around his house with fresh eyes. The same 10x12 room with a metal toilet attached to a metal sink in the rear. In the first five minutes of his incarceration, he knew every inch of his space. He peered through the metal bars, scoping the activity of the other prisoners.

  “They say I killed two white men,” Wintabi said finally.

  “I heard that they made that shit illegal now.”

  “Not in this case.” Wintabi went about the work of setting out his things among Tannehill’s clutter. “These two peckerwoods broke into my house like they had a right to be there …”

  The words touched a memory in him. Tannehill reached back to steady himself. The bare walls of the cell grew dark, as if Tannehill listened to Wintabi from within a tunnel. The cool metal bars felt moldy, scraping his fingers like wooden boards. Though hearing Wintabi’s words, Tannehill found himself imagining (no, remembering) hesitant shadows, imposing only in their presence at such a late hour in the ship’s cargo hold. His heart beat with the controlled fury of solemn drums.

  An ominous scent pierced the fetid, still air, growing heavier with each step nearer to the partition that separated the men from the women and children within the ship’s hold. A woman’s voice cried out. Drunken hands groped about in the darkness, and hers was not the only one startled and fearful. Children retreated into scared huddles in stifled whimpers.

  Tannehill’s hand curled into a ball of impotent rage at the sound of the whip cracking. He pounded the hull. Only then did he remember who he was: ozo of thi
s lost Igbo tribe. The maniacal cackle of the Scar-Mouthed One rose above the flogging. He snarled with the savagery of a hyena, the heaving, haggard breaths of fat, slavering men pummeled the cries of the despoiled women. The Igbo men wailed to cover any trace of the sounds. Tannehill wanted to cup his hands over his ears but didn’t stir an inch until the men skittered like vermin up the stairs. Sobs filled the night air, like the scent from a fresh kill on a cool night. A familiar voice drew him back.

  “… raped my wife and my daughter. Motherfuckers had the nerve to brag about it. Weren’t even charged,” Wintabi said. “Youngblood? You all right. You look like you faded on me.”

  “I … naw, that shit’s just fucked up.” Tannehill glanced in the mirror. Sweat drenched his forehead. His face, drained and sallow, appeared ashen.

  “That was the last time they did that shit. Different time, different era. Today, my ass would be on Oprah, off on temporary insanity, but, in 1952 Georgia, I’m lucky I made it to trial. What about you?”

  “Down on a trumped-up charge for twelve years. Five-o tryin’ to get me to roll on my boys.” All his life he prepared to jail. A stretch in prison was like attending the college of the streets, with the Ave being Harvard: You were only sent there after fucking up everywhere else. “I done dirt comin’ up, corner work, so I knew shit would catch up to me sometime.”

  “I seen enough of you corner boys in my day,” Wintabi remarked as he studied Tannehill. Then he just exhaled, like he had taken the full measure of the man and decided to relax, though he didn’t drop his guard. “Me, I’m just tired of the game.”

  “What game?”

  “All of it. The cycle. The system. The bullshit. No one tells you that you don’t have to play.”

  “I don’t get you.” Tannehill trusted few people other than his mom. He’d seen niggas shoot each other over dumb shit. His cousin popped some fool simply for laughing at him. However, the weariness in Wintabi’s voice was old, like his father coming home from a long day at work and collapsing into his chair. Old and trusted.