Shella (26 page)

I got up when it turned light in the morning. There was only two other guys sleeping in the dorm where I was. Neither one moved when I got up.

My duffel bag was at the foot of my bunk. I took it into the shower room, got cleaned up, changed my clothes. Still nobody came around.

I went outside and sat down on the steps. I had a cigarette. It was quiet, like being around a bunch of drunks sleeping it off.

I wondered if everybody was sleeping. If the smiling man in the mug shot was sleeping real close to me, someplace.

I didn’t try and figure out what to do. Shella told me once she danced because she was good at it. I told her she was good at a lot of things, she could do them too. She said that was sweet, for me to say it. And she gave me a kiss. Like a kid does, maybe. On the cheek. She told me I was good at different things too. I knew the one thing I was good at, so I asked her, “What else?” She looked at me a long time. I didn’t move, just watched her watch me. Finally, she came over, sat next to me. “Waiting,” she said. “That’s what you’re good at, honey. Waiting.”

A guy with a beard and a watermelon belly walked past where I was sitting. “They serving breakfast yet?” he asked
me. I told him I didn’t know. “Come on, let’s take a look,” he said. I got up and walked with him.

It was the next building. Like a cafeteria, except that the tables were all scattered around and the food wasn’t already cooked.

The woman behind the little counter was skinny. She looked real tired. The place was almost empty—I only saw a couple of guys, eating in one corner.

“You got pancakes this morning, Flo?” the fat man asked her.

“I didn’t make up the batter yet,” she said. “How about some bacon and eggs?”

“Suits me,” he told her. “What about you, friend?”

I said that would be good. I didn’t see any cash register and I couldn’t tell what things cost. We sat down at one of the tables. When the food was cooked, the woman behind the counter said it was ready and we went over and got it.

In the middle of eating, the fat man told me his name was Bobby. I told him my name and we shook hands. The other guys who were there, at the other table, when they got finished eating, they picked up their plates and brought them over to the counter. The waitress took them and put them in a big rubber bin.

Bobby took out a pack of cigarettes, asked me if I wanted one. I said thanks.

“When’d you get in?” he said.

“Last night.”

“Yeah, I heard a new man was coming. Who brought you in?”

“They didn’t tell me their names,” I said. “A bunch of guys.”

“Oh, you mean the transport team. No, I mean, who was your recruiter?”

I looked at him.

“Your recruiter, man … the guy who talked to you about—”

“He knows what you mean.” A voice behind me. I didn’t recognize it. When he stepped around, I could see it was one of the soldiers from last night. A short man wearing a black T-shirt. His arms were big, like he lifted a lot of weights. “See, Bobby, this man, he just got here. And he already knows more than some of the veterans. Like how to keep his mouth shut, see?”

“Hey, don’t get your balls in an uproar, all right, Murray? I was just being friendly, a new man and all.”

Murray introduced himself, sticking out his hand. He put a lot of pressure into the grip. “Flo take care of you all right?” he asked me.

“Sure.”

“Okay. You all finished? Good. I’m gonna take you to meet some people.”

I took my plates over to the counter. When the woman came over, I told her, “It was good. Thanks.” She gave me a funny look.

It was wide daylight now, and I could see everything as I walked across the compound with Murray. It wasn’t all that much, not as big as it looked at night. Most of the buildings were like houses; only one was higher than the first floor.

You could walk to anyplace they had. The front was open. Across the back, there was this high fence, but it didn’t connect to anything. Like they started it and never got it done. Murray saw me looking at it.

“When it’s finished, the whole compound’ll be behind a
wall. That’s just the preliminary work you see there. This is all our land. We own it. Free and clear, and all legal. Five thousand acres … a lot more than you see here. All the woods around here, even the road you came in on, it’s all ours. That’s one thing the leader taught us, to own our own. Own our own. There’s no welfare in here, no government, no IRS, no nothing. On our land, we make all the rules. You want to live pure, you want your kids to be raised pure, you got to own your own to do it.”

I nodded the way I always do when I don’t understand something. He kept showing me things, saying how they owned it all.

We came to this house at the back, near that fence they were building. Murray knocked on the door. The guy who answered it was wearing a shoulder holster like he was used to it. He turned his back and we followed him. It looked like a regular house, living room and kitchen and all. We walked past, to the back, where the bedrooms would be. It was a much bigger room than I thought, bigger than the living room. A man was sitting behind this desk they made out of a door laid flat across a pair of sawhorses. The walls were covered with maps, colored pins stuck in them.

The guy behind the desk was wearing a white shirt and a dark tie. He had glasses, and he looked older than the others, but maybe that was because he was losing his hair in front and he combed it over from the side. That always makes you look older.

The guy with the shoulder holster said, “Thanks, Murray,” and Murray got a look on his face like he wasn’t happy about the way the guy said it, but he didn’t say anything himself before he walked out.

The guy in the shoulder holster told me to have a seat,
pointing with his finger for me to sit on the other side of the desk from the guy in the white shirt.

I sat there and waited.

The guy in the white shirt studied me. I couldn’t figure out if I was supposed to be nervous, so I lit a cigarette like I needed something to do. I guess it was a good idea, because the guy in the shoulder holster lit one too.

The guy in the white shirt was looking at his fingernails. “What’d you kill the nigger with?” he asked me.

“I shot him,” I said.

“Not
that
nigger, the one in Florida.”

I remembered the Indian, telling me to stay right next to the truth as much as I could. The lawyer they got to throw me away in Florida, I remember him asking me where the weapon was … what I had killed the guy with. They just had “blunt object” on the police report, the lawyer said, and it would be better if I told them where the weapon was. So I knew the answer. “A tire iron,” I told the man in the white shirt.

“Why?”

“’Cause it was right there.”

“Not why you used a tire iron,” he said. He was using that tone people use when they talk to me sometimes—like I’m stupid and they’re being nice about it but it’s hard work. “Why did you kill him in the first place?”

“I was in this motel,” I told him. “He had a white woman in his room with him. I saw her leave. I said something to him and he said something back. The next thing I know, it was done.”

“You lost your temper?”

“I guess.…”

“You hate niggers?”

“Yes.”

“How come?”

“How come?”

“Yeah. How come. How come you hate them?”

“’Cause …” I tried to think of all the stuff Mack told me—it all got mixed in my head. I knew they’d think I was stupid. “’Cause … if it wasn’t for them, this would be a good place.”

“What place?”

“America. Our country. It would be a good place without the niggers. They’re dirty animals. And all the government wants to do is make them happy.”

“The Jew government,” the guy in the shoulder holster said.

I nodded. The guy in the white shirt gave the other one a look, like he shouldn’t help me with the answers.

“You want a pure race?” he asked me. “A pure white race?”

“Yes.”

“Are you willing to do battle for your race?”

“Yes.”

He leaned back in his chair, rubbing his chin like he was considering something.

“You a pretty good shot?” he asked me.

“If I get close enough.”

They both laughed, but it sounded like they thought I said the right answer.

They gave me a lot of stuff to read. Piles of it. Books and magazines and little thin things with covers. I took it all back to the dorm.

I tried to read the stuff. I don’t read so good, but I know how.

They had a television in the dorm. I was watching it one day when the guy in the white shirt came in. He asked me why I had it on with the sound off. I told him I was trying to read the books he gave me. He looked at me for a minute, then he said “Good,” and walked out.

There were always people around, but I was by myself. Like prison. Like being out of prison too, when I thought about it. I thought about it. I thought about what people say in prison, how you have to kill time. They would do all these things … basketball, dominos, read magazines. To make time pass. They thought I was stupid because I didn’t do anything. To make time pass. I’m not stupid. Not like they think, anyway. Time passes by itself—you don’t have to do anything.