James

by Percival Everett

“There is no God, child. There’s religion but there’s no God of theirs. Their religion tells that we will get our reward in the end. However, it apparently doesn’t say anything about their punishment. But when we’re around them, we believe in God. Oh, Lawdy Lawd, we’s be believin’. Religion is just a controlling tool they employ and adhere to when convenient.”

How strange a world, how strange an existence, that one’s equal must argue for one’s equality, that one’s equal must hold a station that allows airing of that argument, that one cannot make that argument for oneself, that premises of said argument must be vetted by those equals who do not agree.

At that moment the power of reading made itself clear and real to me. If I could see the words, then no one could control them or what I got from them. They couldn’t even know if I was merely seeing them or reading them, sounding them out or comprehending them. It was a completely private affair and completely free and, therefore, completely subversive.

I chose the word enemy, and still do, as oppressor necessarily supposes a victim.

“Folks be funny lak dat. Dey takes the lies dey want and throws away the truths dat scares ’em.”

A man who refused to own slaves but was not opposed to others owning slaves was still a slaver, to my thinking.

Statement on the power of standing by and trying to be impartial to injustice. Claiming to take stance against injstice without active action to stop it makes you complicit in said injustice. Heavy.

He said something that confused me. Confused me because I wasn’t quite sure what it meant. Confused me because I had never heard anything like it before. He said, “I’m sorry.”

run I did, like only a slave can run. My injuries ached, my feet complained, but I moved at top speed through trees, through dry creek beds, sloshed through branches of the river, climbed what small hills there were and damn near rolled down the other sides. I stopped when I couldn’t see well enough to run anymore. I ate some bread and slept.

Desperation and fear are such powerful motivators

I wondered if I should feel guilty. Should I have felt some pride in my action? Had I done a brave thing? Had I done an evil thing? Was it evil to kill evil? The truth was that I didn’t care. It was this apathy that left me wondering about myself—not wondering why I didn’t feel anything or whether I was incapable of feeling, but wondering what else I was capable of doing. It was not an altogether bad feeling.

The strength in apathy and hatred. When you have nothing left to fear and you have nothing left to feel. You are capable of anything.

“I am the angel of death, come to offer sweet justice in the night,” I said. “I am a sign. I am your future. I am James.” I pulled back the hammer on my pistol.