James

by Percival Everett

I had already come to understand the tidiness of lies, the lesson learned from the stories told by white people seeking to justify my circumstance. I appreciated Voltaire’s notion of tolerance regarding religious difference and I understood, as absorbed as I was, that I was not interested in the content of the work, but its structure, the movement of it, the calling out of logical fallacies. And so, after these books, the Bible itself was the least interesting of all. I could not enter it, did not want to enter it, and then understood that I recognized it as a tool of my enemy. I chose the word enemy, and still do, as oppressor necessarily supposes a victim.

I held my pencil. It might have been three inches long. It felt like a dense stone in my hand.

“You can write.” It was not a question or an accusation, more a discovery, perhaps a call to duty. “I can write,” I said. “Then you had best write.” “I will,” I said.