“Hey! Hey!”
Andre awakened to the sound of shouts from angry voices in the hallway and pounding on his cabin door. He looked at his watch. 8:30 a.m. Mary was sleeping peacefully beside him in his bed.
They’d paired off to their cabins, each with a white girl, the night before.
More shouting and pounding and shouting outside interrupted his train of thought, his blissful recollections of the night before. It was the white boys outside. He got up without disturbing her and opened the cabin door.
“Hey,” one of them shouted. “What’s going on? Where’s everyone? Where are the girls?”
“You guys need to tone it down. We’ll have breakfast in an hour or so. Go back to your cabin.”
“Where are the girls?”
“They’re still asleep. Go back to your cabin. Stop the noise.”
“We want to leave the ship.”
“Then leave. You’re free to go. Look outside. We’re anchored off the beach. Since last night.”
“We need to see the girls.”
“No you don’t. You need to go back to your cabin.”
“Closing his cabin door, he regretting not locking them in their cabin...from the outside. After showering and dressing he went topside, got a weather forecast, looked at the sky and went back to the galley to fix coffee.
The two boys appeared in the galley.
“What are we doing for gas?
“Get some from the people in the cove. Someone will have extra gas. We don’t have any extra. I told you that.”
“Why don’t you tow us back to the marina?”
“It’s on the other side of the lake.”
“You’re taking the girls there.”
“We’re taking them where they want to go.”
“Why hem and not us?”
“I don’t like towing boats. My boat’s not designed for it. It’s unsafe. I did it to save your lives. I saved you. Now deal with the problems you created.”
“We can’t leave them here.”
“It’s there decision, not yours.”
“We’d feel better taking them.”
“They’ll do what they want.”
He turned and went back to his cabin. The sound of the two white boys tromping back to their cabin was muffled by the closed door.
“Everything OK baby?” Mary’s voice brought him back to the present. No doubt the white boys wanted her.
“Assholes,” he thought.
“Yeah baby. Everything’s OK,” he soothed her.
He watched her roll over and go back to sleep. If only he could rely on her sleeping through everything that was coming. If only she could just wake up to a better world with no immediate personal problems.
Why did the white boys have to force things to a head? Why couldn’t they just leave well enough alone. Why couldn’t they just go peacefully instead of declaring a war?
Well the correct word was mutiny.
They were shipboard after all. Hmmmm...but these assholes...these assholes were not crew. They were outsiders. Maybe it wasn’t technically mutiny. Outsiders boarding your ship, even with consent, and then challenging the captain were pirates. That was the word. No mutineers.
The penalty, the traditional penalty, for piracy had always been death. He’d saved their pathetic lives and they repaid him with defiance. They were anchored off shore. They could swim ashore and get gas from some of the whtie people camped in the cove.
Now they were fighting over women. White women made the choice and the white ass holes couldn’t take it gracefully. They demanded that white girls leave with them. Fuck them and fuck their arrogance.
“Oh God!” he said out loud. It brought back so many memories. High school again. Protecting white girls from white ass holes forcing themselves where they weren’t wanted. The BED. The Black Enforcement Detail. “No girls for whtie boys,” was the rule and woe to the white ass holes who broke it.
Now this. Now years later, after that, after college...now this. Nothing has changed. The eternally annoying white boys with their privilege, their entitlement, their demands...their hatred of naturally superior men. Now the memories of those years came flooding back. White girls naturally drifting away from white men, naturally selecting black men and white boys defying nature. Defying nature! Ignoring the reality of nature!
Everyone knows you can’t defy nature without courting disaster. You can’t ignore gravity and expect to survive. Gravity will always have the last word. Nature will always have the last word.
He felt rage welling up inside him.
“Black men will have the last word!”
He’d said it out loud.
“Black men will have th last word!”
“What did you say baby?” Mary stirred from her sleep.
“Nothing baby. You go back to sleep.”
“Mmmmm....”
She turned over and pulled up the sheet. It was chilly on the lake in the morning, even when anchored withing swimming distance of shore.
Andre watched her sleeping so peacefully. An evening of dancing and hours of love making left her exhausted. She’d earned the right to sleep late.
“Oh god,” She’d gasped, as he came deep inside her. “Where have you been all my life?” she said dreamily. “I’ve never known anything like this.”
No woman had ever reacted so passionately with him. He wondered why? What made her react so much more powerfully than the others? Did she or did it only seem that way? He climbed back in bed with her, lying next to her, feeling her warmth, enjoying her peace, her vulnerability. She’d given herself to him. Was she really that different from any other he’d ever known?
Memories of his old BED days in high school flooded back. He’d headed the group. He was its leader. “No girls for white boys” was the credo and they meant it. Everything changed after that first day.
He inhaled.
That first day. That day on which the BED proclaimed themselves openly on campus after weeks of planning and preparation. He remembered their first day and the first night in which he’d lain awake anticipating what was to follow at school. It was like planning a battle and laying awake the night before.
Over and over their advisors had drilled it into them.
“The goal is to separate white boys and white girls, now in their teens, to show white girls the superiority of black men and to enforce the no fraternizing rule against white boys by all means.”
He’d never seen black boys so charged with energy and anticipation. Every black boy in that room knew what was coming. They smiled broadly and exchanged glances. Everyone was eager to go. Weeks of indoctrination had prepared them for that moment. Weeks of lectures on black history, black psychology, black superiority, black natural superiority had done their jobs. Never had they been so pumped up. Even the athletes. Even the athletes, the football players and basketball players were supercharged as never before.
“How far can we go exactly?” some had asked.
“Well,” the senior advisor replied, “You can’t kill them.”
The room was full of energy as they exchanged knowing glances. That was a lot of latitude. One boy pounded his fist into the open palm of his other hand. The message had been given and received.
Everyone agreed that when white boys were neutralized, white girls would fall, like ripe fruit into their hands. Instinctively they knew. Instinctively they knew white girls were naturally drawn to strength and repelled by weakness. After tomorrow, after their first assault the whole world would change.
“For centuries white violence separated black men from white girls,” their advisor explained. “Now this, what you’re about to do with the BED is to reverse centuries of history. Now, because of your courage and vision, black violence will be used to separate white boys from white girls.
“Never forget that. Never forget that you’re making history here.”
Every heart in the room was pounding. Every black man in that room, teenagers though they were, understood. The invisible line between black boys and white girls would be forever obliterated. The existing order
He’d taken a deep breath, bursting with pride.
Now, years later, he replayed memories of those past adventures, those past excitements, those past victories...all over in his mind. Now this. Now more white boys who wouldn’t take no for an answer.
He remembered his old teachers words... “You can’t kill them.”
Well, that was then and this is now. He was a boy then and he is a man now. That much had changed, even if the timeless arrogance and aggression of white boys remained the same.
He took another sip of his coffee.
These white boys had pushed his patience, his hospitality too far. Measures would have to be taken against these white...white pirates. Nature cried out for it. Justice cried out for it.
He took another sip of his coffee and gently touched the white girl sleeping peacefully beside him.
“Mmmmm...” She purred and shifted under the covers. Let her sleep. He was fully awake. That was the important thing. If it all went well, natural law would be vindicated and the balance of nature will have been restored before she even awakened later that morning.
