This is the underground.
It was made for two.
Then it picked up volume
Tapped through a wire
Told by the teacher
And from a shot round the world
To keep a secret,
Whitewash and wry
Bury it ten feet under
Don't let it dry
It's voices in the hood
It's a thing the rich start
And make it on the news
But down here we hear it
You probably heard knock on wood
.
.
.
"What is that?" I crawl to look outside the tent. It's man in a long white shirt with a bandana on. Words are floating out his mouth.
"They rapping…" I turn at Sweettooth lounging on the ground. "How long is we down here?" he looks so bored. "I don't know, I'm scared to leave."
"Who the fuck dragged you?"
"I don't know…"
"The nigga was tall I know that much. I think that's one of them africans…"
"What that mean?"
"Ask Mable. I read a book that full o articles on her ass, Aleigha told me to. She always said, 'one of dem africans', I'm not Virginian"
"Where you from?"
"Louisiana. My grandpa King Chere." his top lip twitches. "You ok?"
"I didn't know my granddaddy was dead." his lip twitches again. "I got a brother I ain't seen…" his eyes look glassy. "My daddy just lost a son, a father, I can't find my mother… I live with a nigga I don't know. But he a friend of the family."
"Sweet?"
"I'm confused…"
"Well, uh… they say America was found by a white man." I say.
"With a made up name…"
"He was Italian, his parents named him bad…" I whisper. "You defending him?"
"I'm just saying… I don't give a fuck really…" I start playing with my hands. "Did you know Growden promoted the Viaticum movement?"
"Ok question, why do we say Growden but not the first name?"
"Because we don't know. Some say Mahlon is coming back. He loved slavery and his plantations had nothing but black women. He got them pregnant let him keep the child. Except one."
"One?"
"She escaped to Louisiana. Had a son, lived, and moved back to Virginia."
"That's stupid…" Why?
"She was an obayifo…" he says. "But really, she did it just leave baby on the step in hopes that baby would grow up and murder the clan. Ain't that clever?"
Is it? Sounds like child abuse. "Nobody."
"Nobody knows?"
"Nobody was that baby but his mama called him Jesus."
"Jesus?"
"Duh…" he smiles. "Dejesus was one of the standing houses. But he dead."
"What about Aleigha's house?"
"It is the last standing because Growden, we don't know which one, pulled raid. The Upraising in the inner city was called The Black Death."
"I'm not foreign!"
"They went down streets and killed black people. Yes, Mexicans count under that; Arabs, Jewish, Asians. Even if you sat yo ass in the cold. If it ain't white, it's not right." he smirks. "You wanna know something sexy?"
"Sexy?" what the fuck is sexy about any of this.
"Shikki said White Supremacy was a religion. That's what he said in jail…" he lowers his gaze. "Ooo, that's sexy."
"It sounds like…"
"A very distrubed white person?"
"Besides that, like… it's a word for it."
"White people doing too much…" he pokes at the floor. "Heresy!" I snap my fingers. "Like… why does he hate black people?"
"He hates everything that doesn't have a British background." he cuts his eyes at me. "But racist have a reason. So like, I hate asians."
"Really?"
"I like asians but I hate them."
"Really?"
"I do. But like, the reason is because… asians… is pretty."
"Girl gone."
"Nah, I saw this nigga at the club and I kept talking to him thinking he was a girl and he called me a faggot!"
"Don't talk to people…"
"We had sex!"
"I don't get you…"
.
.
.
Chava came back to the hut and told us to follow her. It was an underground city with piles of trash. People standing by trashcans on fire despite it being humid as possible. Sweettooth eventually took of his shirt, he couldn't stand it.
We went down a slope with a basin of water. In the water were three coffins with a cross behind them. "This is not your grandma." says Chava.
"But Shiloh is her mother." says Sweettooth. Chava looks over her shoulder. "Alexis's mother is dead."
"I think you might be senile."
Chava furrows. "Everybody know. We just can't get down here easy. Y'all literally come up from the sewers."
"I don't."
He sighs, "Senile."
"Alexis looks nothing like us."
"This is a whole contradiction. What's in the damn boxes?" he gestures towards the coffins. "Go look. Lift the middle first, then the one to the west of it. Finally to the east." she directs.
"Why are you so spooky…" I jog to the coffins with Sweettooth and lift the middle one first. I can barely lift it and let him remove it. "Damn…" he breathes deeply.
I can see but I don't know who this corpse is. "Who is?" I look back at Chava. "Shiloh…"
"What… but that's my--"
"Supposed mo--"
"Shut up! She startin' that shit again." Sweettooth grabs my arm. "This is Shiloh. Your mother. I've seen picture of her at Aleigha's apartment. They are in the church, old wanted posters. This is your mother, Shiloh Harper."
My mother is dead. That I understandn.
She is decrepit with young. Her skeleton is partially visible. And some dired up flesh around the and knees. Her skull is caved in from the top to the slight right of her head.
She's missing three ribs. The head is not connected to the torso. Her jaw is crooked, broken. If I touch it, it would fall off. She has no eyelids, nothing in the eyes. I grab her hand. "Hey mama…"
"Bitch let that go!" Sweettooth smacks my hand off my mother. "Shiloh did not want you."
"Don't tell me no shit like that!"
"Your mother was addicted to painkillers, cough syrup and adderal!"
What am I to say to any of that? I should defend her, I can't. I'm addicted to vampire blood because… I can't remember.
"You can remember!" he shakes me. I look away from him. "The Purple Cardinal was a group of niggas that got high in a circle. They was homeless and crazy; Alexis you hung around drug addicts."
"I like blood--"
"Because them niggas made an idol out of a cow! They bulit a whole fucking disgrace. You don't remember?"
"Yoc?" I look up at him. "I--"
"Open the rest." states Chava from afar. Sweettooth leaves my side and opens the rest of the coffins. He stands away from them to the side. "You got Shiloh Harper, Dareion Bass, and a skeleton down here. Who is that?"
"Toy…" she says.
"That's not Toy. Stop fucking lying to me!" he draws his gun. Chava rises her hand, "This is clique."
"Who is in the box!"
"There is one more box…" she tilts her head to the side. "Would you like to see?"
"Just tell me."
"Yo daddy…"
"Bullshit--"
"Why ask then deny? I have your father's head. The one Growden cut off."
"My daddy got his head cut off… nah. Aleigha said my daddy still living."
"He is… but I have his FUCKING HEAD!"
"Bitch don't yell at him!"
"SHUT UP!" I cower at Chava's voice, it's hallow, it picks up the dirt. "Why is my mama down here?"
"She is dead. My niece is dead, your mother is dead and your father beat her. He shot you." she points at me. "Why aren't you dead?"
"Oh spare me the bullshit!" Sweettooth fires at Chava, hitting the corner of her left eye. "I can hear you--"
"MIND YO DAMN BUSINESS!"
"Nope. Cause you brought my ass in this shit, you don disrepected my family, I'm nosey as hell."
"Nigger."
My God.
Sweettooth looks off in the distance. "Y'all live down here. It's a nigga with underwear and bra on. And you call me a nigger?"
"I want bodies…"
"You want Alexis's body--"
"WHOSE BONES IS THAT?" I throw my hand to the coffin with a skeleton. "Chauncey… he had a crush on yo mama…"
"STOP FUCKING SMILING!" I scream. Sweettooth fires another bullet, and another bullet. "RELOAD!" the word refills the gun. "SHOWER!" As he fires the gun, a wave of bullet launch at Chava. She has holes in her face but she's still standing.
It's completely useless but she guards her face from further damage. A bullet tears a finger off. The top of her skull pops off and you can view her brains. A bullet cuts through that.
She wobbles when the shower ends. "Sexy…" she shakes off the pain and the bullet fall out of her. "What the fuck!" I shout. "I should have honored my sister. It could be my bones."
"IT'S NOT!" he fires into her cheek. "YOU JUST SAID THAT'S MY DAMN UNCLE! AND YOU GOT MY FUCKING FATHER DOWN HERE!"
"What did you just tell me…" she smirks, her eyes change; wide and glowing. "Mind your fucking business."
Deelo's body turns white.n "You don't have a body! You can't do anything!" Screeches Chava.
I'M ABOUT TO CONFUSE THE SHIT OUTTA YOU
"Deelo!" a wind picks up and the bodies lift from their graves including the skeleton of Chauncey. I look at my mother, she stands in her grave. "Deelo, put my mama back!"
His ghostly body is tall, white, and dripping oil from the mouth. "BOW" The bones fly out their coffins. Shiloh is thrown at Chava's face. Chauncey's bones connect, all I have to say he was tall man. Shiloh fumbles to get up, she throws her hands in the air and frails them around.
The dirt starts to spin.
I jump in my mother's coffin and put my hands over my head. "GHOST DON'T DO ANYTHING!" Chava convinces herself. "SENILE"
Dareion flies across the ground. He sweeps Chava off her feet and snatches her hair. Dareion takes Chava into the air and flings her to his empty coffin. He dashes in the air, rips off his arm and throws at Chava. Shiloh is flung again, her ass belting Chava in the face. I get out the coffin and run from the situation.
"GHOST DON'T DO ANYTHING!"
I didn't look back. I kept running until a hoard of people stop me. They hold poles and pitchforks. "I-bobo!" a gray man threatens me with his pitchfork. "Kef weggie ke!"
"I don't know what you sayin!"
"Yao ku-owu! Pupopo vi-laa!"
A man that walks on all fours throws his pitchfork at me. They all run my way.
My heart is racing. My stomach is cut, my arms in the red soil. I can't breathe. I saw a shoe and I went to sleep.