Silas was having a deep conversation with a priest.
“Can you imagine a place where who we were as mortal, sentient beings, didn't matter at all? Where by the virtue of our humanness we were accepted, valued, trusted, and nourished? Race, place, space, none of that matters, just US!"
Silas' tone was mocking, and condescending, as usual. Nonetheless, Reverend Pete scratched his black scruffy beard and considered Silas' words ponderously.
"No, I suppose not," he answered soberly. "But I think that it is in the striving of such unity in the name of Jesus Christ that ultimately will guarantee us redemption and salvation."
Silas rubbed his almond shaped eyes which, even in the dim light, belayed absolute exhaustion. His hair was nearly kept in the beginnings of an afro, and the orange he wore had an oddly luminous sheen.
“Redemption. Salvation. I always hated those terms Rev," Silas said in a falsely jovial voice.
“Why's that," the minister asked, peering intently through the glass of the divider between them.
Silas shrugged, and his expression suddenly became grim and brooding. He played with his hands for a moment.
“Rev, do you ACTUALLY think it's wrong to try and be happy? To enjoy life as it is, now and not wait for some eternal forever later for our reward? You know, like how we were when used to party together and all that in college. Living for just the moment."
He punctuated his last words with a plaintive expression directly into his friend's eyes.
“Wasn't it any fun?"
The Reverend smiled sadly and nodded ever so slightly.
“It was more painful than fun, Silas. All that debauchery and the wanton sex and the... Everything. We were lost, man."
“Well you married Linda," Silas pointed out.
“Yes," the Reverend nodded gravely, “ yes I did."
The friends looked at each other for a moment and were silent. Then, Silas began to chuckle.
“You're not going to try and convince me that some sort of Providence made the two of you get together? That your inability to use a condom was somehow preordained?"
The Reverend's face tightened into a grimace. He disliked the timbre of such talk. He had divorced Linda just last year when it was clear that she had been cheating on him and she had taken their young son, Emanuel Max. The gaping hole in his heart felt like it would never heal.
Suddenly an alarm went off, and, from the corner of Silas's side of paned glass, a guard held up three fingers.
"3 minutes Rev," Silas said, wistfully, "You better ask what you came here to ask."
Now the Reverend looked down at his hands, at a lost for words. When he finally found his voice, his years of college and theological seminary seemed to have deserted his speech. He was a child in rural Ohio all over again.
"Silas...ya done it, didn't you?"
"I did."
"The...the beatin'....the killin'....and the...the..."
"The rape. yes, I done'em. You know I did. That's not what you came to ask, is it?"
"I...I...Oh," the Reverend said awkwardly.
He was baffled. He had expected contrition and tears. Or anger, and fear. He found it hard to believe that this man, his best friend in the world, could have done something so monstrous.
In fact, when he had first heard it on Fox 5 News, he had been stunned. A young black man had brutally assaulted, raped, and murdered a young college student at "Lucy's", a bar right off of the campus where he was a rising star in the African American Studies department.
At the time, Reverend Pete had been struck by the fact that just the day before the murder, he had noticed that his friend had been out of sorts. After his Wednesday afternoon sermon, he had met up with his friend at a coffee shop where Silas had been studying texts for his dissertation on 19th century slave narratives.
Silas had come across a text featuring a young man, who had been enslaved in Virginia in the early 1820s. The 16 year old slave had been sold from his family in Maryland, and presented as a gift to a child of 12 in Virginia. The teenager had learned his letters from the young benevolent master that he served. When the young master attended Princeton University years later, his slave vassal followed him, and dutifully served him through his years at the southern ivy. In all his writings, the young slave professed his utmost love, and deep reverence for his young master. He was devoted and committed. His entire soul was invested in serving.
As Silas explained it, the text had taken an unexpected turn when, while at Princeton, both slave and master had fallen in love with a woman who lived in town. She was a octaroon whore who lived just south of John Street, where the town's black folk lived. The doting slave only realized that his master was seeing the girl when he announced that he was bringing her down to Virginia to marry her and make her "his proper wife."
The slave had been been heartbroken. Moreover, he feared that his master's people in Virginia would find out that the girl was...well....a nigger whore. He pleaded with his master to find someone else more "suitable," and had been ignored. He then had approached the girl, and begged that she decline the match. She had laughed at him outright, and called him a jealous nigger. She vowed that if he ever let slip who (and what) she was, she'd personally skin him alive.
On the day before the wedding, the young master had sat down with his chattel. He told the young slave that on that very night, he would be lent out to a neighbor's farm to help them with an "unusual large harvest". He would be sent away immediately.
The young slave, had at first been surprised. He'd never in all his years as a member of the household, been lent out to another family, and he hardly knew anything about field work as he'd largely served in the home. When he saw the future Mrs. Master wink at him with a look that was "real evil like" while he served dinner that night, he had known something was wrong.
In the end, he wasn't being lent out at all. He had been sold, and this almost-white-woman was the cause. For the second time in his life, his entire existence was being stripped from him.
"Pardon my french rev," Silas had said, "but this shit just isn't right. It's just all kinds of wrong."
"Yes," Reverend Peter had said, taking the text out of his friend's hand and studying it.
After a moment he added, "Wait, wait. The slave forgave his former master did he not? It says here that he even prayed that he and his wife lived happily 'forever and ever and ever.' "
"Yea, yea, I hate that noble savage crap. Niggas are always expected to just take it. Sell us off? 'aw, das ok massa.' Beat us to death? 'gee, massa was justa mad bout somthin.' Rape our women 'well, he only done it once. why, my lass massa usta take my gal out e'ry night! Our massa sho is kind!'"
Silas had spat, on the floor of the cafe. "I'm SICK of it. I want us to stand up for ourselves for once."
Reverend Pete had shaken his head.
" Dwelling on all this hate of the past isn't fruitful, is it? It's just going to drive you crazy. Where is your sense of Agape?"
Silas had only rolled his eyes and turned his attention back to the piece he was reading.
"And to be sold off by one of our OWN! I mean this mulatto musta been all KINDS of light to pass. Can't STAND light skinned bitches!"
Reverend Pete had just shaken his head, and sipped his coffee. His friend had always been prone to bouts of what he called "Race Rage," getting agitated over racial wrongs that happened forever ago.
Now, though, sitting at the jail where his friend had resided now for a little over a week, Reverend was profoundly struck with an idea.
"Silas," he began, his voice trembling a little bit, "was she...was she passing? I mean...the girl you killed....Was she black?"
A loud horn sounded, and Silas stood up, his manacled hands clanking awkwardly against his skin. He smiled ironically and winked.
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