John Adams - Wastelands 2

But see I’m sure Ms. Manigat doesn’t really want me to go outside. I’ve been thinking about that over and over. Ms. Manigat must be very tired to tell me to do something like that. Maybe she has a fever and that’s why she told me how to get out of my room. My brother said silly things when he had a fever, and my father too. My father kept calling me Oscar , and I didn’t know who Oscar was. My dad told us he had a brother who died when he was little, and maybe his name was Oscar. My mother didn’t say anything at all when she got sick. She just died very fast. I wish I could find Ms. Manigat and give her something to drink. You get very thirsty when you have a fever, which I know for a fact. But I can’t go to her because I don’t know where she is. And besides, I don’t know where Dr. Ben keeps the hot suits. What if I went to her and she wasn’t wearing hers?

Maybe the oatmeal was the only thing left in the kitchen, and now I ate it all. I hope not! But I’m thinking maybe it is because I know Ms. Manigat would have brought me more food if she could have found it. She’s always asking me if I have enough to eat. I’m already hungry again.

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February 15

I am writing in the dark. The lights are off. I tried to open my lock but the numbers don’t work because of the lights being off. I don’t know where Ms. Manigat is. I’m trying not to cry.

What if the lights never come back on?

February 16

There’s so much I want to say but I have a headache from being hungry. When the lights came back on I went out into the hall like Ms. M told me and I used the numbers to get the elevator to work and then I went to the kitchen like she said. I wanted to go real fast and find some peanut butter or some Oreos or even a can of beans I could open with the can opener Ms. M left me at Thanksgiving.

There’s no food in the kitchen! There’s empty cans and wrappers on the floor and even roaches but I looked on every single shelf and in every cabinet and I couldn’t find anything to eat.

The sun was shining really REALLY bright from the window. I almost forgot how the sun looks. When I went to the window I saw a big, empty parking lot outside. At first I thought there were diamonds all over the ground because of the sparkles but it was just a lot of broken glass. I could only see one car and I thought it was Ms. M’s. But Ms. M would never leave her car looking like that. For one thing it had two flat tires!

Anyway I don’t think there’s anybody here today. So I thought of a plan. I have to go now.

Ms. M, this is for you—or whoever comes looking for me. I know somebody will find this notebook if I leave it on my bed. I’m very sorry I had to leave in such a hurry.

I didn’t want to go outside but isn’t it okay if it’s an emergency? I am really really hungry. I’ll just find some food and bring it with me and I’ll come right back. I’m leaving my door open so I won’t get locked out. Ms. M, maybe I’ll find your garden with cassavas and akee like you showed me and I’ll know the good parts from the bad parts. If someone sees me and I get in trouble I’ll just say I didn’t have anything to eat.

Whoever is reading this don’t worry. I’ll tell everybody I see please please not to get too close to me. I know Dr. Ben was very worried I might make somebody sick.

Fatha he always knows best, he knowed it when I was born and he knows it now as he takes his hatchet to this man’s skull to break it open like an egg and let the brains run out all gooey and grey like porridge and smelly like the insides of a cat. This man he came tearing down our street on a motorbike making all manner of ruckus in the early morning light, juking his way round all them broken-down cars in the road and the rotting dead folks inside them, but we keep all the windows up so’s we don’t have to smell them. This man he sure took the wrong turn if he thought he’d be passing by our way alive. First it was the arrow Fatha planted in his back from fifty yards; Fatha with his crossbow is a sure-dead shot. The gas-chugging bike it flipped off one way and smashed into a rusty car and this man he dropped the other way clawing at his back like he had a chance to rip out the thing.

“You got him good!” I whooped and I danced, kicking up dust and ash that makes this whole world smell like an old fireplace.

“Ain’t dead yet.” Fatha he whipped out the hatchet he keeps clean and sharp, dangling round his neck on a thick leather strap. “Come, Boy.”

That’s what he calls me—Boy—because that’s what I am, his child, his only begotten son in all the world. So he loves me the most and does what he must to get me into Heaven.

This dying man he cursed a blue streak and kicked, pawing at the ground. Fatha’s hatchet came down once and broke through the helmet, shattering black glass that hid this man’s face, and the struggling stopped and this man he lay still and quiet then.

“Let’s get it off.” Fatha tugs his hatchet free and reaches under this man’s chin—and I help because that is what I do—and we pry the helmet off his sunsore head.

The blade of Fatha’s hatchet messed up his face good, cutting clear into his skull with that one stroke. Fatha he’s a big man with big muscles that kill like nobody’s business. This man wasn’t near so big while alive and not half so big now he’s dead. Funny how death does that to a body. He has long greasy hair kind of like we’ve got and a dirty beard kind of like Fatha’s got only Fatha keeps his clean. When I can grow one—and Fatha he says I’m awful close—I’m gonna keep it clean too, and there ain’t no way I’ll be letting my skin get all nasty like this man. I do right and keep my skin covered like Fatha tells me to all the time, and it keeps them sores away.

With the helmet off, Fatha’s hatchet comes down again, once, twice, the hot blood spraying up like rain from the wrong direction. He’s got this man’s skull wide open now, and he wipes his blade off on this man’s thick flannel shirt and takes a looksee inside, reaching in, prying the gap with his fingers through all that goo.

Fatha hums and mutters to himself like he does when he’s thinking and when he’s looking for something important to find.

“Does he got one?” I’m on my haunches copping a squat and petting the flannel, wishing it wasn’t so bloody or it might have been nice and warm for the nighttimes.

“Don’t you rush me, Boy.” Fatha’s voice is always so quiet when it comes to this part, and he’s got to work fast but he’s also got to work slow—that’s how he described it once when I asked him about it.

He told me there’s very little time in the space between, once a body’s heart stops beating, so it’s got to be done quick—but not so quick you scare off the thing, because then you’ll never get it back. But then again, it’s only if there’s one in the first place, because like me, Fatha says there be plenty of folks in this world today with no souls.

This man he don’t look like he’d have much of one, to tell the truth, but as Fatha says, no beggars can ever be choosers. And so I’ll take what I can get and be glad of it. If I ever want to see Mama again, then it’s got to be so.

Fatha curses loud and foul and shoves the man’s floppy head off to the side to spill its mess onto the cracked asphalt.

“No good?” I rise with Fatha and I look up at him while he looks off into the faraway with his eyes there and not here, with his thick knuckles knotted on the hatchet.

I asked him one time why it was I needed a soul anyways. I seem to be getting along fine without one.