Taste of Power by: Krazytop ---
Part XXIX
No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave,
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.
"Wake up."
I groan and flip over.
Am I back in the hammock? Images of Zane's sneer flash through my mind, wrapped in fire.
He had shackled me in his hammock again, so he could shave me.
The straight razor rolled slickly over my body, rooting out the hair along my asshole, genitals, and pits...and my chin last, once the razor had been flooded with all manner of smells. That's when his cum started to slide down, venturing out of my ass, so Zane could feed it to me...
"Wake up, Travis."
The high was low to begin with...so you can only imagine the crash.
My eyes open slowly.
I'm in my room. My mother looms over me, lines of light and shadow woven into her face like webs.
Ah, yes.
Zane had Calvin dump me off at home Saturday night--once the crash was deep enough that I couldn't really internalize more training. I guess Calvin bullshitted my parents with some story about how I'd stayed up all night playing Big Bang Brothers...and fallen ill...that last part seemed true enough.
Calvin thought about ratting us out, but he didn't want my parents thinking I was some kind of drug addict. He might have feared the repercussions from Zane, too.
Even if Calvin were tempted to get on some kind of high horse, Zane could always threaten to do something to me. Or to get me to do it to myself.
"It's time to go," my mom says.
And my parents are oblivious. They would never seriously suspect me of doing drugs. Even a few months ago, I would have seen the prospect as ridiculous.
But I just don't see the appeal in taking care of myself anymore.
"C'mon honey," my mom says.
I groan. Every President's Day celebration is the same. Always cold, always boring. Always making me wish it was any other weekend, when I could still be in bed.
But this is different. I can't move. There's just...no point.
My mom tosses some clothes from the dresser onto me. "Travis...I wanted to say it's not your fault. I don't blame you."
"What?"
"For quitting wrestling. I know your dad and I twisted your arm, making you play a sport when you didn't really ask to. We really just wanted you to stay healthy!" My mom laughs, perhaps a little too loudly.
Sometimes, when people get rowdy, instead of being contagious, it drains me. My eyes droop, and my mom barrels on. "Calvin told us some of the other boys were calling you names. Well, those other boys can go to hell, as far as I'm concerned. But anyway, they don't matter. YOU matter. All that matters is what you want. How you are going to grow into what you want to be. You'll find your place, I know it."
I shake my head at her.
"Well! Hurry up or we'll miss it! I'll give you some privacy so you can change. Not that I haven't seen it all before, mind you. You popped out of me naked, remember?"
As it turns out, there are definitely some things Zane had given me that she hasn't seen...
The drive is quiet. Mist clings to the car window in little swirls.
My dad is lucky to find a parking meter. The crowd swallows us up, then guides us toward the bridge.
There are men dressed as soldiers on it. They aren't real—their clothes look to be centuries old, or, more likely, a weak imitation of that.
A man stands on a pulpit, pontificating about times long past. He speaks about George Washington: how astounding his military strategies were, how united our country was, and how he was the only unanimously elected president.
George Washington.
Traitor to the only government he had ever known.
Owner of slaves.
Basically the best President according to everyone; second only to the man who brought slave-owning traitors to their knees.
The circle of inclusion is also a circle of logic. Once we've decided which people are good enough to count, and to which degree, whatever we do as a result begins to count as good. Democratic goodness is all wrapped up in public opinion, with the public being whomever you value I suppose.
Winning in wrestling means you are good at winning wrestling matches. Or just good at wrestling. More or less the same thing, I'd say.
Winning at politics means you are good at winning battles, winning elections. It doesn't mean you are good at leading a country. Or good at ethics. Does it?
Does it matter?
A million years ago, politics was about avoiding getting hit over the head with a stick. Do that, bad. Gurg hit you with stick. Do this, bad. Borg hit you with stick. If stay alive long enough to learn half the rules, maybe you can grab a stick too, smack the guy with the dumbest rule upside the head, and maybe make a dumb rule of your own.
Has anything really changed?
We have more methods of barking like dogs. Whine. Whimper. Bitch. There's way more nuance!
Spread ideals like diseases; spread diseases like ideals.
There's more structure now, I suppose.
Certainly some dumb rules are gone. I wouldn't wish them back. But some people miss the old rules, I guess, because they figure we can't do any better.
George Washington: one of the best Presidents, because for once, despite all the pros and cons, everyone agreed on something. Even if in the long run, the consensus opinions were wrong.
Right?
So—does the arc of history bends toward justice?
Can a country by the people, for the people, survive on this Earth?
I trace my earring with my fingertip, pressing my earlobe against my head.
I've long felt that the most self-righteous dogmatists tend to be among the worst. It really puts a damper on the concept of heroism. People imagine themselves in the image of their heroes. A perverse sort of empathy, a thinly veiled narcissism.
Inspired people are manipulated people.
Indoctrinated people play the viral game. They get a taste for power. They pose when it pays, and drop the script when that pays more.
And why admit that's what you are doing? Even to yourself? I mean, it's not like anyone else is going to really be your advocate, with everyone scrambling to beat everyone else to the hilltop.
There's no BENEFIT to admitting it. It's not NATURAL to admit it.
People have incomplete minds, with blips of definition, like stars in the sky, scattered among the emptiness. A conversation--even an internal one--is the act of sewing together the stars. But there's no substance to the thread. It's just an illusion that makes us feel better. That allows us to act like our identity is this contiguous thing, that doesn't fall apart under the weakest strain. To pretend our philosophies are neither simplistically rigid nor hopelessly opportunistic.
If you reach for the stars, you'll burn like Icarus, or perhaps become lost in space.
People speak of casting light into the darkness.
There is this fragile spectrum in which people can cultivate the balance needed to learn—to improve—to realize some semblance of a dream.
And to fall asleep, it helps to have a bit of dark.
I close my eyes. Remember that stupid rainbow circle you spin every turn in the game of Life? It turns into the Penrose Triangle in my mind.
Damerae's voice lingers.
"They believed in what this country could be."
The military men step forward.
"Attention!"
"Fire!"
To the sky, they point their guns, filled with nothing but powder. No men are to die today, at least not here. The blast of nothingness echoes in my mind.
It doesn't feel too cold this year.
Not anymore.
"You seemed quiet today," my mom says, her lip twisting as she puts her hand on top of our car.
"Tired," I say softly.
She doesn't bother me again for the rest of the drive.
It's such a terrible day for a barbecue. There are clouds everywhere; they let through uneven chunks of sunlight. It reminds me of the patches of warmth in the kiddy pool.
My mom asks me to set up the stuff.
I don't complain this time.
I set out the ice chest with some sodas and beers. I get out my dad's barbecue, as well as the coals and lighter fluid.
I make some effort to look nice, and then I sit on the couch, staring at the wall, fading away.
I don't come to my senses till my cousin Jane runs up to me and hugs me.
"I love you," she says.
Jane...I had thought to spend more time with her. To bounce ideas off her. To have her there, a person too small for anyone to expect to be my confidant.
A reminder of what I was, years ago.
What would I have thought then, of what I'd become?
I used to so aggressively dream.
"I love you too, Jane," I murmur.
I flash her a small smile.
"You can let go of me now," Jane says, pouting.
"Oh—right," I whisper. I release her and she skips off.
Calvin and Hiro stop by for burgers, plopping down on either side of me on the couch. I wonder if dad invited the whole team... Why would he even think I'd want to see them, after I'd quit?
"Come here to yell at me?" I ask, clutching my eyes shut and rubbing my temple, trying to dull the pounding.
"No," Calvin says.
"You guys have been my best friends," I say, my voice trembling, as I hold my palms out to my sides. "I wish I hadn't been—the way I've been."
They take hold of one hand each, with Calvin gripping tightly, and Hiro massaging the lines of my hand.
"Being a friend," Hiro says, "means being there for you even when you really aren't. So I can remind you who you are."
"And if I'm not who I was?" I say. "I feel like—someone dropped an atom bomb in my mind."
"You know that my relatives died in Hiroshima?"
"Oh God. Really?"
"No. It's just you are being a bit dramatic, is all. You're here today, aren't you? In the flesh?"
"The flesh...yes. The mind...perhaps not."
"What happened can't always be justified," Hiro says. "But you can't get lost in being a victim. I mean, look at Hiroshima now. One of the most beautiful cities in the world. A thriving amalgam of Japan and the US and enough novelty to fill the gaps. For a time, it was annihilated. It was nothing. But then out of nothing, it became something. The destruction left nothingness, but the nothingness left genesis."
"Still—the world let Japan become something again," I say. "What if it hadn't?"
"They had to," Calvin says. "The allies tried the other way with Germany after the first great war, right? If people are alive, and you don't let them become what they are drawn to become, they will fight and they will fight again."
"You sound like my mom," I whisper, turning to Calvin's ear, "but what if my place is on my knees?"
He turns to my ear. "Then choose a new altar."
"I need to lie down," I say. "Help me?"
Hiro and Calvin attempt to be discreet as they guide me back to my room.
Calvin lays me down on the bed, and Hiro runs his hand over the book he gave me, which sits on the bedside table.
"Gonna tell me who Jen Li is?" I mumble.
"No," Hiro says, missing a beat. "That'd ruin my fun."
Calvin looks at me quizzically. "You'll be alright?"
"Yeah," I say. "Just let me rest for a bit."
Hiro leaves, and Calvin reluctantly follows, slipping a bottle of painkillers onto my dresser.
For my ass...God...my ass...I still feel the ghost of the flame when I move it. Zane did what he could to clean it when he calmed down a bit. Calvin was so mad when he saw it...
But I told him I wanted it...and I do...
I try to distract myself from the pain, rubbing my finger against my hole.
A new altar...but...what about the one I've got?
A shock runs through my dick at the thought of Zane, but then I feel the prison bars...
That's right—Zane also locked up my dick, as punishment for what I'd done with Chris. He calls it a chastity cage.
A metal ring encircles the base of my balls, stretching them. The ring is welded to the tube around my dick, preventing me from getting hard, with a little lock keeping it all in place.
Only Zane has the key.
Guilt courses through me.
It's difficult to get aroused, during this crash. Difficult to find joy.
I need Zane here, telling me it is all okay.
A shiver runs down my spine. Am I really so reliant on him?
There's a knock on the door--enough time to throw covers over me--before Damerae sticks his head in a second later.
"I thought I'd say hi," Damerae says. "Calvin said you were in here."
"You made it," I say, trying to be dignified as I slip my finger out of my ass. I roll to my side, still veiled under the covers. Who knows what it looks like from his perspective? Should I even care?
I soften back on the bed, closing my eyes. I still have a bit of a headache.
I'd hoped to get a moment to relax...but it is little use. Without Zane, I'm pointless.
It's what He wants, isn't it? Idle dormancy...
Till the next time I can crawl to his water bowl and lap from it...
Grovel for his jock...as his chains puppeteer me...
Still nothing...
I clench my eyes shut in frustration.
"Are you still mad at me?" I ask at last. "For letting Zane call me a slave?"
Damerae snorts.
My voice trembles; an aftershock of anxiety hits. "Eduardo thinks the white guys on the team have their own clique. I never meant to..."
Damerae sits on the bed, facing away from me. "It's baked into everything, man. Everything. You know how every teacher growing up has a bookshelf in the corner of the room? The books on those shelves are never about black people."
His words echo in my mind, only hitting my awareness on the second bounce. "Huckleberry Finn," I murmur. "To Kill a Mockingbird..."
"Peripherally, sure. But at the center there are white people. It's usually worse, like Nancy Drew or something, and they have a black cook who makes pies and loud noises of concern for Nancy's well-being. You shouldn't be surprised that the white guys are the protagonists of the history books and everything else. That's just a cultural default."
Again, I find myself fighting through the fog before I can answer. "I don't know what you go through. How could I? But I maybe know a bit of what it feels like to be invisible. I remember reading Harry Potter and thinking, `A school that size, not having any gay students? What are the odds?'"
"Then J.K. Rowling outed Dumbledore," Damerae says. "Don't look so shocked; everyone knows that shit. I think Rowling won some kind of award for Dumbledore being gay."
"How the fuck does that get an award? I mean, she didn't even have it in the actual books."
Damerae chuckles. "Well, Huck Finn got banned at first. Maybe Rowling felt it was too risky. She already had witches and blood status stuff. That's what writers do. They can't really be edgy, or they wouldn't get published. So they just have fake edginess, allegories, and generic problems people can relate to."
"And then people make the connections to their own problems, even if the author didn't mean it. But still—why can't we just talk about real issues instead of speaking in metaphors? Then I would feel like I actually matter---instead of metaphorically matter."
"Maybe authors want people to make the connections themselves," Damerae says. "Then they can be vague and mysterious and wishy-washy. And people can treat art as whatever puzzle they imagine it to be."
"Or maybe authors just wait till things are in vogue and then decide the time is right to say the things they think, essentially reducing themselves to saying nothing at all."
Damerae clicks his tongue. "You know what I did find on my third-grade teacher's shelf? Chicken Soup for the Pet Lover's Soul. Model white person book. It had this story about a litter of kittens, including one grey runt. The lady who found them was supposed to give them away. In the meantime, though, she decided to experiment with the kittens."
I look into Damerae's eyes, the brown in them softening like wet clay on the wheel.
He wrinkles his mouth and presses on. "She gave the runt special treatment, taking it out of the box more, petting it more—loving it more. It grew up to be the most confident and friendly of the kittens, and had the shiniest fur. In the end, the husband said they could keep the grey cat. The story was supposed to be inspiring. But when I read between the lines—instead it just made me depressed. Someone gonna pick me out of the box and make an exception for me?"
"Maybe."
Damerae sighs. "Look at Calvin and Chris. All-American boys. They've been selected. They've been made special. They've been loved extra. They never had to deal with their life advisors expecting them to fail. They've never been invisible, written out of history, or relegated to the periphery or worse. And don't their coats—shine?"
"They've had hardship too, if you get to know them. Everyone has, at least in my experience."
"Sure they've had hardship. Everyone's had hardship. But don't get caught up in being overly diplomatic. They've had LESS."
"The people that admit they are part of the problem are the ones getting burned. No one wants to admit their imperfect thoughts and get stoned to death for it. Some people become good at hiding because they are weasels. Others become good at hiding because they're scared."
Damerae smirks. "I'd rather fix people than punish people. We've got things all mixed up. You don't have to be scared of me. Honest. What imperfect thoughts pop into your head?"
"When you say, Chicken Soup for the Soul. Model white person book.' Could I say the same kind of thing, if you wrote your own version? Could I say, Chicken and Waffles for the Soul. Model black person book?'"
Damerae laughs. "I could write Chicken and Waffles for the Soul. And it would be the best book ever. Don't be afraid to say what you think, Travis. If I criticize what you say, it's not because I don't want you to speak your mind. It's because I want you to rethink your mind. You are welcome to do the same."
"Zane thinks it's all a ruse. A distraction from the whimsical bullshit of those in power."
"Then why do things ever change?"
"Random drift...I guess?"
"Now that's some bullshit."
"You still believe—the arc of history bends toward justice?"
"When people put their weight on it. Course, still gotta put a bit of work in..."
"Could you maybe—put your weight on me?"
"If you are hitting on me, go ahead and forget it. I ain't getting pulled into any more pervy shit..."
"So then just do me a favor—and hold me."
Damerae surprises me by snuggling in behind me and draping his arms around me.
"The sad truth," Damerae says, "is that things ain't ever gonna be perfect. That's why the forefathers say a more perfect union' and pursuing happiness'. We ain't gonna get it. People can't just demand flawlessness, or even agree on what that means. There are so many possible ways to live life, to run the things that can be run. People are rarely in a position to vote for exactly what they want, but rather, they are in a position to empower the philosophy that sits best with them."
I snuggle in to Damerae, letting his words bounce around my mind, appreciating them some, but not as much as I appreciate his arms around me, helping me drift away.
My door rattles.
"Travis!" my mom bellows.
"Yeah," I say, still groggy.
"How do you sleep so much? Is there something wrong with you? You missed most of the barbecue!"
"Shoot," I say under my breath.
"You need to get out here and help us clean up."
There's no sign of Damerae, save the open window.
"TRAVIS!" my mom says.
I sigh and unlock my door.
After I finish cleaning, my mom lets me sidle off to be by myself, finally. I spend most of the night staring at the ceiling, sewing together some thoughts, and basking in the newly forged calm.
It's endearing. It's sweet. It's overbearing.
They aren't all that understanding.
All these people, trying to save me from Zane.
Maybe I don't need to be saved from Him.
Maybe Zane is the one who saved me from them.
The crash is ebbing, like the tide drawn in.
Zane's sweaty, tattooed muscles glint in my mind's eye.
It feels so good to make Him feel good...
Isn't that what it's all about? Not feeling bad about what makes me feel good? But...as soon as I find a hint of acceptance, a smidgen of understanding, my mind seeks out more perverse territory. The taboo—that's what's exciting.
Zane is emboldened to tear me down. Thrill me. Warp what is left of me to his benefit.
How does He do this to me?
How does He make me such a faggot?
Such a pathetic slave?
He deprives me of will, and in the emptiness, my brain becomes this superfluous thing for him to toy with, to fuck with.
I laugh, pushing my ass up into the air, letting the Zane in my imagination take over.
I can't get hard—but hey, it's not about me.
I notice Damerae didn't include Zane in his list. Nobody ever spoiled him.
Maybe it's about time.
Go ahead. Try and save me.
Calvin, Zane, Chris and I will have one more tournament tomorrow.
And this one...
Will be the last.
--- Feedback keeps me in the mood to write and brainstorm and is always appreciated. :) email: krazytop@gmail.com tumblr: krazytop.tumblr.com