400 Days of Oppression Read Free Page B

slave trade. I would skip past it as if it were a mere footnote in the history of black people and not the single most impactful moment in black history. I would avoid talking about the beatings, the hangings, the families separated and destroyed and just rush right into talking about Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglas and then on to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Now, I wondered if I had been protecting the children or myself.
    The food tasted like warm shit. I was so hungry it didn’t matter. Besides, there was nothing I could do about it. I either ate this nasty crap or I starved. It wasn’t like Kenyatta was going to make me steak and eggs. This is what the slaves had eaten, so this is what I would eat until Kenyatta decided otherwise.
    I risked a glance up at him as I continued to scarf down my food. The look on his face could only be described as one of absolute disgust. There was something else there though. Pity? Sympathy? Sorrow? It was the look you gave to a crippled homeless person when he pissed himself. I just wasn’t sure if it was for me or for his ancestors. I suspected it was a little of both. If I hadn’t felt wretched and disgusting before, that look had solved that. I lowered my head back to my bowl, trying not to choke on my food as I began to sob again.
    Knowing that I could end it at any time made it worse. All I had to do was say that horrible word and he’d immediately unchain me and set me free. Of course Kenyatta, being the type of man he is, made the safe word something as reprehensible as the treatment I was now being subjected to. To go free, all I would have to do is yell “Nigger.” Not just say it. He didn’t want me to whisper it apologetically. He’d made that clear. I had to yell it at the top of my lungs. He knew I’d never do that. That would only multiply my “whitey guilt” as Kenyatta called it. So instead I endured.
    I hated Kenyatta standing above me with that look of pity and disgust twisting his features as I shoveled the mushy gruel into my face, kneeling on my hands and knees like an animal. I felt like some loathsome repugnant thing and I wondered if he still loved me after seeing me like this. I was afraid to ask, though I knew he would have answered me. I was afraid to hear the reply. Sometimes, on the days when the beatings were the most severe, he’d break character for a while and whisper to me that he still loved me and that he was proud of me for going through this for him. He’d hold me close to him as I wept and bled and swab my wounds with vinegar and alcohol before putting me back in my box. Both my love and my commitment renewed for a while, I’d lie in my box dreaming of being with him when this was all over. I’d imagine lying in bed with him, nestled against his powerful body, my head on his chest, listening to his heartbeat and the soothing sound of his deep melodic voice as he stroked my hair and kissed my face.
    Kenyatta was the only man I’d ever felt safe with. He was the only man who’d ever bought me nice things and taken me to nice places, the only man who’d ever told me I was beautiful, and showed me the difference between making love and fucking. I imagined him saying I love you again as we made love, love without pain. I imagined what it would be like to be his bride. On those nights, the heat and the darkness and the hard claustrophobic confines of my box, even the weight of the iron chains around my neck ankles and wrists, became more tolerable. Everything was tolerable if it meant he would love me.
    I finished my food and Kenyatta removed my plate and walked me upstairs. I almost fell as I struggled with the weight of the chains. I had gone with him to purchase them. We’d bought them on a trip to San Francisco from a fetish store on Folsom Street that had a custom welder on staff. Kenyatta had shown them pictures of iron shackles recovered from the Henrietta Marie, the oldest slave ship ever discovered. By the end of the weekend