The Good Slave (8 page)

Phoebus stood next to Master Josef.
 
He felt oddly shy.
 
A guard behind him pressed the hard edge of the tip of his boot against the back of the little slave’s knee, forcing him to kneel, falling first to his hand and knees.
 
He let out a pitiful little yelp as the rough cement floor scoured his skin.

Then—uncomfortable silence for at least two minutes.
 
A few times Phoebus thought his master was about to say something but he just cleared his throat instead.
 
The guards stared straight ahead, didn’t say anything.
 
Didn’t move.
 
Statues.
 
Phoebus himself didn’t dare say anything.

Finally Master Josef muttered, “H-how are they treating you, Stephen?”

Stephen stared at his father, snickered and shook his head.

“How are they treating me, Dad?” he asked.
 
“How are they
treating
me?
 
You said a million times that America is Heaven on Earth so they must be treating me like a fucking saint.
 
When the guards aren’t slapping me around they’re making me suck their cocks.”

“That’s a lie!” one of the guards behind Phoebus yelled.

“Fuck you, you lying fuck!” Stephen screamed back.
 
A guard behind him clocked him upside the head with his rifle butt.
 
The wailed out in pain as he and his chair fell noisily to the floor.
 
The guard on the other side of him stepped forward, grabbed the back of Stephen’s neck and the back of his chair at the same and jerked both boy and chair back into an upright position.

Phoebus felt sick.
 
Master Josef struggled not to cry, but the little slave was already wiping away his own tears.

“I didn’t mean to upset you,” Master Josef said.
 
“I-I. . . I don’t know what to say.
 
I can’t undo what’s been done.
 
I’m sorry, Stephen.”
 
His voice began to quiver.
 
“This is all my fault.
 
I should’ve kept my mouth shut.
 
I never dreamed they’d go after you.”

“But that’s what they do, Dad.
 
You know that.
 
You’ve always known that.
 
That’s how they operate.
 
But don’t worry; by this time tomorrow I’ll be dead and you won’t have to worry about me anymore.”

“Please stop, Stephen,” the old preacher said, sounding older by the second.
 
“I can’t bear the thought.”

“But I won’t be with Jesus,” his son said, more to himself than his father.
 
“I don’t believe in Jesus anymore.
 
Or God.
 
By this time tomorrow I simply won’t exist.”

There was silence for a long time as both father, son and slave quietly sobbed.

When Stephen spoke again his voice was soft and pleading.
 
“Please,” he said, “just go away.”

Master Josef wiped his tears away with his hand before letting out a long sigh of defeat.
 
He stood up and his little slave stood up with him.
 
The guards behind them closed ranks.
 
As they started toward the exit the little slave heard Stephen say, “Goodbye, Phoebus.”
 
And then a guard shoved him through the door.

Chapter Eight

Back Home

The old preacher and his young slave, as well as the anonymous chauffeur who came with the rented limo, were silent all the way home.
 
Master Josef spent most of the ride with his eyes closed, his elbow on the armrest, his head supported his fingertips.
 
Everyone once in a while he’d wipe away some fresh tears.

It was late autumn and most of the trees were bare, their gnarled branches clawing at the sky.
 
Phoebus watched the darkening dreary landscape roll by.
 
Outside the serene flower gardens and manicured lawns of gated communities the world was all barbed wire and overflowing dumpsters.
 
In Nine Verges neighbors picnicked and partied outdoors long into the night.
 
Anyone caught outside after dark in the nameless dirty little towns they were passing through, however, would be arrested on the spot.
 
No security-camera-blocking trees lined he streets here.
 
There were cameras in Nine Verges, too, to be sure, but everyone
there
could be trusted, naturally, so trees were abundant.

“Welcome to paradise,” Stephen had often snickered with a wink at Phoebus whenever their limo exited into the real world.
 
Master Josef didn’t approve of his son’s cynicism, of course.
 
Arguments often ended with Stephen concluding that his father’s beloved revolution was a colossal joke, and a dare to stop the limo—a truly terrifying prospect—and risk walking to wherever they were going.
 
The preacher couldn’t understand why Stephen was so angry.
 
He’d always thought his son would be happy to live a privileged life, not miserable.

The drive home took hours.
 
By the time they arrived, the white gravel driveway was already growing eerily in the moonlight.
 
Silhouetted in front of the open front door was gray-haired George, the head slave who had been with Josef Messinjure the longest.
 
Since most of the other slaves had been sold to stave off bankruptcy, old George had been serving as butler, mechanic, fixit man, gardener, and just about every other role reserved for male slaves.
 
Master Josef was running a high fever when the car pulled up to the house, and complaining of chest pains.
 
So both Phoebus and George helped him out of the car, the tiny pale stones crunching against each other under their feet, into the house and straight to his bedroom.

Tessa, the old slave now solely charged with cooking and cleaning and tending the flowerbeds—which were looking shabbily neglected, to be honest—was waiting for them in the foyer.
 
She nagged them all the way up the grand staircase and down the hall, leading the way like the grand marshall of a sad little parade.
 
Then Tessa shooed Phoebus out of the bedroom once their master was lying down.
 
“Go make yourself useless someplace else, boy!”

The little slave peered over his shoulder as he shuffled out of the room, catching one last glimpse of his master, eyes closed and mouth gaping wide, sweat beading on his forehead.
 
He moaned and looked painfully ancient as he struggled to breathe, his hand clutching at his chest, the horizon of his skull clearly visible through the thinning white hair made luminous by the lamplight (his black-dyed hair having grown out soon after the TV cameras disappeared).
 
Hair-thin wrinkles stretched down his hollow cheeks from the smooth skin stretched over his cheekbones, disappearing under hundreds of silvery quill-like whiskers blanketing his lower face and the folds of loose flesh gathered under his jaw.
 
The handsome young man Phoebus had seen in a hellfire-and-brimstone sermon video recorded decades ago was barely recognizable in old Josef Messinjure’s hoary profile.
 
The little slave wondered if his old master was going to die soon from a broken heart, and his own heart ached at the thought.
 
The boy knew none of the other slaves loved Master Josef.
 
At least not as much as
he
did.
 
Phoebus wanted to be with him when he died.
 
Wanted to hold his hand.
 
And he didn’t want any of
them
to be there.

“Scat!” Tessa snapped.

George called the family’s longtime physician Dr. McCallister, who wasted no time in coming over.
 
He was elderly like Master Josef, but corpulent and bald on top with a snowy white band of hair horseshoeing around his head.
 
He sported a matching white goatee, rather longer than most, which made him look somewhat like an agèd and fat nineteenth-century intellectual.
 
Freud or somebody like that.
 
He was certainly as sober as one, bringing neither merriment nor mirth with him whenever he walked through the door.

Tessa wrung her hands as she escorted him to her old master’s bedroom.

“Goodness knows what’ll happen to all of us if Master Josef dies,” she worried out loud.
 
“I’m too old to be sold!
 
Who would
want
me?
 
I’m nothing but an old woman now.”

“For pity’s sake, woman!” Dr. McCallister snarled as he brushed past her.
 
“Stop your jibber-jabbering and get out of my way!”

He trotted rapidly down the length of the hallway and disappeared into the bedroom.

Tessa shook her head and slowly turned and went back down stairs to make some tea.
 
As she passed the living room she heard arguing and, never one to pass up an opportunity to stick her nose into other people’s business, turned to investigate.

The slaves were debating whether or not to watch Stephen’s execution on TV.
 
Tessa was dead set against it, her lip quivering at the thought.

“It just ain’t right,” she said.
 
Her voice suddenly cracked with emotion.

George, on the other hand—well, old George never liked Stephen.
 
And he never made no bones about it whenever Master Josef wasn’t around.

“That stuck up, snotty little faggot thinks the sun shines out his ass,” George always said.
 
“Always has, always will.”

“You’re just as jealous as you always was about that boy,” Tessa said.
 
Phoebus was standing off to the side watching the same argument play out for the hundredth time.
 
“Ever since the day he was born.”

“No,” George countered.
 
“I ain’t never been jealous.
 
But I was pushed aside when Master Josef brought that low-class hussy into this house.
 
And downgraded even further when that snotty little faggot was born.”

The hussy George was referring to was Josef Messinjure’s late wife, Julia, who “tragically passed away while birthing forth a new son, whom she named Stephen with her dying breath.”
 
At least that how the office Church-State press release announced her death.
 
George was wrong; he had always remained Josef Messinjure’s favorite
slave
, but that only meant he was trusted enough to chase after a toddler all day, play second fiddle to a nanny.
 
He was uncharacteristically reticent after Master Josef had appointed him chief protector of the very brat who, in his mind, had deposed him, but Tessa could tell right off that he’d been stewing about it.

“I’d rather’ve spent my days hittin’ the poontang that popped out that little fucker!” George once announced to the other slaves not long after their mistress had departed this world.
 
Some snickered nervously as they looked around to make sure their master wasn’t within earshot.

Tessa had only glowered at him.

“That kinda talk’s gonna get us
all
in trouble, George Messinjure!” she’d said.
 
“You need to mind what you say and show some respect—especially of the dead!”

“Shit, woman,” George said, “the dead are dead, and they ain’t comin’ back no matter if I run ’em down or sing their praises to the Lord.”

There was no such sparring between the two old slaves tonight, though.
 
George, more brazen than ever, turned his back on Tessa and sat down in Master Josef’s comfortable soft black leather recliner and kicked off his shoes.
 
He watched with admiration as each spun through the air before landing with a satisfying and audible
THUD!
onto the gleaming hardwood floor.
 
He slid into a comfortable slouch, crossed his ankles and rested his feet on the ottoman and pointed the remote control at the TV, eighty diagonal inches of three-dimensional high definition dominating the opposite wall.