The Last
By Madeleine Schmuch
“Looking back on
it, I realize how stupid my anger was. I know that it wasn’t worth it—it wasn’t
getting angry like that over. I know that now… But how was I supposed to know
what would happen next?” My voice cracked. I could feel tears spilling down my face.
Chapter One:
That night
hadn’t been different from any other. That’s a lie. Everything about it had
been different. It had been a great game—everything about it. When you win and
the crowd is cheering, you feel like you’re on top of the whole world. As the
adrenaline pumps through your veins, you realize that can do anything—that
anything is possible. After that, the rest is a daze, well, at least until it
happens again. Unfortunately for me, that night would be the last time I felt
that feeling of pure ecstasy.
I closed my
truck door and walked around to the other side opening the door for my
girlfriend, Natalie. She hopped out and landed on the moist earth.
“Uugg, my
shoes,” she said.
“Oh they’ll be
fine,” I said. “Besides, no ones going to be looking down there anyway.”
“Woooooow,” Nat
said unimpressed. “Let’s get inside before you think to hard,” she said overly
sarcastic.
“That’s alright
with me,” I said taking her hand.
We started towards
the front steps. I had never seen the place before. It was an old mansion out
in the middle of the woods. Well, didn’t matter anyway. The cars parks all over
the front lawn and the pulse radiating like shockwaves through the ground was
all that I needed to tell me that this was definitely the right place.
Just before we
reached the porch, somebody slapped me on the back and tore me away form Nat.
“That was one
hell of a game, boy, one hell of a
game!”
“Jack, my man!”
I said slapping his other hand and giving it a fist bump. Nat took out her
phone and began moving her fingers rapidly about the screen. “That pass, man,”
I said a huge smile breaking out across my face.
“If I do say so
myself that arc was beautiful!” Jack said.
“I wonder who
threw it?” was my response.
“I dunno, but he
must be pretty brilliant. But I must admit, that other guy might even be better
than him. I mean, he ran how many yards?”
We both started
laughing like fools our heads already the size of small sofas.
“Morons,” Nat
muttered. “I’m gonna go meet up with Emily and Sarah but I will see you later,” she said making eye contact
with me.
“See ya, I
said.”
Jack blew a kiss
at her and she gave him a small thwack with her purse the size of a pack of gum
before slowly walking into the house. As the door opened, the noise that had
been fairly well sound-proofed escaped and caused me to jump before the door
was shut again.
Jack snorted and
then said, “Well, I dunno what your doing but there are definitely some fine,
young ladies waiting for me to venture into the scary kitchen for them. And
with that, I will be off,” he said and made his way into the house as well.
I looked at the
peeling paint on the old door and took a deep breath before stepping in to the
bouncy room. The atmosphere was sweaty and smoky as people danced and drank. I
made my way toward the kitchen and grabbed my own cup before looking for Nat.
When I found her, she was talking with some guy. He looked like a kind of
rapper. He was tall and lean but all slumped over with chains around his neck
and was just letting off a “slacker” vibe. He said something and Nat laughed
tilting her head back. I walked over.
“Hey, babe,” I
said putting my arm around her waist.
“Hey,” she said.
“Meet our host, Joe.”
“Sup,” I said
holding out my fist.
He bumped it
saying, “Hey.”
“Cool party,” I
said.
“Yeah,” he said.
“Well it’s not the best… but it’s alright.”
He said
something softly to Nat and she laughed. I was beginning to really dislike him.
He seemed a little too confident in talking to Nat—with me right there even. After
what seemed like ages, he finally left.
“What a loser,”
I said.
“Excuse me?”
“Oh, come on,
Nat,” I said. “Didn’t you see that creepy, smug look of his?
“He didn’t look
creepy and smug to me,” she said pretending to be interested in something
across the room.
“Whatever. Need
a refill?”
“No,” Natalie
said still annoyed. “Joe’s gone to get me one. Or weren’t you paying attention?”
“Whatever,” I
said and started walking toward the kitchen.
I didn’t talk to
Nat for most of the night. Whenever I saw her she was with ‘slacker Joe,’ which
is what I had taken to calling him. I guess I had found it humorous but I
really don’t see any humor in it now. So I just continued on drinking way
through any unhappy thoughts and having all the fun in the world. I was
constantly reminded of the game we had had and I was feeling pretty good. But
at the height of the party, I started hearing a rumor. Nat was with someone and
that someone wasn’t me—it was some kid named Joe.
Chapter Two:
As I trailed in
and out of consciousness, the plastic seat I had been shoved onto began to feel
more like wood. I saw lights in the blackness outside the car and heard voices.
Then the blackness became the lights and the lights became the blackness.
“Whadaya doing
there, boy?”
“What?” was my
incredible response. My voice sounded weird so I cleared my throat and whipped
my mouth for good measure.
A man was
looking down at me. I looked into his cold, dark eyes.
He didn’t say
anything so I said, “Whadaya want?”
I was surprised
with my own voice. It was much deeper than it usually was and I was taken
aback.
“Look kid,” the
man said. “I will take you wherever you wanna go, but if you get on that bus, I
ain’t never forgiving ya.”
I was confused
by the stupid old man’s words and annoyed by his tone of voice. He also really
needed a shower—and a toothbrush. His shiny brown skin had trails of grime on
it and his teeth were a dark yellow. I looked around at my surroundings and
realized that I was sitting on a bus bench and an old-fashioned bus was
puttering up the road. I cocked my head to the side and looked at it again. It
almost looked like what the Mystery Machine might look like underneath all of
the flowers painted on it. There was also luggage on the roof. I rubbed my eyes
because I had never seen luggage on the roof of a bus before. It took me a
moment but I realized something else was off also. I looked at my hands and
realized that they were not my own. Mine were a nice bronze but these hands
were a dark chocolate color. I jumped taken confusedly. I moved my hands and
the brown hands moved. I put my hands to my face and the brown hands went to my
face.
“What the
hell?!” I said.
“Hey,” the
stupid old man said. “You will not be speaking like that in my presence again!”
“What?” I said
again. My voice was still too low.
I stood up and
started walking across the street. I didn’t want to talk to him anymore. What
was I wearing? My clothes were… dressy. I looked up hoping to see a store or
something where I might have been able to wash my face and clear my head but I
stopped dead in my tracks right in the middle of the street. People were
walking around in old style dresses and what was more was: I was right in front
of a newspaper stand displaying the date.
December 6th,
1955.
1955.
“Hey, just
because you folk don’t wanna take the buses anymore does not mean that you can
stop us from bein’ on our way!” The bus driver was leaning out the side of the
bus and when I didn’t respond he said. “Get out of the road fool!”
I stumbled out
of the road not saying a word. And tried to make sense of what was happening.
Then I saw my reflection in a shop window. Well, it wasn’t really my
reflection—but it was. I put my hand to the glass and it lined up with whoever
was touching the glass—so I guess that had to be me. I was leaner than usual—in
fact one might say I was thirty pounds lighter. I was taller too but neither of
those things were really standing out to me against one particular observation.
I was black. I had been hoping it was a trick of the light but I was definitely
not the right color—I mean my usual color. This was not normal.
“Hey, Billy!
Brother! Hey, Billy! He-ey!”
I turned to see
who was making the fuss.
“Finally, man. I
thought you was goin’ deaf or something.” The black kid slapped me on the back
and said, “Did you hear about that reverend King guy? I heard he’s a real
talker. Well anyway,” he said lowering his boisterous voice, “I guess he was
elected president of the Montgomery Improvement Association. Pretty big, huh?
We should go to the next meeting tonight. I wanna be a part of this! This is
history in the making brother!”
He started
walking backwards as he said that last sentence and then turned around and ran
off. I started to stumble away when black shapes encircled me.
Chapter Three:
There were
people walking in a circle around me but it wasn’t just me in the circle. There
were others enclosed in it as well, eight to be exact, slowly walking so that
we all stayed together. Horrid yells could be heard form the other side of the
circle but the eight of us all walked along quietly. I ignored anything that I
couldn’t see which included everything on the other side of the circle barrier
of people so that I could think.
I was so
confused. I was in 1955—I think. But then I was somewhere else. This was
definitely not where I had just been. The air was heavy and filled with people.
There was no possible way the street could’ve filled that quickly—it had only
been a split second.
“Aaahhh!”
I looked up to
see that something had hit one of the heads of a person walking with me. I
could hear laughs form outside of the circle. I went back to trying to make sense
of what was happening.
“All they want
to do is go to school.” One of the members of the enclosing circle had spoken.
“Can’t you just let them do that?”
It was so quiet,
I was sure no one had heard him speak except for me. And that’s when I got the
idea.
Chapter Four:
“Do you think
your father may have ‘led you down the wrong path.’”
“Whataya mean?”
I asked. I was pretending to be oblivious. Before she had a chance to speak
again though, that idea grew boring and I asked, “How are you supposed to
know?”
The woman in the
soft, blue chair didn’t respond.
“When, you’re
five,” I said, how are you supposed to know that’s why you’re moving? When your
five… you don’t understand that they should be treated the same… you just do
what your daddy tells you.”
She started to
speak but I cut her off. “How are you supposed to know that your way of
living—the way of living that you’ve been brought up on and you consider the
norm—isn’t fair?”
“You’re not—you
can’t rather,” she said.
“I’ve only lived
in areas with… people like me. But I didn’t think that there was any reason for
it. You don’t realize that… that your own family is controlling your way of
thought.”
Chapter Five:
I was in a
diner. Old style. Like the past two ‘visions’ had been. There was a crowd.
Screaming and screaming and screaming. I could barely hear myself think.
Everyone was facing the direction of the counter and I moved to the front. A
whole manner of colored people were sitting down on the stools. They were
clearly just trying to deal with the people around them who I quickly realized
to be all whites. The standing whites were the ones screaming—the only ones
screaming. They were being… They were
dumping things on the people at the counter. They dumped ketchup down there
backs and spilled disgusting mixtures of drinks on them. I was surprised that
the people at the stools weren’t fighting back.
Then I realized
their plan. They wanted to provoke a fight—almost innocently. I remembered
reading something about this. Black teens would go and take turns sitting at
the counter so that the diner would get no service and the white teens would
get violent. Then, in the eyes of the government, the blacks would look only
like innocent people who wanted freedom. My theory was starting to become a
reality.
A girl at the
counter who looked particularly disgusting and truly disgusted turned around at
on her and searched the crowd for someone. Her eyes locked with mine and she
motioned for me to go to her. I held up my hand to show her that I would only
be a moment and saw that my skin was again not my own. The brown color was
back. I was black again—instead of white. I ran over and quickly took her
place.
“It’s just for a
half of an hour.” She whispered into my ear and smiled. “Not too bad.”
Chapter Six:
I was running
down the stairs. I didn’t know what Nat was thinking. I didn’t know why she
would do this to herself or anyone else—it was ridiculous. Why was she hanging
out with that creep anyway? He seemed like an awful person—no, I knew he was an
awful person. I ran outside and to the back of the house. The ground was wet
and I slipped. But I was up again as quick as I had been on the ground.
Then I saw them.
They were talking by the gate to the woods way at the back. All I could think
of was how terrible he was—and how terrible she was! I would never trust a girl
like her again!
“Hey!” I yelled
almost to where they were standing.
“Hey yourself!”
Nat said sounding just giddy.
“Who the hell do
you think you are?” I said.
Then I said it
and I hit him as quickly and as hard as I could. I punched him full force and
he flung back against the iron gate. Natalie screamed. But even with her
screaming I still heard it—the crack.
Chapter Seven:
The atmosphere
had changed. I was now in a noisy, stuffy type of vehicle. I pulled myself up
and realized that I was in a type of bus. All around me were people of all
shapes, sizes and colors.
“Why are we
going so slowly?” I asked nobody in particular.
“Were so asleep
you didn’t feel it, boy?” a plump woman replied. “We got a flat.”
When she said,
her words were filled with fear—like a flat tire was the worst thing that
could’ve ever happened to anybody. Then it dawned on me. All of the passengers
were sitting quietly. The noise I was hearing was not inside the bus but
outside of it and the slower the bus moved, the louder the noise grew to be.
Then it happened.
A ghostly white
hand rammed a brick against my window and it shattered the glass spewing
everywhere and slicing some of my skin. Other windows began to break also—some
by work of crowbars, rocks, wrenches, anything that could be used. Now the
noise was inside the bus too as people screamed their fears or simply prayed. I
couldn’t make out what the men outside the bus were saying but I could easily
guess their intent.
I ran to the front
of the bus hoping to get off but a big, burly, white man blocked my path and
spat at me. I ran back toward the rear to see if there was another exit when a
bottle came flying through the broken, back window. It exploded on one of the
seats and flame erupted from it in a giant cloud.
Seconds later, I
was on the floor of the bus. My eyes stung I was coughing but my throat
wouldn’t clear. The smoke was everywhere. It filled the bus and it filled my
lungs. I could faintly see it trying to escape through the broken windows
before my eyes glazed over and I had to close them. On my knees I started
crawling back to the front again.
This time, the
man was nowhere to be seen so I took my opportunity and fumbled of the bus. I
crawled as far away as I could manage before vomiting into the grass. I looked
back at the bus spewing out smoke and tears started pouring down my face.
Another man came over to me kneeling in the grass and helped me up, He asked my
if I was alright and before I could respond, he had punched me in the cut—a
clean upper-cut. Reflexively, I spit out anything that was in my mouth so that
I could breath and the man screamed at me.
Other men also
came to beat me but I didn’t pay attention. As the bus went up in flames, I
looked for the other passengers’ safety. My tears grew more frequent as a saw I
girl in a pink and white pokka-dotted dress get thrown to the ground. These men
were animals who just wanted to feel better about themselves and they would
stop at nothing for that feeling. The awful truth was: they would use any
excuse to and they wouldn’t stand for changing this way of living. I started
vomiting again as I watched flames spew out of the bus and the last noise I
heard was the scream of a little girl before everything went black.
Chapter Eight:
I was standing
at the back of a courtroom. It was hot but not nearly as hot as the flames that
had engulfed me but a moment ago. A woman was at the stand. She looked oddly
familiar and surely about to cry. But she held it in as she spoke quietly. Then
a lawyer said something to her.
“It was my son
but… His… His face was… He had been beaten so badly… And the water… How could
those men…”
“Wait.” I said
thinking out loud. Could this really be the trial…
Then I was
looking down and into a coffin. I wanted to scream but I was afraid if I did I
would vomit instead. All around me people were moaning and crying and praying.
I wanted to do the same but my feet led me somewhere else. They walked me to a
public restroom and my hands washed my face. When I looked into the mirror, I
really did scream. When I looked in, Joe stared back at me. My heartbeat grew
louder and quicker when blood started oozing from his/my eyes. I tried to look
away but his/my body wouldn’t let me. I put my hand to the mirror and touched
my/his reflection and my/his hand slid. Bloody fingerprints dripped down the
mirror and I screamed again.
“I’m sorry!” I
screamed to the mirror. “Please! Please forgive me! I didn’t know!”
Finally, I was able
to turn my head but not all the way. Just enough so that I could she the matted
hair at the back of his/my head—wet with blood. It oozed its way through the
back of my shirt and tricked down my spine. I reached back behind my/his head
trying to cover it and my heart missed a beat. Even though I/he couldn’t feel
any pain, I/he could feel the gravel like bits of skull protruding through the
skin.
“Please!” I
screamed. “Please!”
Chapter Nine:
“You say that
you’ve been having visions?”
“Ever since that
night,” I replied.
“What are these
‘visions’ of?”
I squirmed in my
chair. I’ve been… living… or re-living I guess… history…?”
“Could you
explain?”
I exhaled
loudly. “I’ve been the people…”
I looked up
hoping that she would understand even though I knew she wouldn’t. She cocked
her head to the side and waited patiently for a response.
“I’ve lived
their lives—or parts of them. I’ve seen their struggles and I’ve fought for
their freedom. I get it now. I don’t get how I couldn’t have seen it before. I can’t
believe I was ignorant. I don’t understand.”
She didn’t say
anything for a long time. She didn’t even make a scribble on her clipboard.
After an eternity had passed she said, “Do you see it?”
I knew what she
meant and I looked down as my eyes blurred. Tears fell onto my lap and I tried
to take deep breaths to clear my head. All I succeeded in doing making myself
more of a mess.
“All of those
people… all that they’ve worked for… and they still never succeeded…”
“But do you—”
“You know all
they wanted was to be treated the same! But if there’s still people like me in
the world… Someone as ignorant and terrible… someone who was brought up to be
that way… they’ll never be free! I can’t live with that! It’s not fair that
people like me still exist…”
I looked up
tears streaming freely down my face. Her eyes were closed.
“Of course I see
it! Every day when I get up… Every time I close my eyes… Every time I take a
breath—a breath that keeps me alive—something that—that—that—”
“It’s al—”
“No it’s not!” I
screamed. “Not it’s not! No it’s not! No it’s not!” I paused trying to catch my
breath and wipe my face. “Miss… I just don’t know how you expect me to live
with myself… With all of the things I’ve done… And unknowingly… It just shows
how unfair I made life…”
“Listen to me,”
she said it strictly and with such force I forgot about my sorrows for a
moment. “You are not the reason people are the way they are. You can change
your ways. You. Are. Not. Your. Father.”
I stared into
her eyes. She truly believed what she was saying.
“You are a good
person. In the past you were unknowing but that doesn’t make up you today. You
can live again and you will.”
“But how… how…
whenever I… the blood… I just… The last thing he ever heard was… was… He didn’t
do anything wrong. I made a stupid assumption based on stupid morals of stupid
people… I kept trying to convince myself that I didn’t like his tone of voice
but… I knew… I knew… I knew…”
“What did you
know?”
“I knew that
wasn’t it… It was… it was… it was…” I didn’t want to admit it. It required me
to admit being so… “It was his skin. I was afraid because he was… different.
And now I have to deal with knowing.”
“Knowing what?”
she asked. Maybe I would truly believe what she was saying someday.
“That the last
thing he ever heard was… nigger.”
