Lying on my back I watch the sky glide by. Soon the air smells like river and I hear chattering street merchants and the clang of pots. Kenny ties the horse to a picnic table and takes the rag out of my mouth and loads me into a moldering skiff. Birds come alive on both banks as the sun drops into the river and Kenny’s paddles break the pink water.
On the far bank is a fenced-in complex of trailers.
“Slavetown,” Kenny says.
“I beg you, Kenny,” I say. “Don’t do this.”
“I don’t want to hear it,” he says pitifully. “Why make me feel bad just when I’m finally about to do something good for myself? Please be quiet. Because I’m a softie. I’ll do something dumb like let you go. I’m a dumb softie and you could easily trick me. Anyone could. Everyone does. People always have. I’ve taken it and taken it. It’s made me sad in the heart, and that can’t be good. I’m just sure God sent you to me so I could have a happier heart and really start living!”
I frantically tell my story as he rows. I tell about Mom and Dad. I tell about Connie. He sticks bits of life-jacket stuffing in his ears and sings at the top of his lungs. When we reach the bank he calls out to the guards, who wrestle me ashore.
“I don’t have his paperwork and all,” Kenny says. “But he’s definitely Flawed. If you don’t believe me, take a look at his feet.”
“Please, Kenny,” I say.
“Probably it won’t be so bad,” he says, chucking me on the wrist rope. “These folks seems nice enough.”
A few buyers slide down the bank. In keeping with Disclosure of Flaws legislation one of the guards hangs around my neck a poster of a generic naked man and marks both feet with yellow highlighter. Occasionally someone asks to see my claws, then gives a low whistle and moves on as I stare out red-faced at the river. A thick man with long orange hair and bad acne pokes me in the ribs. He makes me lift a large stone and do jumping jacks and inspects my claws with a hand lens.
“Will he have his own bed?” Kenny says. “Will he get lots of time off?”
“Absolutely,” the man says. “Oh my God am I ever generous with my Employees. I prefer to call them Employees. Either that or Involuntary Labor Associates. Name’s Chick Krennup. For this prospective Involuntary Labor Associate, who frankly doesn’t appear particularly strong, I’m prepared to offer you ninety dollars, tops.”
“I was thinking more like two hundred,” Kenny timidly ventures.
“Gasp!” Krennup says. “No offense, but have you been committing substance abuse on your boat? Eighty tops.”
“Well, okay,” Kenny says uncertainly. “Okay. I’ll take eighty.”
“You mean seventy,” says Krennup.
“Oh,” Kenny says. “I thought you said eighty.”
“You’re smooth,” Krennup says. “Nice try. But seventy it is.”
Kenny beams, proud to have been called smooth. Krennup counts three twenties into his hand. Whistling happily, Kenny rows the skiff away.
“Gracious!” Krennup says jovially once Kenny’s out of earshot. “Did I ever take that asshole to the cleaners! At any rate, welcome to Missouri. You must be stiff as a board. Want out of that contraption? How about a little exercise and some lunch?”
I nod. He unstraps me, then flattens me with one blow of the oar. I struggle to my feet and he knocks me down again. He asks what I like best about myself and hits me until I admit I like nothing. Then he asks what I want from life and keeps hitting until I admit I want nothing. He asks what I treasure and love above all else and I say Connie. He hits. I say Connie. He hits. Finally I admit I love nothing. Wonderful, he says, then hits me once just for fun. Who is this Connie slut? he asks. Nobody, I say. Wrong answer, he says, she’s a worthless dirtbag and you despise her. All right, all right, I say, she’s a worthless dirtbag and I despise her. Then he hits me three times quick for selling Connie out so easily. He tells me to bark like a dog. I bark like a dog. He tells me to call him Most High and eat a handful of dirt. I do so. He fits me with a new Flawed bracelet and asks me who took off my old one. I immediately implicate Doc Spanner. He scribbles Docs name down and pledges to get it to the proper authorities.
“Now,” he says. “I should tell you that, appearances notwithstanding, I am neither an angry nor a cruel man. I do not dislike you and, if truth be told, do not for an instant buy into the idea that you and your kind are somehow inferior to me, or deserving of subjugation. Nevertheless, you will observe me to be, to say the least, the proverbial harsh taskmaster. Why? you might ask. In a word: Carlotta Bins. The most beautiful woman in Missouri, who because of my rough-hewn appearance has declared herself out of my reach, unless I impress her in some less aesthetic-based arena. And I have chosen my arena, and it is to be slave trading, which will garner me money, money, money, which will translate into power, power, power, and houses, houses, houses, and a wardrobe suitable for my lady, the charmed, raven-tressed, irrepressible Carlotta. And you, sir, you are important to me, wildly important, in that the price I get for you will enter my coffers, where it will sit garnering interest until such time as it is part of an absolutely undeniable nest egg. In keeping with my stated intentions, you will spend this evening in unpleasant solitude, thereby becoming further distanced from your true self and more amenable to my every whim. This regimen of daytime beatings and lonely nights will continue until such time as there is nothing remaining of your free will and you have become the oft-cited putty in my hands, after which we will set out for Sarcoxie, where I will sell you and others of your ilk at tremendous markup.”
He helps me up and guides me to a dank cage at tree line. He throws in some moldy ancient airline peanuts, then jabs me with the oar for not saying thanks. Finally he goes away. I sit ashamed in my cage. Who am I? I would have done anything to stop the hitting. Anything. So much for human dignity, I think, a few whacks in the ribs and you’re calling a fat guy God and eating soil at his request. He was hitting me, I think: me. A nice guy. A friendly guy. The guy voted Least Likely to Object for three years running. Who in the world is he to be hitting me?
I long for a kind word, for a meal, for my bunk and locker, for Bounty Land.
At dawn Krennup’s leaning against my cage with a doughnut in his mouth. He sets his coffee down and opens the door and tells me to step out. I do so. He cracks me in the back of the legs until I’m on my knees, then tells me to get up because I’m on the clock. Then he knocks me down again and with his foot on my chest explains that per Federal Mandate 12 I’m to be compensated for my involuntary servitude. However I’m also to be charged for my food and water and for every minute he has to spend reprimanding me or beating me senseless or even thinking about me. Whatever money is left, which invariably will be exactly nothing, will be deposited in his bank account, for disbursement whenever he sees fit, which will typically be never.
He asks do I understand. Before I can answer he whacks me. After he whacks me I say I understand and it’s all fine with me. He whacks me for volunteering information he didn’t request, then ties me to a post near six Porta Pottis slanting like bad lime-green teeth. Every half hour he comes out and beats me up. I get no food. I get no water. Whenever I fall asleep he sends over a lackey to burn me with a match. He parades his other Flaweds by and they make fun of my claws and spit on me and tell me to quit being snotty and join the club so we can head west. I humiliate myself by telling them I’d very much like to join the club and begging Krennup to untie me. Finally after three days he does. I’m so happy I try to hug him and he knocks me down in the dirt with his oar and says my cheekiness has just earned me two additional days.