Chain Gang All Stars

I be so glad…

When this sun goes down…

I be so glad…

When this—

“Aye, nigga, ain’t nobody tryna hear your slave-chorus ass today, my boy. Gah-damn.”

Sun goes down…

“I’m forreal, my nigga, you on some slave-ship, crazy shit and that shit is tired, bro. You here now. That shit old, cut that shit out, my nigga. Nigga got one arm and think he Kunta Kinte, gah-damn.”

It the young one they call Razor Edgerrin. Young and tough and smart, but he got something to prove to everybody ’cause he got something to prove to himself. I ain’t got nothing to prove, and I been silent so long, sometimes I don’t recognize it’s me making the noise I’m hearing ’cause I’m listening more than anything else.

We are Marching. The Anchor, the Big Warden, the rising all-powerful stick of you-not-going-nowhere in front of us pulling the way.

We side by side making a frown or a smile depending on how you look, a mouth of bodies. A frown or smile, and the eyes of this great face we make is the miles and miles we must walk.

I’m used to being side by side with somebody but also used to having work to do to cut the closeness. On the March, after the food flies in from the sky, we get up and walk side by side by side though grass and dirt and mud and rock. I pick the clothes I want to take with me. I got a few now. They send them. Hardly got to spend my death coins. And what I leave is waiting for me at the next Camp. I think of how every day they pick up and drop, pick up and drop, and we walk the miles between. The killing games something else.

“Thank you,” Eraser Ed One says. The Erasers a triplet of skinheads. An actual brother, brother, brother, brought on the same crime. They don’t talk much to anybody not white, but their skin screams their feelings loud. They got swastikas on them like some God, the chef of all, meant to sprinkle a pinch of hate and the cap fell open and they got stuck with a bucketload.

“You shut that mouth up too,” Razor says to him. He Black as me. “Damn.”

He looks at me with a smile trying to say even though he screamed on me, he not an asshole, and he not. He trying to say he on my side, but angry ’cause he walked so many miles and he tired. He trying to say I remind him of something not good that he’s come from.

This the Sing-Attica-Sing Chain. Supposedly Sing-Auburn-Attica-Sing now, but that don’t have the same ring.

Sing right there in the name, a fit for sure.

I got to them some months ago, waited for them at the evening Camp. An actual fire waited with me in a dry land not far from the ocean. The faraway sound of the waves made me feel calm even as the floating eye in the air near my forehead searched for fear on my face.

They’d driven me in a dying sun to a campsite and I waited for the rest of the Sing-Attica-Sing Chain to find me. My new family was how Sawyer said it. When them white boys seen me—and they was the first to see me—they were disappointed. Another nigger, they thought. I seen them, and had to look again, make sure it was three bodies with the same faces. Only the placement of the hate marks on their bodies tell them apart. I still don’t know this one from that, they might all as well be called Ed.

In our smile below the Anchor, Ku, Klux, and Klan March on the far-right side. Here we walk in a line ’cause everybody might kill somebody all the time. When I have the space in me, I sorrow for them.

“Fuck up,” Eraser Two says back to Razor.

I seen them kill for less than this out here. On God, they’ve lost their way. Three nights back a man called Smiley Ruff woke up in heaven. Strangled. Nobody said a word about it. Razor told me it was the Erasers. They ain’t like dead man’s perpetual grin. Smiley was as white as they is.

I hold my spear loose but ready. “Stay ready so you don’t have to get ready,” the Book of Mother Young, chapter 1, verse 1.

Razor stands beside me and to his right there’s Bells. Kind enough, Bells shouldn’t be in a place like this. Then again, she killed and keeps killing, so maybe this place is just the right place for her. She Black and white, so she Black. Bells got a machete that ain’t a joke. She found herself a Reaper like Razor. Like me soon enough. To her right it’s Eighty, who been through two double matches with Razor so they tight. Eighty older than me but he’s strong. Big shoulders, big-ass smile. Seen so much he skips right over the bad and laughs at whatever. He carries a heavy flail, a spiked ball on a chain. Heavy flail he named Heavy Flail. And I smiled when he told me so. They call him Eighty because he been inside longer than Bells been alive, according to how he tell it. He old for the games. But some say it’s Eighty because that’s how many men he knocked out back inside and the name stuck. Everybody got a name: a story of truths and lies.

On the end of the line to my left it’s LouBob. LouBob they call him. He won’t last long. You get a sense about these things pretty quick.

We March in a valley of grit and grass between mountains that tear up into the sky so high the weather at the peak is something different entirely than that at our feet. I don’t know where in the world we are. The air is cool and fresh. It’s a long way from cutting meat, but at some times it’s not. Chapter 1, verse 1.

“You know what, Singer?” Razor says. “My headache gone. Sing that shit if you need to let it out.”

“I’m good.” I sing when I need to.

“I just want you to know you good to do that shit. I love that shit. That’s my ancestors’ shit, and I fuck with it. Cool?” Razor says.

“You got that Holiday in your voice,” Eighty adds. “What’s that other one you sing?”

“Bee-ba-boom-be-bap-type shit,” Bells sings, and laughs. “What you know about Lady Day? Those the work songs. That’s my people’s songs.”

I smile. Damn.

“Singer laughing, y’all,” Razor says. “Look at that.”

“I laugh regular,” I say.

“Where?” Bells says, breaking forward to see me in my eyes.

I smile and don’t say nothing else.

“How you quiet and loud at the same time, Singer?” Razor asks.

“You got a voice just for one thing, huh? Just singing.”

“Everybody voice just for one thing,” I say.

“What does that mean, Singer?” Eighty asks.

“Deadass,” Bells chimes.

“It means what it means,” I say. And they let me have that.

All walking. It’s quiet for a little, then LouBob says, “Sometimes esotericism is a way of hiding.”

Bells looks at him and says, “Shut the fuck up, LuLu.”

And LouBob looks out at the miles ahead of us.

“I’m playing with you, Lou, damn.”

—

The way it is it’s us and the Erasers. Two tribes in the Chain. LouBob belongs to nobody because he won’t last long. Everybody that makes it to see the Anchor has killed someone. And anybody that’s killed someone can kill again. Anybody that hasn’t might too.

—

After they first gave me this black spear I had a night’s rest in a real bed in a real hotel. The huge M on my back still peeling. A new painting on my skin. In the hotel I got to have a meal of my choosing. Let my legs hang over the bedside and felt sheet silk tickle my ankles as the night took the day. I ate beef Wellington and roasted vegetable medley cooked in duck fat. This death row, make no mistake. I knew most don’t make it past the first fight. It was four days since I left Auburn’s medical facility. Some months since my arm got offered to the saw. I looked at the plate, the meat cooked right, its juice licking out onto the pastry it was dressed in. It’s a food made for somebody that has a lot.

I thought to pray over the food, then laughed at the idea of it, then decided to pray anyways. I prayed for the food and for a voice and to always feel that I am a different person than that which would destroy. I am not somebody else. I am Hendrix Young, worst of man. A taker of life. A jealous human. A wretched coward. Soon more of a killer. I used my knife to cut into the meat. One hand is an inconvenience. Meat slid. I tried not to weep into my vegetables. A funny thought came to me. I dropped the weak knife on the soft carpet floor. I took hold of the black spear. I brought it to the flame-scored meat. I stood above the plate and cut. This would be her first meal. One of joy. One of pleasure. She cut through the meat with ease. Sharper than sharp. Spinifer Black cuts fine. I stabbed into the pieces with the fork after laying my spear onto the floor. I ate it all. I ate it all, the shine on the plate my tongue’s own wet, not no oil nor grease. Just me. Then I closed my eyes to wait for the sun.

The next day I arrived on the BattleGround. A door opened and a guard pushed my back. “Go for it,” he said.

I stood hearing all those voices screaming for whoever. I felt just about pulled up into the air when I came out into the BattleGround, the way the collective took in a breath. The ground was asphalt, with traffic lines that meant nothing drawn onto it. The way those people screamed, you’d think they never seen a Black man with one arm and a spear before.

The man opposite me held a four-way tire iron. Tire Iron didn’t have too many bodies on him. Just the one fight before this one. Just the one M on his back. But they say two a big deal in the killing games. And if you make it to three, you serious, they say.

When he ran with his metal in hand, was not the first time I seen someone coming at me with death in their eyes. It’s a look you can’t miss. It’s something special: eyes almost beating like a heart they so focused. That’s the rage they summoning. When you been in chains it’s easy to have that rage on you. It’s everywhere. It’s in everything. For me, singing is the way to push that rage out of my head some. So with my voice back, I sang. I sang even in the arena. As they announced me I heard “I be so glad” in the speakers meant for the masses. From silence to the biggest voice in the world. Mama, I made it, I almost laughed. Then I remembered my mother might’ve been watching for real and the shame was drowning. The tattoo they pressed on my back, giant M in case I ever forget how I got here, probably almost visible since I was just in a tank top and some pants.

That man jumped in the air to get more momentum to crush my skull. Then, I discovered to my surprise that I was built for these killing games. I flashed the spear out across. I held it at the middle and the clang of metal on metal clanged as the sharp tip hit against his mechanic crucifix. The rush and cheer came. He swung again, and again I slapped the piece away.

“Motherfucker, I’m not scared of you!” he screamed. I wondered why he did, but also I knew why he did. ’Cause you say anything when you’re as scared as you is in the eye of the killing games. I relinquished my body to its instinct to survive. While me and the man who aimed to kill me clanged our lives against each other we were also sprinting toward something together. As if we both could see the precise details of what was coming and reacted accordingly, immediately. He was already two bodies in. Two bodies is enough.

After his third swing, which I didn’t have to block ’cause it was too short, I took a step back and ran to the right. Me and him fighting on the big stage, a journey in violent flashes.

Us two been inside. To be inside don’t mean you did wrong, but many of us did. I killed a man my woman loved because he wasn’t me. I didn’t know what Tire Iron did, but I imagined him a sorry soul. And so the promise of the games is fulfilled in our joining. Does each evil cancel the other out? Does disappearing one person from the earth clean it some? I seen men I knew were a danger to the world and they too deserve better than this. A shame for me to hope for better, but I know it’s better that can be done. Ain’t no magic potions for these bleeding human hearts. Ain’t no building full of hurt gonna save the masses.

Still, maybe they right. Maybe this what we deserve.

I ran up on a hill. Didn’t know why then, but looking back, your body can know a whole lot. There was a Yield sign sticking out up there. Each BattleGround has its own strange I. What surprised me best was the heave of my breath. How tired you can become, how quickly.

With the Yield sign at my back, Tire Iron sprints toward me. He screams something, but everybody is screaming something so I can’t hear it well. I hear my body say, “The high ground.” The new angle.

I sway; there’s a clang. The metal of his hand hits the Yield. I’m already pulling back. The spear, the black sharp in my hand, knows what to do. His eyes go wide. And for the second time in my life I take a life. It makes the heart quake. To know immediately you have done the unholy. The masses are jubilee.

No more, my lord

—

We March more and it’s the afternoon when we stop. The stop comes suddenly; the Anchor does not announce it’s rest, but you can feel it’s coming. After three or four hours of trek it’s rest. To relieve yourself and prepare for the next push. Men turn, if they’re so inclined, while Bells squats. Either way Razor stands out in front of her in case anybody’s eyes slide toward indecency.

The rest stop is a time to love and hate, as its coming means that what’s passed has passed but also what’s to come is to come. During today’s rest Razor and Eighty and Bells gather after their relief. They come back near the Anchor and stretch into the grass to wait. Most folks carry as little on them as possible, their things left in the Camps. But I feel more comfortable with something on my back, so I keep my sack slung over my shoulder. In it are warmer clothes and a canteen like everybody got, and a notebook and a pen.

At midday rest, the Anchor provides us a slack maybe two hundred yards. Less than we get in the mornings and evenings. Far enough to squat behind a tree. Not far enough to feel alone from anything. It usually gives about an hour. Forty-five minutes until reconvene, it says. Its voice too human to be human. We are in a valley in nowhere like always, except this time there’s a road just a few miles from us.

—

Being a civilian, not belonging to the Chains, it’s easy to forget how much of the world isn’t yours. How much is not your city or your town. How much is the in-between. If you don’t live there, aren’t forced to March, and know intimately what some might call nothing. The March goes through high grass and grass worked and cleared. Dry and dead lands. Through scattered trees. Up clearings on mountainsides. We walk through all these. Learn them all. See them to be something different. LinkLyfe might be a nature show if people cared more for the canvas and less for the blood painted all over it. But out in the fields, the fields of the growing and unspeaking, we spend most of our time. We killers, one with the land.

As usual, we group ourselves. The Hitler-loving threesome together out east, near the echo of the sound of the road. Razor puts his katana and its sheath down and does a couple of sit-ups before lying down himself, using Bells’s stomach as a pillow to rest his head. I stand near the Anchor, looking at this stick of might, black and metal, its head wider than its body. An alien thing if I didn’t know we were on Earth. I’m starting to sit when Razor, without moving but a finger, tells me to come closer to them. His invitation has quietly been unraveling toward me. Had to see me as somebody worth extending a hand. Somebody unafraid.

—

My first test came when, on my first day, everyone on the Chain, everyone besides the Erasers, saw me waiting on them, wrist glowing like theirs, though I have just the one. I took a deep breath, waited for a word to come from one of them. Bells, Razor, and Eighty looked at me. The Eraser boys blinked at me. One of the three said, “Welcome to the rest of your life.” The other two laughed.

Bells cut her voice over their laughter. “What’s your name?”

I looked at her and could see she wanted me to know I was being judged.

“Hendrix Young,” I said.

The name didn’t impress her or the others. They stood near each other even then, looking out toward the heart of the Camp, where their supplies were packed away. I was standing right among their belongings. The warm of the fire licking my shins, a thin cold around everything else. We were in a clearing framed by the sound of water.

“Why you here?” she asked.

Sawyer told me that these first few moments was where a lot of Links’ journeys ended. Use your personality, he said. They’ll love you.

“Couldn’t stay where I was,” I said.

“You kill somebody?” she said.

“Yes,” I said. “And now that I’ve been to the BattleGround it’s more true.” I struggled to keep my head up at her. She didn’t ask me what else I done, but I guess she thought my crime was what it was and not some other evil beyond that. Her brown eyes shined even in the dying light. She nodded at me. I am one of many.

Razor looked at me hard. Eighty looked at me easy. LouBob wasn’t arrived to the Chain yet, but had he been there he wouldn’t’ve said anything.

I watched them take me in. Saw them notice my gone arm.

“How you lose your arm?” Razor asked. It was healed enough that it couldn’t have been from my proving-ground bout. Those kind of injuries don’t usually make for survivors in this game.

“A saw,” I say.

The Erasers lost interest and walked past me toward where they’d plant for the night. One Eraser said to his brothers, but loud enough I knew he wanted to show me he could say what he pleased, “Another nigger, hallelujah.” They laughed. “That’s most of them doing the crime so it’s the way it’s gonna be,” another said. I turned to them. My spear waited on the ground at my feet. I picked it up. They must’ve seen it before, but it’s a different thing to see a weapon and then to see a weapon in the hands of its master, and another thing again to see a weapon in the hands of its master after it has taken life. One of the Erasers had a coiled whip that sat on his hip. Another held a hoe like a farmer. The third, I couldn’t see his weapon. I looked at farmer Eraser because that’s the one who spoke.

“You think I made it here by letting y’all call me nigger?” I said.

I felt Bells, Razor, and Eighty watching. I held Spinifer Black ready, its edge low but pointed at the white men.

“Slipped out, Hendrix,” said hoe-carrying Eraser.

“Keep steady, then,” I said, and he smiled at me. Walked away to sit. I had no tent, but a space in the world where I could roam and a place to keep things of mine if I had things. I sat on the trunk. Ready then and forever.

The rest of them continued in their groups, me outside the both of them. A peanut butter sandwich dropped out of the sky to me. For me. I thought of how the world can be anything and how sad it is that it’s this. With my teeth gummed from my dinner sandwich, Razor came to speak to me. He stood as I sat. I resisted the urge to stand as it would feel I was welcoming some challenge when truly I wanted to rest and do nothing.

“How’d you get cut by a saw?” he asked.

“Working a meat mill. Tried to do something for somebody.”

Razor looked at me straight. He held his katana in its bright red sheath and pressed the thumb of the hilt up so I could see a bit of steel sleeping in the sheath. Real-life samurai shit.

“That’s a bad break. I here for the same reason as you. But these people on my side. That’s my family. I’m telling you welcome, and to remember a lot of things can cut. So it’s good to be careful,” he said.

“Sure is,” I said. Then he left me to swallow my crusts.

—

The first test was to see how I took the Erasers. Out here it is those who will kill you, those who might kill you, and the family you choose. Eighty, Razor, and Bells have become a family. For certain Razor asked Bells to allow me to stand and sit among them.

The destination is never known. And there might be a new Link appeared as if wrought from the earth at night in Camp. The March itself is usually not too difficult. Our bodies most valuable to them as something to slaughter; they rather not lose us to a fall off a mountainside or a snake bite. They don’t mind that they kill us—it’s how they kill us they particular about. So they find us moderate routes toward wherever it is they want us.

We still resting now. I lie down near enough to the others, fall on a bed of grass. The clothes I wear simple but clean. I used one of my murder points to have a brand I never heard of clean my clothes for me each week. Death becomes laundry. Death becomes food. Death the currency of everything if you let it. And they let it. But since it’s there I use it and I have a black shirt and pants to train in and sneakers that fit me and socks and underwear that all smell like pine and soap and the sweat of the March.

We sit and rest between halves of the day’s journey.

“You done with the singing for today?” Razor asks. “Don’t quit ’cause me.” I look at him, at Bells, who’s looking at the sky.

“Didn’t realize I wasn’t. Had it going in my head.”

“What?” asks Eighty, his voice hard and heavy. Matched to his broad set.

“I be so glad when the sun goes down,” I sing.

“They messed you up where they kept you, huh, Singer?” Razor says. I look at Bells, who hasn’t taken her eyes off the sky. I see Razor’s head bob slowly against her as she stretches and relaxes her ribs. His eyes closed. Eighty is up watching me, the Erasers, everything. There’s always somebody on watch.

“I be so glad,” I sing. He who has not been messed up has not been.

“He’s from Auburn. The experimental facility. Twenty-four-hour forced silence,” LouBob says.

“Damn,” Razor says, looking at the light on his wrists.

“Everybody has a story,” Bells says, getting up, forcing Razor to get up too. “Nobody here is coming from some happy place.”

“When the sun goes down,” I sing.

“See, now he’s broken,” Eighty says, laughing some ’cause he can hear Bells is serious. “Broken music streamer.”

Bells gets up to her feet, stretches. Leaves Razor’s head for the earth. She guides her machete through the air, practicing.

Then she sings, “I ain’t all that sleepy but I, I wanna lie down.”

I follow her: “Ain’t all that sleepy, but I, I wanna lie down.”

Convene in one minute, the Anchor says.

We all get up. I keep singing. As we get back into line Bells comes toward me to help me rise from my place. On the ground. She grips my hand. I feel the hard-callused wear.

“Everybody came through the shit. Nobody has to be sorry for you for anything, Singer.” She speaks so her words are for me and me alone. “You’re here now.”

“I wanna lie down,” I sing. A joke that’s not a joke. A beg that’s not a beg. I am grateful to her. She pulls me up. She looks at me with a straight face. We get spread and close at once and we March.