A Moment of Silence: Midnight III

  A woman, maybe about twenty-two years young, opened the door and stood in the doorway. She wore a colorful kimono, with no socks or stockings or anything to shield her from the cold. As we entered, I realized that she was wet but seemed unfazed by the intermingling of two extremely different temperatures. She rushed us into the warmth. “Happy New Year!” she said enthusiastically, and in a manner and a tone that led me to believe this was not her first meeting with the General.

  The cabin ceiling was so low, the General, who stood six foot eight, had only two inches remaining above his head. I also was strangely close to the ceiling. She was not.

  “I’ll take your coats. You may hang your clothes right there.” She pointed out a row of metal hooks lodged in the wall. We both removed our coats and suit jackets. I was following his lead. He began unbuttoning his dress shirt and removing it as well. I paused.

  “Come on, son. When in Rome, do as the Romans. When in Alaska, do as the Eskimos; when in Buffalo, do as the Buffalos.” He chuckled. “This place is a muk’ee, an Alaskan-style steam bath. You’ve had a hard run for a long time. You’ll need this to extract all that filth from your skin.” Even though we were not in Alaska, the General seemed to like Alaskan things. I noted that fact and the possibility that he is either currently stationed there, or had been stationed there for some extended period of time. Maybe that’s why he was at ease in the Buffalo freeze. He was down to only his boxers and about to come out of those. I adjusted my mind. I moved it right past my recent past and beyond the jail and perversities that I never knew or considered existed before going to jail and observing. I settled my mind way back in the Sudan, in a memory of my southern Sudanese grandfather. He was a huge black-skinned man, same as the General. Grandfather was blacker than black, and shaded even deeper than the General, who was surely black too. In the Sudan men washed side by side at times, in the flesh. It was natural and clean, there with no suspicions or threats or even a remote thought of anything else.

  Fully naked now, both of us men, the General and me, duck-walked to pass through the door that led to the next room, which was only five feet in height. The floor and the ceiling and the walls were all made of wood. We eased out of our duck squat and sat on a long wooden bench facing a wooden stove that was percolating. The metal pipe that sat in the middle of it ran all the way out through an opening in the roof and was so hot it was turning red. In this room, both of our heads were touching the ceiling.

  “Is it too hot for you, son?” he asked me. I didn’t say anything. I was adjusting, breathing in the moist heat. I felt it swirling in my lungs and was breathing it back out as all of my pores were opening. I knew he was using that statement to have a double or triple meaning. I knew he was trying to break me, get me under his wing and control, not kill me. But I’m from the desert. I’m from the Sudan, land of the blacks, home of the original pyramids even before Egypt, which was previously known as Kemet, the land of the black-skinned pharaohs, and the region of the prophets Moses, Jesus, and Mohammed, peace be upon them, for those who don’t truly know.

  “When it gets too hot for you, lie down,” he said. “I got this place reserved for two hours. You should be good, clean, smoked, and steamed by then.” He laughed, and the deepness of his voice echoed.

  Crouched there on the bench, sweat pushing out of our pores and glazing our faces and bodies and even soaking our toes, he said, “Let’s begin our negotiation.”

  “Let’s do that,” I responded. Even I was eager. I wanted the information, the verdict, and the conclusion. I’d rather be beside his daughter, nude and moist and wet.

  “You realize that you are not in the same position as you were before when you won, and I allowed you to leave Asia with my sixteen-year-old daughter,” he said.

  “Right,” I agreed, purposely brief.

  “You realize that you committed a serious crime, murder, and you are a convict.”

  “I was in the middle of serving my time for that conviction when your people came locked and loaded and interrupted.” He turned and looked at me hard and grimaced.

  “Ungrateful. You should be glad my people came and ‘interrupted’ you. Or did you grow accustomed to living like a beast?”

  “I’m not confirmed that you have rescued me. You may have sunk me into a deeper legal problem. Convince me. While you’re at it, please tell me exactly what you want.” He was quiet. As the steam rose, shrouding his face, he looked like a gorilla in the mist. At the same time, he resembled my father—his looks, not his content or his style.

  “Son, call it what you like. But it is what it is. Since you have no negotiation etiquette, I’ll give you the harsh bottom line. You are a prisoner of war. Do you know what that means? In this war between you and me, you’ve lost this battle. You know the rules of war, son? When you lose, you lose something of great value, something precious to you. The best outcome for a loser is that he becomes a hostage, a servant, a slave, or a dead man.” He pulled a thick string that caused a bell to ring, then moved off the bench and lay out flat on the floor. The swinging door that separated the steam room from the dressing room pushed open. The blond-haired, blue-eyed young white woman walked in, completely nude and carrying a bucket filled with some fluid. She used a wooden bowl to scoop the liquid and began pouring it all over the General’s body from head to toe. It was water. From his grunting out his relief and pleasure, I knew it was cool to cold water to lessen the intensity of the steam heat.

  “Lay down, son. You gotta learn when to lay down,” he said. “The wrong timing or the wrong decision could leave you out of breath.” As she poured water on him, her eyes were trained on me. I turned from her gaze. I had already seen it all vividly, her plump titties and poked out nipples. Her bald pussy lips and thighs and feet. She’s a trick, I said to myself. His spoonful of sugar to force down the bad-tasting medicine he was trying to feed me. She left.

  “You were purchased, son. A private corporation purchased your sentence and your servitude. Now, they own you.” The door swung back open. The woman reentered the room with two large paper cups filled with water. She handed one to me and placed the other beside him.

  “If you lie down, I’d gladly soak you in some cool water,” she said to me with her eyes and lips.

  “That’s enough,” the General said to her. She turned and left in an instant, leaving the door in the open position, causing cool air to rush in and lessen the heat. I drank the water. Then my mind was ready.

  “I agree. When a man loses a war he becomes a prisoner or a slave. I wasn’t at war with you, though. We both have someone precious in common. The war I was in I won in a sense, because I did what had to be done. I lost in a sense because I got locked up. But I looked at it as me paying the blood price for my actions. My debt to the prison system was three years. That’s in writing. I did seventeen months. I have nineteen months, roughly a year and a half, remaining on my debt to the prison system. If a company purchased that debt, which is something I never heard of, I would owe that company one year and nine months of my time,” I said. Then I rang the bell and lay down.

  “Good, now you’re negotiating,” he said. The naked girl reappeared and began pouring the cool water over me from head to toe. It was a relaxing feeling in a tense time. She left.

  “Your debt was one year and nine months, ‘without incident,’ ” he said.

  “Incident?” I repeated.

  “When your sponsors who purchased you went to pick you up, I’m told they encountered an accident. I’m not accusing you of causing the accident. I wasn’t there. I didn’t see it. But whatever the case, the Department of Corrections lost two men and a truck. That’s a little messy. Your sponsor’s team contacted me, not the local police or prison authorities. In less than thirty minutes, I deployed my team to clean up the scene. That increased your debt,” he said, calm and sly.

  “I’m a businessman,” I said. “I have capital. Talk to me. How much did it cost you, sir, the helicopter ride?” We both sat up
. He looked like he wanted knock my head off. The woman came back to refill the drinking water. I was already tired of her.

  “It’s a holiday, son. Our accountant is adding it up,” he said, pleased with himself. The woman got on her knees and began dipping her sponge in the cold water bowl, and wiping and patting the General down. When she was done, she left. “That wasn’t the only mess I had to clean up. There was the matter of cleaning up your identity, separating you from ‘Jordan Mann.’ Making sure he’s the convict and you are not. That took time, burned up some of my connections, caused me to use up some favors that were owed to me, and I had to do some favors that I never intended to do as well.”

  “Are you saying wthat legally I’m free, not a fugitive or even a convict?”

  “I see you look skeptical.” He chuckled. “Right now, there’s a Jordan Mann serving your sentence. He arrived at Clinton last night same time you were scheduled to arrive, wearing your clothes, doing your time in your place.” My mind raced, although the heat and moisture in the air did slow my thoughts some. Was the prisoner walking downhill escorted by the guard the one who was doing time in my place?

  “What about the fact that they already had my blood and urine and fingerprints?” I asked swiftly. “His profile won’t match up with mine,” I added.

  “That’s the expensive cleanup job that I’ve been alluding to. That increased my special services and your debt. But those services I already made happen. Although it is not a simple matter to delete one man’s records and data, and alter another man’s records and data, my efforts were a success. It turns out that you are going to live well as long as you follow the General’s orders and pay the General what you owe him.”

  “How much is that?” I asked. “Tell it to me straight.”

  “Five painless years. You go to the school in Switzerland for one and a half years, full time, in fact overtime including summers. Graduate, and then you serve the remaining three-and-a-half years under contract,” he said, scheming.

  “Under contract as what?”

  “A member of a secret mercenary army, the Elite Global Organization of Soldiers. You won’t have to wear the uniform you hate so much. It’s a private company. I own it. You will not be a part of the United States military. But you will be under my management and command. I’ll contract you out to elite customers and move you to countries all around the world. You’ll be highly paid. And when your time is up, you walk away,” he said, clapping his hands once and splattering the water in his palms.

  “I’d rather . . .” I began saying, and he interrupted.

  Now I saw and understood the reason why him and me were naked in a strange steam bath. He needed to have this unexpected, strange, and “classified” conversation in a place where it couldn’t be overheard, recorded, filmed, or reported on. Not only because of me and the murder I had committed and been convicted of, but because of the moves he had already taken, that I never requested and that he was now responsible for.

  Teacher Karim Ali had given us a clear definition of the word criminal. He said a criminal is a person, network or institution, business, or system that violates and operates and participates in activities outside of the established laws of the legitimate government or recognized governing body of a city, state, country, or territory. According to Teacher Karim’s definition, me taking the murder of Lance Polite into my own hands was criminal. At the same time, that definition meant that the General is a criminal, and the U.S. military is criminal too. Perhaps that was the reason Ricky Santiaga said “There is no such thing as a bad man.” Because of the system we live in, we all fit the criminal definition perfectly. The only way out of that truth it seemed, was to change the system, completely.

  But I am a Muslim man. I believe there are good and bad men, no matter what the situation. Islam is my belief and my way. I thought all these men, including myself, would be better, live better, and do better if Islam were the rules of law. It’s a faith, and the guidelines are clear. And men can work and earn, live and love, and protect what any right thinking man wants to protect: his family. In order to do so though, men would have to gain a discipline and lose something also. Men would have to sacrifice some vices and habits and occupations that do more harm than good. Humble ourselves and lose something to gain something much better and much greater.

  “Think about it before you speak, son. I’ll give you twenty-four hours to make your choice.”

  “And what if I just buy back my freedom, pay you the debt back in cash or gold?” I proposed.

  “Not possible. In this instance the time is worth more than any money you could put together and that I would accept.”

  “So are you saying that I don’t have the option to serve out my sentence and be done with this?” I asked just to be clear.

  “I told you, you are already serving your sentence and then some.”

  “And then some,” I repeated.

  “Yeah, right about now, Jordan Mann is seated in the hole and under close scrutiny and investigation. What else could he be? There are two corrections officers who died transporting him to prison,” the General said, which translated in my ear as “checkmate.”

  “What about that man?” I asked.

  “Who?”

  “The one serving the time as Jordan Mann.”

  “Don’t worry about him. He’s a slave, a prisoner of war paying down his debt, which has nothing to do with you,” the General said firmly. “If he wasn’t paying it at Clinton, he would be paying it elsewhere in another not-so-nice place. In the prison system, son, you are just a body, a number. You’re human waste.”

  “But, he’s not me,” I said, really at a loss for words.

  “If he causes any mess, he could easily be eliminated in a sudden prison fight. If he interrupts big business, that will be his fate. He is whoever I say he is. Listen, son, when I was your age, I ran into some troubles. I figured out that there were only two sides in this world, simple. There’s the winners and the losers and they’re both heavily armed. I figured out that what makes the winners the winners is that they have authority, a license to hold, a license to kill . . . and get away with it. So you decide which team you want to be a part of, the winners or the losers. If you’re stubborn or stupid, if you swim against the tide or go against the grain, you’ll have no support. You’ll have opened up a can of snakes, and at least one of them will eat you.” He gritted his teeth.

  “Take your time. You have twenty-four hours,” he threatened, politely.

  I had voices streaming through my thoughts: my own voice, the voices of my father and grandfather, Teacher Karim Ali’s voice, Santiaga’s, DeQuan’s, and the voice of that girl who gave that speech in the jail. Seated in the back of the Hummer, on impulse, I did what she recommended. “Check the label,” she had said. I pulled down the black jumper I wore this afternoon. I flipped the collar and checked the label. It had the letters HWM embossed on it. The snorkel had the same label and letters, as did the boots. I smiled. When I was on the yacht with Clementine Moody, he had handed me a note on a small notepad embossed with the capital letters HWM. Long before, my wife had told me that no one knew what her uncle actually did for a living. They only knew what he’d done in the past. Knitting the facts together, the tiniest sloppy mistakes that paid and powerful men are bound to make because no man is perfect, I got it. Clementine Moody was either the owner of HWM or their highly placed and paid consultant.

  “What does HWM stand for?” I asked, suddenly breaking the silence of the ride to wherever was the General’s next destination.

  “Human Waste Management, they are your sponsors. How did you know?” he asked. “That’s classified information.”

  “Their logo is stamped on this uniform they gave me last night, and the coat and the boots,” I said.

  “They’re an up-and-coming powerhouse corporation. The privatization of every service available in the world is on the horizon, including the privatization of prisons and the military and even th
e privatizing of the individual. That’s why I am in the lineup, son. I’m going to remain working high up in the military mainstream, and meanwhile, I’m investing, building and betting on the dark horse. Same as I figured out when I was young, exactly who had the authority to hold and fire their weapons. After a long career, I realized that the ‘endless military budget,’ of trillions of dollars—I needed a cut of that, not just great benefits and a paycheck. I had put in the work and the time. I had traveled the entire range of the globe, every nook and cranny. I had introduced kings and queens and corporate heads and politicians and military higher-ups and even presidents and prime ministers to each other. Through my efforts and introductions, I had created many multi-million-dollar financial business marriages. But, only through owning my own company could I get the cut I deserved. I chose what I know, the military. The creation of a global private army.” He watched me through the rearview to measure his impact. “You know, son, the dark horse will win.” He chuckled. He sounded like Slaughter to me.

  “The HWM corp, is it owned by a black man?” I asked.

  “Yes, but he’s extremely private. He uses his vice president with dexterity. He’s the owner. The VP is ‘the face.’ The owner is a good guy, though. I’ve known him for years.” Then I knew. The General and his brother-in-law had each formed their own corporations and they were feeding one another. Moody had come from the hospital industry, while the General was from the military. The two biggest hustles in the world had joined hands secretly. So secretly that now they were buying and selling humans, their body parts in individual pieces, or their bodies in whole. The American prisons were their playgrounds that stored the inventory known as “human waste.” The entire globe was their marketplace. They were even buying what Allah had gifted each of us in varying degrees, our time on Earth. Furthermore, the learned Clementine Moody had the balls to name his business Human Waste Management. I had gotten that feeling from him when I was riding on his yacht. He believed he could do more with people’s lives and deaths than people could do for themselves. And he believed that people who were not pursuing Ivy League degrees and the status he achieved were actually “waste.”