Page 1 of See No Evil

Prologue

Iwasn’t leavingthat damn place until he was in a body bag. Rivulets of perspiration stung my eyes, and my nineteen-year-old body itched all over as though fire ants were marching on my skin. My nerves twisted and turned, my gut was in fucking knots. I sharpened the knife under that bed, taking my slow, sweet time while the hours passed. My raw anger propelled me forward. Kept me focused on my task. I only paused when I heard my name being called.

Private Vidaaaal!

…and the heavy stomping of boots in the squad bay. There was the jingle of keys, the whispers, then quiet. It would soon start all over again. A never-ending cycle. No doubt they thought I’d gone AWOL. That I’d done the unthinkable. Talked back to someone who believed himself better than me. A bald-headed, overconfident, fucker—a son of a bitch, discriminatory ass White man who called me every damn thing but a child of God.

He was the kind of mothafucka that, had we been peers, I would have bullied and beaten down. He grew up, got a little power, and became a pain in the ass. For weeks, I had been called a spic, nigger-lover, white trash, and more. He didn’t know what the hell I was, and by the time he’d bothered to take a look in my file, it was too late. He switched up to callin’ mea delinquent. Criminally minded. A lost cause. An ejaculation gone wrong.

This piece of shit didn’t know the stock I’d come from, and what I’d survived. Nothin’ he said would do shit to me, but I was damn sure going to make certain he didn’t do it to anyone else. He thought it would bruise me, but all it did was make me pop off more. Defy him. Embarrass him. I knew I was ruinin’ myself because of my anger. I knew I had gone to the dark place, the place Ms. Florence told me to stay away from. It was inside of me, this black hole. I’d go into that, and then turn into a monster. No one was safe when the monster appeared—not even me.

Everything had been goin’ just fine up until now. I was a Private First Class (PFC); had just been promoted by my commanding officer. I was finally succeeding at something. I needed structure and discipline. The stripping of my identity. The boy I once knew was gone. But, until that man looked me in my eye and said those words, I didn’t realize they’d killed the boy that joined the Army long ago, and replaced him with a mammoth demon. He was just waitin’ for the right time to come on out.

Today was his debut.

Hours passed, and it wasn’t long before my fellow soldiers were asleep on their cots. Just as the snoring, grunts, and groans began, and the squeaking mattresses commenced from horny fuckers jerking off, I slipped from below one of the bunks, the second-to-last one from the door, and belly-crawled toward the exit.

Before I managed to get out, I could feel someone lookin’ at me. I turned to see if my intuition was right, and found myself meeting eyes with Private Darold. I was certain he was going to rat me out. He was from Virginia, and a bit of a weasel. Not so much in personality, but in appearance. He had small eyes,a long narrow nose and chin. He never bothered me none, and I ain’t never bother him, either, but we barely spoke to one another, ’cept when necessary. I waited, ready for him to snatch the chance to look like some hero. After all, everyone had been trying to track me down for over seven hours.

We glared at each other. I figured he was getting ready to shoot out of his bunk and yell, “I FOUND HIM! LEGEND IS IN HERE!”

To my surprise, he didn’t do it. We just looked at one another like two mice locked in a cheese-less kitchen. Me on the floor, my heart beating a mile a second, and him in his bed, his resolute bright blue eyes shining almost like a cat’s, in the pale light of the window.

Giving a slight nod, he turned on his side and lay back down, his back towards me. I slipped away, my anger and disgust just as strong as it had been that morning during the final altercation. The one that broke the camel-faced fucker’s back. Major Greenwald had gone to the point of no return.

I was told to cool down. I was told there would be repercussions to my actions. I was told I’d been called a lot of shit. Those are just words to me.

But I didn’t care if I was going to be strung up high and turned to the wind to dry. None of that mattered. It would all be worth it. Every guttural scream. Every time he begged for mercy. Each second closer to his life slipping away would be another feather in my gotdamn cap.

I got to my feet and took careful steps, slinking about in the night. My chest burned as Bobby V.’s ‘Slow Down’ played inside somewhere; the tune suspended in the air like a faint remembrance. I swallowed, grippin’ the knife tighter as I got closer to the officer barracks. The adrenaline never slowed but grew into a mountain of hurting, hot, dripping loathing.

At the same damn time though, I’d thought shit through. I never flew into situations without a plan. I knew everyone’s schedules and habits. This was second nature to me. When you grew up the way I did, you paid attention to movements, patterns, schedules. Prediction was how you survived, as you planned your escape.

Grabbing the keys I’d stolen earlier in the day, I entered the barracks, the lights dim, that music much louder now. Soft feminine laughter echoed from down the hall.

I passed a bunch of rooms where the officers were relaxing for the night. Their quarters didn’t smell like piss and semen. They smelled like hot coffee, food, and lemon Pledge spray. My nostrils filled with the odor of glossy magazine pages. To my right, I spotted a stack of Army pamphlets about mental health lying on a desk. How ironic.

I’d left Portland, Kentucky, seeking a fresh start after juvie, and this was how it was going to end. This mothafucka left me no choice. I’d made peace with that. The front door creaked open as soon as I unlocked Major Greenwald’s sleeping quarters.

I stepped into a small, dark living area, then made my way toward the bedroom, the door to which stood ajar. I peeked inside. His back was to me, and the ember of his cigarette blazed between his fingertips as he looked at his computer, engrossed in a game of solitaire. The glow of the screen shone bright. Careful to not block the light, I crouched down, creeping toward him. It seemed to take forever, but one thing I had plenty of was patience.

Once I was a few feet from him, I stood to my full height. I stood there for a few seconds, but it felt like minutes. I realized he’d seen me when his finger began to twitch, and with a careful glide of his hand, he rested his cigarette in the ashtray.

“What the fuck are you doin’ here, Vidal?” he barked, his attention focused on my reflection on the computer screen.“Oh? So you won’t talk, huh, boy? What you got that knife for, bonehead?”

“I told you not to call me what you called me again.”

He laughed, real slow and easy like, and reached for his cigarette to take a long drawl. He placed it back in the ashtray, and then I could see the shadows in his eyes on the screen, laying bare all the hate he had for me.

“I told Jones and Hornung that you were trouble. Somethin’ is wrong with you half breeds, and it doesn’t matter what the mixture is. Black and White. Asian and White. White and Hispanic. Y’all all end up crazy. This isn’t what God intended, and you are the result of a bullshit decision made from lust and self-hatred. An abomination. With a record like yours, you should’ve never been accepted into the Army. They said you were strong. Aced your physical exams… your test scores were through the roof. Smart kid, they said, with a memory like a steel trap. I told them all that may be true, but you can’t teach a roach, no matter how smart it is at hiding in the fucking dark, to be a soldier!”

“And you can’t teach a major to shut the fuck up before this half-breed roach slices his fuckin’ throat so we can allfinallyhave a moment of silence. Ain’t nobody gonna miss you when you gone. I know what you did…”

That smile faded from his mug, and he finally turned to face me.

“Oh, you believe you’re a man now, huh? Fight me like a man then, and throw that knife away so I can mop the floor with your scrawny ass!”

He rose up quickly, the chair falling and causing me to stumble back, but I kept my footing and my eyes square on him. Spit sprayed out of his mouth and veins popped in his neck each time he ranted and raved, while my mouth turned to black cotton. Adrenaline fueled me in my time of need, as old tapesplayed back-to-back in my mind. Like a marathon of one’s most hated televised show.

---