Blackdoomed

She was just coming out from church service when the black boy made a pass at her.

"Hi pretty," the boy greeted her. "How are ya?".

"How dare you talk to me like that?". She regarded him. "Have you forgotten you're not even supposed to pass through this neighborhood?".

"What? That's bull. Where I come from I can... ".

"Not here little nigger... " .

"How dare you call me a nigger? I'm ...". the black boy retorted.

"Hey! What's happening here?" a tall lanky fellow in religious gown came out and began to intervene.

"It's this little nigger...He's out for some mischief...". the lady from the church answered.

"Woah boy, we don't want any trouble here. Why don't you just run home and leave us alone?" The priest of the Church Under Christ instructed him to do.

"No Reverend, I didn't come here to make trouble. I was passing by, and I greeted her. She turned around and began to call me names... ".

"Are you saying I'm liar?" she cross examined him.

"Yes, I do.".. the boy replied. And, by this time so many of the church members had gathered, and looking toward him.

"Since you want to go that way, I'll tell them what you did" she turned toward an eager-to-hear, all-white members of the church...."..Yeah, folks, this boy tried to assault me. I don't know if he wanted to rob me, or something........".

"What?" some of the men shouted in a rage..

"Boy, this is not a ghetto; we won't allow you to even touch a white lady around here" a man, a Bible in his hand, added.

"She's lying". the black boy quickly protested.

"Hey, you won't get away with this" the hefty, bearded man, a Holy Bible in his hand, approached him and grabbed him.

"Let me go" the boy protested, real loud, as the man squeezed his shoulder blade real hard. "Hang him; hang him" the mob shouted in unison.

"Yes, hang him" the lady said, adding a vocal approval to their readiness to lynch him. Then, many of the fine, white gentlemen, all in tailor-made blue suits, came closer.

They began to kick, some slapped, and some of them received him with heavy-duty blows. The Priest of the Church Under Christ made a sign of the cross, and walked away.

A few minutes later, the fourteen year old boy, who came for a visit from the North, was dangling from a tree, in the deep South; he was naturally lynched, Arkansas of great Bible-belt style..

*******

He did not tell his loving grandmother before he wandered away from her home. He did not know there was a tide of racism, for real, across the border to the Bible belt. He had heard the media talk about it; and, he thought it was a movie thing... an outgrowth of virtual imagination. As he hung, alone, high on a tree, he cried out, calling his father, and his mother, to come to his rescue. But, all to no avail.

"If your father comes here, we'll hang him too" the white, hefty fellow, who first grabbed him, waved his Holy Bible, toward him, all in derision.

"Yeah.. ". all the men, who helped to lynch him, echoed back in unified agreement.

"This will teach other silly niggers like you to know where they belong". the hefty man derided him, once again.

"Yeah..". the men echoed again in mockful air of self-superiority.

"My dad is a marine; he will hear this. He'll make sure you don't get away...". the black boy promised them in pain.

"Hey, get some gas, let's roast him alive. Let's see if his nigger-dad will come and save him; right folks?" answered the Minister's Assistant, Rev. William Watkins, "Look at him, so silly, trying to assault my fiancee. You thought I'd forgive you such a thing? You're dead wrong." The man of God rebuked the black boy dangling on a tree.

"Oh daddy!" the scared boy screamed in pain. "Oh daddy please, please daddy please come and rescue me, please... "

"No, your father won't come. He does not love a nutty boy like you. We had your father's permission to put you up there. Boy, I'm so sorry you did not even know your father asked us to do this to you" the tall, assistant Minister of the Church Under Christ taunted the boy, once again.

The merciless men joined in, jeered at him, and mocked him. Then, he looked around; now, neither his marine father, nor his over-protective mother, nor the lanky fellow, whose advise he failed to heed, was around to rescue him. All he could now observe were nothing but tough,

religious men: They were men with the track records in upholding the Southern ways.

They had lynched before; and, God, in whom they placed their trust, could stand as their true witness. They had done it to maintain law and order, to preserve Superior race and segregation, to keep the Southern ways alive, and to preserve same as the epitomes of Southern heritage.

* * *

Once again, the lynched black boy looked around for a rescue, scared, and screaming in pain. Terror of the moment, by the church men, from the same, of the deep South, surrounded him. He longed in vain, even with a pair of hopelessly terrified eyes...But, all he could see were the mob of rage-blinded church men, who were torturing him. Indeed, in addition, he saw a young white boy, running toward them. The white boy was about his own age. And, in his hands were two gallons of gasoline. And, some of the gasoline were already shaking out from the gallons, because he was really in a hurry; and, he did not cover up the gallons' mouths.

And, as he saw the boy, roughly his age, with the liquid meant to set him ablaze, he tried to scream even louder. As he tried to cry, the loop of the rope that held his neck gave way. It decreased in diameter. And, as it did, it tightened it's grip on his neck.

Now, he began to choke. He started to lose input of fresh air. He was bleeding too. His tensed neck commenced losing its strength to the tenser strength of the rope around it. His jaws started to vibrate to the arrows of his great fears, quaking even faster as the tensed grip of the rope, around his neck, pulled in, and exerted its own pressure, up and real tight. As the gravity, beneath the tree, where he was hanging, pulled his weight downwards, he, invariably, started to give in, and to sag away. Now, he was truly suspended between two unwilling worlds --- the world of sky, above, was unwilling to accept him; the world of the soil, below, was hesitant to have him. The cloud in the firmament, was

even darker blue than usual, all in the horizon... as if even God, in His Majestic Excellence, was really displeased with the lynching.

His remaining strength began to wane as the church men, who hung him, up high, began to flog him, once again. And, some of them shouted at him, angrily. There were those, among them, who spat on him, once again.