The usual disclaimers apply: for adult readers only. Contains graphic depictions of sexual activity between men, some of whom are related.
CHAPTER 1 - SIX AND SEVEN
"You got an F in walking?"
Normally, I'm not that blunt. My friends have always said that I have an uncanny ability to sympathize or, as one friend put it, appear authentic. Just because I excel at some things doesn't mean they are easy for others. I acknowledge that. Not a big deal. But walking?
"Fuck you!"
"No. Brandon, tell me how on God's green Earth you got failed walking...beginning walking at that!"
"Give that back, faggot."
I was driving, so keeping Brandon's report card out of his reach was easier said than done. After two failed attempts, he ripped the report card from my hands. He then punched me straight in the arm, and not in the most playful of ways.
"God, Brandon. With friends like you, who needs enemies?" I complained, rubbing the place he had just landed a pretty solid blow.
"Fuck off."
"So are you going to answer my question?"
"What question?"
"The F. You hold at least a quarter of all the track and field records at Larson High School, you were a two-time Nebraska All-State selection in cross country, you're on a full-ride scholarship to college for football, and you fail walking. How? That's my question. How did you fail walking?"
"Not everyone can be as perfect as you are."
I shook my head. "You've got an A in astrophysics."
"So did you. You got an A in everything. Always."
I felt my blood pressure rising. "Brandon, how you get an A in astrophysics and an F in walking?"
"I fucked Professor Yaccabucci."
Most people would have probably laughed at this, but I knew he wasn't lying, even though we had made a pact that he was going to stop fucking his teachers in order to get passing grades.
"I thought we..."
"We did, but if I didn't get a passing grade, they may not have let me come back next year to play. Too much is riding on my senior year for me to have gotten an F in that class. I did what I had to do, man."
I sighed. Brandon was smart. No, he was really smart. To this day, I don't know if my intelligence intimidated him and made him underperform, or if he was so overextended that he couldn't get the grades he should have, but he definitely didn't live up to his academic potential.
"I assume Vanessa doesn't know?"
"What she doesn't know can't hurt her."
"Great philosophy."
The drive from school to Larson, Nebraska is only a two-hour commute, but like the last day of school during our freshman and sophomore years, the trip was an hour longer. Just getting out of the parking lot was about 30 minutes, and getting out of the city was an additional half an hour. By the time we hit the interstate, we had traveled five miles in about 65 minutes. So needless to say, Brandon and I were already irritable and the "real" part of the trip had just started.
"I failed because walking was on Friday morning," Brandon confessed. "Do you need any further explanation, Fuller?"
I didn't. Our school, like any other school in the country, started its weekends on Thursday. Brandon had a social obligation, as he called it, to live hard on Thursday nights, and even though we had just both turned 21 within the last three months (Brandon in January, me in March), he'd been enjoying the bar scene since his freshman year.
Many people did poorly in that class because you walked...a lot. But this was obviously not the case with Brandon. Any idiot knew that. He failed because the class met once a week and Brandon never showed up for class.
"Please don't let my dad find out, Kevin."
"Why would I tell your dad?"
Brandon was looking out the window with his gaze on nothing in particular. He and I had been best friends practically since I came home from the hospital 21 years ago, but even with all of his athletic success, he always felt like he was second best in comparison.
This, of course, was insane. Brandon was 6'1", and our freshman year, the football's Web site listed him at 195 pounds. Two years later, he was eleven pounds heavier with 8% body fat. So not only could he run faster, bench press more and, as evidenced minutes earlier, punch harder, he didn't exactly have a tough time bringing home the ladies, either.
Don't get me wrong; I'm no slouch. I'm only two inches shorter than my best friend. Although I hung up my cleats after high school, I found myself working out daily as a stress reliever, so my 185 pound body frame was nothing to complain about.
As for my athletic ability, well, someone had to throw him the football in high school to bring in the statistics he did. My quarterback statistics were impressive, and there were definitely schools that were looking at me. Perhaps the fact that I turned down athletic scholarships for academic ones made him work harder, knowing that I could have kept competing with the big boys, too. We were quite the tandem, but I think he wanted to break free of the shadow he perceived himself to be in.
I think the problem was that his dad really pushed him to be what I was in high school: a multi-sport athlete as well as a "little Rhoades scholar", as Mr. Carpenter always put it. The practices and workouts weren't what burned Brandon out. Let's just say the high school weekend scenes definitely made the aforementioned goal unattainable.
"What are we listening to?"
My jeep had an MP3 player installed in it; I had the soundtrack to The Good, the Bad and the Ugly in, music Brandon definitely wouldn't appreciate. After hitting the fast forward button two or three times, the first track of The Fast and the Furious started to play. Not exclusively hip-hop as he would have preferred, but definitely a step up from what was playing, I'm sure.
"What was that?"
"It was music I downloaded to help me study this semester."
"The Good, the Bad and the Ugly?"
"Yeah."
"What is that? Sounds like some white people shit to me."
The comment made me laugh. Brandon and I are both black, but when we graduated, we were the only two African-Americans in our graduating class. White people surrounded us, so the thought of white culture somehow not influencing us at all growing up was impossible...not to mention comical.
"You know, I've never seen the movie," I replied in honesty. "I don't know what the racial makeup of the movie is."
"I can probably guess." He was starting to lighten up now that the conversation wasn't about him any more. I relaxed a bit, too. Any time Brandon was tense, it made me tense. Nervous, and in a few situations growing up, I was genuinely scared. The kid had an anger streak that was tough to predict.
"I never knew so many of us existed. They even have a black student union up there."
"Yes, I know this," I frowned. "I'm the outgoing BSU vice-president."
"Oh." He could sense the discontentment in my tone. "Didn't get re-elected?"
"No," I said flatly. "I mean, I didn't run. I just wished you would have made it to one of the meetings every once in a while."
"I..." He was obviously at a loss.
"I know you were busy," I replied, letting him know it wasn't a huge deal. "I just thought that would have been one of the things where could have really reconnected."
We spent about 90 minutes in silence. I-20 doesn't have much to look at, so both of us just stared out of the respective windows of my jeep. We were finally heading home for the summer, and I was sure when we got back to Larson, our excitement would peak once again.
About 20 minutes away from home, Brandon's phone vibrated in his pocket. Brandon's phone went off all the time; such is the nature of a socialite. And just like a socialite, he was never the kind of guy to keep his adoring public waiting. He checked his texts in the middle of the night, in class, even in his practices. This time, though, he didn't answer right away. It didn't take me too long to realize he was fast asleep.
I reached into the pocket of his track pants and pulled out his cell phone. I looked down and saw DAD listed across the screen.
"Hello, Mr. Carpenter."
"Bran...Kevin?"
"Yours truly." I smiled. Brandon's dad and I had spent many nights together, helping me study for tests or helping me with my ball control for soccer. My dad, although insanely supportive to almost unhealthy levels, was always out of town for business. So Brandon and I grew up like brothers, and Mr. Carpenter had as much authority to punish me as my own dad.
His voice wasn't immediately pleasant. In fact, it was void of emotion altogether. "Hello, Kevin. How far are you away from Larson?"
"I think we're about 20-30 minutes away."
"Ok," he answered, just as flatly as before. "Stop by my house before you go home."
"Well, I need to grab something to mail off from my house first, but I can be over your house right afterwards."
"No!" he exclaimed, almost as if there was something at my house I shouldn't know about.
A welcome home party, I wondered. Brandon and I hadn't been in Larson since the beginning of September. During our freshman and sophomore years, we had come for Thanksgiving and the break between the two semesters, but with Brandon's sports obligations and my volunteer commitments, we had stayed at school for the entire year and hadn't seen our families since we left in the fall.
"No?" I said coyly. I wanted Mr. Carpenter to know that I knew what he was up to.
"No. Your brother has already mailed off a check to reserve the spot for Charlene and Lincoln's reception."
This comment caught me off-guard, not because Kris had already taken care of arranging this part of the wedding, but because Mr. Carpenter already knew what I was planning on doing. I had told Kris that I was going to pay for the reception, but why would Kris have told Brandon's dad about it?
I returned back from the daze after Mr. Carpenter got my attention with two or three hellos. "Yes, Sir. Brandon and I will be there soon."
He didn't say goodbye. He just hung up the phone. I hadn't talked to him since I left, so I wonder if he was so excited to see the two of us that he was tense. Like father, like son.
Or maybe it was because they had to get the lights off and the confetti ready for our return. I laughed out loud at this, which woke Brandon up.
"Thank God!"
The familiarity of our town did the same thing this year that it had in years past. The high school, the grocery stores and the movie theater were all in sight. I could see the park in the distance, and the police station was coming into view. Yep, we were home.
"We're going to your place home first."
"Good, I'm hungry."
"When are you not hungry?"
We passed the police station and veered right onto Inlanders Drive. Nothing had changed. I hadn't expected it to, and the familiar sights were soon going to be grouped with familiar faces.
We pulled up into Brandon's driveway. His house was a ranch-style home with a dirt drive. His front patio was pretty big with one of those two-person swings on the front. The shingles on the roof were fading in color, but the house itself was still very sturdy. The house had been in Brandon's family for only two generations, but the Carpenters did their best to maintain the house and keep it in good condition.
When I parked my jeep in his driveway, I noticed there was a man standing in front of the house's front door. Except it wasn't Mr. Carpenter. Brandon and I looked at each other in confusion. The thought of our welcome home party was no longer on the forefront of my mind. In fact, I had no idea what to think.
"Welcome home, boys."
When we got to the front patio, the identity of the man in question became clear to me. The man was John Cartwright. Mr. Cartwright was an attorney here in town, but his legend was well- established outside of the courtroom. This man was known far across the state as the premiere quarterback at Larson twenty years ago. He was two or three inches taller than Brandon, but this man was big. Intimidating. He might have had a gut from one too many beers, but he still made muscles in places where most people don't have places, and he had to weight between 245-250 pounds.
Mr. Cartwright had been very nice to me growing up, and when I was little, he threw me my first football. My dad said that when I threw it back at him, the biggest possible smile arose on his face. Mr. Cartwright knew I'd grow up to break every single one of his high school records. (It turned out that out of the seventeen records at Larson he held in football, he still maintained twelve of them. I was only able to break three of them.)
Although a torn Achilles tendon kept him from playing in college, he was as healthy, as happy and as daunting as ever. He was wearing a little blue Oxford without a tie coupled with a pair of Khakis. It was like he just got off of work and was going to relax on the couch for a few hours. Except not his couch. Brandon's couch.
"What are you doing here?" Brandon asked, not holding back his dismay. I don't know if Brandon even recognized Mr. Cartwright, but he wasn't thrilled by a "stranger" welcoming him home after eight months of being away at school.
"I'm sorry?" It was just as clear that Mr. Cartwright wasn't expecting that type of welcome and was genuinely caught off guard by Brandon's rudeness.
"I apologize for Brandon's outburst, Mr. Cartwright. I haven't seen you in a while, Sir. Didn't even recognize you. How have you been?"
Mr. Cartwright laughed. "Kevin, it's very good to see you. But please, call me John."
"Ok, John." I smiled. I gave the large man a tight hug as memories of my childhood came flushing back to me.
"We've been waiting for you for quite sometime," John said with a smile on his face. "Both of you, in fact. Please come in."
I looked at Brandon, and to say that he was irritated was quite the understatement. I looked at John, who already knew his agitation stemmed from the fact that he was being welcomed into his own by house by a total stranger.
"What's going on here?" Brandon asked. His irritation was quickly turning to fury, so questions were going to have to be answered sooner than later.
"Yeah, what's up? Mr. Carpenter seemed pretty urgent on the phone". Although I wasn't mad like Brandon was, I was relatively curious what the deal was.
"Ray is inside. He, and your dad, Kevin, are both waiting inside."
John opened the door. The lights were off, and immediately the idea of a surprise party came back to me. I think the idea came across Brandon's mind, too, as his anger quickly subsided and anxiety took over. In his eyes, a surprise would quickly change this odd introduction into a worthwhile experience.
Unfortunately, that idea quickly was dismissed. John turned on the lights, and Brandon's living room was illuminated with no piercing "SURPRISE!" to welcome us back home.
One thing I did notice was that the living room was cleaner than it had ever been in over ten years. Mrs. Carpenter had passed away when Brandon and I were eleven. Mrs. Carpenter gave birth to Marissa, Brandon's sister, but Mrs. Carpenter didn't make it through the experience. Mr. Carpenter was left to raise three children to raise. His job as a police officer paid enough that he was able to financially support them, but the cleanliness of his house was usually the last of his priorities.
Now, the living room wasn't only clean, but the hardwood floors practically shined. The shades were free of dust, and the room, though not large by anyone's perception, seemed bigger than it had before.
"How about you two have a seat?"
There was a scowl on Brandon's face, and it was becoming apparent that his short fuse was getting even shorter. Although Brandon was a receiver, he had played a little defense his senior year to prove that he was a well-rounded player, and the expression he had on his face now was reminiscent of his senior year: he was ready to pounce.
I sat down on the couch in fear. Not only was I concerned with the fact that John had welcomed us into Brandon's home, leading me to believe everything was not alright, but I was concerned with the fact that if John and Brandon were to get into a physical altercation, there was no way I'd be able to get between them. Instantly, I felt weak.
Brandon sat beside me. He looked at me, and I just shrugged. He was trying to cool his jets, and I gave him a "why are you so mad?" look. I trusted John, and there was no reason to think that there was any imminent danger. Brandon took a deep breath, unclenched his fists and turned his attention to John.
John took notice of Brandon's more relaxed attitude and immediately spoke in a tone of assurance. "First, let me start off by reiterating that everyone is alright. Your dads, Henry and Kris are all waiting for you in the kitchen."
"Where are all the women?" I asked.
"Catherine, Charlene, Marissa and little Gabby are all at the hospital," John replied.
"Hospital?" Brandon and I replied at the same time. Normally Brandon would giggle at something as trivial as saying the same thing at the same time, but the idea of my mother, my sister, his sister and his niece at the hospital while our dads, my brother and his uncle sat in the kitchen was starting to wear him down.
"How many times do I have to tell you everything is fine?" There was a hint of irritation in his voice, but only temporarily. His mood quickly shifted. "Kris and Emily are the proud parents of a 7 pound, 2 ounce baby boy. Kyle was born late last night and is good condition."
Kris, with whom I talked to at least four times a week, had somehow forgotten to tell me that he was going to be a dad. His negligence spun around in my head until I came to the only reasonable, albeit vague, conclusion: something was terribly wrong. My genius brother was an airhead, for sure, but he was also incredibly responsible, and the fact that he wasn't in the emergency room with his wife and son meant that he was here against his will.
"Is Earl there, too?" Brandon asked. I looked at him, and there was no consoling him. He was starting to get the hint that even if everyone was safe and alive, something...a big something...was amiss.
"All of your questions will be answered here shortly. It's best if you both stay calm and give me the opportunity to explain. Then you will have the opportunity to ask any questions you'd like to."
I looked at Brandon, who had clinched his fists tight again. From thinking that there was a surprise party to fearing for the wellbeing of our families, his emotions had gotten the best of him. I put my arm on his bicep, and for the first time since we had sat down on his couch, he acknowledged my presence. He always looked to me for peace, and my hand gave him just that.
At this point, John was right. For us to speculate what was going on was counterproductive. "Ok, so what's going on?"
"What I'm about to say is going to shock you. It shocked Ray. It shocked James. It shocked Henry. It shocked Earl. It shocked Kris. There's no way for this to not come off as shocking, but one thing I will tell you is that this is very real."
I nodded my head, but I looked over to Brandon when I heard an audible gulp come from his throat.
John remained very relaxed as he started into his explanation:
"Kevin, I'm fully aware that you are familiar with Ivan Pavlov's contribution to classical conditioning, but for Brandon's sake, I will explain it as your understanding of how it works becomes crucial to what lies ahead for you."
I always hated when people assumed I was smarter than Brandon, but at this point, Brandon was so ready for an explanation that he remained unfazed.
"Over a century ago, Ivan Pavlov was conducting an experiment on the digestive processes of dogs when he noticed a strange occurrence. It appeared that the dogs would begin to salivate when they saw the lab technician who normally fed them. This automatic response from the dogs intrigued him. Pavlov theorized that even if the lab technician came into the dog chamber without food, through repetition, the dogs subconsciously equated the technician's entry with food. This is known as classical conditioning."
"Pavlov proved that his theory was right by replacing the lab technician with a metronome. Sure enough, after a few repetitions, the dogs would hear the metronome and start to salivate. To you and me, there's nothing tantalizing about the sound of a metronome, but through classical conditioning, Pavlov was able to take something completely neutral to the situation and have it create an automatic, uncontrollable response."
I looked over at Brandon and had no idea whether this was new to him or not. He, like me, was waiting to see how this had to do with the strange welcome we'd received.
"About three years ago, an American by the name of Timothy Grant decided to take the experimentation one step further and to see if it worked on more advanced organisms. He wanted to know if the experimentation worked so well with dogs because of their relatively simple minds, or if this were a trick that could be used universally."
"He decided, for fear of a social backlash, that he wouldn't try it on humans. Rather, he tried it on a specimen that's just one step...one major step...down from humans. And I'll be damned, it worked."
I was growing tired of this conversation. John was being ambiguous for dramatic effect, I was receiving a lecture I had received back in the eighth grade, and none of my questions were being answered. "With all due respect, John, I don't need a trip down memory lane." I cringed, but I continued. "I don't care about any recent chimpanzee experiment. Just please get to the point."
"Very well, Kevin," he replied, a bit irritated that I had interrupted him. "I want you both to follow me, but I don't want you to say a word when we get in the kitchen or there will be major problems for everyone involved."
For the first time since coming into Brandon's house, I was legitimately scared. Kris was in this room instead of being with his newly-born baby and now I was to remain silent as to what I was about to see. I was a nervous wreck, but I got out of the couch and followed John to the door that separated the Carpenter living room from its kitchen. Brandon, who I thought was going to have a heart attack, followed closely behind.
John reached for the door. "Brandon. Kevin. I introduce you to your fellow contestants in The Pavlovian Games!" The door swung open, and what I saw next would send shivers down my spine for the next 30 minutes.
I must have stood in the doorway for thirty second with my mouth wide open, motionless before John ushered me into the kitchen. Even though Brandon was behind me, I could hear his heart beat wildly, almost so fast that I was as equally concerned about his well being as I was the well being of the men in front of me.
"The fuck?"
Brandon's interjection shook me from my second wave of motionlessness. He had gone from shock to anger, but this time, he was going to need some physical restraint. I broke my stare from the debacle that was in front of me to focus on my rambunctious friend behind me.
"What the...the...what the...?"
Brandon was starting to foam at the mouth. It was almost as if he was losing complete control over all of his reactions. Although the sight before us needed some serious explanation, I immediately realized that our families were not in any immediate danger. In fact, they were calm. Brandon wasn't, and I started to wonder if his spastic behavior would endanger them.
"Brandon."
"What the..."
"Brandon!"
Now Brandon was crying. I grabbed his arm as tight as I could, pinching him to cause enough of distraction to get his mind off the sight. To some degree it worked, and his arm dropped to the counter beside us. His breathing hadn't slowed, and if John said the wrong thing, he'd surely blow another gasket.
"Kevin, I...do you...?"
"Brandon, John is going to explain what's going on in a second, right?" I looked at John, and he nodded. I looked back at John. "But you acting this way could...I don't know...put them in jeopardy. Fucking relax!"
The last two words came off stronger than I expected, but their impact definitely worked. I took the back hand and wiped away the drool away from his lips. I wiped it on a dish towel and brought both of my hands to either side of his head. I brought his forehead to mine, wincing when they connected.
"You okay?"
Once they came out of my mouth, I realized those weren't the words I meant to use as I wasn't okay, either. But he knew what I meant and nodded his head in agreement.
I turned around and faced the curious sight for the second time. In the center of the kitchen was a large, circular dining room table. It was much larger than the one that had been placed there before. There were four chairs, and as John had promised, there were Brandon's dad, my dad, Brandon's uncle and my brother, each sitting in silence.
The first thing that I noticed was the fact that all four motionless men were a lot bigger than I had remembered them. Even though I had been gone since September, their whole bodies had grown exponentially. Brandon's arms had gotten bigger through endless workout, but the four men who sat in front of me could be mistaken for professional athletes. At second glance, I realized that none of them had bodybuilder physiques, but any one of the men sitting in front of us could have been on the front cover of a health and fitness magazine, no doubt. Maybe not a bodybuilder, but any one of them could have a career as a professional wrestler.
Each of them sat in a chair that had arms. All four of them had each of their respective wrists handcuffed to the arm of the chair. There wasn't any give in the body of the cuffs, so their arms were awkwardly restrained to the chair. Much like their arms, their ankles were shackled to the legs of the chairs.
I couldn't see any of their faces. Each one of the men had a black, lightweight spandex hood that covered their entire head. Other than the scar that identified Brandon's uncle, I had no idea who was who. The hood didn't have eye openings; it only had an opening for the mouth. None of the mouths had any sense of facial hair, so there was no distinguishing which set of full lips belonged to my dad, to Brandon's dad and to Kris.
Around their necks were identical collars. Each was thick and looked heavy. They looked like dog collars. The thick, metal chain was locked together with a 1" padlock. In each of their mouths was a steel ring that kept their mouths ajar. Leather straps came from each side of the rings, and the straps were tied to the back of their heads. Talking was impossible, but perhaps more unsightly was the fact that each of them had a thick stream of drool coming from his mouth, culminating into a large pool of water in front of them. With their hands immobile, it became apparent that these fountains of drool were intentional.
And then there was the clothing. Or, more accurately, the lack there of.
All four men were completely naked. Other than the hood, the gag, the shackles and the collars, each of them sat bare. So even the parts of them that defined their manhood lay flat against the seat of their respective chair.
The more I stared, the more answers I needed. Why were they sitting there, and more importantly, was there anyone in this room I didn't see that was keeping them there? My dad, a proud and respected businessman, was now sitting in front of me, stripped of his integrity. Never would I be able to see him as a strong provider of my family. Now he was the belittled captive of the man that stood beside me.
But the tears started to fall when I thought of my big brother. No one in my life had meant more to me than Kris, and if what John said was true, then Kris sat here at this table, unable to control the dehumanizing drool that fell from his lips while his wife and his mother cooed over his new son.
My first thought was to go over and relieve each one of them from their current predicament. There was no one else in the house. But that same thought is what kept me motionless. Although my brother might not have been a hot head, my dad had a temper that even my mom couldn't control. And Brandon's temper wasn't even remotely comparable to the tempers of his dad and his uncle. Whatever predicament they all were in was big enough to keep all of these attitudes in check.
Even still, each sat in complete silence. Picturesque, really. If they were scared or mad or upset, none of them wore it in their body language. Though their faces were masked, my uncle stared at one of them men as he stared back at him. The same was true for the remaining men.
The most overwhelming emotion to deal with, though, was shame. Whatever it was that was being done to them was not being done with the intent of causing them bodily harm. There was a very strong sense of meticulousness that went into displaying them the way they were. In fact, whoever had arranged this scene for us did so to replace the way we thought about them. Their intent was to remove the images of respect we had for them and, in exchange, reduce them into...well, this. Senseless entities, shrouded with anonymity.
Our escort walked to the refrigerator, located on the far side of the kitchen, and pulled out a pitcher of water. I watched as he glided across the room, as if this display wasn't anything unusual. He peered over his shoulder once, smiling at the image, and reached for three glasses in the cupboard.
"Thirsty?"
I nodded my head. For some reason, a calming sense came over me. As horrified as I was at the current predicament and as anxious as I was at knowing what was happening, I realized that the situation at would best be handled with a clear mind.
But a second later, another thought crossed my mind: I was to join their fate.
I pushed that thought from my mind and drank the water. Brandon's tears were uncontrollable right now. He was terrified, and the last thirty minutes proved to anyone watching that he didn't have firm control over his emotions. There wasn't anything I could do for him at this point other than start clarifying the situation, hoping that answers would soothe.
But before I could ask any questions, John broke the silence. "I've said it before, but to reiterate, no one has been hurt. Their egos have been irreparably destroyed, of course, but all four of them are doing fine In fact, each is elated that you are back from college and will be happy to tell you after this initial meeting is over."
I reached for my glass. My throat was dry, and as I spoke, it came off as if I hadn't had water for years. "So what does classical conditioning have to do with...with this?"
The soliloquy continued. "Mr. Grant's original goal was mind control. To make a long...and slightly boring...story short, he studied Pavlov in an effort to pursue his own selfish goal of being able to read the minds of his peers. He was fully aware that classical conditioning wouldn't give him psychic abilities, of course, but he wanted to see if it was possible to have a level of control over an individual that having a person do whatever he said without hesitation." Brandon had stopped crying. He was now listening and, like me, trying to piece together this bizarre story. "So you got these guys to be like this through mind control?"
John went to shake his head, but decided against it. "Kind of."
"Kind of," Brandon repeated, confused.
"Mr. Grant wasn't able to achieve his goal of global domination, as I have satirically described it in the past. But he was able to develop something far greater: he created, quite literally, an obedient slave."
The two words sent chills down my body. The chills were so intense that I almost dropped the glass in my hand. Henry, Mr. Carpenter, my dad and Kris were not just slaves, but through intense conditioning, they couldn't fight it.
"The Larson's Gentlemen's Club, or the LGC, was established in October of last year. Police Chief Hayden Rouge is the current president, and he does a damn fine job if you asked me. All white men of adult age are encouraged to join. We're at about 90% of the town's population at this point."
"White men only, huh?" I laughed at how bluntly racist this was becoming.
"The only reason it's white only is become all of the adult black population are participating in the experiment," John smiled.
"Yeah," Brandon said. "Unwillingly."
"That's not true!" John barked. "If you were to ask your dad if he had a choice to participate, he'd say yes."
I rolled my eyes. Whatever choice he was given must not have been a choice at all. That thought, however, brought me to another startling realization. "How did you get them to agree to this?" I used air quotation marks around the word agree.
The question sparked movement. John reached down to the large briefcase that was sitting beside the counter. He shuffled between paper and folder until he pulled out two official-looking packets. He placed them on the countertop, one in front of me and one in front of Brandon searched through his briefcase again and pulled out two pins in front of each packet.
"Principal Geyser caught wind of this project over the Internet. He brought it to me, and we both were so intrigued by it that we wanted to see if this would work on the seven of you. And evidenced by the exponential increase in the size of the group, we weren't alone."
"This is bullshit." Brandon's fury was starting to build again.
John ignored the outburst. "So Kevin, you weren't entirely right when you interrupted me early. Chimpanzees are not the closest living species to humans. You are!"
My heart dropped. A man I had considered a friend an hour ago just implied that African- Americans were their own species and that we were somewhere between men and chimpanzees.
"The LGC has unanimously agreed to take on this project but under a few conditions. One is that the black womenfolk are left in the dark about the whole ordeal. Your mother and your sister are good friends of all of the white womenfolk in the town. There's no need to shake the boat. In fact, none of the women in town know what's going on. Not even my wife."
It was the first good news I had heard all day. Mom and Charlene were not only safe, but they were none the wiser of what was going on. "So you've been lying to them for the last several months..."
"Yes," John said, cutting me off. "For the most part, they think these men are members of the LGC and are happy to give them their space. Emily even accepted that this weekend was a huge initiation and `let' Kris spend the weekend with us until he could come visit his son."
I looked back at the table. Not one of them had moved.
"There is one catch, unfortunately," John said, drawing our attention back to him. "The women are safe and ignorant of the situation now, but that's based on your unwavering compliance. Yet, if you choose not to participate, then that won't necessarily be the case. This was a hard stipulation for the LGC to agree with since this entire project is supposed to be harm-free. But there was no other way to force participation."
In a sick way, it made sense. There was no way to get my dad, my brother, Brandon's dad and his uncle to participate to this nonsense. They had been blackmailed into it, and John's previous comment about willingness made sense. With our young, innocent relatives' lives on the lines, I imagine not one of them thought twice about the agreement.
"Each of these men have been enslaved since about November, but as you might imagine, the conditioning has to remain constant for the desired effect to maintain itself. So they spend their weekends with us, each in their own individual chamber, watching video after video to enhance their training, and then spending time with their...well, we'll call them their personal trainers. Each of the four men you see before you have responded far past any of our expectations."
For the first time, the fact that John referred to four men and not five brought the obvious question to Brandon's mind. "Where's my brother?"
John smiled; his smile was full of contempt. "Earl is a stubborn individual. He obviously cares for the well being of his family, but the idea of being enslaved by anyone didn't sit well with him. So he decided to run away."
"However," John said before either one of us could respond, "he quickly came back to his sense two days later, knowing that he had put everyone he knew in jeopardy. Both the LGC and the men before you were all relieved that no one had to be hurt because of his selfishness, but it was decided he had to pay a hefty price because of his insubordination."
Brandon's eyes widened. "You didn't!?"
John had a look of confusion on his face for the first time. "Didn't what?"
"He's... I mean, you didn't..." Brandon was getting choked up, but his inability to articulate his question ironically made both John and I aware of his concern.
"No, Earl is still alive. He's doing well, actually. We don't want to hurt anyone. As punishment, Earl is in jail. He has been there since February and is scheduled for release in a week or so. He is allowed one visitor a week, and since he impregnated his girlfriend, she spends the allotted hour per week with him every Sunday."
Had the announcement been under different circumstances, I would have laughed at Brandon's reaction. He grinned, but the grin evaporated as quickly as it formed. He was stoked at the prospect of finally being an uncle, but saddened that, like Kyle, Earl's son would probably grow up in the most unusual of circumstances.
"Unlike these gentlemen, Earl spends 6 days a week with his personal trainer. His obedience is 100%. He's a great slave, and the LGC is excited about seeing what type of progress he's made."
I finished my glass of water, and John filled it up again.
"Thank you, Sir."
I immediately recognized how automatic my respect was, and John bit his lip so he didn't laugh. My family and my best friend's family had been conditioned to respond in a way I did naturally. Fuck.
"Each of the four men here is allowed to live his life, uninterrupted, four days of the week. We don't want suspicion to arise, and we honestly want you all to be happy. We all like you, whether the current situation might make you think otherwise. And no one outside of the LGC knows any different. Saturdays are meant for conditioning, and Sundays are meant for slave labor. The only catch is that any one of them can be used only one day of the week. That's to say, any LGC member can remind them of their place and use them accordingly."
"Wouldn't that catch a woman's attention if they were instantly...I don't know, transformed?" I asked.
"Each member," John said, "is instructed to only use that ability in the most discrete manner. Negligence on any LGC member would result in punishment similar to that of the negligence one of you might cause."
"So when does this end?" Brandon asked.
"I'm glad you asked. We've made this into a game as I alluded to earlier. The seven of you are all playing against one another, and the method you use to win is completely up to you."
"How is this a game?" Brandon shot back.
"Both of you will go through the same conditioning used on your families until the slave effect is as strong as it is with Ray, James, Earl, Kris and Henry. The two of you will be no different, and then the Pavlovian Games will begin."
"However, when you two become official participants, one of the current players will be quickly eliminated. In fact, the first elimination will happen tomorrow in front of the entire LGC!"
"Eliminated?" This time, I was the one to speak up. To me, an important part of the "game" had been left out of his description.
John must have understood my confusion, and he reached into his suitcase to grab a small gift box. He placed it to the right side of the packets on the counter, and he opened it to reveal its content. Six pills sat inside. Each was a very dark maroon color and was engraved with a white X.
"Let's just say these are not FDA approved...and very expensive."
"What are they?"
"These are what we have colloquially called the X pills. They were invented by Mr. Grant. Each pill is very potent with neuro-chemicals that will permanently alter its digester's mind. Immediately, free will and independent thinking will go the way of Old Yeller. Reborn will be a reprogrammed mindless slave, unconcerned with anything other than serving."
It was my turn to gulp loud enough that Kansasians could hear me. This situation had been crazy enough, but now there was some magical pill that was going to turn me into a permanent slave. My dreams of starting a family and moving out west were now on hold, and instead of being the activist I had wanted to be, the possibility of becoming property to another man was the more likely outcome.
Brandon had been trying to maintain his dignity, but he finally lost it when he heard the result. He looked like he had already been beaten, and tears were uncontrollably taking over his face. He, like me, was terrified at the possibility of giving up who he was.
I looked over at the table and held back my own tears. "Will we still know who we are?"
"Of course you will, Kevin." The fact that he used my first name struck an uneasy feeling in me. It was soothing. Perhaps I would say it was calming. And most importantly, it was sincere. It was as if this game wasn't done in malice, but as if it had to be done this way.
"Each loser will have their current spirit inside of them. Metaphorically speaking, the pill simply locks that man away. He'll sit on the sidelines, to use a sports analogy, and watch the new you live life. He'll love the people he loved before the transformation. They will always be there, but those feelings will be trumped so heavily by the need to serve that anyone else won't know that those feelings are even there."
My stare was still locked on the table. There were so many thoughts that were going through my head.
"Besides," John continued, "the game can only end when you want it to end. You see, these pills only work if you allow them to. In each of their collars, there is a small electronic transmitter that, when placed firmly against the body, will tell how susceptible to the pill the individual is. We call it the Resistance Level. If the Resistance Level is too high, the pill isn't going to work. If you two were to take them right now, for example, each pill would be a poor investment; your Resistance Level is currently way too high, and they'd have the same effect of an ibuprofen. And as you see, there's only six. Whoever isn't transformed...well, he wins."
Brandon wiped away the tears with the mention of hope. "So it's possible none of us could lose this game?"
For the second time, John was hesitant in his response. "Technically, yes. But that's not going to happen?"
"Why not?"
"Three of the five men already have Resistance Level scores that are well below what is necessary to make the transformation. As I said before, one will be making the transformation tomorrow."
I didn't blink. Tomorrow, one of the men sitting at the table was going to be permanently different.
"Who is it?" Brandon asked.
"I'll tell you within five minutes. That's how long the two of you have to make your decision. I've explained the game. No more questions asked. You don't really have a choice - I'm not going to pretend like you do have a choice – but I'm not going to give you days to think about this either."
The soothing tone to his voice was gone, but I couldn't help but wonder if he changed back to the stern demeanor only to move it along. It was clear that there were safeguards to protect everyone. The punishments were drastic enough to cause an infinite number of problems, but John and the LGC had managed to have enough support that any sort of disappearance would be explained.
"What if...?" Brandon started to ask.
"Five minutes begin now."
I looked at the packet, wondering why he had placed it in front of us. I could have read a significant part of the packet in five minutes, but John and I knew that this wasn't a matter of technicality. The words were just that. Words. John said no questions, and I knew immediately that the time to act was now.
Images of a future as a slave flooded my head. I wouldn't finish college. I wouldn't be accepted into any law school. I wouldn't be able to travel long distances like my dad did for work, nor would I be able to travel short distances like my brother did for his. My dream of leaving this small town behind me would be dashed.
Thirty seconds passed, and Brandon was done thinking about it. He picked up the pen, flipped to the last page of his respective packet and signed on the line. As he finished up his signature, his head dropped. The defeat that he had felt earlier was back, and he knew what he had just done.
Just as soon as Brandon placed the pen down, John reached into his suitcase and pulled out two collars and two ring gags, identical to what the men at the table were wearing. He placed one set on my packet and walked toward Brandon. Brandon backed up a step, but he braced himself. John wedged himself behind the counter and walked behind Brandon. He placed the steel chain around Brandon's neck. Then he squeezed back around to face Brandon while reaching through his pockets.
"You've made a good choice, Nigger Six," he said as he put the key into the collar's padlock.
Only one man had ever called Brandon a nigger before, and he paid for it with two of his teeth. Brandon was no happier to be called it a second time, and he had every intention of showing John that he wasn't anyone's nigger.
Unfortunately for Brandon, his fist never made it to his verbal assailant's body. Expecting that level of defiance, John removed the face of his watch and tapped a small button fast enough that an electronic shock went through Brandon's body.
"Ah!" Brandon screamed. The pain was obviously excruciating, but John kept his finger on the button that was evidently connected to the same electronic device in Brandon's collar that measured his Resistance Level. Brandon's tears of sadness didn't compare to the tears of agony he was shedding now. His whole body was convulsing, and as his strength started to evaporate, he involuntarily fell to his knees in front of John.
"What are you, ape?" John bellowed. His voice demanded submission, and Brandon's immediate situation called for it. But Brandon's pride and a second racial slur kept Brandon from answering the question.
"Fuck you, cracker!"
Only an idiot would respond that way, and Brandon proved that he was that idiot. John didn't remove his finger from the small button, and the electronic shock stayed consistent. Brandon's eyes were starting to turn red, and he went from a kneeling position to flat on his stomach. His screams had changed from those of a man in pain to those of a woman. The base in his voice was long gone, and his lack of obedience was starting to look like a fatal flaw.
"Tell me, coon. Say I'z a nigger for da white man, Massa." John repeated.
The dialect of John's demand made it clearer how this game works. Belittlement. Degradation. Embarrassment. Even semi-public humiliation. Each worked to slowly erode the resistance of each participant until he didn't want to play any more. Whoever had given up and was facing transformation tomorrow had grown tired of situations similar to these. He must have thought he couldn't be degraded and humiliated if he was happy to oblige to these types of belittling instructions, and the only way to be happy was to lose the game.
Although in an unconvincing tone, Brandon obliged.
"I'm a nigger for the white man, Massa." Brandon said it in a whisper, but it was loud enough for John and me to hear it. John let go of the button in his watch and snapped the face back on. Brandon, meanwhile, was choking and trying to rebound from the electric experience. Unfortunately, the pain had taken its toll, and Brandon's response must have been the result of desperation.
He had passed out.
John turned his attention to me. "By no means does this have to be like that. Neither one of your family members has ever felt any sort of electric shock since this game began. But you only have a minute left."
For the first time in my life, I didn't know what to do. My best friend was unconscious. His motionless body was sprawled on the floor in front of me. For all I knew, he could be dead. The safety of my mom and my sister were at stake. My dad and my brother sat ten feet from me, and depending on who was being transformed tomorrow, I didn't know if I'd ever be able to talk to one of them as men ever again.
John walked up so that his chest was up against my face. He took his index finger and tilted my chin so that his eyes looked directly into mine. I was afraid for my life, but my eyes didn't waiver.
"Do you have a choice, Nigger Seven?"
The thought of spitting in his face, or running, or doing anything else to escape all burned brightly in my mind. But before I could rationalize which one would be the least harmful to everyone involved, I looked to my left at the table. The man sitting to the right of Brandon's uncle shook his head. It wasn't emphatic, but it was enough to make me realize he was answering the question for me. It was as if he knew I knew the answer, but he knew I needed one more rational person to help me make the right call.
It was Kris.
"No, Sir," I said, back away from John. "I don't."
I didn't know what the future was going to hold for me, but I knew what I had to do. I took the pen and flipped to the last page. I cringed, took a deep breath, laughed silently to myself and signed my name.