The Life of Koru, Chapter 19
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"Whitey, you will move all these boxes to the deposit, do you understand me?"
"Yes, sir!"
"Whitey, I want that floor scrubbed clean. Not once, not twice, but three times, until it shines!"
"Yes, sir!"
"Whitey, I changed my mind! Take those boxes that you placed in the deposit and put them back in the truck!"
"Yes, sir!"
Sir Ishmael was running back and forth all day to meet the demands of Sir Gada, the stern overseer in the warehouse. It was Prof. Kumbaba who had chosen the name Whitey for him. Every day, from early morning till late evening, Ishmael was the slave in the warehouse, the janitor as he was called, as being a janitor was a job mostly reserved for koru.
One day, the overseer stopped from ordering, he approached Sir Ishmael and told him:
"You have a funny way of talking, koru! Never heard that accent before!"
"Well, I speak how I can, Sir!"
"Where do you come from?
"Kampala."
"Not many koru in Kampala from what I know."
Ishmael couldn't stand this charade anymore and as Prof. Kumbaba was not there, he erupted:
"Look, I am actually a Black citizen! My name is Ishmael Ajani! Prof. Kumbaba transformed me into a koru using a strange machine!"
The overseer started laughing:
"Good story, koru! I'm going to tell it to my friends."
And then, raising his hand, he slapped Ishmael in the face.
"This is for talking nonsense, ape! Now back to work!"
Sir Ishmael spent the rest of the day doing chores and thinking how to prove that he was actually a Black man. What if he told the overseer that he could read, that he had good knowledge about the world, that he was well-educated? No koru that he knew of could do that. But how many koru did he actually know?
Was it far-fetched to think that Prof. Kumbaba had some slaves trained to parrot information about the world and that those slaves could even read? This would make Sir Ishmael's display of knowledge less impressive to the overseer. But above all, Ishmael tried to think how he himself would behave if someone looking like a koru tried to tell him that he was actually a Black gentleman. Would he believe him? Of course not! The looks were those that established who was a koru! Any other argument was bound to fail. As for his reading comprehension, Ishmael decided to hide this information from the overseer.
It was hard enough having to work all day, but doing it fully naked felt strange and shameful.
No matter what he did, Ishmael couldn't avoid looking at his white skin. The more he knew about it, the more he felt vulnerable. When he was ashamed it blushed, when he was afraid it paled, when he was cold it was purple. His body felt color-coded to communicate to his superiors his exact state of mind. As a slave he couldn't hide anything from the overseers. His hide betrayed him. Ishmael hated this new skin of his that sent signals to the world like traffic lights, almost as if screaming: "I'm a slave, I'm a slave, Sirs! I tell you exactly how I feel, so you know and can control me better!"
"Fuck this white skin!" Ishmael thought.
What was worse though was that whenever he was pinched or slapped by Sir Gada, his skin turned to a lustful red which only encouraged the overseer to do it again. It was almost as if white skin was made for abuse, which is exactly what every Black overseer thought.
White skin! White skin! In the Black Empire, whiteness was synonymous to animality. Ishmael felt reduced to an animal and at night he had to sleep in a cardboard box. It was a sort of humiliation that he had never experienced before and it woke up a demon inside him that he didn't know existed. In the darkness of the night, he took his big white cock in his hand and started stroking it with vigor abandoning himself to his darkest fantasies. How it would be, he started thinking, if he were finally sent to a plantation? The sweat, the back-breaking labor, the whips that never stopped cracking... He would be there naked and sweaty, among other slaves just like him... "No, no," he thought. He had to fight these fantasies. He was a Black man, always a Black man, not a koru, not a koru!
Mulo and Peon couldn't forget the day they left the plantation and looked back towards the slave camp, seeing Dumbo as he struggled to breathe on the double cross. He was after all their friend. Peon saw him like a brother. As for Mulo, despite having been abused by Dumbo, he was full of compassion for Dumbo's plight and felt sad for hating him in the past. And most of all, he felt his ass would be forever hungry for a cock like his.
After a few days of walking behind Sir Jared's horse, they were brought to a Punishment and Correction Facility that functioned along the main road towards Rio.
It was a Correction Facility owned by Massa Reginald and its main purpose was the rehabilitation through work and harsh discipline of the slaves who committed minor offenses. Going there was the koru equivalent of going to university: it made you improve. Correction Facilities had an almost 100% rate of turning the slaves into more productive, more obedient drudge workers that never questioned what they had to do.
Sir Jared met with the chief of the facility, Sir Tariq Mekonnen, who had been announced about Jared's transfer and was ready for a new collaboration. He even declared himself impressed with the two slaves Mulo and Peon, who looked fit for working in road construction.
"They do need some adjustments though!" Sir Tariq said.
"Oh yeah!" Sir Jared remembered. "Get ready to be shoed, boys!"
Getting "shoed" meant being made to wear iron shackles around the ankles, really thick iron shackles, which the overseers ironically called "shoes". The slaves simply called them "irons" or "jangles", and they did jangle a lot as they were connected with a short chain. This made walking difficult as you always had to keep in mind how far your foot could go, otherwise you were hampered at every step and risked falling. The chains and shackles were not made for a slave's comfort, they were a form of punishment for disobedient slaves, especially those who were suspected of plotting escape, like Mulo and Peon.
The slaves were taken to an improvised blacksmith workshop that contained a large anvil, a hammer and a few chains and shackles. The blacksmith was a massive burly slave called Smasher.
"Alright, boys! Who's first?" Smasher addressed the slaves.
"Me, suh!" Peon said.
Peon jumped full of courage on the anvil, placing his large feet right in front of the blacksmith.
"Big ass feet ye have there, boy!" the blacksmith said. "Let me put some chains on them!"
With swift confident moves, Smasher started to fasten the shackles around each ankle. The heavy thud of the hammer echoed through the air as the iron loop was made to meet itself into a tight embrace.
At the end of it, Peon said:
"Thank ye, suh!"
"No biggie!"
It was now Mulo's turn.
As soon as Mulo stepped on the anvil and felt the cold iron on his ankles, he was afraid. It was quite dark in the workshop and any wrong move could mean his feet were going to be hit by the hammer, instead of the irons. So he stood there petrified by fear, scared to even blink. But the blacksmith was quite skilled. He was an expert in shoeing horses and shoeing slaves.
Mulo was very grateful when he realized that his feet were not harmed.
"Thank ye, suh!" he said.
"No biggie!"
Both slaves now had big shackles around their feet and a short chain in between to stop them from running.
"Come with me to the workplace, slaves!" Sir Tariq said.
But Sir Jared couldn't resist placing his foot on Mulo's chain as he was leaving, making him tumble face forward to the ground.
"Damn, slave, learn to walk without falling, you stupid ape!" Sir Jared said, kicking Mulo in the ass.
"Yessuh!" Mulo said.
This was just the first spoonful of revenge that Sir Jared was paying back for the fact that he was demoted.
Mulo and Peon spent the rest of the day with Smasher, helping him in his workshop. It was a good opportunity for them to learn new skills and increase their value as slaves.
"Ye want to learn blacksmith'ry, boys?" Smasher said. "Ye look like ye have the bodies for it!"
Peon had great admiration for blacksmiths and behaved like a true apprentice. Each time, Smasher showed him something, he responded with utmost gratitude:
"Yessuh, bossuh! Thank ye, bossuh!"
And he did what he was told.
Mulo felt the need to behave just like Peon, as Peon was his role model.
The atmosphere in the workshop was hypnotic. Next to the fire, Peon's sweaty body shined like an armor made of muscles and flesh. He was a true monkey god in his naked splendor and it made Mulo constantly think about rough sex.
Smasher was very happy with his two apprentices.
They forged shoes for the horses and shackles for slaves, then changed the horse shoes of Sir Jared's horse.
Smasher taught them how to maneuver hot metals and how to work with the fire without getting burnt.
"Ye should never be afraid of the fire, boys!"
They promised they will never be, and Smasher promised he will summon them with other occasions to work in his forge.