“If we must die—let it not be like hogs
Hunted and penned in an inglorious spot,
while round us bark the mad and hungry dogs,
making their mock at our accursed lot.
If we must die—oh, let us nobly die,
so that our precious blood may not be shed
in vain; then even the monsters we defy
shall be constrained to honor us though dead!
Oh, Kinsmen! We must meet the common foe;
though far outnumbered, let us show us brave,
and for their thousand blows deal one deathblow!
What though before us lies the open grave?
Like men we’ll face the murderous, cowardly pack,
pressed to the wall, dying, but fighting back.”
Claude Mc Kay
The bullets burned like hot coals in Kapp’s body as
he darted through the forest with the moon at his back. One
bullet had pierced his upper chest, another pierced his spine; several penetrated his stomach and thighs. Yet, his blood
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pulsated, tingled and twitched through his veins like a high
volt of electricity. Thump, thump, thump drummed his heart in his ears. He ran swift and fast, dodging trees, jumping
across ditches and over large fallen tree branches as the crisp night air pumped in and out of his nostrils and the cold,
damp earth crunched underneath his bare feet.
Kaaapp! Kaaapp!
Kapp slowed at the raspy call of his name.
Kaaaapp! Kaaaapp!
Kapp stopped and looked about. He was dazed and
disoriented. He didn’t know where he was or where he was
going. But he knew he wasn’t in America. He vaguely recalled
crossing an ocean. He remembered standing on a ship staring
out at sea, but he now saw nothing but a silhouette of giant
trees all around him outlined against a moonlit sky. There
were no woods like this back home in Georgia, no night so
moody. Kapp peered up at the nickel moon. The shimmer
of its florescent glow stung his eyes and he cupped his hands
over his face.
Kaaaapp! Kaaaapp!
This time the voice sounded familiar, yet further away, as
if it was calling him from the other side of the world. Kapp
lowered his hands to his sides and looked about again. The
woods had suddenly grown familiar. Night had become day
and Kapp Johnson found himself back home in River Ben, Georgia.
“Kapp!”
Kapp looked back over his shoulder. His stepbrother,
Pauli, was lying on the ground and Kapp ran back to
get him.
“Get up! They’re coming!” Kapp shouted as Jimmy
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Hodges and four other white boys chased them with sticks
and baseball bats.
“We’ve got to get over the fence!”
“I don’t think I can, my leg,” whined Pauli rubbing his
thigh.
“If Jimmy and his gang catches up with us it won’t be just
your leg that’s hurting. Now come on!”
Kapp jerked Pauli to his feet then shoved him up and
over the wooden fence before he too started climbing over
it himself. He had almost cleared it with one leg straddled
over the top when he felt something holding him back. Kapp
looked down and saw the hem of his pants leg clutched
between the teeth of Jimmy Hodges’ mangy gray hound dog,
Blue Boy.
“That’s right, hold him Blue Boy! We’ve got you now,
nigger!” shouted Jimmy still a good distance away.
Kapp shooed away his brother. “Run! Go on! I’ll catch
up with you!”
Kapp looked back at Jimmy and a rock about the size
of a peach seed clunked him on the left side of his nose and
immediately blood gushed out of his nostril. The rocks kept
coming. One bounced off his thigh and popped him on his
chin, another nicked his ear. Kapp swung his right leg back
over the fence and hopped down. He then reared back his free
foot and rammed it into Blue Boy’s ribs as hard as he could.
The mutt squealed as it flew through the air and hit the
ground a couple of feet away. Still lodged between the dog’s
teeth was a piece of Kapp’s pants leg.
Kapp quickly hopped the fence and ran up and over the
hill. He could see his house now, just beyond the dirt road. In no time he caught up to Pauli. At sixteen-years-old, Kapp was
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T h e L e b e n s b o r n E x p e r i m e n t
big and husky. Without breaking his stride, he leaned down
and scooped his little brother under his right arm like Pauli
was a football and Kapp was running for a touchdown in
his high school game. When Kapp finally reached the house,
he didn’t stop. He ran inside and grabbed his stepfather’s
shotgun from behind the icebox.
“If I were you crackers, I wouldn’t come any closer,”
shouted Kapp, stepping out from behind the screen door onto
the front porch while Pauli watched from the parlor window.
Kapp pointed his rifle at Jimmy. Crazy Jimmy just laughed
and grinned and jiggled about with his arms spread out like
a vulture circling a dead carcass, exposing every rotten tooth in his foul-smelling mouth. Then Jimmy puckered his lips,
drew back his head, and spit a wad of tobacco juice the size of a silver dollar on the toe of one of Kapp’s brand new sneakers.
“Go ahead ‘n shoot! And I guarantee my daddy and
every white man in town will lynch you and your whole
stinking, nigger family!”
“Maybe, but you won’t be alive to see it,” said Kapp,
mimicking the cocky tone in Jimmy’s voice.
Jimmy took a step forward. Kapp lifted his rifle closer
to his face and squinted for a better aim at Jimmy’s forehead.
Jimmy hesitated, lowered his arms, and spit again. This time,
the tobacco juice missed Kapp’s sneakers and splattered on
the porch steps just below Kapp’s feet.
“Come on, let’s go,” Jimmy waved to his gang. “I owe you
one, nigger, especially for what you did to Blue Boy!” Jimmy
huffed, backing away.
Hours later, as Kapp and Pauli sat on the front porch
snapping green beans for supper; Pauli asked why white folks
hated them so much.
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“Because we’re black,” said Kapp.
“But that doesn’t make any sense. Black is just a color. Ole
man Griffin who daddy drives for doesn’t like the color green, cos I heard him say so. But he doesn’t go around cutting down
all the trees or burning up all the grass. I think there’s another reason. I think it’s because they’re afraid of us.”
Kapp smiled. Pauli was a lot smarter than he was at
nine-years-old. Kapp was just now figuring that out about
white folks himself. When his mother remarried a year ago,
Kapp wasn’t too happy about it. He resented having to share
his mother, especially since Kapp’s own father had only been
dead two years—shot in the back for trying to organize a
union of the Pullman Porters. But since then, Kapp had
grown to love both his stepfather and his stepbrother. In fact, he couldn’t imagine loving his stepbrother any more even if
they were blood related.
“Pauli!” Kapp screamed in grief at the top of his lungs.
“Pauli! Pauli!” The shrill of his voice bounced off the trees
and echoed through the crisp night air. Kapp’s memory of
Pauli tied to a chair and screaming returned and he started
running back the way he came. Into the moon he raced as
fast as he could, his feet barely touching the ground. He
knew where he was now and where he was going. He also
knew what he had to do. He was going back to the castle to
get Pauli’s body and to kill the murdering Nazis who killed
his baby brother.
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