Pym_ A Novel - Mat Johnson [62]
“A ‘hogshead’? Why would you want to shove sugared meat into the head of a pig?” Jeffree interrupted. “That is so not kosher. That is some sick shit, right there.”
“He means a barrel filled with the pastries. And it’s probably the equivalent of about three or four cases of those Little Debbie snack cakes,” I told Nathaniel. “Garth has that.”
“How much would that cost? They’re only like a dollar a box.” In my memory, a calculator appeared over Angela’s head as she tried to figure it out. “About two fifty? Three hundred dollars? That’s it? That’s nothing,” she answered herself.
“Each!” Arthur Pym adjusted hearing this, clearly pleased at his own negotiating skills. “If that is too much, I’m sure you could exchange your chattel for payment.”
“They’re not my ‘chattel,’ Pym: I’m black too,” I snapped, my patience having evaporated after the third time I made this revelation to him only to have it ignored. “And you know what, I must inform you that you are really fucking with the wrong octoroon.” At this final word, Pym recoiled in horror, staring at me and then at his own hands, seemingly terrified of what he may have touched unknowingly.
Nathaniel squinted at me in disgust, then stepped between me and the cringing white man. “Two dozen ‘hogsheads,’ final,” he declared, recovering the negotiations. “Our word is our bond.”
And then Khun Knee hugged me, and up close he smelled of dead fish left too long in the freezer, and his old body felt more solid than any biped had a right to. And I knew immediately that with his gesture the deal was done and there was no turning back from it.
“My stash? All they want to trade for is my Little Debbie stash? Why not your stash? Why not all your books and shit?” Garth asked as we were driving away.
“They don’t need books on Pym, Garth. They have the real thing.”
“I’m saying, I’m the only dude that wasn’t down there, and then you come back and tell me how you traded all my stash, all my comfort foods—and man I need comfort—and nobody else’s? You don’t think that sounds a bit suspicious?” Garth demanded.
“Why do Negroes always have to have conspiracy theories?” I asked directly.
“Why are motherfuckers always conspiring?” Garth turned to face me, taking his eyes off the frozen road without slowing down a mile.
“They don’t just want those goddamn boxes of junk food: that’s just what they want first.” Booker Jaynes interrupted our standoff. He was downcast, resigned. “Garth’s food: that’s just what they knew we had. They’ll want more later, trust me. They’re white folks. Eventually they’ll try to take everything.” Behind us, White Folks the dog seemed equally hungry, barking without pause as he stared out the back window at the Tekelian monsters, who followed our moving truck.
I turned to look at the sight too. Outside the truck’s misty back window the white shrouded figures jogged, trailing us. Bouncing up and down like the wooden horses of a carousel, going nearly as fast on foot as we were in the vehicle. They had insisted on joining us as we returned to our base and had turned down our offers to accompany us in the bellies of our metal beasts. Even Khun Knee was among them, although I couldn’t see the elder at the moment. All I could really see was their outlines through our truck’s crystalline wake, the figures dancing on the horizon like the northern lights.
When we returned, Garth and I checked the hulking satellite dish placed on top of our cramped, one-story encampment. Although the dish had a heater, it still sometimes failed from the cold, so to avoid a loss of reception we covered the entire thing in electric tape and sprayed the receiver with nonstick cooking aerosol. At the moment, the dish did appear to be in complete working order,