Freedom's Rust

By Ian Fraser

Weaving in time between the diaries of an African captured by slavers, and an American student advancing toward enacting a school shooting, Freedom’s Rust is, by turns, a fictional playing out of some possible responses to repression, as well as being a quietly satirical look at the desolation of what passes for Western culture.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ian Fraser
• Release date: Jan 26, 2015
• ISBN: 9781507016053

Book preview

SHIPS LOG

Thinking about it, there is truth in the saying that from small acorns big oaks do grow. After all, I had rust to thank for my freedom. Of all things that might have enabled me to break free of the chain that restrained me in that stinking compartment, the sea air was an unexpected ally. For the first few days after the slave ship slipped anchor, the hold was filled with the screams of my compatriots. Amidst the din I could hear understandable dialects: my villagers. Everyone was shouting for their Gods or ancestors to release us from this torment. But I knew that screaming was useless. My education with the Father had taught me that appealing to God generally brought nothing. Slavers were a merciless bunch, regardless of skin color. So too, was the notion of God.

I’d been captured by a marauding group of Arab slavers, led to our village by one of our neighbors; rivals for the stream that runs through our valley. When he was alive, Father Francis was quick to dissuade me of my notions about the white man. Their thoughts, he would say, are as multitudinous as the leaves on the trees. They are not all bad, any more than they are all good. The problem lies in the fact that it is usually the bad that are propelled into action.

Calm your hatred, Grandfather says by my elbow as I write these words. He can sense my growing anger.

On the day of my capture, I’d stupidly thought it was some large animal in the thicket. I’d not expected a line of robed slavers to rise into view, bows and spears at the ready. I think I was the first of my village to be captured. I’m not ashamed to say that I’d screamed when they’d threaded the cord through my ear and shoved me along it, as if I were but a bead on a necklace. They ignored the blood streaming down my body and set a guard upon us before departing for my village.

I admit I’d given into despair and forgotten all the teachings of Father within minutes of realizing my fate. I began to chant and mumble prayers to my ancestors, begging them to free me. One of the black trackers used the butt of a whip on my head, stunning me, and I’d lost consciousness. When I came to it was nightfall, they’d built a fire and we prisoners had been bound with cord to an oversized log from which there’d be no escape. The position of being forced to lean over the log was back breaking, but the cord through our ears could not be denied.

I stared at our captors. From time to time some of the native trackers would grin triumphantly in our direction. I understood that their village would be spared the ravages of the slavers in exchange for having led them to mine. Listening to the screams of the women, I gave thanks that I was single. I knew already that the object of the current situation was to survive: survive at all costs.

*

FATTY’S JOURNAL

The bullying is relentless and begins every morning with that first step on board the bus. The jeers and comments start as I make my way down the aisle, looking for a safe seat. Let me define what that is: its one that’s not in front of, or beside any of the bullies. Not that this will prevent them from coming over to me, to spit, or grind their knuckles into my upper arm; knock my glasses off – or, if there’s some project I’m supposed to bring into class, it’ll act as a lure for the boys to gather round and poke at it until its torn or broken.

The trick is not to cry. Not ever. It’s hard. You’re sitting slightly forward in the seat, trying to make it difficult for the boy behind you to reach over and slap you every minute or two. The larger boys have pride of place toward the back of the bus, but their chubby pals are dispersed randomly throughout the bus. It just takes one to start prodding or hitting, and then the onlookers will giggle and laugh, propelling the attacker on.

Yes, but surely there’s a driver, I imagine you saying. The drivers do nothing. They drive. They are a pair of eyes in the rearview mirror that glance down the length of the bus from time to time. Meanwhile I am being lightly punched in the back of my head, courtesy of the boy behind me. Over and over, the sharp sting of his knuckles hits me. Each blow falls roughly in the same spot. I try to lean forward, almost perch on the end of my seat but this brings no relief, and if there are others across the aisle, they’ll see this as a signal to reach across and pinch or poke or flick with their fingers.

My classmates do nothing. Intellectually I understand that they are grateful it’s me who is the target and not them. No one ever says ‘stop’ to the bullies. They’ll become a punching bag. The ride in the school bus each morning and home each afternoon, is an exercise in slow torture. I have to accept whatever they choose to do, because I am utterly alone. And even when the bus pulls up at the school, this is usually a signal for an additional flurry of unnoticed punches and elbow jabs to land on me. I try to scramble forward almost before the bus has come to a halt, in order to be further down the aisle and closer to relative freedom, but this causes the driver to pay attention for the first time, and I get barked at to stand behind the demarcated line on the floor.

Abruptly it’s the whole bus that is now filled with laughing kids, making comments and swinging their feet to kick at me as I pass. And still no one stops any of it.

My parents? My parents are not at school. My father seems to believe that what I go through each day is a kind of rites of passage, a wakeup call for me to lose weight and, as he puts it, ‘get with the program.’ My mother, to her credit, managed to persuade him that a visit to the principal’s office was in order. It was horrendous, the Principal mouthing platitudes about ‘boys will be boys’ and my parents nodding in agreement. I sat red-faced feeling three sets of eyes on me. The overall sensation is that I am the failure. I am the weak point. Whatever it is that I might be going through, it is perceived as being entirely my fault.

*

SHIPS LOG

From brief conversations I had with the prisoners from my village, they – the slavers – burned all the huts and killed the livestock that they couldn’t carry. Apparently half of the rival village turned up to carry off our pots and grains, chickens and cows. They cheered and laughed as our people were beaten, bound, and led off through the bush.

What inspires such hatred? The Father had an answer for everything. His belief taught that all men are innately sinful, and that it was only by accepting the embrace of a Redeemer that one could reach a state of grace and peace.

But surely, I recalled asking, there are those who are born innocent, and it is the prejudices of their community that makes them able to commit evil deeds?

Would that it were so simple, the Father would say. Satan is loose upon the world, and his effect has turned men’s minds away from the goodness of God.

It was curious how part of our own belief system that the Father did his best to wean us from, fully accepted the existence of evil spirits that would harm the living, yet to the Father there was only one fallen angel who was responsible for everything bad. It gave me doubts, which I kept to myself – I could see the positive effect that the Father’s presence brought to the village. He clearly came from a wiser civilization than ours, and thus should be respected. It was he who taught me letters, then words, then gave me access to his books so that a larger view of the world gradually began to grow within me.

You are my best pupil, he sighed, when he was conscious again after the malaria got him.

I shall say prayers for you, Father, if you die, I said.

This brought a weak smile to his face. Good, my boy, he said, his hand gripping mine weakly. Then the fever took him again, its heat burning him up and making him foam at the mouth and speak unknown words. The women who were looking after him became frightened but I assured them it was the disease, and that the only spirit the Father was possessed with was a good and loving one, as he’d always told us.

The slavers started to march us in a long line through the bush. On the second day, there was a horrendous scream – someone had torn the wire from their ear and began dashing through the undergrowth. I think the slavers had been waiting for just such an incident. They made us gather in a large circle and watch as they beat the bloodied man half to death, but instead of simply using their spears and cutting his throat or piercing his chest, they lit a fire. I’m unsure when the wounded man succumbed, but the slavers took delight in holding him down, his legs deep in the flames. The man’s face was almost as white as bone by the time he died.

The slavers spoke to us in slurring Swahili – the language used to communicate across dialects – telling us that this unfortunate’s fate would befall anyone else who thought they could escape. The easiest course of action would be to follow their orders and get to the coast as quickly as possible, as they did not have supplies to feed us. So the longer we dawdled, or caused delays, the hungrier and thirstier we would become. The choice was in our hands. It was nearing nightfall so they made camp, finding logs to weigh us down after binding our feet. I recall the scented smoke of their cook fire, the rustling in the undergrowth as the guards circled endlessly. I doubted any of us slept that night. The smell of the burned man hung in the air.

*

FATTY’S JOURNAL

Hey fats, hey fats, hey fats the bully is chanting. Each time he’s poking me hard in the chest with a bony finger. There are four of them and one of me. We’re in the hall by the lockers. I made the mistake of opening mine without checking both ways. A shadow fell, a piece of gum was pushed into my hair, and the soft jeering started. There’s something gleeful about bullies that makes me think of Romans watching people be torn apart by animals. Or maybe it’s the glint in the eyes of Nazis.

Whatever it is, the golden rule is not to fight back, regardless of what they do. My father calls me a pussy and says I should stand up for myself. After all, he says, you’re certainly big enough. This last statement said with a grimace. But there are four of them and one of me, and although I am filled with rage at each squirt of spittle in my face, the idea of swinging at any of them – throwing a punch – fills me with horror. I am no fighter. I would love to be, but I am not.

The knuckle banging into my chest continues and I want to be dead. I wish to be