Chapter 8

At the office, he settled into his cubicle, the same one he’d had for twenty years. The walls were plastered with motivational posters: Teamwork Makes the Dream Work, Stay Positive, You’ve Got This. They now felt like cruel jokes. He booted up his computer, opened the ledger software, and began the slow, methodical work of balancing accounts, tracking shipments, and reconciling discrepancies.

His boss, Mr. Henderson, rarely came by. When he did, it was to drop a stack of files on Herbert’s desk with a curt, “Nump, these need to be done by EOD.” Herbert would nod, his voice quiet, his eyes downcast, and get to work without a word.

Lunch was always the same: a brown paper bag with a sandwich. It was usually ham and cheese, sometimes peanut butter and jelly with an apple or orange, and a bottle of water. He ate it alone at his desk, staring at the screen saver, his mind drifting but mired in rumination.

He thought of Lila’s flushed face as Drake filled her, her moans as she came again and again. He cringed at way she had looked at him when she kissed him goodbye. He thought of Nina’s body taken by two black men, her cry of “Daddy!” that told him she had a better father now. He thought of the weekend when Drake had brutally thrust inside of him and Raymond’s relentless pounding. They had talked about white wives and daughters, about lists and privileges, and what Grady might give them if they kept the cucks in line.

And he thought of the videos he was forced to watch each night, the tender ones, the loving ones, the ones where black men stroked white women’s hair and whispered how beautiful they were. He thought of how his hand had drifted to his cock without him even realizing it, how he’d climaxed to the sight of a black man loving a white woman, how he’d whispered Lila’s name in the dark.

By the end of each day, Herbert felt drained, physically, mentally, and emotionally. He left the office at five, the same time each day, and walked back to the Down in Arms apartments. The building loomed larger each evening. Its brick façade was a monolith of inevitability.

He let himself in, kicked off his shoes, and shuffled to the small kitchenette. He heated a can of beans or opened a jar of peanut butter. He ate from it standing up. His eyes rested on the bare walls, the bare floor, the bare ceiling.

Then, inevitably, he would turn on the TV.

The feed was sometimes rough, sometimes tender, always relentless. He would watch, his eyes half-lidded, his jaw slack, his mind half-present. And then, almost without thinking, his hand would drift down, his fingers finding the button of his pajama pants, his cock already starting to harden at the sight of a black man taking a white woman, of a white woman moaning with pleasure as she was filled.

He would stroke himself, his hand moving in a rhythm that matched the gentle rocking of the couple on screen. He would come with a choked gasp, his cum spilling onto his hand and the bedsheet, a messy testament to his helplessness.

And then he would lie in bed, staring at the ceiling, his body returning to numb, and his mind was a whirl of guilt, shame, and unsettling satisfaction that could be reached more easily each day.

The week passed, day after day, the same routine, the same cycle of work, of silence, of the feed, of self-abuse, of lying in the dark and wondering if he would ever feel like a man again. He wondered if he ever had.

By Friday evening, Herbert was hollowed out. Essentials to his person had been scraped away from his core. He sat on the edge of the bed, the remote in his hand, the TV flickering with a scene of a black man kissing a white woman’s neck as she moaned softly in pleasure.

He stared at the screen, masturbated, and went to sleep only to dream of the same things fed to his mind by the video feed.

Waking in the night, he had to calm the frantic beating of his heart. He needed to escape this place, for real, and never return.

Herbert slept again until dawn. He lay on his back, staring at the ceiling. The events of the past week replayed in his mind like a broken record. He was becoming the record.

Jay and Marcus had promised to fight the brainwashing, to hold onto their anger, to remember what it felt like to be a man. He thought of the hike, of the cool air on his skin, of the way the hills had seemed to stretch on forever, of the way the city below had looked small and distant from up there.

And he thought of escape.

He swung his legs over the side of the bed and planted his feet on the cold linoleum. The apartment felt too quiet, too empty. He shuffled to the small kitchenette, poured himself a cup of lukewarm water, and leaned against the counter, staring out at the gray courtyard below.

Then he remembered: the lobby.

He pulled on his jeans and a faded t-shirt, shoved his feet into his shoes, and walked down the stairs to the first floor. The lobby was small and dimly lit. The walls were lined with cracked tile and a bulletin board covered in flyers and notices.

Herbert scanned the board. Ads for secondhand furniture, notices about building maintenance, a writers group, yoga classes, and an out of date flyer for a community garage sale, all fought for the cork board’s limited space.

And then he saw it: a stack of bus route pamphlets, neatly piled in a corner near the mailboxes.

He stepped over and flipped through them. Most were for local routes: downtown, the industrial district, and the north side. One was labeled Trans-city with a bold, red JS-line running diagonally across the map.

His heart leapt. The JS-line ran all the way to the outskirts of the city, past the suburbs, into the rural areas where the buildings thinned out and the trees grew thick. It was a route that didn’t stop at every corner, but one stop was near the Down in Arms apartments which sat like a wart on the city’s face.

He took a flyer from the stack, folded it carefully, and slipped it into his pocket and returned to his apartment.

He packed a small bag—a change of clothes, a toothbrush, a tube of toothpaste, a half-full bottle of water, and a granola bar. He shoved his wallet in his jeans pocket, his fingers brushing the worn leather as he zipped the bag shut.

He walked to the bus stop, a simple metal pole with a plastic shelter just two blocks from the Down in Arms apartments. The sky was still dark, the streetlights casting long, thin shadows across the pavement. The air was cool and damp, smelling of wet asphalt and distant exhaust.

He waited.