LITMIR.BIZ

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      She put her hands on the table surface and leaned over so our faces were closer. I could smell the cigarette smoke on her breath.

      “You wanna be brave and hell, you throw yourself at stuff scares the shit out of me. But you brave enough to walk around in a black woman’s skin? You brave enough for that? They want us purely dead, Kristin. Every damn day.”

      I took a breath.

      “If I could, Alice, I would.”

      She stood back up.

      “Yeah. That’s why I can just about stand to know you. But you can’t. You purely can’t.”

      She turned and walked away, head high.

      I just sat there and thought. Some popular historian had written a book on our current, what Alice would call “mess” in America, and blathered on about “summoning our better angels.” It wasn’t the angels we needed to be concerned with. It was the demons that lurked right below the surface, demons created by the kinds of hatred that had festered in our history. And this demonic legacy was bubbling up through the cracks now, cracks opened wider by these white supremacist yahoos. I gazed across the lawn toward the tree on the quad in the distance. How long before we had another noose? Or worse?

      I walked slowly back to my office, thinking. When I got there, Abubakar wasn’t present. Then I remembered he had a class this afternoon.

      I opened my computer and started researching identity-masking software. Maybe I couldn’t live in a black woman’s skin, but I could become someone else online and get these bastards.

      Chapter 6

      Through me you go into a city of weeping; through me you go into eternal pain; through me you go amongst the lost people.

      —Dante Alighieri, The Inferno

      Late Tuesday evening to Wednesday

      I was terrified. I ran through grey, ruined streets, where charred corpses were strewn everywhere. There was no color except the blood that ran like streams in the gutters. I couldn’t see a way out. A blast of flame hit the wall nearest me. I had to move. I had to run. There was no one left alive to save. Then there was a gun. It was in my hand. I was the killer, not the prey. My gun moved across the landscape, seeking, seeking. It found a target. It was pointed at a woman who ran from me into a boarded up building. I fired and fired and chunks of the building flew in all directions. And then a body shattered a window above me and started to fall. I was falling. I screamed.

      “Mom! Mom!”

      The voice seemed far away.

      “Mom!” The voice was more frantic. Then there was a loud bark right in my ear.

      My face felt wet and I jolted awake.

      “What?” I croaked.

      I opened my eyes, and my son Mike’s scared face was inches from mine. He was on the bed with me, holding me by the shoulders. The dog was on the bed on my other side, panting and, I realized, drooling on me.

      “Mom, you okay? You were screaming,” Mike said, not letting go of me.

      “Yes,” I said shakily. “I’m okay. I just had an awful nightmare.”

      I struggled to sit up, and Mike released my shoulders, but he didn’t move off the bed.

      “Molly, get off!” I said to the dog, and she jumped down, though she whined a little. I moved over so Mike could have more room next to me on the bed. I shoved my computer aside where it was lying beside me. The computer. I must have fallen asleep playing one of those idiot video games, I thought. I was relieved to see the screen had gone dark while I’d been asleep. It would have been horrible if Mike had seen it. I closed it and put it on the end table. Then I put my arms around my trembling child.

      “You okay?” I peered into my son’s face, still tight with fear. “And where’s Sam?”

      “Yeah. I’m okay. It’s just . . . I heard you scream, and I ran in here, and Molly ran after me, and you wouldn’t wake up.” He paused, swallowing. “Sam’s still asleep. You know him. He could sleep through an earthquake.”

      He hesitated, then choked out, “What’s wrong, what’s the matter?”

      I try to be honest with the boys, while realizing how young they are. Though Mike acted like he was so mature, he was just a little boy pretending to be the dad they didn’t have. My heart hurt. I thought for a second about what to say.

      “I was doing some research on the computer, and I saw some scary things. I must have fallen asleep and dreamed a bad dream about them,” I said, sticking as close to the truth as I could without further terrifying my son. I felt awful about that.

      “Well, you shouldn’t do that late at night,” said Mike, sitting up. He was starting to feel better, and lecturing always made him feel more in control. Same with me, I thought wryly. That’s why I like lecturing too.

      “Yes, you’re right. Now let’s see. Why don’t we go downstairs, have some warm milk, and then maybe we can both get some good sleep, huh?”

      “Yeah. Good idea. But I want some chocolate syrup in mine. And a cookie.”

      Mike could tell I was feeling guilty about scaring him, and he would press his advantage. He was going to be a very successful lawyer someday, I thought.

      “That could work.” I smiled at him.

      We went downstairs, and Molly followed, wagging her tail. She didn’t know what the new game was, but, when the kitchen was involved, she was always enthusiastic.

      I fixed warm milk for us and put one squirt of chocolate syrup in Mike’s. I got out an oatmeal cookie from the jar and handed it to him. He finished it in one bite and then took a sip of his chocolate milk. I gave Molly a small dog cookie. She finished hers in one bite too. I poured a little cold milk in her bowl, and she inhaled it.

      I could see my son’s shoulders start to droop even before he’d drained the mug. I put an arm around him and helped him to bed. Molly settled down on her dog bed located between the boys’ twin beds. I checked on Sam, and Mike was right. Sam could sleep through just about anything. He was still snoozing away.

      I went into my room and looked at the closed computer like it was an aquarium holding a bunch of writhing snakes. I picked it up gingerly and put it on the top of the wardrobe across the room.

      I got into bed but left the lights on and thought about what had happened. After the boys had gone to bed, I’d installed the identity-masking software and downloaded the game “Revenge.” I had gone on to the game site and entered the screen name I’d created for myself. I was calling myself “Odin26.” There were other Odins, and I had to use a number as well as the name. Odin was the Norse god of war who liked the chaos and violence of war for its own sake, not for any noble purpose, as warmongers today at least pretended. But ancient Odin was also a fairly complex character. He liked poetry, and could, occasionally, assume the more feminine role of Shaman. The Nazis, and I was betting these Nazi wannabes, had revered the furious god of war, ignoring Odin’s gender-bending. In fact, they would have been horrified by it had they realized. I’d thought myself so clever in using that name. After I was on the site, I did the game-playing for a while, but then I went to the chat room as Odin26. There was inane chatter about “them” and “claiming our rights” and blah blah, but nothing specific about our campus or any planned actions I could see. There was an extended exchange about THOT. I’d paused and searched that. To my disgust it stood for That Ho Over There. The misogyny was nauseating.

      Then I’d checked out the other game, the one called “Hitman.” It was another one of those single shooter formats, where I, as the player, was basically just a hand and a gun. As I’d started the play, it quickly had become clear all the women who appeared were targets. They were grotesquely sexualized and were supposed to be prostitutes or strippers. My character was offered extra points and “health” if I killed

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