Characters
Ebenezer Mudede (Father)
Charles Mudede (Son)
Radio Announcer
Setting
Interior of a car that’s southbound on 12th Avenue, between Madison and Yesler. It’s 4 pm on May 6th, 2009.
Radio Announcer— The Justice Department’s inspector general has found that the FBI has been so slow to update its terrorist watch list that it may have compromised national security. The concern: At least 12 terrorism suspects who were either not on the list or weren’t added quickly may have traveled in and out of the United States while the database was being updated.
Father— Ahh, I remember this list. They had one just like it in the days of the war for independence. The list was used to get rid of people you didn’t like.
Son— What do you mean?
Father— Back when Zimbabwe was Rhodesia, while the war was happening, people would put other people on the list—calling them a terrorist or helpers of terrorists—not because it was true but because they did not like them for some reason or another. They’d go to the officials and say: “Such and such is a terrorist. You must get him.” And sure enough, that person would disappear. Killed. Gone. The end. Problem solved.
Son— Was this something you heard about or something you witnessed?
Father— My uncle was the victim of this sort of practice. He wound up on a list in 1978, was soon after killed, and his body was not found until 1992. His grave was in the government records: “Buried here is a terrorist.” Someone did not like him.
Son— Your own uncle?
Father— Yes.
Son— Who put him on the list?
Father— His wife did.
Son— What did she do that for?
Father— Because he was infertile. He could not make her pregnant.
Son— She got him killed because he was impotent?
Father— What happened was this. When my aunt discovered that her husband’s sperm could do nothing but swim around, it was decided that she should have sex with another man, a good friend of theirs. Both agreed to do this—so did the friend. And sure enough, she had kids. Four. Everything was going fine, but then my uncle started drinking too much, and telling people at the bar that the kids in his house were not his but a friend who had done the deed. When my aunt learned that her husband was saying such things, humiliating her at the bar like that, she put him on the list.
Son— Wow!
Father— Those lists are dangerous. You have to watch whose feet you’re stepping on.
Son— Is the aunt still around?
Father— Yes, she still lives in Highfields. A very nice woman. Owns a shop or something.
THE END
Thats fucked, but not uncommon within countrys that make people dissappear.
No.
Charles, to me you are like the abusive ex-boyfriend of Slog; I get fed up, I say I am done, I am not gonna listen any more, and then you suck me back in with something like this…I can’t seem to quit you!!!
Most of the people in Gitmo got there that way too — picked up off the street because a shopkeeper wanted to get rid of some of his competition.
Epilogue:
Son #2: Dad, can you tell Charles to shut the fuck up so we can listen to the radio? I want to hear some Oasis!
@6, that was cold. some knows my family too well.
How could some random lady just add someone to the list? Did she work for the government?
witch hunts never go away.
sometimes conversations between adult children and their parents is so frakking odd…
I recall my grandfather taking me to Denny’s for breakfast, when I was in my late 20s/early 30s to ask me exactly what it is that lesbians do during sex so he could become a better lover for his GF.
It squicks me out to this day.
That sounds no different than the circumstances of victims of the Terror during the French Revolution. All you had to do was not like soemone and you could denounce them as a “royalist”. If this had happened to you back then, shortly after the accusation was made yo would be guillotined and your headless body would be dumped in a mass grave under shovelfulls of quicklime…
Oops- here’s the spellcheck version- lol!
That sounds no different than the circumstances of victims of the Terror during the French Revolution. All you had to do was not like someone and you could denounce them as a “royalist”. If this had happened to you back then, shortly after the accusation was made you would be quickly dispatched by guillotine and your headless body would be dumped in a mass grave under shovelfuls of quicklime…
I understand this is how the Salem witch trials began. Someone wanted a piece of land and couldn’t get it. Soon accusations of witchcraft began…
People suck…
“very nice”?
Sounds like regular plain old TNB to me.
Sounds like a story older than the hills. But isn’t that the nature of humans. Some are willing to turn on the other in the most crazy or mundane of circumstances.
I wonder if that woman feels any regret.
@ 13,
She’s very nice for an adulterous, murdering whore.
Is this why pregnant women frighten you so? These glimpses are fascinating, really.
@16 – She & her husband agreed that she would fuck the friend in order to have children. She had the husband put on the list when he told the secret. Murderous, yes; adulterous whore, no.
And she probably IS a very nice woman, as long as you don’t piss her off.