by Terrence Aym

Created on: September 11, 2009

Cursed

He had to find out who had cursed him and how to rid himself of it. His fellow Klansmen were out in full force scouring the town looking for a particular black man. That they hunted for a fellow Klansmen, Billy Jay Jackson, they would never accept or believe.

Loud pounding at the front door startled him. "Hiyah! Billy Jay?" a drunken voice boomed. "Billy Jay ya in there, brother? C'mon out an' help us. We're a-huntin' down a niggah that attacked a lady and tried to rape her!" More fists beat out another round of banging reports, crashing against the front door like battering rams. "Billy Jay!" a deep voice bellowed.

Johnson trembled uncontrollably. Deputy Jake Hardash was at his door-Big Jake the leader of their local Klan. A crueler man Jackson had yet to meet. Everyone was afraid of Big Jake. Everyone always jumped to do whatever that man ordered. Big Jake Hardash was also the man who would officially hang him if it were ever discovered that Jackson had murdered his aunt. Besides, if any of his friends saw him in the condition he was now, well . . . . He stared at his hands in the dim light. His hands, his arms-everything-were still dark as midnight.

Another voice rang out. "He ain't here, Big Jake. Nobody's seen Billy Jay since noon." Jackson recognized Pete Bremmer's grating voice. A second voice chimed in, "That's right, Big Jake. I heard tell he might've taken hisself over to Tallulah on some business fer his auntie."

"Ya sure? I'd a sworn I saw a light on upstairs a minute ago. Well ... Damn fool, that Billy Jay. When's he gonna learn hisself that Klan business always takes priority?" Hardash's booming voice responded acrimoniously.

Jackson breathed a tentative sigh of relief. The lawman's voice was no longer at his doorstep. It continued to boom out, shouting orders, berating, cussing, cajoling, but most of all fading, farther and farther down the street.

As the Klansmen left Jackson warily rose from the floor and crept over to the kitchen window. Peeking over the sill, he spied the mob of Klansmen in the distance making their way towards the center of town. Several lugged a wooden cross, others cans of kerosene.

A cross burnin' ceremony, Jackson thought and surprised himself by realizing that a part of him desired to go with them.

Jackson turned away from the window intending to sit at the kitchen table. While deciding what to do next he noticed another flickering light, this one came from the direction of the sitting room. It struck

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