Theory of Slavery | Hamilton

III

I suffer from terrible nightmares. Have I already mentioned that? Sometimes I'm able to conjure them even while I'm awake, but they are mirages only, they don't last. In my nightmares, I attempt to kill, but here's what happens: for instance I hold a gun, and aim it at the enemy. I can see their faces– twelve of them, to be exact– against the dark, glowing like the images of Chirst's disciples on a church mural. The past is reborn, along with its procession of emotions, ebb and tide of feeling – darkness and dazzlement, guilt, dread. Ebb and tide of images – drops of sweat on men's faces, crying children, a charcoal pool of blood. I reload the revolver with hands that are black and anointed with thick gore. I put it against my temple. I press the trigger all right, but one bullet after another feebly drops on the ground from the sheepish muzzle. Can I be blamed for waking up having wet the bed?

I wish this story were different. I wish it were more civilized. I wish it showed me in a better light – less hesitant, less perverted. I wish it had more shape. I hardly remember myself now, and the more time passes the worse it gets. Memories fly away from me in a blizzard of pale repetitive scraps like those morning storms of discarded newspapers that a train passenger  sees whirling in the wake of the observation car. Maybe I feel so old and forgetful because my life ought to be measured in dog years. I was brought up like a dog, after all: cooped, well-trained, and starved.

I miss the crackle of the fireplace, I remember light buzzing before my closed eyes whilst curled up upon the old fustian cloth, wagging my tail; but that is a story of long ago, muzzled and caged, the price of my violence. I am sorry. I am so sorry. Sometimes I dream of vultures in the trees around Hamilton's house.

***

"You may come out now." 

Laugh not as you imagine me crouched behind the sofa, scared as a ferret, sweating too. Remarkable how difficult it is to conceal one's troubled breathing when in hiding. I slowly got up, and through some freak mechanical flaw my dress pocket began noisily emitting all my dimes and quarters, and great big silver dollars like some sonorous, jingly and wholly demented machine. In an attempt to stop the coins from falling, I firmly clutched a handful in my ravaged hand. It instantly produced a sharp pain which, being prolonged, led to the rest of my loot coming tumbling to the floor with a hitting-the-jackpot clatter that almost made me laugh, despite the terrifying reality of my position.

Hamilton sat leaning back in his chair and seemed almost bored with me.

"There's something seriously wrong with you," he concluded, getting up and putting his cigar out, half smoked, in an ashtray on the desk. "Go ahead, explain yourself."

I pictured him killing me. Certainly he would do it in some vulgar, gruesome and painful manner. Why would he limit himself, after all? Other visions of torture presented themselves to me swaying, and a nausea swept through me.

"Sorry, sir. I'll pick them up."

"You better."

I spent a while collecting the coins with my inflexible hands, all the while thinking, I'm absolutely done for. Hamilton opened the desk drawer, and I put the money inside obediently.

"A traitor and a thief," Hamilton said plainly. "What a treasure I've found, to be sure. That's a whole two dollars and thirty cents you almost took from me."

"I thought there would be more," I confessed with embarrassment.

He uttered a harsh, jarring laugh which frightened me.

"I have a little cache, yes, but not here. It would be too obvious," he sank back in his chair. "You put so much emphasis on so many wrong things. Say you ran away with this money. What would you buy with it? And where would you go?"