Parable of the Talents - Octavia E Butler Page 0,124
there, and maybe the robbers and the crazies will go for the smaller ones who look like less trouble. And there are fewer robbers and crazies. Or there were. At Georgetown and on my way here, I saw more and more men in military uniforms—or parts of uniforms. They helped fight Jarret’s stupid Al-Can war. Now a lot of them are having a hard time earning a living—and they’re often very well armed.
There are more slavers now that Jarret’s Crusaders have joined Cougar and his friends in the game of collaring people and grabbing their kids. I’m hoping to be invisible to them. I want to keep quiet, do my work, and to look just crazy enough to encourage people to let me alone. As a man, though, I must be very careful how I follow up the few leads I have on small Black children who have appeared all of a sudden in families where no one was pregnant. I don’t want to be mistaken for a lurking child molester or a kidnapper.
I hope to work for meals in Eureka and Arcata—a little yard work, some painting, some minor carpentry, wood that needs chopping… If I stay away from the wealthier neighborhoods, I should be all right. Wealthy people wouldn’t need to hire me anyway. They would keep a few servants—people working for room and board. I would be working for what was left of the middle class. I would be just one more day laborer working for his next meal.
Down south and in the Bay Area, a laborer’s life would be harder. People are too distrustful of one another, too walled off from one another if they can afford walls. But up here, men are hired, and then at least decently fed. They might even be allowed to sleep in a shed, a garage, or a barn. And they might—often do—get a look at the kids of the family. They might—often do—hear talk that later proves useful. For most laborers, useful means they might be steered toward other jobs or away from trouble or let in on where people keep their valuables. For me, useful might mean rumors of adoptions, fosterings, and children’s homes.
I’ll wander around the Eureka-Arcata complex and the surrounding towns for as long as I can. Allie has promised to go on collecting information for me, and she says I can crash in her rooms at Georgetown when I need a rest in a real bed. Also, if I’m picked up and collared, Dolores will vouch for me—for a fee, of course. She knows what I’m doing. She doesn’t think I’ve got a chance in hell of succeeding, but she’s got kids and grandkids, so she knows I have to do this.
“I’d do the same thing myself,” she said when I talked to her. “I’d do all I could. Goddamn these so-called religious people. Thieves and murderers—that’s all they are. They should wear the collar. They should roast in hell!”
There are times when I wish I believed in hell—other than the hells we make for one another, I mean.
SUNDAY, APRIL 15, 2035
I’ve spent my first week doing other people’s scutwork. Odd how familiar all the jobs are—helping to plant vegetable or flower gardens, chopping weeds, pruning bushes and small trees, cleaning up a winter’s accumulation of trash, repairing fences, and so on. These are all things I did at Acorn where everyone did everything. People seem pleased and a little surprised that I do good work. I’ve even earned some money by suggesting extra jobs that I was willing to take care of for a fee. People warn their kids away from me most of the time, but I do get to see the kids, from babies in their mothers’ arms to toddlers to older kids and neighbor kids. I haven’t seen any familiar faces yet, but, of course, I’ve just begun. I’ve gone to as many Black or mixed-race families as I could. I don’t know what kind of people I should be checking, but it seemed best to begin with these people. If they seem at all friendly, I ask them if they have friends who might hire me. That’s gotten me a couple of jobs so far.
My problem has turned out to be having a place to sleep. A guy offered to let me sleep in his garage that first night if I’d give him a blow job.
I wasn’t sure whether he thought I was a man or had spotted that I