The summer grass is tall outside the basketball court. Grasshoppers hum and jump. Dew drops from the blades as dragonflies buzz from one seedhead to another. Joe-Joe sits in the shade twisting his hair. Dwayne and Robert pull the weeds from the cracks in the court despite the heavy sun, while Dion yammers on about the candy-red Impala his daddy used to drive before the Hack.
“I’m so tired of beef I could puke,” says Robert all of a sudden. “I would tear me up some fish.”
“Or some chicken,” adds Dion.
“Man,” corrects Joe-Joe, “you know Red Tide still all over the coast, and good luck finding a chicken that aint deformed.”
The sound of a bouncing ball wanders their way. Cameron and Michael come around the outfield of the forgotten baseball diamond, met by a scowling Joe-Joe who stands up to chide them for being late. “Where y’all been at?” he asks as they wade through the tall grass towards the court.
“The carts were slow,” explains little Cameron timidly. “The roads were wet so we had to walk.”
“And y’all were here this whole time but didn’t cut the grass?” Michael asks scolding the other boys.
“Somebody took the scythe,” bucks Dion.
“It’s right by the gate!” Michael retorts.
Joe-Joe shrugs, saying, “Let’s play.”
“You got the pump?” asks Cameron of Dwayne.
“Yup, pass me the rock,” Dwayne replies, holding the basketball pump in his left hand.
Cameron shoots the ball into the air towards Dwayne. The glare of the sun causes Dwayne to misjudge the ball’s trajectory. His right arm reaches to catch the ball, but he misses, and it hits the pump’s needle instead. The needletip falls to the ground. Dwayne stares at the broken pieces in horror.
“That was our last one!” shouts Joe-Joe stepping to Dwayne. “What’re we gonna play now? Can’t even catch the gotdamn ball.
“And Cam!” fumes Joe-Joe, “why did you throw it like that?”
Cameron retracts his shoulders backwards at the threat of the older boy.
“Mannn,” complains Dion, stepping into the semi-circle forming around Dwayne, “you always fucking shit up.”
“I swear to God, Dwayne,” Joe-Joe snarls, “if your Aunt Keisha weren’t on the Council, I’d knock the ugly off your face.”
“We’re not s’posed to talk like that,” says Cameron nervously.
“‘We’re not s’posed to talk like that,’” Robert repeats, ridiculing the smallest of the crowd.
“Actually,” Michael realizes, turning to Joe-Joe, “Cameron’s right. If any of the councilors found out that you were talking like that, they’d send you to Covington for a week!”
“And what if they found out that Dwayne’s dumbass broke the only needle we have in all the villages? Would they send him to the fields?” Joe-Joe quickly sighs in exasperation. “Oh no,” he says, raising his voice like a schoolgirl’s, “it was a mistake. We have to be understanding of the situation.”
“I wish there had never been no Hack,” declares Robert, smacking his lips with indignation. “Wouldn’t have to worry ’bout no academies, no fields, no stupid breathwork, no council meetings. And a needle, shucks, probably like a dollar at Walmart. Back when there was a Walmart.”
“We ain’t never gonna play again,” Dion insists.
“Maybe,” squeaks Cameron, “Ms. Keisha can get us a needle in one of the envoys.”
“Councilor Keisha,” says Michael.
“Bro,” exclaims Dion, “the Texans are moving east. You think the Council’s really worried about a needle right now?”
“I’m just saying. Gosh,” Cameron whines.
“Fuck this,” grumbles Joe-Joe, throwing his hand at Dwayne and the rest of the boys as he walks away.
The clopping of hooves on fractured asphalt carries towards the boys. As a horse pulling a draycart and two riders come over the hill, Michael shoots his little brother a knowing look, and Cameron agrees.
“Y’all can keep the ball,” says Michael. “We got to help Mama cook anyway.” He shoves the half-deflated ball at Robert, grabbing Cameron’s hand as they hurry towards the moving cart.
***
The curvy, colossal bridges of I-85 fade into the distance; the cart veers off the crumbling concrete onto a dirt road. It rolls past a large three-sisters field—mounds of beans, squash, and corn growing together. The boys then admire the low-growing peanut crops until the field of grazing cattle catches their attention.
“It’s steaks for dinner, boys,” one of the riders announces to Cameron and Michael sitting on the bed of the cart. He quickly swipes his knife against the sharpening stone, then grins at them as he alights. The man turns his cap backwards, leaps over the drainage ditch, then creeps as low as the wheat grasses around him. The boys watch every furtive movement, the butcher like a giant snake slithering through the field.
Swiftly he jumps out of the wheat over the wooden fence into the pasture, charges a cow, slices its throat without hesitation. Her neck collapses. Blood gushes onto the butcher’s boots and all over the green grass beneath it. The herd lows and bleats as it panics and scurries. The butcher runs after the herd, leaving the slain cow to topple where she stands. As he dashes after the cattle, a bull turns to hold its ground, flaring its nostrils with fury. Cameron and Michael stand up on the bed of the cart aghast, fixated on the butcher charging headlong towards the bull, this brute who has taken only a single trot towards his assailant. But the butcher already has sport and momentum in his blood. In a moment of adrenaline and stupidity, or perhaps absolute genius, the butcher gently tosses the blade aside. Covering his head with his hands, he barrel rolls diagonally into the front two hooves, breaking the bull’s legs. The beast twists grotesque and falls hard against the Earth, having barely missed the capless assassin. He writhes on the ground in an attempt to stand, but the injury is too cruel, and a clean death is preferable to hours of agony.
***
The spin of the grindstone and the zing of the blade against it haven’t yet drowned out the clopping of horses’ hooves or the trundle of the two clunky draycarts leaving the concrete village. Inside one of the old apartments, Michael’s arms grow tired from pumping the wheel, but Margaret’s eye stays keen. Sweat has begun to pour down Cameron’s face out front as he waves a smoldering torch of dried tobacco over the bloody limbs that will later be their dinner, Joe-Joe’s dinner, the councilors’, everyone’s.
“Cameron,” calls a woman’s voice from beyond the firepit.
“Councilor Keisha,” he replies, immediately standing at attention.
Michael stops the grindstone as his mother hurries to the door.
In her clean blue apron, Margaret methodically descends the front steps. “Councilor,” she says pleasantly.
“I heard they killed a bull,” says the councilor approaching the dismembered flesh.
Margaret’s eyes flit back and forth, putting the pieces together. “The boys . . . they told me that the butcher’d come, but . . . I didn’t even . . .” She turns now to her youngest son, saying, “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“You wanted me to keep the flies away!” Cameron explains.
“Michael,” the councilor calls to the lean teenager hanging in the doorway, “did you see it?”
“Yes ma’am,” replies Michael hurrying down the stairs. “It was gonna charge him.”
“You sure?”
“Yes ma’am. Ask Cameron.”
Wide-eyed, Cameron bounces his little chin up and down.
“Boys,” enjoins Councilor Keisha, though delicate in tone, “get some firewood please.”
Margaret stares at her sons as they mosey towards the nearby thicket. “How many left?” she asks lowering her voice.
“Councilor Reports estimate forty,” Keisha answers. “Maybe forty-five.”
“Forty-five!” Margaret cries, immediately covering her mouth. “Forty-five bulls in all of Georgia?” she asks whispering.
“What’s left of it. If we can’t grow beans and peanuts fast enough,” the councilor explains, “we’re going to have to negotiate with the Texans.”
From just inside the thicket, pretending to gather firewood, Cameron asks, “What’s the big deal about bulls?”
“Shhh!”—Michael hesitates, rolling his eyes at his brother’s curiosity—“without bulls, you can’t make more cows.”
“But why’re they all gone?”
“All the factories were up north and in Texas or whatever, so when the Hack hit, there were only so many bulls in Georgia.”
“But aren’t there pigs still in the north?” asks Cameron, peering back at the women conversing by the firepit.
“There haven’t been pigs in Georgia,” Michael whispers, “since before the Hack, and the Hillfolx killed all the deer and turkeys before the Council took back Dawsonville. So, you know . . .”
“. . . we’re stuck.”
“Look!” Michael whispers.
“Mama’s crying.”
“I thought things were s’posed to get better,” says Margaret to Keisha with tears on her cheeks.
“It takes time, Mae.” The councilor puts her hand on the cook’s shoulder to comfort her. “All the things we did to this place before the Hack.” She shakes her head. “A wound this big takes decades, centuries to heal. Your boys don’t become men overnight, do they?”
Mae nods no and wipes her tears.
“See you at dinner,” the councilor concludes, taking her leave.
At the edge of the thicket, Cameron whispers to his brother, “It’s Daddy, isn’t it? That’s why she so upset?”
Michael exits the thicket quickly carrying half a load of firewood. The movements of his feet are of no interest to him, only the sight of his rugged mother trying to hold back sadness and push forth strength.
He places the wood beside the firepit, then sits close to her in comfort, searching her face.
Margaret musters a modicum of courage from her gut, saying, “When I was a girl, people used to bathe their bulls in the rivers. They were . . . sacred.”
“In Cameroon?” asks Michael.
She nods.
“You want me to do it?” he asks reaching for the wide butcher’s knife.
“No,” she replies sternly, stepping forward to wield the blade.
Margaret drops to her knees, raises the knife, and with no misgiving, hacks into the limbs of the maimed taurus. Thick, gooey blood seeps out of its legs into the charred, black Earth surrounding the firepit while her sons watch their bereaved mother carve out their dinner.
***
Around the fire or tables and gathered at the stoops of the weathered apartments, the villagers talk about the days before the Hack. They discuss the newest inventions, the latest news of Brazilian pirates, flourishing Floridians, and the presence of bears in old Atlanta just a few miles away. But Cameron hasn’t taken his eyes off his mother since she sectioned out their meat.
She drops her smile as soon as she leaves the circle of women sitting close. Her hand brushes the side of her dress as she looks around for witnesses.
Cameron follows her across a ditch, then hides behind a scrap metal silo near the creek. Margaret reaches for a small spade buried in the hay beside the horse mill.
At the creek bed, she thrusts the spade into the ground. She stops, sighs, wipes the sweat from her brow. “Cameron,” she calls looking back, “help me.”
“What are you doing?” he asks coming around the silo.
From the hidden sack beneath her dress, she pulls out one of the bull’s hooves.
“Aren’t we,” he says to the hoof in his hand, “supposed to save these for glue?”
Stopping to look up at her son in the cloudy moonlight, she says, “Sometimes, baby, you got to do things your own way. Hack or no Hack, some things are between you and”—she looks down, purses her lips—“God.”
Cameron nods at the hoof in his hand, then drops to his knees to help his mother.
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