credit: Sarah Ahmad
Ota Benga Figures it Out
Jarrid Deaton
Winter 2010
Winter 2010
The smoke grew from the fire and separated, taking an existence of its own. This was Ota Benga at the start and this was Ota Benga at the end. Trapped in glass and faded, the smoke was a fog above wet embers as he crossed the ocean to the concrete world of puffy jowls and streetcars. Always there, but guarded now by the others. The others who took him from his homeland, directed his life, and birthed him into something new. Western fashion. Nice teeth after the nightmare bird wheeze of an electric drill. Home became a zoo, and Ota Benga was told to roam around and engage in conversation with the visitors like a polite escaped exhibit. In the glass, the smoke swirled and moved, the cough of a ghost.
The women came to him. So small. So cute. Hey, little guy. Do you like America? Do you like hot dogs? Strange women with smells like rain wet flowers from his home. They imagined him to be a child enamored with his new life. Ota Benga memorized their high-riding breasts held up by contraptions of cotton and lace. He stared at the shadows where their thighs pressed against each other under dresses and skirts. He was not a child.
Inside Ota Benga, the smoke expanded.
Plans to return home. Plans to cross the great rippling water and see his own land again. Plans destroyed by the coming of the Great War. Giant machines and chemicals, crushed bones and shredded flesh. Ota Benga was trapped now in the west.
Ota Benga built a ceremonial fire. The heat and orange wind reminded him of home. He cracked the caps from his teeth. His mouth was his own again. The cold black circle of the revolver kissed his chest. The bullet sought out his heart.
The smoke from the gun rose and mixed with the product of the fire, rising and rising before spreading apart and disappearing. Ota Benga watched until his sight faded and thought this is slavery this is freedom this is nothing.