Joseph quickly went from being a sweet young boy to plantation enforcer. This was not what he’d risked it all for when escaping the Kingsleys. He was lost, and he did not even know the wrong turn he had taken. He had become everything he had always hated.
Joseph’s new role was introduced to him by the senator in such small increments, he did not even notice the transformation. It started out with Joseph simply watching over everyone on occasion. He did not want anyone to get into trouble, so he quietly observed. They all had a twinge of fear in their eye that kept them obedient to the senator’s callous rule. With little pep talks from the senator, Joseph was eventually running to tell him when someone was not acting or working “properly.” Day by day, Joseph was encouraged to take more authority. He had gone from not wanting anyone to be in trouble to correcting the workers himself when they were not behaving as he saw fit. “Get back to work,” he would demand with a snap of the whip.
Joseph found that he enjoyed having power instead of being the one controlled. Ironically, the senator’s control and manipulation was what led him to this disturbing place; the need for power had started to wrap its corrupt grip securely around him. It was addictive, and he loved the high. As with any addiction, it had tampered with his moral compass. The more the need for power grew, the weaker he became, a slave to its rule.
14
Mama?
Two years had passed, and Joseph had lost all his charming boyishness. He was like an angry old man, never smiling and always looking vacant and numb. He was miserable but did not know the difference anymore. He didn’t even look like the same person. He should have been a very attractive-looking young man, but there was no glow left to him. He had a darkness suppressing him, and he had been alienated from anyone who could bring light.
The only one that he could have a conversation with was the senator. None of the other workers wanted to speak to him. They feared him. The senator had also prohibited him from speaking with any outsiders. If he was allowed to speak to someone visiting the plantation, it was only in a monitored situation with the senator watching over him like a wolf guarding its kill, pacing back and forth with an intense and sinister glare in his eyes fixated directly on Joseph. It made others so uncomfortable that either they would quickly quit speaking to him or they learned to not engage with Joseph at all.
His conversations and interactions with the senator had drastically changed since Joseph first arrived—if you could call them conversations. The senator’s soft smiles and kind thank-yous, never authentic to begin with, were a thing of the past. Stern glares, vicious words, and the barking of commands were all Joseph received. The senator was cruel and merciless. Joseph had no one else; he was completely isolated. His self-esteem that had once been so abundant was gone. Joseph had once believed he was meant to change the world; now he felt worthless, unable to offer the world anything. The senator had drilled these thoughts so deep into Joseph’s mind that they had become part of his own mental dialogue. The abuser had managed to train the victim to become his own source of abuse and oppression.
Nowadays, the senator was constantly screaming at Joseph that he was not doing an adequate job. It was never good enough, so Joseph continually strived to do and be better in the senator’s eyes. No matter how hard he tried, he would never live up to the senator’s expectations. There was no real bar to reach. It was just a tactic to make sure he failed and remained completely controlled.
The senator would tell Joseph awful things such as, “Boy, you should feel blessed that you have someone as nice as me who allows you to work here, because no one else would put up with your pathetic lack of talent and the level of sloppiness that you continually show me.” The senator would also tell Joseph that he sickened him. He made damn sure Joseph believed that he was so worthless that no one else in the world would take the time to care for him and love him the way that the good senator did.
Joseph now truly believed that he could not go anywhere; he could not escape this prison. No one else would ever love him or put up with his worthlessness. All of that had formed a gray dome of ugliness and self-detestation that was suffocating his spirit.
In turn, Joseph had become harsh and unsympathetic toward others as well as himself. He had brief moments of clarity in which he wanted to unearth his old self, digging deep below to excavate that boy who had once shined so bright. However, as the web was intended to do, it kept him trapped. He feared what the senator might do; he feared where he would go; and he feared who, or what, he had become. All this control, fear, and abuse had festered inside him until it morphed into pure anger.
Joseph began to take out his deep-seated anger and internal turmoil on the workers. No leniency for laziness, as he called it. He now stood in that field like a dictator, holding the whip of dominance strong in his hand. He cracked it often to remind them who was in control, although, ironically, he had an absolute lack of control within himself. He was vacant, chaotic, and cold. He had barely dreamed or thought of his mother in months. The senator had made Joseph into his spiritless puppet, yanking at the strings as he pleased.
Yes, Joseph was angry, but he had never used physical violence. He did not find it necessary; he also did not have the stomach for it. The senator was pushing him further each day to become more vile. He craved to see the escalation of Joseph’s cruelty and anger. It was like a game to him. How cruel could he make one good-natured boy? It was like getting a sweet pup and training it to be a vicious fighter.
One cold and gloomy February morning, just four months before Joseph’s seventeenth birthday, he was patrolling with a watchful eye over the workers slaving out in his field. Joseph had become so tired of the cold gloom cast over Doddsdale and himself. He had grown to loathe himself and what he had become. A tiny light deep inside of him wanted to bleed through, but it was relentlessly being suffocated.
While he was patrolling that morning, his mind swarmed with anger and frustration. Just at the pinnacle of his rage and angst, one of the women in the field caught his attention. She had stopped working and was slightly slumped over. It appeared as if she were exhausted and needed to catch her breath. His first thought was to question if she was all right, but that was quickly overshadowed by irritation that she was not doing as he had instructed. This was the one thing he had control over, and he took it seriously.
“Get back to work!” he demanded. Why was this lady acting up? She was not listening to his clear demands.
The senator, as usual, was not too far away and was witnessing this event. He screamed to Joseph as if Satan was spewing from his mouth. “Are you going to let that nigger get away with that?”
Something snapped in Joseph. His eyes turned cold and lifeless. A beast had taken over his soul and was raging to get out. He stomped over to the woman while she was slumped over and grabbed her tightly by her arm, cutting off circulation. He jerked her toward him, flinging her body. He dragged her through the field as she stumbled and lost her footing along the way, dragging her toes behind her in the dirt.
All the while, the senator watched in delight. Joseph and the woman went into the barn behind the house. He threw her onto her knees in the dirt. He forced her on all fours like an animal and told her to keep her head down. He pulled her shirt over her head and then stood there, motionless.
By now, the senator was standing in the doorway of the barn with demented gratification dancing in his eyes as he said, “Do it, boy! Don’t let that mongrel control you.”
Joseph was not sure if he was equipped to do what was expected of him, but then he heard the voice of the senator continually echoing in his head. “There is no room for weakness here. Are you a coward or are you a real man, boy?” With that, Joseph reared back and began to strike her