Set Foot

Tailored down to the socks, Terry Northing sipped gin. He looked over at his friend, Fredro Blankfield at the Mercier Hotel bar in downtown Wilmington, Delaware. He also sported a three thousand dollar suit. Northing wore a dark blue suit and cognac shoes. Blankfield captivated with his charcoal and scarlet striped suit complete with a silk Windsor tie knot. He sipped red wine. The two men laughed.

“That’s when I got the hell out of there,” Blankfield admitted.

“Goddamn! I would have run out of there, too,” Northing replied, drawing on a vape pen.

“So, what do you have going on tonight? Are you with that new female companion? Or did you run out on her as well?” Northing asked.

“I’m taking her to this talk. Well, she’s taking me.”

“What’s it about?”

“‘The most evil men in history,’” Blankfield sighed but made the title sound grand.

“Well, you already know who the original mass butcher is, right?”

Blankfield raised an eyebrow then shrugged.

“King Leopold II of Belgium.”

“Who?”

“Exactly, the man was so vicious that few even know his name and what he did,” coils of grayish-cobalt fumes issued from his mouth.

“You’re outta your mind, man. Hitler? Stalin? Mao?”

“All copycats.”

“You’re my friend and I’m here to tell you, you’re talking out the side of your neck. The Big Three Terrors contributed to almost two hundred million murders combined. There’s no way this Leopold character could have done what he did in Belgium of all places.”

“He didn’t do it in Belgium. He actually sent others to do his ugliness in the Congo. A place he never set foot. It’s estimated he slaughtered anywhere from ten to fifteen million people.”

“I just told you the numbers of the Three. He can’t compare. Hitler didn’t have to explore beyond Germany’s Third Reich to commit his crimes against humanity, either.”

“The statistics can be argued over til’ the midnight sun. I, however, know that Leopold committed his atrocities knowing full well that he wished to spread mysticism and incorporate a society among people often labeled savages.”

“Do you think they were?”

Northing placed down his gin on a table. “I know they were human beings.”

“But they were from the Congo.”

“You’re saying, what, friend?”

“That nobody but nobody gives a good goddamn about what some European king did or directed people to do based on his terrific system.”

Northing’s tongue clung to the roof of his mouth. Salivation did not occur for him for close to five seconds. He didn’t emit words for another ten seconds.

“So, you’re saying, as a man of color who happens to live in America, that those people didn’t matter? That the lives of Russians, Chinese, and the Jews far outweigh the lives of people with black skin?”

“Man, I didn’t say all that,” Blankfield responded with a bit of venom creeping into his words.

“I can tell you one thing, every individualistic life matters. For complete genocides to occur, red, brown, black, white, or yellow, these human beings mattered. The hands that Leopold was obsessed with and the whips and the chains mirror slightly American slavery. Are you going to argue with me over that?”

“What I’m saying is that Leopold isn’t taught in schools and people don’t know about him because the people he leveled his evil against were black. If they wore yarmulkes, ate rice with sticks, or named a liquor after water, then people would care. Nobody cares about Leopold II of Belgium or those Congolese that he killed. I’m just stating facts.”

“I don’t care that we happen to share the same skin color of those unfortunate people of the Congo. I’m telling you that King Leopold II started in the nineteenth century before genocide was ‘cool.’ He set the template for the horrors that would come in the twentieth century. I would go so far as to say, without King Leopold II of Belgium, there would be no Big Three of Terror.”

“Debatable,” Blankfield sighed.

“It’s more than that, it’s rational. He crafted a system of carnage through other channels out of cowardice and his leanings on faith and force. He corrupted the souls of the men who severed hands and lashed. He brought his reign of terror not out of a sense of just being ‘greedy’ or protecting his money generated from the backs of the Congolese rubber industry. No. Leopold represents a precursor in the realm of truly vicious men. The confusion that he was some kind of capitalist should be clarified. While making money is a facet of free markets, you can't have free markets without free people.”

Blankfield snorted. He sipped some of his wine and sighed again. “I hear you, my friend. I do. But you are missing the point. The bastards that rose to horrific prominence did so without mentioning Leopold’s name. Otherwise, we would have had history lessons on him in high school and at DIT.”

“Well, we didn’t because of soft shoe negroes like yourself who would blame the black man for his plight. Those people were forced: men, women, and children. All of them lived like slaves under the machete blade or the whip. Did you know that twenty five lashes could knock someone unconscious and that a hundred blows could send them to the morgue? That’s who we’re talking about. The untalked about is what we’re sparring over, here.”

“Did you call me a soft shoe negro? Don’t you know I’m a Foundational Black American just like you? In fact I’m an American Descendent of Slavery. We know each other too well to quarrel over such matters as this. I’m a proud black man but I know that our own people don’t even care about the Congolese. Especially not those who died over a hundred years ago.”

“Who’s people? I’m color neutral. Fred, that’s exactly why we should be talking about this. This should be on every digital platform in every school on the planet. Leopold didn’t just encourage men to rape and pillage, he made it seem like it was the right thing to do. He made it seem as if he could get away with it. Partially, he did. The wounds and murders he inflicted still echo back to this day.” Northing shifted in his chair exposing his onyx black skin above his socks.

“Okay. I am starting to see that this Leopold guy was an atrocious figure in history. What’s going to happen? Are we going to hand out magazines like The Watchtower or The Final Call?

“What you can do is go to this talk tonight and tell your girlfriend about Leopold. Tell her about what I just told you. Let her know that the first thing that comes to mind in regard to despicable men should not be Hitler. Mao and Stalin should rank shoulder to shoulder with him, but Leopold’s gotta be included in the discussion.”

“We could name more…Pol Pot’s another son of a bitch. Basically Nazism and Communism should be looked at as the monsters. I think we can at least agree on that. I think they’re what we need to fight.”

“That’s true. But as pernicious as Nazism is, communism and socialism are still the most difficult to pin down in people’s minds. They know that Nazis are totally vicious but most folks hold a vaunted ideal of communism and socialism. Those theories are absurd and the practices are abominable. And again, who set all of this in motion?”

“Leopold.” Blankfield said it with conviction and a sense that his mind had just changed. He finished his wine as Northing downed his gin.

Northing’s face turned into a trillion watt light bulb.

Then, Blankfield rose to his feet and buttoned his jacket. Northing arose as well.

“I’m going to take what you said and apply it to my date. Tell Sandra I said hi and the kids.”

“I will. Just remember that there is a fourth and totally important man to add. And let us not forget the heroes like African-American man George Washington Williams, who wrote a letter to Leopold outlingling his evils.”

“I know, now,” Blankfield responded and they both returned to their respective corner offices.

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