Instant Recap: At age seven, Annie is attending an upscale school for gifted children. Her gifts include psychic powers, which she used to disrupt a science project and to psychometrically shoot a ball bearing at her teacher’s behind.
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6. Mistress and Slave
Annie led Louis across the large and finely landscaped schoolyard to an informal meeting of what she told him was her club, and there they were in a semi-secluded niche bounded by manicured shrubbery. One of them was an eleven-year-old named Rialta; when she spied Annie she said, “Hi, Kalianna!” This was echoed by the rest of the children, two girls and two boys of various ages.
“Kalianna?” said Louis.
“That’s my magical name,” she replied. “You have to call me by it if you want to be in the Kali Klub.”
Some of the kids greeted Louis. Annie raised her right hand over her head, twirled her fingers, and chanted loudly: “OM Namah Kali Jaya!” The whole group repeated it, and then Annie said, “I’m proposing Louis for membership in the Klub. He was real cool and supportive when I worked a little miracle in that dumb ‘Past and Future’ workshop.”
“Wow!” said a boy named Rick, “what did you do, topple the Leaning Tower?”
“Even better,” said Annie. “You want to tell them, Louis?”
Louis launched into the tale enthusiastically, and when he finished they were all a-titter. Everyone was in accord on his merits as a Klub member, and after some more banter he said, “So what do I have to do to be in the Klub? And who’s Kali anyway?”
A couple of kids gasped at his ignorance, but Annie explained: “She’s the most powerful Goddess in the world, and I’m her Avatar.”
“What,” said Louis, “like in a video game?”
“The secret,” said Annie, “is that the whole world is a video game of the Gods, and most people are just the ‘Sims’ they shuffle around and put through hoops for fun. But only very special people can be their Avatars, because that’s when the Gods themselves come into the game.”
“I sorta get it,” said Louis to Annie. “So if you’re this Goddess Kali, then can you, or she, work miracles specially for me?”
“She sure can!” said Rialta. “I always wanted a pony, but my tight-ass parents wouldn’t spring for one ~ until Kalianna worked a spell and they got me the most beautiful Shetland for my birthday.”
“That’s so cool!” said Louis. “Okay, you’re on. What should I do?”
She beckoned to the other boy and said, “Show him, George.”
George, age nine, was about the same height as Annie, who was precociously tall. He brought his hands to his heart in the prayer posture, bowed from the waist and said in a singsong: “Namah Kalianna, I bhakti to thee.” She touched his head and he straightened up.
“That’s all?” said Louis. “That’s easy. But what does ‘bhakti’ mean?”
A girl named Gloria said, “It means ‘devotion’. It’s how the Hindus relate to their deities, the same as when Christians surrender to Jesus.”
Louis looked a bit troubled at this. “Does it mean I’m accepting Annie… er, Kalianna as my personal savior?”
“Naw,” said Annie, “you’re still my pal, just a more special one. But if I do anything for you that makes you feel devoted, that’ll be fine.”
“Right,” said Rialta, “she earns our devotion.”
“That sounds okay,” said Louis. He clasped his hands, bowed and said, “Namah Kalianna, I bhakti to thee.”
She put her hand on his head and sent into it a surge of positive energy. He was transfixed, and went into a state of ecstasy, the most intense pleasure he had ever known in his short life. Kalianna removed her hand, he stood up, wobbled a little, then sank to his knees and looked up at her in total adoration. “Now, now,” she said with a smile, “that will never do! Someone might pass by and get the wrong idea.” She put out a hand; he took it, and she pulled him reluctantly to his feet.
“Oh my God!” he said, “that was incredible!”
“Oh my Goddess,” said Gloria, correcting him.
“Goddess for sure!” said Louis. “I’m a believer!”
Suddenly a voice said, “Hey, yo’ fuckin’ peckerwood, why don’tcha stick yo’ fuckin’ haid up her ass where it belongs?” Alfred stormed into the niche followed by a small flock of fellow students. Away from the watchful eyes and tender ears of the teachers he always reverted to hip-hop “niggajive”, though his “ghetto accent” was no more authentic than that of any of the posse of wiggers in his wake.
Kalianna said loudly but cooly to Alfred, “Butt out, boy! Your kind isn’t welcome here.”
Alfred was momentarily stunned, then said: “Yo’ shot de ball at Allison’s butt, yo’ fuckin’ witch-bitch! Dey oughta kick yo’ outta dis school.”
She looked at him with withering contempt and said, “You must have been hallucinating, you stupid niggah!”
The whole posse recoiled in shock. Alfred said, “Yo’ goddamn racist ho’! Ah’m gonna smack yo’ white ass!”
Louis was scared, but looked around and noticed that none of the other Klub members showed the slightest sign of fear. They just kept glancing from Kalianna to her adversaries with expressions of supreme confidence and gleeful anticipation. At length she said, “Why don’t you pull up your rotten roots and go back to Africa?”
“Roots, huh?” said Alfred. “Yo’ is got de worse kinda racism, like when dey whupped an’ beat Kunta Kinte an’ made ’im say….” He choked off, realizing he was making a tactical mistake.
“Oh?” said Kalianna, lifting an eyebrow. “What did they make him say?”
“Yo’ know damn well, yo’ seen de show.”
“I can’t be bothered watching niggah shows, they’re dumb and boring. So c’mon, tell me what he said. I really want to know.”
She squinted hard at Alfred. His body spasmed, then he fell to his knees. His face contorted in conflicting grimaces, and finally he said: “Yo’ is de massah and I’se de slave. Yassah, I be good niggah fo’ massah!”
Alfred’s friends gaped in shock. Kalianna’s followers tittered in glee. But she said angrily, “What do you mean calling me ‘massah!?’ Do I look like a man, you dumb niggah? I am the mistress and you are the slave!”
Alfred groveled and whined, “I’se so sorry, Mist’uss! Pleez don’t whup me no mo’, pleez fo’give me! Yo’ is de mist’uss and I’se de slave. Yas’um, I be good niggah fo’ mist’uss!”
“That’s more like it!” said Kalianna with a sardonic smirk. “I’ll let you off this time, but if there’s any more niggashit from you, your black ass is grass! Savvy?”
Alfred went through another spasm, then said in a different but equally obsequious voice: “I savvy, Kemo Sabe!” Even a couple of his friends laughed. He stood up, cast a fearful look at Kalianna, then turned on his heel and walked rapidly away, followed by a cowed bevy of kids.
Then in unison all the Kali Klub members except neophyte Louis raised their arms and chanted triumphantly: “OM Namah Kali Ma, Mahadeva Aum!”
Sharing the collective ebullience, Louis asked: “What does that chant mean?”
“It means that Kali is the greatest God,” said her diminutive but potent Avatar, “greater than all the male Gods, even the one in the Bible.” Louis looked surprised but nodded in affirmation. Kalianna added, “Nothing against Yahweh, you understand. He’s a personal friend of mine too, and the special God of my real teacher, whose name is Lilith.”
A melodious bell chimed the end of recess, the Kali Klub closed its meeting, and the devoted members of the curious clique went back to their classes.
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Part II is continued in the Pull the Plug ebook. However, Part III features an independent sequence of events, and so the first five chapters can be read without breach of continuity here: