Someone to Hate
by Andy Rausch
When a group of the nation’s most deeply prejudiced men is forcibly transformed in a secret government experiment, their worlds are turned upside down.
Colonel Dannis was in his office completing daily paperwork when the young corporal opened his door without knocking. Dannis looked up, irritated. “Do I need to put a goddamn sign on the door telling assholes like you to knock?”
“I’m sorry, sir,” said the corporal. “But it’s important.”
“What is it?”
“It’s Number Seven, sir.”
“What about him?”
“He’s awake, sir. He’s the first one.”
Dannis dropped the paper he was holding and stood. He rolled his chair back and maneuvered around the desk quickly. As Dannis approached the door, the nervous corporal apologized again. “I really am sorry, sir.”
“You did the right thing. Let’s go.”
“Yes, sir.”
The corporal stepped aside, allowing Dannis to pass, and then followed him. As the two men walked down the long tiled corridor, the sounds of their footfalls echoed. When they came to the laboratory office, Dannis opened the door and walked in, the corporal behind him.
Inside, six men, half in camouflage military garb, half in white coats, were standing, staring at a wall of monitors, each one showing a variation of the same thing. Everyone focused on one screen, seeing Number Seven trying to sit up, but only managing to move his head as he was strapped to a gurney. This man, Number Seven, was screaming, but his words were inaudible.
“What’s he saying?” asked Dannis.
“I, uh, don’t know,” said one of the soldiers, a man whose name Dannis couldn’t remember.
“Turn up the sound so we can hear,” Dannis said.
The soldier pushed a series of buttons and suddenly the sound of Number Seven’s yelling filled the office.“Get me the fuck outta here!” he yelled. “Whoever you are, get me out! I’m gonna kill your motherfuckin’ ass when I get loose! Mark my words! I’ll fuckin’ kill you!”
The corporal turned to Dannis. “He doesn’t sound pleased.”
Dannis just looked at the corporal and shook his head. He then looked at another soldier, Sgt. Riggins. “Riggins, you come with me.”
“We’re going in?”
“We need to talk to him.”
“What about me?” asked the chief scientist, whose name Dannis also did not know despite having worked with him for a month now. “Should I go, too?”
“You’re not needed. I’ll call you when I need you.”
The scientist frowned and his shoulders slumped.
Dannis and Riggins went to the door leading into the lab room. Dannis grabbed the doorknob and opened the door, stepping in.
Number Seven was lying on the gurney, still screaming, completely unaware of their presence.
“You’re fucking dead! You hear me?” screamed Number Seven.
Dannis walked right up beside him, startling the subdued man. Number Seven stopped yelling and just stared at him for a moment. Then, finally, he demanded, “What the hell is all this?”
“You’ve been chosen to participate in an experiment,” said Dannis.
Number Seven started bucking against his restraints, trying to get free. “Let me outta here, you fuckin’ cracker!” he screamed.
Dannis stood there, staring at him. “You won’t get loose, Number Seven, so there’s no need for this. If you behave, this will all go much more smoothly.”
“Number Seven? Why you callin’ me that?”
Dannis gave him a half-grin, which was about all the humorless man could feign. “Because here you’re Number Seven. We don’t use names here.”
“Fuck you!” screamed Number Seven. “My name is Derrick motherfuckin’ Thompson!”
“Not anymore.”
Number Seven stared at him silently for a moment, trying to make sense of it.
“Here you’re Number Seven.”
Number Seven was confused. He had stopped screaming. “Why Number Seven? What’s the significance?”
“There are a lot of men participating in this experiment,” said Dannis. “You’re Number Seven.”
“How many men?”
“You’ll find out soon enough.”
Number Seven became upset, more emotional than angry. He wasn’t crying, but he was visibly distressed. “What kind of experiment is this?”
“I can’t tell you much, Number Seven.”
Number Seven became enraged again, fighting against his restraints. “My name is Derrick, you fuckin’ peckerwood!”
Dannis stared at him, remaining calm. “That what I am to you, Number Seven? A fuckin’ peckerwood?”
Number Seven grinned. “You are. And more. You’re a white piece of shit and your ancestors are all cavemen and inbred hillbillies. You ain’t shit. None of you white motherfuckers are shit!”
Dannis’ half-grin spread now, and suddenly he was smiling for the first time in years. He turned to Riggins. “Go ask the scientist for the mirror.”
“Yes, sir,” Riggins said, turning towards the door and then disappearing through it.
“What is this?” asked Number Seven in something slightly less than a yell. “What’s happening?”
Dannis stared at him, the smile stuck on his face.
Riggins returned. He presented Dannis a handheld mirror, and Dannis took it. He turned back to Number Seven.
“If I’m a fuckin’ peckerwood,” he said, holding the mirror up in front of Number Seven’s face, “then what are you?”
Number Seven looked into the mirror, seeing a face he’d never seen before. The face before him was a strange shade of white. It wasn’t white-people white, which was a kind of beige, but a different, unnatural white, like Casper the Ghost. Number Seven stared at the image, his eyes huge, trying to decipher what was happening. He studied the white face that wasn’t his and now saw that his head was shaved bald and looked like a cue ball. There were tears of, what, anger maybe, in his eyes. He looked at Dannis, who was still smiling, and heard his voice waver as he asked, “What did you do to me?”
“What? You don’t like it?”
Now there were tears cascading down Number Seven’s paper-white cheeks and he was shaking, unsure how to process this. His head turned sideways to look at Dannis, he asked, “Why?”
“Part of the experiment.”
“What is it?” asked Number Seven. “Paint?”
“No, it isn’t paint. We’ve altered your skin tone.”
Number Seven stared, unable to comprehend. “What do you mean?”
“You’re a white man now,” said Dannis. “For the rest of your life.”
Number Seven started fighting his restraints again, doing little beyond tiring himself. “I’ll fuckin’ kill you, you whitebread piece of shit! I mean it! I get loose, I’ll kill yer whole goddamn family, you fuckin’ white trash motherfucker! Let me outta here!”
Dannis turned towards Riggins. “Go tell the scientist to sedate him. Put him under until we need him.”
“FUCK YOU!” screamed Number Seven, his head turned, watching Dannis walking away. He was still screaming obscenities as the Asian scientist in the lab coat approached him with a hypodermic needle raised between them.
“This won’t hurt a bit,” said the scientist.
“FUCK YOU!”
An hour later, the scene played out again when Number Three woke up. Dannis and Riggins were standing over him, watching him buck and scream. The Asian scientist was in the room, standing behind them.
Number Three was strapped to the gurney, bucking and screaming. “GET ME OUTTA HERE!”
Dannis just stood there, watching him, waiting for him to stop fighting. Number Three continued screaming for another thirteen minutes. Finally, once he’d worn himself out, he stopped screaming and bucking, relenting, just lying there shaking.
“You finished with your tantrum?” asked Dannis.
Number Three stared at him, weak now, saying nothing.
“You probably wonder why you’re here.”
“I do,” Number Three managed. “Why am I here?”
“What do you think about black people, Number Three?”
Number Three’s face twisted into an expression of confusion. “I don’t follow.”
“The question is simple: what are your thoughts on black people?”
“I hate niggers,” said Number Three flatly. “I can’t stand ’em at all.”
“Why’s that?”
“They’re fuckin’ freeloaders, every one of ’em. They’re inferior to the white man, and they just take up space, always complainin’ and bitchin’ ’bout shit, tryin’ ta start fights. They’re fuckin’ worthless.”
“Have you always felt this way, Number Three?”
Number Three looked confused again. “What’s with the Number Three shit?”
“It’s your name now.”
“My name?”
“Yes. Everyone here has a number. Yours is Number Three.”
“Where…am I?”
“You’re in a government facility.”
“But…why?”
“You’ve been selected to participate in a very important experiment.”
Number Three looked even more confused now. “What kinda experiment?”
“It doesn’t matter,” said Dannis. “You’re one of the lucky ones. Out of the three billion people in the good ol’ US of A, you were one of the few selected.”
“What is this?”
Dannis deflected. “Tell me about black people.”
“What the fuck you wanna know about black people?”
“Why do you hate them?”
Number Three looked at him like he was crazy. “Why would anyone not hate them? There’s nothin’ to like about ’em. They’re trash. All of ’em.”
“So, you hate all black people?”
“Fuck yes, I do,” said Number Three.
“Guess what?” asked Dannis. Before Number Three could respond, Dannis raised the mirror, holding it in front of him. Number Three stared at his reflection, confused. Without taking his eyes off the black face in the mirror, he asked, “What is this? What the fuck is this?”
“What does it look like?”
Number Three stared at the bald-head black face in the mirror. “It looks like a fuckin’ nigger.”
“That’s your face, Number Three.”
Number Three wanted to scream at him and tell him to stop calling him Number Three, that his name was Tommy Kincaid, to go fuck himself and lots of other stuff, but he was overwhelmed and confused. He looked at Dannis, silent for a moment before finally asking, “Is this some kinda joke?”
“I assure you, Number Three, it’s no joke.”
“I…I…,” said Number Three, staring into the mirror again. Staring at his face, he saw that its complexion was not the black of any real person he’d ever seen, but a sort of shoe polish blacker-than-black black. “I’m a nigger.”
“No,” said Dannis. “You’re Number Three.”
Number Three said nothing, starting to cry, still staring at his now-black face. Dannis pulled the mirror away.
“Why do I look like this?” asked Number Three.
“Like what?”
“Like…a…nigger.”
“Because you’re black.”
“How’s that even possible?”
“We’ve altered your skin pigmentation.”
“I, uh…I…” He stared at Dannis, the two making eye contact. “How long will this last?”
Dannis smiled for the second time in both the day and the year. “Forever, Number Three. You’re a black man for life. Beyond that, really. You’re black now.”
Number Three started screaming threats and obscenities, fighting and bucking against his restraints, as Dannis turned and walked away. As he did, Riggins followed him out the door. The scientist raised the hypodermic needle and closed in on Number Three.
Eight of the fourteen specimens were awake by the time Dannis spoke to General Jackson on the telephone. It was an old-style phone with a buttons and a cord. As much money as the government was spending on this experiment, Dannis wondered why they couldn’t afford new phones.
“They’re awake now?” asked Jackson.
“Eight so far. Things are going as planned.”
“The white ones are black and the black ones are white?”
“Yes, sir.”
“This might sound funny, but…”
“Yes, sir?”
“Could you explain all this to me?”
“What do you mean, sir?”
“No one’s ever really explained the finer points of this experiment to me. How it all works. I know the basics, that they all change colors, but what’s the point?”
“The way it was explained to me,” said Dannis, “was that the experiment is supposed to give us a better understanding of human beings and how they approach different races.”
“How so?”
“How they’ll react to other people who are now their same color, and beyond that, how they’ll relate to people who are now their old color. They wanna find out if, say, a racist white guy who turns black will start to hate the other white guys who turned black simply because they’re now black.”
“Makes sense,” said Jackson. “And probably how they’ll react to black people who are now white people. I guess that’ll tell us if they really believe white people are superior to black people. If they really feel that way, then there’s no reason for them to hate the newly-converted white folks.”
“That sounds unlikely.”
“It’s an interesting experiment though,” said Jackson. “But it seems like a huge waste of taxpayers’ dollars.”
“You know the government as well as I do. They’ll waste money on anything. Especially if it’s unneeded.”
“Ain’t that the truth. But I got another question for you.”
“Sure thing. I’ll tell you if I know.”
“How did they select these fourteen people?”
“From social media.”
“Of course,” said Jackson. “Nothing good comes from social media.”
“Apparently some hotshots up in Washington studied thousands and thousands of social media profiles for months in order to determine the most hate-filled, bigoted, racist, prejudiced men they could. White guys who hate black guys and black guys who hate white guys.”
“And the result was these men?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Interesting.”
Number nine was the first to wake up in the gymnasium. He sat up, shaking his head, which hurt from lying on the hardwood floor. Then he remembered. It couldn’t be true, he thought. It had to be a dream. He raised his hand to see if he’d really turned black. Looking at his hand, he saw that he had.
“Jesus Christ,” he muttered. He looked around the room, seeing the other thirteen men, half black, half white, all bald and dressed in identical orange jumpsuits, scattered about, asleep on the floor. There was no sound and there was no one else in the gym with them. Number nine was the only man who was awake. He looked around, confused by what he was seeing. Where had all these niggers come from? Then he remembered and looked at them again, seeing now that they were all the same unnatural shoe-polish shade of black he was. Were they also white guys turned black like he was? He then looked around the room at the sleeping white men. There was something off about them, too. Something unnatural. Their color was off. Were they real white guys? Of course, he thought. They had to be. It was doubtful the government had the capability to change both colors into their polar opposites. And then, contemplating this, it occurred to him that when the white people woke up, they would look at him and believe he was a nigger. They might even try to hurt him.
What should he do? He wasn’t sure. In that brief second, it occurred to him that maybe he should kill the white people in their sleep. But that was ridiculous. He could never kill his fellow Aryan brothers, could he? But then, how could he even be sure they were actual white guys? Now a second thought came to him—he could murder all the black people in their sleep. This would be a dream come true for him. But then, how could he be sure they were actual niggers and not proud white Aryans like him, somehow transformed into porch monkeys? There was no way he could know for sure.
He stood up, the only standing, awake man in the gym. He looked around, searching for the scientists and the soldiers. Maybe that asshole who had made fun of him and had held up the mirror, asking him what it felt like to be a coon. Fuck that guy, he thought. Scanning the room, he saw no windows and only one door, which he was certain would be locked. Upon further inspection, he saw that there were eight—at least he thought there were eight, but there could have been more—surveillance cameras mounted on the walls around the gym.
Standing there staring at them, surrounded by diverse sleeping men, he screamed out, “WHERE ARE YOU, YOU FUCKERS?”
Crickets. No response.
Just before he started to yell again, he saw the sleeping bald men starting to wake from their slumber. They were all groggy, rubbing their eyes, moving slowly and looking around around. Number Nine stared at the cameras again and yelled out, “COME ON OUT, YOU CHICKENSHIT MOTHERFUCKERS!”
“What’s happening?” he heard someone say as black and white bald men were starting to stand around him now. Number Nine stared at the cameras, yelling out again, “FUCK YOU, YOU NIGGER-LOVING FUCKS!”
“What the hell did you say?” asked a white man to his left.
A black man to his right said, “You’re black yourself.”
Number Nine turned to him. “Am I?”
“Of course you are, nigger,” said the man.
“I ain’t no nigger!” screamed Number Nine. “You’re the nigger!”
“Who you callin’ nigger?” asked the man, who then stopped, staring at his hands.
There was a long period where all the men stood there, looking around and taking second looks at their own hands and arms. No one knew what to do.
“Let’s separate. All the black men gather over here,” said a white man.
“Fuck you, cracker!” said another white man.
“Who the fuck you callin’ cracker, cracker?!”
This continued for a while, occasionally broken up by a fistfight between men of different shades with men who looked exactly like them and also men who didn’t, no one quite sure who or what they were and exactly who they should be fighting.
Finally, Number Seven called out, “Everyone, look at your skin. If your skin is white right now, gather around me.”
A white man said, “My skin is white, but I ain’t white.”
“Don’t matter,” said Number Seven. “I’m black, too.”
“You ain’t black,” said another white man.
“None of us are who we used to be,” said Number Seven. “Or who we really are. So if your skin is white right now, even if it ain’t never been white before, I want you to gather around over here.”
As all the newly-white men began to congregate, a newly-black man said, “What the fuck are them niggers up to?”
“We need to make our own group over here,” announced Number Eleven. “Anybody who ain’t a nigger but got nigger skin now, come on over here by me. Don’t matter what color you really are, if your skin is black now, you gather over here and we’ll figure this out.”
Soon there was a group of seven black men who hated niggers in one corner of the room and seven white men who hated peckerwood crackers gathered in another.
“What we gonna do?” asked the newly-black Number Four.
“We gotta kill them niggers,” said Number Eleven.
“But, but…,” said another newly-black man.
“What?”
“We are the niggers.”
Number Eleven stood there, considering this. “Shit,” he said. “I guess maybe you’re right. But it don’t matter. Whatever they are, that’s what we hate.”
“So we hate white men now?”
“Yep,” said Number Eleven. “We gotta kill ’em!”
“We do!” yelled another man.
Across the room, a similar conversation was occurring among the newly-white men. Number Ten was staring at his hands, talking to himself. “I was raised to hate these white Klan fuckers. My Daddy told me not to ever trust a white man, that they were all terrible.”
“They are,” said Number Seven.
“So, do we hate ourselves?”
“I’m…not sure.”
“So what do we do?”
“We gotta kill ’em,” said Number Seven. “The battle is the same, no matter what color we are. Even if their skin color is black now, they’re still nigger-hating peckerwoods.”
“Are you sure?” asked another man.
“Sure I’m sure,” said Number Seven. “The only good white man is a dead white man.”
“But we’re white.”
“That don’t matter,” said Number Seven. “We gotta kill ’em, whatever they are. They ain’t like us. If we don’t kill them, they’re gonna kill us.”
“You think?”
“Of course.”
Across the room, one of the newly-black men was telling his comrades the same thing in slightly different words. “It’s us or them. Color don’t matter no more. We gotta get them before they get us.”
Inside the lab office there was now a room full of soldiers and scientists in white jackets crammed in, all staring at the assemblage of screens. All of them were watching the fourteen men brutally fighting one another in the gymnasium.
“You think they’ll kill each other?” asked Riggins.
“Of course,” said Dannis.
“But it doesn’t make sense,” said Riggins.
“It makes perfect sense,” said one of the scientists. “People hate ‘the other’, whatever it is they think that means. Sometimes it’s different colors, sometimes it’s different religions, sometimes it’s different political parties. Hell, sometimes people of the same race or affiliation hate other subsets of their own people.”
“Everyone needs someone to hate,” said Dannis.
“It appears so,” said another scientist.
“At least one man will survive,” said Riggins. “Then what?”
“Then we kill him and start over,” said Dannis.
“We’ll do this all over again?”
“Dozens of times.”
“But why? Haven’t we learned enough from this to tell us what we need to know?”
“You know the brass,” said Dannis. “They wanna be absolutely sure about their findings. They’ll probably change a few variables here and there and see if anything changes.”
“Do you think it will?”
Dannis turned towards Riggins as a couple of scientists chuckled. “Of course not,” he said. “It’s human nature. Everyone’s lookin’ for someone to hate. It doesn’t matter who it is. If they need it badly enough, anyone’ll fit the bill.”
Riggins frowned. “That’s a pretty pessimistic view.”
Dannis pointed towards the screens. “Look at that,” he said. “This is the world we live in, Riggins.”
“But it seems like a waste of human life to keep conducting this experiment over and over again.”
“Look, Riggins, whether we do this experiment or not, they’re all gonna kill each other anyway. If it makes you feel better, look at it this way—we’re just speeding up the process.”
Riggins turned back towards the screen, watching the carnage.
“I’m gonna run down to the pop machine,” said one of the scientists. “Anyone need anything?”
“Sure,” said Dannis, fishing in his pocket for change. “I’ll take a Diet Coke.”
