Chain Gang All Stars

ALSO BY NANA KWAME ADJEI-BRENYAHFriday Black This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.Copyright © 2023 by Nana Kwame Adjei-BrenyahAll rights reserved. Published in the United States by Pantheon Books, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York, and distributed in Canada by Penguin Random House Canada Limited, Toronto.Pantheon Books and colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication DataName: Adjei-Brenyah, Nana Kwame, author.Title: Chain-gang all-stars : a novel / Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah.Description: First Edition. New York : Pantheon Books, 2023Identifiers: LCCN 2022017029 (print) | LCCN 2022017030 (ebook) | ISBN 9780593317334 (hardcover) | ISBN 9780593317341 (ebook) | ISBN 9780375715402 (open-market)Subjects: LCGFT: Novels.Classification: LCC PS3601.D49 C48 2023 (print) | LCC PS3601.D49 (ebook) | DDC 813/.6—dc23LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022017029LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022017030Ebook ISBN 9780593317341www.pantheonbooks.comCover design and illustration by Kimberly Glyderep_prh_6.1_143326502_c0_r0 For my dad, who said, “There’s nothing quite like helping someone in need, nothing quite like it.” I hope the Universe love you today—KENDRICK LAMAR ContentsThe Freeing of Melancholia BishopPART IHurricane StaxxxB3TeacupThe BandwagonElectricHendrix “Scorpion Singer” YoungThe VanPersonhood LinkCircuitSports CentralSalt BathSimonThe NewFoodDoor FourStablePART IISimon CraftChildren of Incarcerated PeopleVegaThe BoardMeleeTo Be InfluencedThe Art of InfluenceSing-Attica-SingVacationGroundedSimon J. CraftSungBabe?The RideMcCleskeyHamaraPresserWe the EnslavedInterviewKaiBalloon ArchwayThe Farmers MarketDeane’s CreamsThisPART IIISunset HarklessTear GasThe Legend of One-Arm Scorpion Singer Hendrix and the Unkillable Jungle CraftBad WaterThe RegionalPreparationThe DriveThe Morning OfShareefThe FeelingYesThrough the DoorSeason 33Suck My Dick, AmericaBlackoutGameColossalFreeing DayLoretta ThurwarAcknowledgments_143326502_ The Freeing of Melancholia BishopShe felt their eyes, all those executioners.“Welcome, young lady,” said Micky Wright, the premier announcer for Chain-Gang All-Stars, the crown jewel in the Criminal Action Penal Entertainment program. “Why don’t you tell us your name?” His high boots were planted in the turf of the BattleGround, which was long and green, stroked with cocaine-white hash marks, like a divergent football field. It was Super Bowl weekend, a fact that Wright was contractually obligated to mention between every match that evening.“You know my name.”She noticed her own steadiness and felt a dim love for herself. Strange. She’d counted herself wretched for so long. But the crowd seemed to appreciate her boldness. They cheered, though their support was edged with a brutal irony. They looked down on this Black woman, dressed in the gray jumpsuit of the incarcerated. She was tall and strong, and they looked down on her and the tight coils of black hair on her head. They looked down gleefully. She was about to die. They believed this the way they believed in the sun and moon and the air they breathed.“Feisty,” Wright said with a grin. “Maybe that’s what we should call you—Little Miss Feisty.”“My name is Loretta Thurwar,” she said. She looked at the people all around her. There were so many of them, so many waves of humans who would never be the object of such cruel attention. Would never know how it made you feel, both tiny and all-powerful. How the thrum of thousands was so loud, so constant, it could disappear from your ears but continue to roar as something felt in the body. Thurwar gripped the weapon she’d been given: a thin spiraling corkscrew with a cherrywood handle. It was light and simple and weak.“Not Little Miss Feisty, then?” Wright said, walking a wide orbit around her.“No.”“That’s probably for the best, Loretta.” He stepped toward his box. “I hate wasting good names anyway.” He laughed and the crowd echoed him. “Well, Loretta Thurwar”—he threw his playful condescension directly at her, chopping her first name into three hard syllables, using a singsong child’s voice for her last—“welcome to the BattleGround, baby.”There was an electric cough in the air and Thurwar was pulled down so forcefully she feared for a moment her arm had been dislocated at the shoulder. Kneeling, not knowing what else to do, she started to laugh. Chuckling first, then deep laughter. The feeling of hold that came from the magnetic implants in her arms was actually one of gentle massage under the skin. She could wiggle her fingers freely, but her wrists were glued to the platform. The ridiculousness of it all. She laughed until she felt out of breath, then laughed some more.The bells began to sound.Wright screamed into the air, “Please rise for Her Majesty!” He ran the rest of the way to his announcer’s box.The crowd stood on their feet. They held themselves still and erect. For her.She walked onto the faux football field. Aluminum alloy on her arms. Braids that stopped at the back of her neck. Exposed shoulders each tattooed with the WholeMarket™ logo. A series of rods jutted out from her chest guard and circled her muscled abdomen to form a sleek cage. It was a custom creation. Thurwar had watched, even cheered, the first time she’d seen that the metallic pieces, initially thought to be exclusively defensive, were more. She’d been watching, huddled with the others in her cell block around the streaming video feed, when the woman had removed two of the rods from her guard and pressed them into Slingshot Bob’s eyes.And now Thurwar was seeing them up close. This was Melancholia Bishop’s final fight. Bishop had made it. She had done what no woman before her had done, survived three years on the Circuit. Three years of slamming down her hammer, Hass Omaha, and swiping her mace, Vega. Three years conquering souls.“Drowned King County’s very own Queen of the Damned!”All she had in her hands was her helmet. Melody’s Helm. Crusader-style, made of tin with a gold cross down its middle.“The Annihilator, the Bad News Bitch, the Death Songstress herself!”The seventh bell rang; the people screamed. For years this had been their sacred ritual. The seven bells of Melancholia Bishop. They’d seen her wipe scum off the earth. They’d seen her kill women and men whom they’d once claimed to love. Now she stood and looked out at them for the last