Summer of 1992Chapter 3 Another week of separation
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I picked Reggie up for his class a few days later.
“I don’t want to deal with her,” he said.
“I feel you,” I said, “but there’s no chance of that happening. She’s in your class. I know it’s sometimes hard going without a girlfriend, but you can’t just continue where you left off. After class, you should apologize to her, just to make sure your teaching job isn’t in jeopardy. You still want to teach, right?”
“It’s all I have. Unless I want to wash dishes all my life.”
“The time to learn how to work is now,” I said. “A lot of people graduate from school and don’t have a pot to piss in, because they don’t know how to deal with the real world of work, careers, and jobs.”
“I’m one of them.”
“I’m sorry, my brother, to tell you these things.
All I’m saying is that you should know how to work.
All these books and shit, they’re meant for the higher ups, the rich and the bored, the idiot sons and daughters whose families have enough to support them.
You, Reggie, are not one of those people. You need the money, so you should stick with washing the dishes, even if you don’t like it. I hate to say it, but you need to focus on the bottom line. Money is what you need, and more money. That’s the only way to escape.”
“There is no escape,” he said suddenly. “I’m just a nigger in this world. I have dreams, y’know.”
“I know, my brother, I know. We all have them, but we can only attain them when there is money to support us.”
“Couldn’t we rob a bank?”
“Ha!” I laughed. “Not if you want to go to prison.
Why do you think so many brothers are in jail? Because they’re broke. They can’t effectively work with white people up and down the chain of command. Believe me, many brothers work very hard in this world, but their dreams have been cut down to size - a new car, a good house, a pretty wife, pretty black children. Everyone has to head in the same direction. It’s driven into us at an early age - the need for candy, let’s say. And that takes money. You don’t want to be one of these niggahs out here, begging for change. Because it can easily happen.”
“There isn’t a shortcut, either.”
“No quick way to the money, no sir. The bottom line is work and more work. That’s what all of these black thinkers wanted for their people - to grow up strong, make a decent wage, and work within a system that they themselves corrected.”
“I feel blessed. How wonderful it would be to work my ass off doing something for nothing.”
“You need an attitude adjustment too. Think about those poor people in Africa and shit. Think about the Middle East. We could have enlisted, y’know. And now?
These vets coming back from the Middle East will run the country. We’re in a country hell bent on war.
They tell us how many of our soldiers have been killed and maimed, and they carefully avoid telling us about the innocent people in the Middle East who are slaughtered by American guns.
“They even say that these Mexican immigrants bring all of their crime into our country, but they are careful not to mention how many fucking Americans moved down into Mexico to avoid living in their own country.
It’s a sad world, brother. Just make sure to be grateful that we live here, no matter its downside.”
“I hear ya, Archie. That I do. But there must be something better than this.”
“Than working, you mean?”
“Well, I was thinking that maybe I can go someplace else, like Paris or London, or Florence - one of those countries that welcome people like me as a refugee from here. Something makes me want to start all over again.”
“The dream of being an expatriate, you mean?”
“Something like that, yeah.”
“I don’t know about that, Reggie. If you went away, how would you support yourself? You’d have to find work just like everyone here finds work. You may not be able to work at all because of your status as an emigre.”
“It’s cornering me, man. America is cornering me.
I can feel its grip around my throat.”
“Better now than never. You have to grow up, and you have to get used to it. It’s tough and unfair, but it must be done. Have an attitude of gratitude, I say.”
I knew he’d never be grateful. He saw America as some kind of prison. I don’t blame him for liking the white girl. She is beautiful to say the least. But it violates the rules. Maybe black and white were never meant to be with each other. But there’s more to that story.
I remember watching a news channel, and they showed how, online, Jews were dating Arabs, and Arabs were dating Jews. That made for a thirty second announcement in a sea of news stories poisoned by government and corporate-controlled programming. It should have been the lead story, these young people, giving the middle finger to war while finding love within each other. Why is that not front page news?
But besides all of this - blacks protesting in the streets, the Confederate flag coming down - there has to be a point of exhaustion, a point where we collective say, ‘let me get the fuck out of here.’ I guess that’s what Reggie tried to say, and maybe the white girl was his ticket out.
But now, everything’s screwed up. It leaves me wondering if this Wonder-woman girl would actually show up to his class this week. I waited for an answer when I met Reggie the next morning. In the meantime, though, Reggie did all the dishes he could at the wee hours of the morning. His father scolded him for being absent from his job and absent-minded about the confusing world we live in. His young sister, working reception at the restaurant, didn’t make things any easier when the Meeks family opened its doors for lunch after his class. For Reggie, it was wait and see. Maybe what he did in his blackout scared her away. She did have a racist bent running through her, since that terrible, elusive n-word flashed like lightening through an otherwise pristine mind wanting only to do well. I ended up feeling sorry for the both of them. Maybe they did like each other, and maybe Wonder-woman wanted him to fight for her, like the old days, as though there were some chivalry from ancient times that needed to be summoned up from the depths of Hell.
I went to the mail room right after I dropped him off at his class. I felt thankful that I didn’t have to deal with Reggie’s problems. Reggie always landed into trouble, no matter what he did, where he went, or how he looked. He had little motivation, it seemed, to actually target his energies towards more productive pursuits. Only the restaurant and the girl his parents set him up with could relieve his dive into the very depths of the ghetto. He needed people to respect his mind. But it seems funny enough that in order for people to respect your mind, money is required.
People are too talented in this world, and suddenly, they can’t for the life of them make their own bed, take out the trash, fucking do their own laundry. It’s sad, and Reggie became a huge part of his own sadness.
Something has to change. He had a court date in a couple of weeks for punching the white boy in the head.
Even though I worked straight through until lunch break, I needed to know what became of Wonder-woman. Instead of taking a breakfast-break, I rushed down to Reggie’s classroom before he ended it for the day. I waited patiently for the college kids to rush out of the door.
And then I saw the both of them, Reggie and his white Wonder-woman having a chat. I pressed myself at the door to hear what she said to him.
“You lied to me,” said Reggie. “It might as well have been you who’s being sent to jail. That look you had, like a devil licking the blood at her lips. It infuriated me, Wonder. I’m not here to scold you or anything like that. You’re a grown-up after all, and part of that means that you can see anyone you want.
But I’m here to tell you that I’ve fallen for you, and I did fight off that white tyke for you too. I deserve some respect, damn it, and I want you to stop seeing other people, if you’re going to be here, in this class, or away from it. I’m the man you want. I may be black as night, but damn it, the dark belongs only to us without the interference of these other white kids who get into a woman’s pants wherever they go.”
Wonder looked at him oddly. Her eyes then turned to the floor they stood on. She was speechless at first, and one of those uncomfortable silences broke in like a thief stealing the morning sunshine. I could tell that Reggie wanted her to be his, but in this world, we’re lucky if we stay out of jail. We’re all guilty until proven innocent in this game of ours.
It’s something I have to remember.
I repeat the same idea to prove how terribly disadvantaged we are against a machine that only deals with winners in terms of the ever-present dollar bill.
For Reggie there was no escape. He had to swallow hard before saying to Wonder, “I don’t want you to see other guys while you’re seeing me. I’m laying down the law.
If you want to be with me, decide here and now.”
The shock of what Reggie said rushed over her in waves. At first she didn’t know how to address the issue. She stood in front of him looking down at her feet. It took a good amount of silence before her tears began to flow.
“I do want to be with you,” said Wonder with her tears running down her face. “But it’s just too difficult.”
“What’s the difficulty, then?” said Reggie.
“Isn’t it obvious?” she said.
“I have an idea, yes.”
“It wouldn’t work. I have my family to consider.”
“Consider what? That we’re seeing each other?”
“You don’t understand.”
“Explain it to me then. Stop avoiding the issue.”
“They’re a conservative family. They are church- going people.”
“So? We go to church on occasion. I’m church- going. I’m somewhat conservative in places. Who isn’t?”
“That’s not what I mean,” she said through her tears.
“Then what the hell do you mean? You’re not making any sense. Say it! Just spit it out, if you have the guts!”
“Fine! Because you’re a nigger, okay? You’re a nigger in a white world, and it’s best that we don’t see each other anymore. I’m dropping this class, and I’m dropping you too. We weren’t meant to mix, okay.
Can you get it through that thick skull of yours?”
“We talked about this,” Reggie said, pounding his fist on his teacher’s table. “It’s a word, Wonder.
It’s a fucking word in your skull, and so far you have been more than heroic in trying to rid it from your mind, but God, do you really believe the shit that’s handed down to you?”
“It doesn’t erase, Reggie.”
“It can. Just give us some time is all I’m asking.
I know it’s that word, and we’ll never be able to destroy it, no matter how many times we stab at it.
The word will not go away, and I understand your point - you have to apply that word some place, and if you want to apply it to me, that’s just fine, but really, Wonder, you are so much better than that. You’re family may not sense it, and my family may not want this either, but I’m asking you just to trust me, and give us a little more time.”
“You don’t understand how terrible I feel about this.”
“I do. It’s tough, because I’m black. I know that.
The world knows that, but damnit, I’m going places.
I’m not going to wash dishes all my life. I have a mind.
It’s a strong mind. It’s an ethical mind. It’s not perfect, but I will help you any way that I can.
Something inside your mind is heeding the call of your ancestors. You have to fight it, and I’ll help you fight it - every step of the way. Now I want you to continue coming to class, okay? We’ll work on it together. I promise.”
Tears continued to streak the side of her face.
Her eyes turned red with self-imposed anger and intolerance. Reggie worked his way around the desk and held on to her as she cried in his arms. That such thinking still went on today surprised and shocked him.
Nevertheless, despite all of the progress, there would still be this separation involved on a purely social basis.
He remembered learning about busing during the Civil Rights Era, and even though the Supreme Court Justices mandated that blacks be allowed to integrate with white students in white public schools, there were still shards of it that remained in every black and white mind. The young had the right idea. The young is where all of the intelligence is, and with the old there is wisdom and experience. But such gross examples of separation, in every city and hamlet, continued to crush the life out of the American experience. Wonder didn’t see it, but I’d be damned if Reggie didn’t see it. He knew about it. Hell, he lived it, and for some reason it was a force that hung over every American. It was never so obvious to Reggie as it was now, only that the need to socially segregate didn’t come from inside the hearts and minds of the people. It came from some mystical universe that imposed its social laws upon the hearts and minds of the people. The young people did have it right, but even they would admit that such social change could only take place in fleeting inches, yard by yard, insane asylum after insane asylum, if one ever took it that far. The white young wanted to be accepted by blacks, and this itself became an interesting innovation. It just happened that Reggie’s mind had been occupied with this as he came close to Wonder and hugged her tightly, taking his finger and swiping away the tears from her anguished face.
I stood outside with a front view of them - a window in the door that told me of these mistakes that Reggie made - the mistake of falling for a white girl.
Things had improved, but we still had to keep guard. I could have told Reggie a million times, but love had its own plans and its own rules. The only concept that could stop the world was love. They might as well as hang the noose over the tree branch now. Reggie wasn’t going to forsake the opportunity of loving one of the prettiest girls at the college. He hugged and kissed her, and then he let her go. I pretended not to see all of these things. But there’s one thing that I did see, and I told Reggie exactly what I thought about this whole Wonder-woman affair.
“Are you fucking crazy?” I yelled at him in the car, heading back to his restaurant.
He laughed at this, as though I were an amateur in this game and not someone who ought to be taken seriously.
“It’s not funny. Are you trying to get thrown out of the college? Are you trying to get yourself killed?”
“Oh, Archie, you fail to realize that I have all of this planned out.”
“It’s an idiot’s plan. It’s a dead man’s plan.”
“Things are right where I want them to be.”
“You can’t be serious.”
“Oh, I’m serious alright. I’ve bonded with her.
It’s a deep bond, and we’re both going to do well.”
“Horseshit, you stupid fuck!”
“There you go cussin’ again.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, regaining my composure. “You, my Negro, are going to lose your job over this. I know you, Reggie. I know how blind you can be to the workings of the world. We’re in a machine. There’s a system that’s enforced by big-ass police officers. You do not want to do this. And besides, what you’re planning, shouldn’t people be able to decide for themselves? You’re playing God. I know you. You’ll take this thing you have with Wonder-woman and try to socially engineer the entire world. It’s not fair to her parents and family. It’s not fair to the world at large. Mixed relationships don’t last. How can you be blind to such a thing? You’re not a big and powerful man. I’m driving you now to wash dishes. You’re a fucking dishwasher. Get used to it.”
I said a lot in that car ride over to the restaurant that afternoon. We made it in time for the lunch rush. I didn’t mean to yell at him. I yelled because he’s my best friend, and I cared for him. He’s not completely dumb, but he just gets himself into these impossible situations. He champions ideals rather than being sensible, methodical, and rational.
Again, I didn’t mean to yell at him. I didn’t mean to put him down. But he’s one of those guys who falls for everything. He’s not stupid or gullible. He’s naive, and I hate that about him. Everyone grew up a long time ago, and there goes fucking Reggie - thinking he can do whatever the fuck he wants. The world was not built especially for him, and the sooner he realized that, the better. But judging how this relationship with girl-Wonder went, he just wouldn’t grow up. He still thought that he could have everything his way.
I was glad to arrive at the restaurant without my voice going sore. I was glad that Reggie had to change his hat from university scholar to dish-washing flunky.
I thought about the fact that I may have been so against their relationship, because Wonder took away my best friend. But this happens to a lot of men. The men hang together until women entered the mix. And speaking of women, Bianca, the woman his father tried to hook him up with, showed up just after the dinner rush.
The restaurant closed its doors late in the evening, and Bianca waited for him outside. She waved to
Reggie’s father through the window as he cleaned the grill and took out some garbage. Reggie’s father smiled and waved back. He expected his son to go along with the relationship, and his father chose the most charismatic and attractive woman within the ‘hood.
When Reggie and his tired body said goodnight to his family, when he walked outside of the restaurant wanting nothing but a few hours of sleep, Bianca, the woman that every ghetto niggah wanted, met him outside and gave him a hug. Reggie reluctantly hugged her back.
He was tired as hell, and here was his pretty date wanting to hit the club scene again.
“Can’t we just walk for a while? I just don’t feel like going out tonight.”
She laughed at this and said, “when I get through with you, you’ll be begging for more.”
He turned around to see through the windows of the restaurant, checking if the rest of his family had finished cleaning up and closing out the register. His father had been watching them from the grill, and
Reggie could tell from his facial expression that he’d be pissed off if he dropped her and went directly home instead. The pressure coming from his father proved too strong, and in a few minutes he found himself walking away from the restaurant in the direction of the club.
“How about we go to a bar instead?” he asked.
“It’d be much cheaper.”
“You mean, you don’t have enough dollars for the club?” asked Bianca.
“It’s not that. I’d just rather keep it mellow and talk a little.”
“I see what you’re doing. You want me to be your girlfriend, and you want to see how I am beyond all of this partying shit.”
“Not exactly, but something like that.”
“Okay. I know a place near here.”
She walked much faster than Reggie could walk.
They traveled through the ghetto by night, noticing all of the gang members selling dope outside of the convenience stores. If anyone tried to encroach upon their drug dealing, they would get very angry and would most likely kill them. But if one simply traveled the roads to get to another point beyond their territory, they would gawk at him, more out of curiosity than wanting to threaten him. Yet when Reggie and Bianca walked by them on the other side of the street, many of them stopped to witness their passing. They yelled to Bianca, saying, ‘hey, baby, how about coming with me,” or “why don’t you stay a while, sexy thing.” Bianca waved and smiled to them. Apparently, she loved the attention, but they left them alone as they crawled their way closer to the white section of town.
“Isn’t this a little dangerous? We’re leaving the ‘hood, and we’re headed towards white territory.”
“Nonsense, Reggie. You haven’t been out much, have you? You’re the kind of guy who actually studied in school. You’re too awkward. After a few drinks, though, you’ll be alright.”
“I hope so. It’s not easy entering the white section.”
“You mean you’ve never been up here?”
“Maybe in my younger years, but I tend to stay away from it.”
“You don’t like white people?”
“It’s not that. It’s just that I feel safer in the ‘hood.”
“Well, you’ll be surprised tonight. The white section has a lot of nice places. The bar we’re going to is a nice place.”
“I hope it’s not too expensive.”
“What’s expensive for you?”
“Nothing over twenty dollars.”
“You’re joking, right?”
“No.”
“You realize that the cover is twenty dollars?”
“No, I did not. We’ll drink water all night is all.”
“Don’t you have an ATM card?”
“Yes, but I don’t think anything’s in there.”
“We’ll have to try,” she said.
“There’s not enough in there.”
“Have you tried yet?”
“I don’t have to try. I already know.”
“You’re bullshitting me, right? How can you expect to hang out at the bar with nothing but a twenty in your pocket? I need a few drinks in me too.”
“Then you should buy them on your own.”
“Just go to your cash machine and see what it says.”
“No. We’ll have water at the bar.”
“C’mon, Reggie. It’s only a little more. How about forty dollars total? We can drink if we had that.”
“Why do you want to drink so much? I’ll go broke with you around. Also, I’m enabling your Ecstasy habit.”
“I’m not addicted to Ecstasy. I like coke and crack, mostly crack.”
“You mean, you’re a crackhead?”
“Don’t make it sound so privileged why don’t cha.
Yes, I snort, and I smoke - but only when I go out dancing or to a bar.”
“So you’re smoking tonight? At the bar?”
“I hide myself a little better than that, but generally, I have a great time. Shit, the stuff I smoke is my medicine.”
“A doctor prescribed it to you? That doctor ought to have his license to practice revoked.”
“I don’t think you understand,” she said with a sigh. “Have you ever taken prescription medicine before - for a mental condition?”
“I was depressed a little while ago, and the doctor provided some anti-depressant and then let me go.”
“That shit isn’t really medicine,” she said, wide- eyed. “Marijuana - that’s a medicine. Crack, also a medicine. That psychedelic stuff they used during the peace protests. That was all medication, because the pharmaceutical companies made their drugs with too many side-effects. I say that if a guy wants to feel less pain, he should smoke opium. He should get some kind of direct pain reliever to handle it. Just because the doctors don’t use it, doesn’t mean it’s not medication.”
“I fail to believe that crack cocaine is medicine.
That’s a real laugh in my book.”
“How would you know? Have you ever tried it?”
“No. But I’ve smoked reefer before. It made me too paranoid. Weed isn’t medication.”
“Sure it is. How about hash? That stuff doesn’t create paranoia. When was the last time you smoked a joint? Be honest. I won’t laugh at you.”
“I guess I tried it once in high school, but that’s it. It didn’t appeal to me. Either did alcohol. I preferred abstinence.”
“Would you like to try it again with the stuff I have? You’ll enjoy it. It will make you feel better.”
“I don’t want to use right now. I’ll get paranoid.
I just know it.”
“I tell you what. You use it tonight before we go into the bar, and I won’t bother you again about it.”
“Why does it matter to you? When I say I prefer abstinence, why can’t you accept that?”
“I want to prove a point - that drugs like cannabis are medicine to many people. Psychedelics too. Coke and crack just make a person feel better.”
“Okay, alright? You got me. If you fail, though, you owe me big time.”
“I’ll give you a total de-stressing. How about that?”
“What’s a de-stressing?”
“I’ll show you later tonight. Right now, though, we should get to the bar.”
They walked in silence passed the weed-growth sprouting through the cracks of concrete pavement.
Reggie simply veered around them. He did not want to catch lime disease if any ticks were jumping from stem to stem. Soon, though, as they continued a strange and silent walk, the concrete below them turned even, and every lawn in front of the brownstone buildings had been cut meticulously. It seemed as though Reggie now visited the wealthier section of town - strip malls with full-fledged grocery stores, bars with young white people drinking beer in the hot nighttime air. The music from local bands spilling over a street of sheer splendor. Reggie almost lost himself and walked behind Bianca so that she could lead the way. After the last strip mall, drenched in music and beer, Bianca found the spot. It was way removed from the streets of the ghetto. They were now in a drunken Disneyland with young people all around them, as Bianca was young and vibrant as the breeze tossed wisps of her straight black hair all over her face and shoulders. She smiled when they entered the place they were looking for. A white establishment with a long oak-wood bar and plenty of patrons drinking beer and amber shots of liquor.
Reggie found the place so fucked-up compared to the club, that he had to wonder why these bars even existed.
At least in the clubs you could dance to hip-hop, but here? Just shouting over the music - a rock-n-roll band, and frosty mugs of beer at the bar. He would drink water, though, as Bianca leaned over the bar and gave the bartender - a white, muscular guy - a peck on the lips. Apparently, Bianca knew this place well, which is why Reggie, like a shy toddler, stood behind her while he examined all of these white faces. He never socialized with them and assumed that he would be unwelcome, but with Bianca came the many people who lifted their glasses up to her and bought her a shot of Rumple mints and a cold beer. How she made it out this far, he didn’t know.
He was willing to compromise with her about staying there for a good couple of hours. Maybe he would even learn to like some of the white folk. They were more than friendly to Bianca. She was like a sister or a close cousin to them. It boggled his mind.
He waited to hear if someone came up to him and said, “you look like you’re lost.” It had had happened a while ago at an expensive store that both his mother and he entered. How humiliating, but this was what it was like for him when being forced into a white section of town. He wanted to get drunk after a time, because the inability to socialize made him dead weight. He knew he couldn’t drink beer, especially since he had class in the morning. Yet the need to loosen his tongue and have a good time ruled whatever responsibilities he had at the college. He ordered a light beer and finished it quickly. He then ordered another beer, but he milked it for a while. Bianca noticed, and she figured out right away that Reggie carried a lot more than twenty dollars.
Once this was done, he slowly moved beyond Bianca’s shadow until he was shoulder to shoulder with her.
Bianca, seeing this amazing tide of change, introduced Reggie to everyone she knew. Reggie was buzzed alright, and he shook people’s hands with ease. He talked, not about his dish-washing job, but his lowly position at the college as an adjunct. The white people there showed him nothing but respect for the teaching work that he did, as the whites found the college exceptional. The muscular, tank-topped bartender even gave him another round on the house. It all seemed to work. The conversation about the college steered him through, and he didn’t want them to know anything about the restaurant, even though he did smell like fish and garlic.
It wasn’t until a good half-hour passed that Reggie saw a good-looking white woman saunter near him. She smiled to him, and immediately stuck out her hand for him to shake.
“Remember me? I’m one of Wonder’s roommates.
Sandra is my name. You’re not here with Wonder tonight?”
“I just came with a friend of mine is all.”
“Well, Wonder is on her way. She was working on the midterm you assigned her.”
“Then why is she coming here? Shouldn’t she be working on it?”
“Reggie - I can call you that, right?”
“Of course. A friend of Wonder’s is a friend of mine”
“Well, we both know about Wonder.”
“What is it we’re supposed to know?”
“That she’s a genius, and that she’s lost in a world of no answers. She’s at the top. She’s constantly seeking, and she moves just under the roots of actualization, but she keeps her other leg in the streets. I think she really likes you - last I heard anyway.”
“I didn’t feel too good when I punched the guy she was with. I can tell that I already have white enemies among us.”
“That may be true, but they all know not to mess with you. You almost gave that guy she was with some brain damage.”
“But she egged me on. She wanted me to do it, and knew me enough to think that I would, which I did. Is she coming with a date? Tell me honestly. I won’t fight again.”
“She’s been drinking a lot lately, probably over what happened the other night. Can I buy you another beer, by the way?”
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