Capital City

  I look toward Shank, who walks in front of us with a quick, arm-swinging gangster stroll. He surveys the corner as we walk up behind him.

  NeNe whispers, “Who’s dat?”

  “That’s my new bodyguard,” J says, smiling.

  We approach his white Mitsubishi 3000 GT. Shank waits outside the door. He’s chilling with black shades on and a low-cut temple-tape.

  “Hey, man, you look like a black Ninja,” I comment humorously.

  J laughs as Shank responds through a tight smile, “Yeah, well, get in’na fuckin’ car before I chop ya neck off.”

  We all chuckle except for Shank. J opens the doors. NeNe and I climb in the back and Shank rides up front.

  “Yeah, we got a lot of runs t’ make t’mar, man. So, like, we prob’ly gon’ get out early around ten. Aw’ight?” J says to Shank.

  “You da man,” Shank tells him while he stares out of his window. I watch him as he pulls out a tape from his black leather jacket and jams it inside J’s cassette player, stopping the car radio without even asking. “Yo, dis Diamond D from Diggin’ in the Crates crew,” he says.

  “Aw’ight,” J responds to him.

  I ask, “Hey, is this the same group that does that song, “Sally Got A One Track Mind”?”

  “Yeah,” J answers.

  I smile. “I like that song.” I was really asking Shank, but he doesn’t seem to talk much.

  “So where you move to now, Wes?” J asks me.

  Damn, he’s smooth! I’m thinking. NeNe isn’t even paying attention. She’s bobbing her head to some rather different-sounding beats with an added percussion influence. I guess Diamond D really did “dig in the crates.”

  “In the Fort Totten area,” I tell J, directing the way to my block.

  When we park out in front of my apartment building, J says, “Ay, NeNe, let Wes call you a cab from his crib. I jus’ remembered I gotta make a run out t’ Rockville.”

  “Rockville? At one o’clock in’na morning?” she asks, shocked to attention.

  “Look, girl, do I look like I’m in high school? Now come on, I’m runnin’ late as it is.”

  NeNe sucks her teeth as Shank jumps out and stands in front of the car and looks up at my building.

  “He’s quiet, huh?” I ask J while I climb out behind NeNe.

  J smiles. “Yeah, dat’s my killa. He’s s’posed t’ be quiet. Boy like Terminator X. He only speaks with his hands.”

  NeNe slams J’s door after I make it out. “You got dis shit, J! You think you so-o-o slick!”

  J winks at me through his windshield.

  Shank walks backward and opens the door to get in. “Yo, you bes’ handle that li’l temper she got on ’er,” he tells me.

  I grin at him as NeNe waits for me on the sidewalk. “Be cool, Ninja.”

  He shakes his head and smiles before getting inside the car. NeNe doesn’t respond as J speeds up the street with Shank.

  “I hope you got a neat apartment, ’cause I can’t stand mess,” she says to me. She smiles as we go inside and climb the stairs.

  “Yeah, my room, I mean apartment, is real neat.”

  NeNe chuckles at my Freudian slip and says, “It better be.”

  We get inside and she just adores it. “Oh, this is nice!”

  “It’s small, but it’s my home for a while,” I say, happy that she actually likes it.

  “Yeah, but it’s clean and jazzy lookin’. I like these black art prints you have on your walls, too,” she tells me, searching over everything insight.

  “Yeah, I bought some of them up at P.G. Plaza and some from African vendors during the Black Family Reunion Day celebration.”

  “Oh, Wes, this place is so nice,” she reiterates, now walking into my fresh-scented bathroom.

  I stand inside my small kitchen pouring apple juice, amazed at how quickly things have turned around for me inside just one evening.

  NeNe tries on my Polo coat and hangs it back in the closet. “Wes, do you have any incense?” she asks me, kicking off her shoes.

  Hell, I guess she’s not taking a taxi home, I’m thinking as I watch her. “Yeah, I have some,” I respond, going immediately to my bedroom dresser to get it.

  I bring it back to the living room where NeNe sits on my second-hand couch, watching a late night horror movie on TV.

  “Sit right here,” she says with her beautiful smile, patting the space beside her.

  Oh my God! I simply cannot believe that this is happening! I sit down beside her. She immediately leans her head against my shoulder. “I’m not a slut or anything, okay, so I jus’ want you to know that up front, ’cause I don’t usually do things like this. But I feel good with you and I like you, okay, but jus’ don’t try t’ hurt me or nothin’ like that ’cause I jus’ came out of a tough relationship and I don’t wanna go through that again.”

  “Okay,” I tell her, still not believing my ears. Where has all this kind of storybook drama been in my life? How come I’ve never felt this excited before, this full filled, this comfortable? Damn it, I’m simply in heaven!

  “Wes, can you answer a question for me?” NeNe suddenly asks. She leans up and looks me straight in my contact-lens-covered eyes.

  “Yeah. Sure.”

  “Umm, if I, umm, spend the night, are you gon’ try anything wit’ me?”

  “No, of course not. I just met you and I respect you. A lot,” I respond hurriedly.

  God! It feels like my heart is burning a hole through my chest. This just can’t be real!

  She looks happily at me as if I’ve correctly answered a million-dollar question. “Okay, well, do you have anything that I can sleep in? And I need to make a phone call.”

  “Yeah, you can sleep in my bathrobe. I have a winter one and a lighter one for the summer. And yeah, you can use my phone.”

  I set my living room phone down beside her and she kisses my cheek. “You so sweet. But jus’ asked you that because I’m not fast or nothin’, I jus’ wanted to stay with you tonight. I mean, if that’s okay with you.”

  “Yeah, it’s okay with me. Definitely.”

  NeNe makes her phone call. “Hey, it’s me. I’m at my girlfriend Brenda’s house. I’ll be home in the morning.” She hangs up and smiles at me. “I live with my aunt. She’s cool.”

  NeNe leans back into me as we continue to watch this late night horror movie, The Evil Dead. I have nothing to say about her lying to her aunt. Girls will be girls. And by now my erection has settled down. I’m feeling more relaxed now than I think I’ve ever felt in my life. And out of all the things that I’ve achieved thus far in life. I truly believe that nothing on God’s green earth is as gratifying as the connection between a man and a woman. This is exactly what the doctor ordered to fulfill my growing sense of emptiness—l-o-v-e.

  CHAPTER 5

  Wes

  You only live once, so I’ve now decided to live it up while I’m in the hot seat. I bought some more “hip gear”: Tommy Hilfiger shirts, Girbaud jeans, Calvin Kleins, a Karl Kani vest, Nike Airs and Cross Colours apparel. I also bought an African American College Alliance sweatshirt. It’s always good to support the brothers too, while I’m out here spending money. But it hasn’t been all of my money. J has been giving me a lot of “gifts,” as he calls them. I’m waiting for J now in front of UDC on Connecticut Avenue.

  “Hey, Wes, so when you gon’ take me out?” Candice asks me, startling me from behind.

  I turn around and face her. “Oh, well, I didn’t know that you had broken up with Antwan.”

  Candice looks as good as she usually does, but she kids a lot, so I’m not actually taking her proposal for a date seriously. I’m more or less stalling.

  She leans into me, smiling with a flushed red face. The whipping February cold seems to have done her in. “I’m jus’ playin’ wit’chu, Wes. You get so serious all the time,” she says, fighting to keep her scarf from blowing around in the wind. See what I mean about the kidding? And I guess she can read the panic a
ll over my face, especially since I have a new girlfriend and all.

  J pulls up to the curb at the corner in his 3000 GT. Perfect timing to save my neck! He blows the horn and opens the passenger door.

  Candice looks at me bewildered. “You be hangin’ wit’ him now?”

  “No, not really,” I tell her, walking toward the car.

  “So you really are gettin’ buckwild, huh, Wes?” she asks as I hop in.

  I hold the door open. “Who told you that?” ask her. It was probably Walt, because Derrick and Marshall don’t know Candice as well as Walt does.

  She smiles and backs away toward the Van Ness Metro station. “I’ll talk to you about it tomorrow.”

  I shut the door and turn to find J grinning at me.

  “She on you, man. You should holler at ’er and get that seven.”

  “No, it’s nothing like that. She just likes to play around a lot.”

  J looks out into the traffic as we head down Connecticut toward center city.

  “If you say so, you’n. But I know girls.” I smile agreeably.

  “Yeah, I bet you do.”

  “Oh, you know I do. But what’s been goin’ on wit’ you and NeNe?”

  “We’re getting along just fine.”

  J smiles, and now I’m wondering what he’s thinking.

  He says, “I heard she been spendin’ the night a lot.”

  “So, who’s been dispersing our business?” I ask him.

  “Man, I know the girl been hangin’ out late, and she ain’t been at the parties, so she has to be with you.”

  “That doesn’t mean she’s automatically with—”

  “Damn!” J slams his car horn, cutting me off. “You see that shit, man? I hate non-drivin’ ma’fuckas, Joe! You’n didn’t even look where he was goin’.”

  I chuckle, after watching a green Toyota slash out in front of us without any warning.

  J shakes his head in disgust. “Anyway . . . did’ju bang her yet?”

  “That’s none of your business,” I snap. But truthfully, I didn’t. Not yet. But we did get close once.

  J laughs as we get closer to my downtown telemarketing job. He double parks outside in front of the towering building where I work on the eighth floor.

  “So when you gon’ come in and be my banker?” he asks me.

  “I told you what to do already,” I respond defensively. J nods. “Aw’ight, so I call the Maryland Business Bureau and secure a company name for twelve dollars, then I take the forms to a bank and open up an account under an assumed business with all my named positions, president, vice president, and the board members an’ shit.”

  “That’s all you have to do. But if you have a problem with naming positions, you can file for a sole proprietorship.”

  “Yeah, I know.”

  “So what’s the problem? You have everything under control. I mean, you seem to understand everything.”

  He grins at me again as we both watch a well-built sister enter my work building.

  “She phat t’ death. Ain’t she, you’n?”

  I smile out of the window at her. “I guess so.”

  “Well, anyway, as soon as I get the time to do all that, I’m gon’ hook it up. And I’m gon’ put’chu down as one of the board members,” J says.

  I jerk around and face him heatedly. “What?”

  J smiles. “Aw, nigga, stop girlin’, man.”

  “No, don’t do that, J. Seriously.”

  “Why not? It’s gon’ be legal, right?”

  “Yeah, but your money’s not, and I’m not trying to get mixed up into that!” I shake my head, feeling crossed. “See, I knew I shouldn’t have taken any money from you. Now you gonna sit here and try to force me into this drug business after I’ve already told you that I don’t want any part of it.”

  J looks solemnly out of his front window. I’ll repay him his money if that’s what he’s thinking. “Look, man, I’m ’bout t’ build up enough money so we can go into a legit business,” he says instead. “Now, since I’ve known you, you been vending, organizing, and conserving ya ends. You know? Plus, I can trust you, and it ain’t that many niggas out here that you can trust wit’cha money.” He pauses and starts up again. “Anyway, workin’ for this white man an’ bustin’ ya ass for little more than minimum wage ain’t gon’ get it. Now what I’m sayin’ is that you have a chance to get hooked up with something that’s gon’ pay off. I trust you, man. That’s why I’m sweatin’ you like you a fat-ass girl. But yo, I want’chu t’ think over shit, ’cause I ain’t askin’ for you to do nothin’ but plan out ways to multiply da money.”

  He peers into my eyes through my new thin-rimmed school-boy glasses, and grips my arm. “You hear me, man? It’s strictly biz’ness.”

  “Yeah, whatever,” I say as I hop out of the car and head toward my work building. I just don’t understand why J’s sweating me. There are a lot of guys hungry for an opportunity to become filthy rich. But I’d rather remain clean. And that means no more taking money from J. It was stupid of me in the first place! Of course he’d want something in return—my soul.

  I take the elevator, walk into the offices and head toward the lounge area. It’s not quite three thirty yet, so the morning shift is still busy calling away. My shift starts at four.

  “You hear about them young’uns gettin’ shot up over in Southeast?” Eugene asks me, glancing through the Washington Post in his hands. He dips his gray-haired head in and out of the paper as he leans back into one of the lounge chairs.

  “No I haven’t. But how many of them was it?” I ask, wondering what the death toll is in D.C. by now.

  “Four got shot and two of ’em died,” Eugene answers. He shakes his head. “What’s wrong wit’ dese young’uns out here, Ray? I mean, I jus’ can’t un’nerstan’ ’em.”

  I take a seat as I answer, “They’re unfulfilled, and they feel like they don’t have a place in this society. So what’s happening is that they’re creating their own culture based on anger and destroying the enemy.”

  “Enemy? What enemy they got at sixteen and fifteen years old?”

  “Other sixteen- and fifteen-year-olds.”

  “But why?”

  “Because they don’t want anybody to dis or carry them.”

  Eugene shakes his head again and grimaces. “You know, I done sent three young’uns of my own off to do something with their lives and now I got gran’chil’ren wearin’ pants hangin’ all down off their behinds, using filthy language and then gettin’ mad at me when I call ’em on it. Now, I raised my three right, but something went wrong when’ney had chil’ren for ’em to turn out like dey is. One of my gran’sons is in jail now for tryin’ ta shoot somebody.”

  He throws up his hands in disgust with the newspaper now on his lap. “I tell ya, Ray, I jus’ can’t un’nerstan’ ’em.”

  I nod, thinking more so about Eugene still working at sixty years old than about the young’uns killing each other. I wonder how many of them even think about reaching sixty and having grandchildren. And Eugene may not have the best English grammar in the world, but he’s one of our top sellers because he uses his friendly humor and wisdom to charm customers rather than sell them. That’s one of the main problems in America today, everybody wants fast sales—even me.

  Four o’clock ticks around and we all head to our stations, wipe the phones off with alcohol pads, and gather our pitch scripts. This week we’re selling memberships and asking for contributions for the Clean Water Association, an environmental group.

  After I get turned down by seven prospects, the young, white manager, Jon Fletcher, calls me into his office. While I head to the small room I notice that this fly brown-skinned girl named Sherry is watching me. She’s been eyeing me for the past couple of weeks, probably after noticing my wardrobe improvement. She’s never paid any attention to me before.

  “You have a phone call. She says it’s an emergency,” Jon says with a smirk, as if he believes it’s a lie.


  “Hello,” I answer.

  NeNe’s voice rushes across the line. “What time you get off?”

  “Nine thirty.”

  “Can I meet you there?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Okay, I’ll see you later then.”

  “Fine,” I tell her, dazed at her forwardness. I hang up and catch Jon staring at me.

  “Was that your sister or something?” he asks.

  “No,” I respond flatly. I don’t feel too talkative today. I head back to my station.

  Jon rushes to his feet from behind his desk. “Hey, Wes, pal, I wanted to talk to you about something else, too.”

  I stop at the door. “Oh, yeah, and what’s that?”

  “Well, you know, you’ve been doin’ a lot of overtime lately. Well, since you been here actually and the company is now deciding that we won’t need as many extra hours as before. So starting next week we’ll have to cut back on your overtime.”

  Now I stare at him. “How long have you known this?”

  Jon starts to turn red. Black Americans are not supposed to ask questions. We’re supposed to bow down and take anything white America dishes out to us.

  “Well, the management has talked about it. But you know, we just lollygagged a lot and never really brought it up when we were supposed to because we still had a considerable-sized budget.”

  “But now you don’t?”

  “Well, it’s like, we do, but we want to make sure that we’re able to keep a budget. You know what I mean? So we’re gonna have to cut hours a bit, especially from our overtime workers.”

  “Whatever,” I respond to him, walking out. I bet his hours won’t be cut, I’m thinking.

  Sherry’s peeking at me again as I round the corner to my aisle. I feel like asking her what she’s looking at. But right now wouldn’t be the right time. I’m too pissed off.

  I pass Corey Blair, another Georgetown-looking white boy with blond hair, who’s been doing as much overtime as I have. “Hey, Corey, are they cutting back your overtime hours?” I ask him after waiting for him to hang up on an unsuccessful sale.

  Corey shakes his head confusingly. “Hell no, man! I need this money to pay my car insurance. No way are they cutting my OT.” He smiles humorously. “Why? Are they cutting your overtime?”