Capital City

  Steve looks at me and then to Pervis. “Sometimes it bees like dat.”

  I look to Otis. “What’chu think, O?”

  “Man, I’on know.”

  “Why, ’cause you ain’t never busted nobody up?”

  “I mean, I had a few—”

  “No da fuck you didn’t!” I shout at him. Fuck this! I get up so I can explain a few things to these punks. “Aw’ight niggas, here’s the scenario, two ma’fuckas hop out of a car on five of us. We all packin’, but we don’t really know what these niggas is gon’ do. So what do we do?”

  “We ask them what’s up,” Steve says.

  “Then what?”

  “If they wanna buy a package, we do biz’ness. If not, then they can get da fuck outta here,” Rudy adds.

  “But what if these ma’fuckas pull out guns and start demandin’ shit, like in a stick-up?”

  Rudy spits to the curb. “Fuck it! We cap ’em niggas, Joe!”

  “And what da fuck would you do if somebody did this?” I pull out my compact .45 semi-auto and stick it behind Pervis’ coat, where it can’t be seen by onlookers.

  “Man, stop trippin’,” he says, bitching.

  “Trippin’? Nigga, I don’t like you!” I shout at him. “You da one trippin’. I’ve hated punk muthafuckas like you all my life. ‘Cause you know whadda happen if somebody really pulled out on us? Ya punk ass would run, Joe! Like a bitch!”

  These niggas all quiet the hell up. And I still got the. 45. It’s underneath Pervis’ arm while I stand in back of him. “Man, this shit ain’t even called for, you’n,” he says to me, looking all helpless. But ain’t nobody gon’ help him, they know what time it is.

  I shove my gun into his ribs. “Yes da fuck it is! ’Cause it’s punk-ass, entertainin’ niggas like you that always get people taken under. I hate muthafuckas like you wit’ a passion! You know why?” He doesn’t open his mouth to say shit. “Speak up, ma’fucka! Assert’cha self!”

  He sighs like a fucking girl. “Why, man?”

  I holler into his face, “’Cause you a spineless pussy! And if we ever have a shoot-out, I’m gon’ shoot’cha ass first!” I search him for a gun and shove his ass toward his car. “Now get da hell outta here before I kill you.”

  He stumbles toward his 300 ZX.

  I walk to his driver’s seat and point my gun at his window as soon he gets in. “Roll dis shit down.” He does the shit. “You got a piece in’nere?”

  “Naw, man. I ain’t packin’.”

  These other niggas are just standing around, watching, like they ain’t got nothing else to do.

  “Yo, Steve?”

  “What’s up?”

  “Search his car for a piece,” I tell him.

  Steve opens the passenger’s door and gets in.

  “What I do to you, man?” Pervis asks me. His eyes are begging for mercy. And I can see his chest rise and fall with his heartbeats.

  I stick my gun to his cheek. “Yo, you find a piece in there, Steve?”

  “Naw, he ain’t got nothin’ but a bunch of rubbers and some weed.”

  “Take that shit and make him buy some more. And I would take ya coat, but I ain’t got no place t’ carry it.”

  “I’ll take that shit,” Rudy says, stepping up to the car.

  “Naw, fuck this nigga,” I tell him. I don’t want to prolong the issue. I want this spineless motherfucker out of my face before I end up shooting him. I slip my. 45 back inside my jacket. I look at Pervis with steady eyes. “Yo, look here, Joe.”

  He turns to face me with his chest still heaving and tears rising in his punk-ass eyes. He probably pissed on himself. “Don’t’chu ever get in a game that you afraid of, nigga. If you can’t stand the heat, den get da hell out. And another thing. If you got some tough-ass cousins in New York, then tell them ma’fuckas to come down here and meet me. Maybe we can drink a few beers and laugh ’bout’cha punk ass. ’Cause you know what, Joe? I don’t give a fuck if niggas is from New York, Jamaica, Compton or the Fifth Ward, Texas—a nigga wit’ heart is a nigga wit’ heart. And Shank don’t back down t’ no-fuckin’-body.”

  I let the motherfucker drive off. This cold-ass February weather whips past me and shakes my stance. But I feel unmoved. And you know what? A nigga ain’t got nothing when he’s castrated. “That’s why the white man always goes for a nigga’s balls, just like a bitch,” my uncle in Jersey used to tell me. He in jail now, but he stood up for his. You know what I’m saying? We got to get our shit straight. We got to go out like warriors. Or die like bitches. And I ain’t no bitch. So fuck all the punk shit! I’m a cold-ass warrior!

  Wes

  “I’on know why Riddick Bowe talkin’ dat shit, you’n. He ain’t fightin’ nobody. Anybody can knock some old-ass Michael Dokes out,” Walt says.

  “Yeah, but nobody thought Bowe had a chance to win a title after the Olympics. Him and Rocle Newman came a long way, Joe,” Marshall rebuts.

  “Yeah, he talkin’ dat trash, ‘I beat the man that beat the man that beat the man,’ after he beat Holyfield,” Walt retorts.

  Derrick smiles from the couch. He’s sitting next to me as usual. We’re all inside Marshall’s basement apartment on Thirteenth Street Northwest, off of Euclid. “You can’t beat ’em, Walt.”

  “Shit, you crazy! I’d knock that fat nigga out.”

  We all chuckle.

  “So what’chu gon’ do for a job now, Wes?” Walt asks me. “You gon’ go work for Giant’s again?”

  “Nope. I think I wanna take a resting period.”

  Marshall frowns from the floor. He’s in his usual spot in front of his TV. “So how you gon’ pay rent?”

  “I’ll find a way.”

  Walt grins. “That nigga ’bout to hook up wit’ Butterman and start hustlin’, that’s how.”

  “Hell, why not?” I say just for the hell of it.

  Marshall shakes his head while cleaning his thin-rimmed glasses against his shirt. “Man, you should’na fucked up that telemarketing job.”

  “What was he supposed to do, jus’ let them jerk ’im around?” Derrick says to my defense.

  “He ain’t have t’ call ’em racists white assholes, though,” Marshall retorts.

  Walt laughs. “He should’a called ’em some cock-suckin’ sons of bitches. That’s how dey talk.”

  We all howl with laughter.

  “That’s just how poor, white trash talk,” Derrick says. Then he looks to me. “You did what you had to do, man. White people always be lyin’ and hooking each other up at our expense.”

  “Yeah, but you gotta keep your job no matter what white people try ta do,” Marshall responds.

  Walt frowns, stretching out his legs from the smaller couch. “Man, fuck that! He did the right thing. Nigga jus’ ain’t got no job now.”

  We all laugh again. I figure it’s no sense in me being upset about it. I have to keep moving on.

  “Yeah, you missed Khallid Muhammad up at Howard University, man,” Marshall says, facing me with his gold glasses back on.

  “He been hangin’ out wit’ dat girl twenty-four-seven. She prob’ly got ’im pussy-whipped!” Walt says for more laughter.

  I smile. “So what was Khallid Muhammad talking about?” I ask Marshall, ignoring Walt.

  “Man, he came right out and said, ‘If The Nation of Islam killed Malcolm X, we wouldn’t lie to you, we’d tell you we killed him. Then we’d ask, ‘What do you wanna do about it?’ But we didn’t kill Malcolm X’.”

  “Everybody should know by now that it was a set-up,” Derrick adds.

  “Spike Lee said they did it,” Marshall says.

  “Spike Lee don’t know what da fuck he talkin’ ’bout!” Walt yells. “That nigga need to stick to his movies. But he was right when he said that the white man created AIDS.” Walt gets hyper. “Oh, I believe that shit, you’n! They been sayin’ that shit for years!”

  “What else did he say?” I ask Marshall.

  “Oh, man, a bunch of stuff. Yo
u know them Nation of Islam speeches be three hours long. But he was lunchin’, Joe. He came out here talkin’ ’bout ‘This ain’t the zoom, zoom, zoom in’na boom, boom. This the real deal t’night. There ain’t gon’ be no zoom, zoom, zoom t’night’.”

  We all howl with more laughter.

  “I’m tired of that damn song anyway,” Walt says. Derrick nods. “They played it too much.”

  “So what’chu think about the civil rights movement now, after Thurgood Marshall died, Wes?” Marshall asks me out of the blue.

  I respond, “What civil rights? We need our own work places now. That civil rights garbage didn’t work. White people still racist. And Clarence Thomas? Give me a break.”

  Derrick laughs. “Yeah, he fucked around and said okay to the Ku Klux Klan’s right to burn a cross on your lawn.”

  Walt grimaces. “Yo, if any white ma’fucka burn a damn cross on my lawn, I’ma fuck ’em up. That shit is fightin’ words for a nigga, Joe. For real!”

  “No bullshit,” Marshall agrees.

  “Arthur Ashe died too,” Derrick comments.

  “Aw, man, fuck him,” Walt says, frowning. “He was one of them ass-kissin’ niggas.”

  “But at least he married a black woman,” Marshall says.

  “But he had AIDS,” Walt retorts.

  “Yeah, but he wasn’t a faggot. He got AIDS through a blood transfusion.”

  “Whatever, man. The ma’fucka died of AIDS, and that’s fucked up. Period!”

  “No, what was really fucked up was how they exposed it in the media,” Derrick says.

  “Oh, yeah, you know they’a do that t’ one of us in a minute,” Marshall agrees.

  We sit quiet for a while, watching cable television before I head up another discussion, “So Black History Month is almost over.”

  Walt laughs as if I’ve just made the funniest joke in the world. “This nigga trippin’. Black History Month. And niggas be proud of that shit, too.”

  “Why not be proud?” Derrick asks.

  “I mean, we even got every state honoring Martin Luther King now.” Marshall nods.

  “Yeah, that’s right, ’cause Arizona finally gave in.”

  Walt shakes his head. “Y’all niggas is crazy. I mean, I just can’t understand that dumb shit. Here we are in a country that kicks our ass every day and yet we gon’ be proud of some Black History Month.”

  “Naw, you’re the one that’s crazy,” Derrick retorts. “We can’t let white people or anybody else take our achievements from us.”

  “I know. We did a lot of shit in this country,” Marshall adds.

  Walt grins. “Yeah, and most niggas is still poor and stupid.”

  Now I come in on it, “If we make Black History Month an everyday celebration, then we can close the gap between the conscious and the unconscious. But the major deterrent is that the public school system, which is controlled by the greater white supremacist institution in America, won’t allow it. I mean, we’ve had African centered scholars researching our history for years, but the only way to reach our youth with it is to have our own schools.”

  “Here this nigga go wit’ that lecturing shit,” Walt says, cutting me off before I can continue.

  Derrick smiles. “See that, Walt? That’s why people are poor and stupid, because they don’t want to listen. We might be sitting next to the next James Baldwin here.”

  “No, I’m not James Baldwin,” I retort. I don’t have anything personal against him, but I’m a new black man from the hip-hop generation with a different philosophy from Baldwin’s integrationist approach.

  Marshall smiles. “Wasn’t James Baldwin a faggot?” Walt roars with deep down laughter.

  “That’s beside the point,” Derrick responds. “It’s what he was fighting for that was important.”

  “Okay, and what was the faggot fighting for?” Walt asks, still giggling to himself.

  Derrick shakes his head. “You pitiful sometimes, Walt. Sometimes I ask myself why I even hang with you.”

  “I ask that shit to myself about hangin’ wit’chall niggas e’ry day. I mean, I really sit down and go, ‘Damn! Now these boys don’t get no pussy. They can’t run no ball, and they sit around talkin’ about politics and gossip like a bunch of fuckin’ girls.”

  Walt breaks out and laughs again at his ruminations as Derrick continues to shake his head.

  Marshall says, “’Cause we cool. And you know that we goin’ somewhere in life. So you know what’chu doin’. You tryin’a stay on a winning team. ’Cause when push comes to shove, you know that them other niggas you be fuckin’ wit’ ain’t gon’ be about shit.”

  Marshall shuts Walt up. And I must say, I don’t think I could have said it any better myself. Walt is actually having a moral fight to be down with us instead of his wannabe roughnecks, because he knows that ultimately, we’ll be the real survivors. Or will we? I’m forgetting that just lost my job for standing up for my black manhood at work. So what will the future hold? Will I learn to accept racism, fight it, or simply run away from it?

  After a while I call my answering machine and get a message to call NeNe. But I don’t want to. I know they’re going to tease me about being “pussy-whipped” again. Especially Walt. But I believe he’s jealous. I think he’d love to be whipped by a pretty girl like NeNe.

  “So when you takin’ that test for graduate school?” Marshall asks me, breaking our silence.

  “Oh, the GRE exam? It’s one coming up in April.”

  “So you really thinking about going on to graduate school?” Derricks asks.

  Walt chuckles. “He might as well be a teacha. Nigga always lecturin’.”

  I smile. “Yeah, I’m just wondering how many people I can really reach.”

  “Hey, man, every soul counts,” Derrick tells me. “Yeah, but you better get a PhD if you wanna make some real money, you’n,” Marshall comments. “’Cause that other small-time teaching ain’t worth it.”

  “I know, Joe. Them teachas be gettin’ jerked,” Walt says.

  I try to sneak on the phone and call NeNe while everyone is still conversing.

  “Who you callin’?” Marshall asks me, smiling.

  I think I’ve just been busted.

  “You know who he’s callin’,” Walt says. “He callin’ his girl up.”

  “So what?” I shout, no longer caring if they know.

  Derrick chuckles. “They jus’ jealous that they ain’t in love.”

  “In love? That nigga only been with her for like a month. How he gon’ be in love?” Walt asks as if he’s shocked Derrick even used the word.

  “Love works in mysterious ways,” I tell Walt with a smile, as NeNe answers the phone.

  “Yeah, that’s ya dick talkin’ to you, nigga. You ain’t in no damn love. How he gon’ be in love? That nigga don’t know nothin’ about love. Hell he talkin’ ’bout?”

  Marshall laughs. “Would’ju shut’cha jealous ass up so he can talk to his girl.”

  “I’m gon’ be in ya area in a half an hour, ’cause my girlfriend givin’ me a ride,” NeNe says over the phone. “Okay, I’ll be home by then.”

  “Oh my God! You hear this nigga? Now I know he pussy whipped,” Walt interrupts, minding my business.

  I put my hand over the receiver while I chuckle. “So you got e’rything?” NeNe asks me.

  “Yeah, I got everything.”

  “Okay, I’m leavin’ now.”

  “All right, I’ll see you.” I hang up and motion to Marshall. “You giving me a ride, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  Marshall jumps up and grabs our coats from the closet. “So what’chall gon’ do?” Derrick asks me.

  “Oh, we’re supposed to have a candlelight dinner tonight, over spaghetti.”

  Walt frowns. “This nigga even cookin’ for her.”

  “Yup,” I admit as Marshall and I step out toward the door.

  “So how does she treat you?” Marshall asks me once we settle into his car. We ride do
wn Columbia Road toward Michigan Avenue.

  “She treats me real well.”

  Marshall grins. “So did y’all do shit yet?”

  I smile. “Why is that so important to guys?”

  “Aw, man, come on. Women talk about it too. You read Terry McMillan’s books. You should now that by now.”

  “Yeah, well, I’m not one to kiss and tell.”

  “You told me when you slept with Sybil.”

  I smile embarrassingly. “Well, I shouldn’t have done that.”

  “Aw, man, you gon’ front on me now?”

  I smile at him innocently, but with no response. We turn left on Twelfth and Michigan Northeast, heading to my apartment building. NeNe and her girlfriend are waiting inside a black Honda Civic when we arrive.

  “Damn, they beat us here!” Marshall says in shock. NeNe’s girlfriend must live closer to my house than what she thought.

  We all hop out and go through the introductions before NeNe and I head up to my apartment. Marshall and NeNe’s girlfriend drive off in their cars.

  “I see you have a new hairstyle,” I tell my sweetheart. “It’s pretty, too.”

  She pats her hair delicately and smiles. “Thank you.” She smiles as I hang up our coats. “So, have you missed me?” she asks.

  “Yeah, I missed you all yesterday.”

  She giggles, looking gorgeous in a casual black and purple outfit with matching purple earrings.

  I joke with her. “So, I see that Prince must have gotten to you today, huh?”

  “Funny,” she says, opening the refrigerator. She pulls out the Ragu spaghetti sauce and the ground turkey. She doesn’t eat beef. And I respect that a lot. But I still eat it. It’ll take years for it to kill you. Or at least that’s what I believe. A vivacious attitude is the key to longevity in life. Health can be overrated if your spirits are still low.

  We get everything ready and set our plates in front of us. A yellow candle glows in the middle of my small kitchen table. I can’t even fit the table in my micro kitchen, so I have it off to the left of the living room.

  “So what’s new?” NeNe asks, gazing at me as we start to eat.

  I swallow down my first bite. “Well, for starters, I quit my job tonight.”

  Her eyes pop open in surprise. “Why?”