Capital City

  We laughing like shit. Them old-timer jokes are something else! I’m gon’ learn how to tell them dumb jokes myself. I’m gon’ practice that shit.

  “Yo, where you be gettin’ all these jokes from, Georgie?” I ask him.

  “From plain, long livin’, boy. But see, you young’uns ain’t gon’ be able to tell no good jokes because you don’t listen enough, and you got short attention spans. See, so t’ get these jokes, you have t’ know how the story all comes together. But naw, you young’uns all want it fast nowadays. You all like that Eddie Murphy stuff. But see, Richard Pryor had them long, story jokes. And before him you had Redd Foxx. But you young’uns wouldn’t know nothin’ about him. Redd Foxx had grown-up jokes.”

  “I heard Redd Foxx before.”

  Georgie frowns at me. “Now, boy, go on and get’cha haircut, ’cause I’m ti’ed of you bullshittin’ me. You ain’t never heard no Redd Foxx stand-up. Hell, you still watchin’ Sanford & Son reruns.”

  Niggas start laughing again while my barber finishes up my cut. But I’m gonna learn how to tell them damn jokes. Fuck what Georgie’s talking about.

  I head over to Keisha’s crib. She opens her door, looking all sad and shit.

  “What’s wrong wit’chu?” I ask her.

  “J, you might as well go on somewhere else you’n.”

  “Why? What’chu talkin’ ’bout?”

  “I called up dere t’ Lorton t’day. And dey said dat Mitchell was on lock-down for assaulting a guard. Aw, man, feel so depressed I jus’ don’t know what t’ do. Dey prob’ly beat ’im down bad, shaw’. I hate not bein’ able t’ do nothin’ about dis shit, man, swear.”

  She starts sobbing and shit with tears running down her face, looking pitiful. Damn! I hate this sad-type shit.

  “How long they say he’s on lock-down for?”

  “Aw, you’n, I’on know,” she whines, crying some more. “I’on feel dat good about dis shit at all dey tryin’a kill ’im, J. Dey tryin’a kill ’im. ’Cause you know how he is, you’n.”

  Aw, fuck! She gettin’ worse, cryin’ all ova da place now.

  I sit down on the couch with her and pull her head to my chest. She sniffs against my leather coat. “It ain’t nothin’ we can do, man. It ain’t even shit we can do!”

  Damn! Now she making me feel sad and helpless. And Little Red already crying.

  “Yo, well look, let’s ride up t’ Baltimore Harbor and get some seafood or something, ’cause you gon’ need t’ get out da house,” I tell her.

  “I’on wanna go nowhere, Joe. I’on wanna go nowhere.” Man, this scene is pitiful, I’m thinking. I get up and get her and Little Red’s coats from the closet. “Come on now, Keisha. Let’s go.”

  She shakes her head like she’s half crazy. “Naw, man. I ain’t goin’ nowhere.”

  I stand her up and try to put her coat on. She falls back on the living-room couch. Then her Mom comes downstairs. She’s as big as Keisha is, but a lighter shade of brown.

  “Now, Keisha, go ’head, now! I ain’t tryin’a have you mopin’ ’round in here all day, girl. Go ’head and go somewhere, ’cause you got yaself in’is damn mess.”

  Keisha stands up sniffing, and puts her coat on. “Come on, boy,” she says, extending her hand to Little Red.

  We walk out and get inside my 3000. Nobody really says shit for the whole thirty-five minute ride to Baltimore. Keisha doesn’t say anything to me until we have the seafood out in front of us: stuffed shrimp, crab, lobster, flounder, every fucking thing. I ordered the works, you know, because I got it like that.

  Keisha looks into my eyes with a shrimp in her hand, still looking pitiful. “I jus’ wish dat’chall could do somethin’ right wit’chall lives instead’a all dis crooked shit, man.”

  Aw, here we go. As soon as things get a little rough, this the first thing people start sayin’, I’m thinking. I’m not giving up my pull fuck that! I worked too hard for mine! Tell this bamma-ass shit to the next nigga. I look away from her, frowning, but Keisha still talking crazy.

  “You listenin’ t’ me, Joe? Y’all don’t have t’ live like dis, man. Y’all don’t.” She drops her shrimp back on her plate. Now she looks like she’s about to start crying and shit again. “Why ain’t it no other way t’ make money like dat, man? Huh?”

  She’s gettin’ da hell on my nerves, but I’m tryin’a stay cool! “Come on now, Red gon’ be aw’ight,” I tell her, helping Little Red break off a piece of the lobster.

  Keisha shakes her head at me. “No, I’m talkin’ ’bout you now. I mean, Tub is dead, John-John takin’ drugs, DeShawn jus’ disappeared. Now what’chu gon’ do, Jeffrey Kirkland?”

  “I’m gon’ keep gettin’ fuckin’ paid. That’s what I’m gon’ do!” I yell across the table at her. I look around us to make sure that I didn’t draw too much attention. Damn! I hate to get loud with her like this, but she’s fucking with me!

  She grits her teeth, balls her fists, and glares at me. “I hope t’ God dat dey put’cha pretty ass in jail so dey can fuck you!” she yells back.

  She jumps up from the table and grabs Little Red’s hand and their coats. I shake my head and ignore all these bamma-ass niggas and white people staring at our booth. I pull out three twenties and a ten and leave it on the table. I follow Keisha and Little Red as they rush out. We get back in the car and ride home the same way we came, neither one of us are saying anything.

  I drop Keisha and Little Red off. Keisha slams my damn door. I shake my head again. Fuck her! I never really liked her heavy ass anyway. That’s Red’s girl.

  I ride back to my Silver Spring apartment building and park in the parking lot. I walk up to the door and dig into my pocket to pull out my lobby key. Some white man comes out before I put my key in the door, so I try to walk in behind him.

  The middle-aged white man grabs the door. “Excuse me, do you live here?”

  I yank the door open and show him my key. “Yeah, I live here, muthafucka! Now get da fuck off the door!”

  He looks at me as if I’m crazy and heads on his way. Shit! I’m already pissed the hell off, and this damn white man gon’ ask me if I live here! I guess he thinks this apartment building is too plush for a young nigga to live in. And that’s exactly my damn point. I mean, why should I kiss some white motherfucker’s ass all my life? Fuck that shit! Is that what niggas live for?

  Well, not this nigga. I got my own fucking game. I got my own power. I make my own decisions. And I’m not going out like my father. I don’t care how much money he makes. My father’s a pussy, like all the rest of these niggas that live like him. The white man won’t never let them in. It’s just like this white bastard trying to keep me out of my own damn building. For real!

  We gots to run our own shit! Our own fucking game!

  CHAPTER 7

  Butterman

  I did everything Wes told me to do to get a company name from the Maryland State Small Business Bureau. Now I’m all dressed: suit, tie, and shoes, to game this bank teller up and open an account.

  I got, like, sixty thousand dollars in cash at the crib after buying that Acura, so Wes told me I’ll have to put my money in the bank, little by little. They have this government policy where they have to report cash in excess of ten thousand dollars. It might take me two months to get all my shit in the bank, but I figure it’s better than laundering money through some bamma-ass store like a lot of these other niggas are doing.

  I park my car downtown and put four quarters in the parking meter. These damn parking ticketers are crazy! Fuck if they think they’re giving me a ticket!

  I straighten out my blue tie and walk into the bank with five thousand dollars in cash and all my papers of corporation, including two newspaper clippings. I had to state that my company is open for business in two publications.

  Its three women opening the accounts: one black, one Asian, and one white. I guess they’re an equal opportunity employer, huh?

  I walk over to the white woman because she’s the
only one who’s free. Plus, I kind of think it’s better to bullshit these white people. I still know how to talk to these bamma-ass niggas.

  “Hi, can I help you?” she asks. She’s wearing a gray women’s business suit, you know, with a matching skirt instead of pants.

  I give her a “I’m good nigger” smile. “Sure, I would like to open up an account for my P.R. agency.” I sit down in the seat in front of her desk.

  “Okay, that would be a checking account.”

  “Ah, both, please, checking and savings.”

  She smiles. “All right. Do you have your articles of corporation?”

  I hand her all my shit and she hands me some papers to fill out. I fill the form out and give it back to her.

  “Okay, for a company account you have to maintain at least two thousand dollars within the account at all times or suffer a ten dollar penalty per month. Now for the savings, the minimum balance for an account will be two hundred dollars.”

  I smile at her and show her all my teeth. “Okay, I have four thousand dollars for the checking and one thousand for my savings.”

  I give her the money and she counts the shit two and three times. Goddamn! These banks don’t bullshit about that money.

  She stands up and hands me a receipt. “Well, thank you very much, Mr. Kirkland. You should be receiving your account book and company checks in the mail in a week or so.”

  I stand up and shake the white woman’s hand. She’s smiling with pink-ass cheeks, looking all bam-mafied, just like in one of those commercial advertisements and shit!

  “Thank you,” I tell her.

  She smiles again as I turn around and walk out.

  Yeah, my shit is rolling in! I’m gonna make it legal! I’m the fucking man! I’m like dat!

  Tomorrow is my birthday, Saturday, March 13. I call up Wes to take him down South Carolina with me so he can see this light-skinned, bullshit family of mine up close. I mean, besides my old boys: Red, Tub, John-John, and DeShawn, Wes is the only new nigga I can fuck with like that. I don’t want them other young’uns to know what kind of fucked-up-ass family I come from. Plus, Wes is the only one that could fit in with my family anyway. Shit, they’ll probably like his upstanding, studious ass. For real!

  * * *

  Me and Wes ride in his Acura down I-95 South. “So everything at the bank went well?” he asks me.

  It feels good not to be in the driver’s seat for a change. I got this bucket seat leaned back and I’m cruising, enjoying the sights. The weather’s getting warmer now.

  “Yeah, man, that shit was easier than I thought it would be. Much easier.”

  Wes smiles. “I told you. I mean, I don’t see why more Blacks don’t know how easy it is to open up a business account. It’s really nothing to it. You just send in your company name, take out a few newspaper articles, and then open up the account for business.”

  “Yeah, but I’m worried about how quickly I can get the rest of my fuckin’ money in’ere,” I tell him.

  “Well one way in which you can speed up the pace is by giving cash to people who have their own small businesses. They deposit the money into their accounts and then you get them to write checks back to your company.”

  “Yeah, that shit’ll work!” I smile. “See, man, I needed you on my squad earlier. I could’ve had a million dollars by now if I wasn’t wastin’ money. That’s what happens when you really don’t know what to do with it.”

  “Yeah, well, I’ve been putting most of the money you give me in the bank now myself. But you know, it’s something else how I just seem to buy larger things with more money. Like two days ago I bought a high-tech CD player that costs nearly four hundred dollars.”

  I laugh. “That’s what money is for. You supposed to treat’cha self.”

  “But what I’m saying is that I used to frown on spending that kind of money on things you can do without. Now, since have the money, I went right out and turned into a hypocrite.”

  Wes smiles and shakes his head. I look over to my right at an unlucky driver pulled over by a state trooper.

  “Yo, you’n, you give somebody enough money, and any nigga’ll turn into a hypocrite. That shit is the American way.”

  We laugh like hell, and Wes pops in Arrested Development’s tape.

  “Hey J, what do you think about female rappers like Boss?” he asks me.

  “Oh, shaw’, dey slammin’! They like dat!”

  Wes grins. “So you agree with how they figure to equate bitchdom with niggerdom?”

  I chuckle. “You makin’ up words, nigga?”

  He smiles. “You know what I mean.”

  I nod, more seriously. “Naw, I don’t agree wit’ dat shit. I want my women soft and pleasing. But I want them to stand up for themselves when they have to. I mean, that’s how my girl is.”

  “Yeah, heard a lot about her.” “NeNe told’ju?”

  “Yup. And like how you two set me up for this.”

  We both smile. “I mean, I had t’ get you in somehow,” I tell him.

  “NeNe and I haven’t been getting along as well since then.”

  I nod to him. “She told me.”

  We sit quiet for a while, listening to “Mr.Wendal.”

  “Who do you have for the NCAA March Madness?” Wes asks me.

  “Oh, I got Duke. Them boys is still like dat. People be tryin’a sleep on ’em.”

  Wes smiles at me. “I heard you went to Duke for a year and dropped out.”

  I nod with a grin. “NeNe got a big fuckin’ mouth.”

  “Who you telling? She tells you everything about me.” We share another laugh.

  “So where’s this guy Shank been hiding out?” Wes asks me.

  “Man, I got him runnin’ with the workers now, ’cause he be actin’ crazy. I think that nigga watched that movie Juice too many times.”

  Wes chuckles. “So he’s pretty hard, huh?”

  “Yeah, Joe! That nigga’s crazy! He one of them 2Pac actin’ niggas. ‘Strictly for my, strictly for my, strictly for my niggaz.’ That ma’fucka out his mind!”

  Wes smiles. “You ever heard that song ‘Trapped’?”

  “Yeah, but I ain’t really listen to it all that much.”

  “Well, you need to. That song’s a political, hip-hop classic in my book. ‘Trapped’ sums up everything. I feel trapped every day. America is a trap for us young black men.”

  I ain’t responding to that. I don’t want him going on one of his political tangents.

  “Yo, them girls from Jade look good as shit, you’n. What’chu think?” I ask him. I’m trying to change the subject away from that political stuff he’s talking.

  Wes says, “I think they’re selling sex. Just like Public Enemy said years ago, ‘You singers are spineless, as you sing your senseless songs to tire mindless. Your general subject, love, is minimal. It’s sex for a profit.’”

  Aw, this muthafucka lunchin’. For real! “Yo, man, this ain’t the sixties. Niggas into makin’ money now.” I laugh the shit off, but Wes is still serious.

  “That’s what bothers me about our generation. But hell, we have to eat to live. So like I said, they have us trapped.”

  We don’t say much to each other until we pull up into the parking lot of my aunt’s crib in South Carolina.

  “So, this is where you’re from?” Wes asks me as we hop out.

  “Naw, we originally from North Carolina, but then e’rybody broke out.”

  We head up the painted wooden steps to my aunt’s front door.

  “Here he is! My birthday nephew has come back home to us!” Aunt May hollers through her elegantly-decorated house. She grabs my cheeks between her hands and kisses me. “Boy, look at these little bones on you. You been eating right?”

  I smile. “Yeah, I been eatin’ right.”

  She frowns at me, then laughs. “So who’s your friend?”

  I turn to Wes. “Oh, this my business partner, Wes.”

  Wes extends his hand. “Pleased t
o meet you.”

  “Unh-huh. So what kind of business you two doin’? ’Cause you know it broke your mother’s heart when you stopped going to Duke to hang out with them hoodlum friends of yours.”

  See dat shit? I can tell I’m not stayin’ long, I’m thinking. My aunt is starting that guilt-trip shit on me already. “We got a P.R. firm to promote and manage go-go bands,” I tell her.

  She frowns at me. “Go-go bands? Boy, you still into that ol’ pot and-pan music? That ain’t no real music. And then you have them little girls dancing to that stuff as if they some kind of prostitutes. Oh, yeah, I’ve seen that stuff.”

  I shake my head and smile at her. I mean, it’s typical for adults to reject the culture of the youth. But I ain’t saying nothing because I don’t feel like arguing.

  My aunt leads us into the basement. “Well, go on down there and meet everybody who hasn’t seen you in a while. I gotta finish cooking this food. And your mother and sisters should be here in an hour or so. They called not long after you did.”

  Wes chuckles as we head down the basement stairs. “You see how this shit is, man?” I whisper to him. “It’s gon’ get worse. Watch.”

  “Hey, Junior! You just in time to join our argument! Now we down here discussing that Alex Haley TV series about us mixed bloods,” Uncle Jim says. He’s gained a lot of weight but he ain’t fat yet. He’s lost some of his straight hair, but his green eyes are still sparkling. And everybody in this damn house could use a suntan, except for Wes.

  I smile embarrassingly. These high-yellow niggas down here debating light-skinned shit already.

  “Now, we ain’t all light colored ’cause of no damn rapings. I know my wife was one of the finest women in North Carolina A&T. I had to date her for a year before she started liking me.”