“Now what’s your name?”
“Where’s my son?”
“It has you down as Martin but Sheth’s last name is Jones.”
“Sheth’s dad was my daughter’s husband. We don’t have money for a lawyer.”
“No that’s ok, Mrs Martin. That is not a problem. No problem whatsoever. We will take care of you right up. Tied in a neat little tendril! Now how does that sound?”
Mrs Martin’s feet shuffled over the floor.
“He says Bulinda is his sister?”
“His half-sister.”
“Isn’t Bulinda an English name?”
“Spanish,” Mrs Martin says.
“Now how did Sheth’s half sister Bulinda get a Spanish name?”
“I guess ‘cause she’s Spanish. How long do we have to stay here?”
“Participation is voluntary—always voluntary. You and Sheth can walk out of here right now.”
“So why wouldn’t we?”
“ ‘Cause I need your help.”
Mrs Martin looks up at me with these big, brown eyes.
“I need your help—forgive me—but—uh—I need your help to figure out how Sheth has a Spanish sister named Bulinda. And this is an interesting spelling. I’ve never seen it done this way. B—u—l-i-n-d-a. Doesn’t that b-u-l remind you of bullshit or sort of a dull sound associated with mental retardation bul you fucking bull-headed Bulinda sounds like a girl go to church every day and loses her virginity to the pastor’s boy behind closed curtains she thought he was just going for a kiss but lo and behold, there underneath his robes was the prong of damnation—the prick!—reaching upwards through stratospheres of naughtiness, reaching down down down to bury itself in stratospheres of hell. ‘Cause I just never heard no Nikka with the white girl name of Bulinda. Never spelled like that. Now I find out she’s supposedly a Spanish Nikka with a Spanish name and I don’t understand how a black girl gets to come from Spain!”
Mrs Martin sits with her erect back looking all proper and royal and shit.
“You look like you have nothing to lose,” I say.
She looks at me and says, “What?”
“You look like you have nothing to lose!” I say. “Fuckin’ deaf motherfucker. You look like you have nothing to lose but you do. Your son does. Sheth. Remember Sheth, locked up all tight and secure? Sheth was caught tonight with a television that was on, volume turned up, and he was playing that television—watching Jennifer Lawrence no less—Jennifer Fucking Lawrence. We had to go there. We had to bring the deputies. Your son—your son did not drop and touch the sky. He did not follow protocol. He almost made me kill him. Almost. But not quite. No, the grace of God and a little trust in my trigger finger bring me to my bed at night. May I rise up on my pillow Dear Lord and worship you Darling Baby Jesus may my countenance be turned within your oh-so-holy consciousness, bright consciousness, the face and the heart and the mind of angels! Angels who have come on high and touched my hand Dear Lord Dear Lord! Oh God! I am touched by your presence here tonight Dear Lord Oh God My God! Nothing is higher. You are good Oh God. Good to the very last drop. Good like a glass of Kool-Aid™. Yum! to my lips. Yum yum yum! to my Lord! We are with you, tonight, in this prison building, God, we are with you tonight in your mysterious house of worship we have come here to find you in everything we do, Lord. In the cells we lock up to the criminals we lock in them. These are offenders, Oh Lord, offenders to thy law. We bring our faith from the pews into this definition of a world we live in. We bring our faith out from under a rock. From whispers hidden in the voices of two little Christian girls. They hid their truth from the light—they hid their truth from the world. Then, through ages and solemnities, they tore through their oppressors, those other little pagan girls in the schoolyard. Those heathen girls, whose mothers have gone against the word of God and they are being punished through the sins of their children when I say my prayers at night I curse my neighbors, every wicked one of you. You, Mrs Martin, I’ll add to my list. You, Mrs Martin. You’ve got a grandson meddling in White culture, playing his music too loud—you’re an ancient decrepit stinking bitch there’s no simpler way to state it. And you know what else?”
“What?” she says.
“I’m gonna tell you. This white culture thing. He’s dabbing. He’s dipping. He’s poking around with his black cock in creams and cultures he shouldn’t be dabbing and dipping in. Jennifer Fucking Lawrence. You know where she’s from? Kentucky. Land of White people, more White people, and a surprising amount of culture. Also surprisingly well off. You ever been down there?”
“Me and my family’s been through.”
“Well when I went down, I was like what the fuck? Mansions and shit. None of this back water blue hills bullshit. I mean there are the blue hills. Some real hillbilly bullshit back there. Deliverance and everything. But that’s where Jennifer Lawrence is from. That’s where my people are from. Let me ask you something. Where are your people from? ‘Cause it ain’t anywhere in this country. Is it? I don’t think so. We don’t have the sun to make Niggar skin. Takes a lot of sun, right? And a lot of desert—a lot of sand? Does it take a lot of sand??”
Mrs Smith meets my eye.
She says, “To make Niggar skin?”
“That’s right.” That is right, my dear. Doesn’t it take a lot of sun and a bunch of Niggardly Niggars baking around in it, to make Niggardly Niggard skin. Fraidy cat skin, full of nut-muffin squash and muscadine grapes and Civil War reenactments when you smile too wide at your Niggardly friends playing slaves they were slaves they were actually fucking slaves!! Actual slaves in an actual slave country with slave ships and slave blocks and slave whips and slave rapes. But slavery wasn’t that bad. It wasn’t! It was better than now, with a dignified people subjugated to—I don’t even know what subjugated means but I’m trying Ringo, I’m tryin’ real hard. The problem with these southern Negras coming up to the north over three generations is they get real small and crusty real fast to the time they’re somebody’s grandma they’re tiny small, too little to count, fingers crusted, bone, fragment, tone. A pencil neck. Turkey dicks, every one. Black, flagellated, whipped into shape the biggest cock I’ve ever seen gargantuan fucknigga! I don’t mind locking that kid up in a cell. Just for a few hours. Any of them! To take that bone scooper (big dick) off the street away from a white girl for a minute is a benefit to society. The word dick does not apply. That is the biggest cock I’ve ever seen.
I spit into the trash can.
“Excuse me.”
“No problem,” Mrs Smith says.
“It really isn’t a problem for you, is it? My spitting my bile out in this metal can? Thanks, Mrs Smith. Thank you very much. Are you still working on getting your son out of here tonight?”
“I’m still not clear on why we are here.”
“Destruction of—disruption—basically a noise disturbance. But it is more than that, Mrs Smith. It’s about respect. For the White man, for our history of slavery. We need you and your grandson to bow down and lick the boots of those they serve. We don’t need you to sign a piece of paper. We need you to comply. If possible we’d like you to go back to Africa. Back with the lions and tigers and bears. Don’t y’all feel freer wearing sandals and bare feet and dancing with elephants and shit? You’re a simpler people. Admit it. How many Black engineers do you meet? How many Black pilots? Those are regal jobs. When I come to West Dayton all I see is churches and fried chicken. White people, when we go to church, we have the good sense to ignore most of what is said and go about our week as though Sunday had never happened. But you blackies, you take it too seriously! Black pastors be like epic and shit. Fucking Double Dragon, Heihachi and shit. You got me nostalgic—can I ask your first name?”
“Florence but I prefer you call me Mrs Smith.”
“Well, Flo. Here’s the situation. I need to cum three times a day and I already came twice. So that’s—you! Ah hah, I’m just kidding. Don’t you hate it when you find yourself inside a parody of your life and you’re kicking and scratching and you’re gulping for air and someone should come help you but nobody does? I hate that. And I hate you, Mrs Smith. If you weren’t so ugly I’d force you to suck my dick but your age and your blackness would make me feel like a rhinoceros was sucking it—not a lot of suck but just a lot of smack, smack, smack. You know what I mean?”