“Well what were you doing there?”
“Watching the Oscars!”
“What were you watching?”
“The Oscars, man. Jennifer Lawrence falling up the stage. Showin’ her lil smile and shit. That was all. What was you doing there? I was on my couch—you was at the door with like fifteen guys.”
“Ho ho ho—hold on. You was watchin’ Jennifer Lawrence?”
“Yeah, man.”
“ ‘Cause we’ve got you beating that little girl—what was that little girl’s name? Brenda? Binda?”
“Bulinda? My little sister.”
“We’ve got you beating your little sister with a seat wrench.”
“Wha’s a seat wrench.”
“Come again, son?”
“What’s a seat wrench?”
“A seat wrench. Is the opposite of a shelf wrench. And a shelf wrench. Is the opposite of a seat wrench. Or not exactly opposites. They exist in a sort of counterpartnership of yin and yang in stainless steel wrenches that pickle-headed Niggars like yourself get caught by their neighbors beating their sister Yolanda—“
“It’s Bulinda.”
“—little bitches named Bulinda would like us to believe that their big brothers are not lying about hidden stockpiles of narcotics hidden in warehouses in the backs of toilets hiding underneath your virgin nose, Sheth, you don’t look like any version of a man that I’ve ever seen in two shakes, three shakes three shakes, more. Cum on the bottom of my shoes, I’ve got cum on the bottoms of my shoes. Jones, Mister Jones, I know what it’s like to grow up poor.”
“Oh yeah? What you know about it?”
“We grew up poor. In the desert. In Texas. It wasn’t this kind of poor but it was poor. There were a few Darkies—Blackies of your persuasion—Negroes left behind through the abandonment. Slaves through and through, when their masters were forced to abandon them—in the fields!—they say on the day our Lord comes, he will place two in the field. Then there will be one. I’mma scripture you up, boy! Place this sweaty brow in that sweaty hand and we’re gonna get some savin’ into you, my kid! My kid, ma kid, me kid. Poor in the desert, we were. Lived at the end of a development, we did. Pulled the fangs out of rattlesnakes—that was my entertainment by the age of ten. What’s your story? PlayStation on the couch with your friends? Grape Kool-Aid?? What? What Nigga? What!! I’LL BEAT YOU TILL YOU HAVE NO FACE! Are we clear? I SAID ARE WE CLEAR MOTHERFUCKER. I don’t even believe I just called you a motherfucker. I almost just called you an asshole—do you believe that shit? I almost used a perfectly White adjective to describe you.”
“Wouldn’t that be a noun?”
“Excuse me?”
“Just. Asshole. Motherfucker. Those are nouns.”
“Are they? Are those nouns? I ought to waste you right here. Breathlessly. Turn you. Inside out. So your outsides are in. And you wallow on the wall there fighting cardiac arrest and voluntary colostomy surgery, the ignorance of babes my sister who’s a minister ends up walking for the homeless in New York and I was just trying to save her that’s why we don’t have female ministers in Dayton it’s just not done. Roger. Roger Dodger. Can I get a microphone check-a! And a tiddle on the old trombone. You might think offset dementia doesn’t make its onset until end of life but here’s a case where—if I may—if I may I might I might—I might suggest the talons are in place at 33. If she never became a pastor she never would have invoked the wrath of our Lord God three times daisies in the pink underclothes of children on the swings. Swinging up. Swinging down. If you unplug the couch light before bed you unplug my love for you so just don’t do it, sweetie, just don’t. Sheth. Where are you? Jones. Spider-Man or Batman?”
“Bat. Man. I guess.”
“If you’re tentative your whole life you’ll never amount to anything.”
“Batman! It’s Batman ok? I just don’t like being put on the spot.”
“Guess you didn’t like that we showed up at your house this evening.”
“I didn’t like it, no. And I thought it showed a lack of caution.”
“Why is it you Black people when you feel like being a punk, you’re like, what the fuck and nig this and *nig that and then when you feel like it you’ll just hit us with I didn’t, no. And it showed a lack of caution.”
“Maybe it’s ‘cause that’s not an accent. It ain’t strictly what you’re born with.”
Sheth Jones, 17, fucked for life. Got this kid on suspected domestic disturbance. Had his Jennifer Lawrence up too loud, watchin’ the bitch trip, standard fare. But it did disturb me a bit that this kid’s Negro-ass shoe collection was high on the Adidas. Sheth said that was for playing soccer and I said what kind of team lets players pick their own shoes and he said it wasn’t a real team—like through the school—it was just a neighborhood team and I said why can’t you Niggars get your shit together, get some teams going, you know you could have a whole bunch of little Black boys and Black girls swinging on their swings and munching their lunches and driving their little Nigra prom dates to and from prom if they have cars and if they don’t—well!—they can just sally up to the horse trough and take it rough. Now who is this bitch you got waiting out front?”
“That’s my moms. My grand mom. My grandmother.”
“Well what is she? Your mom, your grand mom, your grandmother? I’m just kidding I know you guys call your moms your grand moms.”
“She acted as my mom. When I was a kid.”
“You’re still a fucking kid.”
“Since I was a kid. She takes care of me.”
“Where was she tonight?”
“She was out grocery shopping.”
“Give me a break. It’s Oscar night. And your moms is out grocery shopping? Why weren’t you there with her?”
“I stayed home.”
“I can see that. Why?”
“I was supposed to be doing my homework.”
“But instead you were watching Jennifer Lawrence trip up the stairs at the Oscars prob’ly watchin’ up that little girl’s dress—“
“She was wearing an Oscar gown.”
“And did it tempt you, the hem of that gown? Did you want to pick it up and peek at her legs?”
“Why are we talking about this?”
“We—“
“Why am I even here?”
“You’re here. Because we—“
“What do you have me on?”
“We have you on suspicion.”
“Suspicion of what?”
“Of domestic disturbance and resisting.”
“Resisting what?”
“Arrest.”
“Now I know I didn’t resist no—!”
I hold up my cuffs.
“Sheth. Mr Jones. May I remind you that you are here voluntarily. If we need to escalate this, we’ll escalate it.”
“And since I am here voluntarily I think I’ll be going.”
“No.”
“No?”
“If you decide to leave then we may need to hold you.”
“How is that?”
“If you decide you need to leave, it may become necessary for us to hold you.”
“You think I’m stupid, right?”
“No, I don’t think you’re stupid.”
“You think since I’m 17 I don’t know. Don’t know my rights or that you’re overstepping your bounds or that you just like to do this because you’re sick and a member of the master race and something. I know I wasn’t disturbing no peace back there. I was up in my house—my house!—watching Jennifer Lawrence, a child of your tribe. And if that’s why you want to arrest me, so be it. I’m just a kid! Shouldn’t you even have my grand moms with me now?”
“No,” I say.
“Is that the law or is that just what you think?”
I didn’t know. I went to the Rolodex of Time, that Father God so deeply painted into my consciousness he was that Trinket Jesus now, stolen from a Disney gift shop. I asked Father God to run my enemies’ busses off the road, their faggot-ass Kia Sorentos swarmed by black F-150s. Pray for my wayward cousins, evil offspring of my sister, dank, sinister, Children of the Corn. Pray for those monies we have saved and sent to our Political Brother in the House, your man upstairs, the Big Kahuna Motherfucker in the Sky. I pray to you Big Kahuna with political chops, you stand before us like a minister, like the dad that I never had. No. Not a dad like I ever had, who threw glass bottles and rocks and ended us up in the hospital. That’s the father who moved us from El Paso to Dallas, to Dayton Ohio, and that Ohio is where I live now with the ministers who pass out condoms to sinners on 5th Street to the trannies to the fucking Indians hidden until you see one of their temples—huge!—looming out of the trees. Those are alright. It’s when you get to the east/west divide that the trouble comes into play. Jungle bunnies. Hundreds of square miles of drugs and Church’s Chicken with some so-called churches singing that blackface celebration I hate it with every shade hate it more than I would hate hell itself it reminds me of maids and slavery and the Mayflower—that towering carrion calling me to our shores. Holy trinity calling. High high and most high and holy days I put them out of sight as soon as we return from church. As soon as we get back I’m football and Facebook and beer and teaching my son by example to denigrate women (we don’t call it that)—to wallow in our own poverty, to hate those who have less than us. And don’t quote Jesus to me. I’ll throw Jesus out the window.
“So you’ve decided to play this the hard way,” I say to Sheth.
Sheth says, “All I was doing was watching Jennifer Lawrence on the television.”
“Ok,” I say.
I stand up from my chair.
I put my hands on the back of the chair.
I stare at Sheth.
“What?” he says.
“You’re gonna make me do this. Unfortunately. I mean this isn’t necessary. I said you wanna play it like a champ, that’s ok, you can play it like a champ. But you didn’t do that. You played it like a chump. Chumps, around here, are little liked (and less ignored). We’re gonna keep you here tonight for observation.”
“For observation! You’re treating me like a mental patient!”
“Maybe you are a mental patient.”
“I gotta get home. I got school tomorrow.”
“School is not a right. It’s a privilege. If I let you go to school tomorrow, that’s that. If not, maybe you don’t get school for the rest of the week. Or maybe you don’t get school for the rest of your life. Maybe that’s how things will be.”