“Uh-huh.” Nique wrapped an arm around Macon’s back and pushed him toward the spotlight. Another frenzy of lights and questions ended when Macon opened his mouth. He felt fate hanging strange and heavy in the air, as if he’d been barreling toward this moment his entire life without quite knowing it. He turned toward the array of microphones and took a deep breath, savoring the focused silence.
“I want to talk about white people.”
Behind him, Nique smiled and clenched his fist. A killer opening. Macon was good. The possibilities were endless.
“Like you?” shouted a reporter, eliciting light laughter. Nique menaced the dude with a finger and he cowered.
Macon nodded, astounded at his own serenity. The stress headache, the grime of jail, were gone. He gazed calmly into the throng, thought, Yes, this makes perfect sense, and felt his heart thump an amen. Yes. I will talk and they will listen. Ready or not, motherfuckers, here I come.
He nodded again. “Right. Like me. I want to talk about white people because if I expose them for what they are, maybe they’ll change. Or at least change the way they act. Seems like embarrassment’s the only thing that works. Black folks are just lucky they happened to be sitting at Southern lunch counters at the same time that Third World liberation and the Cold War forced a change in U.S. domestic policy so we didn’t look like slave masters compared to the Russians, and capitalism could win a few more territories on the Dark Continent.” He noticed a reporter scribbling frantically, and realized he was talking two-point-two kilometers a minute.
Macon paused to let those unfortunate enough to be without recording technology catch halfway up. He’s loving this, thought Andre from the sidelines, with equal parts elation and resentment. All Macon’s faults were virtues in this setting. The crippling self-awareness. The insecurity. The dueling desires to offend and please. As soon as he stopped talking, there was another ruckus of questions and waving hands. Macon ignored it, stood for a moment lost in thought, and then continued at his leisure.
“The funny thing is, though, who am I exposing white people to? It ain’t news to black folks that whites are still racist. I guess I’m exposing white people to themselves. We’ve gotten so good at pretending we’re not racist that we’ve started to believe it. We act like racism got dealt with back in the sixties, and treat anybody who dares to bring it up today like they’re wearing Day-Glo bell-bottoms or something. We teach our kids the doctrine of color blindness, tell them not to notice race. Which is impossible in a society as racially stratified as ours, so all they really learn is not to talk about it. To ignore it and deny it like their parents.”
Macon stopped and cracked his knuckles, and the press went ballistic again. Nique stepped in front of the throng: “Hands, people, hands!” They complied and Nique scanned the knot like a kid at recess deciding who to draft onto his kickball team. He grinned and called on the reporter with the biggest breasts. “Yolanda Prince, Channel Four Action News.”
She flashed a smile at him and Nique winked, blew her a kiss, and slid back into freeze-frame. “Macon,” said Yolanda, “how does a white kid from an affluent suburb end up with such disdain for white people?”
Macon laughed indulgently, impressing himself with the gesture’s generosity. “You just answered your own question. Where I’m from is so insulated and complacent that I think the real question is why more people don’t freak out and get like me. And you know what? I think plenty of white people do know deep down that they’re part of an evil system, and they learn not to think about it, because it would disrupt their lives. We’re very short on courage.”
Yolanda wasn’t satisfied. “But you personally,” she pressed. “What makes you—”
Macon nodded and cut her off. “Right, right. The puzzle piece you’re looking for is hip hop. That’s what led me not only to make friends with black people, but to hang out in black communities. Most white people, even if they have black friends, never expose themselves to any situation that will make them feel uncomfortable or like the minority. Me, I feel uncomfortable if I’m not the minority. I even get suspicious when I see other white folks poking around black culture.”
Andre ground his teeth until his jaw flared. Well, bully for you, he thought.
Next to him, Nique smirked: Trap-laying motherfucker. Float them a whiff of paradox and watch them salivate.
“But Macon, isn’t that hypocritical?” shouted Dale Kinsley of the WB 11 News at Ten.
“Of course,” said Macon easily, catching the question like a rubber ball he’d just bounced off a building. “You’ll find I’m highly hypocritical. Part of me believes we’re all the same, and part of me believes in every racist fairy tale I’ve ever heard, even the ones that contradict the other ones. I’ll look at a black kid standing on a street corner and part of me will decide that he’s probably some undiscovered, disadvantaged genius, and want to step in and help him turn his life around like in one of those dumb-ass ohthank-you-mister-white-man movies. And at the same time, another part of me will look at him and see a menace, a drug dealer, somebody who probably hates me, and want to cross the street to get away from him. And part of me knows that my fear is really guilt, because there are X number of reasons why he’s standing on that street corner and I’m not, and I feel like he has the right to hate me for reaping the rewards of a system that excludes him— even more so since I’m aware of it. And another part rejects all that and gets self-righteous about the whole thing, like ‘It’s his fault, he’s where he deserves to be.’ Even though for all I know the guy’s just waiting for his grandmother to begin with.
“Meanwhile, another part of me is busy blaming you guys, the media, for feeding me so many images of black people as violent criminals that I can’t shake them all. Then there’s the part that wants more than anything in the world for that kid to nod hello, because that would validate me, make me feel for a minute like I’m not white, not different from him, not responsible for his oppression, or like I’m cool enough to get this murderous gangster thug’s respect.
“And meanwhile, another part is busy reassuring me that I am cool, reminding me of all my black friends, and resenting this kid for treating me like just another white dude, not realizing how down with black people I really am. And right next to that is the part that remembers how I once watched a crew of white kids jump a black kid after a pickup basketball game and bust his face open and piss on him and call him every kind of nigger, and I did nothing, didn’t say one word. I didn’t even call an ambulance. So don’t expect anything coherent to come out of my mouth. I’m struggling with this. I do know one thing, though: I’m finished being quiet.”
Macon paused and the throng tightened their grips around the necks of their microphones and waited. His burst of honesty had turned the professionally aggressive newspeople docile. Those who’d covered traffic accidents felt a familiar, wincing sense of fascination. Macon was hauling out the bodies, his own the bloodiest of all. The reporters didn’t know if they were watching a clever zealot, whose wide-eyed veneer disguised incredible instincts for emotional manipulation, or the unwitting self-annihilation of a mentally deranged kid.
“All I know,” Macon went on, making his voice low and serious, “is that even the most concerned white people have always been able to back away from race—and alter their perceptions in amazing ways when the truth is too ugly or complicated.” Nique poked him sharply in the back, signaling that Macon was wandering too close to self-incrimination, and Macon took the hint and redirected. “We’ve got to handcuff white people to race and not let them loose no matter how much they scream,” he concluded. “Treat them like they were kicking heroin.”
Hands shot up and Nique selected a fly, straight-haired blonde, despite her AM news station’s obscurity.
“What would you tell other white kids like yourself, Macon? Will hip hop do for them what it did for you?”
Macon blushed at the hint of flattery embedded in the question. “Probably not,” he said.
“There’s a lot more to it than that. There are millions of white kids listening to hip hop already—more white kids than black kids, actually—and I doubt it’s changing their fundamental ideas about race. Plenty of white kids have their little hip hop phase, and they don’t all turn conscious any more than all Pink Floyd fans become acidheads. Hip hop’s not some magical elixir, it’s just a doorway. And nowadays, it probably reinforces more stereotypes than it breaks.”
He paused, and wagged a finger at the nearest camera. “All you white kids out there who like hip hop,” he said, “keep in mind that hip hop doesn’t need you—I mean us. Maybe you should leave it alone. No, wait, keep listening to it but don’t try to rap. No, all right, buy it but don’t listen to it. No, okay, you can do whatever you want, just be respectful and realize that you’re not who it’s for—well, at this point, maybe you are who it’s for, but you didn’t create it and your people are exploiting it like they have every other . . .” Macon trailed off, snarled in his thoughts. “See, that’s the problem,” he said. “You’re only gonna put me on the news for thirty seconds, right? I’m supposed to distill everything into a sound bite, and I’m no good at that. This stuff is too complex; we need to be talking about it morning, noon, and night. I’m down for that, if anybody wants to join me.”
Nique tapped him on the shoulder and Macon leaned back and listened as he whispered something. Macon smiled, straightened. “Okay,” he said. “Here’s a sound bite. White people aren’t evil, but evil is white people. Coming soon to a T-shirt near you.”
“Cut!” said Nique, stepping in front of Macon and waving his lanky arms like an air-traffic controller. “That’s a wrap, folks. Nothing more today. Go home, file your stories, have a drink. Have ten. We’ll be in touch.” He and Andre ushered Macon into a waiting cab and took off.
“Why’d you do that?” Macon protested as they turned the corner. “I was just getting warmed up.”
“Wave,” Andre suggested, buzzing the window down.
Macon waved.
Chapter Three
“You were great,” raved Nique, stalking 1107 Carman, cigarette in hand. Andre had granted him full smoking privileges on the hunch that the R.A. wasn’t going to be fucking with them anymore. “Honest, articulate but not too polished. Disarming, provocative, quirky. A natural.” Nique sped his pace and began cutting figure eights around the two desk chairs. “This is gonna be some shit,” he said for the hundredth time.
Andre perched on the radiator by the window, watching the street, a mug of instant cocoa in hand. “They’re still out there,” came the update, they meaning the hundred-plus protesters flooding 114th Street, a bloodthirsty and bizarre non-coalition waving signs that ranged from A WHITE RACIST IS STILL A RACIST to VIGILANTES DESERVE VIGILANTE JUSTICE to SELLOUT DIE. A fistful of reporters covered the zealotry and a six-pack of cops kept the demonstrators lazily in check. Columbia security massed in front of Carman, a loose phalanx. Andre shook his head. “In the pouring rain, too. Not good.”
“Are you kidding?” Nique scowled. “The more the better. We’re getting ricochet publicity off them. Shit, Moves, I’m gonna make you a star.”
Macon lay facedown on his bed and didn’t answer. Adrenaline had powered him through the impromptu press conference and now he was twitching through withdrawal, on the brink of passing out—a brink from which he would have gladly plummeted had Nique and Andre not been plotting his hostile takeover of the media and then the world between incoming phone calls.
Radio, TV, newspapers, Web sites, magazines—everybody wanted the well-spoken white criminal race traitor. Andre had adopted the role of press secretary, dutifully cataloging the whos, whats, and wheres in felt-tipped pen on the side of a huge, still-packed cardboard moving box marked Pimp Shit III: This time it’s personal. Macon had declared a moratorium on decision-making of all kinds until he could get some rest, and so dozens of invitations and interview requests were going unanswered, much to Nique’s dismay. He had taken to calling Macon “The Franchise,” and to slapping the back of one hand into the palm of the other as he spoke to convey the urgency of his words, even if all he was saying was “We need a pizza.”
Nique’s patience with his star was running low. “Yo, Moves,” he said again. Macon propped himself up on his elbows and rubbed his eyes, resigning himself to the fruitlessness of trying to sleep in this madhouse. He could hear the protesters like they were in the next room, or at least he imagined he could.
“What, Nique, what?”
“You wanna answer the door? Opportunity is knocking.”
“He shoulda called before he came.”
Andre laughed. “Come on, man,” he said. “I saw you up there, having the time of your life. Ain’t no way I’m buying this reluctant-hero prima donna shit now, so you might as well sit up and get your game face on.” He paused. “I’ll roll a joint, if that will help.”
Macon turned onto his back, clasped his hands behind his head, and sighed. “I wouldn’t stop you. All right. Hit me.”
Nique did a quick lateral slide into a chair next to the bed, then stood, flipped it backward with a flick of his wrist, and straddled the seat. Andre rotated the notated side of the Pimp Shit box toward Macon, and Nique brandished a pen. “Okay. I say we hit radio tomorrow morning and TV in the afternoon. There’s three programs that sound good to me, and if we hustle, we can do them all. You can talk to the newspapers tonight and we’ll stall the magazines until the buzz builds even higher. We freak it right, we’ll get some covers.”
“Whoa,” said Macon, waving his hand as if he were shooing a fly. “Whoa, whoa. Hold up. I should be worrying about getting my ass a lawyer and staying out of jail.” He glanced toward the window and winced. “Not to mention alive.”
“Listen,” said Nique. “Why do you think those wackjobs outside are so mad? Everybody knows you’re guilty as sin, but the case against you is flimsy as a hooker’s panties, and everybody knows that, too. All the victims would have to reverse their statements about you being a brother, for one thing, which would make them look ridiculous. That just leaves the one guy as a witness, and he can’t even say if the gun, which they don’t even have, was real. It’s assault and petty robbery, dude. For all they know you could be a copycat criminal, and the original cat is still on the loose. A decent lawyer will get you off with a suspended sentence, at worst. And if you get famous enough, Moves, we can hire one of the best, Cochran or somebody. So let’s get you famous, motherfucker.”
“It’s true,” Andre agreed, in his most soothing tone. “They really don’t have shit, Macon. And the best way to cover your ass is to become a celebrity. You know that.” As if on cue, he and Nique turned up their palms and raised their eyebrows.
Macon dropped his thrumming head into his hand. He didn’t want to let on, but he felt tremendously reassured. “How much was my bail?” he asked.
“Twenty-five grand.”
“What?” Macon sprang to his feet, and a sharp pain shot through his head. He sank back down onto the bed. “Where the hell did you guys get that kind of dough?”
“You had four,” said Andre. “I had six. My mother spotted me the rest. She owes me big. She’s an entertainment lawyer and I brought her the biggest client of her career last spring. This fool named Hank Barrows who used to wash my car. He just sold Fox this sitcom about a Black Muslim leader whose distant cousin dies and leaves him custody of three white kids. Li’l Devils, it’s called.” He paused. “Plus I told Moms about you and Cap Anson. That really affected her, somehow.”
“Andre, I mean . . . Thanks, but . . .” He tried to size his roommate up. “I’ve known you four days. Why would you . . .” He sighed. “What do you guys want from me?”
“I’ve decided to believe in you until you give me reason not to,” said Andre, rifling through dresser drawers in search of his stash. A deliberate attempt to stay busy as he spoke, it seemed to Macon. “Somebody’s gotta light a fire under white people’s asses. Every time a brother d
oes it, somebody up and kills him, so it might as well be you.”
Macon rose, walked over, and extended his hand. “I appreciate that, Dre,” he said softly. “I promise I won’t let you down.”
Andre stopped what he was doing long enough to give Macon a rushed pound, then resumed the hunt. “Listen to this fool,” he said over his shoulder. “Sounding like a politician already.”
“He damn well better,” Nique said. “A chance like this doesn’t come along every day. For any of us. We gotta make moves here and now. Pun intended. That twenty-five is an investment, Moves. A year from now, I’ma be selling stock in your ass.”
“Twenty-five grand.” Macon shook his head. “If I was black and robbing black folks, it’d be twenty-five bucks.” He stopped and mused. “Then again, if I was black and I’d robbed all those crackers, it’d be like—”
“Be like your ass was still in jail,” said Nique.
Macon stood. “I gotta get some air.”
“Try Connecticut.”
“I’m going uptown to my man Drum One’s pad,” Macon decided. “Don’t book anything yet. I need to think this through.”
“Drum One TDK?” asked Andre, looking up.
“How many Drum Ones you know?”
“Wow. He’s like the grandpa of graffiti. What’s he like?”
“Weird. Call you up and run his jibs for three hours about some twenty-year-old beef he has with some writer you never heard of over who was king of the 1 train in 1978. You don’t say five words the whole time—matter fact, you put the phone down, go make a sandwich, and come back just in time to hear him say, ‘Yo, you know what I like about you, man? You listen. Stay up.’ Then you don’t hear from him for six months.”
“Well,” said Andre, “he can do whatever he wants. How’d you meet him?”
“We’ve never really met. He used to publish a graff mag and I sent him some flicks of my shit. Actually,” Macon confided, failing to keep the pride out of his voice, “judging from the amount of time I’ve spent listening to him talk about ‘the white man,’ I’m pretty sure he thinks I’m a brother, too.”
Angry Black White Boy Page 14
