Angry Black White Boy
Page 32
“Burleigh, no!” Johnnie scrambled to the clerk’s side, anguished. “Please, Burl,” he pleaded. “I know you don’t wanna kill a white man.”
Burleigh squinted at his target. “He ain’t been white for a long time.”
“You saw the way he hit the nigger, Burl. That’s gotta count for something.”
Burleigh cocked the gun. His voice was low and even.
“He’s gonna die for his cause.”
Macon heard the words and opened his eyes. The world poured in. He squeezed them shut and shook his head.
“No.”
Burleigh pulled the trigger, and Macon joined his ancestors.
Acknowledgments
Thanks to Kat Aaron, Richard Abate, Jon Caramanica, Jeff Chang, Eugene Cho, Dave Cohen, T Cooper, Ricardo Cortes, Michael Cunningham, Gerald Cyrus, Ann Douglas, Michael Eric Dyson, Percival Everett, William Fisher, Stik Figya, DJ Frane, Josie Freedman, Keith Gessen, Lauren Grodstein, Victoria Häggblom, Mike Heppner, Danny Hoch, Christen Holzman, Brian Horton, Chris Jackson, Jim Kaplan, James Kass, KEO, KET, The Apple Juice Kid, Binnie Kirshenbaum, Adam Bhala Lough, Charles Mansbach, David Mansbach, Nancy Mansbach, Douglas McGowan, Mariann Nogrady, Robert G. O’Meally, PHASE 2, Scott Poulson-Bryant, Jonathan Powell, Tricia Rose, Ameen Saleem, Gil Scott-Heron, Kelvin Sholar, Mercer Sparks, Terry Southern, Johnny Temple, Brian Tester, Brandee Tidwell, Touré, Clyde Valentin, Oliver Wang, Andre C. Willis, Vernon Wilson, William Upski Wimsatt, Mario Yedidia, and David W. Zang, whose book Fleet Walker’s Divided Heart: The Life of Baseball’s First Black Major Leaguer was a valuable source of information.
About the Author
Adam Mansbach’s previous books are the novel Shackling Water and the poetry collection genius b-boy cynics getting weeded in the garden of delights. He is the former editor of the award-winning hip hop journal Elementary, and his writing has appeared in the Boston Globe, the New York Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, JazzTimes, Slate, Wax Poetics, The Best Music Writing 2004, BrooklynNoir , and elsewhere. He lives in Berkeley, California, and is at work on a third novel.
For more information, visit www.adammansbach.com
Also by Adam Mansbach
FICTION
Shackling Water
POETRY
genius b-boy cynics getting weeded in the garden of delights
Copyright © 2005 by Adam Mansbach
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either
are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any
resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is
entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Three Rivers Press, an imprint of the
Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
www.crownpublishing.com
Three Rivers Press and the Tugboat design are registered
trademarks of Random House, Inc.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Mansbach, Adam, 1976–
Angry black white boy, or, The miscegenation of Macon
Detornay: a novel / Adam Mansbach.— 1st ed.
1. College students—Fiction. 2. New York (N.Y.)—Fiction.
3. Hate crimes—Fiction. 4. Robbery—Fiction. 5. Racism—Fiction.
I. Title: Angry black white boy. II. Title: Miscegenation of
Macon Detornay. III. Title.
PS3613.A57A64 2004
813’.6—dc22
2004014984
www.randomhouse.com
eISBN: 978-0-307-41979-8
v3.0