Texts from Bennett

Messages

lets get jack n da box

Already had Jamba juice.

jamba juice! i bet when you were born da doctor said “its kind of a boy!”

u probally drive a Kia minivan wit adam lambert floor mats

you enjoy capshuring butterflys and keeping dem in a hot pink jar with snail and hard designz

u cry wen u watch football

u want 2 adopt a unicorn

For Rocky

Part 1

why was every1 given me dirty looks and wisparing behind my bacc? haters

Our grandparents renew vows after 50 years of marriage and you come to the ceremony in soccer shorts and flip-flops?

what.. it warm outside it aint even a real wedding

You ate a McDonald’s fish filet in the front row of the ceremony.

So what. Mcdonald got the best fish sanwich

“I’m thirteen percent black, man!”

My cousin Bennett was always saying and texting stupid stuff, so this proclamation came as no surprise to
me
.

But for his part, Mr. Cole stood with his shiny head cocked to the side, his mouth a quarter open, wheezing against the moist August air. He was shrouded in a bathrobe with
HOLIDAY INN
embroidered above the right breast pocket. His Jheri-curled hair was glistening in the sunbeams. And he was armed with a bowling pin, and it was clear that someone was about to get their skull busted open by it.

His Yorkshire terrier, Franklins, aloof to the situation, was sitting on his butt, left leg propped up, licking his balls. Normally I wouldn’t take the lowbrow route and point out when a dog is licking his balls, but I was so terrified by the idea of being concussed by Mr. Cole’s bowling pin that I could either look at my cousin Bennett, in his sagging purple nylon pants, or I could admire Franklins’s profound focus on cleansing his eggplant-colored ball sack.

And I knew if I looked at Bennett I would end up killing him myself. I had no idea why Mr. Cole was mad. All I knew was that my cousin was most likely guilty of something terrible.

I had just gotten home from the studio and was getting ready to water my jalapeño and tomato garden when I noticed Bennett and my neighbor Milton Cole, arguing across the low backyard fence.
Both were talking over each other and cursing a lot. I had swiftly walked up to see what was wrong.

On a physical combat level, Bennett was in way over his head. We both were. But I had no idea why they were arguing. I just knew that out of all the people in my new subdivision one could get into an altercation with, Mr. Cole, my fifty-one-year-old, stocky—ex–Black Panther—neighbor was the
worst
choice. The man had been imprisoned for twelve years on a federal kidnapping charge, stemming from road rage after a sixteen-year-old kid cut him off in rush-hour traffic. He was so angered by the kid’s “lack of respect for elders,” that he dragged the boy out of his car, threw him in the back of his Lincoln Town Car, drove to the kid’s parents’ house, and threatened to kill the father if he didn’t teach his son how to drive better. He’s a fucking lunatic. Plus he named his very effeminate dog Franklins—after plural $100 bills.

“I paid a family tree company to locate my roots—and my grandpa’s mom is from Africa!” Bennett declared.

Really, Bennett? A family tree company?
I thought. Bennett had a very bad lying problem. It didn’t help that he was a
bad liar,
as well.

Turning to me with confusion emblazoned across his face, Mr. Cole studied me from top to bottom. Then he looked back at Bennett and did the same to him. I wasn’t exactly sure why he was studying us so closely, but I’m guessing he was searching for any possible remnants of melanin on either one of our bodies. Bennett and I are as Caucasian as it gets, our epidermises are pasty with a light-pink hue. I have been told by professional physicians to spend fifteen minutes a day in the sun, so I can avoid suffering a vitamin D deficiency. The problem is, fifteen minutes in the sun will give me a
sunburn
. It’s that bad.

Point being, we have
zero
African in our bloodlines.

Mr. Cole appeared homicidal. “Y-Y-You just a sissy-ass white mothafucka! I’d s-s-s-s-s-s-s-snap yo mothafuckin’ neck if I wouldn’t end up in . . . L-L-Lan-Lansing again,” he peppered out.

Mr. Cole lifted the bowling pin above his head and was seconds away from delivering a shattering blow to Bennett’s cranium. Bennett leaned back and weakly raised his arms to protect himself. I
was in a heated trance, unsure of whether I should jump between them, hop the fence and tackle Mr. Cole, or just stand there watching, avoiding damage altogether. The thing I was
quite
certain of, however, was that when someone stutters through his death threat, it’s kind of hilarious.

Don’t laugh,
I reminded myself.

He cocked back his arm, making us now mere milliseconds away from Bennett’s demise. Fortunately for us, right then Mr. Cole seemed to sense the fear in both of us and perhaps got a little too cocky. In a moment of spontaneity, he decided to say something vengeful and horrifying to preface the blow—something those super badass motherfuckers do in shitty, low-budget action movies before they blow up a building and walk away all slowly, unaffected by it.

Unfortunately for him, his brain was so overwhelmed by anger and frustration, that when it was time to hit us with his deadly catchphrase—he malfunctioned worse than before. Ramping up his emotional radiator to such egregious levels, the stutter shut his entire body down.

He began rapidly making weird noises, and instead of proclaiming something undeniably macho, he just stood there gurgling horrifically.

“F-f-f-f-f-f-f-f-f-faaaahhhhh . . . !” He burped. I stared back down at Franklins’s balls, clenching my teeth, holding my laughter in for dear life. Mr. Cole’s lower jaw zigzagged away from his upper jaw. His eyes rolled into the back of his head. “Flaaahhhhhhh.”

Every second was an eternity in which I might fall to the ground, laughing my ass off. He was just convulsing, making guttural noises, his entire body in stutter-induced paralysis, unable to be moved by his brain.

Bennett and I took the opportunity to step back out of harm’s way, relying on the waist-high chain-link fence for protection in case he regained control of his body and lunged.

The stutter only got worse. The vague letter
F
sounds gave way to a strange whistle. Horrendous, cacophonic squeaks and hums filled our yards. His eyes crossed; he was foaming at the mouth;
his jaw stuck open. I could see an amalgam cavity filling in the back of his mouth.

“Vvvvvvhhhhhhhhhnnnnnn,” he . . . uh . . . said? Moaned? I don’t know how to describe it.

Don’t laugh. Don’t laugh. Don’t laugh.
I tried to think of atrocious things to erase any frivolity. I started thinking of Hitler. I started thinking of Mao. I started thinking of Hitler and Mao, in bikinis, on the beach, frolicking and skipping, while holding hands.

Wait, shit, that’s going to make me laugh.

Okay, back to Franklins’s balls. Nothing funny about Franklins’s balls.

Meanwhile, Bennett had little regard for the fact that we were minutes away from being bludgeoned to death by a bowling pin. Nonchalantly, with a smirk on his face, he looked at Mr. Cole and, with genuine curiosity, little respect, and zero fear, asked, “What the fuck is wrong with you, homie? You choking on something?”

Flabbergasted by Bennett’s irreverence, a calm, killer instinct came over my neighbor. He stopped making noises. His eyes opened to the size of oysters, and he stared directly at both of us. One eye on Bennett, one eye on me.

“Fuck. You.” He finally got out in two clean, decisive stabs.

Which was oddly satisfying for me, maybe satisfying for Bennett, and definitely satisfying for Mr. Cole.

“Fuck you, you racist kid.” But his tone had changed. His voice cracked and became a little more nasally. There was disappointment and confusion in his larynx. His swagger was less predatory, and it seemed like his feelings were genuinely hurt by something.

What had Bennett done?

“Okay, hang on a second,” I interjected, “Mr. Cole, wha—”

But before I could ask him what the problem was, he turned around and stomped back toward his house, Franklins in tow. I stood there silently, giving him time to walk back into his house, before turning to Bennett.

“What the fuck was that about?” I asked Bennett, half-whispering. “Seriously! Dude? What the fuck did you do?!”

“I don’t know! Fuck! That dude is a dick, mane!” Bennett pleaded.

Now, my cousin had a way of saying things that most people are uninitiated to. He spoke with a pure, midwestern ghetto twang. Words like
man
came out “mane.” Words like
dude
became “doo.” And words like
reciprocity
weren’t pronounced at all. People like Bennett don’t know what reciprocity means.