Texts from Bennett (32 page)

“Okay. So, you want a bigger vocabulary? So you have more options when you write lyrics?”

“Yeah dat. And I jus’ . . . well, I feel like I helped teach you some cool shit with hos. Maybe you could show me how to sound smart when I talk? Like . . . ’Cause I don’t wanna sound stupid. Everyone always think I sound stupid and shit.”

I turned off the light in the bathroom, brushing past Bennett, and motioned for him to follow me. We walked down the hall and down the stairs to where my main bookshelf was. I leaned down and scanned my finger over the spines sticking out. After some slow, focused searching, I found it.

“Here you go, dude. Start here,” I said, handing Bennett a thesaurus. “I stole this from the high school library when I was about your age and forced myself to learn every single word in the book.”

“What is dis, playa?” Bennett asked, flipping through a few pages.

“It’s a thesaurus. Basically, it helps you find other, bigger words to say in place of smaller words. You look up a word, and it tells you alternate definitions and stuff.”

“Damn! Dat’s dope!” he said, turning individual pages, apparently looking for something specific. He stopped at the G section and squinted his eyes at the page.

“What did you look up?”

“Oh, fuck, nigga! Look at all da cool ways you can say
gangsta
! Fuckin’
mafioso
,
criminal
,
bandit
,
crook
 . . . fuckin’
hoodlum
,
ruffian
? Damn, nigga, I’m already smart as fuck! I’m Bennett da Criminal Ruffian Thug Hoodlum now, haha! Yeah!”

“Uhm, maybe try to look up some words that don’t revolve around violence and stuff too. Maybe you could rap about getting girls, instead of killing people and dealing drugs? Or maybe tell us some personal stories about your life?”

He took a second to contemplate the persona change.

“Nah, fuck dat. Haha. I’mma be a gangsta for life. I start rappin’ about chicks and love and committin’ suicide like yo’ ass, I’mma end up wit’ a bitch like Harper. Haha. Fuck dat.”

“Okay. Well here’s something I do want you to consider. That will make you sound like less of an idiot.”

“What’s dat?”

I closed the thesaurus in his hands, put my hands on each of his opposing shoulders, and looked into his baby-blue eyes.

“Bennett, you gotta stop saying the
n
word, dude.”

“The
n
word?”

“Yes.”

“
Nigga
?”

“Yes.”

“Why? I’m a gangsta.”

“You’re also white.”

“Mostly, but, homie, I have black in my blo—”

“No, we don’t. Stop it. You’ve been saying that your whole life, and it’s absolutely not true. You have no black in you at all. And even if you were
somehow
thirteen percent black, you still shouldn’t say the
n
word.”

“Why?”

“Because. That word comes from a place of pain. Black people are treated as unequals. At best made to be sycophants. They were whipped and chained up. They still have a harder time getting jobs. They still have a hard time getting into good schools, because they are discriminated against by white people. And you’re way whiter than you are black.”

“But I’m way poorer den I am rich.”

“So? You still have white privilege.”

“Nah, nigga,
you
got white privligis. I got
black
privligis. And it don’t gotta do with my skin color.”

“Of course it has to do with your skin color. Skin color is the difference here. The American government took black people from their homes and made them slaves.”

“Nigga . . . do you see us livin’ in yo’ house? Da American government took us from our home too. And our home was
in
America.”

“But you don’t get it, dude, black people aren’t treated as equals. Do you grasp that?”

“I ain’t treated equal either doe.”

“Oh, really? How’s that?”

“I can’t get a job very easy.”

“That’s because you dress like you’ve been drunk since you were nine years old, and have no desire to work.”

“Yeah? So? Dat’s true. I
have
been drunk since I was nine years old, and I hate workin’. Who da fuck cares? Bosses always trip on employees for dat shit. Not actin’ excited about workin’. Not dressin’ nice enough. Fuck dat shit. Do dey really think employees wanna be at work? I mean shit, nigga. If we wanted to be at work you wouldn’t have to pay us to be there.”

I nodded my head to signify being surprised at my agreement with his point.

“I dress nice when I go get pussy, ’cause I wanna go get pussy. You don’t gotta pay me to go get pussy. Work doe? Pay me and shut da fuck up.”

I had no response to that. The kid was, is, and always will be
a genius. That’s my opinion, and I’m sticking to it. Still, I said, “I’ll tell you what. Go across the street to Jean Paul’s house and ask his parents to tell you how different your life is from theirs. Then tell me you feel like you’re unequal.”

“Why? Dey black people like me. Dey just more black den me. Dey can say
nigga
all dey want.”

“Go. If you still want to say the
n
word after, I’ll never give you shit about it again.”

“Maybe I will, doo. Maybe.”

I smiled at him then, happy that maybe I’d planted a seed of change in his young mind. “You’re a good kid, Bennett. I’m glad you moved into my house, man.”

“Fa sho.”

“I’m outta here, man. How do I look?”

“You look good, Cuz. You look like you ready to start your life over.”

“Thanks, man. I appreciate that. What are you doing tonight?”

“I dunno. I wanna read dis book and work on some raps. I gotta go meet Mercedes up da street. She gonna give me a ride to sell some more of Harper’s Xanax. I found a full bottle in yo’ dresser drawer in yo’ room! Gonna have some cash for you tonight too.”

Bennett looking through my things no longer bothered me. I didn’t particularly enjoy it, but it was going to happen whether I wanted it to or not. And oddly enough, it’s caused more good things to happen than bad things.

“Nice. But what’s up the street?”

“Da park.”

“Why the park?”

“Because you said I can’t have her over, duh. Remember dat? She gotta pick me up.”

I replayed Mercedes’s moment of humanity with Hustla Da Rabbit in my head from the other night on the driveway. I also considered how difficult dating Bennett must have been for her. She was a firecracker, no doubt, but she was nothing more than a girl scorned by a boy she loved.

But . . . yeah.

“Yeah, it’s probably best if you go meet her at the park. I’d tell you to have her over but wouldn’t be comfortable with it. Sorry.”

“It’s okay, Cuz. You got it, nigga.”

“Stop saying
nigga
.”

“You just said
nigga
, doe.”

“Bah! Enjoy your vocabulary building.”

“Right on. Welp. I’m leavin’, bro, see ya! I’m back on the scene, baby! Hopefully when I wake up tomorrow to get the new Wi-Fi installed I’ll be with a nice lady!”

I gave Bennett a hard five and a strong hug.

•

I met Seven, Alvie, and JoJo up at the Riot Room, a bar in the Westport area of Kansas City. Seven, who I explained earlier, had an athletic frame, dirty-blond hair, and a soft-spoken demeanor. Alvie and JoJo didn’t make music; they were just friends of mine. Alvie stood over six feet tall, was emaciated and lanky and had dark-brown receding hair. JoJo was a darkish, black-haired, Colombian-Caucasian hybrid, with a lean, muscular frame and a beautiful jab. He was my sparring partner five nights a week at the gym.

All my friends were covered in artistic, colorful tattoos, and we all dressed stylishly; tonight’s objective was to meet some ladies. All three of them laughed hysterically at Bennett’s eleven “commandmints,” which I had brought along, and his handwriting, but they were blown away by his aptitude.

There were lots of girls at various tables and booths at the Riot Room. For a warm-up, I introduced myself to a few of the more attractive ones and shot the shit with ’em for a bit. The one thing I instantly noticed about Bennett’s “Be the Homie” commandment, was you could have fifty-three different girls you were working on developing something with, all at once.

Well, if you wanted to, that is.

Not a single female was rude to me, and, more important, I was actually having a lot of fun. I met: Emily and Amanda, sisters who moonlighted as bartenders and enjoyed drinking Pabst Blue Ribbon and listening to Johnny Cash. Gabby, a personal trainer at a local
gym, who had curly hair, tan skin, and a scatalogical sense of humor. Spencer and Bailey, younger girls new to the bar scene, who liked dancing and taking photographs of themselves. Alicia, Sammie, Kat, Cassie, Molly, Katie, Kate, Alana, Tuesday, Annie, Mary, and some Persian girl whose name I would never remember, sadly. Tia, Tasha, Naomi, and Pearl. Oh, and Jayden, who seemed consumed by the heartbreak men had inflicted on her and was offended that I didn’t ask for her phone number. So she gave me her’s, which completely validated commandment ten.

Over the course of three different bars in four hours with my friends, I conversed with every single one of the aforementioned girls, a few more girls who I couldn’t even remember, and one man who was pretending to be a girl.

The weird thing though was that I wasn’t inspired to try to push harder with any of them. All of them were pleasant (as most women are). All of them smelled good (as most women do). And all of them were attractive (as, well, some of them can be). But none of them inspired me to attempt anything beyond a bar-time conversation.

I was having a good time but was pretty anxious to try to meet someone I could create a moment with. Even if it didn’t last beyond that night.

And then I saw her.

She had artfully layered red hair, that ginger complexion, and a curvy, gym-toned physique. She had mint-chocolate-chip-colored eyes and red hair that uprooted the tree of my entire Irish lineage from the depths of my soul and shook every red-hair-colored apple loose. Her hair. I couldn’t stop looking at, thinking about, or talking about: her hair.

I felt physical pain. She was intimidating. Buttery skin. French-manicured tips. Clothes that were one millionth of 1 percent too tight, so her chiseled body left impressions of its definition in them. I decided to say hello. No rejection would hurt worse than Harper having sex with Tofu-eating, soy-product drinking, fair-trade-coffee enthusiast Chad—Chad of the turtleneck and the pet Weimaraners he referred to as his children.

“Hi,” I said, sliding onto the stool next to this red vision.

Facing forward, she kept her right arm as a shield between me and her but did say, “Hey.”

“I saw you from over there.”

“Uh huh.”

“And couldn’t help but notice your hair.”

“Yep, it’s bright. Pretty hard to miss.”

Okay. Cold and guarded, but rightfully so.

“It’s beautiful. It reminds me of autumn.”

“Oh, well thanks.”

“But . . . uh . . . it’s gotta be a wig. It can’t be real.”

“What?” She turned toward me with a shocked expression on her face. Instead of focusing on the playful insult, I finished feeding her the Bennett compliment-insult-compliment sandwich.

“It’s just too gorgeous.”

She clenched her fist as a sullen, disturbed look brushed over her face. She then very lightly play-punched me in the arm.

“Of course it’s not fake! Jerk! Hahahaha!” She laughed. Hard. Her laugh was . . . interesting. It sounded like someone threw a robot down a stairwell.

“Well, I like it.”

“Thank you . . . I’m Rosemary, by the way.”

“I’m Mac.” I raised my glass in salute.

“Mac? Like Mac-a-roni? Hahahaha!”

Oh man. That laugh. It sounded like a dog whistle. Well, wait. Pretend like you’re able to hear a dog whistle and then imagine how much it hurts like a bitch, right? That’s how her laugh pierced me. Plus she made the
macaroni-name joke.

“Uhh. Yeah. Like macaroni. Hehe.” I fake laughed.

From afar, this girl was an ethereal angel. Up close, she was still an ethereal angel. Then her personality started to seep out a bit. Which can make an ethereal angel so . . . human. My crush on her faded fast.

Things she said: “So what do you do?” “Are you gonna be the next Eminem?” (Love that one, each and every time.) “So what kind of music do you listen to?” “I don’t really care what kind of music I listen to. Anything on the radio is good.” “Hahahahaha!” “I get so sick of people always correcting my spelling. Or telling me the difference between ‘good’ and ‘well.’ Or ‘your.’ That’s the worst. You know what I mean? Who cares how I spell
your
?”

She was interviewing me. She was saying uninteresting stuff. Her laugh was making me homicidal.

After far too long, she
finally
told me she had to go home.