Wednesday, February 16, 2011

A HANDSOME BLACK MAN WALKS INTO A BAR... (pt. 2)

            “Who this here?” asked Simple.
            “He’s our three. Who you think he is?”
            “Goin’ off the class of three you rope in, I thought he might be another fool don’t know Jim Crow from Jim Brown.”
            “Just shut up. He’ll do fine.”
            “Wait,” I said. “I ain’t familiar with pool with three people.”
            “Mudbone here didn’t bother tellin’ ya the game, huh?” Simple said.
            Mudbone said, “Ain’t my job to name the game.”
            “How long it been since you had any job?”
            “Last week and your momma pays well. How long for you?”
            Right about that time I started thinkin’ this might be some kinda hustle. But when I asked how much we was wagerin’, Mudbone said, “No money. We just playin’.”
            Well, that just ain’t right, I thought. How ya gonna play a game without stakes? But here’s the thing: Sure ‘nough soon as we started the game, I was havin’ fun. More fun than I ever had at dice or dominoes or cards or pool before. And not only was there no money changin’ hands, there was no rules. Ya shot ‘til ya missed, then the next brother shot. And Mudbone and Simple, they were some cutups. Simple started talkin’ ‘bout this girl he knew up in Harlem from back a ways and Mudbone starts castin’ aspersions.
            “The bitch got a triangle asshole,” he told Simple. “And you suck on her titties and glue come out!”
            Well, Simple wasn’t havin’ none o’ that. Told him right out, “I ain’t about to let my woman go slandered by some whore-bred bastard associatin’ with peanut-head reprobates and other assorted ne’er-do-well Negroes.”
            But  Mudbone came back at him, “Like you some prize, ya broke-ass Elmer’s imbibin’ muthafucka!”
            Now, I was havin’ fun, see. And even though I figured this was just Mudbone and Simple playin’ the dozens like they been for a mean spell, I didn’t wanna take a chance and let ‘em get all wrapped up in the back-and-forth and one o’ ‘em cross a line. ‘Cause ol’ as they was, those two looked the type who kept their fangs in their heads to the bitter end. So I said, “How long you two been here?”
            “Longer ‘an either o’ us care to remember,” said Simple.
            “Ya said your woman was up in Harlem,” I said. “That where ya from?”
            “Mmm. Not original. Lived on 125th and Amsterdam for years. But I’m here now.”
            “How ‘bout you, Mudbone?” I asked him.
            “I was born in either Peoria, Illinois or Tupelo, Mississippi.”
            “Huh?”
            “Depends when you ask my father.”
            That struck me as off. Mudbone was ol’ himself so I figured his father wasn’t likely still livin’. So I ask him real delicate, “I ain’t tryin’ for insensitive, but I’d assume your father left the quick by now.”
            “No,” Mudbone said. “He’s alive.”
            “Mine too, though he gettin’ up there in years,” added Simple.
            That hit me like a switch on the backside and I started feelin’ like I did at the counter, like all the sudden I wasn’t me but the me I was was strange and off-puttin’. “How ol’ are ya two?” I asked ‘em.
            They looked at each other and this slier-than-a-fox smile come across their faces and Simple said, “Age don’t count for nuthin’ where we been and you goin’.” They both laughed like they was joshin’ me and just waitin’ to spring the trap.
            But the not-me feelin’ kept buildin’ up like a train engine people keep tossin’ coal in. This wasn’t no prank, I knew. That know ya have when ya sense somethin’ big comin’ ‘round the corner and ya can’t tell what it is, but it don’t matter ‘cause it’s so big and fearsome it could be Death himself and ya wouldn’t be surprised. “What y’all want with me?”
            That’s when Simple stepped forward. “Tex, boy,” he said, “we got no designs on you. I swear it. You gonna leave this place alive and you gonna live as long as you was gonna live if you never met us. But what you gotta understand…”
            “Muthafucka, we dead!” cried Mudbone.
            Simple turned to Mudbone and got loud. “Goddamn you! What do you think you’re doin’?”
            “Whatchu doin’, draggin’ it out and all? Kill the suspense already.”
            I put my hands up. “Whoa! Whoa! What do y’all mean, you’re dead?”           
            “Just that. We dead,” repeated Mudbone. “I ain’t smart ‘nough to dumb it down no more.”
            “You just shut your mouth,” Simple told his friend. Then he started walkin’ toward me. “S’true, son. We cast off the mortal coil some time ago. We been here since.”
            I started gettin’ angry and slammed my stick down on the table. “What’s the hustle?” I asked ‘em.
            “No hustle, boy,” Mudbone said.
            “Mmmhmm.”
            “Hand to God.”
            “Ya gotta do better than that,” I said.
            “What? Y’ain’t got room in ya for faith?”
            “I got faith in Jesus Christ – not two ol’ niggas with a ruse.”
            That’s when Simple put his hand to my face. SMACK!
            I was starin’ at him, holdin’ my face, nonplussed, when he said, “That, boy, is what we’re here for.”

            “That’s when he told me.”
            Handsome stared back at Tex with an incredulously furrowed brow. “Told you what?” he asked.
            “What happens to black folk when they die.”

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