Just remember: all discrimination is ee-veel, and only white folks are guilty of it.
12
Y MINUS FOUR
AMARILLO, TEXAS
Ken Fowler cursed when he got to the house. It was on a cul-de-sac and the front edge of everyone’s property was squeezed together. What that meant for him was that he couldn’t park his work van on the street in front of the customer’s house without blocking the driveway. He also couldn’t park on the driveway, lest the company van leak oil or some other fluid on the drive.
Two houses down there was an unoccupied space where the van could fit without blocking any driveways, so he parked there. It was going to make the job take longer, walking this far every time he had to go to the van, but there was no helping it. He checked the paperwork, gathered the tools he knew he would need, and walked to the customer’s house.
After knocking and ringing the doorbell he waited three minutes without an answer. As he retreated back to where the van was parked, the door finally opened and someone called to him. Sighing, because he would just as soon not have to do this job or even remain in this neighborhood, Ken turned around and headed back.
The woman standing at the door was black, middle-aged and overweight. Though it was mid afternoon, she was dressed in a nightgown and looked like she’d just got out of bed. He put on the fake professional/polite voice he used for customers and asked, “Willie-Mae Harris?”
“Yeah, that’s me,” she said.
“Hi, my name’s Ken. Looks like you’re switching over from the phone company. I’m here to give you cable, Internet and a whole-house DVR on three TVs.”
“Five TVs,” Willie-Mae said.
“Well, there’s only three authorized on the work order,” Ken said. “But if you call customer service while I’m here, they can add the outlets and adjust your billing by the time I’m done.”
“Adjust the billin’? Oh no. They said I get five boxes for that price right there.” She tapped the price on his work order.
This was going to be one of those jobs, Ken realized. Either the salesperson had lied to the customer, or the customer was lying to him. He’d seen both happen plenty. But he knew what the cost of the services and extra outlets should be, and the company would not give it all to her for the price on the work order.
The first half hour was spent on the phone, trying to get it straightened out between the company and the customer. When they finally came to an agreement, he went to work.
The house was reasonably clean, and he was thankful for that. He’d been in many places that were so filthy, he almost refused to work there. But he needed to keep this job for a couple more years. Then he should have enough saved to start his own business and deal with customers on his own terms, and hire somebody else to do the dirty work, if there was any.
There were several kids in the house, playing video games at different locations. Surely they had to be the customer’s grandkids. They were a bunch of rude, disrespectful children. Judging by how they stared at him, they obviously didn’t see many white men, or like them very much. It briefly reminded him of that time back in Kindergarten.
Eventually the other adults in the house stirred, got out of bed and began going about their business while yelling at their kids. Willie Mae Harris casually cussed at and berated the adults and children alike from time to time. Ken had seen this scenario in hundreds of houses around town.
He passed through the living room several times while assessing, gathering tools, and performing the work to be done in various parts of the house. Every time he passed by, Willie Mae was seated at her desktop computer (where it was going to be very difficult to get her an Internet connection) playing Solitaire. The desk had been turned into kind of a booth with a frame made of black posterboard arching over the monitor and keyboard. The posterboard frame was nearly covered with cut out pictures of Barrack Hussein Obama; printed text of his famous quotes; pictures of Michelle; and the “O” symbol.
Ken had seen a lot of these shrines to “the first black President” in his line of work. Some of them juxtaposed pictures and quotes of Martin Luther King with those of Hussein. When he did work in houses with these shrines, in the past, he would ask questions (as neutrally as possible) to see what, if anything, the supporters knew about their messiah. None of them had even heard of the guy before 2008.
Ken didn’t ask Willie Mae Harris anything regarding Hussein because she was still surly about not getting the extra outlets for free.
The job became really miserable once Ken got up in the attic. Attics were much, much hotter than even working in the direct sunlight in the summertime. At just over six feet it was hard for him to maneuver in the tight spaces and his body didn’t take the extreme heat well. Progress was slow up there, and his mind often wandered as he scooted belly-down through the insulation an inch at a time. Today his mind wandered back to his first experience with race relations.
His family moved into a housing project in Houston when he was four years old, and stayed there for almost two years. It seemed like a nice enough place to Ken for the first year—but then he didn’t have much to compare it to at that age. Then, after he’d started kindergarten, one day his mother answered a knock on the apartment door and found two black girls waiting there who he recognized from school. They asked if he could come out and play, and his mother let him.
He played outside with his new friends, and had a great time.
Some days later, out in the courtyard playing by himself, he spotted the same two girls playing amidst a larger group of children. Ken didn’t pay attention to the racial makeup of the group, but that would be the last time he made such an oversight. He ran over and greeted his playmates, only to be shunned. Confused, he nonetheless remained there, assuming he’d be welcome to play with them. The other kids told him to go away. Too stubborn for his own good, he decided he had just as much right to be there as they did. Then two boys ran up and bashed him in the head with a large rock and a large chunk of asphalt.
The other kids laughed and pointed fingers, which angered Ken. He found a small rock and, when he recovered, threw it at one of his attackers. He missed his revenge target, hitting instead a girl who was even younger than he—one who had probably only learned to walk recently. The toddler cried, of course, and Ken ran away.
The two girls from his kindergarten class tattled on him at school, conveniently omitting everything that happened before Ken threw the rock. When he tried to tell the whole story in the principal’s office, the principal continuously interrupted Ken until he was too frustrated to even speak coherently.
Ken’s family moved again, so he went to First Grade at another school, but he never forgot how important it was to pay attention to skin color after that.
Somebody yelled for him, “Yo, cable man!”
As loud as the voice was, it meant somebody must have climbed his ladder and stuck their head into the attic hatch, though he couldn’t see them from where he was. “Yeah?”
“You need to move your truck, man.”
This made no sense. He had parked in the only nearby spot where he wouldn’t block anyone’s access to anything. “What’s going on?”
“Yo man, I’m tellin’ you you gotta move your truck! Our neighbor’s pissed off.”
Ken groaned and cussed. This was the worst time for this kind of interruption. He really didn’t want to have to crawl through this attic any more than necessary. He decided to finish what he was doing before crawling all the way back to the trapdoor. Twice more someone stuck their head up the hatch to tell him about their angry neighbor.
He believed people had a right to forbid someone to park in front of their property, but jerks pissed him off, even when they were within their rights.
When he finally got out, filthy and drenched in sweat, he strode out of the garage straight for his van, intending to move it without any discussion so the neighbor could get the knot out of their panties. He would have to block somebody’s driveway or mailbox, pissing off the US Mail or somebody else, but he had no choice. The neighbor had plenty of room in their driveway so it wasn’t like they needed room for somebody else to park. It was best to not even speak to an unreasonable jerk, lest he lose his temper and get a complaint.
There were two black men in talking on the porch of the house he parked in front of. As he went to the van one called to him. “Yo, man, you gonna move your truck?”
“Yup,” he said, and kept walking.
“Who told you to park up on my lawn?” the guy demanded.
Ken stopped at his passenger door, opened it, and put his tool belt inside. He wanted to avoid this conversation altogether, but it was obvious by tone of voice and body language that the guy was going to force it.
So be it.
“I’m not on anybody’s lawn. I’m on a public street, where there are no signs posted, and I’m not even touching the sidewalk, much less the lawn.”
“What!”
Ken shut the door and started around the nose of the van toward the driver’s side. He heard some unpleasant comments pass between the two men. Then the aggressive one raised his voice again. “I don’t give a shit if it’s a public street! Why you park in front of my house?”
Ken stopped and pointed back at the Harris house. “I’m doing work over there.”
“So why didn’t you park over there then?”
“Didn’t want to block anyone’s driveway or mailbox.”
“That’s your damn problem!”
Ken got in the van, started it, backed up to the front of the Harris house and shut it down again. He was blocking the mailbox now, but there was no helping it. He got out again and went around to retrieve his tool belt thinking the discussion was over.
“I know you don’t think you’re bad, right?” The pissed off neighbor was now off his porch, approaching Ken as he went back toward the Harris’s garage. The other man…the stocky one…hung back a ways, holding his tongue.
Ken gritted his teeth and kept walking. The aggressive one was about his size and build. Maybe he could fight; maybe not. If Ken wasn’t on the clock, they would have found out.
“You gonna walk right out to your truck like you bad,” the guy continued. “You went straight to your truck ’cause you knew you was wrong. I don’t know who you’re used to dealin’ with, but we don’t play that at my house.”
Ken stopped and faced him. “Play what? What exactly am I so wrong about? Parking on the street? Where exactly would you park if you had to do work at that house right there?”
The guy got more and more wound up, like Ken had insulted him or something. Ken could think of plenty actual insults and wisecracks, but he had to swallow them because he represented the cable company.
“You shoulda’ parked in their driveway, then,” the loud mouth said.
“Against company policy,” Ken said. “You wanted me to move the van. I moved it. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have stuff to do.” And he went back to work.
Next time he had to go back to his truck, the two men were standing on the sidewalk, talking again. The aggressive one was still doing most of the talking, but didn’t seem angry now–just loud and boisterous. “…Know his white ass doesn’t think I’m impressed. He may have to claim workman’s comp up in here.”
They shared a laugh, but it wasn’t a genuine laugh inspired by humor. It struck Ken as bravado.
The loud mouth looked at Ken as he said, “Parked right in front of my daughter’s bedroom window. Scared my daughter half to death. Man, I ain’t tryin’ to have no…”
Ken stopped again, and interrupted him. “Scared half to death? Wow.”
“What? You say somethin’ to me?” Loud Mouth asked, taking a few menacing steps toward Ken.
“What is it about a work van that’s so terrifying?” Ken asked. “Does she have this phobia about all vehicles? Or has she never seen an automobile before? Maybe you should put her in the hospital; cause all it takes is for her to see one more work van and she’ll be scared completely to death.”
The guy got right up in Ken’s face at that point. He obviously didn’t like having his statements taken literally, or being challenged about the meaning of his words. He hurled insults and feinted striking a blow several times.
Ken knew he should have kept his mouth shut, but his buttons had been pushed. He now waited to see if the guy was going to make good on his threats.
It was hard to be heard over Loud Mouth’s monologue, but Ken said, “I’m not supposed to get involved in fights, but I am allowed to defend myself if attacked. You’re threatening me with physical assault right now. I suggest you back off.”
“Or what, cracker?” Loud Mouth then spewed out all the euphemisms for “coward” he could think of, still feinting.
Ken wanted to pop him in the face really bad, but he at least had to avoid throwing the first punch. If the other guy swung first, he might get to keep his job.
The guy didn’t swing. But Ken had to get out of there before he blew a fuse.
He felt like a yellow-bellied worm for doing it, but he got into his van and drove away, calling his supervisor to explain why he couldn’t complete the job. While grumbling and cussing to himself later, he used the word “nigger,” and meant it, for the first time in his life.
***
Cleveland Parker only partly enjoyed the white boy getting served. His younger neighbor, Meldrick, was a little too low-class for Cleveland’s taste. Sure, it was good seeing the pink toe put in his place, but Meldrick behaved like a common thug to do it. The ghetto wasn’t far away, but this neighborhood wasn’t technically in it. There were classy people who lived here, like Cleveland and his wife, but you’d never know it by Meldrick’s behavior, or by their welfare queen neighbor Willie-Mae Harris and her clan, to the other side of Cleveland’s house.
Meldrick fancied himself a poor man’s Denzel Washington, but he was missing a whole lot of class for that. The only reason Cleveland was making nice with Meldrick was because the brotha knew somebody with a late model Benz they might be willing to sell. Cleveland’s Benz was pushing ten years old now and was way overdue for an upgrade.
After the white boy drove away, Meldrick finally gave him the address where the Benz was parked, so Cleveland could go take a look.
Cleveland entered his own house to put on some presentable shoes and get his car keys.
At the landing of the staircase between the first and second floors, he slowed. There was a spot on the mural about a quarter inch in diameter that looked like either a stain or a chip in the paint. He hadn’t noticed it before so it must be new. Anger rose quickly as he tried to imagine who might be responsible. He didn’t let just anybody in his house, so he should be able to narrow it down.
The mural wrapped around the landing. It was the scene of a tropical paradise, full of the green vegetation of Mother Africa. A lion sat on one side, a black panther on the other. Both regal cats looked toward the center of the scene, which was a life-sized portrait of Cleveland and his wife in loincloths. In the painting, their bodies were ebony perfection. He stood behind her, but their hands were joined in front in an ancient symbol for dignity. Their images stared out from the painting with stern pride.
His wife was getting her hair done downtown at the moment, so he’d have to inquire about the damaged spot later. He ascended to the master bedroom, changed shoes, came back down the stairs and fetched his keys.
He pulled a Lionel Ritchie CD from the shelf on his way out the door. In moments he was underway in his Mercedes, and put the CD in the player. The player ejected the CD right away. He pushed it back in. It ejected again. Yes, it was certainly time to get an upgrade–little things on the car were starting to give him trouble. He took the CD out for examination, just to make sure it wasn’t scratched.
***
Joe Tasper couldn’t afford bail, so he remained in jail until his hearing. Crystal was apologetic about the incident and didn’t press charges, but he knew soon she’d start up over something else, real or imagined, and make his life a little more miserable. He had to dump the psycho bitch, but wasn’t sure how to do it, yet. There was no doubt she would go batshit when he told her they were breaking up. She had previously threatened to kill him if he ever left her. At the time he assumed she’d been joking. Now he wasn’t so sure.
In the mean time, he had lost his job.
He’d begun reporting for day labor gigs while searching for something permanent, but sure enough got a ticket for the cracked windshield. He was putting off paying it for as long as he could, thinking he couldn’t be cited for it again at least until the payment deadline on the existing citation. But yesterday he’d been pulled over again for the windshield.
Pigs didn’t have anything better to do. All the drug deals going down in this neighborhood; and prostitution; and theft; but the cops chose to make life harder for a guy trying to make an honest living.
Joe lived in a house in a black neighborhood because the rent was cheaper. But the vandalism and burglaries he suffered there made it not-so-cheap to live, after all.
Unable to risk getting pulled over for the windshield again, Joe would have to take the pickup truck. Shortly before Crystal moved in with him, he had traded his old S-10 for a full size Chevy truck. It burned more gas than the car, but he had no choice now. It was also parked behind his car in the driveway, so he would have to switch them around.
He started both vehicles and pulled the car out on the street. He left the engine running, walked back to the truck and pulled it onto the street, parking next to the curb. He got out and walked toward the car.
He saw a Mercedes speeding up the residential street toward him, but didn’t think much about it because the driver had all the room in the world to stop and his own car was plainly visible. As Joe reached his car and was climbing in, he looked up and saw the Mercedes bearing down on him at the same speed, only much closer.
“Oh, no. No! No!”
He threw his car in reverse and hit the gas and horn. The cold engine hesitated. At the last second there was a squeal of tires as the Mercedes rammed him head-on.
Joe slammed the shifter back in park, turned it off and got out, walking forward to inspect the damage. His car and the Mercedes were crumpled pretty bad. The other driver got out–a stocky older black man with fancy shoes, clothes, and glitzy jewelry.
“You alright?” Joe asked.
“Man, what the hell you think you’re doing, all over the street like that?” the guy demanded.
Taken aback by the guy’s self-righteous attitude, Joe angered quickly. “What am I doin’? How ’bout you look where you’re goin’, jackass? You just ran into my car!”
The other driver said something, but Joe didn’t catch it. Suddenly,Crystal was at his side , yelling at the other driver.
Crystal specialized in making bad situations worse, and she did so now, insulting the other guy with phrases like “fat coon.” The guy got pissed and came after her, and Joe had to physically get between them. Finally Crystal retreated indoors to call the police.
It took nearly two hours for the police to get there. Meanwhile, several people from the neighborhood gathered on the sidewalk adjacent to the Mercedes, staring at the accident scene. The other driver spoke with them while they waited. One remark Joe caught from that crowd was, “You had the right-of-way!” like it was an open-and-shut case.
Well, it should all get cleared up when the police filled out the report. Joe wasn’t impressed much with cops, based on his experience. But at least they were useful for stuff like this. If they ever showed up.
They finally arrived. There was an older cop and a younger one. The older one went right over to the Mercedes driver when they arrived. It seemed like a familiar greeting shared by the two. The Mercedes driver spoke in hushed tones, gesturing at Joe and the vehicles. They spoke for a long time.
The young officer, after looking the vehicles over, approached Joe. Joe explained what happened, and the officer took notes.
Finally the older cop, smoking a thin cigar, came over and told Joe to sign a ticket.
“You’re citing me?” Joe cried. “You’re sayin’ I’m at fault?”
“That’s right,” the cop said. “You are at fault.”
“How you figure? My car wasn’t even moving! I had just got in it and this guy rammed me!”
“He had the right of way,” the cop said, nonchalantly.
“Right of way for what?” Joe demanded. “My car was on the street first!”
“It shouldn’t have been on the street,” the cop said.
“I told your partner I was switching vehicles in my driveway,” Joe said. “You can see there’s no place to park it on this street. This clown was doing over twice the speed limit through here, and wasn’t looking where he was going!”
“He had the right of way. You need to sign this ticket.”
“The right of way,” Joe said. “You’re tellin’ me I can run over anything on the street, as long as I have right of way? There are kids out here all the time. He would have killed them today, if there’d been one on the street.”
“Kids aren’t supposed to be on the street,” the cop said.
“So you’re sayin’ I can haul ass down these residential streets as fast as I want to go, and you’re fine with it? And if I run over somebody or crash into something, that’s on them?”
“You can do that,” the cop said, “but if I catch you, you’re getting a ticket for it.”
“Do you two know each other?” Joe asked. “Is that what this is about?”
The cop breathed cigar smoke in Joe’s face and said. “Listen: you sign that ticket or we can do this another way.”
Joe wound up signing the citation, but was determined to fight this one in court.
He later obtained the police report and saw that the younger officer had drawn the diagram to portray Joe’s car as pulling out of the driveway and slamming into the Mercedes. The report named the Mercedes driver as Cleveland Parker. His occupation was listed, too.
He worked for the police.
###
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