Radical Honesty

“White motherfuckers can’t score in the projects, don’t be a dummy. Ya’ll look like cops to a nigga.” He tells me. I hand him a crisp twenty, resigning myself, knowing that if he disappears on me there isn’t shit I can do about it.

There’s a light rain falling but that’s not the reason he flips his hood up as he and cuts across the street and through a parking lot towards the five guys drinking beers from paper bags, laughing and talking. The same five guys I had walked past just moments before and who had ignored me with an intensity that I found too intimidating to break.

I’m giddy as I sit on the crumbling steps of an abandoned row house trying to look like I belong here. Everything about this excites me. The empty street watched by the cameras mounted high on the streetlights. The very real possibility that I’ve just been robbed. The fear that I could be picked up by the police for just loitering in this neighborhood. I’m the poster child for probable cause sitting here. Everything about me screams outsider. Guys like me, guys who wear a tie to work and sit at a desk from nine to five don’t buy our drugs twenty dollars at a time.

He speaks to the group for a moment, then he disappears around a corner with a couple of the guys. If I’m going to get robbed, it just happened.

But I’ve stopped caring. What’s got me lit up like a kid of Christmas morning is that this whole scene, sitting on a broken street in a broken neighborhood is uniquely mine. Something that her radical honesty can’t touch, that’s so foreign it could never be admitted to. A dirty little secret dripping out of my sinuses and onto the back of my throat making everything taste like gasoline, making the night slide off me like I wasn’t really even there. In an hour I’ll be sitting across from my ex, drinking wine and pretending I can hear what she’s saying in one of those overly loud, ultrahip lounges she loves. The kind that are half lit, taking their aesthetic from opium dens in countries with unreliable power grids. She’s been planning tonight for months. Her new boy is moving here from … well, wherever and this is our chance to make him feel welcome. Me being there is her idea. She had said that if we’re open and honest about everything, if we communicate what we’re feeling, then there’s no reason that we can’t stay friends. When we split –

“I love you, I’m just not in love with you,” she said picking apart the crepe in front of her. “And you’re still my best friend.”

“Are you breaking up with me?” The sun was suddenly too bright in the sky. Why would a café put tables outside if it was going to be this bright? I wondered to myself.

“I just don’t think we should sleep together anymore.”

“How is that not breaking up?”

“Breakups are messy. Breakups mean we fight. I don’t want to fight with you. Breakups mean we don’t talk forever and I don’t know what I would do without you.” She pleaded, her eyes turning soft.

“I don’t see …”

“Of course not. Because you haven’t given it a chance.”

“Can we talk about this?”

“Just try it ok?”

“So we’re going to stop sleeping together but we’re going to act like nothing has changed. We’re not breaking up, we’re just not having sex anymore.” I felt my head spinning.

“We’re best friends right?” She asked.

“Yes.”

“And we hangout all the time and we have a lot of fun right?”

“You know we do.”

“And you would miss that if it went away.”

“Of course.”

“So why would you want to go through a breakup? This way we’re not breaking up and we can still hangout and have fun and see each other and no one gets hurt.” She finished.

“But we’re …”

“Stop. Before you get all aggro let’s give it a try. And if you really hate it, then we can talk about it. That’s reasonable right?”

It would have sounded reasonable if I hadn’t been my life. The tone of her voice suggested that it was reasonable, that she too was compromising and that I only had to meet her half way. Around me were the normal sounds of brunch. People were talking, a waitress laughed along with one of her tables; chimes rang as a door opened. The chalkboard over the register said that today’s special was a raspberry French toast with lemon something. I couldn’t read the last word. What is going on here? I asked myself. I wanted to ask her what was going on here but I didn’t trust my voice. I might start yelling and I didn’t want to ruin anyone’s breakfast. This was our favorite place for Sunday brunch, a little ritual we had followed for the last seven or eight months. It was one of my favorite things about the week, something I looked forward to and I worried that if I made a scene it would be awkward the next time we wanted to come here. She continued to pick at her crepe, slowly brightening, taking my silence for acquiescence and not knowing what to do, I simply sat, taking my queues from her, waiting –

Ten minutes slides by. I can feel water starting to bead and roll down my back, under my jacket. I wonder how long I should wait. What’s the etiquette if I have been robbed? Another ten minutes? Fifteen? Half an hour is obviously too long. I’ve failed to make up my mind on exactly how long I’ll wait when he appears under a street light, grinning at me.

I fall in next to him and we shuffle faster than we need to down the street, hooking a quick right, putting the parking lot and the guys drinking beer out of site. Still walking he slides a small fat bag into my palm. “Come on man, whatcha got for me?” He’s saying as I finger it. Feeling the weight, wondering. The line between hustler and hustled is thin, translucent in places, nonexistent in other. I don’t know the difference between a ten dollar bag and a twenty dollar bag. I hand him a five.

“That’s all I got.”

“My name’s Brother.” He says to me, extending his hand, apparently pleased with the fiver.

“That’s a relation, not a name.” I tell him cleverly, shaking his hand.

Now, getting my first good look at him, I realize he’s older than I had assumed, probably in his forties. There’re touches of gray in his hair and his face is weathered, wrinkled and ashy, hinting at a hard life. His nose is crooked like it’s been broken a few times and never set. And while his eyes are smiling now, there’s a meanness lurking in them that makes me nervous.

We’ve been twisting and turning our way through the city. We make a sudden left and I find myself staring down a narrow alley. Weeds grow out of control through broken concrete sidewalks. A streetlight buzzes above us and at the end of the alley, which dead ends into a chain link fence with a brick wall behind, two guys in black hoodies lean against the side of a building, trying to find what cover they can from the soft rain. I pause and he takes a few steps before he realizes that I’m not next to him anymore.

“You gonna get high or what?”

“I have to meet someone.” I say half-heartedly.

“When’s that?”

“Like an hour.”

“We drinking 40s.”

“Alright.” I say, not entirely comfortable.

His two friends look at me hard as I walk up and I can’t read anything in their expressions. “Shit,” one says to Brother. “You got yourself a white boy. What you doing white boy?”

“White boy’s getting high,” Brother says back. There’s an air of expectation. They stare at me. “He thinks you a cop.” Brother mock whispers and I can’t tell if he’s joking or not. Fuck it and fuck him, I tell myself. I crack the bag and pour some onto the back of my hand, then snort it, licking my hand as not to waste any of it.

“White boy is funny.” Brother says after a moment. “Tell him that shit you said about my name.”

“It’s uhh …” I start stupidly then stop. The three of them watch me as I struggle to make some sort of sense; it’s clear from their stares that I’m not getting out of this. “More of a relation than a name.” I finish. No one finds this funny.

We stand in silence for a few moments and I wonder what I’m doing here. I’ve got what I came for. I should go to the lounge, order a bottle of wine and get drunk before she gets there. That, along with the coke, will take the sting out of the night. Instead I’m standing in an alley wondering, not for the first time, whether this is some kind of setup. What started as a game, something that I couldn’t share with the one person I promised to share everything with has devolved into something nonsensical. Am I trying to prove that I’m cool? That I can hang? That I don’t need her anymore and these guys will be my new friends?

“Where you gotta be?” Brother asks, breaking the silence.

“What?”

“You said you gotta meet your peoples? Who are your peoples?”

“I’m meeting my ex-girlfriend.”

“Shouldn’t you be getting high with her?” He says.

“She doesn’t know about this.” I say.

“That shit’ll make your dick not work.” His friend chimes in.

“It’s not like that.”

“It’s always like that.” His friend says.

“We’re trying to stay friends.”

“So why you getting high?” Brother asks.

“I’m still adjusting. And she’s seeing someone new. She’s very excited for me to meet him.” I say dryly.

“See them scars?” Brother asks, showing me the knuckles on his right hand. “Them’s from teeth. I don’t let no bitch disrespect me. Alls you have to do is hit her once, hard, and she’ll knock that shit off.” There’s no humor in his face as he says this.

“I’m not going to hit her.” I say, incredulous.

“Then you a bitch.” He says dismissively

“I’m not a bitch.”

“He’s right.” His friend says, pleased with himself. “Look at this, Brother got hisself a white bitch.” He says laughing and they join in.

“It’s been fun.” I say with a tight smile on my face, “but I should be going.” Brother tells me that if I ever need to hookup again, I know where to find him.

Walking to the lounge, I’m pissed. “Them’s from teeth” I tell myself over and over again, making it sound cartoonish in my head. As though my inability to punch someone I loved, someone I still love, in the mouth makes me less of a man.

I stop beside a dumpster a block from the lounge. Fuck Brother and fuck his low rent women beating friends, I tell myself as I do another bump out of the bag. Then plastering a smile on my face, I walk around the corner and down the block, handing my ID to the doorman at the lounge.