SUPINE

I was just having a conversation with two of the kids (they’re in High School so I can call them kids and not have it be considered condescension) I work with, Rafeeq and Androff. They marched in the front door looking for their paychecks. Rafeeq wore jeans, an oversized white t-shirt and those generic Timberland boots. The yellow-ish ones. Androff wore a black t-shirt, jeans, black sneakers and a black baseball cap. I wish I remembered what the hat said. I’m behind the counter, with my jeans, Livingston Rec yellow t-shirt and red Converse sneakers. They came over and said hi, I asked about their Thanksgiving holidays and then they took their checks and sat down on the couches. Androff wanted a dollar for twizzlers, Rafeeq snuck in the back and stole a warm Sprite.

I walked over to the vending machines and removed candy and a red Powerade for Androff. Remembering how I had driven him home last month, before he had his driver’s license, I asked about his new car.
“How’s the car?” I asked, “Did you get the registration and plates taken care of?”
“Yeah, it’s all good.”
“Did it cost a lot?”
“Yeah.”
“More than the fifty or sixty I said it would be?”
“Sixty-something,” he said.
“Oh, so that’s not too bad.”

Rafeeq then asked me how much money I have in my bank account, he guessed I had close to fifty-thousand dollars.

“Yeah right, I wish. Why would I work here if I had fifty-thousand dollars.”
“So, how much you got?”

I’m not entirely sure why he asked, I can only assume it was some sort of “rich white kid” ploy to prove a hypothesis of his. I said I had $800 in my debit account, and they asked what I was saving up for. I said I wanted to move somewhere warm, Arizona or California. Androff asked if I was thinking about going to Long Beach or South Central LA. I said I was thinking about Compton, and asked if they thought I might be accepted in such an environment.

Once their laughter subsided, and their tears were wiped from their cheeks, I think they said, “No.” Or maybe it was implied in the laughter. Rafeeq said, “Well, you do wear red Chucks.”

“Oh, so it’s about the shoes you wear, whether or not you’re welcome?”
“You’re human, right? You’re breathing?”
“I think so.”
“You might get beat up at first. Then you’re good.”
“Oh, I see,” I said. “It’s kind of like prison. Beat someone up on your first day, or else you’re everybody’s bitch.”

Androff started laughing and covering his eyes with his hands. He made me repeat what I said for Rafeeq, who also started clutching his belly and laughing when I said it. Still giggling, the pair started playing out scenarios where they tried to figure out how long it would take before my car was stolen in one of those neighborhoods. Rafeeq said that by the time I got out to look at a house, when I came back out the car would be gone. Androff said “nah, fuck that,” as soon as I go to lock the car it will be gone. They might not even let me get out of the car by my own will. There were some more half-sentences and weird linguistics thrown in there, but for the most part that was the end of the conversation. Later, Andley will arrive to signal the end of my shift. I might stick around to play some Xbox 360 with him, and tell him to turn down the Lil’ John mp3s he always blasts during games of NBA Live. I don’t have anything against Lil’ John, but I do have something against not being able to hear the shot clock and the horn when time is running out in an overly competitive game of ‘Live.

My sole reason for posting this as today’s update is because I’m sure at least one reader will work their way through this story and attribute some racist stereotypes that might be present in my honest portrayal of the events that unfolded not twenty minutes ago.

I guess my point is, no matter how hard you strive to realistically re-create a personal account as subjectively as possible, another person, someone with a preordained bias or agenda, is going to read whatever they want to believe with little regard for truth or accuracy. It’s one of the key reasons why, socially, America is in a quagmire. Whether you’re so politically correct you dare not utter a word for fear of reprisal, or you’re so zealous you treat every line of text or speech as depicting racism, sexism, homophobia, anti-semitism, any of those ideologies, you’re basically destroying any hope of rational discourse for the level-headed folks who are simply looking to share a funny short story.