Capital City Read online

  “Yeah, I’m about to graduate next term from the UDC.”

  He smiles broadly. “Unh-hunh. So I’m sitting here with a damn political expert, running my damn mouth off and got caught.”

  “I wouldn’t call myself an expert, but I would say that I know more about the political process than ninety percent of Americans.” And more than 99 percent of blacks, I’m thinking.

  “I bet you do,” he say, chuckling some more. “So, could you ever see yourself running for some type of office, young brother?”

  “Well, eventually, I might have to.”

  I stand up at my stop: Judiciary Square.

  “Keep up the good work, young brother.”

  I smile at him, nod and step off the train. I walk to Seventh and Pennsylvania Avenue Northwest, through the clean and empty downtown streets to wait for a 36 bus. It arrives in less than five minutes. We pass the Capitol building. It amazes me that it just sits there in stone throwing distance while all the blacks who complain about this country’s system pay no attention to this building—as if it doesn’t really exist. I tell you, it’s amazing!

  I arrive at the African Market Festival on Pennsylvania Avenue Southeast, by 11:00 a.m. and talk to the white man who, ironically, manages the predominantly black flea market. Washington, D.C., is 70 percent black, but you wouldn’t know it from the local business community. The heavy-set white man collects everything for me as I set up my mother’s table. I have off from my telemarketing job today, so I offered to take over my mother’s stand while she goes to Baltimore for a Coalition of Black Women meeting. They’ll probably discuss the elected officials like Senator Carol Moseley-Braun from Illinois; Maxine Waters, the congresswoman from California; Sharon Pratt Kelly, the mayor here in D.C.; and some other black women leaders abroad.

  There will be more black congress people in office when President-elect Bill Clinton takes over in January, 1993, than there has ever been in history. I have to do some research to see if that includes the Reconstruction Era of the 1870s. But all these new Blacks in office won’t change anything. The gap between them and the masses is too wide. My knowledge base is expanding past the grasp of my fellow generation right now. And that scares me, because I’ll be another brother that can’t affect present situations. I’ll be too mentally distant.

  “Hi you doin’?” asks a round-bellied and gray-haired brother. He’s setting up at the table across from me.

  “I’m all right,” I say, forcing myself to smile. I don’t really feel friendly yet. I really wanted to remain home and dream about making love to a black woman who likes to have sex three times more than my present girlfriend does. Sex can be used as an excellent stress releaser, you know.

  “So you’re Charlene’s son?” he asks me, now extending his hand.

  I shake it politely and say, “Yeah, that’s me.”

  “Well, I see you don’t have red hair or freckles like she does,” he responds amusingly.

  “Nope, take after my father.”

  He sorrows up. “Yeah, I heard about that deal in Germany,” he says. “But that’s just how this country’ll do us. I remember when Vietnam was trying to draft my son.” He shakes his head fiercely. “No way, Jose. I sent my son down South, and when they went for him down there, I told him to come back home. And when they came back again, I sent him to my brother’s home in Memphis, Tennessee.”

  I laugh. He’s starting to lighten me up. “What’s your name?” I ask him. “Tony. And yours is Raymond, right?”

  “Yeah, I guess my mother talks all about me graduating from college this spring.”

  “She won’t stop one minute,” he says jokingly. He tosses his hand on my shoulder. “But it’s always good to see our young men doing the right thing, you know. It gives an old guy like me some hope for the future.”

  “You don’t look that old to me.”

  He smiles. “Thanks, young fella. That’s from healthy living.” He laughs and walks back to his table. I guess when you keep that energy and enthusiasm like he has, you’re bound to stay young.

  By one o’clock, packs of customers finally come to my mother’s table.

  “You sellin’ T-shirts, you’n?” asks a tan-skinned girl about thirteen with braided hair.

  “Yeah, which one do you like?” I ask her.

  “Do you have that shirt: ‘IT’S A D.C. THANG’?”

  I look through my mother’s box of shirts, but I don’t remember seeing any like that when I hung up the samples.

  “Nope, I think we have just the ones that are displayed.”

  “Oh,” she says, eyeing the many books spread out across the table. “Dag, you’n, what kinda names is dese?”

  “African names.”

  She looks me in my face for an explanation. “Are dey from Africa?”

  “No, Molefi Kete Asante is in Philadelphia, Jawanza Kunjufu and Haki Madhubuti are both in Chicago, and Amiri Baraka is in New Jersey.”

  “Oh.” She smiles at me as if she has nothing else to do. She lingers about the table, picking up and putting down various African American books. “Why dey got African names like dat, Joe?”

  “Because some blacks in America believe in going back to the roots of our civilization, which is Africa.”

  She shakes her braided head. “I ain’t from Africa. I’m from Sowfeese, D.C.,” she responds with serious pride, meaning Southeast.

  I smile. “You’ll understand in a few more years when you mature.”

  She frowns at me. “Are you tryin’a say I ain’t mature?”

  “No, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it exactly that way. I meant it more in a cultural and historical sense.”

  She peers at me as if she’s trying to figure out my angle. “You tryin’ t’ get smart wit’ me, ain’t’chu?” She’s smiling now, like we’re playing some kind of guessing game and she’s just figured it out.

  “No, I’m not,” I tell her, chuckling at her accusation.

  She starts to walk away. “Aw’ight, man, but I know you was.”

  Maybe she’s right. I seem to be losing tolerance for the ignorant. And that’s bad, because then I’ll end up like those “uppity” blacks who slander the masses.

  Three boys hurry to my table next. “Yo, you’n, you got dat T-shirt wit’ da .45 gun on it?” one asks. They range in height and colors from dark brown to reddish brown to yellow. I’m reddish brown myself.

  “No, we don’t sell those type of shirts,” I tell them.

  “Oh.”

  They look disappointed. They’ve probably been looking everywhere for these shirts.

  “Why do you guys want shirts like that?” I ask them curiously.

  “I’on know, you’n, dey jus’ like dat,” the lightest one says. He’s also the shortest.

  The taller, darkest one steps forward and picks up Terry McMillan’s novel, Waiting To Exhale. “My mom has this book, Joe,” he says to the others.

  “Yeah, my sister has it too,” says the one who’s my complexion.

  “Do they have any other books?” I ask. Stupid question, I’m thinking. Of course they do.

  “I’on know,” the tall, dark one answers.

  “Do you guys play sports or anything?”

  They start to snicker. “You sound like a white boy, you’n,” says the one who’s my complexion.

  They laugh. Then the first light-skinned boy adds, “I know, Joe. He talk like he a teacha or somethin’.”

  The darkest one asks me with a smile, “Are you a teacha?”

  “No, but I should be one,” I respond. “And the first thing I’d teach you all is that we don’t have to be ‘a white boy’ to speak English. Not ‘proper English,’ but English, period.”

  “Whatever, you’n,” says the one who’s my complexion.

  They dash away as quickly as they came.

  Tony walks back over to my table, smiling, and grips my shoulder. “Give ’em some time, Ray. Give ’em some time.”

  * * *

  I’ve only
sold eighty-three dollars in merchandise. It simply isn’t that many people here today.

  By now it’s five o’clock, and I’m a little tired of coaxing black customers into buying while explaining why we should support each other. It’s ridiculous! I mean, we seem to support everybody else, but I guess black merchandisers don’t have the right goods.

  I pack up my mother’s things and get ready to leave, feeling exhausted. Tony walks over to me once more. “It takes many full moons before a man can become a wolf,” he says, winking his right eye at me. “You hang in there and you’ll end up runnin’ down all the prey.”

  I look at him confusingly, not because I don’t understand what he’s telling me, but because of the way he puts it.

  He looks at me and laughs. “Patience, young fella. Patience is a virtue.”

  “Well, we must be the most patient people in the world, because it seems like we’ve been waiting forever,” I say with a loose tongue.

  Tony looks at me sternly. “The key word in your sentence is seems, because a lot of people can’t even see when they’re on the right path.” He walks away briefly, leaving me to ponder, but then he walks right back. He talks to me in a lowered tone, “Man, I’m so tired of black folks blaming everything on ‘the man’ that it makes me sick. Now I’m not sayin’ that the pig ain’t dirty. He’s most definitely dirty. But you, me, and any other black man or woman on this earth make ourselves what we’re gonna be in life, not ‘the man.’ You hear what I’m sayin’ to ya, son? It’s gon’ be you and not ‘the man.’”

  * * *

  I get home by six thirty and throw myself across the bed again. I know my mother told me to hang in there until six, but I couldn’t stand it. It’s hard as hell to hang in there with black people. I mean, this is really a full-time job with no paid vacations.

  I call my C&P phone mail service for messages.

  “Hey, Wes, this is Marshall. We goin’ to the movies about seven to see A Few Good Men, so call us back if you goin’. And oh, yeah, did you see The Distinguished Gentleman yet? I mean, it was all right, but I’d tell people to wait for the tape to come out.”

  Typical, I’m thinking. We always want to wait for black things. Black culture is always secondary. There are all kinds of stupid white movies, but I guess we just don’t pay that much attention to critiquing them as much as we do our own.

  “Wes, this is Sybil. I’ve been meaning to talk to you about our relationship for weeks now, and well, I never really could slow you down enough to tell you. I really think that we are drifting apart as a couple, and I think it’s best that we part ways for a while to gather our real emotions. Please don’t be angry with me, but I had to do this. And don’t call me back for at least a week, because we really need to think first.”

  Now this is really a trip. As conscious and as positive as I claim to be, I’d rather be the one to drop her. I guess the male ego overrides everything, or at least that’s how I feel right now.

  Damn! I guess life’s a bitch and then you die. But hell, maybe I should try to at least die happy. Can I have that just a little bit of happiness? Please, God.

  Wow, I’m going crazy, asking for favors! But isn’t that what everybody does when they’re in a bind: ask for favors? Shucks, now I need a new girlfriend!

  I turn on my stereo and that “Rump Shaker” song is on. They must play it about ten times a day now:

  All I wanna do iza zoom, zoom, zoom in’na boom, boom.

  Ridiculous! Stupid! And more stupid! But that’s us, unfortunately.

  CHAPTER 2

  Wes

  “You hear about the Malcolm X movie? asks Marshall, running in out of the cold.

  I’m sitting inside the lounge area in building 38 at UDC, awaiting my final exam for the semester. We break for winter vacation through the Christmas and New Year holiday season this week. And more importantly, Kwanzaa, the seven-day African American tradition started in 1966 by revolutionary activist Maulana Ron Karenga in California is coming up.

  “No, what about it?” I ask Marshall, looking down at my notes.

  “Yo, they said that movie theaters were giving the wrong tickets and saying that it was sold out, when it wasn’t.”

  I look up at Marshall, who’s light brown and wearing thin-rimmed gold glasses. He’s standing medium height and wearing a dark brown leather coat. I remember that I did hear about the Malcolm X dispute.

  “And yo, they said that they were selling tickets to Home Alone II to people who wanted to see Malcolm,” he continues. He shakes his head in disgust. “Man, I tell you, the white man won’t let a nigga up.”

  “I don’t see why people were thinking it would be portrayed like he really was, anyway,” I comment. “I mean, it just seems to me that a lot of people would rather see Malcolm’s gangster/pimp years than his revolutionary years.”

  Marshall shakes his head violently. “Naw, man, you wrong. Dead wrong! I mean, yeah, you might be right that a lot of people are into that, but there are way more of us inspired by him.”

  Up comes Derrick: dark brown, solidly built and wearing a dark blue down coat.

  “What’s up?” he asks with a smile as other students swing around him on their way to classes.

  I point to my notes. “This is up. This last damn test,” I tell him.

  Derrick and Marshall shake hands and exchange smiles. I remain seated, hoping they will allow me to get back to cramming.

  “Dallas!” Derrick yells at Marshall. “Dallas all the way!”

  “You crazy, boy! San Francisco and Steve Young is too strong!”

  “Naw, buddy. Nobody can stop Emmitt Smith. That boy is bad!”

  “Okay, we’ll see in the playoffs.”

  I raise my head. “None of us are Redskin fans?” I ask. They both look at me confused.

  “Redskin fans? Naw, man, that’s them white people coming in from Maryland and Virginia,” Derrick says, slapping consenting hands with Marshall.

  “I know, ’cause that boy Rypien is a bum and always was a bum. Nigga gon’ try t’ hold out for more money.”

  “I didn’t know white boys could be niggas,” I comment, facing Marshall.

  Marshall looks at Derrick and grins. “Everybody in America are niggas except the ones who control the money. You know that, Wes. You’re the political science major, right?”

  Derrick laughs. “That about sums it up.”

  “Well, look, gang, I’d love to sit here and bullshit, but I have a test coming up,” I announce.

  Derrick smiles. “You knew that last week and last night, but now you act like it just snuck up and grabbed you.”

  “It did,” I lie jokingly.

  “All right then, man,” he says, walking off.

  Marshall stays and sits down beside me on the small cushioned couch. “Yo, boss, I heard you and Sybil stopped kickin’ it.”

  I face him, looking baffled and turning away from my notes. “How you know this?”

  “Shaunta told me.”

  “Well, how does Shaunta know?”

  He frowns at me. “Come on, man, you know they best friends.”

  “Why does Shaunta have to tell you this?”

  “I mean, it wasn’t like she just came out of the blue and said, ‘Oh, by the way, Sybil and Wes aren’t talkin’ anymore.’ It was more like Sybil was having problems trying to keep her life in order, which, of course, would include something about you.”

  I grimace. “Hell, everybody has problems. I mean, she’s trying to act as if she’s the only cotton picker on the plantation.”

  Marshall smiles, getting up to leave. “Whatever, man. That’s between you and her.”

  “You mean it was between me and her.”

  I get back to my work only to be interrupted by Candice.

  “Oh my God! I’m so happy I saw you, Wes! Are you ready for this test today?”

  “No, but I’m trying to get ready,” I say. I’m trying my hardest not to seem like I’m staring at her.

  Sh
e squeezes beside me in the spot that Marshall just held and leans into me to read my notes. “Oh, shit! That’s notes for an essay?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Damn, Joe! I hate them essays!” she yells convincingly into my ear. Her perfume is driving me wild. I could just imagine myself in between her firm, cream-colored legs as her painted nails trickle down my back with her sweet, cherry-colored lips kissing my neck.

  “That’s the majority of the test,” I respond to her, feeling a hard-on rising.

  Candice sighs strongly. Her dark eyes twinkle as she hypnotizes me, “You gon’ help me out, Wes?”

  I want to say, “If you go out with me or introduce me to one of your girlfriends.” But I don’t. I don’t have the heart.

  “Yeah, I can probably help you,” I tell her instead.

  She squeezes me like I’m her child and kisses my cheek. “Great! So what is your essay about?”

  I grin with much enthusiasm as I explain, “How to educate the masses on the importance of the black vote, using the historical markers of the Reconstruction Era in the South, voting drives during the civil rights era and the Black Panther Party programs of the late sixties and early seventies.”

  Candice shakes her pretty, finger-waved head and smiles deliciously. “Damn! You know ya shit, Joe!”

  * * *

  I must say, the final wasn’t as difficult as I thought it would be. I helped Candice to summarize a general essay on how women can promote political awareness to their kids by being active in local politics. And my essay? It was excellent! Although I think six pages was a bit much.

  I’m taking the bus today instead of the Metro so I can stop in the Adams Morgan area and pick up a new book to read during this commercialized holiday called Christmas. News reports say that Christmas, ironically, is the most dangerous time of the year. Both Muslim and Africentric followers fast during the holiday season.

  I enter Yawa Books & Gifts, say “Hi” and check the shelves. But I know what I want already: the third Easy Rawlins detective novel, White Butterfly by Walter Mosley. Mosley is one of the top African American writers today, and male. It seems the black women novelists have been getting most of the press.