Black Buck

by Mateo Askaripour

  “Thank you, baby. I’m alright. Let’s finish up.”

  We grabbed hands again. “Sorry, Lord. Had a cough.” The four of us chuckled. “Thank you for the opportunity to see another day. Dear Lord, I pray that you help Darren find his path and that you use him as an instrument to help others in the ways we all know he’s intended to. I pray that Soraya continues to grow her father’s empire of bodegas to the farthest edges of your green earth, and that Mr. Rawlings’s garden continues to produce delicious vegetables and flowers for all of us to admire and enjoy. Amen.”

  “Amen.”

  “You know, Mrs. V,” Soraya started, plopping a piece of pizza onto my plate. “You mentioned opportunity in your prayer tonight. What’s funny is that D has jus’ been presented with one but doesn’ plan on takin’ it.”

  The three of them glared at me as if I had been accused of a crime. I just kept eating.

  “Well, boy, go on,” Mr. Rawlings said, hitting me with those stank eyes only wrinkly-ass Black men know how to do.

  “Yeah, Dar. Go on,” Ma said, gripping the hell out of my hand.

  “Ah, c’mon, Soraya. Why’d you have to bring it up? It’s nothin’, Ma. Some guy at work today, you know those white techie guys? He asked me to visit his office to talk.”

  “Whatchu mean, talk?” Mr. Rawlings asked. “What kinda talk he wanna do, askin’ you to talk outta the blue like that?”

  “It wasn’ outta the blue,” Soraya explained, jumping into the entire story. The double registers, what Rhett was like, how I convinced him to buy a different drink, the reverse close.

  “Reverse what?” Mr. Rawlings asked. “Sounds like one of those newfangled sex positions y’all young folk be pretzelin’ yourselves into nowadays.”

  “Percy!” Ma shouted, slapping Mr. Rawlings’s wrist. “And what, Dar? You didn’ go to his office after work?”

  “Nah,” I said, preparing for whatever she was about to lay on me. But instead, she just pulled her hand away and looked down at the white crumbs on her plate. Then the sniffling came.

  “C’mon, Ma.” I felt like shit. Mr. Rawlings grabbed another slice of pizza, muttering to himself. And Soraya looked at me like she messed up, which she did.

  “In the middle of every difficulty lies opportunity,” Ma said, staring down at her plate. “You know who said that?”

  I took a breath, shaking my head.

  “It’s somethin’ your father used to always say. Whenever we were goin’ through a tough time, or somethin’ jus’ wasn’ workin’ out like it was supposed to, he’d turn to me, and say, ‘In the middle of every difficulty lies an opportunity, amor.’ I always believed him. And he was always right. It’s what I told myself when he passed and what I still tell myself today.”

  “Look here, boy,” Mr. Rawlings said, staring me down.

  I quickly looked up, then away.

  “I said look at me,” he repeated, sounding more serious than the time I accidentally crushed his English peas. “Young Black folk, even mixed-up Black and Spanish folk like yourself, don’ get this type of opportunity too often.

  “Back in my day, when a white man gave you an opportunity, it came at a cost. You could be his chauffeur, but had to always be available to drive him around no matter if you had plans with your family or not. You could vote, but someone would break your legs if you didn’ vote for the candidate they wanted you to. But either way, an opportunity was an opportunity, and if you took it, and learned how to play their game, you could be successful.”

  But I don’t want to play their game. I was fine doing my own thing. Working at Starbucks wasn’t so bad. I had plenty of time to kick it with Soraya. And most important, I was there for Ma whenever she needed me. But it wasn’t until she turned to me, tears running down her cheeks, that I actually considered seeing Rhett.

  “Promise me you’ll at least give this a chance. Whatever it is,” Ma said. “That man must’ve seen somethin’ in you, Dar. Somethin’ that everyone in Bed-Stuy sees in you. You owe it to yourself to follow up and see what he wants. Promise me.”

  I crossed my fingers behind my back and looked into her eyes.

  “Aight, Ma. I promise.”

  3

  I lied. I lied because I didn’t want Ma to feel like I wasn’t trying to better myself. I lied because of the stank eye Mr. Rawlings gave me as a string of cheese clung to his lip for dear life. But most of all, I lied because I was afraid. You see, it’s easy for someone to walk around telling everyone that they’re “jus’ waitin’ for the right opportunity,” but an entirely different thing when they actually receive it. An opportunity means change. An opportunity means action. But most of all, an opportunity means the chance of failure. And it’s the potential for failure, more than failure itself, that stops so many people from beginning anything. Back then, I was no different.

  When I walked into work the next morning, I received a roomful of applause. The room only contained three people, but it was a roomful of applause nonetheless.

  “Man, you really gave it to that gringo,” Carlos said, giving me a hearty dap and bringing it in so close I almost blacked out from the thick fog of vodka, weed, and cheap cologne.

  “Uh, it was nothing,” I said and headed to the back before noticing Nicole’s wide-eyed look.

  “Come here, Darren,” she said, wrapping her thick, plush arms around me. “Where did that come from? It was like you transformed into someone else. Like the Hulk!”

  “The Black Hulk, hermano,” Carlos added. “I knew somethin’ was comin’ when you hopped on both registers. You had this look in your eye, like you was the same person but sorta different. Like a superhero who sees the city burnin’ down and you had to step in to help out. Except this Starbucks isn’t like a city, but, wait, maybe it is; if you think about it, we gotta—”

  “Yeah, I get what you’re saying, Carlos,” I said, deciding whether to call him out for being high, drunk, both, or something else. But every soldier deserves a break, so I dropped my bag, threw my apron on, and unlocked the front door.

  When the room fell silent—that crisp silence before the first person walks in clip-clopping their expensive leather shoes like a horse—someone tapped my shoulder.

  “Hey, Darren?” Brian said, looking in every direction except at me.

  “Yeah?”

  “You think you could, uh, you think you could—shit!—sorry. You think you could”—he quickly brought a hand to his mouth, muffling a still discernible “Penis!”—“Sorry, sorry.”

  Now, not everyone with Tourette’s involuntarily curses like a sailor with syphilis. It’s called coprolalia, and only about one in ten people with Tourette’s has it. Brian Grimes—age twenty-six, born in Virginia, raised in Connecticut, avid Dungeons & Dragons player, and spectacular barber—was that one. And even though I’d never sat around a table and battled mythical beasts with him, we often bonded over comic books and our shared ironic hatred of coffee. He also gave me lifesaving shape-ups once in a while.

  I put my hands on his shoulders, and said, “Close your eyes and take a deep breath.”

  I should also mention that, even though he was older than I am, Brian—perhaps because I was a Black man like him except with a little power—looked up to me. So, being the HNIC, I did my best to make him comfortable, put him at ease, and let him know he was doing a good job.

  “Thanks, Darren. What I wanted to ask was if you think you could teach me what you did yesterday?”

  “What did I do, Brian?”

  “How you, uh, how you—”

  “Take a breath, man. You know I’m here to help.”

  “How you did mind control on that guy? To buy the Nitro Cold Brew instead of his regular?”

  I laughed. “It wasn’t mind control, Brian. I don’t know what it was, but it wasn’t that.”

  “Yes, it was! The dude came in here wanting one thing and walked out with another. Not only that, but he enjoyed the other thing. It was like you put him under a spell. And
I’m not saying I want to be a wizard or anything like that, or that I want to control what people drink, but I just want to be able to”—he paused to scratch at his face—“to be persuasive, you know? Like maybe if I can learn how to do that, I can get a girlfriend or something like that?”

  I didn’t want to break the bad news to him, but the power of persuasion probably wasn’t going to do the trick as long as his face looked like a burnt pizza.

  “Listen, Brian. I don’t know how to do mind control, nor do I know how to be really persuasive. It was just something that happened in the moment. I’m sorry I can’t be of more help, but what I can do is make sure you’re as good a barista as possible so you can woo women with your coffee-making skills.”

  “Yeah, okay. But I just want to say one last thing.”

  “Go for it.” The first clip-clops of the day walked in. Nicole and Carlos were handling them but would need backup soon.

  “Most superheroes don’t know they’re superheroes until they get caught up in a moment, just like you. Something either overcomes them, showing them a glimpse of their hidden powers, or they’re pushed so far past their limitations that they have no choice but to succumb to whatever makes them most special.”

  “Thanks, Brian. I’ll keep that in mind. Now let’s get to work.” But in that very moment, his eyes went wide, his mouth fell half-open, and he raised a zombielike finger toward the door.

  I turned around, and there was Rhett Daniels. He was walking in just like any other day, but unlike any other day, he didn’t have earbuds in nor was he looking at his phone, chatting with his Dobermans, or trailed by faithful followers. He was staring at me.

  And he was pissed.

  * * *

  He waited in line with the other addicts. But when he got to me, he just kept staring. I looked away.

  “Can you come for a walk?” he asked, his voice calm.

  “Uh, no, I need to man the Starbucks.” I was starting to sweat.

  “No, Darren, it’s fine. We’ll man the fort while you talk,” Nicole chimed in out of nowhere.

  “Yeah, man, we got you,” Carlos added.

  Rhett winked at them, then looked at me. “So?”

  Fuck it. I untied my apron, put it down on the counter, and followed him out the door and through the lobby.

  “Where to?” I asked, realizing I hadn’t been outside 3 Park Avenue at 8 a.m. on a workday in years. Twenty-first-century yuppies walked through the revolving doors like worker bees returning to the hive.

  “Wherever you want. You hungry?” He scanned his phone before slipping it into his pocket.

  “No, I’m good.” I didn’t owe him an explanation or an apology. But for some reason, I felt like I did. It was as if he had a gravitational pull, and if you got too close, it was impossible to escape.

  “Great, let’s get pancakes.”

  We walked for only a few minutes, but our silence made those minutes feel like days.

  He opened the door to a diner named Bobby’s Big Breakfast, BBB for short, and we sat down in a booth in the back.

  “So, pancakes,” he said, ignoring the menus in front of us.

  “Pancakes.” I nodded, avoiding eye contact. I’m trapped, but it’ll be over soon.

  An eager blonde waitress appeared with pen and pad in hand and stared at him—his unblemished skin, his defined jawline with light black stubble—as though she were hypnotized. I know this guy is attractive, but damn. Snap out of it!

  Rhett ran his hand through his tousled brown hair, no doubt achieved through relentless scrunching and spritzing, and smiled. “Hi.”

  “Oh,” the waitress replied, waking from her daydream. “Sorry, what’ll it be?”

  “Two black coffees and a stack of banana pancakes for me. And blueberry pancakes for my friend,” he said.

  “Can I get you anything else?” she asked, drooling over him now like a dog outside a butcher shop.

  He flashed a flirtatious grin. “No, that’ll be all. Thank you.”

  “Suit yourself,” she said, and walked away.

  “You cool with that, Darren?”

  “Um, yeah, sure.”

  More silence. Exactly one and a half minutes of silence until our coffee came out, and another six and a half minutes until our steaming plate of pancakes arrived, a mountain of chocolate chips on both of them.

  “Something a little extra for you boys,” the waitress said.

  I sat there, wrinkling and flattening my pants. The aroma rising from the coffee entered my nostrils. Guatemalan.

  “You haven’t touched your coffee,” he said, nodding at my cup.

  “Uh, yeah, I—”

  “Take a sip, it’s delicious. It’s not Starbucks”—he smiled—“but it’s still good.”

  I stared at the black pool in my cup, saw my watery reflection. No fucking way.

  But Rhett nodded at the cup again.

  I looked back down into the mug. Fuck you. I lifted it to my lips and took a sip. Fuck you to hell!

  “Pretty good,” I said. I was surprised; it wasn’t half bad.

  He laughed. “What did I tell you? Also, has anyone ever told you that you look like Martin Luther King?”

  “Uh, no. You’re the first.”

  He leaned back. “Well, you do. So, where are you from?”

  “Bed-Stuy.”

  “Chris Rock, nice,” he said, clearing all of the melted chocolate chips from the top of his stack before cutting it up piece by piece.

  “Most people only know it for Jay-Z,” I replied, surprised.

  He continued to cut his stack into little layered triangles. “Most people only know what other people talk about. But what about school? Where’d you go?”

  “Bronx Science. I was valedictorian.”

  He stopped cutting his pancakes and looked up at me. “So you’re either incredibly smart or just someone who knows how to do what’s asked of them incredibly well. Which is it?”

  I looked down at my leaning tower of pancakes, suddenly hungry. “I’m still not sure.”

  “And what about college? Where’d you go?”

  “I didn’t go to college.”

  “Why not?”

  “Just wasn’t for me.” I wasn’t about to tell this guy my life story no matter how deep into his gravitational field he pulled me.

  “College wasn’t for the valedictorian of one of the best high schools in America? C’mon. Don’t give me that.”

  “It wasn’t. I had—I have other priorities.”

  “And what did your mom and dad think about these other priorities?”

  “Well, my dad is dead and my mom wasn’t too happy about it. Still isn’t, really,” I said, taking a sip.

  “Sorry about your dad. What happened, if you don’t mind me asking?”

  “It’s fine. He died when I was two. He was a handyman and, after years of saving up, finally had enough to start his own business. He bought a van, and on the same day he got it, he was speeding home when a bus slammed into the driver’s side.”

  Rhett took deep breath. “‘If we live, we live for the Lord; and if we die, we die for the Lord. So, whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord.’”

  “What’s that?”

  “Romans 14:8. But I’m sorry. That must’ve been tough.”

  “More for my mom, yeah. I didn’t really know him.”

  “And do you have siblings?”

  “No, it’s just me and my mom.” I saw a brief flicker in his eyes, like he saw something he couldn’t see before, an answer he was looking for.

  “So you didn’t go to college because you didn’t want to leave your mom alone at home. And you work at Starbucks because it keeps you busy, especially since you’re the boss. But it doesn’t demand too much of you. So you’re still able to get out of the house and feel productive, but there’s a large part of you that can’t help but ask, ‘Is this really it?’”

  The fuck? It felt like the guy jumped inside my head, looked around, took a shit
, and left. If Brian thought I was capable of mind control, I wanted to see what he’d make of Rhett. I took a bite of my cold pancakes, shifting in my seat until I mustered up the courage to speak.

  “Yeah. Maybe.”

  “But you still haven’t been tested, so you just tell everyone you’re ‘waiting for the right opportunity,’ right? So here it is. What if I told you that you could learn how to do what I do?”

  Ah, we’ve finally arrived. Here is what this entire breakfast has been building up to.

  “And what is it that you do, Rhett?”

  “Deals, Darren. I do deals and I sell the one thing that everyone wants.”

  “Which is?”

  “A vision.”

  “What kind of vision?”

  “A vision for the future. I sell people on the opportunity to live their lives to the fullest, and I’ll tell you, people will pay an absolute fortune for that. But beyond that, what we do up there,” he said, pointing toward the upper floors of 3 Park Avenue, “is help people. We’re changing the world through what we do, making a positive impact, and having a blast while doing it.”

  “So why do you need me?”

  “I don’t need you, but I want you. What I saw yesterday was something I haven’t seen in years: raw talent, confidence, and the ability to make me think differently. You convinced me to buy what you were selling because my choice would benefit me, not you. Having you up there,” he said, nodding at 3 Park Avenue again, “would have a large impact on my organization and an even more life-changing impact on you.”

  My heart was racing. My mouth went dry. I gulped down half a glass of water. “I don’t know, Rhett. What happened yesterday was just me getting caught up in the moment. I don’t think I’m the type of person who could sell whatever vision you’re talking about.”

  He reached over and grabbed my shoulder. Hard. “Listen to me, Darren. You were meant for more than pushing caffeinated water. Do you want to sell that shit for the rest of your life, or do you want to come with me and change the world?”

  While the prospect of changing the world sounded great, I still wasn’t sold. Like he said, I was comfy. I had Soraya, Ma, Mr. Rawlings, Jason, a whole brownstone floor to myself, a decent salary; and I wasn’t in need of anything I couldn’t afford. I felt like I was already making a difference for those who mattered most no matter what he thought. But I would’ve been lying if I said I wasn’t curious about why Rhett selected me, about what he actually wanted.