Black Buck

by Mateo Askaripour

  This is getting more technical than it has to be. But all you need to know is that within six months we had close to half a million dollars in our bank account, a dozen chapters in every major American tech hub—New York, Boston, Austin, San Francisco, Raleigh, Seattle—and were expanding internationally to places like Dublin, London, and Tel Aviv, all while remaining anonymous. You know what? Let me shut the fuck up and just show you how it would go.

  Picture two people, Mary and Denmark. Mary’s a senior SDR, maybe even a manager, at some bullshit startup in San Francisco. And Denmark just moved there from, say, Harlem. They don’t know each other, but through the network, Mary heard there may be a brother heading her way. Denmark walks into the bullshit startup, and since Mary is one of the few Black people there, if not the only one, some pigment-deficient higher-up, of course, micro-aggressively suggests she meet with Denmark to “you know, make him comfortable enough to show you the real him.”

  Mary is sitting behind a desk. Denmark enters. Now watch closely. Mary, smiling, well dressed, and confident as a boss-ass bitch (BAB), will say, “How are you today?”

  Denmark, breathing a sigh of relief as he hears the cue, answers with something like “Happy, thank you. How are you?”

  Mary, now understanding that she is among family, says, “Happy as a camper,” before offering Denmark her right fist. To seal the deal and fully verify who Denmark is, Denmark bumps Mary’s fist and they each bring it to their chests—left side over the heart—twice. They’ll laugh, chat about mutual connections, and Mary will give Denmark the lay of the bullshit company’s land—fair starting salaries, who’s ass he needs to kiss in the interview, overseerlike folks to watch out for, and everything else he needs to know in order to navigate that instance of the Hundred Acre Peckerwood. Whoosh! Bang! Poof! Another young person of color is on their way to fat-pocketed professional success. And so the cycle continues.

  “But—but that’s unfair!” someone might cry, blue blood running through protruding veins on their white neck. “This is worse than affirmative action!” they shout, asking themselves how this happened, how good white folk like themselves managed to let a group of elite minority salespeople slip through the cracks. Well, to that I say, think of this as long-overdue reparations. But instead of waiting for the government to give it to us, we took it. But don’t fret, because we eventually found ourselves under attack, which is where I’ll pick up our story. This would be six months after the founding of the Happy Campers, in September, still in the clutches of a humid, swamplike New York City summer.

  * * *

  It was a Saturday morning, which meant it was time for Hush Harbor: the weekly meeting where every Happy Camper around the world gathered to hear the latest updates, air grievances, welcome new recruits, celebrate wins, and, of course, grill me during a fifteen-minute Q&A.

  I was in my old bedroom—which, thanks to Rose the Builder, was now my office—reviewing updates and issues, and trying to memorize every member’s name when there was a knock at the door.

  “Come in,” I said, not making an effort to look up.

  “D,” Soraya said, holding herself as she slowly walked in, her cheeks damp with tears.

  I jumped up and ran toward her, making sure not to touch her. It was a rule we’d established when she joined. “What’s goin’ on, Soraya?”

  Within a week of joining the Happy Campers, Soraya had landed a job at a healthcare startup and was making more money than most of the other people we placed. I’d even apologized to Mr. Aziz for being an asshole, and he accepted it, so I had no idea what could’ve been troubling her.

  “I jus’ dumped Jalal,” she said, plopping down on my bed, which Rose had kept in case I ever wanted to crash.

  I won’t lie; seeing Soraya sitting on my bed and hearing that she just dumped that clown made me smile, but I quickly wiped it off. “Why? I thought you were two were straight?”

  “Me too. But he couldn’ keep up. The new job, new friends, new money. All of it was a lot for him, and he became insecure and controllin’.”

  I laughed. “Sounds familiar.”

  “Shut up,” she said, punching my shoulder. “But, forreal, I’m sad because I thought he was the one. I try to be strong, but I feel like I’m gonna wake up and be fifty and alone with an apartment full of cats.”

  Before I could think, I grabbed her shoulder. “You’re one of the strongest people I know, Soraya. If the guy couldn’ cut it, he wasn’ right for you. People either bring you up or down, and if it’s down, they gotta bounce. No matter how hard it is. But”—I lifted her chin—“don’ sweat it. You’ll find the right guy. You’re young, beautiful, out of this world intelligent, and only a li’l bit of a punk.”

  “Asshole.” She slapped the shit out of my arm.

  Another knock at the door. “Yeah?”

  The door slowly opened, and a short light-skinned kid with glasses two sizes too big poked his head in. “Um, S-s-ensei Buck, sir, I’m sorry to b-b-other you, but—”

  “Come in, Trey. What’d I tell you about looking shook all the time? This is how you ended up as my assistant instead of getting a real job.”

  “Y-y-yes, sir,” he said, looking at his feet. “But I like being your assistant. I like helping the m-m-move—”

  “Movement,” Soraya said, smiling as she patted a space next to her. “It’s okay, Trey. You know he’s harmless.”

  Treyborn Percival Evans, clutching a notebook to his chest, sat down and smiled at Soraya. The kid stuttered worse than a scratched CD and always meant well.

  After hearing us getting rowdy one day, he just knocked on the door and asked what was going on. Rose, seeing this small kid with ripped clothes and dirty sneakers who reminded her of herself, brought him upstairs, gave him some food, then presented him to me.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Tr-tr-treyborn Percival Evans, sir,” he said, avoiding eye contact.

  “Okay, Trey. Nice to meet you. How can I help you?”

  He stared at his shoes. “I d-d-on’t know, sir. But I need a j-j-j—”

  “Job? You need a job?”

  He nodded.

  “Maybe I can help you, Trey. But I’m going to need you to pick your head up. No one we work with ever hangs their head, cool?”

  He looked up and finally made eye contact even though it was obviously uncomfortable for him.

  “Good. Quick learner.”

  I told him about the Happy Campers, and he said he’d love to join. But after a month of training, we realized that he was one of the few people we encountered who didn’t take to sales, so I asked him to be my assistant, and he’d been my right-hand man and friend ever since.

  “What is it, Trey?”

  “It’s t-t-time for H-h-hush Harbor, Sensei Buck. Everyone’s w-w-waiting for you.”

  “Well, let’s not make them wait any longer then. Tell them I’ll be right there.”

  “Yes, sir,” he said, beelining out of the room.

  “Big Bad Buck,” Soraya said, wiggling her fingers at me. “Such a scary, scary guy. Who knew?”

  I laughed. “Right?” She got up and made her way to the door, but I grabbed her wrist. “You gonna be okay?”

  “Yeah. It’ll be fine. Thanks for bein’ here.”

  We stared at each other for a while, electricity crackling between us. I swore we were about to cross another line, but she quickly turned around and walked out. Her scent of cinnamon and cocoa butter lingered in the air—a cloud in the shape of her body.

  * * *

  The living room and kitchen were bursting at the seams. Happy Campers of almost every color, religion, sexual orientation, and gender presentation sat on tables, chairs, the kitchen counter, windowsills, and the floor, forming a circle. In addition to the faces that streamed in from our branches around the world, Happy Campers on the other floors of 84 Vernon also videoconferenced in. I swear, when you walked in and saw a bunch of Ugandan, Mexican, Jamaican, Chinese, Bolivian, India
n, Iranian, and other young men and women sitting in one room, you’d think you were at a Model UN meeting.

  I put on my new glasses, stood behind a mahogany lectern in the middle of the circle, and said, “How are you?”

  “Happy!” they shouted, like it was Christmas.

  “Happy as what?” I asked, beaming from ear to ear as I swung around the podium like some overpaid, overnourished, and oversexed Southern preacher.

  “A camper!” they replied, smashing fists into their chests twice.

  “That’s what I like to hear,” I said, peering at the papers in front of me. “This has been an exciting week. With the expansion of our London chapter, we now have almost three hundred Happy Campers worldwide. Let’s give it up for Joe Knight, Jimmy Somerset, and Mary Prince for leading the charge across the pond.”

  Three floating heads smiled from each of the many screens on the walls as the room exploded in applause.

  “Okay,” I continued. “We’re growing at an insane clip, which is excellent. Almost all new recruits find a job within a month of joining. And from the looks of all of you, our diversity efforts, headed by Rose, are going well, so let’s clap it up for her.”

  Rose kissed Dolores, a Mexican transplant from California, on the lips, stood, and bowed to applause before taking her seat.

  “Question.” A tall Chinese girl stood, wiping black bangs out of her face.

  “Wu Zhao?”

  “What about the recent video?” she asked. “I’m pretty sure all of our growth has also attracted”—she paused—“hostility from others.”

  “You mean white people?” a dark round Ghanaian named Kujoe said from the kitchen counter behind me.

  I turned to Trey. “What’re they referring to?”

  “I-i-it’s nothing, Sensei B-b-uck. Seriously,” he said, widening his eyes at Wu Zhao.

  “Definitely something,” someone said through one of the screens.

  “This is why we should let whites in!” Diego, an Afro-Colombian sitting on the floor, shouted. “It’s the twenty-first century. I get that we always say they had a head start, that—”

  “That they created the game, like the Parker Brothers and Monopoly, while we minorities”—I stepped from behind the podium and walked toward him—“constructed the pieces even though we weren’t able to play. But when we were allowed to, we realized the game was fixed with all kinds of rules that were created to handicap us, to make us never able to win.

  “But there was a certain knowledge imparted to the people who worked with their hands and built the game from the ground up, like our parents, their parents, and their parents, going back to wherever we come from. And now it’s up to us to fix the game and help others, like you, Diego, to learn how to do the same to get ahead. So what were you saying?”

  “Just. Just that maybe that video, you know, uh, that group maybe formed because we, we didn’t let white people in.”

  I walked back to the podium and nodded to Trey. “Throw it up.”

  On the screens appeared a dozen almost identical white guys and girls sitting on miniature thrones, one leg crossed over the other; wearing red velvet jackets; and staring straight-faced into the camera.

  “America is under attack,” a disembodied narrator bellowed. “But to be more specific, White America is under attack. Today”—the Ivy League–looking fraternity bros in ties and sorority sisters in skirts stared straight ahead—“it is a crime to be white. A crime to have money. A crime to be straight. A crime to be Christian and everything else our beautiful land was founded on two hundred thirty-seven years ago.”

  “What the fuck is this?” I asked, looking around the room. Everyone’s eyes were fixed on the screens.

  “J-j-just keep watching, Sensei Buck,” Trey said.

  “Every day, we who built this country with our bare hands, we who defeated the British with nothing more than perseverance and—”

  “Enslaved people!” someone shouted.

  “Yeah, fuck them!” someone else said until a wave of shushes silenced them.

  “One of the arenas where we’re being majorly attacked is the world of sales. Yes, the very profession that many of us blue-blooded Americans have occupied for years in order to earn an honest living, provide for our families, and move up in the world. The main antiwhite proponent in this battle is an anonymous group called the Happy Campers, who hide behind a grotesque logo depicting a Black Power fist clutching a telephone receiver. Well, I say enough is enough. If they want war, we are going to give them war. And we’re not going to hide behind any logos.”

  How do they know our logo? Our name?

  The sound of footsteps echoed throughout the speakers, and when another one of these Skull and Bones clones appeared on the screen, my heart dropped like someone in a dunk tank.

  No way.

  “Hey,” Brian whispered in my ear. “Isn’t that—”

  “I’m Clyde Moore the Third,” the guy on the screen said, smiling like Patrick Bateman in American Psycho. “President and founder of the White United Society of Salespeople. We started our organization in response to the racist and, frankly, terroristic likes of the Happy Campers, and I extend an invitation to every white salesman and saleswoman in America to join us in our fight for the right to be white, happy, and successful.

  “We’re growing every day, we can use all the help we can get, and we have an extensive professional network connected with every Ivy League secret society, Fortune 500 company, and even the Illuminati.” He laughed, motioning to the group of now smiling people seated behind him. “Just kidding, the Illuminati is for amateurs. We’re connected with the Freemasons. Anyway, feel free to give us a call, visit our website, or follow us on social media. We have big plans and are just beginning. We’ll be waiting.”

  Silence. In one swift motion, everyone turned to me. But I was frozen.

  “WUSS?” Rose shouted, standing up, flipping two birds at the screens. “We should be afraid of an organization that’s too stupid to even check their acronym? Really? I say we forget them, but what do you wanna do, Buckaroo?”

  I swallowed deeply, two hands gripping the shit out of the podium.

  Fuck.

  29

  It turns out we didn’t have to wait long for WUSS’s first move. And if you’re wondering how a few Happy Campers, like Trey, knew about WUSS while I and the other top brass didn’t, it’s because we were too damn distracted with our own shit and they were too afraid to let us know.

  The following Tuesday, every major newspaper, channel, and blog was talking about them, which is, I guessed, why Rhett called me into his office first thing that morning.

  “Sit.” He gripped a pool stick, and I felt like he was going to either ram it through my eyeball or hit me upside the head with it.

  “Did you see this?” He nodded toward a YouTube video on his screen. It had been posted the day before.

  “See what?”

  He pressed play. There’s a large group of people, mostly tourists, crowding around a platform. Behind it are people jogging and biking along the East River; you can see parked yachts, the Brooklyn Bridge, and a hot, clear-skied New York City day.

  If this were any other day, it wouldn’t be alarming. But it wasn’t any other day, because on the platform stands a lanky man with sun-toasted dark skin, toothpick-thin arms, and a salt-and-pepper beard that he can’t stop scratching. A dozen people of various sizes and shades of brown stand to his left, waiting their turn. On stage with him is none other than Clyde, dressed in a three-piece suit, with a monocle, top hat, pocket watch, and shiny wooden walking stick.

  “What you see here!” he shouts, sticking his cane out toward the smiling crowd, “is one of New York’s finest. This here man”—he exchanges whispers with him—“John Casor, hails from the rural jungles of Northampton County, Virginia. And instead of leeching off tourists, John is willing to work for his keep. He knows how to clean and will do whatever you need for three hots and a cot. Let’s start th
e bidding at twenty-five dollars. Do I have twenty-five?”

  The tourists look at one another, puzzled, likely wondering if this is one of those crazy New York City shows they heard about. A few raise their hands.

  “Thirty, do I see thirty?” Clyde calls. A shifty-looking Asian man closes the bidding out at seventy-five dollars for a month of John’s services. Clyde claps his hands. “Sold to Bruce Lee in the back!”

  The show went on for another twenty minutes, with homeless men and women—all minorities—auctioned off for next to nothing. Then the video cuts to Clyde and none other than Bonnie Sauren, who sticks a microphone in his face. “So, Mr. Moore, can you tell us what this is about?”

  “Surely,” he says, grabbing the microphone. “But, please, call me Clyde. So the White United Society of Salespeople and I went around Manhattan asking homeless people if, instead of being lazy, freeloading barnacles stuck to the great ship that is America, they would be willing to work if given the chance. Surprisingly enough, most of them said yes, so we decided to help them by auctioning off their services. In exchange, they’ll receive a place to stay, warm food, and, most importantly, they won’t be stinking up our subways and streets. It’s a win-win for all.”

  “Genius,” Bonnie says, staring up at Clyde’s blue eyes as if she’d never met such an innovative man. “Utter genius. And does this have anything to do with that Happy Camper group you mentioned in your video last week?”

  “It has everything to do with them,” he says, looking directly into the camera. “Honestly, they’re not all that different from the bums you just saw on stage. In fact, they’re worse, because you don’t know who they are and just how dangerous they can be. But, all the same, you can smell their fetid stench, and my organization and I plan to find out who’s behind them and expose them for the racist, white-hating terrorist organization they are.”