Black Buck

by Mateo Askaripour

  Bonnie nodded, mesmerized. “And what has the response been?” she asked, grabbing a vanilla cookie.

  “Extremely positive. People agree with what we’re doing and what we stand for, which is putting an end to all of this color crap. We’re all Americans and need to do our part to get ahead. No special treatment for anyone. And if there are people out there like those Happy Camper terrorists who think that they deserve special treatment, they’re in for a very rude awakening.”

  I looked up from the phone. Rose was gone. She was already halfway to the crowd. I yelled after her.

  She turned around and saluted me, pushing her way through the crowd. Seconds later, baked goods and coffee flew in the air as if they were bouncing off a trampoline, followed by screams and shouting. I wanted to go and get her but couldn’t. If Clyde saw me, he’d know that I was involved, which would destroy everything.

  One of Clyde’s soldiers, a barrel-chested guy with a buzz cut, wrapped Rose in his arms and let her go once police arrived. PSST got all of it.

  * * *

  That night, Jake sent Trey to get her out, and when she returned to HQ, everyone clapped and whistled, a true soldier’s homecoming.

  Fuck this. “Shut up!” I shouted. The party paused.

  “Chill, D,” Soraya said, grabbing my arm.

  I yanked it away. “No. There is no fucking reason we should be celebrating.” I swung my head around the room and stopped at Rose. “What you did today. You could have fucking ended everything we’ve worked for. For what? To flip a table?”

  “To stand up to those peckerwoods,” Jason said, standing next to Rose.

  “Which is more than you’ve done,” she added.

  The entire room stood still as if stuck in time. “I’m just trying to make sure we survive this,” I said, softening my voice.

  “What’s the point of just surviving, Buckaroo? It’s what we’ve done since we were first brought to this country. Me?” Rose said, turning to the group. “I’m tired of surviving. I want to thrive.”

  Behind Jason and Rose stood fifty Happy Campers reflecting the same murderous desire for action. I knew what was up. Fuck a mutiny, this was a coup.

  “Think,” I said, desperately appealing to reason. “If we do anything we can’t take back, this all goes up in flames.”

  “Maybe so,” Jason said. “But I’d rather go out free in a burnin’ buildin’ than alive and shackled in the basement.” Tired, furious heads nodded.

  “Everyone out!” I shouted, and turned to Jason and Rose. “Except you two.”

  “Even us?” Brian asked, nodding toward Ellen, Jake, and Soraya.

  “Even you,” I said, holding my eyes on Jason and Rose.

  Once the floor was empty, Jason stretched out on the couch lengthwise, and Rose grabbed a beer.

  “Are you trying to ruin us?” I asked, watching Rose plop down next to Jason.

  “We tryna save us,” Jason said.

  Rose smiled up at me. “Not trying, Buckaroo. We are,” she said, extending a phone in my direction.

  “What is this?” I saw a photo of a sweaty white guy making out with a Black guy in what looked like a dingy club.

  “Look closer,” Rose said, increasing the brightness on her phone.

  It took me a second, but I saw it. The sweaty white guy was Clyde, but I couldn’t identify the Black guy.

  “What the fuck is this?”

  Jason and Rose looked at each other and laughed. “You said to get creative. But, honestly, it was luck, because this fell from the sky. I was at Cubbyhole with Dolores, you know, doing our date-night thing, when we overheard some guy, the Black dude in the photo, crying to his friend about his ‘lover,’” Rose said, with air quotes.

  “So I moved closer and got the whole scoop. Clyde and this dude have been secretly dating for years, but this WUSS stuff is tearing them apart. So I just lifted his phone, found a handful of photos of them, texted them to myself, deleted the texts, and then returned the phone as if nothing happened. He doesn’t even know. Now we can send these to the media and blow his whole, closeted, self-hating, racist spot up.”

  “Shit’s genius,” Jason said, sitting up. “We luckier than a motherfucker. ’Bout to send these off first thing in the mornin’ and get shit poppin’ like Vietnam.”

  I looked down at the phone, scrolling through the handful of photos of Clyde and his boyfriend: in a jacuzzi, smiling with champagne in their hands; holding each other in a hotel room overlooking the Hudson; with fat pieces of cheesecake in front of them, forks ready to dig in. This was what we were waiting for, what we needed to get the upper hand, but it wasn’t right.

  “Nah,” I said, deleting the photos, emptying her trash folder, and handing the phone back.

  “What do you mean, ‘Nah!’” she shouted, furiously flipping through her phone for the missing photos. She turned to Jason, fire raging in her eyes with her mouth half open. “He just fucking deleted our leverage!”

  Jason jumped off the couch and stood eye to eye with me, ready to tear me apart. “What the fuck? I thought you was about this shit. Whose side are you on?”

  “It’s not right,” I said. “Outin’ Clyde to embarrass him? That shit’s too low for us.”

  Rose took a breath and looked up at me. “This is war, Buckaroo. Anything goes. The point is to win, and you just brought us one step closer to losing. Why would you do that?”

  I turned to her, wondering where the girl who had no place to call home six months ago went, the girl who told me that what she wanted most in the world was a family. I supposed she got what she wanted, and she was doing everything to protect it.

  “We gotta have some integrity, Rose. This isn’t a game; it’s people’s lives.”

  Jason sucked his teeth. “Not a game? Tha’s all you talk about, nigga. That we gotta ‘fix the game,’ ‘the game’s rigged and we gotta even the playin’ field,’ ‘we gotta do whatever it takes to get ahead.’ Now you here with this conscience and integrity bullshit? Miss me with all that, son. If you not gonna do what it takes to hold this shit down,” he said, looking at Rose, “we will.”

  Reader: Life, like sales, comes with an endless amount of opportunities to do the wrong thing to win. But understand that whether you take those opportunities or not, consequences still follow. And they won’t always be in your favor.

  31

  Despite the week’s crazy start, peace reigned for all of Wednesday and Thursday. I was now breathing just a bit easier.

  I’d promised Eddie, Marissa, and Frodo I’d grab lunch with them on Friday, to catch up, but as I headed out of Sumwun to join them, Rhett pushed open the frosted glass doors, grabbed me by the arm, and shoved me toward his office.

  “What the fuck?” I asked once we were inside.

  “That’s what I’m asking myself, Buck,” he said, thrusting a piece of paper into my hand.

  I looked down and saw about fifty signatures on it, with PETITION TO REMOVE BUCK in bold letters at the top.

  “Huh?” I scanned the list of names, beginning with Tiffany and including people from all levels of the sales team.

  “You have at least fifty people there,” Rhett said, jabbing the paper, “who want you out. They say you’re unfit to lead. How could you let it get to this?”

  “It’s not me, Rhett,” I said, shaking my head in disbelief. “It’s Clyde! He’s somehow invaded the ranks with his white supremacist shit.”

  “White supremacist shit? Buck, I need you to be honest with me now more than ever. You remember our promise, right?”

  “Yes,” I said. “Of course.”

  “And you know I love you like a brother, right?”

  “Yes, Rhett,” I said, the paper shaking in my hands. “What is it? Just say it.”

  “Are you part of the Happy Campers? I can’t see you being involved in something like this, but I need to be sure.”

  Something told me to just get out with it then and there, but I didn’t know what the consequences w
ould be. And there was still a part of me, despite everything, that didn’t want to disappoint him. In many ways, he had given me a brand-new life.

  “I already told you, Rhett. I am not a part of the Happy Campers and have no affiliation with them. The last thing I’d want to do is get Sumwun caught up in this race mess.”

  He sighed with relief and sat down, signaling for me to do the same. “Good. I know you’re too smart for that, but I had to be sure. What I think would be best is for you to denounce the Happy Campers in front of the entire sales team, so everyone knows whose side you’re on.”

  My mouth went dry. “What do you mean ‘side,’ Rhett? If I denounce the Happy Campers, won’t that make it seem like we’re supporting Clyde?”

  He scratched his forehead. “Maybe so, but you have fifty people right there on that list who are ready to quit if you don’t win them back. And we can’t have that type of media scrutiny, not again. It’s a matter of survival, Buck.”

  “Whose survival, Rhett? A lot of the Sumwunners of color look up to me, and to denounce the Happy Campers would make me look like an Uncle Tom. I can’t do that.”

  He snatched the petition from my hands and stood up. “It’s not about race, Buck! Stop being so simple. It’s all about the company. No one cares about the color of your skin. Frankly, you’re being narcissistic.”

  I thought back to my first day at Sumwun and saw myself covered in white paint, the bucket hanging above me as everyone laughed and laughed and laughed. I’d come a long way since then, had gained the world, lost it, and was setting it right again—for Ma, myself, and the future generation—so there was no turning back.

  “Whatever, man,” I said, heading for the door. “I’m not going to do what you asked, but I will figure out a way to fix this.”

  “You better.”

  * * *

  “What was that all about?” Eddie asked as I approached their table at the Shake Shack in Madison Square Park.

  “That petition,” I said, taking a seat. “You guys know about it?”

  Eddie looked at Marissa, who looked at Frodo, who turned to me, fear on his face. “Uh, yeah, I did, Buck, but I didn’t think it was anything important, so I didn’t bring it up.” He nervously inserted half of a ShackBurger into his mouth.

  “So much for being my belt.”

  Marissa reached across the table and placed a hand on my shoulder. “Don’t worry about any of this, Buck. Half of those people are mad about deals or something else that has nothing to do with you.”

  “It has everything to do with me. They want me out.”

  Eddie laughed, tossing a fry at me. “That’ll never happen, so stop sulking. But, hey, what about Clyde, huh? He’s going off the rails.”

  “Yeah,” Frodo whispered. “He’s like, um, taking this all to another level. Who knows what he’ll do next.”

  “But those Happy Campers sort of came out of nowhere too, right?” Eddie said.

  “Yeah,” Marissa agreed. “It’s like some top-secret organization. I wonder if they do human sacrifices.”

  Eddie placed a single fry into his mouth. “It’s the Illuminati. I just know it.”

  I laughed, trying to lighten up. “You ever hear that Kendrick line about Black men and the Illuminati?”

  Crickets and stares.

  “Never mind.” I shook my head. “But seriously, guys? You think there’s some conspiracy going on? It’s just a bunch of Black salespeople who started some club to feel special.”

  Eddie narrowed his eyes across the table, beheading a fry. “Hmm, sounds like you’re on the inside. Got something to tell us, Buck?”

  I forced myself to breathe, then laugh. “Me? They must think I’m part of the system, because I never got an invitation.”

  “Just like my letter from Hogwarts,” Frodo muttered.

  “Well I actually know a Happy Camper,” Eddie announced.

  “Stop lying,” Frodo said. “How would you know a Happy Camper?”

  “I won’t say where we met, but we recently started dating,” he said, leaning in now, whispering. “After I open him up with a few drinks, he becomes really talkative. He swears he’ll tell me who’s behind it all if I let him hit it.”

  Frodo looked around. “Hit what, Eddie? If anyone hits you, I’ll strangle them.”

  “Thanks,” Eddie said, rubbing Frodo’s hand. “But, yeah, this guy says things are tense over there, real tense. Like there’s a civil war going on in response to Clyde and his cronies. It’s all v juicy.”

  Motherfucker! I twisted my hands beneath the table. Whoever’s talking to Eddie must also be the one who tipped Clyde off about our plans to hack him. I ran through all of the gay, bi, or possibly questioning guys in the group. There were more than a few.

  “Who’s the lucky guy?” I asked, taking a sip of my shake, trying to be casual.

  Eddie pinched my cheek, smirking. “You know I don’t kiss and tell, Buck. But I will say he’s incredibly intelligent, good with computers, and”—he opened both hands like a magician—“he’s African.”

  Kujoe. That rat motherfucker. Right in my own house, at Sumwun, in front of my own face. How did I not see this? He must have warned Clyde about the hacking and told him about us in the first place. Right before I tried to get more info, my phone rang. It was Jason.

  “One second, guys,” I said, getting up, unclenching my fist.

  “Hello?”

  “Yo, come to HQ.”

  “For what?”

  He laughed. “I gotta surprise for you.”

  A surprise? I didn’t want any surprises, especially from him. “What is it?”

  “Man,” he said, sucking his teeth so hard my ear vibrated. “If I told you, it wouldn’ be a surprise, now would it? Stop playin’ and get over here.”

  “Aight.”

  I walked back over to the table and said I had to go.

  “Come on,” Frodo pleaded, his lips as glossy as a freshly waxed floor. “We never get to hang anymore.”

  “I’m sorry. This was fun, though. Let’s do it again next month.”

  “See you, Buck,” Marissa said, planting a greasy kiss on my cheek.

  “Peace, Eddie,” I said, leaning in for a hug. “Good luck with your guy. What’s his name again? Prince Akeem?”

  He sealed his lips with his fingers, twisted them, and threw the key over his shoulder. “Nice try.”

  * * *

  I stood at the base of the stairs and saw the second-floor lights on before stepping inside.

  “Yo,” I called, looking into an empty room full of phones on the first floor. There were usually people there, but it was a Friday. I guessed Rose had sent them home early.

  As I walked upstairs, I saw a dark figure standing on the second-floor landing.

  “Who the fuck is that?”

  “Mr. Buck? It’s Jake. Dang, Jason lost his goddamn mind, I swear. There’s somethin’ goin’ on in there, but he’s not lettin’ anyone in. It’s jus’ him ’n’ Rose, ’n’ they tol’ everyone to leave. If somethin’s goin’ down, I gotta know. It’s my job.”

  I moved him aside and knocked.

  “Who is it? I told y’all to bounce.”

  “Jason, it’s me.”

  “Finally.”

  He cracked the door open and looked around. “Jus’ you,” he said, keeping his eyes on Jake. “And don’ speak too loudly.”

  The kitchen and living room were empty save for Rose and someone tied to a thick plank of wood propped up by two sawhorses. A black cloth bag covered the person’s head, and there was a large empty bucket underneath.

  “What the fuck did you do?” I pushed past Jason and stood in front of the man. “Who is this?”

  Rose laughed. “It’s Justin Bieber,” she said, slapping the man’s head so hard it sounded like heavy water hitting pavement.

  The man twisted his body and screamed, his voice muffled like he was underwater.

  “We gagged him with some sock we found under the couch and
jammed in ear plugs so he can’t hear shit,” Jason said proudly. “But keep your voice down. Don’ know the quality of the ear plugs. Prolly some knockoff shit.”

  “No, I think they’re industrial,” Rose said.

  “What. The. Fuck. Is going on here?” I whispered, looking back and forth between them.

  “What do you think, Buckaroo? We’re fighting back. That whole hacking thing was a dud. And since you vetoed our plan to blackmail Clyde with his Black male, it’s time for some real action.”

  I looked at Jason, standing with his arms folded over his chest, grinning like someone about to cannonball into a pool and make a mess.

  “This isn’t who I think it is, is it?”

  Rose shrugged. “It’s not not who you think it is.”

  “Tha’s right,” Jason said, eyes popping like Malcolm McDowell’s in A Clockwork Orange. “And we ’bout to go straight Guantánamo on his ass.”

  “Spanish Inquisition,” Rose corrected. “I think they did it first.”

  “Are you both out of your minds?!” I shouted. “This is serious as fuck, man. If we get caught, we’re not only done but we’re also going to jail.”

  “Since when did you get so pussy, nigga? I wan’ that guy who punched me in the face las’ year. It was a bitch move, but at leas’ it was a move. Damn. Plus”—Jason placed a hand on my shoulder—“you not really runnin’ the show anymore, bro.”

  Rose reached under the black bag and removed the dirty sock from Clyde’s mouth and the plugs from his ears. He sucked in a huge breath of air. “You’re all going to die for this,” he coughed. “You think you can just kidnap whoever you want? I’m Clyde Reynolds Moore the Third! The fucking Third. Do you know what that means?”

  “Not really,” Rose said. She rolled the black bag up to the bottom of his nose and laid a rag over his mouth. “But I’m sure it means your daddy’s daddy’s daddy probably owned some enslaved people. And that the land your daddy’s daddy’s daddy owned was passed down through the years, accruing generational wealth along the way and lining your pockets with money made from cotton picked by the very enslaved people they owned.”