“Harper and I really don’t know if it’s okay. She wants to know so she can actually get dreadlocks, and I want to know because the Jefferson Weekly hasn’t had a really good article in forever. I mean a really good article. Something funky and unique, new and different.”
He wants to interview me about a hairstyle that’s been around since the dawn of time, for an article that’s “new and different.”
I look up at Harper, who’s looking at me like she wants to apologize for asking the question in the first place. Then I shoot Wyatt a look before turning my attention back to the door at the end of the hallway. The moment of silence is brief, interrupted by a deceptively apologetic Wyatt leaping in front of me and walking backward as he maintains this unwelcome conversation.
“Aw, don’t be like that, Kiers.” He smiles with one hand resting on his chest. “I’m asking because I got curious last night and found an article in the Atlanta Star about how white people wearing dreadlocks is cultural appropriation, and I thought you might have some opinions about it for the Jefferson Weekly.”
“I do have opinions about it,” I say as we step into the cafeteria, and I leave it at that. If I tell him I think white people look ridiculous with dreadlocks, it’s just going to escalate the conversation to places I don’t want to go. If I tell him white people should be allowed to wear dreads, he gets to use me in all his arguments from here on out with, “But my Black friend said . . .”
Wyatt drops it for now. Long enough for me to read the menu, anyway. It’s sloppy joe day, my favorite, and I quickly hop in line. The food at Jefferson is actually pretty good. When they say it’s sloppy joe day, you can expect the cafeteria to smell like actual sloppy joes, and the entrée to actually look and taste like a sloppy joe. It could do with some hot sauce, but at least it’s sweet and tangy like sloppy joes are supposed to be. I won’t touch the cafeteria chicken, though. They make baked chicken exactly as you’d expect it to taste—like nothing. Just sad, dry chicken. Mom might transfer me back to Belmont if I bring her home a plate. Sometimes, it’s tempting.
Wyatt orders two sloppy joes and double fries, no salad, because screw nutrition. Harper gets the exact opposite—sloppy joe filling without the bun, half the fries, and a gigantic salad, because #FitLife. My phone vibrates in my pocket and I shift all the weight of my tray—sloppy joe, fries, salad, apple, and milk—to one hand just so I can fish it out of my jacket pocket. I’m praying it’s a message from Cicada, but the one I see instead sends my heart palpitating.
Malcolm: I see you, Queen.
I look around, searching the throngs of students in the cafeteria like I’m searching for a lion among tall grass, because I know that if the word “Spelman” comes up, and we start talking, I’ll have to fake being the ecstatic ball of excitement I know he’ll be expecting. But then I realize Malcolm might be the perfect diversion, the only way for me to escape Wyatt’s asinine questions. So I keep searching, trying not to look too desperate to find him. Five hundred fifty-five of the students at Jefferson are white, leaving just twenty-five students of color estranged and unfamiliar with each other. Most are Indian and East Asian, a handful are Latinx, two are Filipino, and one is Sioux. Only four of us are Black—Me, Steph, Malcolm, and the new member of Beta Beta, Jazmin. When your demographic makes up such a tiny slice of the pie, it feels weird to reach out to the only students who look like you. It makes you look desperate. It makes you look shallow. It makes you wish you could retreat into a world where just once you don’t feel like an outsider. It’s why I created SLAY. I may have to deal with Jefferson all day, but when I come home, I get to pretend I’m not the minority, that my super-curly hair isn’t “weird” or “funky” or “new and different.” White kids read so many books and watch so many movies about white teenagers “just wanting to be normal.” How do they think I feel?
I spot Malcolm. He’s sitting in the far corner of the room, under the TV that’s playing the local news—they always show the news—no games, no daytime TV, just depressing stuff. He’s slouched against the wall in a plain white T-shirt and jeans, locs tied up, lineup looking clean, staring at me with that grin of his. Even after three years of dating, he still gives me butterflies. I can’t help but smile back as I slip my phone into my pocket, and just as I’m about to start in his direction, Wyatt snaps me out of my thoughts.
“Hey, where ya sitting?”
With someone who won’t ask me a million questions, I want to say.
“With Malcolm,” I say instead. I glance at Harper, who is staring at me like she’s been wounded.
“I thought you were going to help me study polynomials,” she whines. “Come on, Kix, I can’t do this without you. Can I come over tonight or something?”
Cicada and I are supposed to battle tonight before the tournament finals, since tomorrow is Saturday and I can sleep in. It’s one of those rare times when she and I, with our knowledge of all 1,245 SLAY cards, can battle it out and come up with new card ideas. My favorite thing to do in the entire world.
“I . . .” I glance at Malcolm, whose smile has fallen, probably wondering why I’m looking at him, maybe interpreting it as a silent cry for help. His eyes are darting between me and Harper and Wyatt, and he stands up. I know he’s about to intervene and make sure I’m okay, like he did at Belmont, unless I hurry up and defuse this. I don’t need Malcolm to get confrontational and show everyone in this cafeteria that the only Black boy here can’t resist a fight.
“Okay, Harper, I promise we can study tonight, okay? My place. Eight o’clock.”
I hate having to cancel another duel with Cicada. So much of my time logged in is spent programming and moderating players. It’s rare that I get to let my hair down and duel for fun anymore, and I know Cicada feels the same. But if it keeps Malcolm out of trouble, it’s a small price to pay.
“And I’ll come too,” chimes in Wyatt, “so I can get my burning questions about dreadlocks answered.”
Malcolm’s deep voice booms from behind me as I feel his enormous hand on my shoulder.
“What are your opinions on dreadlocks?” he asks smoothly. “S’this for that article?” I can hear the hesitation in his voice.
“Hey,” I say, intertwining my fingers in his. My phone buzzes again and I suddenly regret occupying both my hands. But it’s not long before Malcolm’s fingers leave mine and travel to my belt loop instead, and I can check WhatsApp.
Cicada: SOS! SOS!!!! ANUBIS IS OFFLINE.
I look up at the cafeteria clock. How is Anubis offline two minutes before the Desert Semifinals? Cicada is panicking, but I’m not. In a way, this is easier. Cicada and I get to announce a forfeiture to his would-be opponent, Spade, and move on to the finals. But people don’t carve time out of their schedules to watch a forfeiture. They want a fight.
“Hey, uh, babe?” I try to keep my voice steady, so Malcolm doesn’t pry. “I’m going to go sit and eat.”
“Did you hear what just came out this muhfucka’s mouth?” Malcolm asks me in a clearly restrained tone. I look at Harper, whose eyes are wide with panic, and then at Wyatt, with his impish smile. What did he just say? I had completely checked out and missed what he said.
“Sorry, Wyatt, I wasn’t listening.”
He shrugs.
“I just said that in some cases, white people rock dreads better than Black people.”
Oh, shoot. Of all the ignorant things Wyatt has said in the years that I’ve known him, this might be the thing that’ll finally get him knocked out. My phone buzzes in my hand, but I maintain eye contact with Malcolm instead to show that he has my full attention this time. I silently plead with him not to make a scene.
He seems to have understood me, because he says to Wyatt, “You keep thinking that,” and escorts me back to his table.
I steal a glance at Cicada’s next message.
Cicada: Help! What do I do??? Cancel the final round? Forfeit?
I set my tray on the table, and as I’m lowering myself onto the
bench beside Malcolm, I fire off a message that says, Just reschedule g2g sry.
I feel guilty. I’m abandoning her at a time of extreme confusion. I don’t blame her for panicking. She’s got over one hundred thousand logged-in users waiting to watch a duel between the two reigning champions of the Desert region—the biggest region on the map. I don’t know much about Cicada, but I do know she hates disappointing people, especially me. But I can’t just text Cicada the whole time Malcolm is sitting here trying to talk to me. He’ll get curious. He’ll ask questions. He’ll be hurt at the fact that I’d clearly rather text someone else than talk to the man I claim to love, right here in front of me, in the flesh.
“Ay, was Wyatt bothering you? ’Cause you know I’ll lay him out,” says Malcolm, wrapping his arm around my waist protectively.
I glance around the cafeteria before stealing a kiss. His lips are plump and soft, and I wish we could pause time and make out right here on this table. When it’s over, I look into his dark eyes and run my finger along his jawline playfully.
“Hey, Queen,” he says. His voice is soft but strained, as if he’s wishing the same thing.
Another text from Cicada comes through. My lunch tray amplifies the buzzing.
Malcolm takes notice this time. He gestures at it with his chin. “Who’s that?”
There’s no way I’m telling Malcolm about Cicada. The first question he’d ask about her is whether she’s Black. If I say she is, he’ll ask questions like How did you meet her? and Can I meet her? and What are her opinions on X, Y, and Z? If I lie and say she’s not, he’ll ask questions like Why in the world are you friends with her? and, every time I pull out my phone, Why are you talking to her instead of me? although more subtly (and more likely): S’that your new white friend?
“It’s Steph,” I lie. “Boy trouble.” I’ve been getting good at stretching the truth lately. It’s becoming part of who I am, and I don’t know yet if I’m okay with it, but I pop a couple fries in my mouth and layer on details to make it sound more believable.
“She’s talking about this boy. Matt. Goes to Harper and Wyatt’s church. I told her if he makes her happy, he’s got my approval.”
I take a bite of my sloppy joe and hold it level, managing to keep it all from leaking out the back of the bun. It’s sweet and hot and tangy and delicious, and I already want to put two more on my plate.
“Matt,” he repeats, stealing a fry off my plate and eating it. “That don’t sound like a Black name.”
He takes two more fries.
“Where’s your food?” I ask, hoping this change of subject isn’t too obvious. He has no tray, no drink, nothing. “Did you eat already?”
“Yeah,” he says. He leans back against the wall, picks up his black snapback from the bench next to him, nestles it on his head, and slides it down over his eyes.
“Tired?” I ask between bites. I glance at him and his hat bobs up and down as he nods in reply. I would bet money he stayed up all night reading. In fact, Malcolm does little else at home unless I’m over. He’s rarely on social media because he says it lets the government track our whereabouts, and he calls TVs “propaganda machines.” He’s a weirdo, but I love him. And he’s not a “conspiracy theorist,” as Steph says. He just entertains weird theories sometimes. He’s open-minded.
“So this Matt,” he continues as I shove a forkful of salad into my mouth. I take a deep breath and brace for the interrogation. “He’s white, ain’t he?”
“Actually, he’s brown. I don’t really know specifics.”
This lie is quickly getting out of control, and I try to think of a new subject, but the question he asks next piques my curiosity.
“That wasn’t the first question out your mouth?” he asks. I roll my eyes.
“Does it matter?” I ask.
Normally, I’d drop it. I don’t like the idea of expending energy debating the validity of a hypothetical relationship between my sister and a possibly nonBlack boy who doesn’t actually exist. But I’m curious why Malcolm thinks this is so important, so I prepare to listen.
“Hell yeah, it matters,” he says, leaning forward on the table and lifting his snapback to reveal his eyes. I can feel him looking at me, and I try to focus on my salad, but the silence chips away at my resolve, and eventually I’m looking at him.
“That’s exactly what the world wants, babe,” he explains. “They want to divide us. They want to break us up. The whole white world is after the Black nuclear family. Black kings are out here with these Latina and Asian women, saying they ‘don’t date Black women,’ and Black queens are out here deserting their kings for white dudes. And the media encourages it! That’s all you see in movies anymore! ‘Oh, look at this Black queen defying all odds and going to get her a white man!’ Implying ‘you can too!’ It’s sad.”
If only Malcolm would SLAY so he could see the Black Love card. If only I could tell him just how much it means to me to build up mutual respect and adoration between Black men and Black women. If only I could show him instead of telling him.
“I get it,” I say, leaning in for a reassuring kiss, “and I love my Black king.”
His eyes are smiling, and he flashes me that handsome grin before snatching a few more fries off my tray and popping them into his mouth.
“That’s all I’m sayin’ then,” he says. “Black folks wanna be out here claiming they ‘down for the cause’ with a colonizer on their arm. Shit makes me sick.”
Wait, is he saying you can’t be for the advancement of Black people if you’re dating someone who’s not Black?
“Uh,” I begin. “What?”
He looks at me in confusion and blinks a few times before answering, “You can’t truly be for us if you don’t love us.”
“Just because a sister or brother dates outside their race, it doesn’t mean they don’t love Black people.”
“Prove it.”
I roll my eyes. “There’s nothing to prove here, Malcolm. You’re confusing correlation with causation. Yes, there are Black men out there who date nonBlack women, and vice versa, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they hate them. You can be Black, and date outside your race, and advocate for everybody Black.”
He pauses, and the silence becomes uncomfortable. I finally look up at him as he replies, “You saying you’d date a white boy?”
What if I would? Would that instantly disqualify me from the Black advocacy Olympics? I mean, I don’t think I could date a white person, solely on the basis that whoever I date would have to understand me on a level that only someone who shares my experiences could. Malcolm knows how it feels to be a Belmont transplant at Jefferson. He knows what it means to code-switch, as best as he can anyway. He knows what it means to have every word he says cross-referenced with the stereotypes already well established in the music and movies and minds of these Jefferson kids, and to be prepared to explain himself if they don’t match. Malcolm gets me on a level that no other boy possibly could. Doesn’t he understand that? I have to smile at how threatened he feels by this entire conversation, and I decide to lighten things up.
“I mean, I don’t know, Malcolm. Have you seen that kid Avery lately?”
Avery, the boy who picks his earwax in class and eats it.
Malcolm isn’t smiling with me, though. Finally, he tears his eyes away from me and pulls out his phone.
“Don’t even play,” he finally chuckles, but it’s one of those I can’t believe this shit chuckles, and not a ha-ha one.
I roll my eyes. Whatever. At least I don’t have to worry about dating. At the rate Malcolm and I are going, we’ll end up in Atlanta together, married one day, with little Black babies, and I won’t have to think about dating outside my race and “betraying my people.” It’s what I want more than anything. It’s what I’ve always wanted. The reality of it will sink in, I’ll be able to share the good news about Spelman with him, and we’ll both be happy. As I unfold my milk carton, the TV on the wall above Malcolm fades from a black
screen, signaling the end of a commercial break—back to the news. An earnest-looking news lady is staring at the camera as if she has the news story of the century, and I read the banner flying across the screen below her that says: Nigerian rebel leader to meet with president for peace talks.
I sigh and take another bite of sloppy joe. More people getting killed in Africa. Malcolm says I shouldn’t be shocked anymore at how often US news networks feel the need to remind Black people how much worse we would’ve had it if we’d stayed in Africa, which is, of course, bullshit. He thinks it’s the establishment’s way of driving home the idea that we should be grateful for what we have. It’s their way of keeping us submissive in America.
I tend to think it’s to keep us from unifying across the diaspora and becoming as powerful in real life as our SLAY characters.
The banner now reads something new that strikes me.
Boy shot in his sleep over video game.
My chest tightens at the reminder of how cruel people can be. As a game developer, I’m not just an artist. I’m not just a coder. I feel a certain responsibility for the people who play my game. Their characters are an extension of them, after all. I see them all every night. We compete, we barter, we trade, we converse, we create. There are real people behind those characters, and I suddenly feel sorry for whoever developed the game behind this murder. I watch and wait to see which game it is, although I suspect it’s Legacy of Planets, that MMORPG Wyatt always plays. That game has millions of players, some of whom have died of pulmonary embolisms from blood clots that can develop after sitting still and doing nothing but playing for days in a row. With how seriously people take Legacy, I wouldn’t be surprised to hear of someone being killed in real life over it.
The camera pans to a reporter standing in front of a mess of caution tape, and I take another bite of my sloppy joe. I can feel Malcolm lean forward behind me and suddenly begin kissing my neck, which he could’ve waited to do because my mind can’t focus on both the deliciousness of this sandwich and the deliciousness of Malcolm. I force a giggle, trying to look as cute as possible with a mouthful of sloppy joe, and soon I really am laughing because of how ridiculous the whole situation is.
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