K and 17th Streets July 1
Anjean Jameson stood on the street corner and watched an Asian man selling sunglasses. Korean, he thought. And the guy at the next booth—Korean, too. Another Korean next to him. And they all were peddling shit. These weren’t DKNY sunglasses. Or Tommy. Or Ray-Ban. You don’t get shit like that for nine dollars. Not even if some G.B.’ers do a warehouse. The words on the frame don’t mean nothing. They must crank this shit out somewhere. Maybe in Korea, wherever that was. But one thing he told himself he knew was that you don’t get nothing for almost-nothing. Either you pay the man and get it real. Like his T-land specs. One-seventy-five, in Georgetown. He dished it out. Two Bennies. The sales clerk couldn’t even look at him. Like his money was no good. But she held out her hand, didn’t she? Palm up.’Cause green is green … . Or you take it. You want, you take. That’s the other way. So you give it to the man or you take it from the man. You don’t pay no change to some squinty Korean chink who smiles at you, holds up a mirror to your uglyass face, and says, “Lookgood, lookgood.” But he had one fool after another. Office creeps crawling to work. Twelve dollars for a Calvin Klein. Man, who believes that bullshit? People are fucking stupid.
Jameson fixed his gaze on the entrance to an office building across the street and pushed his sunglasses tight against the bridge of his nose. Motherfucker, he said to himself. Can’t fucking believe I’m sweating my ass off in the god-damn a.m. That sucker’s not right. It ain’t. I could have taken steel for that shit. I could’ve been busted at the chink’s house. Man, why are there so many fucking gooks every-fucking-where? I fucking hate this shit.
He wiped his brow with his sleeve. He felt the moisture beneath the silk bandana wrapped around his head. No fucking way, he thought. He should have listened to me. Showed respect. He could have entertained
what I was trying to say. Man, just entertain it. Consider the damn proposition.
The Korean peddler looked at him. He was in between customers.
Like I can’t fucking stand here, Korean chink-man, Jameson thought. Brothers made this country, when your sorry-ass was in a rice paddy somewhere.
The Korean turned toward a customer.
You worry how to rip the fools, Jameson silently said to the Korean.
Starrell came out of the office building. A white woman was with him. They walked down K Street.
Good, Jameson thought. They ain’t taking no cab. Man, even in Chocolate City, a nigger can’t get a cab. Fucking Africans, man. Don’t even speak English.
He crossed the street and followed the pair.