Angry Black White Boy Read Online Free Page B

“Are we finished?” He’d been going for a kind of
Sir, request dismissal
tone, but Macon couldn’t disguise his boredom and the words sounded insolent instead. Scott slammed him up against a locker, mad corny, like they were characters in a John Hughes movie, and Macon wanted to want to laugh, but instead his ears burned and he wanted to kill Scott Cartwright, hated himself because at that moment he cared what Scott Cartwright thought of him—felt ridiculous, ashamed. And yet Macon knew he’d courted this. He wanted his defection from whiteness and his acceptance by black people to be public, the subject of wonder and envy, anger and scorn.
    Just then Omari had rounded the corner: Macon’s homeboy, Cartwright’s co-captain. Scott backed away, sheathed his hands in khaki pockets, watched Macon give Omari a pound and followed suit. As soon as the rapper/midfielder went on his way, Scott’s finger was right back in Macon’s face.
    “You better watch your fuckin’ attitude, bro. I don’t care how tight you are with the niggers. I’ll kick your fuckin’ ass.”
    The passenger on the left, Scott’s look-alike, was cursing at his cell phone. “I can’t get a fucking signal on this piece of shit,” he said, slapping it closed against his leg.
    “Forget it, man.” Punctuality rapped twice on the partition. “Hey, turn that down, will you?” Macon reduced the music to a whisper. Every passenger but one had made the same request. “I gotta hear enough of this shit as it is,” Punctuality told Scott. “Two in the morning last night, these guys in their fuckin’ SUVs are rattling my windows three floors up.”
    “What I want to know,” said Scott, “is how they can afford forty-thousand-dollar cars. With custom stereos.”
    Punctuality laughed. “We’re in the wrong business, bro.”
    “Seriously, dude. First thing tomorrow, I’m gonna go get an Adidas sweatsuit and find myself a nice street corner. Sell a little crack and buy myself a Lexus.”
    Macon tightened his grip on the steering wheel and tried to concentrate on the road. The two passengers were silent for a minute. As Macon merged onto the FDR, Scott spoke.
    “So who’s this girl tonight? Kim’s friend?”
    “Her name is Kaliyah, Kalikah, something like that.”
    “She hot?”
    “Hope so.”
    “Black chick?”
    “Yeah.” Scott played with his phone and Macon couldn’t take it: He knew them too well, better than he knew himself, knew what they were thinking and everything they’d ever thought and it was vile, all of it, smug and oblivious. The eternal fear of waking up as one of these mix-and-matchable bar-hopping assholes kept Macon clenched with vigilance, tight as a fist. Loathing frothed within him, bubbled over the sides of its containment vat, and splattered onto Macon’s rational mind. It was corrosive. He jerked the wheel, hand crossing over hand. A vertebrae popped as Macon leaned into the turn; his biceps flared and he felt the tattoo there burn as if it had just been etched into his skin. A sweat-drip blotted in his armpit, horns blared past him, other drivers cursed him and their spittle flew against the insides of their windows. The cab cut right across two lanes and veered onto the shoulder of the highway. Macon mashed the brakes, and Cartwright and Punctuality careened forward, heads colliding with the scratched plastic partition, then fell back into their seats as the taxi recoiled. Macon’s shirt stuck to his skin, soaked; a few seconds of adrenaline was all it took.
    In the backseat, terror turned to anger just as fast. “What the fuck?” Scott roared, bracing his arms and legs against the door, the walls, the floor. “What are you, some kind of maniac?”
    Macon slapped a button and the silver door locks bulleted into their sheaths. Scott clawed with his thumb and index finger, trying to pull one of the little cylinders back up. His friend watched and mimicked, laying fumbling hands on his own panel. Macon’s