14.1
A few days later, Rupert and Jesus were escorted to a table by a large, delightfully effeminate Arabic man. Jesus, for once, wore a pair of jeans, but as usual, sported a Pullers jersey.
“Did you even go to that college?” Rupert asked.
“High school. And nope. All girls school. Unheard of upper body strength.”
Rupert looked at the shiny surface of the menu, but his attention was focused on the bustle around him. As it turned out, Jesus didn’t eat at places like the Florida Fried Gator chain. He had finer tastes. A more developed palette. The restaurant was Zibda, situated along a canal that had been gussied up for tourists.
Once Rupert could focus, everything looked good and, again, slathered in butter. His appetite was weak, but he knew he’d regret not eating later as his glucose level dropped and he’d grow slow and morose, so he resolved to try. At least it was evening and he’d be able to sleep soon.
He’d spent the morning selling Golden Tickets with Jesus and then the afternoon meeting with Tommy in his banana-stinking Cutlass. Then he was off to sell the banana-stinking meth Tommy experimented with. He needed to stop eating at the FFG—it wasn’t pulling him through the day. So many empty gator-based calories.
“And you’re having?” Jesus asked.
“Ta’amia with shrimp. You?”
“Lobster Ful Medames.”
“That’s a thing?” Rupert searched the menu.
“It is.” Jesus closed his.
A different large, delightfully effeminate Arabic man swished over to them, and leaned on the table, not for support, but for flourish.
“As-salāmu ʿalayka,” Rupert said and smiled.
“I speak English, honey,” the waiter smiled. “But peace be upon you, too. If you’re lucky, a big ol’ sexy piece, just like you.” Then he winked.
Rupert was not offended.
“Jesus,” the waiter continued. “My sweet, but hot tamale . . . ” Then he laughed and looked at Rupert. “I’m so racist.”
Rupert was still not offended. It was fascinating how this worked.
Jesus laughed, the waiter laughed, Rupert laughed. The people at the next table laughed, but Rupert was pretty sure it was about something else.
“Jesus knows me,” the waiter said to Rupert. “My name is Amged—”
“But on weekend evenings, it’s Amera,” Jesus offered, rolling the r for about three seconds and making Amged squeal and cover his mustachioed mouth.
“Heysoooos,” Amged said. “Okay, babies, what’ll you have?”
They made their orders, Amged winked at both of them, and disappeared into the chaos of a Friday night dinner rush.
“Kudos for not being a dick,” Jesus said.
“Why would I be a dick?”
“People can be dicks.”
That was true enough.
“He seems like a nice guy,” Rupert said, trying to squeeze as far away from the busy side of the table as possible. “Very personable.”
“He’s got a great show when he steps out as Amera.”
“With the mustache?”
“Rupert, these ladies are masters of foundational coverage.” Jesus pulled his cutlery from his napkin and laid it across his lap.
“Gotta be who you gotta be,” Rupert replied and did the same.
“Boom. So, how’s your, um, other job going?”
Rupert said nothing for a moment, then: “I think whatever he’s using to scent the meth will cause cancer. On the bright side, it’s better than the smell from the air fresheners. And he insists on pre-sales meetings, in the car, with the air fresheners.”
“Windows down?”
“Doesn’t matter. That’s definitely going to cause cancer.” Rupert fiddled with his salad fork, and then leveled Jesus with a look that begged for a swift and merciful execution. “At night, I’m learning Ebonics.”
“What?” Jesus laughed.
“Tommy is convinced that Ebonics is an inherent feature of Blackness. Like a factory setting.”
“Are there innate features of Blackness?”
“How the hell should I know? But I have to look up words online every night in order to sustain our cultural barter system.”
“Cultural barter system. So, he gets Ebonics lessons and you get . . . ?”
“Nothing, yet.”
“What are these meetings for anyway?”
“The meetings are for the fucking Ebonics lessons.”
Jesus laughed again. Then apologized. Then laughed again.
“So far, we’ve covered tight, ill, skrilla, crunk, dilly, and badonkadonk.”
“Oh, I know that last one! And tight. And ill. Okay, and dilly.”
“I didn’t.”
“I’m bilingual.”
“I’m biracial!”
“Schlemiel/Schlemazel.”
“You don’t look Jewish.”
Jesus winked.
“Well, Tommy Bananas knows them now, and I’m afraid he’s going to start using them. He’s going to get beat on.”
“I’m sure he’s used to it.”
A large party of loud, tanned people bustled by and Rupert stiffened.
“You don’t like people, do you?” Jesus noted.
“Not so much dislike, but,” Rupert started, but then thought. “No, it’s that, too. I don’t like people in a general way, yes, but it’s more a kind of phobia. ‘Social anxiety.’” Finger quotes.
“You need to relax.”
“I do, but I can’t. Like Tommy can’t leave his car.”
“Hmm.” Jesus looked grim, but then brightened. “But you are good at sales, that’s the truth. So, how’s that side going? The actual selling.”
“It’s a little harder and less effective to push without a partner, that’s a fact. Though, I hate to say it, the scented meth thing is kind of working. People dig it. You would think they wouldn’t care, but if given a choice . . . .
“They are, on some level, discerning.”
Rupert nodded.
“He doesn’t even raise the usual cost, so it’s available to anyone who can get the regular shit. If they have a choice, they go for cancer-nanner, which is what I’ve been calling it.” Rupert said. “He calls it Tropical Supreme.”
“Did I hear someone over here say badonkadonk?” Amged sauntered over to them, hips rolling, and then, with an ultra-white, wide smile, served the food.
* * *
They left Zibda and took a stroll to aid digestion, walking past more restaurants and high-end art stores that featured ocean waves made of blown glass. Jesus lingered window-shopping a little. Rupert shifted from foot to foot, wanting to be away from the crowd of tropics-shirted husbands and sandaled, toe-ringed wives. Jesus moved on and Rupert tried to speed up their pace a bit. The backs of the businesses faced the canal and just ahead, the sidewalk ended at an inset boat launch, perpendicular to the canal, where the crowds turned and made their way back from whence they came. Rupert steered Jesus in that direction.
“I’m telling you, though, man, Golden Tickets are where it’s at,” Jesus continued the conversation.
“You know, Jesus, Tommy Bananas did say one sensible thing.”
“Yeah, what’s that?”
“That the whole Crack Planet thing is a scam.” Rupert scratched his head. “I mean, at least if you’re selling them drugs, they’re getting something, and a lot cheaper. All they get for $99.99 is a piece of gold-painted, Sherpied balsa wood.”
Jesus smiled. “People gotta have faith, man.”
This was the first time Rupert questioned Jesus’s sanity since he’d gotten to better know him, and he felt disappointed and alone.
“It’s cool,” Jesus said. “You do what you do and I’ll do what I do. You’re only making more Golden Ticket buyers.”
“I guess so.” Rupert shook his head. They stood near the edge of the abruptly ending sidewalk, where tourists turned around and made their mundane, predictable way back to wherever they valeted their car. Rupert lowered his voice and bent down to Jesus’s ear. “I don’t want to sell meth. I don’t want to sell anything. I want to learn how to cook.”
“What the hell you wanna do that for?” Jesus looked at him, incredulous. “No joke, güey, that shit’s dangerous. And it’s not so easy to get into. Making meth is an artisanal process—it requires a certain amount of skill and dedication. Some cookers are working with handcrafted recipes lovingly passed down by generations of their families—granted, they are plagued with teen pregnancies, incest, and overall genetic impairment, so their generations don’t go back very far, but still.”
“Hmm.”
“Bill’s not going to show you. And from what I’ve heard, his shit isn’t so good to begin with.”
“I was thinking of getting Tommy to teach me,” Rupert said.
Jesus thought for a moment.
“He might. I mean, he’s working with recipes from his dad, who’s still cooking. But I’m telling you, bróder, it’s not the way to go.”
They were silent for a bit, looking over the boat launch to the adjacent canal.
“The tourists think this shit’s romantic—the water,” Jesus said. “Notice Zibda has that big window facing the water around the corner. They all do. Fact is, though, the canals? Cesspools of stinking garbage that kill the wildlife. Take a whiff.”
Rupert did and under the smell of tropical flowers landscaped all along the sidewalk he could smell the stench of pollution, that toxic scent that any normal person’s innate instinct would be to avoid. And yes, debris gathered and ebbed in the corners of the launch, tiny pools of some oily substance floated over the surface. It was getting on dusk and a little harder to see than it would have been at high noon. Super romantic.
“Hey, what’s that?” Rupert pointed to a large grey hump protruding from the water. “Is that a manatee?”
Jesus looked and nodded, unimpressed. Rupert supposed he saw manatees all the time.
“Don’t see them much in DC,” Rupert pointed out.
Sock it to me...