A History of the African-American People (Proposed) by Strom Thurmond by Percival Everett, James Kincaid

in New York but HAD to meet him somewhere.
    I should have quit my job right there, you are thinking. I guess so, but look at it from my point of view. I am young, just out of NYU (major in English), and here in my first job, which is a good job, but for Snell, who constitutes pretty much the entire material world of my job and that’s rotten fucking luck. How could I quit? I mean, maybe Snell will be fired and I won’t. Maybe he’ll die or that Vendetti will kill him. Maybe he’ll kill Vendetti and I can rat on him anonymously and get him sent up the river. You see.
    So, this Wilkes pins me down to Atlantic City last weekend. Here’s where I need help and advice. But first let me give you a brief glimpse of what happened. If you need more details, I’ll give them. They’re humiliating, but what the hell. I’ve compromised my dignity so deeply now, the only thing worse would be to jump onto the field at Yankee Stadium, shake my dick at the crowd, wave a sign saying, “I went down on my sister,” and try to dry-hump the second baseman.
    OK, Wilkes gets there—I mean, to the hotel lobby where we arranged to meet. He gets there. Have you seen him? Probably not. It’s not a sight you’d want in your scrapbook or in your mind, believe me. You remember in The Silence of the Lambs where Jack Crawford tells Clarice not to let Hannibal Lecter inside her head? Well, it’s the same with Barton’s body.
    You seen Blue Velvet ? You know the smarmy piece of ugly blue velvet Frank keeps stroking? OK, think jump suit. Tight. Here comes Wilkes, like a slut from Caligula’s court, trailing two rolling suitcases and pretending not to see me. Makes me say, “Barton?”
    “Yeaaaayus?” he says in what I can only call a cross between a bray and a purr. If he’d had a cigarette holder, he’d have been Tallulah Bankhead. Not that he was effeminate exactly.
    Well anyhow. You’re thinking I’m going to tell you the details of our sophisticated sexual adventures. Think again. They weren’t sophisticated. They weren’t even sexual, to my surprise. I could have handled that. I’m not gay, though I have nothing against being gay, it just happens that I am not, I guess. Still, I have a good relationship with my body-–I don’t give a shit about it—and wouldn’t have made a fuss about almost anything Wilkes had in mind. I mean, that’s not a problem. You’d think it would be, but it isn’t. That isn’t even the problem with Snell and his Halloween plunges into hell.
    With Wilkes it wasn’t sex. It was, to start with, talk and board games. Then carnival rides. Then we cooked together. Then more talk and board games. Then we put on winter clothing and played “Twister.” That sounds sexy maybe, but it wasn’t. We slept in separate beds. Didn’t even undress in view of one another. He talked half the night. Insisted we cook all the next day, when we weren’t playing board games or riding the calmer carnival rides. You’re wondering how we cooked in a hotel. I would be too. It seems Wilkes carries his kitchen equipment with him. It folds up and such.
    So, here’s my problem. All the talk. Somehow, I ended up not only telling him secrets I didn’t know I was keeping, but, I swear, telling him things I’d thought and done I’m not entirely sure I really did do or think. How can that be? Too many board games, perhaps. Still, I ended up weeping, not once but on several occasions. Once I was clinging to him and sobbing, right outside the “Dungeon of Doom,” a funhouse ride that takes you past lunging goblins and through spider webs, all in the dark.
    I tell you this because I have nowhere else to turn. You see, he wants me to meet him again in two weeks. He wanted to do it immediately, but I invented obligations to my sister—like I’d ever really want to see her!—but couldn’t postpone things any longer than two weeks. What should I do? Can you help me by inviting Wilkes to come out there for a two-month stay or