The Residue Years by Mitchell Jackson Page A

tests, and slogged the halls past the last bell with low ambition pinned to his chest like a Cub Scout badge? How else to explain, how now, like most of us other frauds, he plays like he’s too tough for TV, a muthafuckin man of steel. But hold up before you knock it. That’s how it is for us. How theymade it. How it must be if we are at all to be. Cause how it is where you’re from, who knows, but around here, you’re either a soldier or a sanguine sucker.
    Check it, though, deep down in the place sealed off from the world, what I know is, no civilian should have to be that tough.
    Someone mentions white broads again. Calls up a snicker.
    I was just talkin to my grandmama about it, Famous says. She said it used to be nothing but white folks living here. Said we used to be out there by where Delta Park is. Then, after the flood, we moved on this side and white folks moved out. So really they’re just reclaiming the neighborhood. Don’t y’all watch the news? Didn’t ya’ll see the big story on gentrification?
    Gentrifi-what? Famous. Not you too with SATs. We thought you was from the streets.
    You fools can joke if you like, Famous says. But when ya’ll livin on the outskirts cause you can’t afford rent, see who’s haha’ing then.
    Shit, send me to the burbs. That’s loose pork central.
    You fools keep on, Famous says. And when they got Northeast under sovereign lock, watch how fast us niggers are extraterrestrials.
    The bell sounds. A latecomer arrives. He gapes at the crush and walks right back out. Funnyman makes a show of snatching the cape off my brother.
    The bell sounds. The hot-food-plate man strolls in and posts by the clerk’s desk. Good morning, my brothers, he says, and tips his brim. He reels off a menu: hash browns, grits, eggs, tuna melts, pancakes, French toast. Plates are five dollars, he says. But if you’re hungry and ain’t got it, get me back next go-round.
    Damn, brotherman. You ain’t got no swine?
    Now, now, now, my brother, he says. I do not encourage the black man’s consumption of the hog.
    Brotherman scratches orders in a black pad and marches out to his truck. He whisks in with plates covered in foil and sweaty bottled juice. We appreciate the business, my brother, he says post every sale.
    The clerk calls my turn for the chair. She stands up and stretches, and trust me, it’s a universe away from even a half-sexy sight. She calls my name for next in my barber’s chair, and I call KJ over to cover my seat.
    What’s shaking with you, bro? says my barber.
    Shit, I say.
    Shit is right, he says, and swings me around. Look at that!
    By
that
he means the girl in the threshold holding a little boy’s hand, the one dressed in spindly stilettos, a low-cut shirt, and jeans tight as a blood pressure cuff.
    The off-duty stripper fit’s extra for my tastes, I say. But she might could on the late night.
    True, true, he says.
    He starts to prep. To say my barber works at his own speed would be a huge huge downplay. The homie’s slow as shit, but he’s also hella-skilled, which is mandate number one for me. Number two is, nothing I ever tell him gets retold.
    Bro, I ain’t tryin to be in your business, he says, but I was ear-hustling and overheard some fools with your name in they mouth. And it wasn’t positive.
    Forreal? I say.
    Yeah, he says, somethin about you and a chick.
    You catch a name? I say.
    Nope, he says. Sure didn’t.
    My barber used to live around the block from me when we lived in the house on Sixth. Back then he was cutting in his basement, shearing sharp-ass flattops in janky light. But I had to find a new barber for a sec when he moved. His people being one of the first in the neighborhood to sell off, to give up their place to white folks. This is why I mention to him my plan to buy the house.
    You serious? he says.
    Dead serious, I say.
    Well, if that’s what you gone do, bro,