The Quiet Parts Pt. 2
Monday through Friday, Leigh works as a school counselor specializing in art therapy. The tough men across from her on the living room couch, much like the kids sent to her office, appear frightened and helpless under the weight of newfound knowledge. Andre looks dazed. The fat one Sam has his hands gripped between his legs to stop their trembling. Fingers curled over his mouth, Drew looks more thoughtful than anything. On a divan, Leigh packs a bowl.
“This weed was grown on the Navajo reservation. The minerals in the soil will totes decolonize your lungs.” She passes the bong to Andre who lights up and smokes like a parched man chugging water. She tells him, “I want you to know that I respect your discomfort and I’m here to help you process.”
Drew speaks first. “Why?”
“It was an initiative started around 2000,” she explains, “to bring white people back from the suburbs. These fucking capitalists figured just waiting for everyone to move would take too long. So they gave certain people apartments with magic portals—”
“To give the impression the hipsters were everywhere and speed up gentrification,” Drew exclaims in horrified awe. “I knew there was a reason all them trucker-hat-wearing motherfuckers looked alike! You mean there was no flood of hipsters?” he asks hurriedly.
“Nope,” she answers.
“How many was it?”
“Initially? Five, six thousand tops.”
“Then why did they raise the rent?” he snaps. “What about the yuppies?”
Momentarily she closes her eyes, as to remain mindful in the face of male aggression. Opening them, she retorts, “Do I look like I do real estate?”
“That’s not an answer,” says Drew.
Thankfully Andre interrupts his rude brother. “I don’t get it. I think I’m tripping.”
“As far as conspiracies, COINTELPRO sounds a lot crazier,” she lectures him, “and everybody knows about that. I’m surprised you’ve never heard of this.”
Suddenly he hunches forward. She reaches to catch him, but Drew, grabbing his brother in both arms, beats her to the rescue before he collides with the glass tabletop. Andre claps his hands over his eyes. Being an empath, she knows the pain of blackness weighs on him.
In despair, he moans, “Have I heard about Hipster Tunnels? Sure. From the nigga who in the same breath’ll say lizard people run the world.”
Drew’s eyes widen. “Are lizard people—”
“As you can see,” she concludes before he can finish that thought, “it wasn’t all white people. It was a small group of white people and a hella big conspiracy. And they’re pricing out queer artists! Our landlord raises the rent every year.” She addresses Andre. “You owe me an apology.”
“Fuck you,” he says matter-of-factly.
“I acknowledge you are upset and I forgive you,” Leigh replies, refusing to validate his childishness.
Andre hits the bong. At length he speaks again, this time with measured politeness. “How do you know all this? Since you in on the scam and all.”
She hesitates. A floor above, introverted Sequoia paints in their room, leaving Leigh alone with the men, who, in their sudden aggression, have her wondering if they can handle the truth. Since she has already revealed too much, she sees no choice but to go all in.
“White people have secrets,” she begins. “And I mean beyond something like COINTELPRO where only the government knows. I mean societal secrets. And by the way, you can’t tell anybody I showed you this. It would be bad for me but a lot worse for y—”
“Tell us another white secret,” says Andre.
His brother Drew insists they stop. Fat Sam looks ready to vomit.
Leigh says, “Most of them aren’t too incredible.”
“What you showed us was pretty fucking incredible,” Andre responds.
Cowed by his persistence, excited to share forbidden revelations, she explains, “The CIA shipped crack into the black community in the ‘80s.”
All three men sneer at her.
“Everybody knows that,” says Andre.
Good lord—he really is like one of her kids. “Okay. They teach us fucked up shit in school. Like Africans invented slavery and heroic white people ended it.”
Now he looks pissed. “I could get that off Fox News.”
“Fine! Aliens are real. In the ‘50s we shot down a UFO over the desert, killed the aliens, and dissected them. My parents told me when I was a little kid. They said the aliens deserved it.” She takes a bong rip. “Same thing they said about the crack, actually. And so you know,” she adds, “I was always on the aliens’ side.”
Andre weeps into his hands. Fraternal arms embrace him and Leigh sits amazed at how soulful they are, yet at the same time masculine. Andre says, “You’re telling me all of it—the rent, the homelessness, the cops murdering Alex Nieto—all because of five thousand people? That you have actual magic and can go anywhere you want and we can’t even stay in our neighborhoods?” He moans like a wounded animal. “How much is a nigga supposed to take?”
“I’m so sorry,” she says through a lump in her throat. Their heartache is just so profound.
She invites him to stay. In her room, they kiss and her pulse gallops at the tension in him. “Just to be transparent,” she murmurs, “I’m queer. I don’t usually date men.” Couldn’t have him getting too cocky. “That’s cool,” he replies. “I don’t usually date white women.”
His retort leaves her speechless. Impatient, she strips him naked, save for a silver crucifix necklace. He shoves her down on the bed. What an alpha! In the light of a single lamp, his brown skin reminds her of a leaf that refuses to fall until the first day of winter. He is thick around the middle with a slack yet squeezable buttocks, his cock a good eight inches erect with five inch girth. For a moment hate flashes in his eyes, and she seizes with terror to think he might avenge his suffering on her innocent body. Then he sinks his spit-glazed teeth in her throat, but draws no blood, nibbling her neck, aggression harnessed for her pleasure.