Just gonna drop this and walk away singing Chocolate in our peanut butter, floaties in our milk, cheese on our sammiches, strawberry in our Quik...
He’d done quite a bit of writing before he went to
bed. The brain ran around like a poodle after a treat. Barclay dreamed he was
on the conservative arts show Words and Images. The interviewer, Diana
Billiard, held an upcoming book as though afraid to get too much of it on her.
“Why’d yours,” she was trying to get to, because the
crux of the matter was this, “as a black man, have to be a black book? Isn’t
that restrictively limiting?” she asked, making sure the blank, earnest face
was in place.
You’re kind
of stupid, he thought. “Is his book,”
said Barclay, nodding at G.P. Patterson, “a white book?”
Diana morphed the Botox into mildly charitable
dismissal. “Well, no. It’s just…fiction.”
“Isn’t he white?”
“I’m pretty white,” said Patterson, best-selling
author of Primitive and the soon to
be a major motion picture, Guitar.
“Main characters white, G.?”
“Very much so, B.,” said Patterson. He, too, thought
the interviewer was kind of stupid.
“What makes his book fiction and mine ethnic, Ms.
Billiard?”
“I wouldn’t mind being ethnic,” said Patterson.
“Sales aren’t as good, man,” said Barclay.
“Oh. What if I wrote the same book you wrote?”
“You’d get your ass kicked.” When Barclay looked back
at Billiard she was naked from the waist up. ‘Obviously I’m not getting enough
sex,’ Barclay thought. Being a lucid dreamer meant tagging this thought for
future reference.
Billiard hedged. “Well, your book is clearly informed
by ethnic sensibilities.”
“As is mine,” said Patterson. Diana Billiard was an
uptight harpy both disingenuous and of questionable intellect but graced with a
knockout body that guaranteed a sizable thirty-four to forty year old
college-educated male audience. Wardrobe courtesy Dionysian. Career courtesy
the foresight to have married a prominent cable news anchor.
Her nipples were slightly too tiny to be effective
point guards for the reinforced troops behind them.
Dinged a point.
“So the basic question, then, is why am I secondhand
smoke and G. here a fine cigar?” said Barclay.
"Cubano," said Patterson.
"G.P. Patterson is a respected author—"
"—of books featuring white folks who need the FBI
to keep them from getting cut up in little pieces. Y'all some vicious G's,
G."
Patterson flashed the three fingered W. It was the
first time Words and Images had seen a gang sign.
"O.I.B.," said Patterson, the tufts of grey
hair behind his ears matching his closely cropped grey beard. "Old
Incongruous Bastard."
"My nig."
Billiard's neck went spastic.
"Is it because my characters are black? Or
related to author? I'm not going to apologize for either."
"I wrote a book with a black character once. He
got killed."
"Classic Hollywood syndrome. Incurable. Don't
worry about it."
"What about being accessible?" asked Diana.
"Same question." She had a blazer on now.
Didn't faze him. "How many books you sold, Patterson?"
"Rollin', B."
"Audience?"
"Milk and cream…with floaties."
"You, sir, restrict to a base most foul."
"A right bastard I am," Patterson agreed,
crossing his legs and leaning into the deep slouch, white socks against a pasty
ankle shining under studio lights.
"Black man writes a book with black characters,
it's the second coming of Zulu. I denounce you on the grounds your nipples are
too small, your logic shoddy, and your facial reconstruction fucked up."
"They expect you to write a book with white
characters, man; show your gratitude," said Patterson.
"Y'all did teach me English didn't you?"
"Hell yeah. Show some love."
"Can I feature white characters?"
"No. Top billing," said Patterson, but at
least he was apologetic.
Billiard positively preened. Why did he even bother
with Words and Images? Sometimes the show featured interesting authors, but was
that worth the anal itch that was Diana Billiard?
Clearly the wench thought there was safety in numbers
despite G.P. Patterson thinking she was a shallow sow.
"If my premise is of universal appeal," she
said and winked for the camera, "don't you think it's limiting to write in
such a…focused point of view?" she said.
"Your basic premise is racist and childish."
Barclay turned to Patterson. "Can I wax polemical for a minute?"
"Wax on, wax off."
"If a reader can't see beyond their own daily
confines to embrace what is essentially a remedial primer on the comedic truths
inherent to the disadvantaged—"
"Turtle Wax, bitchas," piped Patterson.
"—that reader condemns herself—"
"Watch out now."
"—to the limited sphere of second hand knowledge
cursing the world today," said Barclay.
"Wax off?" inquired G.P.
Barclay sniffed. "Wax off."
G.P. gave up the fist bump.
