{"id":500,"date":"2012-10-24T08:57:44","date_gmt":"2012-10-24T16:57:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/?p=500"},"modified":"2012-10-23T09:06:18","modified_gmt":"2012-10-23T17:06:18","slug":"chatter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/2012\/10\/24\/chatter\/","title":{"rendered":"Chatter"},"content":{"rendered":"

fiction by Jason Edwards<\/em><\/p>\n

I was sitting at home, watching a taped re-run of the 2010 VMAs, and I found I was thirsty. I got up from the couch,\u00a0didn’t\u00a0bother turning off the TV as I\u2019d seen this tape a hundred times before (it was starting to show signs of wear, of stretching, blue and red and green lines across the picture in places. I bet if Nicki Minaj were to work with one of those hipster producers, they\u2019d love the effect). At my front door, I eschewed the leopard print high-heels for some flippity-floppies, and left my rented domicile. I\u00a0didn’t\u00a0bother locking the door. Yolo.<\/p>\n

The 7-11 is only a block from my house, and I do sport mad swag, but I\u00a0didn’t\u00a0fear any uncouth comments from the neighborhood denizens. My weave was perched, purple and gold glitter, expertly atop my crown. My jean jacket hugged my curves like Drake hugs lyrics. My strut did things to my butt that marshaled respect, not cat-calls. And so it was: I arrived at the goal of my brief sortie, and I entered the place, twerking like a coaster.<\/p>\n

Behind the counter, a down digga Crucian name of Raja Mahn. On the PA, Waka Flocka, which meant Raja\u2019s boss, a racist, was gone for the day. Not that I cared. Racists don\u2019t step to when I break the scene. But I always feel bad for Raja, off the boat and working for a wheat thin. Then again, bad job better than no job, as the float-brothers say, and it\u2019s not like Raja can work a pole, trap a baby daddy and get some government, buy him formula and blank video tapes. More power to him, and for solidarity I raised a left fist as I made my way to the 4-Loko. Raja never stares at me ass. Maybe he sweet.<\/p>\n

Grabbed the can, really, and spun on my toes (purple and gold glitter, polish to match my ebony tiara) and considered beef jerky. Does it have pork in it? Should a queen of my demeanor eat of the pig? My mother ate of the pig, and looked what happened to her. Flat broke, don\u2019t know who her children\u2019s father is, I should say are, riding the bus every place and so damn skinny she was always knees and elbows. Naw, I said to myself in my quiet voice. I chose Slim Jims instead.<\/p>\n

I went up to counter, forgetting for a second my flippity-floppies and walked on my toes like I was in da club and pretending to be Tay-Tay so I can get some baby drank. My own fault. I was already thinking about the 4-Loko coursing down my throat, grape and that alcohol bite, heady fumes cascading up and down my sinuses, rendering a sister cloudy and not unhappy with her brief pinprick of an existence in the universe\u2019s vast eternal nothingness. As if. As if I was down at AppleJacks with Gucci Mane all in my lobes and Raja my standby, purchasing overpriced potables for me to guzzle before I gargle. As if, as I said.<\/p>\n

Mahn rang me up, shy-like, but I already had my pickles and limes in hand to pay. And then he said, in that island voice \u201cWe now take EBT\u201d And he pointed at the front door, where there was probably a new sticker sign saying the same thing.<\/p>\n

In a perfect world, the PA would have screeched to a stop, like a piano player in one of those old Oaters freezing when the uncouth gentleman larger than his horse stomps through the saloon doors. EBT. Electronic Benefit Transfer. Fancy for foodstamps. This big-ass adam’s apple havin’ dark as 97 cent cacao bein’ Goodwill bought FUBU-wearin’ for the man workin’ lips like a coupla tuptus boy motherfucker thinks I’m on the welfare? I didn’t know whether to laugh in his rat-zombie face or swing my hand around like Jackson Tyson Jordan Game 6 and slap that black off his pan. Break a nail if I did.<\/p>\n

Instead, I went Socrates on him. I said \u201cHow\u2019s EBT going to pay for alcohol, brother?\u201d<\/p>\n

He just blinked a few times. \u201cAlcohol?\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

I held up the 4-Loko. \u201cWhat do you think this is, baby ap-ser-in?\u201d I can cop a hood accent when I need to.<\/p>\n

Raja looked baffled. \u201cBut this is not alcohol. Children come in here all of the time and buy this.\u201d<\/p>\n

I just shook my head, counting out coins for my drank and my jims. \u201cMethinks you\u2019re the victim of some faulty logic there, Smullyan. The crime’s not in the buying. It’s in the selling.\u201d Slapped my change down on the counter and turned to the door.\u00a0Didn’t\u00a0care if it was exact. Home slice can keep the pennies.<\/p>\n

\u201cSmullyan?\u201d he said, as I was leaving.<\/p>\n

\u201cLess digga mo’ periodicals, rain man,\u201d I said, and left.<\/p>\n

Strutted my stuff down my block and to my place. Nice day, so I sat on the stoop steps and sipped my simple spirited libation. I could hear my TV through the window, three floors up, VMA tape still playing, a commercial for Pepsi or Fritos or Chrysler or something\u2014I can never tell that trailer park shit apart. This was the point on the tape where I usually turn it off, because the next part was where that stimple maphro wins the award for video of the year. In a meat dress (and you know there’s of the pig on it).<\/p>\n

But I let it play, sitting there, the sun bouncing around brownstones and even the one tree half a block away still standing. A few rats walked by, didn’t say a word. A car drove past, with nary an acceleration or deceleration and its bass\u00a0wasn’t\u00a0too loud to drown out my thoughts: poor Raja. Maybe he sweet, maybe not. Maybe he thought he was being nice, offering up the EBT, maybe that boss told him to tell everyone. And I maybe I should have been more angrier at him, but if he\u2019s selling Sparks to babies, he\u2019s got more to worry about than using foul vocabulary in front of a queen.<\/p>\n

Sometimes you just got to let folks be.\u00a0Isn’t\u00a0anyone who can harm you that you\u00a0didn’t\u00a0hand the weapons to yourself. One of the Martins said that.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

fiction by Jason Edwards I was sitting at home, watching a taped re-run of the 2010 VMAs, and I found I was thirsty. I got up from the couch,\u00a0didn’t\u00a0bother turning off the TV as I\u2019d seen this tape a hundred times before (it was starting to show signs of wear, of stretching, blue and red … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Chatter”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-500","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fiction"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s24y52-chatter","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/500","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=500"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/500\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":501,"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/500\/revisions\/501"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=500"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=500"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=500"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}