Black Enough: Stories of Being Young & Black in America. Ibi Zoboi
Beneton beckoned his trio of swole-up muscular helpers, with their too-tight-in-the-arm suit coats. They yanked the rope and the cloth fell, along with the last raggedy S in the signage—which didn’t fall all the way, just hung crooked, attached by one strained support. Electricity crackled, flooding all the letters—including that crooked S—with fluorescent blue light. MALL-STARS.
Our fellow mall employees celebrated the sign lighting with lukewarm applause. We were clustered in the East Atrium, stars visible through the skylight a hundred feet up. Thirty or forty of us from various stores were corralled next to the gurgling fountain, with its small fortune of loose wish-change submerged in greenish water. All clutching glossy invitations passed down from mall higher-ups to our managers to us, with “strong recommendations” that we attend this little party thrown by Briarwood’s big boss.
Beneton slipped index cards from his coat pocket, glanced at them, said, “Thank you for accepting my invitation to the soft opening of our newest venture. We’re excited to bring the ‘barcade’ model to Briarwood. Classic video games meet delicious food and signature drinks. As Mall Ambassadors, you will be the first to experience the magic. Put Mall-Stars through its paces. Anything that you order will be discounted twenty per—”
He frowned, signaled his least muscular helper for an eyeball debate over the notes he’d obviously not read before that moment. Then said, “Ten percent. Your discount is ten percent. Just ten.”
Groans from the “Ambassadors.”
“Try everything. Be sure to text any suggestions to the number posted at each table. Enjoy!” He slow-clapped, and like three other people joined in. When the applause died, Beneton’s guards ushered him off like the Secret Service snatching the president from assassins.
The crowd milled in, the dark space ghostly lit by flickering game cabinets, flat TVs racked around the bar, and assorted black lights. Some eighties song I’d heard my mom sing to, by that one dead artist, blasted from ceiling speakers, drowning everyone in old-school. I lingered outside the entrance, awed by Mr. Beneton’s kind-of-boss escape, and missed Amir giving me the ninja-look look, so he elbowed me in the ribs. “Shawn, she here.”
She was Dayshia Banks. Dark brown, fine, and flawless in a cream dress and low heels befitting the Nordstrom employee dress code. She went to Ocean Shore High, a town over. A senior, like us. Used to be a flag girl. This year she let band go to focus more on academics and saving dough for college. She didn’t tell me that personally. That’s off her Instagram and Twitter.
She ain’t follow me back yet. It’s been like eight months, but, I mean, I don’t post a lot.
“Shawn,” Amir said, “give me your phone.”
Dayshia strolled in, hugging herself against the arctic air-conditioning. I handed my phone to Amir, no questions.
“What’s your PIN?”
“1955.” The year Marty McFly traveled to in Back to the Future.
DeMarcus said, “Why you all in the man phone?”
“Something for Beneton’s suggestion box.” Amir dictated while he tapped. “Get Shawn to stop staring at women like a serial killer.”
I snatched my phone back.
“Talk to her,” Amir said with the hopeless enthusiasm of someone advising a PetSmart goldfish to towel off. “She right there.”
“I will.” I wasn’t.
She was right there, thirty feet from us, ordering a Coke at the bar. She was by herself, and doing those do-I-know-somebody-here glances before focusing on her phone. You know what would happen the minute I crossed that divide, and tried to spit game? This:
MWARRRGHH! MWARRRGHH!
That’s how Chewbacca talked.
MWARRRGHH!
That’s all she was going to hear when a dude in a freaking Chewbacca shirt stepped to her. What was I thinking?
Black. Nerd. Problems.
Amir said, “You regretting your outfit, ain’t you?”
“How’d you—?”
He tapped his temple. “I know things. Let’s grab a booth.”
We locked down seats with good views of the billiards table, the bar, and the Skee-Ball machines, where the dudes from the Far East Emporium—that store with mad decorative chessboards, tiger statues, incense, and a perpetual “50% OFF EVERYTHING” sale—were battling the twins, Brian and Ben, from Abercrombie & Fitch.
Brian scored a forty-pointer on a sweet roll that arced off the corner of the ramp. He high-fived his brother, then mean-mugged the competition.
DeMarcus said, “Why that joint seem so intense?”
Could’ve told him the beef was deeper and tougher than them one-hundred-point Skee-Ball holes. Brian and Ben were Brian and Ben Lin, Chinese Americans who been said the Far East Emporium was racist AF. Mr. Lee (like Robert E., not Bruce), owner of the Far East Emporium, and his sons said the Lins were too sensitive, that the store honored the “spirit of the Orient”—also racist AF. Thus, the Lin vs. Lee Skee-Ball war.
How I know? Food court gossip on dinner breaks gets you the whole rundown in Briarwood. But I didn’t explain all that to DeMarcus. My attention was elsewhere.
Cologne Kiosk Cameron had slithered in undetected, settled at the bar right next to Dayshia, a bulging man purse resting at his feet. A pretty boy who talked with his hands and way too many teeth, he had the complexion of a well-cooked french fry, brown and a little oily. No one was sure how old he was. Kamala from Build-A-Bear said he was a college sophomore, though nobody knew which school. Jeff, the old stoner from the vape shop, said he once saw Cameron at his aunt’s bingo night hitting on single moms. Who knew?
Whatever his age, there were no characters from a Galaxy Far, Far Away anywhere on his pristine slacks, pressed plaid button-up, or blazer with those voluntary patches on the elbow. He said something. Dayshia laughed. With him, not at him.
Amir noticed me noticing. “Yo, that dude appears like Satan. I’ve never seen him come and go.”
DeMarcus said, “I promise you a black cloud of brimstone smells better than the knockoff nerve gas he be selling at that box shop.”
I said nothing. Just unlocked my phone, opened my notepad app, and wallowed in defeat.
Pia, our waitress, who used to sling frozen yogurt but said this gig paid a dollar more an hour plus tips, propped her empty serving tray on her hip. “Y’all gonna order some food?”
Amir said, “Any of it cheaper yet?”
Pia glanced down. “Why you got tape on your shoes?’
“Just bring us more water with lemon, please.”
She stomped away while I slurped my third water down to the ice chips. I tapped my screen, ignoring Amir’s heat-vision stare.
“I ain’t sitting with you all night,” he said.
“Didn’t ask you to.”
“I could really be checking on these shorties. I heard Chrissy from the Sprint store is a freak.”
“Chrissy got a girlfriend. Stop spreading rumors.”
“Oh. Shit. Look who’s salty. Don’t be mad at me because you too much of a punk to take your shot with Dayshia.”
Naw, that didn’t sting. It might if it was true, but it wasn’t. Asshole. “You making a bunch of noise over nothing. She’s dope. We ain’t the same, though.”
“Of course you ain’t the same. Why would you want to be with someone the same as you? Like a female Shawn?