Colin Harrison - The Havana Room

The door opened. Four black guys in good suits stepped out. I was passed to their firm control. The door shut quickly behind me. Inside I heard rap music pounding, and it became louder as I was hurried through a dark hallway constructed of painted plywood. We passed several young black girls giggling outside a door marked PRIVATE and I knew that the sight of a middle-aged white man there was shocking to them, anomalous, as impossible as a reindeer. Next the hallway became tinted with red lights, the smell of pot lingering. We passed a stairwell where two black men were casually beating a third. They turned in surprise when they saw us.

"Chill," murmured one of my escorts.

"He's a cop?"

They pushed me along, up a set of stairs. At the landing we came upon a crowd of black teenagers watching a pit bull hanging three feet in the air from a thick, knotted rope. The dog had the rope in his jaws.

"Yo," said one of my escorts. "How long?"

"Nine minutes."

The dog's eyeballs rolled around and he shook his head savagely, a froth at the edges of his teeth.

"What's the record?"

"Twenty-six."

We climbed another flight of stairs, passing promotional fliers, pictures of rap artists, and framed album covers. A large black woman in gold lame and sunglasses passed. "Hi baby," she murmured. We came to a glass door with HANDJOB PRODUCTIONS stenciled on it.

"Inside, yo."

Inside was a small office with a black glass window overlooking the club's dance floor. The men followed me, pulling the door shut behind them. To one side lay a panel of unused mixing equipment, turntables and tape decks, and to the other sat an enormously fat black man in a red silken robe and security headset. He had on gold sunglasses, the lenses coated with some sort of shimmery hologramic stuff. His chair was elevated so that he had a bird's-eye view of the dance floor. Next to him stood a two-hundred-gallon oil can with a slit in the lid. Around us, and up through the floor, came the heavy thud of the bass. Occasionally a scream of excitement. Below on the floor, hundreds of bodies moved in an undulant mass, spotlights strobing crazily across them as a rap group spun through its stylized, chain-swinging, crotch-grabbing moves.

"Yo, H.J., this is the dude."

H.J. pointed at a chair for me to sit and waved away the other guys.

"We'll be right outside, bro."

He didn't bother to look at me. Instead he watched the dance floor for a few minutes and talked into his headset. "See what them niggas is doin' over by the red couch." He leaned forward, watching. "No, the dude in the green- yeah, him. He bitin' my style. Tell that nigga I'm in his mind. All right… be cool. Yo, Antwawn? Antwawn, I want that box up here right now. Bring it up."

"Hey," I said. "You want to tell me why I'm here?"

"Don't talk when a man is doin' his business," came the response. "Antwawn, I want to see yo ass in like-" He turned around. "What'd you call me? You call me 'Hey'?"

"I asked you why you had me here."

A giant smile under the sunglasses. "White man, you got an improper education. My name is H.J."

"Pleased to meet you," I said. "Now tell me why I'm here."

The door opened. A young man with dreadlocks and a tattoo of Daffy Duck on his arm carried in a lockbox. This, presumably, was Antwawn. He looked at me. "Who that?"

H.J. ignored the question. "Open it."

Antwawn unlocked the box and tilted it toward H.J. Even from where I sat I could see it was full of cash. "Okay?"

H.J. opened the box, removed a short stack of bills that he put in his pocket, then took a roll of masking tape and wrapped the box about five times. "That's enough," he told himself. He signed his name over the tape with a thick felt marker. "Put it in the safe."

Antwawn knelt under the console, opened a door, placed the box inside, closed the safe.

Down on the dance floor they were screaming. "How many girls you got out there?" H.J. asked.

"Nineteen, plus Serena at the register."

"You got LaQueen on tonight?"

"Yeah." Antwawn smiled. "You want her?"

"Tell her come up here, show me somethin'."

As Antwawn left, another man in a velveteen shirt came in. He had a bad scar across one forearm. He looked at us. "Who this white dude?"

"He just visiting. Let's see it."

The man with the scar pulled out a small silver pistol.

"Good. He fight at all?"

"Not really, boss."

H.J. dropped the gun into the slit in the oil can. He pulled a fistful of bills out of his red robe, gave it to the man. "Here." They tapped their fists together and the man with the scar left.

Now he turned to me. "You work for that Jay Rainey?"

"No."

"That's bullshit."

I shrugged.

"My aunt say she talked with you today."

"With Rainey, mostly. I just happened to be there."

"What she want?"

"Money."

"That's right. But she made one mistake."

"What?"

"She got the number wrong."

I said nothing.

"I said she got the number wrong, she got it too low."

"I heard you."

"You disrespectin' my people?" he asked, lights strobing behind his head.

"No."

"You hate black people?"

"No."

"You think they should stay poor and get AIDS and shit?"

"No."

"You think black people stupid?"

"No."

"I think you do. I think you got ideas about black people."

"I'm sure you've got a few ideas about white people."

"You hate the black man."

"No."

"You hate his superiority."

"No."

"You hate his sexual prowess."

"No."

"You hate everything about him."

"You hate white people?" I asked.

He breathed through his nose. "Yes."

"You hate the white man?"

"Yes, indeed I do."

A girl poked her head inside. Her lips were the color of taxis. She was wearing high heels, a thong, and a fringed top. All the color of taxis.

"Come here, LaQueen."

"Oh, I know what you want," she said in a high, happy voice that suggested little pills that gave people high, happy voices. She saw me. "Who this?"

"He just some white dude who don't know what the fuck he doin'."

"You want some fun?"

"Come here. Like my daddy used to say, girl, you look better than a government check."

She glanced at me playfully. "Don't look, mister."

I looked. She knelt down between his huge jellied thighs, spread the red robe. But all I could see was the lovely dark violin of her back, her ankles together, heels sticking out.

"Slow, baby." Then he lifted her face off of him. "You love that thing, don't you? You love my monster."

"I do, baby."

"Say it, say I love your monster."

"I love it, H.J. You my diesel nigga."

He pressed her head back onto him. Then he looked up to address me, over her bobbing head. "My auntie tells me you- you sent my Uncle Herschel out into cold weather and he had- a heart attack. Everybody who know Uncle Herschel know he got a bad heart."

"I don't know what happened to him. He was working for Jay Rainey."

H.J.'s feet were tapping a kind of slow rhythm. I saw a gun strapped to his ankle. "You're takin'- money from him, it's the- same thing."

"That's not exactly what-"

H.J. looked at me, showed his gold teeth. "You want my blow job?"

"No thanks," I said, coolly as I could.

" 'Cause you lookin' like- like it looks good to you. I seen your eyes." He glanced at the girl's head. "Looks tasty."

"No thanks," I said.

"What- something wrong with my woman?"

"No," I said.

"Not good enough for you?"

"I didn't say that."

"Maybe she too black for you."

"No."

"See, the white man like you, he scared of the black woman. And the white woman, she want the black man. And the black woman, she ain't interested in the white man. They all want the black man, see. Same for the Chinese and the Spanish. Once they go black they never go back!" He let his hand fall on the girl's head, rubbed it, and smiled at me hatefully. "Maybe you need to learn to appreciate. You know, I ask LaQueen-she'll do you, after me. She may not want to but she will. Ain't that right, baby?"