Percival Everett - Erasure

Weiß is kneeling beside Stagg. “Please, you’ve got to try to open up a little. Tell us anything. Tell them to buy the book for crying out loud. Anything.”

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“We’re back. Our guest today is the writer Stagg Leigh. He’s here to discuss with us his first novel, Fuck. Stagg, are you feeling a little more like talking now?”

“Not really.”

General panic. Awkward silence. Restless audience noises. Dana giggles into her fist. Camera pans audience and comes back to Kenya.

“Well, we were warned that our guest is extremely shy and so he is. This would be a good time for me to read a passage from this brilliant novel.” Kenya opens Fuck and reads: I love Cleona and I hate Cleona. There be two lil’ niggers in my head. Nigger A and Nigger B. Nigger A say, Be cool, bro, you know you ain’t gots no money, so just let this girl go on back to school and through maf class and English class and socle studies so she can get out and be sumpin. Just let her have a chance, one chance to be that nurse she always talkin bout bein. But Nigger B be laughin, say, Shit, take this bitch home to her house and hit it one times, two times. She got the nerve to be talkin to Jeep-nigger in front of you. Beep that shit. If she gone dis you like that, nail her ass. Later you can go out and find that Jeep-mutha Beepand Beep him up. Right now, take this Beep home and get a taste. You remember how good that Beep was, the way she whimpered, like she be crying, like it hurt. Nigger be hurtin a Beep. Beep school. She ain’t gone be no nurse. She ain’t gone be nuffin.When we walk to her house I see some guys playin ball. I ain’t played no ball in a long long time, I thinks to myself. At one time I was real good I could dunk from the top of the key and all like that. I had me a nice jumper too, but Beep, how you gone get into college and get all that big money when you ain’t nuffin to begin wif and when the mutha Beepmake it so you cain’t stay in school. And I wasn’t bout to suck no coach’s Beep for a chance to play. I shoulda gone over there when I was good and tried out for the Lakers. I woulda fit right in. Showtime. Me and Magic. I didn’t even need no practice, that how good I was.Cleona unlocks the door and we goes inside and she turn to me and say, “Now give me the money.”“Slow down, baby,” I say in my smooth voice. “Why don’t you show me where the baby sleep.”“You know where the baby sleep. The baby sleep in my room and we ain’t goin in there. Now, give me the money.”“Well, could you get me some ice water?” I ax.She sigh real heavy and stomp them big feet off in the direction of the kitchen.I sits down on the sofa and I see that the thing be new. I run my hand along the cushion beside me and I’m thinkin, shit, where this mutha come from. Brand new.Cleona come back into the room with the glass of water and hand it to me and then just stand there.“You got a new couch,” I say.“So?”“Where you and yo mama get the money for this here?”“That ain’t none o’ yo business,” she say.“I think it is,” I say. “If my baby’s mama gone out sellin her ass fo money to buy furniture, that be my business. Maybe you don’t need no money.”“You s’posed to give me money every monf for Rexall.”“S’posed to ain’t the same as got to,” I say. I looks around the room. “Beep, y’all got a lot of nice Beep.” I sips my water and it be warm. “I said ice, bitch.”She just stare at me.“I’m sorry, baby,” I say. “That just come out all wrong. C’mon here and sit down beside me.”She still just lookin at me.“Sit down,” I say again.She plop her big ass down heavy next to me and I put my arm round her and she get all stiff.“C’mon, Cleona, loosen up some. Ain’t nobody home.” I touch one of them big Beep with my finger and say, “That’s where my baby be havin dinner.”Cleona don’t want to but she let out a giggle.I touch her Beep some more. “That’s a big ol’ Beep, “ I say. “I wanna taste what my baby be drinkin. You want me to taste what my baby taste?”Her eyelids be flutterin closed now and I think she say yes and I pull her shirt and look at that big-ass bra she be wearin. I try to undo the mutha Beepin the back, but Beep, I cain’t get it loose and I say, “Hep me out, damnit.”Cleona reach her hands back, one from over her head and through her collar and the other up the back of her shirt and she open it up. Those giant jugs just flop there like big pillows, like bags of sand. I grabs on to them and sucks ‘em real hard till she moans and I whispers a lil’ sumpin, I don’t even know what the Beep I be sayin, but I squeeze and suck and squeeze and suck. The clock cross the room says one o’clock and I remember that I’m s’posed to meet Yellow and Tito over at the pool hall, so I gotta pop it quick. I push her back and undoes her pants, all the while I’m suckin on them Beep and she’s moanin. It’s hard to get her pants over her big ass, but I do it and then I puts it in her, all of it. Wham! Just like that and she cry out and man I feel so powerful. I bang it, man, I bang it and she start cryin, openin her eyes and seein me and she be cryin, sayin for me to get off her. But I be hittin it now and I smile at her.

“God, I just love that,” Kenya says, shaking her head. “Now, I know some of you at home are thinking that some of the language is kinda rough, but let me tell you, it doesn’t get any more real than this. With this kinda talent, chile, don’t you think we ought to forgive our guest’s intense bashfulness?”

Audience applause, approval, endorsement, blessing.

I looked out from the house that was my disguise and saw Yul standing backstage. He applauded lightly, nodding to me, shrugging slightly, then he gave me a thumb-up that caused me to sink. I looked down at my feet, imagined my reflection in the leather of my shoes. Kenya Dunston was jabbering on the other side of the screen. What she was saying mattered none. I got up and walked away.

Hard luck Poppa standing in the rainIf the world was corn, he couldn’t buy grain,Lord, Lord, got them Brown’s Ferry blues.

I returned to Washington defeated and feeling as near suicide as I had ever felt. I considered putting my head in the oven, but as Mother had always exercised a preference for electricity over gas, I could only hope to cook myself to death. I contemplated putting my father’s pistol to some use, but years of reading led me to understand that there were just too many not-quite-fatal places a piece of metal might lodge itself, leaving me where? Just as I was. And there was the nagging fear that upon waking from a three-year coma I would find the identification bracelet on my wrist reading Stagg R. Leigh. I shuddered at the notion and the woman beside me thought that I was responding to her offer of a mint. She was Australian, I believe, and she said, “You only need to say no, mate.”