Dave Eggers - You Shall Know Our Velocity

A group of six walked in, three men and three women, all white but for one woman, who was black, tall, probably Senegalese.

"Wow," said Hand, staring. She was shocking. Incredible posture, wearing a snug white dress over her astounding skin, lines drawn by the most optimistic and even hand – like the finest machines covered in polished leather. Hand had stopped eating. I stopped eating. Almost every Senegalese woman we'd seen looked like this: genetically flawless, robust, with regal bearing and skin like the smoothest stone.

"Stop staring," I said.

"I won't," Hand said.

Half the dining room was watching. It was too obvious. We were thrown back to some other time or place. Was I imagining this? Everyone was watching this woman, either because she had crossed some understood racial line or simply because – I hoped – she made the rest of us look like trolls.

"She's outstanding," said Hand.,

"She's with them."

"Yeah, but why?"

I had an idea but didn't say it. The people she was with were too unimpressive for her. She was slumming. I could only imagine she'd have some other incentive, and hoped she hadn't been bought.

– What are you doing with these men?

– I have my reasons.

– You need not be with these men. We will help you.

– Your help is not welcome.

– Our help is free of obligation. You must choose us.

"Let's go," I said. "I'm done."

We left, getting a better look at her on the way out – demure but with a smile like the thrusting open of curtains – and we dodged the white spray of the sprinklers on the way back to the room. Hand showered; I called my mom.

"Hello?" It was her on the first ring.

I swallowed my gum. I didn't expect the phone to work, to reach Memphis without an operator. She was in the garden. She'd just come back from a cooking class.

"What day is it there?" I asked.

"Monday, dummy. We're only seven hours behind you."

"Eight, I think."

"Greenland is more like seven, I think."

"Oh, we're not in Greenland."

"You didn't go?"

"We're in Senegal."

"That's right. You told me that."

"Mom. Are you getting too much sun?"

"I'm fine. How is it there? You caught anything yet?"

"Like what? Fish?"

"Just make sure you wear condoms. Six condoms."

"Thanks."

"So how is it?"

"It's good," I said. "So good." I told her what we'd been doing. I went on for a while. She had to stop me.

"I don't need every last minute, hon."

– You do.

"But that's sort of the point," I said.

"What is?"

"The every last minute part. We want you to care."

"I care. I care. How much have you given away so far?"

"I guess about $1,000."

"You're going to have to quicken your pace."

I told her about the basketball game.

"You give any to them?"

"One kid. $300 to him. He was a Bulls fan."

"What about the other kids?" she asked.

"We gave them some water."

"But what about money for them?"

"We couldn't," I said. "We couldn't really spread it out evenly. There were at least fifteen of them." I told her about Denis's brother, who got in the car and who wouldn't stop talking.

"You didn't give him money, I don't suppose."

"No."

"Honey."

"Yes."

"Why not just bring it back here and give it to a charity? There's a place Cathy Wambat works with – they help poor kids get their cleft palates fixed. She would love to -"

"There's a whole charity for cleft palates?"

"Of course."

"But what makes that better than this?"

She sighed and left the line quiet for a minute.

"Don't you think it's all a little condescending?" she said.

"What?"

"You swooping in and -"

"Giving them cash. This is condescending."

"Don't get so angry."

– It's just such a stupid fucking word to use. There's not one morsel of logic to that word, here. It's a defense you use to defend your own inaction.

I sighed an angry sigh.

"Will, who says they want it?"

"They look like they could use it."

"And if not?"

"Then they can give it to someone else."

"Well, see -"

"The point is I don't want it. And we like giving it. It's a way to meet people, if nothing else."

"Well I'm sure you could meet some nice ladies -"

I started whistling, loudly.

"So," she said finally, "how do you decide who gets the money?"

"I don't know. It's random. It's obvious. I don't know."

She laughed loudly, hugely amused. Then sighed. "That's not really fair, is it, Will?"

"Denis's brother was a dick."

She laughed again, at me, without kindness. I couldn't believe I was paying for this kind of aggravation.

"But it's so subjective, dear," she said.

"Of course it's subjective!"

She sighed. I sighed. We waited.

– Tell me there's a better way, Mom.

– I can't. I don't know of one.

"Why are you doing this to me now?" I said.

"I'm only asking questions, hon."

– What are you saying? That we're not allowed to see their faces? You're saying that. You're the type that won't give to a street person; you'll think you're doing them harm. But who's condescending then? You withhold and you run counter to your instincts. There is disparity and our instinct is to create parity, immediately. Our instinct is to split our bank account with the person who has nothing. But you're talking behind seven layers of denial and justification. If it feels good it is good, and today, at the ocean, we met a man living in a half-finished hut, and he was tall and had a radio and we gave him about $700 and it was good. It can't be taken from us, and you cannot soil it with words like condescending and subjective, fey and privileged words, and you cannot pretend that you know a better way. You try it! You do it! We gave and received love! How can you deprive us of that? I'm not asking them for thanks – we're not even sticking around long enough to allow them it, and we don't speak their goddamn language, anyway. We're just wanting to see them, to touch their hands, to brush up against their arm or something. That is allowed! That cannot be explained away somehow, or turned around to make us look wrong or -

"Well," I said, "your questions aren't interesting to me."

"Well, for that I apologize."

"I just think you're overthinking it, Mom."

"I am prone to that sort of thing."

"Oh really? I'd never noti -"

"Bye bye, smart mouth."

She hung up.

Hand dressed and we scuffled back up the road. The sky was a planetarium's half-dome ceiling, full of stars but not dark enough. The trees stood black underneath and against the grey sky, shadowing the dirt road with mean quick scratches. I was pissed. For every good deed there is someone, who is not doing a good deed, who is, for instance, gardening, questioning exactly how you're doing that good deed. For every secretary giving her uneaten half-sandwich to a haggard unwashed homeless vet, there is someone to claim that act is only, somehow, making things worse. The inactive must justify their sloth by picking nits with those making an attempt -

"What are you muttering about?" Hand asked.

"Nothing." I didn't know I'd been muttering.

"Between that and the talking in your sleep -"

At a snack bar we bought ice cream. The woman at the counter had hair like a backup dancer and was watching dolphins on TV. Hand had an orange push-up approximation and I had a thick tongue of vanilla ice cream covered in chocolate, on a stick. I tore the thin shiny plastic and ate the chocolate first, then the white cold ice cream, so soft in the humid and darkening air, and it ran down my hand and throat at the same time.

As we walked under the infrequent streetlights we had two and three shadows, as one light cast our shadow up and the other down, sometimes overlapping. The lights didn't know what they were doing. The lights knew nothing.