Paul Beatty - Tuff

“You know he rolling, old man fucking with his socks on.”

“And his glasses.”

“But he ain’t doing no damage to the pussy.”

“Come on, bitch, get your feet into the fuck. Dig your heels in, girl.”

For the next few minutes the group watched the video in rapt silence, each caught up in a private pornographic peccadillo, Winston’s being that he loved watching a woman’s breasts bounce during sex. Armello, wringing his hands and bursting with the need to share, blurted out, “Ah shit, now she licking the asshole! Ever have your asshole eaten?” he asked, looking around, not really expecting an answer. “I did. I was in Memphis in a Budgetel. Mamí had me in the buck. I was the bitch, my knees all in my ears, her tongue showing a nigger’s anus much love. I completely forgot I struck out four times in that night’s game, twice with the bases loaded.”

Pointing emphatically at the TV, Fariq called everyone’s attention back to the video. “Now Fuckman working the pussy, that’s how you do!”

Whitey slapped Fariq in the back of the head. “Smush, what your scoliosis-crippled ass know about working pussy? You probably can’t even control your thrusts, flopping on the cock like a fish out of water. Bet you catch an epileptic fit on the pussy, talking about ‘Honey, did you spasm?’ ”

“Nadine, what you laughing at? When we get home, watch.”

“Look at this white girl, yo, she fucking like a wet blanket.”

“Any of you niggers ever tag a white bitch?”

Winston, beginning to sober up, spun around in his chair, raising his hand like a schoolboy. “I did.”

“Nigger, what? You ain’t never said shit.”

“You know me, before Yolanda I was sticking dick in all four inputs.”

The males nodded in agreement, though none of them, as they ran down the list of bodily orifices, could figure out exactly what the fourth input was.

“All right.”

“Word life, kid.”

“My boy.”

A quizzical look on his face, Armello stopped in mid-hurrah and began counting on his fingers. “Anal, oral, vaginal. Hey, yo, what’s number four?”

Winston laughed haughtily and said, “I be mind-fucking hos, stupid.”

“Where you meet this girl?”

“Remember in junior year we used to go to that underground spot in the meat district near the piers?”

“Uh-huh.”

“White bitch and black bitch about ten years older than us sipping Scotch near the speaker?”

“The redheaded freak?”

“You know when you see a white girl and black girl together at the club, the white one looking for some black dick, and black one wants to hook up with a white boy, ain’t no two ways about it. So I hit Red off with the digits on the sly. Trick called back and the next day I was up in her crib sucking titties and didn’t spend nary a dime on drink, dinner, or daffodils. What was her name? Holly, Markie, some shit. I think it was Holly.”

Nadine’s faced puckered. “Eeww. What’s a white girl like?”

“It was weird, man. She was so comfy all the damn time. She was a computer consultant. Had an office in the crib. I ain’t never been in no black person’s house with an office. I ain’t even heard a nigger say ‘I’m going to the office.’ I just let her carry on. Suck my dick right, you can talk about gigabytes and zip drives all you want. Then one day we chillin’, then out of the blue she start talking this ‘You know, when I was growing up I had a black nanny. I loved her like she was family. She loved me too. At her funeral her children told me so.’ ”

“She went there on you, kid?”

“She went straight plantation Gone with the Wind on a brother. My father used to tell me that every fool he knew who ever been with a white girl who was from even a little bit a money has heard that shit. Shoot, I was trying to be ‘peace and love, we’re all human beings’ with the bitch. I thought that madness my father was talking was old-fashioned. I’m like, ‘She white? Big deal, it’s the twenty-first century. People are people. So what if she brush her teeth with fennel-flavored all-natural toothpaste from Maine? So what?’ ”

“Wait a minute,” Armello interrupted. “What’s fennel?”

“Some nasty-tasting flavor.” Winston sighed, then continued, “ ‘Black nanny.’ Pissed me the fuck off. I’m like, ‘Why this bitch feel the need to tell me this? “Black nanny?” What, she think I want to know that shit?’ ”

“Why you think, God?” Fariq said, all too eager to answer Winston’s question. “What she was really saying was, your mother ain’t shit, and that you ain’t shit, because she’s the white princess who everybody loves and worships. She think she special because she was raised by a black woman.”

“Shoot, a black woman raised me too, but that don’t make me special. But I was in the cut behind that comment. Stuck in the back of my mind. We be having a good time, then I look at her and think, This stupid bitch, said that stupid shit .”

“You should’ve said, ‘Fuck her. Later for that bitch.’ ”

“If I could’ve would’ve should’ve, but you know how a white girl do. Ol’ girl was kicking out gear, jewelry, sucking balls. Set a nigger out with a pass to the entire New York Film Festival. One time that crazy ho grabbed my arm, cut me with some scissors, and started sucking my blood.”

“Come on.”

“I’m serious. Wiped her mouth, talking about ‘Now we are both Negroes.’ I was like, ‘Negro? You ain’t Negro, bitch, you delusional.’ ”

“That’s what you get for messing with a white girl,” Charles said, nodding his head knowingly. “I’m telling you, white women is evil. Why any motherfucker would fuck with a white girl is beyond me.”

“Charley, how can you say that? Your mother and your sister is white.”

“Then don’t you think I should know what I’m talking about?”

Fariq slapped palms with Charles. “Charley O’ right. Any nigger who marry a white girl is marrying her because she white and no other reason. Unless a nigger meets a white bitch because they the sole survivors of an airplane crash and stranded on a desert island, he marrying her because she white. I don’t give a fuck what he say about true love, pretty eyes, and a nice disposition.”

“Who said anything about marriage? Me and a white babe, picture that. Smush, what you looking like that for?”

“I’m picturing.”

“Don’t even feel it. None of y’all would even know what to do with a dark-skinned babe. Yolanda is … man, please.”

“You and Landa still fucking?” Fariq asked, somehow phrasing the question in an innocuous manner.

“Of course.”

“You know what I mean when I say ‘still fucking’? Is she invisible yet? I’m not talking about when you be fucking and thinking, ‘Why am I fucking this bitch?’ but when you be fucking and thinking, ‘Why am I fucking?’ That’s when your woman becomes invisible.”

“Come on now, we been going out for two years, married for one. The attraction piece there, but hey, it ain’t easy. Before we get down to business I be sitting on the edge of the bed sipping a brew or smoking some cheeb, sometimes both. Gettin’ primed, know what I’m sayin’? Yolanda looking at me all sad, holding her breasts like food, like she’d give them to me if she could, if it would make me happy. She say, ‘Why you have to drink and smoke that shit before we make love? Shouldn’t I be enough?’ and I’m hitting the joint for all I’m worth, talking about, ‘Yeah, bitch, you should.’ ” To show his precoital exasperation, Winston took two hard pulls on the imaginary marijuana cigarette in his hand, then said, “I be like, ‘Man, this shit ain’t hitting right.’ ”