Movin' On Up!

He stared at the infomercial with a sense of mirth and wonder. For $20.99, a consumer could buy a whirring machine that would, with the flick of a button, remove disgusting calluses that lodged themselves on one’s feet. The thing that really amused Jovanne was the fact that the commercial had come on immediately after a cooking show that taught viewers how some types of wine were made by stomping on grapes.

He changed the channel and saw an episode of “Family Guy,” where little Stewie vomits all over the room through a 10-minute bit. The segment ended with Peter issuing a grotesque fart and laughing. Comedy.

Jovanne had been trying to avoid watching anything that was serious, but he saw he had no alternative.  He turned to channel 7, Eyewitness News and mentally prepared himself for hard hitting journalism. 

They led with a story about a Wall Street financier who had severely beaten a elderly woman, and taken her wallet. Isn’t that Crazy Jim? Oh, No Doubt Cindy, no doubt.  

The anchors tone changed as they discussed the impending “healthcare avalanche.” Jovanne could see that the network’s reporters were as unclear as the rest the country as to what the term meant, but assured viewers that the president and the congress were facing off in a showdown “of the ages” that would have an “indelible” effect on the legacy of everybody involved in the negotiation process. 

After a commercial break, he saw that there had been a shooting somewhere. The police had gunned down a 14-year-old black youth who apparently had been “suspicious,” and there was outrage.  The Reverend turned newsman Al Sharpton had led a vigil where he had blasted police brutality.

Jovanne shut off the TV, yawned, and sat up in bed. He considered browsing RedTube and finding some decent porn, but he found that the site had become strangely repetitive. He preferred porn that told a believable story, from start to finish, and hated the fact that so much of what he viewed had obvious plot flaws.

As he began to take out his computer, he was accosted by the scent of marijuana. It was pungent and fresh, and very close.

“Hey Ryan, are you smoking?” Jovanne called out to his roommate.  He noted that the smell had gotten even stronger, but he heard no answer.

Jovanne hated missing out on a good smoke. He rolled out of his bed, put on his shoes, and stepped into the small living room.

“Ryan!” he called, but Ryan wasn’t there.  It took Jovanne a moment to remember that his roommate had signed on to work the night shift at Capra’s, the gay bar at 86th. Of course he wasn’t home.

Still the weed was heavy and very present.

Jovanne opened the apartment door, and sniffed the air in the hallway. Turning his head, he saw a group of black boys on the stairwell about 20 feet from him, smoking a blunt.

Jovanne was new to the neighborhood at 188^th and Amsterdam. He had signed the lease with Ryan Shepherd, someone he had met on Craigslist, and was happy about the fact he could walk to class at Columbia Medical School, where he had just started his first year as a PH.D student.  Tonight represented the first break he had had in a long while, and damn it, he was going to have an adventure.

The boys took no notice of him as he approached. They were already blasted.

“Hey man, let me get a pass,” Jovanne said to the dark skinned boy who had just taken a puff.  All four of the boys looked up, startled, and stared silently at him. Jovanne could see that though two of them were very tall, they were younger than he had imagined, about 15 or 16. 

“You…you wanna pass us?” a light skinned boy with green eyes asked, moving to clear a space on the stairs.

Jovanne laughed.

“Naw man, gimme some of your weed. Could smell that shit from a mile away.”

Jovanne was affecting his voice to sound like the blackest blacky ever. He purposely pitched his voice down, and had adopted a swagger that he did not possess.

The boys looked at each other uncomfortably. 

“Yo, is you just gonna let that shit burn OUT. Come ON man!”

The dark skinned boy took another puff, and handed him the joint. He took 2 deep inhales, and felt good.  He passed the drug on.

“Stay in school kids,” Jovanne said, and sauntered back to his apartment. He knew what he had done was very stupid, and that exhilarated him. He was surprised, though, at the timidity of the boys on the stairs. He assumed teenagers who grew up in Washington Heights would be thug, like the black folks portrayed in New Jack City or something.

Maybe they thought he was a crazy, who might hurt them. Or perhaps, they had seen through this nigga hood act, and had pegged him a cop. Maybe it was the nerve he had had in essentially demanding something from them that wasn’t his. He was the Wall Street man stealing a wallet, the “explorer” raping an pillaging a continent. He was well on his way to becoming the white man he had always wanted to be.