The Fugitivities, стр. 11

certain levels, defeat seemingly impossible bosses. For Isaac it had nothing to do with sincerity, or even character. It was more of a naturally expected thing, like a weather pattern, something he felt he’d been primed his entire life to see and to recognize whenever it came across his path. The light-skinned ones. Always on their way, somehow effortlessly floating upward, buoyed by currents seen and unseen, sliding past the glass doors and showing up on the other side and waving back, always insisting everything was the same, even though everything was different—for them.

Isaac appeared to brood and consider the general mess of things. He was always the type who took his time while he searched for the right thing to say—so that when he had framed it for himself it ended up coming out blunt, not because he was imprecise, but because his tone always had an intimidating air of Solomonic judgment baked in. Tell it plain. That was his instinct, his way of keeping shit real.

“So you think I should go?” asked Jonah.

“I didn’t say that. But I do think you’ve already made up your mind.”

“And I can’t convince you to come with.”

“Shit…there you go.”

“What? You’re always talking about how you hate the city.”

“Look, J., I’m an American. This is where I belong. I think you’re used to existing between cultures. It’s good for you. Traveling is a natural extension of that. But me, I got to fight on the home front. I know it’s not glamorous, but it’s real. It’s real to me.”

Isaac took a sip of his coffee. His composure was unwavering.

“You’re not bored with this place? I mean, the same shit, the same violence, the same stories over and over?”

“Bored? I’m not bored. It’s the rest of the country that’s bored. They’ve all been shocked into numbness. We live in a blasé culture right now. Straight up. Turn on the TV any time, day or night, and prove me wrong. It’s a way of protecting ourselves against something. I don’t know what it is. But that’s exactly why I need to be here. Someone has to fight back. And the truth is, it doesn’t help anything, you leaving. You run away from your teaching, but also your friends, your people. I mean, call me old-fashioned, but I still believe in the struggle, and not in some bullshit flag-waving sense. I mean in that you build yourself around a community and take responsibility for it, own it, make a good old-fashioned contribution.”

“I know what you’re saying. And you’re not wrong. But don’t you ever feel suffocated? Like, it’s too big, too vast for anything we do to count? Like the atmosphere is poisoned? It’s not in one thing or one group of people. It’s everywhere you look. And there’s this feeling of ‘Fuck it, man!’ Just get out. See something new, be somewhere else.”

“I see it another way, J. I mean for me, it’s all right here. You can live a whole life right here in Harlem and never know the half of it. I mean, look at Albert Murray. My man is still living right here in the Lenox Houses. I don’t need to go find the rest of the world, let the rest of the world find themselves…I’m trying to fuck with this music shit, and this is where it’s at here, now, and it’s about us, like it’s always been, and the only place you can find the realness is in these same streets. In our history, J. There’s so much richness we have that no one has even touched yet.”

“Yeah, there’s richness, and you know what we do with it, we throw that shit away like it don’t mean nothin.” We both know what happened in New Orleans. Gave this country our culture and they let us drown on live television! They Wolf Blitzer you and then it’s so long, folks. Moving like piranhas. Feed on the body and they’re gone. No one cares about our losses, and you can’t make them.

“Hey man, Kanye said it.” Isaac leaned back with his arms folded. “The president don’t care about black folks. Like we didn’t know already. So yeah. You right, so far as it goes. But who needs they opinion anyways? I don’t need George Bush to care—I don’t need none of these fools one way or the other. The way I see it the culture stands for me and I can stand on that. What you so upset about anyhow? Our shit has survived bigger storms than this. Our shit is official. Always has been. Official down to the bone gristle. Made outta gutbucket bayou back-porch church sweat and grease all up in it. Built hand to hand. Built outta nothing and no way. They tried to lock us up but we did it anyhow. Did for this country. And did for us. I seen niggas bounce back straight outta county and make that shit sound like a cool million. You understand what I’m saying. I ain’t ’bout to start feeling sorry for myself now. Shit, with what ma dukes been through? Her mother, her grandparents? No hope, just run away somewheres? Is that what you gonna tell the kids you teach?”

Jonah, already defeated, interjected anyway: “I don’t know what I’m teaching them. I don’t know that anything I can teach them would even make a difference.”

“You lying, bro. You know they watch and listen to every word come out your mouth. You just mad because you don’t really want to be there.”

Jonah winced and failed to make any reply. Isaac, seeing that he had hit a nerve, shifted away as if to indicate he wouldn’t dwell.

“Listen, I’m just saying. How you know what’s around the bend? What if the best days for New Orleans is yet to come? What if we only just getting started—only just starting to get the conditions we need to make this place really work out the way it’s supposed to? You talking all this apocalypse. Everywhere