by Mecca Jamilah Sullivan
This old white nigga starts talking and everybody on the train shuts up real tight for a second. Then they start screaming, “Eeeeeh! Eeeeeeh!” cheering like on the basketball court watching Pito and Slimminy try to murder each other one-on-one, or when Sonjra and Ana-Rosario skipped Mr. Dominic’s math class to go snatch clothes from on two-fifth and rocked their new Baby Phat jeans straight through eighth period, still with the plastic lock tags on. They ain’t even hear what he said, and I’m not gonna front—I didn’t really hear it either, it was so loud. I was just surprised to see him put down his newspaper and open his mouth, and even more surprised to see the snow fall out.
I always wondered what one of those random old white niggas on the train would do if you touched them or winked at them, rubbed your ass up on them one time when it was crowded or something. I thought maybe they would turn pink and start sweating and pull on they necktie like that old video for “Baby Got Back”—Sir Mix-a-Lot, I think—when the white dude sees the black girl with the phatty and it hits him too close, closer than white people like to go.
Me, I sit with my homegirl Patricia and she teaches me words in Spanish. When Chris and them act up she tells me they acting mad “bobo,” and when Scaprioni starts sweating like the white dude in the video, his face shining like a ham hock, she says “Que parece cerdo.” I laugh, ‘cause my homegirl is funny, and ‘cause I like how things she say in Spanish be so close to what I think in English. I don’t know, shit like that is just funny to me.
Blue Talk and Love is now available on Amazon.