"Why're you such a dillweed, dude?" said one friend, who appeared to be the moral conscious of the group. "Gosh. Flippin' grow up, man."
Unlike other Thursday nights, Hope Street was kind of dead with not much foot traffic. A pitying look crossed Pariah's face while he watched the cars go by. "These folks ain't like my father's generation that learned how to live with the people who were already here. Now, you got people manipulating the market and pushing other folks out of the city
"This crowd's coming with something different. Almost like an air of superiority; like somebody told them all their lives they were special, and that everybody else was here for their amusement."
Pariah recalled a night when a crowd just like the college kids had occupied the venue. When a bartender tried to calm the raucous crew, one of them screamed how his father was some big shot in Corporate America, who knew inspectors that would shut down Putnam's if his father gave the word.
"I threw that little bastard out and told him, 'That if we ever cross paths again, even if it's in some other state or country, I'll beat your ass just off GP.'" Pariah relaxed a little when he scanned the mostly white crowd either taking whiskey shots or eating dinner. He smiled a little when he realized that his place, for some, was where they chose to end their evening with coffee and light discussion.
"Having these folks around ain't all bad. Some times it's funny watching the drunken ones walk into stationary things from streetsigns to parking meters to mailboxes."
Phillip recalled another funny experience. It was the night a guy and his lady were walking by a group of men in their early 20's, who were selling CD's out the trunk of their car. After talking with the group, the couple tried to dance to the rap beat pumping out of the subwoofer in the trunk. Struggling to stay on beat, their jerky movements drew a lot of attention.
"It was like they were fighting off imaginary muggers." Phillip laughed, mimicking the motion of the couple, who appeared to be manipulated by some mad puppeteer. Phillip, who studied film, knew the history of black folks outside of Black Broadway--the shameful roles they had to take in Hollywood films to get by. When Phillip considered well-educated blacks typecasted as babbling imbeciles, he realized the historical context of the joke; like a twist of fate almost.
"All these years of white folks amusing themselves on our behalf, this is how we get them back." He told Pariah. "By making them dance to rap music."
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