I could feel the anger in the room beginning to fuse with the slow rush of scotch in my blood, dissolving in the liquor’s undertow. I said, “No, Rich. What’s the American way?

“Finding someone to blame,” he said and took a drink. “It’s true. You out working a construction job and you drop a hammer on your foot? Hell, sue the company. That’s a ten-thousand-dollar foot. You’re white and you can’t get a job? Blame affirmative action. Can’t get one and you’re black? Blame the white man. Or the Koreans. Hell, blame the Japanese; everyone else does. Fucking whole country’s filled with nasty, unhappy, confused, pissed-off people, and not one of them with the brain power to honestly deal with their situation. They talk about simpler times before there was AIDS and crack and gangs and mass communications and satellites and airplanes and global warming like it’s something they could possibly get back to. And they can’t figure out why they’re so fucked up, so they find someone to blame. Niggers, Jews, whites, Chinks, Arabs, Russians, pro-choicers, pro-lifers who do you got?”

I didn’t say anything. Hard to argue with the truth.

He slammed his feet down on the floor and stood up, began pacing. His steps were a little uncertain, as if he expected resistance after each one. “White man blames people like me because they say quotas got me where I am. Half of ‘em can’t so much as read, but they think they deserve my job. Fucking pols sit in their leather chairs with their windows looking out on the Charles and make sure their stupid-fuck white constituents think the reason they’re angry is because I’m stealing food from their children’s mouth. Black men brothers they say I ain’t black anymore because I live on an all-white street in a pretty much all-white neighborhood. Say I’m sneaking into the middle class. Sneaking. Like, because I’m black, I should go live in some shithole on Humboldt Avenue, with people who cash their welfare checks for crack money. Sneaking,” he repeated. “Shit. Heteros hate homos, now homos are ready to ‘bash back,’ whatever the fuck that means. Lesbians hate men, men hate women, blacks hate whites, whites hate blacks, and... everyone is looking for someone to blame. I mean, hell, why bother looking in the mirror at your own damn self when there’s so many other people out there who you know you’re better than.” He looked at me. “You know what I’m saying, or is it the booze talking?”

I shrugged. “Everyone needs someone to hate for some reason.”

“Everyone’s too damn stupid,” he said.

I nodded. “And too damn angry.”

He sat down again. “Goddamn.”

I said, “So where’s that leave us, Rich?”

He held up his glass. “Crying into our scotch at the end of another day.”

The room was still for a while. We each poured another drink in silence, sipped them a bit more slowly. After five minutes of this, Richie said, “How do you feel about what happened today? Are you OK?”