“They put those business suits right back on, chile, and head straight back to those real estate offices or employment bureaus, and give us the same shit about not being qualified enough, or that the apartment’s just been rented, or they’re too tired now and if you come back to their room in about an hour they might be able to get it up for you. Shit, I know their tricks. I was one of their tricks. Now look at me.”

“Metro wasn’t like that.”

“And no black news story ever gets decent coverage, does it? You ever read about the charitable work the Elks was doing or the Daughters of the Eastern Star? Or any black man winning a prize for something outside the stadium or the disco dance floor? Huh? We’re all subway muggers and rapists and drag queens. Not men. And not black men loving other black men. Loving being black and men together.”

“Not Metro. He wasn’t like that.”

“You was his nigger. Face it. Your college degree wasn’t shit. All he wanted was your cock or your ass, but he was afraid to get it off the real streets he walked on.”

“No.”

“And you see this-here meat? You see it? Black, ain’t it? Real black. It’s greased and ready, Jesse. Fat as a Carolina sausage. Greased and ready.”

“Ready for what?”

“You coming home now, baby. I’m gonna get in that ass.”

“No.”

“Indubitably? That’s what I heard you moaning. Roll over.”

“No.”

“I said roll over. Spread it. People been asking me, and I got to know.”

“No.”

“Goddamn it. You my nigger now. I’m gonna get in that ass.”

Just as he sagged onto one side of the mattress, I jumped off the other side and made it to the door, slammed it shut, and bolted down the stairs. My feet twisted against the steps, missing a few, but I kept on running, past the TV room and the sauna, past open rooms, past the exhaling mist of the steam room and its fog of memory, past everything there that descended into nothing but a row of lockers and vending machines selling Coke and cookies and condoms and KY. I got into my clothes, returned key and towel, and hit the streets. From the seventh-floor window came a voice yelling, “You mine, nigger.” And there was Clementine waving a fat fist.

I walked quickly, mindlessly, until I came to the subway. The smell of burning electricity turned me right around, and I was back on the street, not knowing where I’d go next. But there was only one place I could go, the battered room Metro and I shared the last time I saw him alive. I wasn’t Metro’s nigger, or Clementine’s. I was my own beautiful black son of a bitch.

I found West Street, dodged traffic, and entered the abandoned warehouse. And there I was, face to face with the splinters.

“Jesse. Oh, Jesse. I knew you’d come.”