On the kitchen counter at the far end of the loft, beyond the barber chairs and low glass table that marked the den, and the scuffed floorboards beneath the basketball hoop, the West Indian Day parade—a lava flow of rum-loosened revelers in fringes, sequins, and feathers—hissed across the TV screen like the beckoning smile of a femme fatale.

My life has turned to shit, he thought as he placed the letter on the dresser and looked out the window for Margaret. He had never in his life felt so vulnerable. For he’d always depended on the strength of others. Since the argument at the gallery three months ago, he’d withdrawn from Sylvia, and she hadn’t tried to reconnect; Margaret now belonged to Phil; and he hadn’t heard from Fire since the argument about the watch. Every time he spoke to Claire he felt like confessing his arrangement with Lewis. So he’d begun to avoid her as well.

But even with all these people out of his life, he thought, looking down the street toward the entrance of the sprawling brick-and-concrete complex, he still didn’t want to see his mother, whom he resented for reasons he’d long recognized without really understanding. He loathed Miss Gita because she was East Indian. A coolie. A despised and stereotyped minority in an overwhelmingly black country. Coolie. The word seemed to knock the wind out of him. He leaned against the window ledge, which was wide and trimmed in mauve. The walls were a powder blue and hung with the work of friends, including, over the bed, a Jean-Michel Basquiat portrait of him as a king, in acrylic on hardboard.

In his head he heard the taunts. Coolie baboo shit pon hot callaloo. Coolie gyal ave white liver. Coolie can tief milk outta coffee. Sixteen coolie weigh one pound. Coolie cyaah dance. Coolie batty flat. Coolie drink dem own piss when dem thirsty.

Coolie. It was worse than nigger. Because even a nigger could call an Indian “coolie” and get away with it. But the black people don’t see it that way. They expect you to forget who you are. It’s okay to celebrate Diwali because they like to come and eat the food, the curry this and the curry that, and they like to watch you jig to the tabla drum because coolie cyaah dance and coolie gyal wi gi weh pussy once dem get excited.

Coolie gyal have white liver. Coolie gyal cyaah satisfy nuh matter how hard yuh fuck dem. Coolie gyal mighta likkle but dem big underneat. His own friends used to say these things. Like the nigger in America, the coolie in Jamaica is invisible.

So knowing this, Mama, he thought, as his shadow stained the wall, why you had six children for six different men? Why you never married even one o’ dem? Everyone—you included—likes to emphasize that I’m your only son, as if it’s the same thing as being your only child. What about your daughters? My sisters? Wha’appen to dem? Dem cyaah help you?