Wednesday Morning White Boy Blues

“Get up,” she says.

“Get up!”

“What?”

“Your phone is buzzing.”

“Is there any coffee?”

“I’ll ask Higgins to bring you some. Answer your phone.”

“Who’s Higgins?”

“Yeah, who’s Higgins, you got that right, just answer the damn phone.”

“Hello?” He fumbles on the night table for the joint he started and let burn out last night. He puts his glasses on and clicks on his phone. Holds it loosely to his ear.

“Hey, Home boy, where you at? What up, my man? You coming in today? I got something I want you to do for me.”

He moves the phone closer to his ear, covers the phone, and speaks into it . “Nothing, man. Just chillin’ here. Sure, I’ll be there.” He motions for his wife to leave.

“Who is that?” she says. He waves her away. She sits on the side of the bed.

“Nothing, No one. No, not you man. I was talking to somebody else. It’s okay, man. It’s cool. Look can I call you right back?”

Word, dude! she hears before he clicks off.

“That was Benny,” he says.

“Benny Wadsworth, our boss?”

“Yeah.”

“And he talks like that? And what kind of big thing does he want you to do?”

“No, no. It’s nothing. I don’t know. That’s just his way sometimes. You know, he acts easy, chill. That’s all. Just one of the boys.”

“Just one of the boys? Which boys? Are you one of the boys? That’s silly question. Isn’t it? Because he was just talking to you that way. Does he talk to clients like that?”

“No, I don’t know. Some, maybe.”

“He’s a grown man. He runs a business worth hundreds of millions of dollars or more, and he talks like he’s fifteen years old wannabe with his orange pants hanging down below his ass, holding onto his crotch, waiting in line in a lunchroom upstate for a juvee he says he didn’t commit? And what kind ”

“Come on, Essie, give me a break.”

“You talk like that?”

“No.”

“But you condone it?”

“He’s my boss. I don’t condone anything. I do what I have to do. Put up with what I have to. I’m nothing without him. He calls all the shots.”

“Well, you better give that whole idea a little more thought, like what kind of shots. And you think you’re nothing? You think I like to hear that? What am I then? How am I supposed to feel when you say that? How do you think I feel when you say she’s ‘just somebody else?’ Maybe you should take a good look at all of this. We’re in this together. For your sake and mine.”

He gets his clothes on and leaves for work. He takes the subway across the river, getting off at Rector Street. He buys a coffee and a bagel from the vendor on the corner and brings it up to his desk. He connects his computer into the VPN, logs in, and he sits.

He looks around the room.

It’s seven fifteen a.m. Twenty-five other white boys like him in clean, white Succession-looking shirts and royal-blue ties, headphones over their neat razor cuts, staring at three screens lit up in front of them. Smiling false smiles and making pencil marks on yellow note pads. Following the rules. Putting in the time. Keeping in line. Doing what’s needed to do to make a dime.

Who the hell am I? What the hell am I doing?

 I pull down two hundred and fifty K and I still have to suck up to anyone one step up and two steps ahead of me just to keep that going. It’s like they own a piece of me and they do. Sometimes I feel like a shit for doing that, but my boss makes ten times that and gets good seats in Nobu, free tickets to  the U.S. Open and a season pass to the Nets and Giants every year and I wait around and treat him like he can do no wrong and see if he’ll ask me along one day.  I mean why does he get the free tickets and shit? In what world does that make sense. He makes millions and they give him free shit. I have to pay for everything. He screws anyone one he can for an extra buck. And what, he gets the free ride? And I get what?

Everything I have, the home, the car, nice clothes, kids in a good school, could be gone with one bad week. One bad day. One mistake. One slip. Gone. No one is going to care about me or what happens to me. Security walks me to the elevator. Then what do I do? I’m out on the street and who would give a rat’s ass for me?

I have bills up the ass and my marriage is desiccating. I know that. My kids think I’m old and ask me why I’m tired all the time.

I work hard. I work hard for what I have. For what we have. I take the subway every day. I’m not ignorant. I know lots of people have it worse off than me. I see that. I feel bad for them. But what? Does that make me feel any better? It doesn’t.

And assholes like Benny just make it all worse for guys like me. Because they act like misogynists and ignorant know-nothings who think they know everything, and keep others down, I get treated just like one of them when I walk into a room. No one even waits to hear what I’m going to say. Like I’m wrong before I say a word. Just for the way I look.

I feel squeezed all the time. I’m in the middle. The people on top get anything they want and the people on the bottom want to take what I have. Does that sound fair to you? I mean, I’m squeezed. No one gives me anything. And then what? I have to watch what I say, how I look. I’m white, I get that. Do I have any control over that?

And in the meantime, I get treated like I’m always the bad guy. I’m the white guy in the room with a little money so what do I know. I know history. I know inequality. But I’m a human person like everyone else. Don’t write me off and just give me the smirk and roll your eyes routine because I’m white and a man. I mean, how does that feel fair? I always give people a seat on the subway, but even then, even this morning for crap sake, I get the smirk, like I’m only doing that because of what people might think, not because I think it’s the right thing. Or I’m condescending or just performing. You think any of these other shithead grunts around me care about anything or anyone except themselves? Not chance. Make it now, they think. Screw everything else and everyone in your way.

Shit! Why me? Everyone leave me alone. Sometimes I feel like I should just quit. Leave. Go away. Pack us all up and go someplace. Far away. Start over. Take some cash and disappear. Get out of this city. Open a grocery store someplace. Shit. I don’t know. Just leave me alone for Christ’s sake.