Black brother lets me down
Just goes to show there's less to colour than meets the eye
By SIGCINO MOYO
I'm hanging out at a College Street flesh emporium, pounding ale with a crony.
Some dude lurches toward us, brushing a little too close for comfort -- looks like trouble's on the way for a second -- as he grabs a vacant spot at the bar. He nods at me and we exchange a cursory "What's up?"
My Blue-swilling bud, perplexed, asks, "How come everywhere we go, you brothers always nod 'What's up?' You don't even know each other!"
The brothers in question are black guys, and his point is that French Canadians like himself -- otherwise also known as white guys -- don't go around doing the same. So what gives?
I purposely shed no light, telling him we just cast a secret ballot for the Great Insurrection that's around the corner -- and we both crack up.
A few days later, I'm hightailing it from the office, technically brain-dead after finishing a shift from Hades. A black stranger steps up to me, but he seems to check out OK, so I pause to get my ear bent.
My fear that he's an undercover Bible-thumper proves unfounded, and we somehow get around to chanting down "the man" and what it's like to navigate through his illusory world.
"That's why I only deal with the brothers!" he insists.
And the deal he's pushing today is a laptop computer. Roll over, Marcus Garvey.
The hot-goods racket jive just doesn't jibe with his preamble Black Nationalist rap and I'm not really interested -- not for 500 bones -- but agree to have a look.
His associate, another young cat, massive hockey bag in tow, ambles across the Danforth looking all shifty, like the homeboy stereotype. He won't meet my eye.
In the body-sized bag is a Toshiba 320 CT, still wrapped, and as I haul it out for a better peek, a cop car routinely cruises on by. Youngblood doesn't miss a beat, reflexively swiping the zipper shut, and I head off.
They follow, with the pitchman literally begging for any counter-offer, so I throw out low-ball digits, figuring he'll get lost. His face contorts like I've hoofed him in the sac, yet he grudgingly accepts.
While I coax some bread from the money machine, he boasts that merchandise finds him all the time and scrawls "James" and a phone number on a discarded receipt. The green spits out, and James is a little jumpy about being busted taking it from me by the bank's camera.
No problem, though, he figures. Putting it in an envelope makes it a legit transaction, even in the ominous Big Brother's eyes.
I haul the goods home and know I've been corn-holed even before I peel off the faux packaging to find layers of newspapers -- all NOW -- neatly stuffed into the doctored box.
In the words of the great Chuck D on the Public Enemy album Fear Of A Black Planet, "Every brother ain't a brother cause a colour."
But maybe as we stumble blindly toward the year 2000, the scam is a mere beacon on the emergence of a true global economy, where the pursuit of the almighty dollar signs cuts through all tribal lines.
NOW NOVEMBER 5-11, 1998
