BLACK BROTHER LET ME DOWN
      

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.