Black Buck(104)

“Even you,” I said, holding my eyes on Jason and Rose.

Once the floor was empty, Jason stretched out on the couch lengthwise, and Rose grabbed a beer.

“Are you trying to ruin us?” I asked, watching Rose plop down next to Jason.

“We tryna save us,” Jason said.

Rose smiled up at me. “Not trying, Buckaroo. We are,” she said, extending a phone in my direction.

“What is this?” I saw a photo of a sweaty white guy making out with a Black guy in what looked like a dingy club.

“Look closer,” Rose said, increasing the brightness on her phone.

It took me a second, but I saw it. The sweaty white guy was Clyde, but I couldn’t identify the Black guy.

“What the fuck is this?”

Jason and Rose looked at each other and laughed. “You said to get creative. But, honestly, it was luck, because this fell from the sky. I was at Cubbyhole with Dolores, you know, doing our date-night thing, when we overheard some guy, the Black dude in the photo, crying to his friend about his ‘lover,’” Rose said, with air quotes.

“So I moved closer and got the whole scoop. Clyde and this dude have been secretly dating for years, but this WUSS stuff is tearing them apart. So I just lifted his phone, found a handful of photos of them, texted them to myself, deleted the texts, and then returned the phone as if nothing happened. He doesn’t even know. Now we can send these to the media and blow his whole, closeted, self-hating, racist spot up.”

“Shit’s genius,” Jason said, sitting up. “We luckier than a motherfucker. ’Bout to send these off first thing in the mornin’ and get shit poppin’ like Vietnam.”

I looked down at the phone, scrolling through the handful of photos of Clyde and his boyfriend: in a jacuzzi, smiling with champagne in their hands; holding each other in a hotel room overlooking the Hudson; with fat pieces of cheesecake in front of them, forks ready to dig in. This was what we were waiting for, what we needed to get the upper hand, but it wasn’t right.

“Nah,” I said, deleting the photos, emptying her trash folder, and handing the phone back.

“What do you mean, ‘Nah!’” she shouted, furiously flipping through her phone for the missing photos. She turned to Jason, fire raging in her eyes with her mouth half open. “He just fucking deleted our leverage!”

Jason jumped off the couch and stood eye to eye with me, ready to tear me apart. “What the fuck? I thought you was about this shit. Whose side are you on?”

“It’s not right,” I said. “Outin’ Clyde to embarrass him? That shit’s too low for us.”

Rose took a breath and looked up at me. “This is war, Buckaroo. Anything goes. The point is to win, and you just brought us one step closer to losing. Why would you do that?”

I turned to her, wondering where the girl who had no place to call home six months ago went, the girl who told me that what she wanted most in the world was a family. I supposed she got what she wanted, and she was doing everything to protect it.

“We gotta have some integrity, Rose. This isn’t a game; it’s people’s lives.”

Jason sucked his teeth. “Not a game? Tha’s all you talk about, nigga. That we gotta ‘fix the game,’ ‘the game’s rigged and we gotta even the playin’ field,’ ‘we gotta do whatever it takes to get ahead.’ Now you here with this conscience and integrity bullshit? Miss me with all that, son. If you not gonna do what it takes to hold this shit down,” he said, looking at Rose, “we will.”

Reader: Life, like sales, comes with an endless amount of opportunities to do the wrong thing to win. But understand that whether you take those opportunities or not, consequences still follow. And they won’t always be in your favor.





31





Despite the week’s crazy start, peace reigned for all of Wednesday and Thursday. I was now breathing just a bit easier.

I’d promised Eddie, Marissa, and Frodo I’d grab lunch with them on Friday, to catch up, but as I headed out of Sumwun to join them, Rhett pushed open the frosted glass doors, grabbed me by the arm, and shoved me toward his office.

“What the fuck?” I asked once we were inside.

“That’s what I’m asking myself, Buck,” he said, thrusting a piece of paper into my hand.

I looked down and saw about fifty signatures on it, with PETITION TO REMOVE BUCK in bold letters at the top.

“Huh?” I scanned the list of names, beginning with Tiffany and including people from all levels of the sales team.

“You have at least fifty people there,” Rhett said, jabbing the paper, “who want you out. They say you’re unfit to lead. How could you let it get to this?”

“It’s not me, Rhett,” I said, shaking my head in disbelief. “It’s Clyde! He’s somehow invaded the ranks with his white supremacist shit.”

“White supremacist shit? Buck, I need you to be honest with me now more than ever. You remember our promise, right?”

“Yes,” I said. “Of course.”

“And you know I love you like a brother, right?”

“Yes, Rhett,” I said, the paper shaking in my hands. “What is it? Just say it.”

“Are you part of the Happy Campers? I can’t see you being involved in something like this, but I need to be sure.”