Black Buck(82)

“We’ve been here for like thirty minutes, Buck,” Brian shouted over the mechanical screeching. “Shouldn’t we get on one?”

I let a few more pass until they became emptier. Then, when an Uptown 6 pulled up and the platform extensions stretched to meet it, I pushed them inside.

“Uptown?” Rose asked, confused. “I thought all of the swanky spots were in Chelsea or the Meatpacking District. Shouldn’t we be taking the L?”

“You know, you would be right if we were going to one of those. But the club I’m taking you both to is much closer than you think.”

“Okaaay,” she said, cutting a sideways glance at Brian. “Why are you being so strange and mysterious, Buckaroo? Where is it?”

“One second.” I scanned the train, which was weirdly crowded for seven-thirty at night. Exhausted men with stained construction boots and stiff Carhartt jackets nodded off to sleep; teenagers in basketball sweats with Nike gym bags bobbed their heads to hypnotic beats; night nurses heading for Mount Sinai, Lenox Hill, or Henry J. Carter chewed on protein bars; old-money white folks wearing fur coats but too cheap to take a cab rested gloved hands on ivory canes.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” I shouted. “Please excuse the interruption, but this evening I have a special treat for you all.”

Rose grabbed my arm. “What is this?”

“This is the club,” I replied, winking.

“I have two young and promising dancers from Juilliard—Monte Negro and the Duchess of Philly—here with me to do a new routine they’re working on called ‘Don’t Take Another Step, Whitey,’ which is an avant-garde, modernist interpretation of America’s Reconstruction in which two newly freed enslaved people come to terms with the obvious struggle of Black liberation. Please put your hands together for them!”

The construction workers looked up with puzzled faces; the athletic teens removed oversize headphones; the nurses paused their dinners; but it was the elderly white folks who looked up with eyes full of joy and clapped loudly.

“Buck,” Brian whispered, sweat making his skin shine like an enslaved man on the run. “Why are you doing this?”

“I’m not doing this,” I said. “You are. And you”—I poked Rose’s arm—“you better get this minstrel show hopping. I need big bills—no dimes, nickels, or quarters.”

She scowled. “What the fuck does this have to do with sales? I refuse.”

“If you refuse”—I leaned closer—“then you can kiss coming back tomorrow goodbye. Your ride on the rollercoaster of Sales Sensei Buck ends now, which is fine with me. Plus, sales is about staying loose, enduring humiliation, and being flexible.”

Reader: I know, this was a bit extreme, but when it comes to sales, you either sink or swim.



I removed a portable speaker from my backpack and put on “Say It Loud—I’m Black and I’m Proud.” “C’mon everyone,” I yelled, running down the aisle. “Clap with the beat.”

Once James Brown hit his Uh! the residents of that particular Wednesday night’s New York City Uptown 6 train loosened up and pointed expectant faces in the direction of Brian and Rose. I pushed them forward, but they were as stiff as sculptures.

“The road to greatness ends for you both right here, right now, if you don’t start dancing. No sales. No better life. No cash money or freedom. No escaping the game. You have a choice. To die as an enslaved person or live as a freeman and freewoman. Hit it.”

James Brown wailed into the subway. Brian slid forward like a spastic middle school nerd and turned around, extending a hand toward Rose. She mouthed some obscenity at me, placed her hand in Brian’s, and twisted her body into his.

As the hardest-working man in show business sang about Black people finally working for themselves, Rose pushed herself away from Brian. He stumbled back on his heels, grabbing a metal pole to steady himself. And she hit a series of dance moves—the running man, the tootsie roll, the sprinkler, the robot, and even the YMCA—to the raucous applause of the entire train. By the time the song finished and the train hit Grand Central, stunned passengers walked on to fifty white people clapping and shouting, “Say it loud, I’m Black and I’m proud, huh!”

“Okay,” Rose said after we got off, hands on her knees, catching her breath. “That was pretty fun.”

“Yeah,” Brian echoed, wiping the sweat off his face with a puffy sleeve. “I didn’t even know I could dance.”

“You can’t,” I said, laughing. “But at least you didn’t make a complete fool of yourself. And you both managed to not only convince a subway full of white people that they were Black but also that they were proud of it. If that’s not sales, I don’t know what is.”

“Psh,” Rose said. “That’s not hard. Rappers who let white people sing ‘nigga’ at their concerts do it every night.”

“She has a point,” Brian said.

I waved a heavy hat in front of them. “Anyway, by the time this went around, we made almost fifty dollars.”

“Ohhh, gimme!” Rose dug her tiny fingers into the hat, pulling out the big bills. “I’ll take this as payback for the money you owed me from poker, Brian.”

“Perfect,” he said, relieved.