“Your daddy slapped your mama, right?”
“Right. Right.”
“You hit him, right?”
“Right.”
“Nobody appreciates what you did. Right?”
“Hey, Guitar. You right again.”
“Not your mother, not your sisters, and your daddy appreciates it least of all.”
“Least of all. Right.”
“So he bawls you out.”
“Yep. No. No. He…”
“He talks quiet to you?”
“Right!”
“Explains things to you.”
“Yeah.”
“About why he hit her.”
“Uh huh.”
“And it’s all about something that happened a long time ago? Before you were born?”
“You got it! You are a very smart little colored boy. And I am going to tell Oxford University about you.”
“And you wish he’d kept it to himself because it don’t concern you and you can’t do nothin about it anyway.”
“You have just passed the course. Guitar Bains, Ph.D.”
“But it bothers you just the same?”
“Let me think.” Milkman closed his eyes and tried to prop his chin on his hand, but it was too difficult. He was trying to get as drunk as possible as rapidly as possible. “Yes. Well, it did bother me. Before I came in here it did. I don’t know, Guitar.” He became serious and his face had the still and steady look of a grown man trying not to vomit…or cry.
“Forget it, Milk. Whatever it is, forget it. It ain’t nothin. Whatever he told you, forget it.”
“I hope I can. I sure hope I can.”
“Listen, baby, people do funny things. Specially us. The cards are stacked against us and just trying to stay in the game, stay alive and in the game, makes us do funny things. Things we can’t help. Things that make us hurt one another. We don’t even know why. But look here, don’t carry it inside and don’t give it to nobody else. Try to understand it, but if you can’t, just forget it and keep yourself strong, man.”
“I don’t know, Guitar. Things seem to be getting to me, you know?”
“Don’t let ’em. Unless you got a plan. Look at Till. They got to him too. Now he’s just an item on WJR’s evening news.”
“He was crazy.”
“No. Not crazy. Young, but not crazy.”
“Who cares if he fucks a white girl? Anybody can do that. What’s he bragging for? Who cares?”
“Crackers care.”
“Then they’re crazier’n he is.”
“Of course. But they’re alive and crazy.”
“Yeah, well, fuck Till. I’m the one in trouble.”
“Did I hear you right, brother?”
“All right. I didn’t mean that. I…”
“What’s your trouble? You don’t like your name?”
“No.” Milkman let his head fall to the back of the booth. “No, I don’t like my name.”
“Let me tell you somethin, baby. Niggers get their names the way they get everything else—the best way they can. The best way they can.”
Milkman’s eyes were blurred now and so were his words. “Why can’t we get our stuff the right way?”
“The best way is the right way. Come on. I’ll take you home.”
“No, I can’t go back there.”
“No? Where then?”
“Let me stay in your pad.”
“Oh, man, you know my situation. One of us’ll have to sleep on the floor. Besides…”
