King Suckerman

“Listen to this shit, boss,” said Rasheed. He turned up the volume on the system. Fiery guitar blossomed through the house KLMs.

“Who is this?” said Clay.

“Group called El Chicano, on the Shadybrook label, out of L.A. This brown guitarist, he’s got a sound like ’Los, don’t he?”

“He does sound a little like Santana, man, I’ll give you that.”

“Which only proves my point. It’s only men of color who can get that feeling out of a guitar.”

“Maybe so. But you know, the best guitarist I ever saw was white. John McLaughlin, man. Was three rows back when he played the Warner with the Mahavishnu Orchestra. Touring behind Visions of the Emerald Beyond. Had that twelve-string of his, and I swear to you, man, it was like the Lord himself had his fingers on the frets. And you know, I’ve seen damn near all of the great ones. B.B. and Muddy and all those blues boys. Saw Hendrix at the Ambassador, too. But nobody, not even Jimi, played like Johnny McLaughlin played that night.”

“It’s the color experience, Marcus, that’s what gets the feeling out of the instrument. Look at the blues!”

“I hear you, Rasheed. And I agree. But I’m only tellin’ you what I saw with my own eyes. My experience, dig?”

“It’s like the white man took the blues, co-opted that shit for himself. Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, and all that. And now you got those dumb-ass movies, like the one Cheek was in such a hurry to go off and see tonight. Those white producers tryin’ to exploit our culture, showin’ us what our ghetto thing is all about. And us, givin’ them our money like stone suckers. It’s bullshit, man. You don’t understand.”

“It’s you that... Look: You got to get beyond that shit, young brother. ’Cause out in the world, it’s only gonna cripple your ass. Be aware of your history and what was done to us, and don’t ever forget. Keep your black aesthetic and be proud of it. But get rid of the bitterness, man. It ain’t gonna do you no good.”

“I hear you, man.”

“You do?”

“Yeah, I do.”

Clay sighed, pointed his chin to the front of the shop. “Go on and lock the front door. I want to show you something before you go.”

Rasheed Adamson went to the door, locked it with the keys Marcus Clay had given him upon his promotion. He looked out the window at the dusk fallen on the avenue, checked his watch. He went back behind the counter. Clay was down on his knees, pushing aside the throw rug that covered the removable panel over the small hole he had cut in the wood floor, a hole just big enough to accommodate a cash box. Clay kept a hundred and change in the register overnight, just enough to make a burglar think that a hundred and change was all he kept in the shop; the real money he kept in the cash box beneath the floor.

“Get on down here, boy,” said Clay.

Now they were both sitting on the floor, below counter level, out of sight of any pedestrians window-shopping on Connecticut. Clay opened the steel box. He reached into each of his pant pockets, withdrew two rolls of large-denomination bills.

Rasheed looked at the money. He fingered the macrame red, black, and green Africa cutout that hung around his neck on a leather string. “You got some serious change there, boss.”

“Goddamn right it’s serious. You’re lookin’ at twenty grand.”

“For real?”

“Square business.”

“Where’d you get it?”