Saved and SAINTified (43 page)

Brooks’ eyes bucked. He looked around the room again and gripped his chair
. “Fuck you!” he blurted, fear all over his reddened face.

S
aint burst out laughing, causing Jagger and Lawrence to chime in.

“Fuck me, Brooks? That’s all you have to say for yourself?” S
aint smiled and sighed, then shrugged his shoulders. “Nah Brooks, you fucked
yourself
. ” His eyes narrowed. “You fucked yourself so mothafuckin’ good, I hope you at least took yourself out to eat first, goddamn! That is some
serious
screwin’!” Still laughing, Saint slapped the table to drive the point home. “Your time is up,” he finished in a low voice, his smile faded.

The room became eerily quiet.

“I—I want to tell you, Saint, that as I’ve gotten to know you, I do respect you, ya know?” Brooks’s eye’s blurred. He offered a forced grin. “I just don’t agree with your philosophies is all.” Brooks pulled at his collar, as if he were burning up.

“I don’t give a
shit
about you not agreeing with my philosophies!” Saint stood and leaned across the table, his arms wide, and palms flat on the surface, knowing how that stance would intimidate Brooks. “I know what type of
boy
you are ... you’re a punk! A pussy! A fucking loser! Scared by what the fuck another man is doing. It is none of your
damn
business who these Rainbeaus love, are screwing and dating! You make me fucking sick.”

“S
aint, look.” Brooks ran his shaking hand across his forehead. “I’m not a racist, okay? I just want all of us to live separately. My purpose here wasn’t about you, it was about the organization and yeah, James being gone was a good opportunity so we could see what was going on. We had no intentions of harming you.”

“Harming
me
?” Saint laughed and pointed at his chest. “You think I’m worried about
you
harming
me
? You are playing a horrible game of bluff—sitting there looking like you are going shit on yourself, but trying to keep a brave face. You aren’t fooling anyone. Cancel my subscription, man. I’m so sick of mothafuckas like you and your issues.”

“Our organization is designed to
—”

“Guys like you don’t have enough to do, apparently. You have no life or you wouldn’t have time to create these silly ass, fucked up assemblies that harass people like me and my kind. Only this time, you thought you were walking into a birthday party for six
-year-olds, when in fact, you are in a motherfucking lion’s den.” Saint laughed mirthlessly.

Jagger
stepped forward. “Brooks, you’ve been doing some pretty shady things.” He scratched his nose. “You’ve disturbed the operation. You have heard personal information, been to meetings, seen private encounters .There will be consequences.”

“Look! We can just agree to disagree. I’ll just walk out of here, and you’ll never see me again.”

“Oh boy!” Lawrence clucked his tongue and leaned back in his chair. “You really can’t believe that that is how this is going down. Brooks, you violated the brotherhood, the trust. James, George and Saint have spent years getting things just as they are, and with one bad word, you and your comrades could jeopardize everything.”

“I saw all that bullshit you wrote about black people, about African Americans, Brooks.
I read what you wrote about a few of our Jewish and Muslim members as well.”

Brooks shrugged and turned away
. “Don’t take it personally you guys. Especially you, Saint. You’re not black, Jewish or Muslim.”

“My
father is Muslim and he is no goddamn terrorist! We’re from New York! He lost friends in 9/11! My woman is black! My sons are half black! Don’t you tell me to not take the shit personally! You have been in here, breakin’ bread with me and these men and all the other knights, laughing in our damned faces when all the while, you wrote that we were disgusting and shameful to God! What do
you know
about God, Brooks?” Saint lunged across the table again, this time, pointing directly in his face.  “You don’t know shit about God! About creation. If you did, you’d know that you come from a black woman. It’s in your DNA, it’s in
all
of our DNA, you ignorant son of a bitch!”

Jagger
pulled Saint’s arm in an attempt to calm him. Saint shook free and moved swiftly around the table toward Brooks.

Brooks shuffled his feet in his chair
. “If you harm one hair on my head, you will be arrested!”

S
aint roughly grabbed his chair and got in his personal space. Brooks looked up at him, clearly trying in vain to keep a cool face. Saint could smell his fear; it would have been intoxicating if he was into that sort of thing.

“Brooks, let’s have a quick little discussion, just out of curiosity,
’kay?”

“
...Okay...”

“So, in some of that shit you wrote, you said blacks are freeloaders
. They want shit for free all the time—handouts. You said none of them ever contributed to society. All they do is commit crimes, make a bunch of babies they can’t take care of and are intellectually inferior to all other races, but especially the white race. You mentioned some other shit, too, but I’m going to stay focused on that right now. That’s plenty, don’t you think?” Saint used all of his will power to keep from popping Brooks in the face with a ferocious left hook. “People like you
really
intrigue me.  I’ve seen people like you before, but I had to pay admission! You fucking freak show.”

Lawrence and
Jagger burst out laughing, then quickly got control of themselves.

“So
, can you humor me for a moment, and explain to a dumb mothafucka like me who
obviously
doesn’t get it,” he rolled his eyes, “what the fuck you’re talking about? Shit, maybe I really
am
the stupid one. Help me out here.” He looked over at Jagger and they exchanged smirks. “Help me understand what the fuck you’re talking about, man ... come on, break it down for me.”

“S
aint, be reasonable. I believe that deep down, you know that African Americans are inferior. Sure, I’ve heard everything you’ve had to say, and some of it, well, was interesting but I could tell you are a very smart man, you’re just warped. Because of your attraction to black women, you’ve tried to rationalize it,” Brooks stated matter-of-factly as sweat ran down his face. “Your attraction is a disorder, kind of like being gay. It’s an abomination and unnatural.”

Lawrence and Saint shot each other a glance and burst out laughing.

“Oh, really? Wow. It all makes sense now.” Saint smiled. “How are black people inferior though ?”

“Well, for starters, their intellect
, as stated. Even their brains, on average, are smaller than yours, mine and those of all other races of people. You’ve basically been practicing bestiality, Saint. Those people are only a few notches higher than a gorilla. We are way more advanced than blacks, even your race is, the Chinese side of you.”

“
Korean, Brooks.” Saint sighed. “You haven’t listened to anything I’ve said about my own personal story, yet you are supposedly gathering information.” He shook his head. “My father is Muslim and Egyptian. My mother was Buddist and Korean. I have that in all of my books. I mention it before most of my lectures and conferences, and it is even printed in my bio online! How can you talk about anyone being inferior when you can’t even remember the basics?!”

“It was an honest mistake.”

“I bet your father said that to your mother right after he busted off in her...”

Lawrence and Jagger burst out laughing again, causing Brooks to turn red with anger.

“I can give you more information about this, Saint.”

“
Uh huh, I see.”

“They have the highest dependency on government subsidies. They are sucking the life right out of our economy!”

“And how do we obtain growth, as a nation, Brooks? How do we fix this?”

“Well, through self-sufficiency.”

“And how does one become self-sufficient?”

“From income and sustainability.”

“And how does one get income and sustainability?” Saint pressed on, still gripping Brooks’ chair as he glowered at him.

“From their own business or a job with an established company.”

“Bingo!” Saint stood straight and clapped loudly. “You can take care of yourself, from a job or running your own company. What people, for the longest damn time, Brooks, were getting loans for small businesses?”

“S
aint, everyone was offered the same opp—”

“Bullshit! And you know it’s bullshit! Blacks were not getting bank loans nearly as much as whites and the whites that were getting the loans, sometimes their credit was jacked up, but they got the loan anyway! This is documented! It’s in our history and is still happening to this day. You expect a person to pull themselves up by the bootstraps when they have no damn shoes!”

“No, I—”

“Just stop!” S
aint put his hand up. “You had your chance, now it’s my turn. My grandparents were Korean immigrants. Neither one of them could speak a lick of English. They moved to New York, from Korea, and started a business. They only had about fifty dollars between the two of ’em. This was back in the ’50s. They didn’t have good or bad credit. They had
no
credit! Their store was very successful.”

“Well, that is because they were
hard workers. Most black people in this country, the African Americans, are not.”

“Where are your clown shoes? You must be kidding me
.” Saint’s nostrils flared as he looked at Brooks with disgust. “I will tell you why: Because they had support from banks and other Koreans around the area. Not only that, they treated their customers well, so that gave them an advantage. Now, my mother-in-law is off the damn chain, Brooks. You’ve heard me speak of her in a couple meetings before. Despite her attitude at times, I love her to death. I love her, because she is the mother of my wife—she brought that woman that I adore so much into the world. That
black
woman, who bore my children, is my best friend. She is my heart and soul.”

“I understand that you love your wife, but she is still
—”

“Shut up. I’m not finished speaking and
I swear to God,”
Saint seethed and spat through clenched teeth, “if you say one shady thing about my ol’ lady I will fuck your face up so bad it will look like a damn Picasso painting when I’m finished—rearranged like a mothafucka dot org!”

Brooks reared back in his seat
, his eyes round as saucers.

“Anyway” S
aint regained his composure. “My mother-in-law can say some ignorant shit. She really can—but book-smarts, she got that on lock, and so does my wife. She could run rings around you and almost everyone else I know, in a college classroom, on her worst day.”

“And let me guess? It’s the white man’s fault that she is a failure?”

“She was set up to fail financially, and you and I both know it. She was discriminated against; she didn’t get the loan she needed back in the ’80s, to start her own natural hair care salon. She got the idea after her
black daughter
, my wife, told her she didn’t want any more relaxers in her hair. Having your hair natural wasn’t in style at that time. The ’70s were over, the ’80s had brought the jheri curl. She just woke up one morning and told her mother, ‘I don’t want another perm.’

“
So, my mother-in-law got the idea to start a shop for women who felt the exact same way as her little girl at the time. She was light-years before her time, trying to be innovative and cater to women of color—African, African American, Caribbean, some Dominican and Puerto Rican women—all the ones with kinky hair that wanted to have nice hairstyles and maintenance for it. She could do all the perms, jheri curls and all that other stuff, too. She was going to offer it all, but natural hair was going to be her calling card, before anyone else was doing it. Her credit was good, contrary to the stereotypes you’ve thrown out. She had established credit, paid her bills on time and worked two jobs supporting her three children. People like her get no credit though! She didn’t freeload, shit!”

Brooks
squirmed in his chair, his knuckles dead white on the armrests.

“You see her comin’ and think, ‘Just anoth
er lazy ass black woman, making babies and living off of hard working people.’ All of her children have the same father, Brooks. She has a cosmetology license. She didn’t get welfare, Brooks! She is not the exception; there are many more stories like hers. Hell, who knows?! By now she could’ve been a celebrity stylist!”

“S
aint, what do you want from me?” Brooks grimaced, obviously exhausted from the verbal beat-down. “Okay fine, you know who I am. You still believe black people are top notch.” He shrugged. “Honestly, your group shouldn’t be in existence because James was a government official. That was a conflict of interest. His obsessions colored his decision making process. My own personal feelings aside, this is just wrong.”