In Noah Baumbach's overlooked 1995 movie Kicking and Screaming, there's a scene in which a character played by Olivia d'Abo tells her soon-to-be-boyfriend a story about her childhood.
"I hate raisins. When I was a girl, my mother used to force me to eat them. Even though she knew I hated them."
The young man is puzzled, and an embarrassed Olivia d'Abo gives him two quarters.
"Here. Fifty cents. When I tell a bad story I like to pay people for their time."
I tell a lot of bad stories, and have often thought of that scene while doing it, once or twice reaching into my pocket to feel for change.
In the opposite direction from Mr. Baumbach's payment of reparations, is my sister's solution to bad storytelling-- a quick left turn towards violence. To fix any boring or pointless story Sarah just tacks on the sentence, "And then I stabbed the guy." As in, "Oh man, class today lasted forever, and my teacher asked us to discuss this book I hadn't read, and I was really nervous but I think I faked my way through it alright. But then this girl I hate, everybody hates her cause she sucks, she starts talking all this shit about the Bible and how she thinks that people who don't believe in God shouldn't yell 'Oh my God!' or 'Jesus Christ!' or anything like that. And then this guy, I think he's her friend was like 'Oh yeah, I totally think that too, but I didn't know anybody else agreed with me.' So then I stabbed the guy."
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Lost in the mid-July shuffle of Harry Potter and his Barnes and Noble Midnight Magic Party was the unexpected success of Karrine Steffans' Confessions of a Video Vixen, a sort of hip-hop tell-all. Ms. Steffans confesses to, among other things, affairs with DMX, Jay-Z, Vin Diesel, and Shaquielle O'Neal, who supposedly would give her $10,000 every time she blew him. Its popularity is waning now, but in July, when the publisher had yet to catch up with the unexpected demand of its new bestseller, my store received at least two dozen requests for it a day, almost exclusively from black patrons.
Yesterday I was cashiering at Barnes and Noble and two young black men came in to pick up their reserved copies. When they saw the cover with Ms. Steffans' thin painted face, a look of either animal lust or the most profound boredom coming from under her heavy purple eyelids, they snorted.
"Shorty ain't nothing special," said the one.
"Yeah dog, she ain't even that thick if you know what I'm sayin'," said the other.
"B, I think I saw this girl, minus the make-up you understand, coming out of Target twenty minutes ago. Please."
I thought this was hilarious, but more importantly I was overjoyed that an unfamiliar young black man had called me "B." It's no secret that I admire black culture, and in my daydreams I am always playing basketball with people very like these two customers. To be addressed as "B," seemed the realization of that particular fantasy; that my name doesn't start with a B didn't occur to me.
"Yeah, I thought that too; I'm relieved to hear someone else say it! But I figure, maybe she's just got a cool personality."
The two men stared at me blankly, and I realized that they had been talking to each other.
"You know, like maybe she is really funny. Or just confident. Confidence can go a long way."
More blank stares.
"Do either of you gentlemen have a Barnes and Noble Membership?"
"No man, and we don't want one," said the first, irritated.
So I stabbed the guy.
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2 comments:
For $10,000...I'll do it.
what the eff. i do not do that or have not done that in a long ass time. and the story i told about the girl saying that shit, was not a bad story. it was really funny actually. you left out hilarious details.JERK
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