I, Too
BY LANGSTON HUGHES
I, too, sing America.
I am the darker brother.
They send me to eat in the kitchen
When company comes,
But I laugh,
And eat well,
And grow strong.
Tomorrow,
I’ll be at the table
When company comes.
Nobody’ll dare
Say to me,
“Eat in the kitchen,”
Then.
Besides,
They’ll see how beautiful I am
And be ashamed—
I, too, am America
Previously on Old Man Young and the Bronx Avenger
Somewhere in the Bronx:
Darker is an odd name, but it stuck because the man who wore it like a badge knew that it was unique. The man had a flare for the poetic and he peppered it into his native street tongue to dazzling effect. He could schmooze the ladies by quoting Shakespeare and he could incite righteous vengeance to inspire his goons by invoking Blake. He was well read, something he had plenty of time for when he spent nearly a decade in prison, and he gravitated toward poetic greats because their words were written for great men like him to recite. He chose his name because of the special connection he felt to Langston Hughes’s I, Too. The poem was his story, it was his youth when he was poor in the Bronx trying to make money to pay his mother’s medical bills and keep his twin siblings in school. Everyday he felt like less than the men whose packages he delivered up and down the island of Manhattan on a bike he had salvaged from a garbage heap on his block. They had big offices and sharp suits, mail too important for the regular postal service and enough money to pay a guy like him to weave in and out of traffic to meet important deadlines. When he tried to apply for a job at one of those businesses, he was laughed out of the building. He assumed that they rejected him because he was black, which didn’t help matters, but in reality it was his resume; Darker didn’t have a high school education because he spent so much time trying to earn money at jobs that required no experience and he hadn’t spent any time in an office setting. When an opportunity came along for him to make a lot of money, enough to eventually throw his bike back on the garbage heap, he couldn’t say no (his mother needed surgery that she couldn’t afford). He was offered money to deliver drugs on his bike and he tripled his income, but it didn’t last long. He spent 8 years in prison for possession and distribution. He came across I, Too during his sixth year, after he had gained respect by killing two other inmates who threatened him, two murders that were never solved by the prison. By his sixth year, Darker was having flashbacks to those fancy high rise buildings and those fancy suits, and he was networking with other inmates to secure a business for himself upon release. “I am the darker brother…” Darker said it like mantra, “Tomorrow, I’ll be at the table…They’ll see how beautiful I am.”
This week, in Tennessee
“I still don’t know why I had to come all the way down here. You taking me away from important business.” Darker is decidedly frank; the humidity of the south always seeps away his poetry, leaving him ornery.
“I heard about Corey, sorry that had to happened to him.”
“Had to happen? That shit was the meaning of superfluous.” Darker spits back at the dark man. Darker’s nephew had been shot in a drive by shooting and he is recovering in a hospital. His nephew was like his son and Darker had left Corey’s hospital bed to fly to TN and meet with the dark man everyone called Smoke. The two were lifelong acquaintances, but Smoke started his criminal career earlier than Darker. Smoke was just sixteen when he slapped his first girl hard enough, and then talked to her sweet enough that she was willing to have sex for money and give him most of the profit. He’d never been to jail; maybe it’s easier to evade the law if you use women as sex slaves than selling drugs, or maybe Smoke is just very good at what he does. His women sale drugs occasionally but he makes sure that they understand their primary objective is the sex because that is where the real money is.
“You right. But listen, Dark, you know what’s up right? You got to know what’s happening. And you know damn well why I called you down here.” Smoke got his name because he is always smoking something; tonight, as the two stand in the headlights of their cars on the side of an empty country road, he puffs at a cigarette. He is the same age as Darker, both men are in their forties, but Smoke looks much older. He clears his throat and it sounds like an engine starting, then he waves Darker to the trunk of his car. As the two men approach, Darker can hear muffled screams, and when Smoke opens the trunk, Darker sees a young man, probably Corey’s age, bound and gagged with blood smeared on his face.
“What kind of man let a fire run wild in his own house?” Smoke asks, looking grave. The little light on the road makes his face seem hard and sharp.
“Who is this?” Darker asks, but he knows the answer.
“He hurt your son, you hurt his.”
Darker bites his bottom lip while he looks at the scared boy in the trunk. “We don’t know nothing, Smoke!” Darker slams the trunk closed.
“How long you gonna let this man disrespect you? He already took most of your business down here, and your business is my business. You know how hard it is to get them Mexican girls? And they been making us good money. We making more now than we was before JJ dumb ass set us back and got caught. He moving in on me Dark, and now he pumping his chest at us. He went after Corey cause he ready for war. Let’s show him who he messing with.” Smoke produces a gun that he gives to Darker, who takes it and looks at it pensively.
“What kind of king sullies his own hands?” He gives the gun back to Smoke and gives him an ominous nod. Darker is back in his car and headed for the airport before he hears the gunshots.
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