Black Enough: Stories of Being Young & Black in America

Dayshia said, “If you want to take care of it tomorrow, we open at ten.”

“I’m—huh?”

She pointed Amir’s way. “That guy told me about the broken clasp on your mom’s necklace. If her birthday was just last week, you’re well within the return window. Our policy is very generous, so it won’t be an issue to replace it.”

There was no necklace. Was there even a mom? My short-circuiting brain repaired itself, deduced Amir hadn’t hollered at Dayshia. He made up a story about problems with a purchase, created common ground for me and Dayshia. Chewbacca was still on my shirt.

Leaning forward, obscuring old fur-face, I said, “I didn’t want to bother you off the clock.”

“As my manager says, I’m a Nordstrom ambassador anytime I’m in the mall. I’m Dayshia, by the way.”

I nearly said I know—I follow you on the Gram. Trapped that foolishness in my throat. “Shawn.”

“You’re here in the mall?”

“Yeah, GameStop.”

“That sounds fun.”

“It’s all right. You game?”

“I have driven a Mario Kart on occasion. I also Guitar Hero’d at a party when I was ten.”

“So that’s a no.”

She laughed. Laughed! With me, not at me. Was this actually going okay?

Glancing toward Amir, I sent another telepathic message. I might not be whipping your ass after this. Maybe.

When I faced Dayshia again, I nearly shit myself. Cologne Kiosk Cameron was in the booth with us, arms spread along the backrest, his fingers nearly grazing her shoulder. She curled her lip, seemed as shocked as I was.

“Yo!” he said, a spicy cloud of whatever sample he’d doused himself in crop-dusting the immediate area. “What’s poppin’, fam?”

“… I was like, babe, I know it’s CU homecoming weekend, but somebody else gotta use those Kendrick Lamar backstage passes. I got other plans. You feel me?” Cologne Kiosk Cameron thrust his palm at me like a karate strike.

I was slow registering his attempted high five, dazed by all his not-so-humblebrags. I slapped his palm as quick as possible, then friction-burned my palm on my jeans.

“I’m just saying,” he said, “it’s crazy how many opportunities come my way at the kiosk. Everybody wanna smell good, so everybody come to me. Did you know we sell women’s fragrances, too?”

“You’ve mentioned it,” Dayshia said, glassy-eyed, aiming her chin toward the bar. “Earlier. Over there.”

His monologue never even paused, like a living PA announcement blaring weekly mall specials on a loop. “People drop in with concert tickets, passes to those gospel stage plays. Got my grandma on the front row of Javarius Jenkins’s If Your Man Ain’t Jesus, He Just Ain’t last month.” He scooted closer to Dayshia. “I got the hookup, is all. Just say the word.”

He flashed a smarmy grin my way. “Same for you, little man.”

“I’m taller than you.”

Dayshia pressed an elbow into his ribs, halting his lateral motion. “Excuse me. I need to … just.” She aimed finger guns in the general direction of elsewhere.

Slow, and somehow sleazy in a way basic motion shouldn’t be, Cameron exited the booth, clearing a path for Dayshia. As she escaped, she shot me an I-couldn’t-take-it-anymore look that got me laughing. With her. Not at her.

Cologne Kiosk Cameron sat again. “I know, dude. It’s funny how I can’t keep them off me. Hope you taking notes on that little phone of yours.”

What was his deal with everything being “little”?

“I mean, unless you smashing already. I didn’t get that impression because your shirt. If I misread the situation, get me up on game.”

Best I could tell, this dude misread every situation. Quick draw with my own finger guns, I pointed somewhere—anywhere—else, ejected from the booth. I moved to midfloor where Ben, Brian, and the Far East Emporium dudes battled on Pac-Man. Did a slow spin, desperately searching for Dayshia.

Pia stomped up, lugging a tray full of waters with lemon. “Guess you don’t want these anymore.”

“Have you seen the girl who was in my booth?”

“Nice to see you’re thirsty for something. She out by the fountain.”

Beyond the Mall-Stars entrance, on the fountain’s edge, Dayshia scrolled through her phone. I moved that way, a dull pinch in my lower abdomen registering. I took a few more steps, and it became sharper, more urgent, stopped me cold. Those ice waters!

Ignore my pulsing bladder to resume conversation with my dream girl? Tempting. Except she was sitting by a freaking fountain. All those spouts continuously splashing the surface, the ripples. I’d be squirming the whole time.

Maybe it was dumb—maybe I misread the situation—but it seemed like me and Dayshia connected back in the booth, if only for a minute. You know what would super ruin that vibe? Me pissing myself.

Quick detour, then.

The universal man/woman symbols were visible over a corridor between the Mall-Stars bar and the main gaming floor. I slipped through, took a sharp turn, and found myself in a long, darkly tiled hallway that ran the length of the restaurant. So familiar with the mall layout, I knew if I punched through the outer wall to my right, I could snatch a Father’s Day card for my pops off a shelf in Hallmark. Beyond that, a hobby shop. Crafts, and paint, and artist papers. Beyond that, my jam, GameStop.

Whenever I wrote stuff about the mall, it always struck me how all of it, all of us, were connected even if we didn’t know it—or didn’t want it (looking at you, Far East Emporium). A bunch of stores, and people, and reasons for being there underneath the big Briarwood umbrella.

Pushing into the men’s room, I tugged my phone from my back pocket, intending to jot that down, and … what the entire hell?

Inside the harshly lit bathroom was a party separate from the soft-open celebration.

A couple of infamous weed heads from the Regal 14 Theater puffed a blunt right under the smoke detector that now dangled, deactivated, from a single wire. Beyond them, Amir, DeMarcus, and other guys I knew from the mall grind. DeMarcus threw a pair of dice in a way I’d never seen dice thrown—overhand, flick of the wrist, something like a Navy SEAL tossing a knife at his enemy’s throat. The dice bounced off the wall beneath the plastic folding baby-changing table, settled on a piece of cardboard in the floor.

“Seven!” DeMarcus whooped over the collective groans of those on the losing end of that bet. He snatched his winnings, a loose grouping of fives and ones.

“How long y’all been shooting craps?” I asked.

Amir said, “You mean how long we been winning? Awhile. How else we gonna afford this expensive-ass food. How things go with Dayshia?”

Before I could answer, Cologne Kiosk Cameron exited the big end stall reserved for disabled customers. “Great!” He smiled, his spit-slick canines like fangs. “I think me and her really hit it off.”

My head whipped toward the entrance. I’d left him in the booth. He hadn’t passed me in the corridor. Where’d he come from? How?

If he wasn’t the devil, he was certainly in the training program.

The bathroom was oversize. Mr. Beneton must’ve expected a lot of drink sales, thus, a lot of pee. I used the ninth urinal in the far corner, away from the dice game and the funk permeating the air. Not the usual bathroom funk. A toxic mix of colognes Cameron was getting dudes to sample in the accessible stall, his new makeshift kiosk.

“I’m telling you,” Cameron droned, sales pitch cranked, “people sleep on Trump’s Empire cologne, but a true connoisseur will recognize those velvety oaken notes as the literal smell of money. You got a lady you interested in, this be like a hostile takeover of her nose.”