New Whiteboy
"You sure you weren't just high?"
This is a chapter from I Hear You Watching, my novel based on my experience with hearing voices and paranoia.
But you can jump in here! The “previously on” will get you up to speed.
Previously on I Hear You Watching…
During Alex’s first date with Lili at his apartment, he spun out into overthinking the fact that Lili is Black and he’s white, and he spent the rest of their time together terrified of committing a faux pas. After she left, he went for a walk and was followed through the streets by unseen pursuers. The next day, he and Lili arranged a second date at her place.
My tired leg tremors on the brake at red lights.
In the stairwell of Lili’s apartment building I meet a guy coming down, looking at his phone. He stops in the middle of the flight above me and stares, sees the bottle of wine.
“You’re the guy, huh?” he asks. “Her new whiteboy?” He’s white too, of course. Very pale, with freckles and a short nose with front-facing nostrils. Light blue eyes.
“I’m not sure what you’re talking about.”
He sneers and comes down the stairs, grazing me with his elbow as he passes. “Flavor-of-the-week motherfucker.”
Lili opens the door smiling, even gives me a peck on the lips as if she hasn’t just ushered that pasty specter out of her apartment.
“Got the place to yourself?” I ask.
“Yup.”
“Nice.” It’s a spacious one-bedroom. Everything’s new and modern. Large frameless paintings on the wall. A counter divides the kitchen from the living room. “No roommates?”
“No. Why?” She takes two wine glasses and a corkscrew from the kitchen.
I point my thumb at the front door. “There was a guy…”
She stops just past the counter. “Oh my god, you saw Eric? That’s really embarrassing, I’m sorry. He was supposed to be gone.”
“Yeah, he seemed to know who I was.”
We sit on the couch.
“What did he say to you?”
“Nothing. He just glared at me on the stairs.” She might know I’m lying. She might’ve sensed my awkwardness in our first meeting and arranged Eric as a test to see how I’d react. She knows he spoke to me, because she told him what to say.
“He’s my ex. But we broke up a long time ago.”
I want to ask if they met on the site. Instead I focus on opening the bottle.
“He dropped by as a surprise to give back my running shoes he was holding hostage. Super bad timing, I’m really sorry.”
“No problem. Guess I’m just jumpy today.”
“How come?”
I can’t believe I said it. There’s no taking it back. If I try to shrug it off as something stupid like “too much coffee,” it’ll be my second lie in a row, and she might be onto me already.
“Crazy night after you left.”
“After I left?” She waits, eyebrows raised.
I pop the cork to appear casual. “I went on a walk and two guys followed me.”
“Like muggers?”
I pour for her, then me. “No, they saw me smoking weed.”
“Shit, were they cops?” She takes her glass.
“No. They thought it was a crackpipe.”
“You had a pipe on the street? That’s ballsy!”
I drink to the compliment. The wine tastes good.
She drinks too. “I used to smoke, but weed always made me way too paranoid to be outside. And then to get followed? Nuh-uh.” She turns toward me and props her head on her hand. “So why would they follow you if they weren’t cops?”
“They said they wanted to beat me up.”
“Oh fuck, did they jump you?”
“No, I never saw them.”
She jerks her head and frowns.
“They were across the river, in shadow. And they stayed behind me out of sight the whole time.”
“You never saw them.”
“Never.”
“But you heard them.”
“Yes. Talking to each other and threatening me.”
She stares and sips her wine. “That’s pretty freaky, Alex. You sure you weren’t just high?”
“Not at all, it was just a couple hits.” Now I regret bringing this up.
“Okay, but…” She looks at the ceiling. “How did they mistake your weed for crack?”
“They said I was walking strange.”
She laughs and covers her mouth. “I’m sorry. Do you walk strange when you’re high?”
“I didn’t think so. Strange enough to look like a crackhead?”
Little smile. “Can I see?”
Irritation buzzes at the base of my skull. “See what?”
“Show me your stoned walk.”
“But I’m not stoned.” I sip, my mouth tense.
“Pretend. Walk like you normally do.”
I take another drink.
She stares at me. Points. “Come on. Let’s get to the bottom of this.”
I stand and feel too tall. My shin hits the coffee table on my way around it. The buzz grows.
I stop in a corner of the room and pause, imagining the eggshell-colored carpet is the dusty path by the river, and Lili sits watching from the concrete ditch.
Which foot do I usually start with? It’s unconscious, doesn’t matter. I step and my foot skids on the carpet. My pace picks up and I move across the room feeling like a tin plate in a shooting gallery.
I look at Lili.
She’s got her hand over her mouth.
“What?”
“Nothing, that was good.”
“What? That’s my normal walk.”
Her eyes hold a smirking apology.
“Do I look like a crackhead?”
A laugh bursts from her. “No, I don’t think so. To be fair, I don’t know any crackheads, but I don’t think they’d walk like that.”
“Like what?”
“You’re a little stiff. Maybe the shoulders. And you moved pretty fast, but I think this room is too small to judge. We should try it in the hallway.”
I bristle. “Are you serious?”
“You wanted my opinion.”
“I didn’t, you made me do this.”
“True. So don’t listen to me. Your walk’s fine.”
I feel stupid standing here. Like I’m an extra person and the wine glass on the table belongs to a different, more relaxed guy who’ll walk in any second and tell me to leave. I should leave. But the idea feels childish, and then I’d be alone again.
“I’m sorry I laughed at you. Come here.” She finishes her glass.
“I speed-walked for two fucking hours to get home. My legs are sore.”
“See? That explains the stiffness. Come here.”
I walk to the couch, careful around the coffee table, and sit.
She hands me my glass. “Finish that.”
I do.
She pours more for me, then more for her. “You had a crazy night and you’re stressed out. But you’re here, we’ve got wine, it’s cool now.”
We drink.
“Kiss me.”
I do.
Later, crossing the room with pressure in my pants and the taste of her mouth on my tongue, I look at the paintings. I notice her name in the corners. This explains her username on the site: PainterLi.
“These are yours?”
“Yes,” she says from the bedroom door, “but don’t look too close. They’re embarrassing.”
False modesty. She’s a skilled painter. “No, they’re good. I like this one.” I point to a large, gobby acrylic piece showing layers upon layers of sunflowers, heads bowed on their stalks like angels receding into infinity. A universe of only sunflowers in all directions.
She disappears into the bedroom.
I move my face close to the painting, my vision fills with yellow wheels. The effect is both suffocating and freeing.
On her bed I linger, kissing her inner thighs, covertly smelling for signs of Eric. I’m embarrassed by the impulse—the animal jealousy and human disgust with the idea of “sloppy seconds.” Her leather and tobacco flavor is familiar now. It’s warm and comforting, so individually and recognizably hers.
She says my name and I urge her with my tongue and hands to get louder because now I don’t care. This is her place, her neighbors. Maybe Eric is still lurking in the hallway and can hear us. He wasn’t warning me about Lili, he was asserting dominance.
He probably doesn’t even like her paintings. I imagine him sneering like he did at me and saying, That’s it? Just sunflowers? He’s probably one of those white guys for whom it’s a point of pride to have crossed that imaginary aisle, some badge of immunity or respect, a special notch in the proverbial belt or bedpost, some historical power trip. When he drinks coffee he probably can’t resist making a “like my women” joke. He’s the one preoccupied with race, not me. Seeing me as the “new whiteboy” means he sees himself as the “old whiteboy.”
She comes, screaming my name.
If he’s not in the hallway, I hope he’s still on the street. It’s probably inaudible through her third-floor windows, but I like imagining he hears it wherever he is.
She gets on all fours at the edge of the bed. I stand behind her, and she rocks against me.
“Al-lex…” Her voice is doing that breaking thing I like. “Talk… talk to me.”
“You feel amazing,” I say.
I watch her hair bounce, and assume Eric probably never hesitated to grab it or plunge his fingers into it.
“Fuck me, Alex—talk to me, Alex…”
In the stairs he’d had his phone out.
“I’m… fucking you.”
“Yes… Keep talking, baby…”
Could he have taken a picture of me?
“You’re…”
“Yes…”
I almost say “fucking me,” since it’s the natural continuation, and the rest would be something like, “We’re fucking each other.” If A = B and B = C, then I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream.
I bet Eric was a fount of dirty talk.
“You’re…” I start again, as if derailed by pleasure. My mind fishes out a grimy flash card that says: a nigger. I hear it in Eric’s voice.
Shut the fuck up, you racist piece of shit.
“What am I?” she says. There’s no horror in her voice, so I know I didn’t say it out loud. “What—am I, baby?”
“You’re beautiful,” I bend and kiss her back again.
“Oh…” she says.
He could be out there, waiting for me.
Next on I Hear You Watching…
Connecting the Dots
My brain roots through a year's worth of emails received, messages opened, links clicked.
Impatient to read the rest? Two options:
Here’s a complete list of posted chapters.
Got a question about the book or my experience with hearing voices and psychosis? Don’t be shy! Join the chat and…
He probably doesn’t even like her paintings!
I’m on board for how this is starting to get out of hand.
Their developing relationship feels like another dimension of the story. I imagine he's coming across to Lili as pretty normal. But this, "She might’ve sensed my awkwardness in our first meeting and arranged Eric as a test to see how I’d react. She knows he spoke to me, because she told him what to say." (a paranoid conviction with no basis) and the unwanted thoughts continue. His competitive suppositions about Eric could just be the natural jealousy he alluded to or an aspect of his paranoia. I think it was brave of you to go down this route of a relationship story with a Black girl, touching on some of the fetishizing and social cultural inheritance than can complicate hook-ups as well as committed relationships. I am curious about what conscious motivation you had for deciding Lili would be Black but I'm happy to wait till I've read much more, because then I'm sure I'll be able to make more sense of your answer.
Please don't feel discomforted by the question though. There are zero white people in my novel - but hey, it's Trinidad - with a white population of less than 1%, unlike the US Black population of about 20%. On the other hand, the characters I do have don't reflect the Trinidad population exactly either. It's a very multi-racial and mixed up place and with a small cast of characters, it's easy to not be all-inclusive.