What They Found by Walter Dean Myers

Author:Walter Dean Myers [Myers, Walter Dean]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-307-54918-1
Publisher: Random House Children's Books
Published: 2007-08-31T04:00:00+00:00

society for

the preservation

of sorry-butt negroes

“Honey if you asked that smiling, charming, sweet-talking boyfriend of yours what a steady paycheck looked like he wouldn’t have a clue.” Maxine peered over her Armani glasses as she sipped a double latte. “He got Martin Luther King, Jr.’s message all wrong. Harrison Boyd does not have a dream, he’s got a scheme. What do you need his sorry butt for?”

“Maxine, maybe you don’t understand what it is to love a black man who has hopes that aren’t that easy to come by,” Abeni answered. “Sometimes you just have to have faith in a man. I think there will come a day when Harrison will definitely get over. And I want to be the black woman by his side that day.”

“Oh, I get it.” Maxine rolled her eyes. “It’s a black thang and I wouldn’t understand because I’m not as black as you. Is that the four-one-one?”

“I didn’t say you weren’t black,” Abeni said. “But check it out, Maxine, you’re nineteen and you already have an associate degree, and you have a smoking job. Do you really think that life is that easy for every black person out here?”

“No, I don’t,” Maxine said. “But I know this. If I got my game together I don’t want to be hanging with anybody who doesn’t even have a game. And you, my ebony princess, are a fine chick. You’re in college, pulling some heavy grades, and how old are you, twelve?”

“Going on nineteen.”

“You’re going on nineteen, you have a head on your shoulders, and one day you will own your mama’s beauty parlor. So you’re going to have your smarts, your business, and your sweet, sweet self. What do you need a sorry-butt Negro like Harrison for? He’s just one of these smooth-talking dudes looking around for a crutch and thinking he’s found one every time he sees a black woman. Two years ago he was going to start his own basketball league. Last year he was bringing in drugs from the Middle East.”

“Rugs, Maxine, you know he was trying to import rugs for all the new apartments in Harlem,” Abeni said. “And that was a good idea. It would have worked if he had spoken Arabic.”

“Now what’s he going to do?” Maxine tilted her head sideways. “Or doesn’t it matter just as long as he’s anatomically correct? Are you really that desperate for a man?”

“I am not desperate.”

“Well, girlfriend, it’s up to you. But sooner or later you’re going to have to make up your mind about that man. ’Cause the way I see it, he’s going to sweet-talk you into marriage, a bunch of cute little babies, and a long hard life before you wake up.”

“Maxine, Harrison is okay, he just reaches a little too far sometimes,” Abeni said.

“You need to be like your sister,” Maxine went on. “That girl is into her books, working around the shop, and that’s it. I’ve even seen her fix stuff around the shop with her tool kit, so she don’t even need a man.

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