Nas’ ‘Ether’ vs. a succession of perplexed colleagues
FROM: Lew, Thomas
TO: Jones, Nasir
DATE: 02/07/2013, 1:53pm
SUBJECT: Re: Research Request: Millennial Corp. Global Footprint
Nasir—
I just wanted to check in again with you regarding the research request we discussed last week (Monday, 01/28). It seems that we’re now a few days behind on this deliverable, and the client is asking for an update.
Please let me know if you would like to discuss further, or if you are having trouble completing the assignment as requested. I am at my desk, so feel free to give me a ring or drop by, or I can come to you if you’d prefer.
Thanks.
Thomas Lew
Project Coordinator
FROM: Jones, Nasir
TO: Lew, Thomas
DATE: 02/07/2013, 1:55pm
SUBJECT: Re: Research Request: Millennial Corp. Global Footprint
A-yo, I know you ain’t talking about me, dawg. You? What?
FROM: Lew, Thomas
TO: Jones, Nasir
DATE: 02/07/2013, 2:12pm
SUBJECT: Re: Research Request: Millennial Corp. Global Footprint
Nasir—
First, I really hope that we don’t need to revisit the importance of proper workplace etiquette. After we discussed this in December, I was under the impression that you took my guidance to heart, and that you were going to reflect on your behavior over the holidays and return to work with a more professional, more productive attitude.
Now, the impropriety of your reply aside, I asked you to complete an assignment by Thursday and have avoided harassing you about this lapsed deadline in an effort toward good will and avoiding any hard feeling between the two of us. You seem to be refusing me similar courtesy here.
Please let me know when you expect to finish the assignment, or whether I should instead seek assistance from one other analysts, which I’m happy to request at this stage, despite the client’s present persistence.
Thomas
FROM: Jones, Nasir
TO: Lew, Thomas
DATE: 02/07/2013, 2:13pm
SUBJECT: Re: Research Request: Millennial Corp. Global Footprint
You been on my dick, nigga. You love my style, nigga.
FROM: Lew, Thomas
TO: Jones, Nasir
DATE: 02/07/2013, 2:22pm
SUBJECT: Re: Research Request: Millennial Corp. Global Footprint
Nasir—
I do not, in fact, appreciate your style—and certainly not your addressing me as the n-word. Not that I should need to be telling you this in the first place, but surely you understand that despite your own ethnicity, (1) I am white and (2) those sorts of epithets are not appropriate for office email.
Are you at your desk? Do you have a few minutes to chat? I need to respond to the client by the close of business today regarding our expected timeline for completion.
Obviously there’s much else for us to discuss as well.
Thomas
FROM: Jones, Nasir
TO: Lew, Thomas
DATE: 02/07/2013, 2:28pm
SUBJECT: Re: Research Request: Millennial Corp. Global Footprint
Y’all impatiently waiting. It’s like an AIDS test: What’s the results?
FROM: Lew, Thomas
TO: Jones, Nasir
DATE: 02/07/2013, 2:48pm
SUBJECT: Re: Research Request: Millennial Corp. Global Footprint
Nasir—
I just want to point out that I made this research request on Monday, and it is, in my estimation, a three-day assignment at most. In any case, you’ve had ample time and opportunity, I think, to discuss any difficulties with me, or to let me know if you needed a deadline extension for whatever reason.
That said, this is unacceptable. Both your stalling and your choice of words (I’m not sure what AIDS, which is a serious issue in many parts of the city, a grave threat to many lives, has anything to do with this, and why you’ve taken to making a joke of it here—just my two cents).
I just dropped by your office and see that you’ve stepped out. Please let me know when you’re back at your desk, as I really think that we should speak in-person about this: both the matter of this assignment, which is now a week late, and your conduct in general. Apart from this email exchange, I think your loud and ominous bragging at the office holiday party a couple months back about you having recently purchased a firearm by dubious means, for instance, is also cause for concern. We are colleagues, and this is a workplace (even after hours), and I must admit, I’ve at times taken your tone as quite threatening and reckless.
Please let me know when you’re available to discuss.
Thomas
FROM: Jones, Nasir
TO: Lew, Thomas
DATE: 02/07/2013, 2:51pm
SUBJECT: Re: Research Request: Millennial Corp. Global Footprint
What’s sad is, I love you because you’re my brother. You traded your soul for riches.
FROM: Lew, Thomas
TO: Jones, Nasir
DATE: 02/07/2013, 3:00pm
SUBJECT: Re: Research Request: Millennial Corp. Global Footprint
Nasir—
I’m simply not sure what you’re referring to in accusing me of “trading my soul for riches.” My recent promotion was well deserved, I’d say, given I’ve been with the company for six years now. Yes, I understand that there’s some lingering consternation and rumor-mongering surrounding Lilith Chu’s recent departure after having been passed over for the position a third year in a row, following her return from maternity leave, but as I’ve told many of our other colleagues these past few weeks, I’ve worked quite hard in my time here, clocking as many long, dark, rigorous hours as anyone else, and I’m by every wit confident that I’m the best man for the job.
Just so you know, I’ve passed this email exchange on to the head of our HR team, whom I believe you know quite well at this point.
Thomas
FROM: Lew, Thomas
TO: Jones, Nasir
DATE: 02/07/2013, 3:01pm
SUBJECT: Re: Research Request: Millennial Corp. Global Footprint
*best person for the job
FROM: Jacob, Roxanne
TO: Jones, Nasir
DATE: 02/07/2013, 3:11pm
SUBJECT: FW: Re: Research Request: Millennial Corp. Global Footprint
Nasir—
Tom Lew passed this email exchange on to me a while ago, and I must say, I find this all deeply troubling. I have spoken with our IT department, and they assure me that your account has not been compromised. They have also assured me that these emails with Tom are the only ones originating from your account today. I am not sure what to make of this, though I am sure that you have other work to do.
Given some of your past behavior, which we’ve already discussed, I am forced to assume that this is in fact you sending these emails, though I am unable to confirm this since you are not at your desk. (Grace at reception informs me that you stepped out a while ago and have been gone for a couple hours now.)
Nasir, I recognize that although you did not want to address this in any great detail when you and I last spoke, you seem to be going through a rough period at home, which I see corresponds with the few days of bereavement leave you took the first week of December. While I certainly understand that it’s often difficult to separate personal trauma from our workplace attitudes, the below email exchange is certainly a breach of proper conduct regardless of whatever may be troubling you outside of work.
I think it would be best—both for you, and for the firm—if you stopped by my office as soon as you’re back from your errand.
Best,
Roxy Jacob
HR Manager
FROM: Jones, Nasir
TO: Lew, Thomas
DATE: 02/07/2013, 3:14pm
SUBJECT: Re: FW: Re: Research Request: Millennial Corp. Global Footprint
Well, life is hard. Hug me, don’t reject me.
FROM: Jacob, Roxanne
TO: Jones, Nasir
DATE: 02/07/2013, 3:33pm
SUBJECT: Re: FW: Re: Research Request: Millennial Corp. Global Footprint
Nasir—I certainly don’t mean to reject or otherwise demoralize you. I think candor among colleagues (where appropriate) can make for a more welcoming work environment, and I’m happy to help in whatever way might address any pertinent concerns you might be struggling with.
However, if stress is preventing you from respecting your peers and performing your best here at the office, I think we at least need to discuss your taking an extended leave, perhaps.
Also, I should let you know that our health insurance plan does cover a maximum of three (3) therapy services without a co-pay, if you think that’s something you might be interested in, and that might help you better cope with your recent loss.
Personally, I’ve also found that recreational commitments outside of work—I do yoga in Brooklyn every other morning, for instance—are wonderful stress-relievers.
Please do come see me as soon as you’ve returned to your desk. I’ve asked Grace in reception to be on the lookout for you, and to direct you to my office upon your arrival.
Roxanne
FROM: Jones, Nasir
TO: Jacob, Roxanne
DATE: 02/07/2013, 3:34pm
SUBJECT: Re: FW: Re: Research Request: Millennial Corp. Global Footprint
I still whoop your ass. You thirty-six in a karate class? You Tae-bo ho.
FROM: Jacob, Roxanne
TO: Jones, Nasir
DATE: 02/07/2013, 3:58pm
SUBJECT: Re: FW: Re: Research Request: Millennial Corp. Global Footprint
Nasir—
It’s safe to say, I think, that you know your response to me just now was way out of line. I’m thirty-one, for one, and I am not a ‘ho’. Nor do I practice karate, but obviously that is beside the point.
Please know that you are walking a very thin line here, Nasir.
I just tried ringing your desk again, and your mobile, which sent me straight to voicemail after a couple rings. I should note that gunshots are neither professional nor basically helpful as a voicemail recording, as I am now unsure whether my records have your phone number listed correctly. (Apologies if I’m mistaken here.)
Suffice it to say, while I consider how to deal with your conduct on my end, I have also passed this email exchange along to Alex Nielson, as he’s the senior-most supervisor for your department, and I suppose he will want to speak with you about your conduct here as well.
Roxanne
FROM: Nielson, Alexander
TO: Jones, Nasir; Roxanne, Jacob
DATE: 02/07/2013, 4:06pm
SUBJECT: Re: FW: Re: FW: Re: Research Request: Millennial Corp. Global Footprint
What is this shit? Roxy what is he talking about?
AN
FROM: Jones, Nasir
TO: Nielson, Alexander; Jacob, Roxanne
DATE: 02/07/2013, 4:07pm
SUBJECT: Re: Research Request: Millennial Corp. Global Footprint
Put you in a dry spot, fellas. In a pine box with nine shots from my Glock, fellas.
FROM: Nielson, Alexander
TO: Jones, Nasir; Roxanne, Jacob
DATE: 02/07/2013, 4:12pm
SUBJECT: Re: FW: Re: FW: Re: Research Request: Millennial Corp. Global Footprint
Nasir are you serious? Rox I don’t have time to deal with this right now, please could you speak with Nasir asap? Thx
FROM: Jones, Nasir
TO: Nielson, Alexander; Jacob, Roxanne
DATE: 02/07/2013, 4:12pm
SUBJECT: Re: FW: Re: FW: Re: Research Request: Millennial Corp. Global Footprint
Foxy got you hot cuz you kept your face in her pus. What, you think you getting girls now cuz of your looks?
FROM: Nielson, Alexander
TO: Jones, Nasir
DATE: 02/07/2013, 4:24pm
SUBJECT: FW: Re: FW: Re: FW: Re: Research Request: Millennial Corp. Global Footprint
Nasir—Away from desk. Cabbing back from mtg now. Talk in person, okay? Not sure what youre suggesting about me and Rox but can assure you conducted myself in accordance with workplace standards. Incident in parking garage during the holiday party (think you may be referring to) was just jostling among colleagues, Rox tripped landed in me lap for a sec is all
think itd be best if we have a man/to-man chat, smooth out any misunderstandings, etc
Have asked rox to stand down for now in interests of all involved. Lets just you and I chat, work things out etc. dude i got kids
Rgds
AN
FROM: Nielson, Alexander
TO: Jones, Nasir
DATE: 02/07/2013, 4:38pm
SUBJECT: Re: FW: Re: FW: Re: FW: Re: Research Request: Millennial Corp. Global Footprint
Just dipped by your office. Back at my desk. Please can we please chat?
Alexander Nielson
Senior Director, Analyst Division
FROM: Jones, Nasir
TO: Nielson, Alexander
DATE: 02/07/2013, 4:40pm
SUBJECT: Re: FW: Re: FW: Re: FW: Re: Research Request: Millennial Corp. Global Footprint
You pop shit. Apologize, nigga.
FROM: Nielson, Alexander
TO: Jones, Nasir
DATE: 02/07/2013, 4:41pm
SUBJECT: Re: FW: Re: FW: Re: FW: Re: Research Request: Millennial Corp. Global Footprint
Nasir—
I am sorry.
AN
(Cross-posted from my home on WordPress, Sweet Brother Numpsa.)
5:28 pm • 6 February 2013 • 1 note
Can’t…stop…won’t…stop…writing…
The kids at school all thought Cherie was a dyke because she wouldn’t suck off Jeremy Eaton in his jeep after the eighth grade dance despite his dogged invitations. Jeremy Eaton was a linebacker and a generally popular black dude, even among the rednecks whose love of high school football outweighed their visceral disgust for the Three 6 Mafia tracks rattling bass in the parking lot after the games. So by the time they had all started high school together in the fall, Jeremy had spread the word to every clique on campus that Cherie wasn’t fond of cock, but really she just didn’t like niggas—even though (and she disputed this) she was a nigga herself. She hated most everyone, truly, so the all the kids except for the goths and Anthony thought she was a bitch as well as a dyke. A dyke bitch. Cherie would never dispute this characterization.
This one boy, Antonio, used to hang outside the bathrooms by the back parking lot on the far end of campus, steaming a jay and hollering at girls en route to the toilet most of the time, like a stand-up comic playing the piss break circuit between study halls. Cherie rolled up a couple hours late one morning with no bag, no backpack, just her tenor sax case strapped across her camo spaghetti top and roughly six invisible gallons of don’t give a fuck swaying in the clench of both fists. Antonio stared her down from the doorway as she stomped onto campus.
“Yo, hold up.”
“What do you want?”
“How ‘bout you come suck this dick?”
“How about you suck my dick?”
Antonio stepped to Cherie, breathing menace into her face, “Aight, how ‘bout you come sit on this dick, though? Faggot ass—”
Cherie dipped back a few steps and whirled herself into a blur of limbs and frizz, launching the ram end of the case into the bridge of his nose, dropping poor, blunted Antonio like a Jenga set. His six-foot frame was laid out on the sidewalk with his loose braids marinating in muddied splatters of blood and mucus next to her leather combat boots; the sax was fine; and she was suspended for a week. Her punishment likely would have been more severe if anyone had been around to witness Antonio’s devastation and she’d inspired a riot, and also if the school weren’t so clearly fucked up for letting him smoke weed on campus and stalk girls to the bathroom all day.
“Why’d you deck him like that?” Anthony asked her later that night.
“Nigger had it coming.”
She would drop “nigger” into conversations sometimes—gargling the ‘er’ for proper effect—and Anthony never knew how to react other than to wince like an idiot; but then Cherie was the only one of Anthony’s friends who shared his frustrations as a black kid who, his friends and tormenters concurred, acted white. He never fully grasped what blackness required of him, or what “acting white” was supposed to mean and how he might stop doing it, but in any case he spent much of his time during study halls getting ahead of his homework and hiding out in the library, and niggas don’t read, or so he’d been told by several white kids who were conspicuously less literate than he. He spent much of his life away from school trapped in four-hour church services, having sermons harmonized and shouted at him about His Lord Savior Jesus Christ of Nazareth, the Prince of Peace, Holy Redeemer, the Alpha and the Omega, the RZA and the GZA, the Captain and Tennille, etc.; and being mistaken for a busboy in restaurants; and listening to his mom rant that his father was a deadbeat—how much blacker could Anthony get, really? The question irritated him.
Cherie’s dad was black, and he was in and out of jail, and she hated her dad; so by the flat of her ass, she swore that she was strictly Filipino. She may well have despised black folks from her first screams in this world; but there she was, a nappy ladder of curls sweeping at the back of her knees. She wrought all sorts of quaint affection on Anthony, and he braced himself against every burst of light and madness, every playful dig of her overgrown fingernails into his wrists, every cheery string of obscenities with awe. Cherie was a fierce, lanky rag doll animated by mania, malice and prescription drug abuse, scarred and mended all over from the false bravado of lame suicide attempts. Even her bright side was unpolished copper, like the pale dawn of an apocalypse, and like her skin. Together she and Anthony were ionic, and platonic except for one frank, unsolicited handjob last November when he’d been nodding half-asleep beside her at the back of a bus on the way home from a marching band competition in Norfolk. They never spoke of it again, but from that point on, Cherie felt no will or need to wear pants whenever Anthony came around her house while her mom was away. She’d open the door bearing dots of mild acne on her thighs, wearing harshly faded black panties under one of her oversized ThunderCats t-shirts. Anthony was mortified every time; he’d rush to smother them in blankets when they snuggled on the couch, their prickly shins grating each other as they twisted in the excitement of Starfox 64.
“You don’t shave your legs?”
“Only my vag. Smooth as a baby.”
Cherie and Anthony first met a few months after his parents separated, in seventh grade when Cherie was on the brink of expulsion for hustling pills in the girls’ locker room, hastening her fall from necessity and, thus, grace among so many eighth grade girls once administrators put the kibosh on her operation with an intimidating assist from the county police. But she hustled on to wider pastures, pushing cable hacks, PC hardware, illegal fireworks and tattoo referrals through the suburbs—enfant terrible, a roundly perplexing force of angst and capitalism. Sometimes her existence flummoxed Anthony to the point of exhaustion, and he’d think to distance himself after all their years venting bullshit to each other, maybe avoid her for a few weeks and then see where things stood and how he felt about it; but it always came back to that handjob and the scent of her vulgar whispers in the dark, chaperones be damned, and Anthony’s wondering whether love was maybe something like that.
Cherie and Anthony often talked about the future—not a future together, just the grand mystery of life after high school. He told Cherie, “I think I want to go to school in D.C.”
“Yeah, you would be a fucking politician.”
“I don’t want to be a politician. I just like politics.”
“You just like Bill Clinton.”
True.
“And The-fucking-West Wing.”
Double plus true.
He hesitated, and she continued, “Well, what do you want to do, then?”
“Learn stuff, write—work in politics, or maybe write about politics. That’d be cool.”
“Yeah, I could see you as a writer.”
“Maybe.”
Cherie preferred the internet to books, which worked out well for her since any book report she ever wrote was cannily cribbed from some online synopsis or message board discussion. Anthony didn’t know this, and in fact he assumed the Cherie read voraciously given she’d send him links to all sorts of random stories and essays any weekend she was alone and bored at home. Mostly she’d feed him clever polemics, and Anthony grew strangely fond of magazine essays, even when subjects exceeded his grasp—anything apart from American politics or earlier than the nineteenth century, really—and even then he’d shake the internet until it gave him answers or else a few leads on further reading. An awesome sentence stirred him much like porn: he wanted more, and he wanted better, and he’d dive long into the night in search of new flavors. Christopher Hitchens, the most devious fingers in print, tickled the darkest hues of Anthony’s perception, casting him into irreverent exchanges with Cherie; which then led him to heretical arguments with his mom, who was a grim face when confronted with excess wit and a stonewall to the cynical inquiries of her young turk; and then still more often into disagreements with his peers and superiors, both at school and in the after-hours of church, who simply thought him loud and strange and perhaps brilliant but certainly offensive whenever God or Ronald Reagan entered a conversation. In years of cultivation, countless quips and rhythms and sticky passages sprouted tiny bursts of vision in his mind’s eye. By the end of his sophomore year, he’d outgrown his bed, his room, the house, every textbook he’d ever owned, every fruitless crush—the world swelled in Anthony’s palms, and he began plotting his escape from the house on Scandia Lane.
In July of his final high school summer, Anthony and his sister toured up I-95 to visit a few colleges on the East Coast. Imagine the Confederacy, but dainty and more fashionable and with slightly fewer nooses hanging around, and with laptops, overrun with gutless yuppies and the baron villains of Adam Sandler films—that was the University of Virginia. Dear God, no, he thought. He and his sister pushed further north in Anthony’s truck to the state line, across the Key Bridge and into an idyllic village of modern vintage: open-door storefronts spilling out onto brick sidewalks pecked apart by the march of stilettos under fuchsia bushels swaying from ornate lampposts, streets packed with life and opulence; a swirl of pastels, pressed and pin-striped to the nines. These ain’t Diesel, nigga, these is Evisu. Even sweatpants were glamorous, the way these white girls rocked them: flip-flopped, pedicured, halter-topped, hair did, dusted with make-up and blessed, truly blessed with the waists of Greek goddesses. Like UVA, Georgetown featured its overwhelming share of preppy white kids who were quite fond of bow ties and nautical prints, but then there was no sense of imminent lynching on Wisconsin Ave. He was sold.
Anthony’s sister barked directions as her brother charged in punch-drunk zigzags through Northwest Washington, his first real city: it’s got cafes and a metro and everything! (And no goddamn Stars and Bars.) By the late afternoon, D.C. was a loaded question in Anthony’s mind, a coquettish grin splashed in stark, red lipstick across the Capitol dome, curling its lips and teasing him with silent distance: Baby, you know you want me.
Evening fell, and they rode back across the Potomac to his sister’s apartment on the edge of the city.
His sister asked, “What do you think?”
“I really liked Georgetown. Do you think I could get in?”
“Sure, if you keep working on getting your grades back up.”
“Seems pretty expensive, though.”
“Well, I’m sure you and mom and dad could talk about it, try to work something I out. I had to take out loans for UofR. It wasn’t cheap for me, either.”
Anthony spoke to his dad later that month, as application season approached, and the father encouraged his son: “Well, we’ll see, I guess.”
Abandoned and smothered for months at the back of Anthony’s closet, his alto was slowly devoured by a creeping algae of dust, and the last wooden reed, still clutched to its mouthpiece, wilted into a brittle splinter at the brink of dust itself. Even getting into college, Anthony realized, was a rich kid’s sport, much like competitive sailing or recreational cocaine use: it was a trite miracle that white folks could spend so much money on this shit. In the first week of August, he took a job shelving books at a store across town to spare his mother angst about paying up—test fees, application fees, maybe even bribes, if it ever came to that sort of desperation. Work and applications synced into a traded rhythm, a boom-bap that rattled his temples as he tore loops back and forth across town each week in his Gulf War-era brick of an SUV with a post-traumatic radiator about to blow its top once (again) and for good.
School started again, just one more year till he’d no longer be bossed around rooms by the oppressive trill of bells. Through lunch breaks and study halls for weeks on end, Anthony decamped in the huddle cubicles and computers at the back of the library, sweating his odds and cramming for the SAT from a dense, frayed tome of study guides that reeked of rancid ketchup with the turn of every of a page. The books were free, to their credit, though unhelpfully published in 1997.
Anthony no longer shared classes with Cherie, and he’d quit band all together; but still he trailed her around campus by the tow of her ponytail, puffing anxiety as his deadlines drew near.
“What if I don’t get in anywhere?”
“Oh, shut up.”
“I’m serious. It could happen.”
“You’re a black kid from a shitty school in a shitty town with a decent GPA.”
“Isn’t that bad?”
“You dipshit, you’ll be fine!”
Life went on like this for a while, Cherie cradling Anthony in a thin feign of contempt as he wailed a thousand doubts.
[…]
9:41 pm • 12 November 2012 • 1 note
