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This writing was accepted for publication in the 84 page perfect-bound issue... Down in the Dirt magazine (v100) (the November 2011 Issue) You can also order this 5.5" x 8.5" issue as an ISSN# paperback book:						This writing also appears in this 6" x 9" ISBN# paperback “Grounded” Order this 6" x 9" ISBN# book:

Order this writing in the book Bleeding Heart Cadaver (a Down in the Dirt collection book)		get the 320 page September-December 2011 Down in the Dirt magazine issue collection 6" x 9" ISBN# paperback book:

Order this writing in the book 1,000 Words (the 2011 prose collection book)		get the short poem 226 page collection 6" x 9" ISBN# paperback book:

Organic Youth

Eric McKinley

    “No, for real. Name a living black author, male, who’s allowed to be large, to get serious cultural shine.”
    “How many times do I have to ask you, yo, African American?”
    “Whatever, white boy. Just name somebody.”
    Pause.
    The white boy answers: “I don’t know . . . Jay-Z.”

    Two kids sit in the East Village. They sit in a student housing TV lounge, eating Taco Bell, drinking Southern Comfort and Ginger Ale out of orange, plastic water bottles. Sketchpads and notebooks surround them. Pens and charcoal. It is minutes before midnight. The furniture in the lounge is tattered and stained. Two kids sit on the floor with carpet that is frayed and spotted with Lord knows what. Two kids wear skinny jeans and sweat jackets. One wears a fitted Brooklyn Dodgers cap, rocking it on a sideways tilt.
    The huge flat screen overhead plays MTV Cribs. Two kids are supposed to be working.
    “C’mon, seriously, give me a name.”
    “Alright, Walter Mosley.”
    “Literary, yo. Mosley writes mysteries.”
    The white boy bites into a chalupa.
    “He was Bill Clinton’s favorite writer.”
    “What, nigga?”
    “Mosley was Clinton’s favorite writer.”
    “How the fuck do you know that?”
    “I read it somewhere. I do read, bitch.”
    “Yo, watch that. And your moms should’ve told you not to believe everything you read.”

    Two kids are from different galaxies. One is from a soybean farm an hour outside of Milwaukee. The other is from East Flatbush. Both are too young to remember a time before Puff Daddy. The black boy from Wisconsin fashions himself a writer. The white boy draws and paints scenes from his quests to Bed Stuy and the Boogie Down. Two kids have no concept of waiting.
    “We should hit up that Pratt party,” the black boy says, picking up a notebook and pen.
    “Nah. The hawk is out tonight.” The white boy means that it is brisk and windy outside. This is true. But it is also true that no chicks are coming to see them in this dirtyass TV lounge, despite the fact that Pimp My Ride is coming on. The black boy insists.
    “You don’t know cold ‘til you been in the Midwest.”
    The white boy resumes a sketch. After a minute, he says, “Maybe no black male authors get shine because they’re too busy out partying.”
    “What?”
    “I said, maybe—“
    “I heard what you said.”
    “So then why did you ask me what?”
    “It was rhetorical, douchebag. What are you trying to say?”
    “I’m not trying to say shit. I’m saying that maybe cats aren’t on their craft like they should be.”
    “I’m on my craft, nigga.”
    “Yeah, well, you could’ve fooled me.”

    Two kids got to be cool, got to be roadies, because the white boy saved the black boy from an ass-whippin’. It was, of course, over a girl. This was funny in and of itself because, being from Wisconsin, the black boy had zero game. But you couldn’t tell him that. Two kids were at the same uptown house party. The black boy was pushing up on this thick boriqua. The white boy saw them and knew her from his drawing class, knew she had a boyfriend from the Bronx, knew that this boyfriend had a crew. None of the crew took drawing classes.
    Walking into the party right as the black boy whispered into the boriqua’s ear, right as he breathed in her long, cocoa hair, the crew rushed the black boy straight away. There were four of them, all wearing Jesus pieces and all remaining loyal to the big jeans and hoodie motif. Their chains and ornaments shined with fake black diamonds. The crew was a little heavy. Middle management. All around them, couples danced to Biggie’s ‘Hypnotize.’ The white boy, who had been grinding on this Asian girl wearing a cocktail dress and Timberland boots, watched the budding confrontation over her shoulder. Before tonight, he had seen the black boy around school, always alone, or failing miserably to mack.
    “What up, Kanye?” Another of the crew said, at least denigrating the black boy’s gear.
    The white boy led his dance partner closer to the scene. The Bronx boyfriend gripped up his girl while the crew formed a semi-circle around the black boy.
    “Now . . . you know you done fucked up right?” said a middle manager.
    The black boy was stuck on silent. He looked like a kid about to catch a beat down. The white boy saw one of the crew pull out a miniature baseball bat. He saw the semi-circle start to close. He saw the black-boy ball a fist and take a half step back.
    “Jerome? Jerry, you bitch, is that you?”
    This is the white boy. He broke the semi-circle, snatched the mini-bat, put the black boy in a headlock and tapped him on the dome. When the black boy struggled, the white boy leaned down and said, in his ear, “Chill out, art school. I’m trying to save your ass.”
    “How the fuck do you know I’m in art school?” the black boy said, thrashing, but then getting it. Two kids burst through the semi-circle. They hauled ass to the A train back downtown.
    And that’s how it went from then on. Two kids run around together, run from trouble, run to their stories with the temerity of the newly free.
    “Not on my craft? Not on my craft? Fuck that. I am always on.”
    “Calm down there, James Baldwin.”
    “That’s what I’m saying,” the black boy says. “Who since Baldwin has gotten that kind of light?”
    They went on this way for another hour. The white boy drew. The black boy got quiet and put down some words. When their food was gone and The Real World came on, two kids had had enough. They put away their stuff and go outside for more.

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