“Are y’all like, investigating?” Tex asked.
“We just asking questions. The cops said they wasn’t getting nowhere. We just want to find out what happened to our boys, that’s all. We ain’t trying to cause nobody no trouble,” Ike said. That was partially the truth. He didn’t want to cause anyone any trouble. He just wanted to find the motherfuckers who killed his son. All of them. Every last one.
“Yeah, they came by here. I don’t think it’s like people don’t want to help. It’s like, the cops come around here and people get nervous. Lots of folks here still on the down-low. They don’t want to get their names tied up in a murder case. Don’t get me wrong, Richmond’s a pretty good place to live if you’re gay or queer or whatever, but it’s still Virginia. The same people who love those statues on Monument Avenue wouldn’t have a problem tying some of my customers to a fence, ya feel me?” Tex said.
“So, you’re saying Isiah and Derek’s friends are a bunch of chickenshits,” Buddy Lee said. Tex shook his head.
“You don’t get it, man. Things are better these days if you’re gay, but they ain’t great. You get outed and you might find out you suddenly have violated your company’s rules on parking privileges, so they fire you. I mean, it’s like being Black or Asian or Hispanic here in the Old Dominion. Things are better but—”
Ike let out a grunt.
“I say something wrong?” Tex asked.
“Being gay ain’t nothing like being Black,” Ike said. The words came out slow and deliberate. Tex furrowed his brow.
“I’m just saying we still in the South. Unless you straight and white you gotta watch your back,” he said. He turned his head toward Buddy Lee.
“No offense,” he said.
“None taken, I guess. I just never knew I had it so good being straight and white,” Buddy Lee said. He tried to make it come out lighthearted, but the truth in the statement anchored it to the ground. Tex glanced at Ike, but whatever he expected to see was absent.
“You know anything about what happened to our boys? Did either one of them say anything about somebody threatening them or anything like that?” Ike asked.
“Neither one of them ever said anything like that,” Tex said. He grabbed Buddy Lee’s empty bottle and headed for the trash can under the bar.
“Hey, you know a girl named Tangerine?” Buddy Lee asked. Tex stopped.
“She used to hang around here a while back. She comes and goes, ya know.”
“You ever see her with the boys?” Ike asked. Tex glared at him for a second.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean with our boys.”
“Oh. No, never did. Like I said, she floats in and out. She’s a party girl.”
“Oh yeah? How hard do she party?” Buddy Lee asked. Now it was his turn to get a hard look from Tex.
“You’d have to ask her that,” Tex said.
“I’d like to. You know where we can find her?” Buddy Lee asked.
“I just told you she floats in and out.”
“Anybody around here might know her?” Ike asked.
“I guess you have to ask them,” Tex said. Ike leaned forward over the bar. He stuck his chest out and cocked his head to the right.
“Hey, we got a problem?” Ike asked. Tex pushed his tongue against the inside of his cheek.
“Ya know, I have a friend who comes in here sometimes. He’s a lawyer. He’s about your age. He’s gay, Black, and cool as fuck. You know what he told me once? He said some Black people hate gay people more than they hate racists. He told me growing up Black and gay in a small town out in the country was like being trapped between a lion and an alligator. Rednecks on one side and homophobic Black folk on the other. He said the only way you don’t get fucked with growing up Black and gay was if you could do hair or lead a choir. He couldn’t do neither so he got out of town. I didn’t really believe him. I couldn’t believe it was that bad. But every day a guy like you proves him right,” Tex said.
“Oh, so you think it’s easier being Black than being gay? I tell you what, you go somewhere don’t nobody have to know you gay unless you tell them. I’m Black everywhere. I can’t hide that shit,” Ike said. Tex pulled his towel out and twisted it with both hands.
“Yeah, you can’t hide that you’re Black. But the fact that you think I should hide who I am proves my point. Like Dr. King said: an injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere,” Tex said. Ike sucked his teeth and sat back onto his stool.