Antebellum Read Online Free PDF

those black and white movies where a man and woman always end up dancing the night away. The floors sparkled, the glasses sparkled, the cups sparkled, the plates sparkled—I couldn’t figure out how someone could eat here and not be depressed by what they would have to go home to. All the waiters had skin colors that contrasted with their white tuxedoes. There was lady in a black gown playing the harp, and a man in a black tuxedo playing the piano beside her. Their skin colors contrasted with their clothes as well.
    I saw the patrons talking to one another, but I quickly realized that they were all speaking a language I wasn’t wealthy enough to understand. To me it all sounded like “ Moneymoneymoney? Moneymoney...Moneymoneymoneymoney.”
    I wondered if I’d ventured off to the bathroom, would I find unflushed hundred dollar bills floating in the toilet.
    SaTia spotted Mr. Rose sitting at the back of the restaurant. She nudged my shoulder and motioned toward his table. He had a plate of culinary art sitting in front of him, and was focused on trying to eat as much of it as he could without ruining its beauty. After taking three steps in his direction, he managed to glance up long enough to notice our approach. His attention quickly shifted from his postmodern plate to the two urbanites coming his way. He stood up and spoke with a jovial seriousness.
    â€œNigger! Where have you been? I thought we were going to be able to eat, but we’ll have to make this quick now. Come on here and take a seat!”
    Sometimes people get killed for a reason no one ever finds out. You can question the person who did it for hours and hours, and even if they admit that they committed the murder, they won’t tell you the reason. They’ll get sentenced and go to jail and spendhuge chunks of their lives behind bars, but will never tell you what motivated them. They won’t tell you, because a lot of times even they don’t know. A normal guy may have never had any interaction with a gay person, until one day he gets hit on by a flamboyant man in a miniskirt and blows his brains into his wig. Or a girl completely suppresses her memory of being raped until a drunken guy shoves his hand under her skirt and ends up with an ice pick in his larynx. Someone says or does something that touches an unknown, unforgiving button, and in the blink of an eye a college athlete or a petite secretary is standing over a dead body wondering what kind of computer glitch just altered their reality...
    Standing there, in that restaurant, with billionaire couples smirking at the privilege of hearing a racial epithet in public, I found out I had a button that could be pushed. And if I had a gun, Mr. Rose would have died where he stood.
    Rage glued my Nikes to the plush carpet and held me there. Just as I resolved to do something violent, SaTia leaned over and whispered to me.
    â€œYou chose the name, Moe. I told you from the beginning that a lot of white folks don’t know the difference. It was bound to happen sometime.” She paused and glanced up to see my top row of teeth sinking into my lower lip. “You better chill out. If you kirk out in here, you can kiss all your money goodbye.”
    I swear having her around was like having a walking reality check.
    All the black waiters had paused just long enough to see how I would react. A black guy in urban clothing with dark sunglasses and a grill in his mouth had just been called a nigger in front of about thirty rich white people. Two of the waiters looked poised to dive onto the ground. They glanced from me and to one another, smirking at the possibility of an oppressor being massacred.
    It was too late, though. The image of me back in the hood, broke, with a dirty wifebeater and a malfunctioning Tech-9 had sobered me up. SaTia’s inconvenient truth had left me flaccid.
    After a few seconds passed, each member of the serving staff took turns calling me an Uncle