The blk hole of the blk belt

The edge of the curb in broad daylight.

Deakin and Samuel stand about 5 feet away from each other. Deakin’s body is half-turned, as the reluctance to fully engage is evident. They were headed in opposite directions, but like there’s an elastic band binding them, the conversation persists.

“Ohhhhh. Oh man. Is that right?”
“Yes sir.”
“Daaamn.”
“Yeah, bro. It’s going down.”
“This Thursday. Okay. Why didn’t I know about this sooner?”
“I don’t know! We’ve been posting about it on our page for about 3 months.”
“Oh, damn. I’m not on Facebook.”
“Bold choice.”
“Yeah. I guess that’s where everything in this entire town gets posted, huh. No wonder I miss out all the time.”
“Why not get a Facebook? We’re actually doing a promo for the first 10 folks to repost the open mic night on their page.”
“3 months and 10 people haven’t recommended it yet??”

Deakin realizes that was a bit harsh, so he follows up with a mediating chuckle:

“Tuh-ha.”

Samuel doesn’t budge at the jab, but he also doesn’t take it as a jab. He doesn’t seem to take anything as anything. He’s busy looking through his phone. He holds it up and shows Deakin the event page.

“See. How bout it? We need experts like yourself in there to bring the energy. We won’t ask you to perform or anything. Like last time.”

Deakin smiles politely.

“Sure thing. I’ll see if I can make it. But yeah, it was good to see you.”
“You too, man. That last event you came to, the crowd was being super lame. But we’ve been making adjustments here and there since COVID and have really beefed it all up. You’ll love it this time. We don’t bite, man!”
“Ahaaaa. Yeah, that was the last time I pulled up. Pre-everything.”
“Yeah, a lot’s changed, broski.”
“Damn. That’s cool. Well, be safe out here.”

Samuel glides, somehow smoothly, in a circle around to the front of Deakin, going in for a dap. We pull out wider to see that Samuel can do this because he is on an electric scooter.

Deakin obliges the dap and watches as Samuel speeds off. Inside the clear backpack he’s wearing Deakin can make out a stack of flyers for a different event. But only barely, because the backpack is covered almost entirely in logo stickers of Samuel’s event planning collective: The Sensible Social.

The logo is a serif font with leaf branches growing out of the different letters, like trees. Simple stuff visually, but a little transfixing because the some of the branches have a way of making some of the letters look like different letters than they are.

Deakin spaces out, imagining another name for the collective.

“That was awkward as hell.” says a voice from the atmosphere around Deakin.

He holds up the phone in his hand, and it has the face of a woman inside of it. She’s close as shit to her lens, holding back a chuckle. This is Myra and she persists with the question as if she’s making up for being put on FaceTime hold:

“Was that not awkward as hell?”
“I don’t know. It’s always like that with him.” says Deakin as he starts walking in the other direction.
“He sounds… committed.”
“Yeah, I think that’s just how he is. I never really understand his vibe, but there aren’t really any tricks or facades to it. So I guess I appreciate that?”
“You know, you might as well go.” says a different voice.

Deakin looks down at the phone again and Myra has turned her camera: there’s another woman, inside the rectangle of the phone, sitting at a desk in the background behind Myra. This is Ivy.

“Oh shit. Look who it is. And no. I don’t think I will go.”
“Why not?” say Myra and Ivy almost at the exact same time, but with different intentions in their inflections.

They look at each other and laugh.

“Because the last time I was in there they like half-introduced me as a headliner and made me get up on stage and tell some jokes. I really didn’t want that kind of attention, I was just trying to support.”
“Were the people performing talented?”
“No, not to my knowledge.”

Myra laughs loudly.

“Nigga, did you just say not to my knowledge?’
“Yes.”
“You have a criteria or something?”
“Sometimes. But I didn’t even have to use the criteria. They just weren’t funny at all… the hell you doing back there, Ivy. Oh, you making beats?”

Myra turns the phone to Ivy so Ivy is fully inside the rectangle. Tapping away on the keyboard, she turns and gives Deakin the most unenthused look.

Myra turns it back to herself.

“We’re actually planning a trip.”
“Without me?”
“Fully and expeditiously without you. You the one who decided to pack up and move all the way across the country on a secret getaway.”
“What that gotta do with me meeting y’all there?”

Ivy chimes in from the background.

“You got whatshisname’s performance to attend. You busy anyway.”
“Damn. Go back to making beats.”
“Boy, shut up.”

Myra takes over.

“It’s a girls trip, so I don’t even think you’d have that much fun.”
“Yeah, probably not.”
“Airbnbs are expensive as fuck right now though… so we’re finding out.”

Deakin walks up to a coffee shop, but doesn’t go inside. He sits down on a bench outside, continuing the conversation. Next to him he notices a a large sign, featuring a blown up flier of the event that Sam just talked him through. He sighs, then turns the phone to show Myra. She leans into the screen, inspecting.

“Mmmmm. Okay. Not too sightly. Some interesting colors. Is “featuring” misspelled?”

Deakin looks closer.

“No, no. It’s spelled right. I think that’s just the fonts they use. That’s a thing with them.”
“What’s up with people putting yellows and purples together like that? Is it a greek event?”
“Uh ha! Yeah, that’s a weird choice.”

A pause. A couple with a stroller walks out of the coffee shop. They smile at Deakin. He smiles back reluctantly. Myra, from inside the phone:

“Well, we gonna let you go. This trip ain’t gonna book itself. Spring time gonna be here before we know it.”
“Mmmm-hmmm.”

The baby in the stroller peeks around from the edge of the basin, looking back at Deakin. He exchanges glances with the small, curious human.

“And listen, D, if you’re actually down. We’re seeing a lot of places with a couple extra bedrooms, we have space.”

The kid slips back behind the basin.

“Wait.”
“Yeah?”
“You think I should go?”
“Hell yeah, come on! We been waiting for all of us go on a trip together.”
“No, no. To the open-mic night.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah. Should I show up?”
“Well, I for one, think you should do whatever feels right. He seemed to really admire you.”
“Yeah. I guess. Do you think I should just ask him do my own routine?”
“Have you been writing new material?”

Deakin tilts his head and gives a “come on, girl” type face.

“Okay! Mmmm, well. You say you’re not there to be known, but it also seems like you can’t help yourself. I think the real question is: would you be okay with performing after they tell the crowd that you have a few Comedy Central credits and stuff like that? After they do the whole Dog and Pony show.”
“No.”
“There you have it. You not ready.”

Deakin sighs, then turns it on her:

“Who not ready? You not ready. And look, Ivy was never ready. Look at her, shoulders all hunched, staring at a screen. Just deformed. What if somebody burst in the door right now? Y’all ain’t ready for nothin”
“Oop.”

Myra turns her phone towards her friend. Ivy retorts:

“I hope you bomb in front of all them hillbillies.”
“I hope you get in a fight with a old ass Rottweiler with a bum leg and he bite that chunk of yo hunched neck off. That one right there.”

Deakin is pointing straight into the screen. The gals chuckle.

“Look at you, wasting jokes on the wrong audience.”

Myra swings the phone back around to herself.

“Alright, bye D.”
“Yeah.”
“And D, let us know! If we don’t lock these dates in soon, flights gonna be expeeeeensive.”
“Hah, yeah I got you.”
“Byeeeeeee”
“I’ma talk to y’all.”

---

Lights trained on a small stage. Silhouetted heads in the audience.

“So I was talking to my homegirl the other day on the phone. And I asked her, straight up, like yo, how I should show up to this open mic. First, it was if I should show up. But she convinced me. So it went from if to how.”

Deakin paces the stage with a mic in his hand. A couple claps can be heard in the audience.

“Nah, nah. Don’t clap. Because, for real. I really didn’t wanna be at this shit, man. Like, at all. Y’all are a weird bunch. I mean it. I came one time before and it just wasn’t funny. I’m sorry. It was terrible.”

Silence. The crowd is a bit stunned.

“And some of y’all mfs stink. Like, real bad.”

Deakin points toward the front of the crowd.

“Look at this nigga right here. He already don’t like me. He like, ‘shut up! ain’t shit funny about permanent body odor.’”

A dude in a fitted and a baggie hoodie goes from scowling to chuckling a little bit.

“Where you from, man?”

The man’s answer registers as a murmur from the crowd.

“Nigga said “here”. Well no shit, brotha. Look at what you’re wearing. Of course you from here. Only niggas who ain’t been no-where dress like that.”

The audience starts laughing. Claps roll in.

“What neighborhood? I been living here long enough to understand the different parts.”

Another murmur from the man in the audience.

“Cedar Hill? Like, where they be… you know…?”

Deakin mimes a trigger squeeze with his free hand. The crowd confirms.

“Ohhhh, shit. Okay. Damn, that’s actually a nice hoodie, my brotha. I couldn’t see it in the dark. Who’s it made by?”

The crowd laughs at that one.

“Lemme move to someone else. You, ma’am. With the big ass glasses. I know you can see me pointing at you. What part of “here” are you from?”

A woman in the 3rd row chimes in.

“Ah, Carverdale. That’s a so-called nice neighborhood. It stink out there, too? Nah, I’m just playing. You own property out there, don’t you. Look at you.”

She confirms.

“Several! Okay, okay. Miss Real Estate! Everybody give a round of applause for her.”

The audience launches into applause. Deakin cuts them off prematurely, yelling into the mic—

“No! Shut up! Stop clapping! The fuck is wrong witchyall! This bitch a gentrifier. Don’t encourage that shit! It’s only a matter of time before she come into your neighborhood and wanna knock down your walls and shit.”

Deakin mimes glasses on his face with his free hand and swings the mic around violently with the other. The audience laughs minimally at this.

“Tuh-ha. Y’all are a funny bunch, man.”

A yell comes from the back of the audience.

“Oh yeah? You said you seen me walking my dog around there before? Damn, alright FBI.”

The audience has turned on him.

"Did I at least look tough? Like I would beat somebody the fuck up if they try me and my dog?”

Another yell from the back. The crowd roars with laughter amongst itself.

“What’d she say?”

Someone answers for her. It’s a ‘hell no.’

“Hell no!? Uh-ha! Well, shit. Damn, they said I look sweet on any block. You know what. Samuel, where you at?”

Deakin makes a roof over his brow with his hand, peering towards the back.

“Yo Samuel! Come get your people, man. I’m out, man. Fuck you and this weak ass crowd. They trying to show me up.”

Deakin pretends to storm off stage. The crowd laughs this through.

“But nah…”

There’s a pause in the room. Deakin looks pensively down at the stage.

“Y’all ever be walking your dog and the shit just look up at you and you just know he’s saying to himself, ‘damn, this fuckin’ cornball again.’ Y’all ever feel like that?”

The audience chuckles.

“I don’t own my dog, it’s adopted. I got him when I first moved here. But I don’t think that nigga fuck with me, still. I think he feel like he babysitting me, not the other way around.
And you would think he would’ve warmed up by now. But no! That lil mf has not come around at all. He be walking around the house, wagging his tail and knocking over glasses. I be wanting to fight that nigga. Little ungrateful ass.
But… I still walk him. I give him treats. I be talking him up when I run into another dog owner ‘Oh yeah, he’s such a good sport’. Like, no. Fuck this lil bitch. You can have him, for real.”

The audience laughs. Deakin’s gaze is still aimed downward.

A long, pensive beat.

“That’s my dawg though, he been holding me down.”

Another pensive beat.

“You know what… y’all ain’t so bad. I had some material written for tonight. Y’all cool if I get into it?”

The audience responds a resounding ‘yes’.