Why are you here?


“Why are you here?” I said. I couldn’t move my head to really see the guy and besides the sun was blaring in my
face.

“I’m black,” he said.

I probably shouldn’t have laughed but the comment was so ridiculously absurd as to be plausible. Lately, those
kinds of comments made me laugh. I was there for not mowing my lawn.

“How long?” I said.

“Maybe forever,” he said. “I’m black.” He didn’t say this with malice; he was rather matter of fact about the whole
thing.

I wanted to nod, but that would’ve been impossible. I wanted to convey some signal to show that I could
understand his circumstances. Well, I couldn’t understand them completely, but I was on his side. I felt his pain.

I hadn’t mowed my lawn in weeks.

“You come here often?” he said.

Yeah, it was like we were in a bar, mocking the bar’s conventions, pretending to pick each other up. I wasn’t gay
but there was a gay guy here a few weeks ago. He kept his house up rather nicely, trimmed his hedges, mowed his
lawn. He was gay, so I figured they might keep him a while. But then he was released and as he was going he
leaned in close to me and he said, “I can pass.” I caught a glimpse of his muscled arms as he walked away. The guy
could pass.

But I’m not gay and I’m not black. I may be part Jewish if you go by the Nuremberg laws, but nobody around here
seems to know about those.

I hadn’t mowed my lawn in weeks.

“I’m always here on Sunday,” I said.

“A religious guy,” he said.

I never thought of it like that. I just always seemed to get in trouble around week’s end, thus requiring me to be
pilloried on Sunday. When they first set them up people would come and take pictures. Oftentimes we’d be in the
pictures with them, but mostly they just wanted to gloat and heckle, so they stopped posing with us. Look at
those poor saps, standing on a hill with the sun in their face. The pillories were angled toward each other, but not
in such a way that you could see your conversation partner and have a good talk. The pillories certainly put a
damper on conversation.

Most guys who came here and the occasional lesbian or feminist didn’t want to talk. It was either that or they
ranted and raved. They kicked at the grassy hill, pounding on their soapbox. In a normal conversation I would’ve
nodded and smiled.

The black guy next to me was pretty quiet. I hadn’t any kind of conversation for hours and I wanted to talk. He
must’ve been new in town; I would’ve heard about a black guy moving into the neighborhood. Our locale was rather
small. My girlfriend told me I only moved there to stir up trouble. She was probably right.

At the moment she was calling me and the only reason I knew that was because I had my phone in my pocket on
vibrate. It was a sexual thing. I was gone so long from her sometimes that I needed some form of entertainment.
She went along with it because she was in control. At any moment she could call me and get my rocks off. She liked
the control part, but not enough to tie me up. I asked her about that sometimes too. Instead, hers was a low-level
sadism, a kind of infinite low grade fever. Just the kind I liked.

“What’s that noise?” the black guy said.

I think I moaned then. Or maybe not. The phone was situated in just the right part of my pocket. I always wore
cargo shorts to the pillory. They were comfy.

I had to say something, so I said, “I don’t know.” He seemed satisfied with that.

“I don’t have any kids,” he said. “Do you think that will get me more time?”

I thought about that for a moment. A black guy without kids might actually work in his favor. “You single?” I said.

“Nope. Married.”

I imagined the ring on his imprisoned hand glinting in the sunlight. A married black guy. Yeah, he needed kids.
Maybe a dog too.

At that point my phone stopped ringing.

“I thought so,” he said, even though I hadn’t responded. My silence, perhaps, spoke volumes.

When the conversation finally rolled around to what I was in for, I told him about the unmown lawn. I told him
about my great rebellion. “But I trimmed up everything else,” I said. “I made the bushes into a phallus.”

I thought he might laugh at that. Instead, he kind of snorted. I wished I could look at him, to see if he was angry.
Then he said it: “Waste of energy.” Then he said the other thing: “I’m black.”

He grew quiet for some time.

The phone rang once more, but this time she only held on for a ring and a half. That was her style. Reel me in and
get me going, then let go prematurely. Yeah, I liked it.

I wanted to make it up to the black guy somehow. I wanted to let him know I was there for him. I was about to say
something, when I noticed him snoring, which was impressive. I was the kind of guy who could nod off on a rock,
but the pillory didn’t allow for anything except an aching back, sore legs, and a mashed up neck. Your wrists got
sore too. My girlfriend told me to practice yoga.

He couldn’t have been sleeping long, because the sun still played its death music on my head when he woke up.
Still, I was impressed and told him so.

“Nerves of steel,” he said and I thought he was mocking me.

“Look,” I said.

“Don’t start a speech with look,” he said.

I almost said it again, but held my tongue just in time. I think I let out the “L” and the “O” so maybe he thought I
said book, though I couldn’t think of any speech that started with book.

“I don’t need a speech,” he said.

He got quiet again.

My girlfriend called. One ring, then two.

I wondered if we’d be there all night, just two guys shooting the shit in the evening breeze. I wanted to invite him
over for a barbecue. I wanted to go ice skating with him. It sure was hot. The view from up here was supposed to
be spectacular.

We got bathroom breaks. No great shakes, more like a piss in the woods. They let the women out, but the men
had to piss in a bucket. Right there. They unzipped you too. Once they did it while I was erect. “Happy to be an
American,” I said. That got me confined until the next Sunday. Luckily, they didn’t find the cell phone.

Nobody threw pies at us anymore. I sure missed the pies.

“Ok,” the black guy said. “Ok.”

He must’ve been bored.

“Don’t talk about anything meaningful,” he said.

Small talk wasn’t my strong suit, and I used up all I had when he got there. I heard them heave him into place,
saying nothing, grunting. He sighed, like they always do, first-timers, newbies, they always sighed. But I wasn’t
supposed to talk about that. I wasn’t supposed to talk about anything.

“Ok,” he said. “Ok.” He sensed my desperation.

“It’s not like,” I said. “It’s not like I don’t get it,” I said.

“I know,” he said.

We were drinking now, having our first beer. I could see it. Yeah, we talked. For hours. He said a lot. I said a lot.
We talked for hours.

But nobody came to see us anymore. Not anyone. The last pie was thrown. I wondered what that meant.

Abby Rotstein