RJ Young - Let It Bang: A Young Black Man’s Reluctant Odyssey into Guns

Copyright 2018 by RJ Young

All rights reserved

For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to or to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 3 Park Avenue, 19th Floor, New York, New York 10016.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Young, R. J., (Writer), author.

Title: Let it bang : a young black mans reluctant odyssey into guns / R. J. Young.

Description: Boston : Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2018. | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2018012248 (print) | LCCN 2018035744 (ebook) | ISBN 9781328826329 (ebook) | ISBN 9781328826336 (hardcover)

Subjects: LCSH: Young, R. J., (Writer) | African AmericansSocial life and customs. | FirearmsSocial aspectsUnited States. | African AmericansRace relations. | African American journalistsBiography. | LCGFT: Autobiographies.

Classification: LCC E185.86 (ebook) | LCC E185.86 .Y665 2018 (print) | DDC 305.896/073dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018012248

Cover design by Alex Merto

Author photograph Ronald Taylor II

v1.0918

For Grandmomme

Of all creatures that breathe and move upon the earth, nothing is bred that is weaker than man.

Homer , The Odyssey

Guns are right up there with race as one of the most sensitive, taboo-ridden public issues we have. And the mystique gets bigger all the time.

Henry Allen , The Mystique of Guns

WHEN I FIRST met Charles Stafford, it was simply in passing. I was at his house on a hill, one he could afford to have fenced, because my boss at the time, Mary, had invited me there to her sons high school graduation party. Marys son had been a lifelong friend to Charless son. The two were graduating together and throwing a party to celebrate in a place called Coweta.

Coweta is a town in Wagoner County, Oklahoma. Its the kind of place where the owner of a used-car lot thought hed show his wit and charm by calling his business Shade Tree Cars and Trucks. Its the kind of town where a Shade Tree mechanic will pull over to find out why your car is broken down, fix the problem, and send you on your way, asking nothing more in return than a well-placed handshake. In Coweta, the word shit has four syllables, and you can still get popped in the mouth for saying it. Its also the kind of town where its perfectly normal not to invite a single black person to a party.

I drove from my apartment in Tulsa out into the sticks, into Gods Country, as Ive heard it called, because Marys secretary had instructed me that it was a big deal to be invited to one of Marys family-related events. At the time, I was an intern for Mary at the University of Tulsas Collins Fitness Center. To decline would not have been a good look, and couldve led to a piss-poor work environment. So, because I had to, I found the place, pulled up, and stepped out of my piece-of-shit Oldsmobile Alero.

I stayed just long enough for my first-ever encounter with Charless daughter, Lizzie. I could not avert my eyes from her. Lizzie wore a flowing lavender dress. Her hair was pulled back into a long, curly blonde ponytail that forced me to confront the ferocity and beauty of her features. She looked at me with the kind of contempt usually reserved for someone about to smash a puppys head in with a brick. It took me a few seconds to realize I was in her fucking seat. I moved. She smiled then, and sat down.

I tried to mingle among the faces that looked nothing like mine, but I couldnt handle it. I found the nearest exit and left the place, which felt foreign and uncomfortable.

My story with Charles and Lizzie wouldve ended here if I had not egregiously failed an elective, a class called Philosophy of Art. That was the first falling domino that led me to Lizzie. As a student at the University of Tulsa, I worked as a mechanic at Pep Boys part-time and as a personal trainer when I could get clients. I ran the sixty meters, two hundred meters, and four hundred metersall really fucking slowlyfor the track team, and was a member of the co-ed cheerleading squad. You might find it funny that the little scholarship money I did receive came from cheerleading. Or, as I was fond of saying, throwing white girls in the air.

Id signed up for the philosophy class to fulfill a requirement for my degree in exercise and sports science, but signing up was pretty much all I did. The loud thud of the F, when it landed on my up-till-then pretty damn good GPA, meant I was in danger of being placed on academic probation, while being still three hours short of the 124 hours I needed to finish my degree. And I had no money for summer school.

Yes, Id slipped when I failed Philosophy of Art. I was tired and not much interested in what dead white men like Immanuel Kant and Georg Hegel had to say about anything, let alone the meaning of life. And it had been only six months since a member of the financial aid department at TU looked me square in the eye while saying, If you cant afford to be here, then you shouldnt be here. This after carrying loans that surely will be hanging over my head long after global warming has become global scorched earth. So, I was overjoyed when Mary offered me a paying job at the fitness center through the summer.

TAKING THE JOB with Mary came with one caveat. Shed asked that I consent to work as a trainer with her friends daughter.

Can I meet her first? I said.

Youve met her.

I have? Who is she?

Shell be here tomorrow. I expect you to be here too.

When I showed up at work the next day, I saw Mary standing beside the woman who had told me with nothing more than a furrowed brow and a twitch of the nose that I was in her fucking seat. She was looking back at me.

The toughest part of working out with someone who doesnt want to work out is finding something to talk about. But with Lizzie there was no talking. Well, there was, but it was decidedly one-sided and repetitive. I would ask a question, and she would either roll her eyes or raise her eyebrows. Rather than attempt an exercise I asked her to try, she would just stare. This went on for a few days, until I asked her if she would rather just walk the track. In response, she simply turned and began walking up the stairs to the second level of the facility, where the track was. Just being with me for an hour, in a place that looked built to torture her physically and emotionally, was horrible for Lizzie. Shed been overweight for most of her life and was somewhat resigned to that. I would try to empathize with her. But nobody wants to hear how the currently fit trainer was once a fat kid. Mary knew this about my background, and it was why she chose to bring Lizzie and me together. Even though it wasnt working, I continued to try to relate to Lizzie.

This was our routine for about a week. Because after most of my sessions with Lizzie, I also trained Mary, along with Lizzies mother, Nancy, theyd ask how things were going with Lizzie, and I was fine with telling them. That is, until the day I lost my temper with Lizzie and, straight to her face, called her kind of a bitch. She didnt speak to me after I said those words to her. She simply gave me the finger and walked away. I knew then that I would be fired.

Except I wasnt.

Mary and Nancy told me that this white girls getting pissed off and flipping me the bird was a good thing. That I had elicited emotion from Lizzie, which was precisely what theyd hoped for when putting the black man who talked too much together with the white woman who talked little to not at all. No, they said, youre doing a good job. Ive never thought two white women crazier than I did that day. The next day Lizzie showed up, which was cause enough for celebration. But then she said something.