The N-Word and the Pill

Restful Spaces Wine Rosé retailed for $7.48, no sales tax. Zander Strong had finished his labor as a recyclables collector at the CareDel Hospital in Newark, Delaware. He had changed into evening attire consisting of a black blazer, pressed blue trousers, a white shirt and skinny black tie.

He found his way to his girlfriend’s apartment in his used European coupe, floating over the asphalt with aplomb. When he had reached for the wine, he made sure that his breath was fresh. He popped in a cinnamon breathstrip. He typed in the code to access the lobby of the apartment. Next, he occupied the elevator and found her floor.

Pallia Bock wore a little black dress (LBD). Red pumps and a gold beret completed the ensemble. They kissed at the door.

“I don’t know why we’re all dressed up just to take all of this off,” Strong mentioned.

“Give me that wine,” Pallia replied with a soft chuckle. She turned it around.

“Restful Spaces?! This is what my grandmother drinks!”

“You’re going to Zimbabwe this summer, right?” Strong asked, a sense of wonder angling into his voice like a lure.

She bit. “Yeah, so?”

“Well, when you talk to those little [black] babies, you should be sure to tell them you come from a country where we can quibble about alcoholic beverages and not die from malnutrition, malaria, or some goddamn civil war amongst tribes.”

“Wow. You didn’t have to use that word,” Pallia pointed out while getting wine glasses.

“That’s all you got from that? What word? [Black]? Your father calls me that. All of our friends listen to hip hop. Are you telling me that you expect me to believe you stopped using the word the dominant culture uses? That you have to say ‘n-word’ amongst the thousands of terms and proper names that could start with ‘n’ we immediately point to that one?”

“It’s not that serious.”

“Oh, it is, though.”

“It’s like…” she paused. “It’s like the pill.”

“I can see that. Okay. People don’t even say the pill. It’s just ‘the’ pill, even though there’s thousands of them. But it’s still different. [Black] is like…it’s like dynamite. It can be used to carve out mountains or maim and kill those little kids you plan on hugging and kissing on your ‘peace’ mission.”

“No, it’s not. The pill is something that is accepted and can just about be applied to every woman there is on the planet,” she countered.

“Not quite. There’re still religious groups who hurl bombs at health clinics who issue contraceptives,” Strong said.

She poured them wine despite her misgivings about the selection.

“It is interesting that the terms have a similar place in our language. Immediately we know what we’re talking about. No matter how many words there are in the English language, we get it.”

“I use [black] because it’s a beautiful word. I use it like Afro sheen, spraying my haters away. It’s not like white kids across America and the world are exactly muting themselves every time a rap song pops up on their streaming service.”

Pallia smirked. “Those are facts. I just think we have to say the n-word and the pill….”

“[Black].”

“The n-word. Like the pill it is supposed to be an automatic recognition of the terms. And they are weighty.” She used her smarts as an undergrad at the Delaware Institute of Technology (DIT) in Newark.

“You’re too wise to know that the pill is representative of everything associated with preventing a child from even forming in your uterus.” And he, a college dropout from New Sweden University in Wilmington, gained his wit from street corners, arcades, alleys, and pool halls, and the library.

“I hear you talking. I just find it phenomenal that we can understand a nefarious name for people and an option or plan B for a woman to control her familial destiny.”

“[Black] is a word that I’ll continue to use and disallow you from using it like I don’t call you….” Strong suggested.

“Exactly. We can call that the b-word. Other women call each other by that term. It becomes a problem when a male is involved.”

“This is true. That word could further be modified like [black].” Strong sat down and placed his wine on the table. Pallia inched closer.

“Have you been taking the pill?” he asked.

“Of course, my [black],” she answered.

“Hey! Let’s slow that down right now. We don’t use that word together.”

“I agree,” she replied.