Clem walked out to the van and unlocked it. He had switched into some jeans and was ready for a project. Moving Scott's belongings would be the Good Samaritan event for the day, hell the week. What could Scott have?

With all of their combined musical knowledge, Scott, Scott & Emory had tried on several occasions to write musical columns for a local weekly newsprint rag, operate a combination Dungeons & Dragons/record/book store, and one summer they all collectively moved to LA together only to face a steady stream of failure and return by fall. They meant well, they were just toadies hell-bent on consuming drugs and music in equal parts. They had a highly sophisticated cynicism that appalled even Clem. Once, when they asked him how he could afford to live on his own, go to college, play in a band, etc. He told them his history and when it returned to his last years living with his parents, they all jumped up "Aha! See? You have a Dad! We don't have that. We lost our Dads! If we still had Dads we could do what we wanted to do and they would help us."

Clem and his friends Duke and Brian played in a band called Breeding Weeds. At one point they had all lived in this house and practiced their garage craft there. The Scotts were jazzed about the music and would come to get the band high and see if musical tastes matched. But they really wanted to manage the band and influence its musical direction. They wanted the Weeds to delve more into Joy Division-ish gloom with a funk beat. They weren't fazed by the fact that Clem and Brian listened exclusively to rockabilly and late 50's Texas Ranchero music. They saw the Weeds (First thing we do is change your name) as their ticket to stardom, Brian Epsteins they were. But they were worthless as managers. Nothing got done. They were always caging rides and dropping by unannounced. They invited trouble and were constantly being beaten up by hardcore punk bullies at punk shows around town. After a while Brian and Duke said "Fuck you" to these whining nerds. They disappeared for almost a year and then Scott Laine had dropped by recently. Clem could tolerate their weirdness. For a while.

Scott pulled into the passenger seat of the old rusty Ford Econoline. Clem fired it up and watched in dismay as the engine farted out a monstrous plume of black smoke.

"Looks like a ring job to me Clem, that'll be about $600," said Scott with some helpful figures, "I had a car like that and let it go and the engine block cracked."

"When have you ever owned a car?"

"I've driven cars. I drove that car. It was a 1964 Ford Falcon."

Clem eyed him warily, "Louisiana and Coal?"

"Yeah," and they took off.

Clem watched the bleak suburban landscape creep past him, going against the current in the rear-view mirror, "Is this roommate who threw you out going to be there?"

"Nah, he has to work today, I'll just get my stuff," he reached into his bag and found the keys, "and get some of that stuff he stole from me."

"Your roommate stole from you? What do you have that's worth stealing?" Scott always wore the same clothes. Although he claimed to be twenty-seven, he resembled a fifteen year old, a skinny kid with an oversized leather jacket that accentuated his slightness more than he probably intended. He wore the jacket now as the van glided over a freeway overpass.

"He's got my TV and I'm going to get it back. I know where it is."

"Look, man, I'm willing to help you out but it sounds like breaking and entering and I would much rather you do that on your own time. Arrange with this guy for another day-"

"No, you don't understand! He'll never give it back to me. I have to take what is mine..." his voice trailed off. Suddenly he stiffened in his seat and rolled the window down.

"Nigger! Fucking Nigger!" Clem stared in horror as two guys – one white and one black – turned around in the entrance way of a liquor store. They got a good look at the van as Scott shoved his head out and repeated the epithets.

"Fuck you, Nigger! You're going to pay for this!"

"What the fuck are you doing Scott? Shut the fuck up!" Safely past the liquor store Clem screeched to a halt.

"What the fuck was that all about? Who was that guy or are you just screaming at every black person on the street? What's gotten into you?" Clem stared for a long time at Scott and realized that Scott was desperately holding back tears. His lids contracted as the rims filled with liquid. His mouth was tight in a grimace but he wouldn't meet Clem's stare. Disturbed by this bizarre turn of events, Clem felt like getting the hell out of there, "Where's your apartment? Let's hurry this up."

Scott pointed in the direction and within 2 or 3 blocks they parked in front of a housing complex of duplexes. Sure enough, one of the buildings had a pile of goods stacked outside on the patio in front of the sliding glass doors. It was all neatly boxed and crated. There was no significant furniture, a microwave oven and covered cartons of thousands of tapes, books, videos, magazines and art. Clem unlocked and opened wide the doors to the Econoline. He walked over and examined the pile closely.

It was as if Scott had just decided to move and was pulling a ruse to get Clem to let him move in with him. Had Scott heard that a roommate was leaving? Clem rearranged a stack to get at the large heavy crates toward the bottom. As he lifted it into his van, the two guys that Scott yelled at came briskly walking up. Oh shit, thought Clem, these guys?

"Nigger!"

The white guy stood back holding a paper bag but the black guy ran up and grabbed Scott. Muscular and well built, he punched Scott hard on the mouth, Wham! His grip on his shoulder held tight.

"Don't ever call me a Nigger again."

"Nigger!" Wham!

"I said, don't you ever call me Nigger again!"

"Nigger!" The tears were flowing freely at this point.

Clem stood struck dumb. What the hell was going on? Suddenly it struck him: This black guy was Scott's roommate who threw him out! So why is Scott calling him Nigger and how much punishment is Scott going to demand?

Clem stepped forward, if only to bring a new dynamic to the scene. Clem was not about to rescue Scott from this tasteless incident and suffer the wrath of Mr. Nigger here, "Scott, could you tell me what's going on? Who is this guy?" They both looked at Clem. Scott shrugged out of his grasp and ran behind a wall.

"Nigger!"

The guy started after him but Clem gesticulated with his hands to get his attention.

"I'm Clem." They stood facing. Clem studied the tall, athletic young man with wonder. He was dressed in white boy's clothes: chinos, a Motley Crüe T-shirt, a baseball jacket and a truckers cap on top of a metal-shag afro. The guy looked at Clem with disgust.

"You with Scott?"

"Um, not really, I'm just helping him move some stuff."

"Move some stuff, huh? Where you moving it to? Your house?" Clem looked up at him, "because if you do move his stuff into your house, he's moving in with it and his lame-ass friends of his are gonna hang around eating you out of house and home. So where is this stuff going?"

Clem felt real uncomfortable. Where was it going? His house, yeah, but this guy says that's the kiss of death.

Before he could reply, Scott ran out into the street yelling

"Mom! Mom! Derek threw me out and he won't give me his TV!" Mom? Where?

Clem looked down the avenue and saw an older woman with a young girl of about six or eight walking towards them. The woman cried in alarm, "Scott, what's the matter–Scott! You're bleeding! What happened?"

Derek walked out into the street and exchanged a frosty hello with Mrs. Laine. She was in her late forties, a bit heavy and wore thick glasses. A polka-dotted scarf was wrapped around her head, her (dyed?) hair escaping down the back in a fall. An expression of motherly concern filled her face.

"Derek, did you punch Scott here?"

" Yes I did, Mrs. Laine, he called me a Nigger."

"Scott!"

"Nigger! Fuck you, Nigger!"

"Scott, stop that right now!"

Although far away from this confrontation, Clem winced with every "nigger" uttered. Although it was pretty run down, this was not a very black neighborhood. But every epithet hurled jarred his senses and made him want to leave. Why call them niggers? You're just going to get your ass kicked repeatedly by muscular athletes. The tears on Scott's face were mingling with the flecks of blood on his chin and cheeks and were smearing. His mother pulled some Kleenex from her purse and dabbed at his face.

"Derek, will you explain what is going on here?"

Derek pulled himself from a slouching position to straight up and looked Scott in the eye accusingly, "I go to work every day and this guy doesn't work. He says he gonna get a job and move out. He don't work, he just sits around smoking that stuff with his damn fool friends, listening to that music. Well, I noticed the other day that some of my albums were gone-"

"Liar! It was your bitch girlfriend that stole-"

"Scott! Do not use those words again! Do you understand?" his mother reprimanded with a firm shake. Although shorter than he, she commanded a strong presence here.

"My girlfriend didn't steal from me. Why would she steal? I give her everything she wants. You the sucker who's always hanging around Natural Tunes, trying to scam some rare import vinyl," these last words in imitation of Scott's nasal squeak. True, Clem had seen Scott a few times at any of the used record stores around town, talking earnestly with bored clerks about the music scene in Manchester or Birmingham, light years away from reality.

"Scott? Is this true? Did you steal Derek's albums?" his mother was firm and direct.

"No way! His girlfriend hates me and set me up. The bitch set me up," this last sentence escaping into syllables of sobs as he renewed his crying. His mother turned back to Derek, "Thank you for taking care of Scott while you could, we appreciate it greatly. I'm sorry it didn't work out. We'll just try something else. I hope this hasn't ruined our relationship, Derek, you know we need a strong presence around the church."

"I know, Mrs. Laine, I apologize, I'm just pretty sure that if Scott didn't steal these albums, some of his friends did."

"Liar!"

"Scott! Be quiet!" his mother raised her voice menacingly.

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