Big Chev stopped into pick up his breakfast burrito just as I moved over to stock frozen, not twenty minutes after Alex had questioned me about feeling that he was a second class citizen [for the crime of being a white man] on a moral level every time he watched a newscast. Since, Big Chev has been such a White Wednesday fixture, I thought I’d interview him. Out came the pad and pen and I said, "Okay, my Polish-American friend, you have often spoken of your dislike for ‘Those People.’ Might you explain your reasons?”

“You mean ոiggers—spooks?”

“I am referring to your opinion of Americans of African Ascent.”

“Then say so, you fucking bleeding-heart, liberal commie. You want to know why I hate monkeys, like that big turd waddling down the aisle right there?”

“Jesus dude, keep it down.”

“Fuck Jesus and all of his goddamned peace and love bullshit! He was a fuckin’ Jew, right—and you worship him? You pray to some dead Jew and think he gives a shit? I got news for you—he’s dead, and when he was alive, he didn’t give a shit about whatever tribe of little cave people you came from.”

[Nobody does intolerance like Big Chev, so away I scribbled as he was off on his tangent on religion.]

“I’m sick of all this God bullshit. They should call religion what it is—save the losers and kiss a dead busybody’s ass. I always hated religion. My parents had to bribe me to go into one of those places with the sissies singing up on the balcony and that fаggot drinking wine on the stage. You go somewhere to listen to sissies sing and watch a fаggot drink wine? Why not go to a bar and sing yourself and drink your own wine.”

“I think you would like Odin.”

“Who the fuck is that, some asshole saint, kissing ass in heaven?”

“Oh, not at all. He’s currently kind of on his own—basically you, if you were God and out of work.”

“Hell, I’d kill all the fаggots and sissies, if I was God.”

“Then you would probably find common ground with much of ancient Judaism—you strike me as a very Old Testament kind of guy.”

“You’re testing it alright. So, Book Boy, you read about all this useless shit. So you tell me, what is the difference between God and Jesus? Are they father and son? Are they fruity fаggots fucking each other in heaven? If so, which one is the bitch? Some monkey told me once that God was a ոigger—well he didn’t say he was a ոigger, he used whatever word ոiggers use to talk big about themselves—”

“You mean African American?”

“Don’t even bring the county into this shit. If my father knew we had a ոigger for president he’d totally lose his mind. Fortunately he’s half-lost it by now, so we’ve been able to keep it a secret from him.”

[ Drats, my chance to explain the Holy Trinity to Big Chev slipped me by, like that. ]

“My father is why I’m a bigot; that’s what he raised me to be. He still talks about going down to Patterson Park to beat up the monkeys and throw them in the pond. I’m not as bad as he is. If a monkey is a good worker, or acts like a human being, then I’ll give him credit. I’ve never treated a monkey bad just because he was a monkey. He can’t help it that his great, great grandparents were swinging from the trees. For instance that ոigger over there, he works, minds his manners, so I don’t hold his being a monkey against him.”

“Then what exactly is it—the three major points, perhaps—that you have against blacks in general?”

“You must be brain-damaged from all that boxing. Can’t you remember what people tell you—you have to write everything down?”

“I’m good for about five hundred words. Then I’ve got to start writing.”

“If you want to know why I am a bigot, then write this: I don’t like Those People, because, one, they expect something for nothing and are always begging and complaining like women, two, because they expect to get away with breaking the rules, and three, because they never go fist-to-fist. They’re weak-bodied cowards. I suppose the only strong ones are the NFL players and the animals like you train.

“I have lived in this town my whole life, have had many dealing with Those People, and have never, not once, seen them go fist-to-fist, man-to-man, one-on-one. They either gang up on you or out come the knives and guns. If we didn’t have any police we could just kill them all. But no, we have to put up with their crime and crybaby shit while their rich daddies watch out for them.

“A man is a man—no matter his color—but he has to be a man. And those people rarely measure up as men. Sure, I’m no world beater, have gotten my ass kicked. I have a big brother. I’m sure I couldn’t beat Tyson. But I wouldn’t back down from Tyson, and neither would I go run and get a gun or call all my friends. If Tyson gets into it with his own, they’ll be piling on, shooting him. Me, I’d take my lumps, and when the big monkey was done beating me into the floor and I dragged myself off the ground, I’d tell him, ‘When we get up tomorrow morning and look in the mirror, I'll still be a white man, and you’ll still be a ոigger.'”