Thank God

INTRO

All of the Indians had Black bodyguards. Not Africans. Not Carribeans. They were too ambitious. No, Black Americans possessed the requisite will to do violence on command yet lacked ambition beyond pursuing a good time and doing women. Which again fell into having a good time. Africans and those God-awful islanders, eventually, were not happy working jobs. They had to own. It seldom took long for them to realize they were the muscle, and the business, whatever it was, wasn’t rocket science. Indian businessmen understood to a one: hire an African as your driver today, tomorrow find him butchering you after learning your wife and daughters are suddenly pregnant.

No. For body guarding the Patels, Black Americans were best. Thank God for the Indians. They were the best thing for the gang economy. Drugs and mortgage fraud were almost out of the question. Too much leadership gone, sent to do 85% time in Fed joints. Old standbys like prostitution and gambling were all the feds would let the Italians keep, and they’d dug in their heels. Street crime? These thugs couldn’t walk through a nice neighborhood without the law harassing them. Robbing their own just was not profitable. All of this left a lot of young, angry and broke shooters. They could look menacing, but had lousy work ethics. They were also conditioned not to bite the hands that fed them. The Indians needed security. The kids needed money and flexible hours. It was a fair trade off.

Driving around Punjabis in luxury cars was a pretty decent way to get paid. The security work was easy. Everyone knew the Indians did not carry cash. Carjacking was a something of a risk, as the Desis liked their expensive rides. Seldom did they roll in areas where jacking was common, though. The Indians weren’t Arabs. Squeezing money out of the ghetto was not their thing. Arabs were different. For security they used their cousins and miscreants who darkened their doors were never heard from again. No, the Arabs chose to open shop in urban war zones and hide their money for whatever future purpose Allah decreed. The Indians went into business, WASP style, and wanted the world to know when they made it.

Viddyah “Jake” Suddhir had made it. He owned twenty limited service hotels in a tri-state area. He had three cars, a wife, a mistress, and two sons he was putting through Harvard and MIT, respectively. He favored cheap dark suits and ugly tan shoes that always needed a shine. He was the only Indian on his block in his gated community, and although he and his family were vegetarians, Jake threw the best barbecues each summer. Jake was shorty, dumpy, with a receding hairline, wore trendy eyeglasses, and limped most of the time. He was not quite fifty, and for all of his money, had eschewed dentists’ offices his entire life. It showed. Jake was always shadowed by Big Sko, his driver and go to guy.

Sko pushed Jake’s AMG Benz, worked security at some of the hotels, and generally stood, or sat, on post. Two things always confirmed that Jake was on site: The big black Benz parked right in the middle of the hotel’s drive, and Sko’s three hundred pounds slumped in a chair in the lobby, reading. Sko never had to take out garbage, or help guests with bags. He didn’t do reservations. He never wore a hotel uniform. Big Sko’s job was to sit right out front, like a fat iguana, and look mean. The badge hanging around his neck instantly made older white guests feel comfortable. He was on their side, and he looked like he could keep them out. Sko looked harder than any of the other bodyguards, and when the Indian businessmen all convened in one place, Sko stood out among the other drivers. It was eerie.

Few people knew that Sko was an educated man. He had attended a historically Black college on a football scholarship, and summer school had him graduated in three years. The combination of studying at an HBCU and a major like psychology made most white employers view him as a high school drop out. Jake had hired Sko to work at one of his first hotels. While Jake had a policy to never promote Blacks to management (bad business), he noticed Sko’s fraternity tats and brands and thought they were gang markers. After testing Sko out for a year, Jake promoted him when his current driver was sent downstate for having relations with his twelve-year-old niece. Here Sko couldn’t get a job with a college degree with the white man, and this Swami was paying him eighty grand a year to sit on his ass and occasionally tell kids they had to leave the premises. He tossed every tie he owned, starting wearing his pants below his behind, and shaved his head. He considered gold teeth, but figured he was taking the charade far enough.

Thank God for the Indians. The rest of the country was collapsing, but they were working and buying up everything. And employing everyone. Things just worked for them. Educated whites were now pushing brooms just to keep the lights on. Educated blacks were doing what they did best. Complaining. “Educated Mexican” was, to many Indians, an oxymoron. Educated Indians were building America and uneducated Indians (those possessing only a Master’s degree) were buying every damn thing. Folk on the Obama high could disbelieve all they wanted…Bobby Jindal had a chance. More of his folk were living the American dream. The Biptis were the small business owners, the hoteliers. Education worked for them. They were the engineers, the developers. They were industrious like the Mexicans but spoke English. Unlike the Blacks, the Buttonheads had unity. Unlike white Americans, they believed in propriety, the order of things, people, their betters and their lowers. Colonialism and a caste system entrenched that.

Jake limped to the breakfast area of the empty hotel and surveyed all that was his. Then he focused on the seven people in front of him. Big Sko struggled out of the chair, walked over to the breakfast nook, and loomed behind Jake, adjusting his sagging jeans.

“This is my twentieth hotel,” Jake began. “You’re gonna find I’m a fair guy. You also gonna find I don’t do the bullshit. You do things the way I want them done, you’re here when you’re supposed to be here, you follow instructions.

“Instruction number one: no cash. I sunk a lot of money into this place. A lot of money. It was a crackhouse and a damned brothel. I had my main man, Big Sko here, kick out all of them trash and then we got started. I don’t want to tell you the stuff we found here. Whatever. I don’t want that element back in here at all. A lot of money went into making this what it is. Don’t fuck it up. Some guy comes in with cash, we don’t do cash. Period. Some kid comes in with a credit card, we check ID. If he looks like trouble, we’re sold out. Period. Don’t piss me off with this one. Some guy think they gonna come in, show me something new? I’ma show him something old…”

Polite laughter.

“…do not piss me off on this one. I’m a three strikes guy. I put a lot of money into this hotel. I own a lot of them. I am not afraid to work the front desk. I will send you home, fire you, and work your shift myself. I can do that. This is my dream. Three strikes. You’re gone.

“You’re gonna be safe here, though. I got cameras everywhere. I’m gonna have security…What?”

A bespectacled Black man in his thirties had a raised hand. “Armed security?”

“Yeah, he’s gonna be armed. Just it won’t be obvious. Look, man, you’ll be safe. We got three entrances. Two are keycard only. This main entrance is keycard only after 9pm. We got an emergency shutoff to lock the doors from behind the desk. Somebody gets in here, they gotta get past Sko. It ain’t easy.

“Don’t worry about your safety. I got that. You sell me some rooms. Hold firm on your rates. I don’t want no riff raff in here. None. We want corporate customers or leisure travelers who look like they know how to take care of things. I’m fair, but I don’t do the bullshit. I got a lot of money in this place. Nice meeting ya’ll.”

Sarah, overweight, stylish, blond, and reeking of cigarette smoke, stepped beside Jake.

“As you can see, Jake put a lot of money into this hotel…I’m the general manager of one of the other hotels,,,”

“I wasn’t finished,” Jake glowered at her. He sniffed. “If you smoke, I don’t want none of you smoking in front of my hotel. You smoke around the back, behind the pool.” He looked hard at Sarah. “None of you. Now I’m finished.” Jake limped off. Big Sko found the closest chair and eased into it.

Sarah picked up where she left off. “Each of you has an employee handbook. You’ll see the policies. Now, was far as uniforms, black pants or skirt, ladies, white tops. The hotel will provide the ties…there is a uniform release form you must sign. It’s in your packet. Should you leave our employ, you have to turn in a full uniform or you will have $125 taken out of your last check…”

Hand. The Black guy again. “You just said a full uniform, but it’s really just a tie? We have to return the tie or be billed $125?”

“Yes.”
“This tie Hermes or something? Seven fold silk?”

It was obvious the guy was over their heads. He was probably funny, in his world. Sarah was good at not letting her annoyance show.

“No. Just keep up with the tie. Honestly, as I see all of you here with us for a long time, we shouldn’t even spend any more time on the ‘what if I leave’ scenario. Now, after six months, you will be eligible for health insurance. The amount the company pays is listed. Vacation for employees is one week paid, after a year’s employment. It does not roll over.

“One thing I want to discuss is garnishments. Jake doesn’t believe in them. If he is ordered by the court to garnish wages for child support, or some debt…well, two of those, and we have to terminate you. Sorry.”

Hand. This time from the scruffy, skinny white guy.

“My child support comes outta my check automatically. The state set that up. You telling me I’ma get fired for that?”

“No. You can have the state forgo the garnishments, and you send the payments yourself.”

“Is that even legal?”

Jake was back. “I employ a lot of people. Twenty hotels. How many people you employ? You know the headaches to this thing? My accountant gotta do garnishments for twenty hotels times how many employees, she’ll go blind. No. No garnishments. “

“What about direct deposit?”

“No direct deposit,” Sarah continued. “You get paid every other Friday, after 5pm. Checks are not available until 5pm. No exceptions.”

Everyone nodded and started scribbling on the papers in front of them.

Sarah left and went into Jake’s office.

“Jake, we gotta make some changes.”

“Changes cost money. I gotta lotta money in this place.”

“These are American workers, Jake. We’re not offering them anything they’re used to…”

“You’re right,” Jake mused, then put his hands behind his head. “Unemployment is up. They’re not used to working. They’re not used to being told, ‘Here’s a job if you want it. No background checks. No one taking money you earn out your check because you made some mistake. No bank screwing up your deposit. Just a job. You don’t have to take work home with you. Come in here, the place sells itself, and do what you’re told. I did the same thing twenty years ago. I now own the places where I used to work. I’m growing. My business is growing. I have taken over hotels that were failing, and I put people to work. How is what I am doing so bad?”

Sarah shook her head.

“Do you know what’s wrong with this country? Americans are lazy. They don’t want to save any money. They want everything they want, and they want to do half as much work for twice as much compensation. White Americans preach “self reliance” until someone tells ya’ll, go do that. Go be self reliant. Things are bad all over, now, and people who learned long ago to get by on less cash and never got the credit lines you got aren’t complaining as much.

“It’s fine and dandy when you were looking down at the Blacks, and using the Mexicans as examples of self-reliance. Blacks were herded into colleges and told, ‘Just get an education. It’ll all work out from there.’ Mexicans were told, ‘Just work hard, it’ll all work out from there.’ Whites were told, ‘It’s all somebody else’s fault! It’ll all work out from there.’ I combined all of those things, and look, I help other people make money. I went to school, I work hard, and I don’t blame anybody else for my shortcomings. Look where it got me? Better yet, lookit the guys I put to work that no one else would hire?

“Now, mainstream America is feeling the crunch. I offer people the same chance I got twenty years ago. I am the American dream. Work hard, save money, you can have the money, the Mercedes, the business. I no longer work for my money. It works for me. Those platitudes were OK as long as you could use them to look down on someone else. Let’s not gripe about how guys can’t get their money a day early to blow it in a bar or Best Buy. I’m providing the vehicle. Let’s just make some money.”

Sarah had heard it all before.

“Sarah?”

She turned around.

“You can always leave. My brother just bought a hotel. He needs a GM. This place was going to hell in a handbasket and he rescued it. Put a lot of money into it. Want me to call him?

“Thank God he bought the place. That town can’t afford to lose any more jobs. Say, remind those guys I’ll bill them $125 if they don’t turn in the ties when they quit! Thank God for America!”