The Sellout

A day after someone hit Foy with an orange, Marpessa and Me have sex. Me admits he’s not good at sex, but Marpessa doesn’t mind; she boxes his ears and tells him what to do. She thinks there’s something wrong with Me; when he was a teen, she diagnosed him with Attachment Disorder—he doesn’t respond appropriately in social settings and lacks appropriate attachments to Black people and Black things. Back in the present, Marpessa warns Me that his racist antics make him a target and admits that she was the one who threw an orange at Foy.

Although Marpessa remains married, she and Me go on dates, and she encourages him to try comedy. Me thinks of his dad—besides Martin Luther King Jr., his dad is the only Black person he knows of who is incapable of telling a joke. Yet Marpessa refuses to have sex with Me again until he makes her laugh, and he makes her laugh at an open mic. As they’re about to have sex on her bus, Marpessa shows him report cards from Chaff Middle School. Grades are rising while misbehavior is declining, and Charisma has a hunch it was to do with the segregated schooling, with the fake white people providing the impetus.