He Who Never Heard “No”

A Vignette of a White Dude’s Entitlement

“What’s that?”

Wes was pointing to the bottle in my hand. It was made of thick, cold-white, plastic, covered in a matte-finish plastic film in the same shade of white. Inside the bottle was my five-o’-clock sustenance, as I scribbled away at a Calc III problem set that had refused to make sense for two hours and counting.

“Soylent,” I said.

“Like Soylent Green?” Wes asked.

“Kind of.” I was in no mood to chat.

“I sure hope that isn’t actually made of people,” Wes said with wry mock-worry, in a cadence that told me he thought his dollar-store wit was in fact comedic gold.

“No,” I mumbled.

He smiled in mock-relief. “Phew, that’s good to know! It would be a hell of a story if that was true. But even without that cannibalism bit, it still looks kinda gross…”

I turned to him. “You know, I’m kinda busy right now. Can we chat later?” I hoped the sharp tongue and accompanying death stare would get Wes to shut up.

It worked, thankfully.

“Okay, jeez!” Wes said, taken aback. He seemed confused as to why I was so grouchy.

He turned back to his desk on the other side of our dorm room. I didn’t know if he was working on an essay or flirting with a girl. And as long as he saw that girl in her room, I frankly didn’t care.

“What does that stuff taste like?”

Wes seemed genuinely curious. His hazel-green eyes were wide open, and he was leaning forward, with aqua-blue-shorts-wearing legs splayed in front of his desk chair and fool’s-gold-colored hair doing its best to escape from under a red baseball cap.

He was a decent guy: the less thought I put into his character, the more I liked him.

I decided to humor him. “It tastes like original Cheerios ground up and mixed into skim milk.”

“That sounds kinda gross.”

I shrugged. “You get used to it. It’s really not that bad.”

“At least it’s not made of people.” Wes giggled. He probably didn’t hear me sigh. “Actually, I’m feeling kinda hungry,” he said, “Mind if I try one?”

“Sure.” I reached under my bed and pulled out a bottle.

Wes clapped his hands together, then held them in front of his head, signaling that he wanted me to throw the bottle four feet to him.

I gave the bottle a gentle, underhanded toss that went wide to the left.

Wes lunged in his chair to catch it. Cold-white plastic bottle in hand, he laughed. “You need to work on your throwing arm,” he said, still smiling, “Step one: o-ver-haaand!”

He inspected the bottle. “Are there any…special instructions…for this?” he asked.

“Just drink that with a bottle of water,” I said, “and you’ll be not-hungry for a couple of hours.”

Wes held the bottle in his left hand and unscrewed the cap with his right, keeping the cap in his hand as he took a swig from the bottle. He grimaced.

“This is kinda gross,” Wes said, screwing the cap back on, “Like, how do you not throw up?”

I shrugged. “It’s fine for me,” I said.

“I’m not even full,” Wes mused, “I was expecting sci-fi meal-in-a-pill stuff.” He shrugged, then threw the half-full bottle in the trash. It probably didn’t occur to him that he had wasted three dollars of mine.

“Whatcha working on?”

“History essay,” I said. In fact, I had been staring at one sentence for thirty minutes, which in some universe had to count as “working on” an essay.

“What’s the essay on?” Wes asked.

I shrugged. “I need to write something about Operation Desert Storm, but I’m still working on how to start this thing.”

“Oh, man, you should talk to my uncle,” Wes said, suddenly filled with energy, “He actually fought in that war! Actually, he made a point of correcting everyone that Desert Storm was only a part of the war. The whole thing’s actually called the Gulf War.”

I sighed. “This thing’s due in a week. I can’t chat with your uncle for this thing.”

Wes nodded. “Yeah…anyway, you really shouldn’t write a draft straight up. You should start with an outline, and then fill in that outline. Oh, and write your intro last.”

“Did I ask for your advice?” I glared at Wes.

“W-well, you looked kinda stuck,” Wes stammered, “I figured you could use some help.”

I kept glaring. “Honestly, right now I need a bit of time alone. Do you mind?”

“Sure,” Wes said, “I have class anyway.”

I stared at the lonely sentence I had written for another half hour. Then I gave up.

I took Wes’s advice and put together a basic outline.

“Could you turn down the music a bit?”

Wes, coming back from his last class of the day, had been greeted to me typing away to the sound of MDMA-soaked trance music, turned up as loud as I could get away with in a dorm room with thin walls.

I turned my speaker down to half volume and continued typing.

“No wonder you can’t concentrate on homework,” Wes said with a giggle, “You’re constantly playing loud music.”

“It works for me,” I said.

“They play this at dance clubs!”

“It works for me.”

“I don’t know, man, you’ve had trouble — ”

“It works for me.”

“Okay, okay,” Wes said, dropping his backback on his bed and pulling out his laptop.

He looked at my screen. “How’s that history essay going?” he asked.

“Terribly.”

“Well, at least you’re making progress,” Wes said. He took a second look. “Hey, you’re using an outline! Told you that would work!”

I didn’t respond.

Wes opened his laptop on his desk and sat in his chair. “You need more advice for that essay?” he said.

“No, thanks.” I droned.

“Still drinking that Soylent Green stuff?”

“Yeah,” I said. I had given up on the whole “It’s not made of people” spiel.

“Haven’t you been having that for, like, three weeks now?” Wes said.

“Yeah, about right.” I knew because Wes had been commenting on it for, like, three weeks now.

“You haven’t gotten sick of it?”

“No.”

“Really?”

“Don’t you eat the same thing for breakfast every day?” I hoped he would say yes.

“Nah, I try to mix it up in the mornings,” Wes said, “I’d rather not get bored with what I eat.” He leaned back in his bed, which he had lowered within the first week of moving in. He had told me the lower bed would make “sleeping with chicks” easier. I hoped he wouldn’t prove that to me — at least, not while I was in the room.

“Well, most people eat kinda the same thing for breakfast every day,” I said anyway, “because they don’t really care about how it tastes.”

“How can you not care about how your food tastes?” Wes asked, somehow even more confused.

“Sometimes, I’m too stressed.”

“Too stressed to enjoy food?”

“Yes.” I desperately hoped this conversation would end. I had three assignments due in the next thirty-six hours and no idea how to do any of them.

“That’s kinda worrying, Ajey.”

“I’m working on it.” More accurately, I was trying.

“I don’t know, man. You’ve been on edge for a while now.”

“I’m working on it,” I said through gritted teeth.

“Dude, you’re getting stressed out again,” Wes said, “I need to show you some of the breathing exercises my cousins — ”

“You know what I need?” I interrupted, “I need a change of scenery for a bit.” I started to pack up my notebooks and laptop. “I’ll go work in the dining hall for a bit see you later ‘kay thanksbye!” I babbled away as I scrambled out of the dorm, hoping to leave before I tried to punch Wes in the face.

“What game are you playing?”

“League of Legends,” I said. I didn’t say that I had been playing for four hours.

“This late?” Wes asked, “You know it’s, like, midnight already?”

“Yes, this late.” I didn’t know it was midnight — nor did I care.

“Don’t you have homework to do?”

“Yes.” Too much, I thought.

“Shouldn’t you be doing that, then?”

“Yes.” I kept playing. My character was being double-teamed — even though I was already well outmatched, both in level and skill.

A few seconds of silence.

Then Wes said, “You know that procrastinating on your homework is unhealthy, right?”

“Ever heard of coping mechanisms?” I said, not looking away from the computer. The respawn screen in League hovered over my character’s now-dead body. For some reason, I liked watching myself fail at this game — it felt like a metaphor for everything else in my life.

“What are you coping with?” Wes asked.

“Homework. Shitty friends. The fact that I suck at dating,” I said in monotone.

“Shouldn’t you just focus on those things?” Wes said, “You know, the best way to handle stress is to just attack the thing that’s stressing you.”

“What works for you does not work for me,” I growled. I could feel my mental filters clicking off, one by one.

“Have you tried?”

“Get out.”

“Oh, come on, Ajey, it’s just a suggest — ”

“Get out of my room.”

“Hey, this is our room — ”

“GET OUT!” I screamed.

“Fuck, man, okay!” Wes said, stepping backward. He grabbed his backpack and walked toward the door out of the dorm room. “I’ll give you some space, okay?” he said begrudgingly.

Wes drifted out the door, a stream of muttered curses following him.

I let myself cry for the first time in years.

“Honestly, I don’t know what I did wrong.”

The RA didn’t notice me rolling my eyes at that line.

Wes continued. “At first, I was just trying to get to know Ajey, and then after that, it seemed like he was having a rough time. I tried to help him out, but he just got mad at me…” He trailed off.

The RA turned to me. “Well, are you having a rough time, Ajey?” she said.

I nodded. “Yeah…it’s been an…interesting…fall semester,” I said, straining for the words that would burn the fewest bridges in this conversation.

The RA asked, “Did Wes help you?”

I shrugged. “He tried…”

For I moment, I considered telling the truth: the unsolicited advice, the barrage of random questions, the constant checking up on me even when I clearly wanted silence.

I considered telling the RA about all the times that Wes asked me what was wrong, then offered “suggestions” before I finished my sentence.

I considered saying that Wes is the kind of guy who has never been told to shut up, who mistakes preference for fact, who thinks his personal experiences are universal, who never considered that other people might not be like him. Wes may have been a rich white dude raised among rich white dudes, without suffering or existential dread, but it apparently never occurred to him that other people may have different — more painful — lives.

I considered questioning out loud how Wes views the injustices of modern America. If he can’t accept my study habits, how can he accept someone’s pronouns? If he can’t understand why I’m stressed, how can he understand racism or depression? If he doesn’t know when to shut up when talking to me, how does he know when his sexual advances go one step too far?

I sighed. “…Yeah, I’ve just been really high-strung lately,” I said. I turned to Wes. “Listen, I’m sorry. I’m working on it now,” I lied.

Wes smiled. “It’s all right, man,” he said, “How ‘bout a bro hug?”

I obliged. The truth was exhausting, and I barely had the energy to apologize.