[speaker001:] I'm supposed to give like an introduction like [].
[speaker002:] [] say your name, how old you are, where you're from.
[speaker001:] My name is Frank Nesbitt. I'm from Newburg, NY, living in Charlotte, been here for four and a half years.
[speaker002:] Oh didn't [].
[speaker001:] It's all right, you know, but, um, I got a cold right now, so I sound kind of funny, know what I'm saying, though, um, I got a story for you. When we first came, me, me and my fianc�, when we first came to, um, Charlotte, we had got a job at, um, at, uh, Boston Market, making five dollars and 75 cent a hour. Um, we got the job through her mother's boyfriend, his sister, you know what I'm saying, was the manager there, so she hooked us up well. At the time, we thought she hooked us up. It was crazy. Anyway, the damn boss, the general manager name was, um, Dean Little, blond, blond-haired, older dude like, you know, late forties, I mean early forties. And, um, we was working there for like a few weeks, and, um, he was talking about getting himself a new car, getting himself a new Maxima. He had a old Maxima, like a, like a `90, like a `90. He was talking about he was getting like a `96 it was '97 at the time, so he, you know, I'm going to get rid of my car, and I'm like, all right, talking about the old Maxima, I said, "I could use, we need a car," know what I'm saying, me and my girl need a car. He said, "Yeah," you know, all enthusiastic and shit, like really, this the general manager, mind you, he was like, "Hey you got," you know, "You been working for me," you know, "Been a, been a great worker," you know, "A nice guy. I like you," you know. "You and your fianc�e and um, I'll, I'll sell you the car for five hundred dollars." Scratch that. He'll give it to me for a hundred. That how crazy lost, no doubt we'll do that. Let's do that. The day he set it up, he was supposed to do it, he drove his wife's car. He said, um, his wife wanted to hold on to it for a little bit longer. "Until we," you know, "Pick up the new Maxima." So two weeks go by. We ask him about the car again. The price went up to five hundred dollars. But he'll definitely give it to us, you know what I'm saying, it's no problem. I said, "All right, cool." He said this driving us on the way home one night. This is how, this is how we interacting, so I'm thinking everything is cool, you know, funny dude at the job, you know, get along with him real easy-going compared to the assistant, uh, manager that was there, you know what I'm saying. He, um, he'll drive us home, if we need to pick us up from the bus station if, you know what I'm saying, if we need him to. Now he going to sell me this Maxima that I know is good because he drive it everyday except the day he supposed to sell it to us for five hundred dollars. He a good man. I said, "Yeah, we can do that. You can take us to the ATM right now. We'll get the five, we'll get the money for you right now, and we'll give it to you." Threw him off, you know what I'm saying. Like I said, we making five seventy-five, we brand new to Charlotte. He knows this you know, he know the whole situation, so I think we kind of, kind of threw him off. We was able, you know, to produce that kind, that amount of money right on the spot. So immediately, uh, you know, "Uh, not tonight," you know, "Tuesday, Tuesday we'll do it." "All right, whatever. That's cool." Tuesday come by, he don't drive the car. He don't drive the car, wife got it. This go on for about a week. Next thing I know, we in this little, like it's, like this little park, it's not even a parking center, it's like a driveway, and it's got to Boston Market and a uh, uh, beauty salon on the side of it, and some other thing, I think maybe, I don't know, you know what I'm saying. They share the same parking lot. Little, small, and, um, they got this beautician over there. Dude , Dean's wife, drove the Maxima to the job that, that we was supposed to been buying, and, uh, she didn't know me. She probably only knew me by name, you know what I'm saying? She comes in into the, uh, to the Boston Market and ask me do I know where the dude, uh, the beautician is, do I know where he at, you know, is he in, something to the effect. I [] said, "No." "Because," she said, "I'm trying," uh, "I have the title to his car and I'm trying to give it to him." She didn't know, she didn't know that, you know. So she goes to have a seat in Boston, inside the restaurant. She goes and have a seat. Two minutes later the beautician comes, walks in, you know what I'm saying, walks in sit down with her at the table. They talk or whatever, whatever, whatever she gives him the title to the car. The car that we was supposed to have been buying, that Dean said he going to sell to us for five hundred dollars, knowing the situation, knowing that we need a, you know, car, knowing the situation, I thought, you know, this a real dude here.
[speaker002:] Never told-
[speaker001:] Came through, coming through, you know big up Dean, but that's when I seen how, how dirty Caro, Carolinians are. They some dirty motherfuckers. That's my word. I mean I never been around on, on, I never been around people that are, are, that are conniving at this level. I mean they, it's dirty. I they're dirty. All scales, women, females, men, old, young, black, white, fat, tall, short, cute, ugly, all that. Dirty! Dirty people, you know what I'm saying? I done been around here four and a half years working a lot a different places and shit, but came in contact with a lot of different people from a lot of different sides of the, you know what I'm saying, of the spectrum. That's why I know that this little, that right there is void, you know, it should be. Revised at least at the bare minimum because I done dealt with people and you can't, can't put them in, you can't box them! You can't, we're individuals. And they always sit there and try to say because they want to make a link or make a point, and then they want to box us. Other than that, we're individuals, you know. Everybody is everybody. That's what makes us special. There's only one of, you know what I'm saying-
[speaker002:] Not really.
[speaker001:] Now, but you hear what I, I'm saying though.
[speaker002:] I understand what you're saying.
[speaker001:] But anyway that was my story, you know what I'm saying, and it was just, it was just crazy. But that was our first lesson, you know what I'm saying, to let us know we wasn't home, you know, wasn't home anymore. We got to bite the bullet. We don't have no, uh, no, no, uh, refuge. This is it, know what I'm saying? We jumped in, both hands and feet, jumped in you know what I'm saying? We here. Four years, four and a half years later we got a accounting degree, you know what I'm saying, two vehicles, you know what I'm saying, all later models than that, that, you know what I'm saying, uh, uh than the Maxima was, so fuck Dean, you know what I'm saying? I'm serious, you know, so, but it let us, you know, where we at I dealt with shit like that to the present day, you know what I'm saying, from different people, different sides of the spectrum. People that, when I came in, I guess, I had them boxed and they let me know that they not contained, they just a wild unit, you know what I'm saying? That's why, you know, that's why I said what I said about that. That's it. I forgot another thing. Since I'm talking about it, I'm going to get it off my chest too. I got to get it off completely though. After, after that, you know what I'm saying, after I witnessed that that happened, you know what I'm saying, after I witnessed what had happened, I sit up there and confronted, you know, I didn't confront, well I did. I kind of confronted him like, you know, "What's up with the car?" You know what I'm saying? The man still didn't know that I seen the transaction then. He didn't know that his wife came to me. I just so happened to be the worker she actually talk to, you know what I'm saying? Told me what she was there for, you know what I'm saying? He trying to act like he still got the car, they still got the car here, you know. They still waiting for this, that, and the third, and his wife, so after that, I just wasn't feeling him no more, you know. I, I, I hated him, you know what I'm saying? I like, I mean because he just, he smack, then I felt like he, you know what I'm saying, like he violated, you know. So he just, and then I had to work underneath of him. Then he was smug about it, trying to lie about it, trying to act like, you know, nothing happened, you know, anyway two, what two days later, he, he fired me. Yeah, talking about he don't like my attitude because when I come in now, I don't smile at him, you know what I'm saying, I don't carry on a conversation with him. I just go on and do my job, do a good job, and, you know, and I go. That wasn't good enough for him. He too, came to the side, told me, you know, actually he pull me in the back, said, "Can I talk to you?" I said, "Sure." No he didn't. He sent that fat, what's that, what's the girl name? Rhonda Shasta, I hated her. Shasta the kind of female just thought that the sun rose when she opened her eyes. The sun rose, you know what I'm saying, bottom line, she was ugly. She was piggish. And I don't mean, I don't mean, I don't mean it as in her personality, I'm talking that, but including her, her physical. When you looked, you get kind of like a piggish , you get a piggish vibe from her, for real. And she, she was very animated, you know, very animated, real country, country. And she just thought that she was the shit. She was there first whatever, whatever. I'm supposed, I don't know, I'm supposed to tip tap, you know, I don't know, but, you know, but, I'm sure they assumed, when they seen a black guy, that's it. And they assumed, "OK, well he's this he's that." And they said, "Hold up, she's white! So that's a black guy with a white, so that changes everything now." So now they got to try to make a different analysis of, "OK, so he's like this and like that and she got to be like that," you know what I'm saying, and that's the way it is. And then we got to work in them, within them compounds. We got to work and we got to survive, know what I'm saying, like that's what I was saying before. People automatically want to make up these, these, you know, these groups but it's not true not for each and every one of us. And then the ones that those, uh, uh, particular things that, uh, uh, classify that group, soon as I get, know what I'm saying, uh, affected by it, or have to go through, I'm either caught off guard, or it hurts me, or shit, sometimes it could destroy people. I mean, because that's not me and I'm caught off, I wasn't expecting that, you know what I'm saying, but anyway he fired me, fired me. Because he didn't, I wasn't smiling and laughing and all that stuff like that. Told me he didn't like my attitude, didn't think my attitude, you know, he think it'd be best if uh, uh, uh, that's the first time I heard it's not working out, not working, can't stand that shit. That shit make you want to put a pin in they fucking eye, for real [].
[speaker002:] All right now don't make me stop this tape.
[speaker001:] You know what I'm saying. []
[speaker002:] Would you hurry up?
[speaker001:] No you want to hear the voice, this is for real, I'm 24 years old. I been dealing with this since I was 19 years old. Never, never in my wildest dreams. I don't know, it's crazy. It's crazy because all you ever heard of was "southern hospitality." That's all you ever heard up north. Classifying. We classified a whole South. We just said, "OK, this is how they are. They just, they love you to pieces," you know what I'm saying? Everything is laid back. They feed the hell out of you, you know what I'm saying? Everything is just, you know, the weather's beautiful, you know what I'm saying? You, on farms you see chicken or some kind of fucking animal or something, you know what I'm saying, that you can eat, you know what I'm saying, running around the house, or whatever. Dog stuff, like that, old grandma cooking everything early in the morning. But it wasn't like that. I come to realize when I came down, mind you, you got to think this is the last place that held on to slavery as long as they could possibly hold on to it. Just about, you know what I'm saying, you know what I'm saying? So you got to remember that that's still here that's here. It's the foundation, it's the essence, it's the essence. Right now they in the process of trying to, you know, perfect the masch, but I'm looking past the masch I'm looking at, at the entity or what have you, you know, classify. I'm looking at it like that, you know, it gave me all new meaning to, uh, uh, southern hospitality. Now I understand that. I, it's just crazy, it's crazy, it's crazy. That's why when I do go to school here, I'm going to go to school here for dirt cheap because I been living here since they robbed us with Angie and everything, so I'm going to go for cheap, hurt them, and then I'm, I'm gone. I'm leaving. I'm not going to put no money into the, into the community, I'm not going to put no money into the state, or anything. The city can just forget about it, I'm just gone. I don't want nothing to do with this no more. I'm tired of it. Shit, by that time it'd be, what eight years, nine years that's a long, that's a long time. That'd be enough, though. That's a chapter, that's a good chapter. It's interesting too, you'll read about it too, and be like, "Damn, that's all right," you know what I'm saying. But, um, that's it. I just wanted to tell you about how he sandbagged me. Cut me at the knees.