So I got up and looked at the binders he was working in, and saw at the very top of the page he was writing on "Fried Products." In the other binder there was a diagram of three french fries, one slightly undercooked, one that looked just right, and one that was slightly overdone. I realized that this was actually part of his job, and it kind of blew me away that there was actually more to cooking french fries than "put them in the friar and set it to 'nuclear meltdown' and press 'go.'"

 

"What's this you're doing?" I asked, trying not to sound too intrusive.

He hardly looked up, shook his head a little, and replied, "man, this is some BULLshit."

Only a black guy can make that sound so cool. He sounded just like Eddie Murphy or Chris Tucker.

I think I said something like "oh is this like part of your training or something?"

"yeah," he said, he seemed to be glad to be able to explain his mild frustration with it. "I dont know, man, this is some bull-SHIT."

I gestured towards the pictures of the fries and said "it looks like they're analyzing the crap out of french fries."

"oh, yeah, man, theres so much more to it than I thought, man, its like, you would think you can just go back there and, aw, do this, do that, but naw man its a whole lot more complicated, you gotta know what youre doing."

I totally believed him to. I mean it looked pretty scientific, like the exact temperatures of stuff you fry them in... I cant even explain what most of that crap was but trust me it was much more complicated than "put the fries in the hot stuff and it makes em taste good."

I think I said something about how Id would think about that the next time I saw the people working back there, or something. At some point he said

"you workin' here?"

I thought that was kind of weird, but I just said "no, Im just gettin somethin to eat."

"oh so youre just curious then."

"yeah, pretty much."

He asked where I lived, and I said Brooklyn, and we just BSed about where Brooklyn is, and he explained that he lives in Hartford and he just came here to do his training. Then he asked if I worked and I explained that I have a farm in Brooklyn. I think he was glad to have someone to talk to because the shit he was doing was a lot like homework but where you actually had to understand it. Then at some point he said,

"Man, if youre so curious, why dont you get yo'self an application up there, come work."

I kind of laughed and said something like "yeah I dunno, maybe if I get hard pressed." and thats pretty much how the conversation ended.

 

Now, growing up in Brooklyn, I've had contact with very few black people. For the first 12 years of my life the only black kid Id ever known was Chris Cook who beat me up on the playground one day in 5th grade. That made me all the more glad I talked to the guy. Obviously to most people talking to a black person isnt a big deal at all, but given my limited contact with black people and of course my complete and total whiteness, its a little different for me. But as it turns out, I got a better response from him than Ive gotten from any of the previous documented experiments. Too bad I didnt manage to get his name, but nevertheless, it was a very worthwhile experiment.