Friday Black

Fiction | Short Story Collection | Adult | Published in 2018

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Symbols & Motifs

The Prominent Mall

Several stories are located at the Prominent Mall, which is the only recurring setting in the collection. Additionally, the Mall features recurring characters, including Richard, the district manager; Angela, the store manager; and Florence, the assistant manager. These three characters are the only workers who hold positions above entry level. Other workers either appear in one story only or are referenced by their performance status rather than by name.

This motif underscores the theme of The Plight of Retail Workers by making the entry-level workers feel more transitory than the Mall’s career-path employees. Once they assume managerial roles, however, the latter set of characters becomes static, unable to grow beyond the authority they already have. For example, Richard is usually depicted as a square but personable supervisor, which undermines his status as an authority figure. Nonetheless, workers like IceKing speak about him with reverence because they value his approval and the benefits it affords them. Similarly, “In Retail” features Florence actively speaking about the static nature of her life in retail work.

The Normalization of Violence is a lens for interpreting this setting. Death crops up on the mall grounds, either as part of or as the centerpiece of a spectacle. In “Friday Black,” the staff have designated a section for collecting the bodies of deceased shoppers. When the narrator later roams the mall during his break, he observes strewn bodies and juxtaposes them against the festive Christmas music playing over the speakers. When Florence recalls the day Lucy died in “In Retail,” she fixates on the ways various witnesses trivialized Lucy’s actions, and her memory is reduced to a workplace euphemism. In retail, death is mundane, everyday, and part of the job.

Justice

Justice is invoked in the opening story of the collection, “The Finkelstein 5,” when the prosecutor implores the jury to uphold it in her closing statement at the trial of George Wilson Dunn. This introduces a false dichotomy in the defense’s argument, which claims that Dunn’s conviction would be an attack on his personal freedoms. Freedom is considered a more fundamental value than justice, and anyone who opposes this is un-American. This argument is a clear demonstration of the way the justice system is twisted to favor white Americans over Black Americans. Despite the material evidence and testimony that affirm Dunn’s guilt, the jury is seized by the emotional appeal the defense makes to their love of freedom.

The definition of justice is similarly twisted in “Zimmer Land” when park CEO Heland Zimmer suggests that killing is sometimes synonymous with justice. He makes this point in reference to the open-ended nature of the park modules, which leaves patrons to reflect on the hard choices they’ve made. However, he fails to address Isaiah’s concern that killing is framed as an option without consequences. Isaiah appeals to the park mission to be entertaining when he introduces some of the possible ways that consequences might be included in the park module narratives, but the park leaders ignore him. Lady Justice is the face of Zimmer Land, yet the things that already seem to work for their business model will never change.

Justice is also explored in smaller ways through stories like “Light Spitter,” when Fuckton’s ideology is explained and echoed by Porter. Although they never explicitly use the term “justice,” they evoke it by talking about what is owed to them by the world. Fuckton compares himself to a stingray that has been debarbed; the violence he commits is a way of reclaiming himself in a world that continually disenfranchises him. He admits to choosing Deirdra as a target because he feels he could rob the world of something that mattered to it, thus balancing the scales as he sees it. Just like in “The Finkelstein 5” and “Zimmer Land,” justice is twisted to excuse The Normalization of Violence. Fuckton later realizes that this self-perception was fundamentally flawed, and he successfully convinces Porter of the same thing.

Souls

Souls manifest in various forms across Friday Black. They most prominently appear in “Light Spitter” when its central characters, Fuckton and Deirdra, meet in an afterlife state as spectral versions of themselves. This conceit enables them to reconcile their grievances with one another while also realizing how their common desire to help Porter allows them to affect the world of the living. In this case, the soul becomes a central motif in the story, rendering the characters in their most essential and vulnerable forms.

Souls are also used to describe the commodification of people. “The Hospital Where” employs the concept of a Faustian bargain to characterize its narrator. Referencing the German legend of Faust, this type of bargain sees a character make a deal with a supernatural character, trading an essential part of their lives, usually their soul, in exchange for power or other favors. In the case of Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah’s story, the Twelve-tongued God promises the narrator the power to change the world, provided the narrator dedicates himself to serving the God through writing. As the God taunts the narrator in the hospital, it reminds him of his promise, suggesting that he is bound to it regardless of convenience. Meanwhile, in “Zimmer Land,” Isaiah dreams of his soul watching his slain body, which leads him to conclude that the soul can never be sold. He remains firm in his belief that he hasn’t sold his morals or values to fulfill a morally questionable job despite his complicity in a system that encourages racist violence.