If I Survive You

This story’s subject matter, a woman hiring Trelawny to strike her in the face, is both fraught and emblematic of Escoffery’s interest in making his reader uncomfortable in order to ask them to reconsider how they understand race, class, and gender. This tactic is one that Escoffery employs repeatedly in this collection, but nowhere is it more evident than within “Odd Jobs.” Through the continued, in-depth look that the reader has into Trelawny’s post-college years, Escoffery continues to explore how socioeconomic status and race interact and affect identity. In this short story, Trelawny’s red Dodge Raider also emerges as a symbol of poverty and the lack of opportunity for many immigrants of color. The heated conversation between Trelawny and Chastity builds on previous stories’ explorations of race and racism in the United States.

Intersectionality, Socioeconomic Status, and Race is one of the collection’s key themes, and in many ways, this story stands out as one of the pieces most interested in the intersection of class and race in post-crash Miami. Trelawny, although a recent college graduate, cannot even find an unpaid internship in his field. He therefore has to take on a series of odd jobs, many of which he finds via Craigslist. The unskilled positions do not make use of his considerable intellect, skills, and talents, and it becomes clear that for individuals without a safety net such as those from Trelawny’s immigrant community of color, the post-crash landscape is exceedingly difficult to navigate. The car that he lives out of thus becomes a symbol of all that is unequal and unfair in the United States.

This narrative, although the author does not explicitly say so, is markedly critical of the “American Dream.” None of Trelawny’s family members experience financial success, belonging, or a sense of hope after they immigrate. Instead, they struggle both to make ends meet and to fit in culturally—the themes of Immigration and Cultural Identity and Immigration and Fraught Family Dynamics both capture how socioeconomics contributes to instability in multiple senses. That Trelawny, a college-educated, hardworking young man would be reduced to living in his car and working truly “odd” jobs for small amounts of cash is indicative of the structural inequality that Trelawny’s character is repeatedly willing to call out by name.

The character of Chastity further complicates how socioeconomics and race interact in defining identity and perceived identity. Although Trelawny initially calls her white, Chastity tells him that she is “Latina.” Although Trelawny did answer Chastity’s ad, which requests someone to hit her in the face, he struggles to hold up his part of the bargain. It is not until she reveals her parents’ unwillingness to allow their daughter to bring home Black men that he thinks critically about her family’s affluence in contrast to his family’s poverty. This critical evaluation, finally, allows him to harness enough rage to slap her. Interestingly, he also wants Chastity to hit him, reflecting how a portion of his rage toward his father and the unequal system in which he cannot succeed has turned inward. Trelawny, having internalized at least partially the prejudices he faces daily, wants to punish himself as much as he does others.

If this scene makes the reader uncomfortable, it has done its job. In this story, Escoffery prompts his readers to consider issues such as Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” law, which was cited by killer George Zimmerman after shooting the unarmed, Black teenager Trayvon Martin; notably, this event rocked both the Black and Latinx communities in South Florida not long after the events depicted in this story take place. (Trelawny mentions this law by name as he expresses fear that Chastity’s family will return home and find him in their house.) Escoffery wants his readers to wrestle with the intersection of race and sexual politics too. Accordingly, this story in particular plunges the reader into a situation that brings a range of interacting biases and prejudices to the surface.