Who wants to know?

Cindy was sitting up on the stoop demonstrating just how distracting a simple black tee shirt can be while I stood down on the sidewalk tossing a football back and forth with Monte. I figure you don’t have to even be a teenager yet to start understanding politics, so Cindy and I were chatting him up about the recent White House CIA leak. While I was waiting for his comment, and the ball to come flying back at me, a brother I never saw before walked up and started talking to me, while he was staring at the house. Or maybe he was staring at Cindy.

“You live here?”

“Yeah.” I caught the ball and turned to check him out more closely.

“What’s the rent like? What do these places go for?”

I looked him in the eye and lowered my voice. “Who wants to know?”

To his credit, the brother showed me his palms, smiled, and walked off. Cindy and I shared a smirk but Monte looked puzzled as he walked toward me.

“Well, that seemed kind of hostile,” he said when he got close enough. “What’s up with that, H?” Lately he’s taken to calling me that. I let him.

“Monte, I know that between Jerry Springer and Oprah, people are starting to think they need to share every detail of their lives, but the truth is, a man just doesn’t need to tell everybody his business, just cause they ask.”

I could see why Monte, raised by his grandmother, might not get it. I was still kind of surprised when he actually asked, “What’s the big deal. Why keep everything on the down low? You ashamed of something?”

Then I got another surprise: Cindy answered before I could, and she answered like the lawyer she is.

“Life is a game, kid,” she said. “And except for your family and closest friends, you’re playing against everybody out there. It’s like when you play your little three card monte game, hustler. If you lay your cards out on the table, the other guy knows how to bet. Being too free with what you know is a bad habit. That’s what happened to Karl Rove.”

“I hear you,” Monte said, “but I don’t think Hannibal thinks that deep. I think H here just ain’t big on sharing.”

I stopped for a second to gather my thoughts. He was right, of course, but beyond that it seemed important to make sure Monte learned the right lesson.

“Cindy’s got a point of course. In my business you soon learn that in today’s world, mystery is currency. When you know what others don’t, you can trade that knowledge for whatever you want. But there’s more to it than that. Your business, your troubles, your big wins, those things belong to you. If you hold them close, they can drive you, power your life. If you put them out on the wind they just become gossip that can bring you down.”

“I don’t know, man,” Monte said. His eyes were shining the way they do when he’s being a pain in the ass on purpose. Cindy would call it playing devil’s advocate. “If you want people to trust you, you’ve got to be open with them, right?”

“That’s for girls,” I said before I had time to think. Then I had to survive Cindy’s indignant stare. Too bad. I was committed now, so I just had to keep going.

“Brother, I don’t trust any man who tells me how much he makes, or what his house cost him or how his hernia operation went. Just like neither of you knows my father’s last words to me. That’s between me and the old man. But you trust me, don’t you?”

“Well, yeah, I do.”

“A lot of people do. If they didn’t I couldn’t stay in business. I know my attitude is kind of old school, but I also know I’m not alone on this. You see, people know that a man who keeps his own secrets will keep yours.”