Fair Trade

Six thousand miles from a golden coast to great lakes; the new middle passage. Lately, there’s a boy like him packing up his duffel about — on average, it’s getting harder to keep count — twice a month, headed to their new world. The fiber optics are unpredictable, beckoning them to come to places unknown: Atlanta, Palm Springs, Chicago. This one’s going to Detroit, the place they say looks a lot like home. Maybe that’ll make this whole deal easier.

He looks like the boys the men on the other side yearn for: Tall, fit, dark, youthful. Their complete opposite, usually; but sometimes they match in height. The men on the other side barter with promises to distract from their physical shortcomings. Clothes, food, companionship, shelter. The boys offer in exchange companionship (terms and conditions vary on a case-by-case basis), labor (terms and conditions vary on a case-by-case basis) and their bodies (non-negotiable).

The men on the other side work their networks, and it’s all philanthropy. Portions of substantial, single-earner incomes they earn go toward causes that align with their beliefs — increasing diversity, diversifying the economy, diverse lives mattering. There’s a trend they were ahead of the curve on. The men also believe in youth. Preserving it for the young and making sure it’s not wasted, while recapturing their own. The youth these men are seeking can be found in their causes — specifically, the little shelters.

Hundreds of hopefuls always arrive in the big shelters with various visas and certificates and papers. In the little shelters are the more desperate, escaping lands in conflict, moving out of sight from punishing stares, fleeing suspicion. The laws of these lands are designed to trap the boys like him. Imprisonment only for those kinds of boys just wanting to find other boys, or even death if they are found. Those boys turn to men for their own version of hopeful. The little shelters are where they’re safe to be found.

The one boy arrives in Detroit with nothing but his duffle of some worn clothes, some toiletries, snacks, and tiny keepsakes of home. He and four others — three women, one man, all unrelated — find their way to the front of the plane, to baggage claim, then to ground transportation. They are told to look for the friendly, young, white bearded man in a silver transport van. They find him and they are off to their small shelter 20 miles down wide, bustling lanes of concrete, trying to decipher the words and names — Ecorse, Telegraph, Southfield, Michigan, that one they know — along the way.

The van arrives at a two-story, unmarked and unnumbered storefront on a corner and pulls into the alley alongside. Slowly, the passengers gather their things and move along a gravelly path, breathing in the cool, night air, eventually shuffling into a narrow entrance and through corridors with sharp turns. There are more white people waiting for them, telling them to relax, take deep breaths, make themselves comfortable. The women and the men sign papers, and are whisked into their own bedrooms, on their own. The boy remains in the welcome space and recognizes the grey-haired man with whom he’s been exchanging digital conversation and imagery for the past seven months.

“You’ll stay here for a few days,” the man, seated, says to the boy, “just to get things straightened out.”

“And when do I go with you? I will still go with you, right?”

The man stands to his feet and walks over to the boy, and the boy makes out the green veins crisscrossing his spotted hands and the wrinkles scrawled into his face. The man takes him into his arms and maneuvers to bring his forehead down for a kiss. “Soon, my boy, soon. You’ll be mine, soon.”

The boy knows what to do now. He embraces him back and pulls him closer to feel a sudden but forced growth. “It won’t be long, then,” the boy murmurs, and the man presses his cheek into the boy’s lean torso. “Sooner is better than later.”

Aaron Foley is a journalist and writer who divides his time between Brooklyn and Detroit. He is the author of Boys Come First and How to Live in Detroit Without Being a Jackass.