Them (2 page)

B
arlowe stayed locked up in the city jail for three whole days before Nell came downtown to spring him out. She went to the Free-At-Last bail bonds agency, one in a string of dubious enterprises crouched like hyenas across from the jail. Barlowe was lying faceup on his bunk, daydreaming, when the sound of jangling keys rustled him to. He rose on his elbows and spied a tall white man heading in. The jailer opened the cell and stepped aside.

“Caesar.” Barlowe muttered it again as he passed through the gate. “Caesar.”

The jailer cut him an evil eye. He led Barlowe down a long hallway, through several doors, to the inmate release area. The room was filled with people, mostly dark, hapless friends and family of hapless loved ones locked away.

Barlowe spotted Nell sitting in a corner, off to herself, on a long wooden bench. He approached her smiling, cautious. “Nell.”

She sucked her teeth. “Les get outta here.” Looking past him, she pointed to a glass partition across the room. “You need to go to that window to claim your stuff.”

Barlowe retrieved his belongings and trailed Nell to her car, a Nissan Altima that she'd bought six months ago. Six months, and she had left the price sticker plastered to the side window, like some brash announcement to the world that she had
arrived
.

They got his car from the impound lot and zipped to Nell's condo in Clayton County. She went straight to the back of the house. Barlowe slouched on the living room couch, waiting for a sign. It was still early; they hadn't eaten yet. He wondered if she'd be up for a quickie on an empty stomach.

He sat tight and listened for the birdcall. Nell usually saved her come-hither voice for the birdcalls, those low, husky moans that relayed her moist yearning. She often sounded that call late at night, when she came in from working at the salon. She'd put her six-year-old son, Boo, to bed and point at Barlowe, bending an index finger at the joint, in a gesture that said, “Come with me.” He would grab two cold beers from the fridge and hurry to the bedroom before she managed to change her mind. Once in bed she'd spread her wings and melt into him, screaming and flailing in orgasmic fits. Afterward, she'd light a cigarette, blow smoke rings at the ceiling and come up with an excuse to get an attitude.

For the most part, that was how they carried on, even in the year they tried living together. Theirs was a mad, moody affair: sheer fire under the sheets; conflict and chaos otherwise.

Barlowe waited patiently now while Nell fumbled around in her room. From where he sat he could hear the gentle rustle of clothing. He pictured her slipping into something soft and sheer.

Minutes later, Nell appeared in the living room, fully dressed. She sat down across from him and jump-started the conversation she had been rehearsing for some time now.

“We need to talk, Barlowe. Somethin's not workin here.”

The words didn't register at first. Barlowe's eyes flitted around the room and settled on Nell's shapely thighs, which were framed in black tights. She lit a cigarette and crossed her legs, to shift his attention above the waist.

He sighed. “Okay, Nell, whas the matter? Whas wrong
now
?”

“I jus got you outta
jail
, thas whas wrong.”

“They tried to make me buy flags, Nell. What you expect from me?”

“Yeah, well,
your
li'l crusade cost
me
time and money. I ain't got money for that…And I definitely don't have time to be goin down there, minglin with ghetto folk.”

He resented the tone and sound of that, the way she distanced herself from her own people.

Nell, unfazed by his resentments, pressed on with the attack: “You too cozy, Barlowe; you too laid-back for me. You go to work and lay round a house that ain't even yours. It wouldn't bother you none if things stayed that way.”

“That ain't true, Nell. You know it ain't true.”

“All I can go by is what I see. I been waitin a long time for you to show me somethin. But you ain't showin me nothin I can use…Barlowe, I wont things…”

Things
. That was the problem, far as he could tell. If he had been willing to overlook it before, it was apparent now: Nell was content to be one of the sheep.

Things
. She didn't give a squirrel's butt about
people
; she didn't know diddly, and couldn't care less, about Caesar wreaking havoc everywhere.

Barlowe was hip to Caesar, all right. He had never cared much for school, but he'd always studied history, even after dropping out. He'd read
Before the Mayflower
—fourteen times—and he had devoured stories about the '60s, tales about how Caesar used black people's tax dollars to train the police dogs they sicced on them.

Times had changed some, though not as much as people liked to pretend they had. The white folks in Milledgeville had proven that.

Things.
He had met Nell years before, when she came into the print shop and ordered flyers to advertise the salon. After the printing, she slipped him a number and asked him to call. He phoned, they talked and later dated. Eventually, he even moved in with her.

Barlowe was so taken by her fine looks that it took a while to notice who she was. Now, sitting in her living room, it was clear: The two of them were like mismatched socks.

All of a sudden he felt weary. “I ain't sure I'm what you wont, Nell. I ain't even sure I wanna be.”

She leaned forward, almost eagerly. “I guess this is it, then. You can't say I didn't try.”

She got up and went to her bedroom and returned minutes later with her hands full. She had gathered his belongings—a shaver, toiletries and two crisply ironed uniforms that he kept there for overnight stays.

“I'm sorry, Barlowe…I got plans.”

He stood up and gathered his
things
. “You got plans? I got plans, too.”

He had plans, all right. He planned to buy his lottery tickets; he planned to get himself a nice, cold beer; he planned to go home and relax on the porch and listen to the pigeons coo.

Barlowe started for the door. Nell walked behind him, keeping a safe distance in case he moved to grab her around the waist. On the way out, he stopped in the doorway. She stepped back and folded her arms tight, like a sudden chill had rushed in the house.

Nell said good-bye and Barlowe left, half-hoping she would stop him like she'd done before.

 

Barlowe took the back way home, down Memorial Drive. He cut through Cabbagetown, with its shotgun houses and narrow streets. The few days in the dungeon had inspired in him a fresh appreciation for natural air and light. He took it all in, every bit, as his clunker rattled down the street, the windshield wipers swishing every time he hit the left-turn signal switch.

He whizzed past the ash-brick factories now being converted into trendy lofts to make way for the chi-chi Yuppies swarming in. The poor white trash in Cabbagetown despised chi-chi Yuppies a tad less than they hated niggers. They had more in common with the blacks, but you could never convince them of that.

He crossed onto Edgewood Avenue and entered the Old Fourth Ward, where the people's faces were mostly dark and unsure, like his own. He tapped on brakes and waited as Viola and The Hawk shuffled forward and stepped unsteadily off the curb, in front of his car. Viola and The Hawk were two neighborhood drunks. As usual, they had taken the shortcut through the trampled dirt pathway between the house Barlowe rented and the place next door. They were headed to Davenport's place to toast another day of sunshine, another day of living, another day of anything to justify another drink.

Barlowe parked in front of his house, got out and looked around. He could see the horizon in the backdrop of downtown Atlanta, its towering skyscrapers standing pompous and smug.

He went indoors and passed a pair of dirty sneakers on the living room floor and whiffed pork chops frying on the stove. He went through the kitchen and opened the back door, which led to a partially enclosed porch.

A voice, speaking low, gentle, floated to the doorway. “There ya go, baby. C'mon, do this for me. Thas it. Ri there. Riii tthhheerre…”

Barlowe stepped onto the porch, flopped in a chair and studied his nephew, who was feeding his three pigeons.

“Ty.”

Tyrone jerked around. “Yo, Unk. I din't hear you come in.”

Barlowe didn't say anything to that. He stared blankly at the birds.

Tyrone released the pigeons into the backyard, to let them stretch their wings a bit. As usual, the birds flew into the big oak tree in the yard next door. They sat there awhile, then returned to Tyrone, who gently placed them back in the cage.

Barlowe watched, marveling at how hands that handled animals with such loving care were so quick to shed human blood.

Tyrone picked up a beer and took a chug. “Where you been the last few days, Unk, bangin some honey on the sly?”

Barlowe ran a hand wearily through his knotty head, using the fingers like an Afro pick.

“Yeah. I been bangin.”

“Nell?”

“No,” Barlowe said. “No.”

“So what honey kept you on lockdown for three whole days?”

Barlowe thought about the brown lady on the post office stamps. “Jus a gal,” he said. “You wouldn't know her.”

“What you wanna bet?”

“Make it light on yourself.”

Tyrone chuckled. He went into the kitchen, grabbed a pot holder and took the pork chops off the stove. He placed them onto an ugly platter, then turned to Barlowe.

“C'mon, Unk. Les grub and go ride.”

“Ride?”

“You got a birfday comin up, right? The big 4-0, right?”

“Thas still a few weeks off yet. Ain't no point in rushin that.”

“So what?! Les celebrate early! C'mon. On
me
.”

Barlowe liked a good time as much as the next man, but it was too early in the day for that. Besides, he didn't hang out much with Tyrone. There was a solid fifteen years between them, and in their heads—their ways of looking at things—they were at least more than twice that far apart. And right now he craved a little peace and quiet. He needed time to bathe and chase the sights and smells of the dungeon from his head.

“I'ma stay home and chill.”

“Suit yourself. Me, I gotta git in the wind.”

“Then git, then.”

Tyrone laughed. He had a funny,
chee-hee-hee
laugh that made you want to laugh, too, just because he was laughing. Tyrone had a bright, baby-face smile and a mustache that never seemed to grow more than a wisp of fuzz. With smooth, olive skin and jet-black curly hair, he could pass for East Indian at least three days a week. He was quick to tell anybody who needed to hear that he was black, pure black, “A hunnered percent!”

After he and Barlowe finished talking, Tyrone went to his room. He came out a few hours later, scrubbed and sharply dressed.

Barlowe didn't care much for clothes. Except for very special occasions, he wore his khaki uniform every day. Now he studied Tyrone, giving him the up and down.

“Where you goin all dressed up?”

“Gotta git wit this honey I jus met.”

“You gonna poke her, or what?”

“Gawd willin.” Tyrone paused. “I gotta play this one smart, though. She a house girl. She ain't never had no
real
trash like me.”

“How old is she?”

“Don't know for sho. I can tell she got some mileage on her, though. When she talk, you can see that silver shit in back of her mouf.”

“She good-lookin?”

“Phatter than a Bojangles biscuit wit butter.”

When he said Bojangles, Tyrone dragged out the first syllable for emphasis.
Bo
-jangles. Barlowe got the picture.

Soon, a car horn sounded. Tyrone headed for the door. Barlowe followed, hoping to steal a peek at tender flesh. When Tyrone and his date drove off, Barlowe scanned casually up and down the block. He spotted one of his neighbors, Miss Carol Lilly. She was bent over, working in her flower bed, her wide butt sticking straight up in the air. Barlowe waved at old Mr. Smith across the street, then something bizarre caught his eye. It was a man—a white man—standing on the sidewalk near the front of the house. Dressed in a shirt and tie, the man looked Barlowe dead in the face, then turned and hurriedly walked away. He walked about ten yards along Randolph Street and got in a black Lincoln Town Car parked at the curb. Another white man waited inside.

Barlowe watched them closely, thinking,
Surveillance
! Maybe it had something to do with him refusing flags.

Ever since the planes struck, there was all kinds of surveillance going on. He had read in the papers how Caesar now sifted through folks' e-mail and eavesdropped on private phone conversations. They even checked people's library records, to see what kinds of books they read.