Them (28 page)

He said nothing.

She stepped closer and poked a finger in his chest.

“Lemme tell you something, mister. I can see. I can see as well as anybody, including
you
. I saw what happened in that meeting. I knew things weren't handled well. I knew that.”

“Then why didn't you say it, then?”

Sandy's face turned red.

“
Say
it?”

“Say what you saw.”

She held out her hands, with the palms turned upward, pleading.

“Barlowe, I wasn't running that meeting. What could I have said?”

“You coulda said somethin.”

“No, but I
did
take a stand. I abstained from voting, remember? I abstained.”

“Yeah, I remember.”

“I was on your side. And I wasn't alone. There were other people in that meeting who also didn't like the way Greg Barron handled things.”

“Yeah?”

“Yes. They told me later.”

“They coulda fooled me.”

“There was no need for me to speak up, Barlowe. That preacher made all the valid points. I thought he hit the nail right on the head with some of the things he said.”

Barlowe's pitch went up a notch. “Sometimes is more important
who
speaks than
what
gets said.”

“How can that be?”

He shrugged. “I don't know. You tell me. Maybe is the only way some folks can hear.”

A glint of recognition came to her eyes. She felt like she'd flunked some vital test. For the first time since he'd known her, Sandy appeared at a loss for words. “I…I…”

He put a hand on a hip. “You
what
? I'm listenin. You
what
?”

Sandy took a deep breath and tried to gather herself. Finally, she covered her eyes with her hand.

He glared. “And you think you so
different
.”

“I…I…”

“Don't you?”

For a long moment, she kept quiet. She just stared back at him.

He waited. Sandy said nothing, which to him said everything.

“You may not be different as you think.”

He moved to leave. She grabbed him again. “No, wait. Please. Wait.”

Barlowe stopped, aware now that they were making a scene. The people sitting nearby appeared very concerned.

Sandy massaged her forehead, which had begun to ache. “You're right,” she said glumly. “I could have said something. And I didn't.”

Barlowe wanted to break away. She was staring in his face now with moistened eyes.

Nearby, customers watched.

She dabbed her eyes with a napkin. She wondered if he'd lost respect for her.

He smoldered. But he saw her trying. He saw her trying, so he pulled back from the attack.

Why bother, anyway? Why?

Sandy hadn't finished saying what she'd intended to say, but she had become self-conscious now. When she looked up at Barlowe again, her nose was red, like she had a cold. There were circles around her eyes, like she had been crying. Her eyes had watered but she had not shed actual tears. Barlowe should know. He had been standing there the whole time, hadn't he?

He had. But as with her, there was a brief moment that he couldn't quite account for, a flash of a moment when something passed between them and he actually
wasn't
there. It was like time suspended, however briefly. Then, without warning, the clock started again.

Barlowe looked around, aware again of who and where they were: They were outdoors—out in the open. The sun had set over the rooftops and now lingered, as if awaiting some unburdening of the spirit.

Partly uneasy and partly embarrassed by the intensity of what they felt—some deeply shared anguish over the way things were—neither Sandy nor Barlowe knew what to say. And neither of them could decide which was more unsettling—the discomfort of that moment, or the implications of the scene: the two of them, black and white, standing there, talking that way.

Now actual tears began streaming down Sandy's cheeks. She went back inside the cafe and got two more napkins. She returned, wiping her face.

Barlowe stood there looking at her, mindful of all the white people watching them. Then that feeling came back. It returned to him from the civic league meeting. That feeling like he was about to burst through his skin. Like something inside was about to blow.

He took a deep breath. He had to get away, now.

“Okay,” he said. “I understand.”

She raised her eyebrows. She didn't believe he was being sincere.

“No. I'm serious.” He needed to get away.

Suddenly, Ricky Brown appeared from around the corner, pushing his grocery cart. He stopped at the curb across the street and scooped up two rusty cans from the ground. He smiled to himself, like he'd found two crisp twenty-dollar bills.

“I need to go,” said Barlowe. He took another step away from Sandy.

She followed. “I need to be going, too. I'll walk with you.”

She sniffled and blew her nose and tossed the napkins in the trash. The two of them walked the short distance to Randolph Street. As they crossed over, Barlowe glanced to his left. Mr. Smith was nowhere in sight.
Good.

They reached the sidewalk and separated without saying good-bye. Barlowe rushed indoors and beelined to his room. He felt light-headed. He needed to lie down.

Sandy stopped and picked up litter that had been dropped in her yard. Then she went in the house.

She had started toward the kitchen, when a voice startled her. It came from off to the side, in the living room.

“Did you have a nice conversation?”

It was Sean. He had been standing near the window, watching.

“Yeah,” said Sandy. “I was talking to the guy next door. I ran into him at the new cafe.” She tried to sound matter-of-fact; casual. “You should talk to him sometime, Sean. He's really a nice guy.”

“I've tried. He doesn't seem too interested in talking with
me
.” His tone was sharp, accusing.

Sandy turned and walked from the room.

I
t was early morning, a Tuesday. Tyrone spilled out the front door and crept slowly up the walkway toward Irwin Street. Other folks, the working stiffs, filed along the block wearing haggard expressions that dragged their faces in lock-step with their shuffling feet. Trudging along, Tyrone gazed hopefully up at the sky. An orange tint swept across the horizon, ushering in the first burst of morning light. Though slightly cold, it was a beautiful morning. He hoped the weather would hold. If the weather held, he might rake in some extra cash. He needed money, bad.

He reached the bus shelter and waited for the Number 23, which would take him to Greenbriar Mall. As quickly as he flopped down on the long, wooden bench, he rose again, wondering:
Did I set out food and water for my birds?
He strained to recall. Lately, he was beginning to forget things.
Too much worriation. Too much worriation.
He decided not to risk going back to the house. The Number 23 would be coming soon. Maybe Barlowe would check the cage before leaving for work.

Maybe he wouldn't. Tyrone wasn't too sure about Barlowe these days. It could have been paranoia, but he suspected his uncle might be having second thoughts about letting him continue rooming there. With Tyrone losing his old job and all, he hadn't been able to contribute as much to the rent lately.

He felt slightly depressed. A rough stretch of bad luck had blown in on him. Even the bones at the craps tables weren't falling right.

Leaning forlornly forward, Tyrone rested his elbows on his knees. He glanced at his watch. Seven o'clock. The Number 23 was late again. He stood and peered, impatient, up the street and spotted a ragtag army marching his way. As they moved in closer, he made out the frames of two women, surrounded by a bunch of children. The women clasped hands with two children apiece. A fifth child appeared old enough to walk on her own.

The army crossed the street and bailed into the covered bus shelter. Tyrone nodded a greeting. The women ignored him. One child nodded back.

Clothes wrinkled and faces cruddy, the children looked like they hadn't been washed. They each carried a Popsicle, which Tyrone guessed was breakfast. Popsicle juice ran messily down their arms.

The children talked loud, and all at once, shattering the morning peace. The women babbled like children, too; aimless, empty chatter.

The ladies were young, maybe early twenties. They didn't appear to be dressed for work. They wore tight pants; big, fake hair; makeup; the whole nine yards. They resembled the dancers at Tyrone's favorite clubs.

“Bitches,” he muttered under his breath. “Bitches.”

He thought he might like to have a family someday. He could muster no clear vision of how that would look or feel, but he had accepted the possibility that a family was something he might one day stumble into. He chuckled, tickled that such an idea had entered his head.

Eventually, the anguished groan of the Number 23 sounded from off in the distance. Tyrone stood and paced as the bus, gushing smoke and fumes, limped toward the shelter from up the street. When it reached the stop, he rushed aboard ahead of the army and shot straight to the back. The army piled in and settled noisily up front, near the driver.

When the bus pulled away, Tyrone scanned the handful of people on board. They were mostly regulars: janitors and waiters in hotels downtown. Gardeners and cooks at Georgia State. The unemployed, out on the hunt. And various miscellaneous strays, including people he wanted to keep a distance from.

There was one curious, unfamiliar face in the mix. A woman sat across the aisle and a few rows ahead, reading a newspaper. He couldn't see her face square, but he guessed she was pretty. Even at that angle, she had fine features and an air of prettiness about her.

She had class, too. Tyrone could tell. She wore a business suit, and subtle earrings—not like the gangly hoops tugging the ears of those women up front.

She looked to Tyrone like she didn't belong on the bus. He guessed she owned a car. It was probably being fixed in a body shop somewhere.

From time to time, the woman glanced up from her newspaper, noting people who got on or off the bus. Tyrone watched her awhile, then turned and stared vacantly out the window, wondering what the day would bring.

The bus slugged along downtown, making its way toward the city's south side. It passed the state capitol on Washington Street. A magnificent, gold-domed building, the capitol was fronted with long, sculpted columns and lots of broad concrete steps that led up to tall, majestic doors.

Several old white men in business suits climbed the steps toward the entrance. Carrying briefcases and important-looking folders, they appeared eager, confident enough to run the world.

Sonsabitches.
That was what Tyrone called them.
Sonsabitches.

As the bus rolled past, he craned his neck and stared back at the building. It came to him that the capitol was a public building, which meant he could go inside if he wanted. Important business was decided by sonsabitches in buildings like that. Maybe he should go there someday and walk around, just to piss them off.

Downtown, near City Hall, he saw a high-rise apartment building under construction. With all the construction going on in Atlanta, there were plenty of labor jobs to be had. A few times, he'd done electrical jobs on construction sites, but for reasons he didn't want to think about, he never was able to stay with those.

Besides, he had his own thing now, working for himself.

Now the woman in the business suit rose and got off the bus. Tyrone watched her through the window. She
was
pretty, just like he'd thought. She carried a leather briefcase and walked hurriedly toward City Hall.

Maybe he would see her again. If he saw her again, he would say something to her, strike up a conversation, to see how she reacted.

Eventually, the bus reached his stop on Campbellton Road. He got off and walked briskly toward his job site, a shopping center parking lot near Greenbriar Mall. After the first two months installing car stereos, Tyrone had drawn so many customers he had to hire a man to help him out. The new assistant, a guy called Benz, lived a few blocks from the shopping center. On installation jobs, Benz was about as skilled as Tyrone. He did good work, and fast. Problem was, he proved unreliable. Most days he showed up late, and sometimes not at all.

On that Tuesday morning, when Tyrone reached the littered parking lot, Benz hadn't arrived yet. Tyrone was greeted by a man in bifocals, who'd bought a sound system the day before and made arrangements through Kwan Li to have it installed. According to the appointment book, Benz was supposed to install the system at 8 a.m. It was now 8:16.

Tyrone apologized, then proceeded to do the installation, which required wiring the car from front to back and adding four new speakers to the two already in place.

As he worked, another car—a customer Tyrone had booked for
his
first job of the day—pulled into the lot. Then still another showed up.

Hours later, Tyrone was lying on the floor of a Honda Civic, running wiring beneath the steering column, when Benz showed up, sucking on a Budweiser. He leaned down where Tyrone worked.

“Yo. What we got, chief?”

Tyrone kept his eyes focused on his work. “Look out there for yourself and see what we got.”

Three customers waited. A fourth had left, frustrated, a half-hour before.

Benz approached a car and went to work. He knocked out the job in twenty minutes, then broke for lunch. He returned an hour later, carrying a three-piece chicken snack and a forty-ounce brew.

He sat atop the hood of one of the cars and ate, tossing chicken bones on the ground.

When he was done, Benz went back to work.

“Yo, Tyrone, you usin your wie cutters?”

“Naw.”

“Can I use em a minute?”

“Where yours at?”

“Left em home.”

The wire cutters came flying his way, landing on the ground near his foot.

At the end of the workday, when Tyrone had finished his last car, Benz went to him. “Me and the fellas goin over to a bah. You wanna hang wit us?”

Tyrone had gathered his tools and begun sweeping his area of the parking lot.

Benz asked again: “You wanna come?”

Tyrone kept on sweeping. He didn't look at Benz when he spoke. “I done lost two hunnered dollas today fuckin wit you.”

Benz stiffened.

“Whut?”

“You ain't shit, thas whut!” Tyrone shouted. “You hear me? You ain't shit!”

Benz shot back: “
You
the one ain't shit! Uncle Tomin for a Chinaman!”

Even in the heat of a moment there are some things you shouldn't say to certain people, even if you believe it's true. Later, as Benz sat in the Grady Hospital emergency room, holding a blood-soaked oil rag to his throbbing skull, he regretted that that morsel of wisdom had not come to him sooner.

For his part, Kwan Li had his regrets, too. He regretted having to end the partnership with Tyrone. And he hated forking over $400 to replace the passenger-side window of a client's car after Tyrone implanted Benz's head in the glass.

Nobody regretted the whole thing more than Tyrone. After the brutal outburst, he ended up right back where he had started—he rejoined the ranks of the unemployed.