Them (12 page)

Sean reached down and grabbed his garden hoe, standing ready to defend his life. “Don't move!…I don't have any money!”

The Hawk squinted. “Me, neither.”

Sean tried to run inside to dial 911, but found he couldn't move. The Hawk tried to dash away, but found
he
couldn't move. So they each stood there, frozen, staring.

The Hawk finally broke the stalemate. He took two slow sideways steps, like a child tipping cautiously across a wet kitchen floor. Moving with all the dignity a drunk can muster, he picked up the pace, heading speedily toward his place, one street over.

Sean watched and waited, still gripping the hoe. When he was sure the intruder was a safe distance away, he dashed into the kitchen and slumped heavily against a wall.

Sandy was busy pouring drinks. She swung around.

“Sean. What's wrong?”

He let out a great, big sigh. “Thank God! I made it! I was almost mugged!”

“What?!”

“A man! He sneaked right up on me! I chased him off with the garden hoe!”

Meanwhile, The Hawk scurried around the corner and stopped near a neighbor's house to catch his breath. He leaned against the house and considered that he could have been arrested for something.

The brief, harrowing encounter left both men shaken and wondering what unknown dangers lurked ahead.

O
n the way past the mini-mart one day, Barlowe bumped into Henny Penn and one of his boys. This day, Henny wore a blue velour jogging suit. (He owned every color jogging suit there was to own.) He sported high-end sneakers, white and new. In one hand he held a toothbrush, used to spruce the sneakers.

Barlowe didn't care for Henny. More and more, during his neighborhood patrols, he had seen Henny scouting out near the Purple Palace, supervising graft and prostitution.

Henny saw Barlowe patrolling, too.

“Yo,” he said now, as he brushed past Barlowe coming around the corner. “You wanna be a lawman when you grow up?”

Barlowe fixed on him with a wicked gaze and pointed a finger in his face. “Don't play with me, boy. I ain't to be played with. Hear?”

Henny could see in Barlowe's eyes that he meant what he said. Everybody else around there knew, too. Barlowe was cockstrong. He had knocked a man cold one day, right out there in front of the store.

Still, Henny waved Barlowe off. “Whatever.” He and his partner went in the store.

Barlowe continued up the sidewalk on Auburn Avenue, thinking that it wouldn't bother him if Caesar got ahold of Henny Penn.

He headed southwest into the Sweet Auburn district, a compact, quarter-mile stretch of black-owned businesses that flowed from the Old Fourth Ward into downtown Atlanta. He passed places that sold Caribbean music, Ethiopian food and clothes from Ghana. He breezed by the Masonic lodge, where old men in tasseled fezzes claimed to know the secrets of the pyramids. He passed teenagers hanging out in low-riding baggy pants, and he saw old-school hustlers, sporting flashy threads from yesteryear.

Near the corner of Auburn and Bell he stepped into the Black Leopard Cafe, a gritty bar with a hand-painted sign hanging over the door:

Every Hour Is Happy Hour!

He hadn't been there in a while. He sat near the window and ordered a beer. He looked around, noting the flimsy tables scattered about. They looked like secondhand card tables, with folding chairs shoved up against each one. All around the room the walls were decorated with black-and-white glossies of blues and jazz greats: B. B. King, Bobby Blue Bland, Sarah Vaughan, Miles and others.

Two pretty young ladies sat at a table nearby. They wore different clothes but somehow looked the same: Spike heels; skirts rising high on shapely thighs; slinky blouses that showed lots of flesh. The women sat with their legs crossed just so, like the clueless beauties used as stage props on BET. They chatted and pretended not to notice the hungry stares from men around the room.

Barlowe considered sending drinks to the table. Then he thought better of taking the risk. Finally, the ladies stood up to leave. Tyrone appeared in the doorway, briefly blocking the exit. He leaned down and peered above the rim of a pair of sunshades, set delicately on the tip of his nose. He whispered something to one of the women. She giggled and slid past, brushing lightly against him as she disappeared.

Tyrone moseyed to Barlowe's table, nodding toward the doorway.

“You see that?”

“Yeah.”

“Poke chops, smothered in gravy!”

When the waitress returned, Tyrone gave her the up and down. “Hey, precious.”

She almost blushed. Tyrone's eyes rode her backside as she took their orders and slinked away. He reared back in his chair and turned to Barlowe. “Talk fast, Unk. I got thangs to do.”

Barlowe looked askance at his nephew. “I hope you not takin somebody to the house.”

“I'm straight. This lady got her own crib.”

Barlowe studied Tyrone's face. “Where you meet all these women, anyhow?”

Tyrone bent down to tie a shoelace. “You know what they say: Produce, baby.”

“What?”

“Produce section in the grocery stoe.”

“You serous?”

“Is true. Honeys be hangin out near the fruits and lettuce and shit.”

“Produce, huh?”

“Yeah, produce.”

“What happened to that gal you were runnin after last month?”

“Who, Lucy?”

“The one you said you could marry.”

“Oh, Vicky!”

“Yeah.” Tyrone had brought Vicky to the house once. Barlowe wished he had met her first. “She was pretty.”

“Nah,” said Tyrone. “She weren't my type.”

“Why not?”

“Biscuit heels.”

“What?”

“Biscuit heels. Ash all on the back of her feet…I couldn't work wit that.”

When the waitress brought their drinks, the two men sat in silence awhile, each taking a sip every now and then. Barlowe got up to go to the bathroom. Tyrone studied his awkward gait. The khakis, he thought, were a bit too tight. Tyrone would never wear
his
pants that snug.

When Barlowe returned, Tyrone glanced at his watch and leaned forward. “So, Unk. Whas up? Tell me what you wanna talk about.”

“I wonted to ax about your job.”

“What?”

“How they treatin you?”

“Fine, man. They treatin me fine.”

“You workin hard?”

“Hell naw! Me and some dudes got a system goin. We punch the clock and take turns sleepin in the back. Sometimes we go get steak or beer and come back in time to punch out.”

Barlowe appeared concerned. “Everything okay?”

“Tell you the truth, I'm spoiled, man. If they made me work eight hours, I'd haveta file a grievance.”

“You gonna be all right for a while? You not bout to quit or nothin, right?”

“Uh-uh. Why you axin, anyway?”

“I got somethin I'm tryin to do.”

“Nigger, what you tryin to do?”

“The
house
, man. I'm tryin to nail down the house. Mr. Crawford promised that when he sells he'll give me first dibs and a break on the price.”

Tyrone scowled. “So, Unk.”

“Yeah?”

“Tell me the
real
reason why you wanna buy this house.”

Barlowe's lips parted, like he was about to speak, then he stopped himself. It struck him that nobody in his family had ever owned a home. He came from generations of renters; people like his daddy in Milledgeville, who'd leased land from
them
all their lives. There was a great big old world out there, and as long as Barlowe could remember, none of his people had ever owned much of anything in it. And they had accepted owning nothing as simple proof of the way things are.

So how could he convey the depth of his yearning to Tyrone, who was a spitting reflection of such resignation? How could he explain to Tyrone, who really didn't give a rat's ass about such things?

“Is time,” he said, after a long pause.

“Is
time
? Thas all you gotta say? Is
time
? What you mean is
time
?”

Barlowe sat up straight. “They say you save on taxes when you own a house.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. They say you save a lotta money.”

“I bet you
spend
a lot, too.”

Barlowe glanced out the window. There was an old man out on the walk, begging for coins.

“Ty. I'm grown.”

“What you wont, nigger, a trophy?”

“I'm a grown man, Ty.”

“So. What you wont?”

Tyrone laughed. Barlowe's mouth turned up in a grin, but no sound came out.

“A grown man gotta settle down.”

Tyrone shook his head. “I worry bout you.”

“What you worry bout, Ty?”

“I worry you gonna fuck around and make life complicated.”

“Life gets complicated when you get grown. Thas jus the way it is.”

“That ain't how it gotta be. Take
me
.” Tyrone poked a finger at his chest. “Me, I'm happy with the simple thangs: I try to stay outta jail, keep a li'l money in my pocket and git a li'l pussy ever now and then, and I'm set.”

Barlowe gulped beer and puckered. “Yeah, but I can't put my hands on that. A house is somethin you can put your hands on. Know what I mean?”

Tyrone looked through him without responding. Barlowe finished his beer and ordered another.

“When you gonna buy?”

“I figure I might have enough saved sometime within the next year or two.” He looked Tyrone in the eye. “Thas why I wonted to talk to you. I'm gonna have to raise the rent.”

Tyrone clucked his tongue and leaned back hard against the chair. “I
knew
that was comin soon or later. I knew it, I knew it, I knew it!”

“Not much,” said Barlowe. “Maybe twenny, thirty extra, thas all…You okay with that?”

“Ain't got no choice but to be okay wit it. Do I?”

“You always got a choice. Might not be one you like, but you got one.”

After a long stretch of silence, Tyrone said, “You gonna have a mortgage, man.”

“I thought about that. Thas why I need to know how is going on your job. I need to
know
we got the money comin in.”

“You really thank old man Crawford gon give you a break on the price?”

“Thas what he said.”

Barlowe pondered the folly in that remark. It implied some measure of faith on his part. Faith in Crawford's promise required him to vouch for the soul of a white man, which, on its face, seemed a crazy thing to try to do. Besides, his read on Crawford was more intuitive than concrete. His read on Crawford had evolved only in relation to other white men he had come across. Men like Spivey. Crawford was strange in his own way, but Billy was worse than strange. Above all else, Billy was fiercely committed to being white. That was his main source of being and pride. Crawford seemed more green than white. More than anything, he pledged allegiance to the dollar.

Barlowe was pretty sure his instincts about Crawford were on point, but he dared not say that to his nephew.

Tyrone smiled a wry smile. He had always looked up to his uncle. Even in those times when he felt fairly fed up with Barlowe's lectures about Caesar, Tyrone respected him for having the forthrightness to call life the way he saw it.

Now he pitied Barlowe. His uncle seemed now to nurture a desperation so urgent it led him to see what he wanted to see, rather than what he knew, what he must have known, was really there.

Tyrone glanced over the rim of his shades. “You sho puttin Crawford on a high horsie.”

“Well, Ty,
you
seem to like him a lot. You even promised to take him out.”

“Sheeeiiiitt! I ain't takin that cracker nowhere. I jus tell im that to have some fun. I like to see them big eyes a his rollin round…I ain't takin him nowhere. You know better 'n that.” He stared into his glass.

“Crawford aight for a white man, but I ain't gon trust him no farther than I can sling him. And
you
bet not trust him, neither.”

Barlowe remained quiet. Now he almost regretted raising the issue. He looked around the room again. In the corner behind them was a rusty, dimly lit jukebox that still played three tunes for a quarter on 45s. It blinked a lot, like it was about to cough and die. At that moment, Sam Cooke was moaning through a pair of scratched-up speakers.

Responding to the music, a man in highwater pants rose from his seat with no prompting at all. Drawn back to a time and place that only he could see, the man danced slowly on the floor. His eyes were closed, and he held an imaginary partner close to him.

“Okay,” said Barlowe. “Two months, and then we change the rent.”

“Aight.” Tyrone rose to leave. “Gotta go, man. Gotta go.”

Barlowe paid the bill and got up, too. They stepped from the near-darkness of the Black Leopard into the brightness outside. Tyrone headed to catch the bus. Barlowe started back up Auburn Avenue, toward home. He strolled up the street, absorbing the energy around him. There were people walking everywhere; Cadillacs and hoopties parked back-to-back in front of beauty salons, bars and barbershops. Outdoor vendors selling fish sandwiches with hot sauce, and barbecue ribs, cooked on open pits.

The richest Negro street in the world…

It struck him that on that street a person could get just about anything life had to offer. You could buy groceries, get your teeth fixed or cop a vial of crack cocaine; you could get discount life insurance (term or whole life), take in a foot-stomping church service (AME, Pentecostal or down-home Baptist) and attend to your banking needs; you could get a seven-dollar haircut, a good game of nine-ball and a back-alley blow job, all on the same block.