Them (9 page)

I
n the decades before the Gilmores showed up, the people of the Old Fourth Ward had remained fairly anonymous. Not by design, mind you. Barring routine forays to other parts of town, they were simply too consumed by life's unyielding grind to be concerned with much of anything else. If life was running on most cylinders, which it seldom did, they counted themselves blessed to make frayed ends meet and avoid the sudden shadow of the repo man. A job lost or some hoped-for ship that failed to dock could result in a steep plunge off one of life's brutal cliffs. Except for neighbors living close enough to eyewitness the fall, the descent went largely unnoticed; anonymous.

Such was life for the people of the Old Fourth Ward. For years, they tended their business, gave what their government asked of them and learned to expect little back from that same government, which noted their existence mainly during tax collections and census counts.

So it came as some surprise when they began to notice a sudden outside interest in the neigborhood. It had long been accepted as undisputed fact that white folks had forgotten they were there.

Another month passed, and nothing changed. Nobody came to the Gilmores' house. Nobody said hello when they passed in the street. Nobody made eye contact, if they could help it. It was enough to make a body feel downright isolated.

Sandy hated that feeling. Lounging in the living room one day, flipping restlessly through
People
magazine, she suddenly stood up straight. She felt jumpy. She needed to do something, at least to
try
.

Earlier, she'd seen a few men playing dominoes outside the Auburn Avenue Mini-Mart. She had never gone into the store before. It seemed like some fraternity house or private club she was not yet a member of.

Her instinct about the store was more on point than she might have imagined. The mini-mart was one of the most revered institutions in the Old Fourth Ward. The store was founded by a man named Cornell James. As a young buck coming up, Cornell was a sharp crapshooter who could roll sevens and elevens, almost at will. After being dragged kicking and screaming to Vietnam, he made good use of his gambling skills. He ran the rounds to soldiers' barracks on payday every month. Often rolling with fixed dice, Cornell would clean out the troops before they tramped off on weekend leave to blow their money on booze and whores.

Cornell had the presence of mind to send his substantial winnings home to his young bride, Alberta, who promptly socked it away in keeping with their future plans. When Cornell returned from war in 1975, he and Alberta were set to start. They didn't have to beg white folks for what they needed, and surely wouldn't get: a business loan. They bought a home in the Old Fourth Ward and opened the mini-mart.

Cornell worked hard to get the place going, then died of a heart attack two decades later. Alberta ran the store for a short while and turned it over to their eldest daughter, Juliette. Juliette James proved to be a better business manager than both of her parents put together. She served patrons with a friendly smile, but when managing customers and accounts she was as hard-nosed and savvy as they came. On the day after she took over, in 1999, she posted a sign in big red letters on the cash register at the front of the store:

IN GOD WE TRUST

ALL OTHERS MUST PAY

Thanks to Juliette's business knack, the mini-mart became a marvel in efficiency. It could compete head-to-head with most any grocery chain in town. There was another store just around the corner, but the mini-mart claimed most folks' loyalty. The people viewed it as a special point of pride that it had been black-owned and -operated for so many years.

Of course, that bit of history had preceded Sandy. Whenever she needed things for the house, she usually drove to the Winn-Dixie, less than a mile away.

Standing in her living room now, she told herself that this might be the time to take some symbolic step toward establishing herself in the community. Then it hit her: Shampoo! She was out of shampoo! She would run over to the mini-mart.

 

Barlowe had gone to the store to buy the lottery Quik Pik and shoot the breeze. The boys were all there, standing around, socializing outside. Amos had a kitten that he'd found wandering through an alleyway. He'd cleaned it, fed it and claimed it as his own. The kitten was female but he named it Caesar, just to get a rise from Barlowe.

With Barlowe looking on, laughing, Amos held little Caesar in his lap and explained the complexities of the creature's mind. Ely and Willie insisted normal black people didn't own cats.

“I don't give a shit,” Amos declared, “what black people own.”

Just then, Lucretia Wiggins sashayed around the corner. Barlowe was the first among the men to spot her. She wore a snug lime-colored midriff top, with her dark, flat belly peeking out.

One day, about a week before, he had bumped into her coming out of the store. When they collided, she looked up at him and smiled. Barlowe fumbled in his head for something to say; something witty that might jump-start a conversation. But nothing came to mind. The moment passed, and Lucretia went inside. He determined to be quicker on his feet next time around.

Now Ely saw Lucretia head into the store. He poured himself a soda chaser and held the Coke bottle aloft.

“Um! Eye Candy! She shaped like this here bottle ri chere.”

Willie chuckled. “She wouldn't want you, Ely, wit them dead man's teef…What you gonna do wit a gal lak that?”

“Shoot,” groused Ely. “Them young boys don't wanna do nothin but hump up-and-down on her alla time.” He beat a knotted fist against his flat chest. “
I
know wha to do…I'd treat her lak a real woman; take her out to a movie, buy her a hot dog and stuff like that.”

“Lemme tell y'all niggers somethin,” said Amos. “That gal ain't worf all that slobberin over.”

“Buulllllshhhiiiit!” Willie snorted. “Thasa perty piece a sculptin dere!”

“She might have a fine shape now,” Amos countered, “but I can look at her and tell that won't last.”

“How
you
know what ain't gon last?”

“Easy.” Amos pointed in the direction of Lucretia's house. “All you gotta do is go over there and look at her mama.”

“And?”

“And that'll tell you how the daughta gonna look down the road!”

He launched into some winding theory about how, using a woman's current age, weight and bowel habits, you could compute the amount of fat she'll accumulate over time.

“I can look at that gurl's bones and tell she gon be heavy. She healthy as a grown woman
now
!”

The others kept quiet on that point, which did seem to bear a certain strength of logic.

“Sides,” added Amos, “she cain't do nothin no other woman cain't do…Y'all niggers don't know nothin bout no woman!”

“Huummph. Sound to me like
you
don't know.”

Amos turned and faced Willie. “I ain't gonna argue wit you, Will-hime…What the hell kinda name is that, anyway?
Will
-hime!”

Willie's Christian name was Wilheim, but he was called Willie for short. It seemed simpler to pronounce, even though it was the same number of syllables.

“Lemme show you somethin,” Amos said, returning to his theory. He snatched a Coca-Cola bottle from Ely's hand, just as he prepared to mix himself another drink. He poured some Coke into a plastic glass and handed it to Willie.

“Taste dis.”

Willie eyed it suspiciously. “You wont me to put some likker in it?”

“Naw, man! Jus taste the soda like I axed you to!”

Willie sipped warily and put it down. “Okay. Now what?”

Amos handed him the Coca-Cola bottle. “Now taste dis; drink it straight from the bottle.”

“I jus drank some soda…Whas yo pernt?”

“Taste it from the bottle, man, then I'll tell you my gotdamn pernt!”

Willie tasted, again reluctantly. “All right. So whas your pernt?”

“Which one taste better? The soda in the glass, or the soda in the bottle?”

Willie grumbled: “Wha you ax me that stupid quer-stion for? The Co-Cola in the bottle the same as the Co-Cola in the glass!”

“Thas jus my pernt. It don't matter what
shape
the containa come in; Co-Cola is Co-Cola! And it don't matter what shape a woman come in, neither. Is whas
inside
the containa that count.”

That said, Amos reared back in his seat and folded his arms across his chest. For him it was one of those rare moments when his innate wisdom seemed crystal clear to him. It was moments like this when he regretted he had not become a lawyer or something in life.

He showed his satisfaction by reaching over and pouring a drink for each of his friends. He wanted them to go undisturbed as they pondered the sheer profundity of his analogy.

Amos would have basked in his brilliance some more if Barlowe hadn't interrupted with a question that flung the debate far afield.

“Have y'all wondered why the only white people to move on this street moved next door to
me
?”

They all looked at one another, puzzled.

“Don't y'all think thas strange?”

Willie took a deep, exasperated breath. “Barlowe, I hear they used to pay twenny dollars a head to turn in crazies to the loony farm in Milledgeville. If I was to wrap you in a tater sack and take you back to yo hometown, I blieve white folks would gimme enough for a fif a scotch.”

They all laughed.

Barlowe waved him off and went in the store. The boys followed. As they walked behind, they glanced at each other with raised eyebrows that said,
That Barlowe got a real problem. He might need to get some help.

 

When Sandy approached, the mini-mart was filled with people and chatter. The men now stood off in a tight corner, laughing and knee-slapping at some private joke.

“An he said that ooman had a mustache thick as his!”

“Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!”

When Sandy appeared in the doorway the place fell deathly quiet.

Barlowe had gone to an aisle looking for the shelf where the oatmeal was kept. Like everybody else, he stopped and appraised the white lady coming in. He saw the long stem of a neck that ran up to dirty blonde hair, cut short at the nape. He noted the slender, athletic build. She was feminine, but with a bit of a rugged mountain look.

Met by burning eyes, Sandy advanced just beyond the first row of canned goods. She gathered herself and rushed down one of the narrow aisles. She could hear her own footsteps as she moved. She could feel the eyes trailing her.

She stopped in the hair care section and scanned the shelf: Dark and Lovely; Bronner Bros Super Gro; Smooth'n Shine Polishing Curl Activator Gel.

Strange. Nothing there for
her
.

Assuming she'd landed in the wrong spot, she moved down further and scanned some more: African Pride Braid Sheen Spray; TCB Naturals No-Lye Relaxer; Comb-Thru Texturizer.

She paused. All of a sudden a simple search for shampoo felt complicated. She went down the row again, certain she had overlooked something. All the while, she felt the eyes. She had the sense of walking through a dense forest at night, with twenty owls peering down from surrounding trees. The owls could see her but she couldn't see them, and she dared not look their way.

Sensing a tension mounting in her store, Juliette James called to the white lady from up front. “May I help you, ma'am?”

The owls fastened onto Sandy's lips, to see what she would say.

“No. I'm fine, thank you.”

She could feel it: Every hint of a motion she made was scrutinized, especially by the women. Their eyes cut like razors, peeling back her skin and clothes. With withering contempt, they noted the shoes:
Humph! Dusty, dowdy sandals
. Then on to the shorts:
Too wide at the legs; goofy looking, if you ask me
. And the blanched skin:
Chalk! No color at all!
Finally, the hair:
A mop, really—lopped at the base of a bony neck and left to fend for itself
.