“McLarty never made fun of you,” said Malcolm, speaking the realization even as it came to him. “That’s why you’re friends.”
“That’s right. He respects me. That’s why we’re friends.”
“But he’s so much older than you.”
Pym gave a sad shake of his head. “No,” he said. “He just looks older. He’s had challenges. Now shut up and behave yourself and I’ll let you watch the news with me.”
Without waiting for an answer, Pym went and dragged the card table with the laptop on it over to where Malcolm sat. He plopped down on a metal folding chair, his great bulk overflowing the sides, and tapped for a few moments at the computer keys. Then he positioned the laptop to the side so that he and Malcolm both could see—as if Malcolm were his guest and not his prisoner. They were watching the live feed of a conservative cable news network. A chipper, Barbie-doll blonde, her lips as glossy and red as a freshly painted fire engine, was holding forth.
“Well, after a hard fought campaign, it’s all over but the voting for Senator John McCain of Arizona and Senator Barack Hussein Obama Jr. of Illinois. Both men were out early to cast their ballots this morning. Here we see Sen. and Mrs. McCain voting in Phoenix.”
The image on screen switched to the senator and his wife making their way slowly into the polling place as Secret Service agents cleared a path and a woman’s voice urged reporters to stand back. The blonde anchorwoman’s voice spoke over the image. “McCain, who is trailing in the polls by five or six percentage points in most of the battleground states, is hoping for a last-minute surge of support to help him capture the presidency. And here we have Sen. and Mrs. Obama and their daughters voting at a polling place near their home in Chicago.” The image onscreen was now of Barack Obama feeding his ballot into a vote tallying machine. “I hope this works,” he joked. “It’ll be really embarrassing if it doesn’t.”
Pym made a sound. “Hail to the fucking chief,” he said.
Malcolm looked at him. “You actually think he’s going to win?”
“I do,” said Pym.
“Why?”
“Because this country is just fuckin’ fucked up enough to do it, that’s why. There’s just enough liberal retards in this country who think it’d be a swell idea to have a socialist nigger as their president.”
Malcolm surprised himself by laughing. “You don’t have to worry about it,” he said. “He’s not going to win.”
Pym glanced around, mildly interested. “What makes you say that?”
“Because there are too many people like you in this country, that’s why.”
Pym snorted. “Country needs more people like me.”
“He won’t win,” repeated Malcolm.
“Yeah, that’s what you said in the paper this morning, wasn’t it?”
“You read the paper?”
“You makin’ cracks about me again? I can read.”
“No,” said Malcolm. “I just meant, people your age, they don’t read newspapers.”
“Well, technically, I didn’t read it in the paper. Saw it online on the website. Had to do somethin’ while we waited on you. You almost messed up the plan, you know? We were going to take you out of your house. Then we see you pulling off at four in the morning.” He chortled. “Dwayne like to shit a brick when that happened.”
“How did you know where I live?”
Pym made a face as if the answer were too obvious for speaking and Malcolm an idiot for asking. “Internet,” he said.
“Internet,” said Malcolm. “Of course.” God, he hated computers.
“So get back to ol’ Barry Soetoro,” said Pym. “You said in the paper—or on the website, since you want to be technical—that you don’t think he can win because of the ‘Bradley Effect.’ What’s that?”
Malcolm sighed. “Tom Bradley,” he said. “Black man, mayor of Los Angeles. Ran for California governor in ’82. All the polls showed him way out in front. Everybody thought he was going to win. Turns out he loses the election. When it came right down to it, all the good white folks who said they were going to vote for him couldn’t bring themselves to pull the lever for a nigger.”
Pym’s gaze turned thoughtful. “You guys always say that. I never understood it.”
“Say what?”
“Nigger. You black guys say that, then you get mad when we say it.”
“I wasn’t saying it,” said Malcolm. “I was saying that’s how white voters in California saw it when it came time to cast their ballots. Racist motherfuckers like you. Bradley couldn’t win, Obama won’t win. Doesn’t matter what the polls say.”
“Well, from your lips to God’s ear,” said Pym.
“I didn’t say it was a good thing.” Malcolm couldn’t believe he was letting this fool anger him.
“I expect you wouldn’t think it’s a good thing. ’Course you’re not a white man.”
“Thank heaven for small favors,” muttered Malcolm.
Pym’s chuckle was indulgent. “You know, you’re a funny guy. “He was silent a moment, watching the cable news show. When the entertainment report came on, he turned to Malcolm. “Hey,” he said in a bright voice, “you want to watch this new Jordan video I got? I saw from your hat you’re a Bulls fan.”
There it was again, that bizarre courtesy. His kidnapper, his captor, the man who had just rung his skull like a tower-clock bell, was inviting him to watch videos like they were just two buddies hanging out in the den on a lazy Saturday afternoon. Surely, thought Malcolm, he would wake up any moment now, twisted in sweaty sheets, and find that none of it had happened. None of it was real.
Pym took his silence for assent. “You’ll like this,” he said, producing a DVD from a backpack on the floor. He opened the disc drive on the laptop and popped it in. Moments later, the computer screen showed a familiar figure clad in red, tongue wagging from his mouth as he drove around hapless defenders like a Porsche around traffic cones to slam the ball through the hoop with vicious authority.
“Did you see that?” Pym turned toward Malcolm, beaming. “Fuck Kobe, fuck LeBron. That man there is the best there ever was, best there ever will be. Am I right?”
He did not wait for an answer, turning instead back to the computer, where Jordan was pulling up for a jump shot.
Malcolm lowered his head, closed his eyes. He wondered where that damn homeless man had gone.
Willie Washington had a mission: find help.
He could not remember the last time he’d had a mission, something he had to accomplish. He was surprised how good it felt.
For years, he had lived a life free of things to do. He lived off the clock. Hell, he lived off the calendar. How many times had he watched the sidewalks teem with the hurried, worried quicksteps of people with places to be and things to do and counted himself lucky he was not among them? His life, he had always told himself in such moments, was the very definition of freedom. He was a man with nowhere to be and all the time in the world to get there.
But now that had changed. He had to find help.
So he set out walking. It was a familiar route, one he shuffled several times a week. East across State, over to Michigan, north on Michigan toward where the high rises and fancy shops stood sentinel. It took him a little over an hour. Along the way, he approached every person who even glanced in his direction. It was just like panhandling, he thought, except he wasn’t asking anyone for money. He was asking for help. And that, it turned out, was even harder to get.
“Beg pardon, could you…”
“Sir, I wonder if I could talk to you for a…”
“Lady, this is important. I need…”
But for over an hour they flowed around him, the inconvenient fact of him, like water, not stopping, nor even pausing long enough to let him get a full sentence out. Some automatically extended coins to him, most did not. Finally, Willie just stopped and stood there in the middle of the sidewalk, slumped beneath the full weight of his own inconsequence. He felt invisible. He wondered if he was st
ill there.
What make you think somebody gon’ stop for you, stupid motherfucker?
Ông ta c gng ht sc ri! Đng có s nhục ng na!
“Y’all stop arguing,” said Willie, aloud.
This caused a lady to give him a sharp look—and step faster. Willie sighed.
Sure, people sometimes affected not to see you when you reached out a grimy hand from the shadow of a doorway, or when you walked between the cars at the red light holding up a cardboard sign begging for money. He was used to that. But there was something different about this experience of standing right in the middle of them, energetically trying to get their attention, desperately needing to get their attention, and having them walk right by before you could get the words out, the sheer rush of them all but spinning you like a weather vane in a high wind.
Yeah, so what you gon’ do about it, you dumb ass?
“I’ll show you what I’m gon’ do,” said Willie. And he reached out for the arm of the nearest person. She happened to be a young black woman who was rushing past him, her ear glued to an iPhone.
He spoke quickly. “Excuse me, lady, but this is an emergency. See, it’s these two crazy white boys, and they got this brother tied up in—”
That was as far as he got. The next thing Willie knew, he was lying on the curb, looking up at the woman, who was holding some kind of kung fu pose, her weight shifted back on one leg, one palm out flat, thumb tucked in, the other curled into a fist, ready to hit him again if even blinked too hard. The iPhone was on the concrete and she was shrieking in terror.
“Help! He tried to mug me!”
Like he was the one who had knocked her on her ass. If anyone needed help, it was him.
But her cries had the desired effect. The flow of people slowed, congealing around him. So now they noticed him.
Oh, shit. You done it now, stupid motherfucker.
“Shut up,” said Willie.
“You don’t tell me shut up,” said the woman.
“Wasn’t talking to you,” said Willie. “Was talking to—”
“What happened, lady?” This was a big Samoan-looking guy, stuffed into an expensive suit. Looked like he could bench press a Buick.
“This guy tried to mug me, that’s what happened! Made me drop my phone, too,” she added in an accusing voice as she finally broke the kung fu pose, snatched up the device from the concrete, and began examining it for scratches.
“I wasn’t trying to mug nobody!” protested Willie. “I was asking for help. I wanted…I needed…”
And that was when the police showed up.
Willie, ông có chuyn ln ri đó!
Translation: “Willie, you are in big trouble now.”
“Don’t I know it,” said Willie.
The squad car glided in to the curb, lights flashing silently. Willie finally felt safe enough to climb to his feet, brushing uselessly at pants so soiled even he could no longer recall their original color. He tried to smile as the two police officers—a young black guy and an older, thickset white one—approached. It wasn’t easy. He was deathly afraid of cops.
Then he realized he needn’t have bothered. They ignored him, too.
“What’s going on here?” the young cop asked the woman.
She pointed. “He tried to mug me!”
“I didn’t!” protested Willie. “I just—”
“I saw it,” said the Samoan guy. “He grabbed her.”
“I wasn’t trying to—”
The woman cut him off. “I want him arrested. You hear me? You lock him up right now! It’s getting so a woman can’t even walk the streets in broad daylight.”
The older cop had been watching them and listening. Now he spoke. “We saw it, too,” he said. “We were sitting right there across the street. He didn’t actually try to mug you, now did he?”
“That’s what I’ve been trying to—”
“Shut up,” the cop told Willie. He looked at the woman. “Looked like he tried to ask you something. Reached out for your arm and you put him down with some kind of karate move. Nice punch, by the way.”
He seemed to notice the assembled crowd for the first time. “You people go on and get out of here,” he said. “Move along now.” He looked at the Samoan guy. “That goes for you, too, sir. Thanks for your help. We’ll take it from here.”
With palpable reluctance, the crowd began drifting apart. Now the older cop turned back to the woman, who drew herself up defensively. “He had no business touching me,” she said.
The older cop—Jaworski, his nametag said—conceded the point with a nod. “Yeah, you’re right. But you put him on his ass for it, so I’d say we’re about even, wouldn’t you?”
“Made me drop my phone,” said the woman.
“I didn’t—”
Jaworski barely glanced at Willie. “I told you to shut up, didn’t I?”
You better listen to the man, dumb ass.
“Yeah, I know,” said Willie.
The cop gave him a strange look. Then he turned back to the woman. “It still work?”
She examined it for a moment. “Yeah,” she admitted. There was something sullen in the admission.
“That’s one of those new iPhones, isn’t it?”
“Yeah.”
“You like it?”
Excitement banished sullenness. “I love it. It’s like a little computer.”
“And it still works, even though you dropped it?”
She examined it again. “Tougher than it looks, I guess.”
“Can I see?”
She handed it over. Officer Jaworski examined the sleek black device, which, to Willie, looked less like a telephone than some prop from Star Trek. At length, Jaworski nodded, then handed the phone back. “I got to get me one of those.”
“You’ll like it,” she said.
“So,” he said, hooking a thumb toward Willie without looking at him, “what do we want to do about this?”
She pursed her lips, then shrugged. “I guess there’s no harm done,” she said. “He just needs to keep his hands off people.”
“I quite agree,” said Jaworski. “I’ll make sure to explain that to him.”
“Thank you, officer,” the woman said in the voice of the righteously vindicated.
“You’re welcome,” he said. “You have yourself a good day.” He touched his hat.
“Thank you,” she said. “Same to you.” And she wheeled around, already pecking at her space ship telephone.
When she was out of earshot, Jaworski spoke to his partner. “And that, young Officer Smith, is how you defuse a bullshit situation.”
The young officer grinned. “Thank you for the lesson, oh wise Obi-Wan.”
“Can I talk now?” demanded Willie, feeling humiliated and forgotten.
Jaworski said, “Buddy, why don’t you just count your blessings and—”
“I seen a kidnapping,” said Willie, glad to be the one cutting someone else off for a change. “I…I ain’t actually seen it happen, but I seen the man they kidnapped. It’s this brother. These white boys, they got him tied to a chair in a warehouse. Seen it with my own eyes.”
“Oh, really?”
“Yeah, really.”
“What’s your name?” demanded Smith, not bothering to hide his skepticism. Or, Willie realized, his contempt.
Willie tried to make himself taller than he was and spoke in what he hoped was a voice of grave dignity. “My name is William Washington,” he said. “Corporal William Washington, US Army, retired.”
Jaworski wasn’t impressed. “Okay, ‘Corporal,’” he said, somehow making the rank sound foolish or dirty. “And you say you saw what, again?”
Need to kick his ass.
Willie ignored this. “I told you: there’s this building. Old toy company. It’s abandoned, and um…the owner, he…um…doesn’t care if I store my belongings in there, you see?”
“I bet,” said Smith.
Willie ignored this, too. “And this morning,
I go there to check on my things. And I look through this window and I seen what I told you I seen. This brother, chained up to a chair, and these two white guys, big fat guy, little skinny guy, holding him there.”
Smith looked to Jaworski. Jaworski shrugged.
Smith turned back to Willie. “You saw this,” said Smith.
“Yes.”
“With your own eyes.”
“Yes.”
“You saw it today.”
“Yes.”
Again, Smith looked to Jaworski. “Probably something came out of a bottle,” said Jaworski.
“Yeah,” said Smith.
“But we probably ought to check it out.”
Stupid motherfucker. I can’t believe you got them to listen.
“Shut up,” hissed Willie.
“Beg pardon?” said Jaworski.
Willie shook his head, a fast side-to-side motion. “I didn’t say nothing,” he said.
Jaworski gave him a dubious look. Then he turned to his young protégé. “A lot of the job is judgment, young Officer Smith,” he said.
First thing you done right since ’Nam, you stupid motherfucker.
“Shut up,” hissed Willie. “You’re going to mess up everything.”
“What did you say?” demanded Jaworski.
Cn thn, Willie. Hãy cn thn.
It meant, “Be careful, Willie.”
Willie exploded. “Hãy cn thn? Hãy cn thn? How the fuck am I supposed to be careful, when this other motherfucker always telling me what a fuck-up I am? You think I don’t get tired of that shit? Forty years of that shit, and you think I don’t get tired? Hell with both of y’all. I just—”
He stopped. Jaworski and Smith were staring at him. There was a moment. Then Jaworski turned to Smith. “I believe that answers all our questions right there, don’t you?”
Smith just shook his head. “Come on,” said Jaworski, moving toward the car. “Let’s not waste any more of the taxpayers’ money.”
Willie felt impaled by humiliation. “Wait,” he said. “It ain’t what you think.”
Smith had his door open. “Go on, get out of here,” he told Willie.
“You got to listen to me,” said Willie. Smith slammed his door.
“You heard the man,” said Jaworski, standing there with the driver’s side door open.
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