PEACE! Japs Surrender After Atom Bomb Dropped
Kennedy Killed in Dallas—Johnson Sworn in as President
Man on the Moon—“One Small Step” says Armstrong
Day of Terror—Twin Towers Destroyed, Pentagon Attacked
“Can I help you?”
It was the nig security guard. He had come to his feet and Dwayne could see that he wasn’t armed. Only in America would you have a man guarding access to an important building—the elevators were right behind him, for Chrissake!—and not give him a gun. If people came storming the building, what was this guy supposed to use to hold them back? His big, black dick? Unbelievable. Dwayne almost shook his head in disgust, but thought better of it. He brushed at the unruly lock of his hair, suddenly aware of the nig, waiting for him.
“Uh, the guy who wrote that piece in the paper this morning, Toussaint? I want to see his boss.”
The nig sighed as if he had heard this request too many times already. Then he began to recite. “The column that appeared on the front page of this morning’s paper was unauthorized. The Chicago Post does not agree with or support the opinions expressed in Mr. Toussaint’s column and had, in fact, rejected it for publication. A computer security breach led to it being published nevertheless. The Post would like to apologize to anyone who was offended and you’re invited to take a free copy of the corrected paper with our compliments.”
“What’s that?” asked Dwayne, confused.
“That’s what they want me to tell people who have complaints about Mr. Toussaint’s column. You want a free paper?” He nodded toward a rack of newspapers stacked against the wall behind Dwayne.
“No,” said Dwayne, shaking his head. “I want to see his boss, the guy he reports to.” He considered smiling again, but didn’t.
“Mr. Toussaint doesn’t work here anymore,” said the guard.
“Well, then, the guy he used to work for. What’s his name?” Dwayne fished in his pocket, came out with the DVD. “I’ve got something for him,” he said, hating the eagerness to impress that he heard in his voice. “Something important. Something he needs to see.”
“His name’s Bob Carson,” said the guard, “but he doesn’t work here anymore either.”
It was as if Dwayne had been reading from a well-rehearsed script and the other actor suddenly decided to improvise. His mouth flopped open, waiting for words that weren’t there. He didn’t know what to do.
“You’ve got something for Bob Carson?”
A young woman, big glasses, strawberry blonde hair pulled back into a ponytail, was pushing a cart laden with boxes of books, photos, and miscellaneous paraphernalia out a pass-through gate to the right of the turnstile, heading toward the parking elevators.
Dwayne nodded, dumbly. “Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, I do.”
She came over. “I can take it to him,” she said, reaching out for the jewel case. “I’m headed to his house right now.”
A panic of indecision seized Dwayne McLarty then. What to do? If this Carson guy didn’t work there anymore, what was the use of giving him the DVD? Yet if Dwayne didn’t give it to this woman, wouldn’t that make her and the security guard suspicious? He could tell from the way the nig’s face had tightened like a screw that he already had his doubts about Dwayne. And the chick, she was watching him expectantly, waiting for him to hand over the jewel case.
What to do? He wished his mind were fast enough to think up an excuse for not giving it to her. He thought of just running out of the building. He thought of pulling his gun and shooting them both.
He gave her the DVD. She smiled, apparently taking his hesitance for concern about her own trustworthiness. “I’ll see he gets it,” she said, in a voice he supposed was meant to be reassuring.
Dwayne watched the precious DVD disappear into the pocket of her coat. He made himself smile. “Thank you,” he said. “I appreciate it,” he said.
There was a moment. And then he realized he had no more excuse for being there. He nodded. “Thank you,” he said again. He nodded again and, feeling like an idiot, moved to the parking elevator and stabbed at the button.
His thoughts screamed.
What a fucking first-class moron he was!
Now what could he do? Go back to Clarence, his subordinate officer, for Chrissake, admit that he had fucked up and burn a new disc? He couldn’t do that. He couldn’t bear to see that look of…disappointment in Clarence’s eyes.
No, he had to get the disc back. He’d give it to the publisher. That’s what he should have done in the first place. But how to do that?
The elevator door opened. To Dwayne’s surprise, the woman with the cart had come up next to him and she boarded ahead of him. He stepped in behind her. Her finger was hovering over the buttons and her glance was expectant. “P1 or P2?” she asked.
It took him a moment to realize she was talking about parking levels. “P1,” he managed. She pressed the button. After a moment, the door closed.
His thoughts continued to scream. He had to get the disc back. He had to get the disc back. He had to get the disc back.
But how?
What infuriated him was the certainty that there must be a way, some smooth, slick way, some thing he could say, some excuse he could give, that would allow him to take the disc back, yet raise no suspicion. There was a way. He knew it. But he just couldn’t think of it.
She glanced his way, gave him a perfunctory smile. He grinned back, his thoughts grinding furiously through the possibilities. He could tell her he had changed his mind and wanted the disc back, but, again, what reason could he give? Or, he could just punch her in the face and take it. Or maybe pull the gun and shoot her. But then, they’d broadcast his description and he’d have no way of delivering the disc where it needed to be. If he showed up in the building after doing any of that, they’d throw him to the floor, no questions asked.
The door opened. The woman got off ahead of him, pushing the cart. Dwayne watched as she beeped open the liftgate on a forest-green minivan.
He had to get the disc back.
Amy pushed aside kid’s toys and dog toys and loaded Bob’s things into the back of the minivan. He would not want to see her, of course, especially since she would be showing up uninvited and unannounced. But he would not be able to turn her away, either, since she would be bringing his stuff.
Fine. Once she had a foot in the door, once she had convinced him to give her a few minutes for an interview, what would she say? What questions would she ask?
She still could not believe Malcolm Toussaint, a man she had idolized, a man whose work had helped her decide the very course of her life, had done what he had apparently done. What had gotten into him? What had snapped inside him? And what did he mean, this morning, when she asked him about it and he said, “I just got tired.”
Tired of what?
Amy was climbing into the driver’s seat of the van when her phone chirped. Doug Perry. She put the phone to her ear, pressed the ignition button, turned down the radio. “Yes, Doug?”
“Amy?” Something in his voice made her sit up straight.
“Yes?”
“I thought you should know. We just got a call from Chicago PD. They’re sending a couple detectives over.”
Police? Was Lydia trying to have Malcolm arrested? Then she realized she had misheard. “Wait a minute. You said the police called you?”
“They got Lydia, actually.”
“Well, what’s wrong? What’s happening?”
“They found Malcolm’s car this morning at Randolph and LaSalle. It was totaled. Someone hit it from behind.”
“Shit,” she said. “Is Malcolm okay?”
“That’s just it,” said Perry. “The car was abandoned. Whatever it was that hit him was gone, too. No one knows where Malcolm is. Cops checked all the hospitals in the area, they even broke into his house, but he wasn’t there. There’s been no sign of him since he came into the building.”
“Oh, my God.”
<
br /> “Yeah. You and that guy Ricky from security were the last ones to see him. Cops are probably going to want to talk to you both.”
“Of course,” she said. “You want me to come back up?”
“No, no. You go on to Bob’s house and do your interview, if he’ll let you. We’ll wait til they ask.”
“Doug, do you think it has anything to do with this morning’s column?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “Whatever happened happened awful early. Who reads their paper at five a.m., gets pissed off, and then takes to the streets to stalk the guy who pissed you off? How could you even find Malcolm in that short a time? How would you know where to look? It doesn’t make much sense. I just know that whatever’s going on, it’s not good.”
“I see your point,” she said.
“Yeah. Go do your interview and hightail it back. And keep your eyes open.”
“OK,” she said, and clicked off the phone.
Amy’s thoughts were reeling. The day had started out as the most bizarre of her professional life. And it had steadily gotten worse.
She backed out of her parking space, drove toward the exit, and turned onto Michigan Avenue. Amy could not corral her thoughts—or her fears. What was happening? What in the hell was going on here?
Traffic was brisk. She stopped at a light as a herd of people flooded across. Beside Amy, a man in a Mercedes pulled up, speaking angrily into a cellphone. And behind her, an old red Ford pickup truck braked to a stop.
eight
Malcolm Toussaint staggered away from the melee, the sounds of police truncheons smacking into flesh and the anguished, unmanly screams of middle-aged men following hard after. He ran as best he could, gasping for breath, his weight supported by Sonny and Pop. They didn’t speak. They only ran. He stumbled along between them until he found himself lying on some woman’s lawn in the projects and they were pouring water from a hose into his face and it felt like the very kiss of Jesus, so blessed was the relief. He could not get enough of it into his burning eyes.
And when finally Malcolm wedged those eyes open, there was his father, a rough-hewn man with craggy midnight skin and blunt, heavy features, watching him intently. “You all right?” he asked, in that deep, hard voice he had.
“Yeah,” said Malcolm. “Burns, though. Burns like a…” He was going to say “motherfucker.” Then he remembered who he was talking to. “Burns,” he said.
“I bet,” said Sonny, who was standing behind his father.
“Shouldn’t of hit no cop, though,” said his father.
“He was about to hit you,” protested Malcolm.
“I know. Still, you colored and he ain’t. You should of known better.”
“You think anybody saw?” asked Sonny. “You think they got a good look?”
“Don’t know.” His father regarded him a moment, then made a gesture that took Malcolm in from head to toe—the dashiki, streaked now with the mud and grass of this woman’s lawn, the proud Afro hanging in wet tatters upon his shoulders. “What’s all this shit anyway, Junie?”
“It ain’t shit,” said Malcolm. He had expected the question, had even rehearsed a defense that just now, he could not remember. But then, he had not expected to be lying, gassed and stunned, on some stranger’s lawn when he gave it. Beyond his father, beyond Sonny, he saw the woman, three little children gathered to her skirts, all of them watching him like Green Acres.
“If they seen him, this what they gon’ be lookin’ for,” said Sonny.
His father nodded. “Yeah,” he said. And then to Malcolm: “Take that thing off.”
Malcolm started to protest but thought better of it. They were right. So he pulled the dashiki over his head and handed it to his father. Pop accepted it without a word and threw it on the curb. “Can you walk?” he asked.
“Yeah,” said Malcolm, shirtless now in the February chill. “Yeah, I think so.”
“Come on, then.” The father shrugged out of his own threadbare coat and gave it to the son. “Put that on and button it up so nobody see you ain’t got a shirt on.”
Malcolm did as he was told. He climbed awkwardly to his feet. His balance was unsteady as a toddler’s. His eyes teared and stung. He kept squeezing them shut and opening them wide, trying to clear the shadows from his vision. It didn’t help. And with every breath, it felt like he was drawing shards of hot glass down into his lungs.
Roaches. They sprayed us like…
His father thanked the woman. They hobbled off.
“They gon’ be lookin’ for that hair, too,” said Sonny.
His father nodded. “I done thought of that,” he said.
Malcolm heard this without hearing it. It was as if it was all happening to someone else. They walked in silence down the side streets, the three of them, angling away from downtown, deeper into the Negro section. After 20 minutes, they came to a little barbershop sitting on a corner next to a vacant, overgrown lot. “Smitty’s,” said the sign above the red, white, and blue striped pole.
Inside, there was one barber and no customers. Malcolm sat in his chair without a word. The man tied the haircloth around Malcolm’s neck, fired up his clippers, and leaned over. “How you want it?” he asked, raising his voice a little to be heard over the electric buzz.
Pop answered for him. “He want it all off.”
At this, the barber grinned, a gold tooth winking. “Lord,” he said, “that’s music to my ears. Make me happy every time I get the chance to whack all this shit off one’a these young boys’ heads.” He gave Pop a look that expected an “Amen” or a “You got that right.” Pop gave the man an expression that said nothing. There was a beat of awkward silence. Then the barber sucked his teeth, grabbed Malcolm’s head roughly, and started cutting.
Malcolm barely felt it.
Some part of him was still on Main Street, watching men who had done nothing more provocative than carry signs being sprayed (like roaches), being sprayed himself (like a goddamn roach!) by men acting under the impunity of white skin and gold badges. And so he could not quite process the barber’s smug dig about the length of his hair, could not feel the loss of the hair even as he watched it fall in great dark clumps into his lap.
His father, he suspected, took this silent compliance for sullen surrender. But Pop didn’t understand. How could he? Malcolm himself didn’t quite understand.
He only knew that something inside him had gone missing. In just that few moments of fighting on Main Street, he had lost something important, something vital. And he didn’t even know what it was.
The barber cut his hair and he let him. Afterward, he and Pop said goodbye to Sonny and, neither having money for bus fare, began the long walk home together. There was silence for the first few blocks. Finally, inevitably, Pop asked the obvious. “What you doin’ here anyway?”
“They sent me home,” said Malcolm.
“You couldn’t keep up with them white boys?”
And hard as it was to breathe and as much as his eyes stung, and as removed as he felt from the moment, the question still made something hot flare in Malcolm’s chest. “That would make you real happy, I bet.”
“No, I’m just askin’,” said Pop.
Just askin’. Right. How many of their arguments had begun with this man telling him, “Get your head out them damn books,” or “Stop actin’ like you think you white”? How many times had his father counseled him, “Don’t be gettin’ too far ahead of yourself. Stay in a nigger’s place”? How many times?
Just askin’? Yeah. Sure he was.
“They put me on administrative leave,” Malcolm said. And then he waited for his father to laugh a vindicated laugh.
But instead, Pop frowned, deep ridges furrowing his brow. “That mean you been kicked out?”
“No,” said Malcolm, “it’s different. It’s temporary, like getting suspended. I can apply to go back.” If I decide to. He thought this, but did not say it.
“You couldn’t keep up?” his father as
ked again. And if Malcolm hadn’t known better, he might have thought Pop really wanted to know the answer.
But Malcolm wasn’t buying it. “What do you care? You told me I wouldn’t make it. You always said I was wastin’ my time.”
Pop pursed his lips. “Was you?”
Malcolm stared at him. He did not answer.
Something hard came into Pop’s voice. “Are you tellin’ me you couldn’t keep up with them white boys?” he demanded.
Malcolm felt a thin smile bend his lips. “I could have kept up,” he admitted, finally. “I just didn’t.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“I was doing something else.”
“Uh huh. And what was you doin’, more important than keepin’ up?”
Malcolm stopped walking, met his father’s eyes. “I was protesting,” he said.
Some ghost walked through his father’s gaze then. His mouth worked without sound. Then he nodded and didn’t ask any more questions. They walked along.
“Heard you twisted your knee,” said Malcolm, after a few moments.
“Yeah.”
“But you walkin’ pretty good.”
“I suppose. Healed up okay.”
“You could have told me you were hurt.”
His father looked over at him. “You could have told me you was comin’ home.”
Malcolm hunched his shoulders. “I was mad, them puttin’ me out. I didn’t feel like hearing you tell me how I wasted my time trying to be white.”
His father sighed. “Yeah, I suppose I did say that.”
“Pop, I ain’t never tried to be white.”
It took a moment. Then Pop said, “I know. Tell you the truth, I probably knew it all along.”
This surprised him. “Then, why…?”
Malcolm couldn’t finish the question. His father didn’t try to answer. They walked again through silence. In the next block, father and son passed a group of scrawny black girls jumping rope and chanting “Old Mary Mack.” A moment later, they passed two men working beneath the hood of an old piece-of-shit Ford, their beers sitting on the roof. From within the car, the tinny radio speakers lifted the Temptations singing “I Wish It Would Rain.” It rose like an offering.
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