The Street Sweeper

by Elliot Perlman

  ‘I’m talking about the inalienable freedom to live as a citizen of a country with rights equal to those of all other citizens of that country. In some cases I’m talking about the very first freedom: the freedom just to live. This is what we were fighting for.

  ‘We started off doing menial chores; cleaning, cooking, lifting, hauling, delivering equipment, driving and waiting on white officers. But as the needs of the armed forces grew they were forced to confront their own prejudice. They badly needed men to fight the Nazis. They had access to a pool of healthy strong young men but they’d always considered these men inferior, inherently inferior. But now Hitler was calling, and the needs of the war demanded that black men be permitted to fight, and fight we did.

  ‘When we got the chance, hell, did we fight! In towns right across Europe we fought the Nazis; sometimes it was street-to-street combat. We fought them hard and close, street by street. But when the streets were liberated and under Allied control, the liberating black soldiers were banned from them, forbidden to use those same streets we had just taken. We saw our friends maimed or killed taking those streets, maimed and killed taking German prisoners of war. Some of us were put under the command of vicious white – often southern – officers. It was thought that these men knew how to get the best out of coloured men. They even had us sit behind the German POWs at the USO shows. We were fighting and dying every day but you never see us in the war movies just like you didn’t see us in the newsreels. Our own grandchildren barely know what we did.

  ‘Adam, somebody’s got to tell them. Somebody’s got to tell people what we did. You see, when we got home a lot of us couldn’t let things go back to the way they were before the war. We just couldn’t after what we’d been through, after what we’d done. A lot of the impetus for the civil rights movement came from these returned soldiers and I don’t think people know this.’

  ‘No, you’re right, there hasn’t been all that much written about it, not that aspect.’

  ‘You want to trace the steps of certain individuals from their war experience to their work in the movement after the war. Nobody’s done that, have they?’

  ‘No, I don’t think anyone has done that. But, William, that doesn’t mean I should be the one.’

  ‘I don’t want to hear that. There isn’t time. These are old men we’re talking about and already there aren’t many of them left.’

  ‘Look, you’re right, it’s very important work, but you should probably talk to Charlie about getting somebody else because –’ The old man took Adam Zignelik surprisingly firmly by the wrist and changed his tone to one of force.

  ‘I’m talking to you. Listen to me; I got a friend in Boston, a black man, a veteran of the civil rights movement and a veteran of the Second World War. Now you want to talk to him and don’t tell me you don’t. You didn’t know what to write about. That’s what stopped you. You split up from Diana. Well, this man was in the outfit that liberated Dachau. Do you know what he saw? Do you know what he thought when he saw it and do you know what he did when he came home with those thoughts? What does a man do with those thoughts? I think you want to talk to him. Don’t you look at me and tell me you don’t want to tell the story of a man like that.’

  *

  What kind of cancer did the old man have? The question stayed with Lamont throughout the day. He wondered how he could find out. Since starting work there he’d learned that some days a patient you had seen just the day before could, without any announcement, suddenly no longer be there the next morning and the thought had arisen that this could happen to his strange old new friend, Mr Mandelbrot. He imagined it happening and imagined it too well. He felt a sadness at the prospect of the old man’s passing that he hadn’t expected. At the end of the day, when he had completed all his duties, he quietly made his way back to the old man’s room. Mr Mandelbrot was there and alone.

  ‘Mr Lamont, come in. You don’t want to take any chances. You have to take chances in this life. Come in, come in.’

  ‘Hey, Mr Mandelbrot. How you doin’?’

  ‘You are not someone who takes chances in life. Sit down.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You won’t come in when she’s here.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘You know who.’

  ‘The doctor?’

  ‘You don’t come in when she’s here. There’s space in this room for two opinions but you don’t come in. What are you so afraid of?’

  ‘I don’t get you, Mr Mandelbrot.’

  ‘She might be a doctor but she’s still a woman. The man has to take the chance, even these days. You’re the man, Mr Lamont. You got to take chances.’

  Lamont smiled. ‘You still takin’ chances, are you, Mr Mandelbrot?’

  ‘Let me tell you, I’ve taken chances all my life, many chances. If I hadn’t been someone to take chances I wouldn’t be lucky enough to have cancer here. You don’t know me. I know more about you than you know about me.’

  ‘Prob’ly. If you’re feelin’ up to it you can tell me about you, before I have to go home.’

  ‘Wouldn’t you like to go home with Dr Washington?’

  ‘Now we’re talking about you.’

  ‘Are you married, Mr Lamont? No ring what I can see.’

  ‘We’re talkin’ about you, I thought.’

  ‘You want to hear about me?’

  ‘If you want to tell me.’

  ‘I want to tell you if you’re really going to pay attention. No one pays attention; even Dr Washington. Pay attention, otherwise I can have other appointments.’

  ‘I’m paying attention.’

  ‘’Cause I’m going to test you, Mr Lamont.’

  ‘Okay, I’m listening. I’m paying attention.’

  ‘My father was a butcher in Poland.’

  ‘You Polish?’

  ‘I’m a Polish Jew.’

  ‘My grandma said you might be a Jew.’

  ‘Your grandma? Is she a Polish Jew?’

  Lamont smiled. ‘I was talking to her about you.’

  ‘Did she think she was in my story? I’m not remembering her.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Mr Mandelbrot.’

  ‘Pay good attention. I’ve got cancer. I’m going to test you.’

  *

  Adam sat alone at his kitchen table poring over a miscellany of take-out menus. None of them inspired him. Nor did the cold chicken in the fridge. The chicken hadn’t inspired him two days earlier, when it was hot, either. He got up to pour himself a Scotch and soda, the soda in a concession to an inner voice whose message he was having trouble making out.

  ‘You thought he was going to talk more about us, didn’t you? And you’re disappointed. You were waiting for somebody to convince you to contact me and William had been your best bet,’ he heard Diana’s voice say in his head. He took his drink over to the couch and turned on the television.

  ‘Do you want me to contact you?’ he asked her. ‘I don’t have your new number.’

  ‘You have my work number, my cell and my email address.’

  ‘You didn’t answer the question. Do you want me to contact you?’

  ‘What would you be saying?’

  ‘I don’t know … I bought some raisins today.’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘The ones you like … from that health food store you like, the one run by successive refugees of successive totalitarian regimes.’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘I bought too many for the jar.’

  ‘Really.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘What are you going to do?’

  ‘I don’t know. I thought maybe we could get back together. You could tell me what to do.’

  ‘With the raisins?’

  ‘You could start with the raisins.’

  ‘You’ve got to talk to William’s friend, you know that, the one who liberated Dachau. You know that, don’t you?’

  For about an hour Adam had been imagining them talking in this way while he flic
ked through a stream of television channels without ever focusing on any of them. When the intercom buzzed the transition to a reality outside his head was slow. ‘Is that you?’ he asked Diana.

  ‘Why don’t you answer it?’

  ‘What if it’s you?’

  ‘Do you want it to be me?’ Adam picked up the receiver.

  ‘Hello?’ ‘Adam?’

  ‘Who is this?’

  ‘Is that Adam?’ asked a female voice so young-sounding it might have belonged to a child.

  ‘Who is this?’

  ‘If you could just say it’s Adam I could tell you.’

  ‘Okay, it’s Adam. Who is this?’

  ‘Sounds like you but you might just be saying it. Guess I should have thought of that.’

  ‘Sonia?’

  ‘Can I come up?’

  ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘Is it bad that I came?’

  ‘No. Is everything all right? Come on up.’ He let her in and she was soon standing in his apartment.

  ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Where are your parents?’

  ‘At home still, I guess.’

  ‘What are you doing out at this time of night?’

  ‘It’s not so late. I felt like a walk. I was in the neighbourhood so I thought I’d stop by.’

  ‘Do your parents know you’re here?’

  ‘Maybe. Prob’ly not.’

  ‘Probably not! Where do they think you are?’

  ‘I don’t know. They prob’ly think I’m in my room … when they get to think about it. I thought I’d hang out here for a while. Is that okay?’

  ‘It’s okay with me but don’t you think we should tell your parents where you are?’

  ‘They wouldn’t care.’

  ‘Now I know that’s not true. I’m going to call them and tell them where you are. If they don’t mind you being here I certainly don’t but –’

  ‘You’ll just be interrupting them.’

  ‘Sonia, what’s going on?’

  ‘They’re just fighting … again … and I got sick of it. Do you think maybe I could have a beverage of some kind?’

  ‘I’m going to call your parents. You help yourself to whatever’s in the fridge. I think I’ve got Coke Zero.’

  ‘Do you have Diet Coke?’

  ‘What’s the difference?’

  ‘Coke Zero’s for guys and Diet Coke’s for girls.’

  ‘What are you, six?’ Adam picked up the phone to call Sonia’s parents.

  ‘That’s not what you’re drinking,’ Sonia called from the refrigerator. ‘I could smell it. You’re all liquored up.’

  ‘Now I’m really calling your parents.’

  ‘I don’t mind that you’re all liquored up,’ Sonia said, taking a can from the fridge.

  Michelle took the call. Neither she nor Charles had realised that Sonia hadn’t been in her room and Adam heard their reaction to their ignorance of this as itself either a new source of trouble or an instance of an old one. Michelle explained the call to Charles with her hand obviously but ineffectively over the mouthpiece of the phone. ‘See, that’s what I’m talking about,’ Adam heard her say. ‘This is exactly the kind of thing. She’s out roaming the streets. And you didn’t even know,’ to which Charles responded with slightly less regard to volume, ‘You didn’t know!’

  ‘Is she okay?’ Michelle asked.

  ‘She’s fine,’ Adam said looking at Sonia on the couch flicking through the television channels.

  ‘She’s not going to be okay when I’m through with her,’ Adam heard Charles say. Michelle thanked Adam for taking care of Sonia and said one of them would be around soon to pick her up.

  ‘Do you want to talk about it?’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘About your parents arguing.’

  ‘It’s fairly complicated as these things go.’

  ‘Really … as these things go?’

  ‘Nothing to do with me. Hey, where’d all your books go? Oops, sorry!’

  ‘It’s okay.’

  ‘You know … I really like Diana. Do you think I can still be friends with her?’

  ‘Can’t see why not.’

  ‘Think you will be?’

  ‘I hope so … eventually.’

  ‘Where’d she move to?’

  ‘Hell’s Kitchen.’

  ‘That’s not so far.’

  ‘No, someone like you could walk there for an evening stroll.’

  ‘Why’d you guys break up?’

  ‘It’s fairly complicated … as these things go.’

  ‘Was it about children? You should have children, you know. Mom said –’

  ‘Do you mind if we talk about something else?’

  ‘What do you want to talk about?’

  ‘Haven’t you got some teenage stuff we can talk about? Haven’t you ever thought of setting fire to your parents’ apartment, taking lots of hard drugs and running away with the worst boy in school?’

  ‘No! Did they say that? All I said was I was thinking of maybe getting a job, part-time, like in a Duane Reade or something.’

  ‘Sure, I could see that. You already know how to act bored.’

  ‘Were they mad on the phone?’

  ‘Little bit.’

  ‘Who more?’

  ‘Hard to say.’

  ‘Was it Dad?’

  ‘By a nose.’

  ‘Find out what’s wrong with her,’ Diana whispered. But there wasn’t time to find out much more.

  Both Charles and Michelle arrived to pick up Sonia from Adam’s apartment. For a moment Adam thought he saw fear in Sonia’s eyes. He wondered if she were afraid of getting into trouble or of something else. Charles was the first to speak.

  ‘Sonia McCray, what in God’s name has gotten into you? Are you out of your mind?’

  Sonia rushed into her mother’s arms and then buried her face in her mother’s chest. Michelle gestured to Adam to take Charles into another room, which he did.

  ‘Adam, I’m so sorry you’re getting dragged into our daughter’s prime time adolescent dramas.’ Charles was furious.

  ‘Charlie,’ Adam whispered, ‘you know how much I love Sonia. But whatever’s going on at your place – and it’s none of my business – I think it upset her to a point where –’

  ‘What did she say?’

  ‘Not very much at all.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yeah. You should be very proud of her –’

  ‘Proud!’

  ‘Yeah, as upset as she was, she was still incredibly discreet. I tried to find out all that goes on behind the closed doors of the McCray household but she really wasn’t giving anything away. If you hadn’t shown up I was going to have to waterboard her.

  ‘Listen, I know she shouldn’t have run out like that. She does too. You don’t think she didn’t know it even as she was doing it? And I know you’ll need to satisfy yourself of that but while you’re doing that, remember there had to be something going on inside her to make her do something like this. It’s just a cry for attention. She gets upset and what does she do? Does she really run away? Does she do drugs? Does she drink? Does she steal? Is she hanging out with boys? She’s not even smoking cigarettes. She walks a couple of blocks to my place and drinks a Diet Coke. She knows the first thing I’m going to do is see if she’s okay, right after which I’m going to call you. This is not really what anybody would call running off the rails.’

  ‘You’re a good friend, you know that?’

  ‘To her or to you?’

  ‘To her; I was ready to kill her. You saved her from a good whoopin’ that would have made me feel a whole lot better. So you see, you’re no damn good to me.’

  ‘Charlie, you’ve never hit her in your life.’

  ‘No, I haven’t. Maybe that’s the problem.’

  ‘Maybe you ought to drink more. You want a beer?’

  ‘That’s not what you’ve been drinkin’.’
r />   ‘You want a Scotch?’

  ‘I’d love a double but I don’t think we’re goin’ to get the time.’

  ‘Sure …’ The two men looked at each other in the room Adam used to share with Diana. The bed was unmade. Adam hadn’t expected any company.

  ‘I caught up with your dad today.’

  ‘Oh, thanks, Adam. That’s great. I really do owe you. How do you think he’s doing?’

  ‘About the Supreme Court? Well, he seems more fired up than depressed or even resigned. I think he thinks the decision might’ve been different if he’d been arguing it. He said he wanted to talk to me about … me, my situation.’

  ‘Well, that’s good I guess, as long as you don’t mind. It means he’s able to think of something besides himself.’

  ‘I don’t think his feelings about the Supreme Court decision should be characterised as him thinking about himself.’

  ‘No, you’re right. It was unfair of me to put it that way.’ Charles let out a breath and put his hand on Adam’s shoulder. Looking out in the direction of Michelle and Sonia, he continued, ‘It’s been a long day.’

  ‘He said he wanted to talk to me about a friend of his. I … gather you talked to him about my tenure situation.’

  ‘Yeah, Adam, I hope you don’t mind but for all his passion, when it counts he’s discreet and he cares about you very much. I’m sorry if you think I’ve betrayed your confidence. I was worried about you and –’

  ‘Charlie, I don’t mind. Really. I thought he’d want to talk about me and Diana but –’

  ‘Didn’t he?’

  ‘Not so much. He kind of got sidetracked by this friend of his he was telling me about.’ ‘A friend?’