Black & White

by Lewis Shiner

  Robert supposed it had been the same way for many men. There came a time when you made a decision that from that point on you were not a kid anymore. He hadn’t been dancing since his trip to the Biltmore with Mercy, and it hurt sometimes to think he might never dance like that again. Other times he was able to look back on the madness of those days as if from a great distance, and take a quiet pleasure in it. He’d done things that no one else he knew had done and come through them intact. There was a good deal to be said for that. The vivid, sexual dreams that had haunted him were also just a memory. His life had become a paragon of the ordinary.

  And then, like a ghost from those times, Barrett Howard walked into the press conference.

  Like nearly everyone in the room, he wore a dark suit, white shirt, and narrow tie. He pushed past a commotion at the doorway and stood in front of the podium.

  “When you talk about white collar jobs,” he said, “you’re talking about white-skinned jobs, am I right?”

  Becker, who would be managing the plant, looked at Mitch Antree next to him. Mitch whispered something in his ear, and Becker nodded. “Sir,” Becker said, “we fully support the Equal Employment Opportunity provisions of title VII of the Civil Rights Act.” Becker looked like a retired cop, especially around the eyes. “IBM does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. Beyond that, we have an Open Door policy that’s well known in the industry. Employees can take their concerns all the way up to the Chairman.”

  “You reading that off a cue card?” Barrett asked. No one laughed, and none of the white photographers moved to take his picture. It was not his audience. Robert, embarrassed, stared at a patch of beige carpet between his feet.

  “What special efforts will you be making to recruit black workers?” Howard demanded.

  “We will consider any and all qualified applicants,” Becker said. “We need workers. We are ready to get this show on the road.”

  The audience cheered and applauded. Topping it, Howard said, “How is a black man going to get the qualifications to build a computer?”

  A chair scraped loudly at the back of the room. Robert braced himself and turned to look. Randy Fogg, all six foot four of him, had gotten to his feet. In a thick central Carolina accent, Fogg said, “This here is a press conference, Mr. Howard. What paper do you represent?”

  “I’m here as a citizen.”

  “I believe you’ve had answers to your questions, Citizen Howard. It sounds to me like your people are going to get every consideration.”

  Howard winced at the words “your people.” It seemed to Robert that Howard had only two choices: He could walk away with the remnants of his dignity, or he could go berserk and physically attack Randy Fogg. The temptation for the second option was strong, and Robert could see Howard fight it down. With one last look to the group on the dais, lingering longest on Mitch, Howard pushed his way out of the room.

  Fogg sat down and Governor Moore stood up and a few more banalities were passed around praising the other fine businesses who had been pioneers in the park, and how that had helped sway IBM’s decision, not to overlook the vision of the men like Luther Hodges who had created the park in the first place. The mood of self-congratulation and imminent wealth soon returned.

  Robert’s own recovery was slower. Howard, he reminded himself, and all the things that he and Howard had done, belonged to the past. All eyes were on the future now, and the past had no power to hurt him.

  *

  That afternoon Fred Mason officially unveiled the plans for the IBM plant to Mitch’s staff. The design was good enough, Robert thought, to have won on its own merits, and he hoped that in fact it had, with no interference from the Durham Select Committee or anyone else.

  It was an open secret that Mason no longer did his own renderings, instead farming them out to a local painter who also did covers for science fiction paperbacks. In this case the artist seemed to have served both masters at once. The building was white, clean, and restful, at home in the woods it inhabited, yet quietly dazzling. The people who moved through its covered walkways and lounged in the grassy margins looked like a golden race from a distant future, where computer technology had brought human perfection.

  It was only as an afterthought that Robert noticed that not one of them was black.

  Mitch had consulted on the engineering, and whatever his other failings, he knew his business. The walls would be precast, pre-stressed, with Styrofoam panels laid into the concrete to reduce weight and increase insulation. The double-T floor/ceiling members were strong, thin, and elegant.

  Maurice had made a start on some of the floor plans and elevations; Robert recognized his signature north arrow on the tracings. They were works of art, with a line quality Robert had never been able to achieve, and hand lettering that exuded style and confidence.

  “Some of you may be wondering,” Mitch said, “how we plan to handle this volume of work. So this is a good time to lay another announcement on you. We’re going to be expanding in to the rest of the building and hiring more staff. We’re on our way to being the biggest firm in the Triangle.”

  There was scattered applause. Robert didn’t mean to spoil the moment, but the question seemed to pop out of his mouth before he had time to think. “What about Hayti?”

  “What about it?” Mitch said. “We’ll have enough staff to deal with Hayti if and when the time comes.”

  “Pah,” Fred Mason said distinctly.

  The room went completely quiet. Robert listened to the fans creak overhead.

  “Hayti is over and done,” Mason said. “And good riddance.”

  He was huge, lion-headed, invincible. He stared at Robert as if daring him to argue. After a few long seconds, Robert looked at the floor.

  “Now,” Mason went on, “as Mitch said, we’re hiring. If you can recommend anyone, we’ll be paying bonuses for referrals. And until we get to full staff, there will be plenty of overtime, at time and a half, for anyone who wants it.”

  Robert caught Mitch’s eye. Mitch grinned and shrugged. It’s none of my business, Robert told himself. As the man said, I’m all right, Jack. That turn of phrase evoked Mercy’s voice unexpectedly, and there, in the midst of the celebration, Robert found himself counting his losses.

  *

  The official groundbreaking ceremony was September 23, five months later. Luther Hodges was there, and so was IBM chairman Thomas Watson, Jr., sharing a strange little three-handled shovel with an IBM VP. Newspaper stringers took the obligatory photos while Randy Fogg watched from the crowd.

  Within a month Robert was setting the bolts in the foundation that would hold the precast wall sections. It was good to be building something of substance, something monumental. Robert was chief of the erection crew, a title he found more than a little ironic, given the sexual famine that prevailed in the bungalow on Woodrow Street. He had Tommy and Leon Coleman as senior men, and up to a dozen day workers, white and black, as needed. He theoretically reported to the general contractor, a grizzled white man in his fifties who was missing three different fingers between his two hands, making him, to Robert’s mind, someone who didn’t learn from his mistakes. The new weight that the Mason and Antree name carried meant that the general was all smiles and accommodation, and Robert got everything he needed.

  On a crisp November morning they gathered to bolt the first wall sections into place. The crane was there when Robert arrived, and the operator turned out to be Porter, the snuff-dipping union man from Robert’s first demolition. Porter was surprised that Robert knew his name, and didn’t seem to recall their first encounter. Robert felt no need to refresh his memory.

  The job was exacting, and a cold north wind didn’t help. The crane had to lift the multi-ton wall section upright by two steel rings that protruded from the top, raise it into the air, then delicately lower it so the men could guide the holes in its base plates onto the threaded ends of the bolts in the foundation. The bolts—four per ba
se plate—were fitted with nuts and washers. Once the slab rested on the washers, the men made minor adjustments to the nuts below to bring the wall section plumb. At that point a second set of washers and bolts went onto the top of the plate. The final concrete floor would fill in around the bolts and create a structure that would be as strong and permanent as anything man had ever built.

  In the meantime, somebody had to climb a shaky ladder in the biting wind and hang a plumb bob from the top of the wall, 20 feet up. They all took their turns, all except Porter, who sat and dipped snuff and offered advice. “It ain’t my ass on the line,” he would begin, “but if it was me, I’d have me a cutting torch here and cut them base plates to where them bolts really are instead of where some genius thought they might be.” This after Leon had used a six-foot section of pipe to correct the angle on one of the bolts.

  It didn’t help that Porter seemed to have trouble with the third panel he tried to lift. He’d barely gotten the top end clear of the ground when the butt end began to shift. He yanked hard on it, then suddenly slacked off, and the panel thrashed at the end of the steel cable like an angry fish.

  Leon was standing next to Robert. “He keep jerking that panel like that, he going to pull the ring right out of it.”

  “He must know that,” Robert said. “Right?”

  Leon didn’t answer.

  Porter began hoisting again and got the panel nearly to vertical, then slacked off again. The entire crane shook as the weight of the slab hit the limits of the cable.

  “That fool going to kill somebody,” Leon said. “You better say something.”

  It was the last thing Robert wanted to do. He took a couple of steps toward the crane. “Porter?” he yelled. “Are you sure you—”

  Porter stuck his head out of the open window of the crane cabin. Tension had driven his voice an octave higher than usual and made his thick accent barely intelligible. “Don’t you be telling me how to do my job. You better stand clear of this piece of shit.”

  Robert took a step back as Porter shook the slab again, as if in spite. There was a sharp crack, like a rifle shot, and Robert heard Leon’s voice behind him yell, “Run!”

  Robert turned and ran. Behind him came a huge low sound like a crashing wave, magnified a hundred times. The earth shook, hard enough to throw him onto his knees, and for a few seconds he stayed there, bracing himself with one arm, getting his breath.

  When he looked back, the panel was flat on the ground, smashed into four jagged pieces, a haze of dust floating over it. The steel rings, dribbling rubble, still hung in the crane’s hooks.

  “Anybody hurt?” Robert asked.

  Leon shook his head. “Mr. Antree going to be none too happy about this.”

  Porter got down from the crane. “Goddamn cheap shit concrete. I bet that son of a bitch was cracked.”

  “I guess it’s sure enough cracked now,” Leon said.

  “What?” Porter said. “You say something to me?”

  “No, sir,” Leon said evenly. “Talking to the Captain, here.”

  Porter looked at Robert. “You looked pretty goddamn funny, though. You run like a duck.”

  Porter weighed half again what Robert did. His flattened nose and red spotted cheeks suggested that he got numb-fisted drunk and fought to the point of blood on weekends for relaxation. Robert took a long breath and said, “Let’s break for lunch.”

  Porter ate in the cabin of his crane. Leon built a fire out of scrap wood from the foundation forms, and he and Robert and Tommy and the two extra crewmen sat around it and ate and drank coffee from Leon’s giant thermos.

  “Going to be your turn on that ladder after lunch,” Leon said to Tommy. “You think you can deal with it?”

  Tommy shrugged.

  “What’s wrong?” Robert asked.

  “Tommy a little nervous about heights,” Leon said.

  “He doesn’t have to go. We can send up one of the crew.”

  “I don’t like being up there myself. Don’t none of us enjoy it. Tommy can take his turn like a man.”

  Porter was the only one who returned to work with no sign of the morning’s misfortunes hanging over him. He managed to put the next member in place without damage and came down to watch Tommy on the ladder. He sensed, with a bully’s instinct, Tommy’s discomfort.

  “What you shaking for, boy?” he shouted. “Must be cold at them high altitudes, ‘cause you fixing to shake yourself right off there!” Nobody else laughed, but Porter more than made up for it himself.

  Tommy lowered the plumb bob, like a child’s top cast from steel, on a long nylon cord. Robert caught it and steadied it, blocking the piercing wind with his body. The slab was leaning forward two degrees. Leon put a wrench on the inside left nut, then put his pipe section over the wrench handle for leverage. He and one of the crewmen turned the handle clockwise, and the slab bucked as the base plate dropped a fraction of an inch. Tommy lunged with the movement, grabbing hold of the top of the slab with both hands and dropping the plumb line.

  “Looks like you dropped something,” Porter said.

  “Porter,” Robert said, “why don’t you shut up?”

  “I’m just being friendly,” Porter said. “Hell, give me his ball and I’ll run it up there for him.” He walked over to the ladder and put both hands on the rails.

  Robert let the plumb bob fall in the dirt. He walked around the slab. “Stand away from the ladder, Porter,” he said.

  “Hell, I ain’t going to do the boy no harm,” he said. “Want to make sure this ladder’s set good.” He gave the ladder a playful shake and Robert saw, in his peripheral vision, Tommy clinging to the slab in terror, his eyes squeezed shut.

  The wrench Leon had been using lay at Robert’s feet. The handle was as long as Robert’s arm. There was a roaring sound in Robert’s ears and he could barely see to pick it up. He held it at shoulder level and moved to within striking distance of Porter. “Get away from the ladder, Porter. Now.”

  Porter’s eyes narrowed and his lips barely moved as he said, “Put that wrench down and let’s see who’s tough.”

  Leon got slowly to his feet. He still had the pipe in his hands. “I believe the Captain asked you to step away from the ladder.”

  Porter looked deep into Robert’s eyes and apparently didn’t like what he saw there. He took two steps back from the ladder.

  “Pick up your things and get off my job site,” Robert said. “You’re fired.”

  “You can’t fire me. Contractor hired me, not no Mason Jar and Anthill or whoever the hell you are.”

  “Fine. You go get the general and bring him here and have him tell me he’s overriding my authority.”

  Porter half turned, walking sideways toward the lot where their cars were parked. “I got the union behind me,” he said in a high, nasal voice. “You’re going to be kissing my ass tomorrow and begging me to come back to work.”

  Robert threw the wrench down and turned his back on Porter. The rage had boiled up in him so quickly he hadn’t seen it coming. His hands were shaking and he saw himself standing over Porter with the bloody wrench in his hands, smashing it into Porter’s grinning face over and over and over.

  “Tommy?” Robert said. “Get on down from there. We’re through for the day.”

  Leon said, “You shouldn’t have done that, Captain.”

  “I’ll see to it everybody gets a full day’s wages.”

  “You know that’s not what I’m talking about. Man like that, he’s apt to make trouble. Come out here at night and tear things up. The way he was acting, it wasn’t any kind of thing. We get worse than that every day of the year.”

  “Porter is a coward,” Robert said. “He’ll go home and beat his wife and that’ll be the end of it.”

  “What I’m saying, Captain, is you seem wound up mighty tight. You might want to think about that, is what I’m saying.”

  *

  Robert didn’t have to think about it. The problem, the biggest one, was
obvious enough. He and Ruth were living in a sort of armed truce. She spent nearly every weekend at her father’s farm and every weeknight acting as if nothing were wrong.

  Robert had gotten in the habit of going to the country club on Saturdays and drinking himself into a state of comfortable anesthesia. On more than a few nights he’d had company in the person of Cindy Berkshire, who lived down the street from him and whose husband Bill “traveled in lingerie,” as his joke went. He was out of town more weekends than not, and Cindy had made two things quite clear to Robert. The first was that she and Bill had an “understanding,” and the second was that she found Robert extremely attractive. “Your wife is a fool to leave a man like you untended to,” was her refrain.

  Cindy was in her mid-thirties, at least five years older than Robert. Her dark hair was cut short, but not severely so, and her skin was pale enough to seem blue from the veins that pulsed under it. Her large eyes protruded, and her wide mouth was usually turned down in annoyance, mock or otherwise. The overall effect was a certain wantonness that spoke to Robert’s less sophisticated side.

  Cindy was the demonstrative type, and her custom was to wrap Robert in a tight hug when she encountered him at the club. The Saturday after he fired Porter, as Robert’s arms went around her taut body and he felt her small, hard breasts pressing into him, it was like the construction site all over again. His control evaporated before he knew what was happening to him.

  “Okay,” he said into her ear. She was wearing Chanel No. 5 and it might as well have been Spanish Fly.

  “Okay what?”

  “Okay, let’s do it. I want you.”

  “Hallelujah,” she said. “Your place or mine?”

  “Yours,” he said. “As soon as we can get out of here without making a spectacle of ourselves.”

  She left a few minutes later. Though the place was empty, Robert lingered another half hour, talking to the bartender and chain smoking to hide his nervousness.