Surpisingly, Ines handed the pompadoured barker a clutch of tickets, more than one game’s worth. Sammy made a show of picking up each rifle, weighing it, sighting it, and replacing it before he settled on one. He tucked the butt under his armpit, pressed his cheek against the stock, pinched one eye nearly shut, closed the other, and missed ten shots in a row. He tried another rifle and went through the same routine, this time waggling his tongue, still hitting nothing, hearing nothing but the trigger and the soft thunk of pellets striking the sandbag behind the target. The barker said Sammy only needed to warm up. Ines handed over more tickets and rushed off to replenish her supply. Sammy tried again, and missed again. Ines returned and nudged Achilles.
“I thought you didn’t like guns,” said Achilles.
Ines whispered, “Yada, yada, yada, I know, Mr. They’re-fun-as-long-as-they’re-not-pointed-at-you. This is a game. You can teach him the proper technique, to be responsible. He needs the distraction. He’s upset about the storm.”
“No he’s not.”
Ines raised her eyebrows, the Groucho Marx impression that was her nice way of saying, Obey. Achilles taught Troy how to shoot, then got into trouble when Troy shot a rock and the pellet ricocheted into his face. Praying Sammy didn’t hurt himself, Achilles nested the rifle butt against his shoulder. “Hold your breath for two counts before firing.”
Sammy looked up at Achilles, losing his grip as he did so. Achilles readjusted Sammy’s posture. “Stay focused. Eyes on target, always, in all things in life.”
“Thanks. I’m going to win now.” Sammy’s smile was big and bright, and so was Ines’s, her face lit up like Christmas. Was this what it felt like to have a family?
Sammy missed again. “Is this loaded?”
“Of course, son,” snapped the barker.
“He’s not your son,” said Ines.
The barker started to say something, looked at Achilles, thought better of it, and said, “Sorry ma’am.”
Ines nudged Sammy, who, eyes down, said, “Apology accepted.”
“Well?” asked Ines. “Is it?”
“Yes ma’am,” said the barker.
“Answer him.” Ines glanced at Achilles as if to say, You can deal with him or me.
“It’s loaded.” The barker pursed his lips.
Sammy asked, “Are you sure?”
“Yes sir,” muttered the barker.
Sammy pushed his shoulders back, held his neck straight, and tried again. Spurred by Ines’s intercession, Achilles hefted one of the rifles, a lightweight BB gun with misaligned sights. He handed it to Sammy. Sammy turned the gun around and stared down the barrel, just as Troy had when he first handled a rifle. Achilles placed his hand over the end of the barrel and snatched the gun away. Sammy froze.
“Never, ever, ever, ever,” Achilles paused, “ever look down the barrel of a loaded gun. Never ever, ever, ever point a gun at yourself or anyone else, even as a joke.”
Sammy nodded timidly.
“What’s the first rule?”
“Never, ever, ever, ever,” Sammy paused, “ever look down the barrel of a loaded gun. Never ever, ever, ever point a gun at yourself or anyone else, even as a joke.”
“Smart ass,” said Achilles before he caught himself, and when he glanced at Ines she was trying to stifle her laughter too. Dropping to one knee, Achilles guided the butt to Sammy’s shoulder. He smelled like baby powder. “First, Kentucky windage, because this isn’t zeroed.” His voice dropped to a whisper. “Aim for a fixed point above the ducks.”
Sammy was a quick study. He hit the target three times. Ines handed the contrite barker more tickets. “Again!” Achilles remained on his knee at Sammy’s side, guiding his little hands and adjusting his posture, as his father had done for him, and as he had done for Troy. Soon Sammy had shot the six in a row needed to claim a prize. He chose a koala and, being too old for toys, awarded it to Ines to keep her other stuffed koala, Ricky, company. Sammy gave Achilles a hug, his short arms straining to wrap around Achilles’s waist. Ines gave him a kiss on the neck, her cheek wet. Whirling teacups, the spinning Ferris wheel, laughing parents, screaming children, dancing neon. A clown in one dunk tank, a blonde in another. Achilles breathed in the traces of Ines’s perfume, the smell of alcohol on the barker, the aroma of funnel cake, and the smell of Sammy’s jawbreaker and held it all in as they walked away.
After they had gone a few feet, Ines squatted so she was eye-level with Sammy. “You remember what I always tell you?”
“I’m a man. I’m no one’s son but my mother’s,” said Sammy.
“That’s right,” she said, looking up at Achilles. “Can you believe that? Son? Can you believe that?”
Achilles grunted.
“The barker’s nineteen? Twenty? Sammy’s nine. Every Southern white man thinks every black man is his son. But if you ask them, they’ll say that race doesn’t matter, son. They ignore the implications of that paternalistic attitude.”
If he said nothing, she would fade out. His mother used that trick with his father. Ines spoke loudly enough for passersby to hear, and they were within earshot of the barker, whose black pompadour and Doc Martins reminded Achilles of his goth friends in high school. He glanced over her shoulder to see if the barker was listening.
“Noooo.” Her eyes narrowed. She stuck her chin out, like a boxer luring her opponent in for a punch. “Did you just look at him?” Ines put her hands over Sammy’s ears. “Did you just check in? Are you worried massah might think you gettin’ uppity?”
Before Ines, he had never known how much some black people talked about race. He told her on several occasions that he’d fought side by side and trusted his life with whites; even using the word in that context sounded strange to him. “All white people aren’t bad. Sammy is a kid.” A white couple passed with a stroller, speeding up to put distance between them.
“All white people aren’t bad? Is that a proverb? You’re like a bad fortune cookie. I’m not talking about all white people. I’m talking about right here, right now. Being a young black man without a father, Sammy doesn’t need some half-drunk trailer-park trash calling him son. Your jokes are fine, but the world is not the suburb you grew up in. The same cop calling him ‘son’ will be the first to draw his gun when Sammy is eighteen and makes a wrong turn. He has to learn now, or be shocked later. He’s not the sarcastic type. He doesn’t have your sense of humor.”
At least he had a sense of humor now. Earlier she accused him of hiding behind deep irony and fake disaffection, whatever that meant. She had been snippy ever since leaving Nola. “I’m sorry. Forget I said anything.”
“Okay.” She sighed.
He sighed.
“So, we’re supposed to forget? We’re supposed to forget because they don’t mean anything by it, and all white people aren’t bad? Look around, that’s all I’m saying. On the job, in the stores, everywhere. We’re followed by clerks while some white kid is the one shoplifting; we’re pulled over by the police while some white kid whistles by with a trunk full of guns, planning to shoot up his school. Character assassinations against black athletes while corporate criminals bilk investors out of millions. And you say they’re not all bad, but racism is the bus that runs us over, every day, and while maybe only the racists are driving, every white is along for the ride: every one that makes more for the same job, that gets called in for an interview when Ashante doesn’t, every one that then moves to a better neighborhood, sends their kids to better schools, then to colleges, then their kids get called in for an interview when Ashante Jr. does not. They’re not all bad, but they’re a hell of a lot luckier. And you want Sammy to forget, to go back to that white boarding school thinking there’s something wrong with him because he isn’t treated like the other kids. Or complain and be told it’s in his head—Race doesn’t matter. We’re all the same and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.”
“He offered Sammy a free round.”
“That’s white nice. They double-charg
e you, then give you a discount. They take your land, then offer you a reservation. They enslave you, then emancipate you.”
What about his parents, and everything they had done for him after he was abandoned by his people? They weren’t riding a “racist” bus. Wages was scraping by, just like Achilles’s parents had. After the factory burned down, Achilles’s father took a job at the school as a football coach. His mother worked part-time as a bookkeeper at the mill, which employed blacks in both the factory and the yard. If only Ines could meet his mom, she’d understand there was no bus bursting with white people careening down the road, taking out black pedestrians. The image was upsetting, the suggestion ludicrous. Ines made it sound like white people had it easier just because they were white. Achilles knew better. He knew a lot of white people, and none of them had ever mentioned this privilege to him. Being white wasn’t keeping down the rising property taxes his mom paid because of all the rich people moving in from DC. And, things were getting better; he’d heard that Illinois elected the fifth black senator in U.S. history. Besides, people shouldn’t name kids Ashante, not if they wanted them to get jobs.
They walked toward the truck, Ines storm troopering ahead. Cars swooshed down Buford Highway, dashing between the ethnic restaurants that dotted this area of the city.
Sammy asked, “Are we leaving already?”
Achilles and Ines looked down at Sammy, then up at each other. “No.”
As they walked back toward the spinning lights, Marcus called. Achilles ignored it, turning his phone off for the rest of the time they were at the carnival. On the way out of the parking lot, they saw the barker taking a smoke break. Achilles waved some money at him. When he came over, Achilles slammed the door into him and punched him three times in the nose, stopping only because he heard it crack.
Getting back into the truck, he said, “He won’t be driving any more buses.”
Except for Sammy saying “Cool!” and Ines shushing him, they rode back to the hotel in silence.
Over the next couple of days, Ines was glued to the tube. “Flak jacket, babe,” he would say, hoping to get her away from the television. His comment was not well received. Ray Nagin, the mayor of New Orleans, had issued a mandatory evacuation. While Ines cursed at the TV, Sammy was unaffected by the news coverage, moping around and asking to go outside. Broken levees and stranded citizens meant nothing to him. At one point, he saw a floating car and yelled, “Cool!” That was the extent of his interest.
The three of them were piled on the bed, picking at the pizza they’d ordered for breakfast, when Marcus called again, prompting Achilles to claim he had to run a quick errand, and to see a few of the fellows before they left town.
“Take Sammy,” she said.
On the way to Grady, Achilles dropped Sammy off with Wexler. At the morgue, Achilles followed Marcus back into the cooler. The unclaimed child was still in the walk-in, next to another gurney. “Still no kin. He’ll be cremated soon.” Marcus pulled back the sheet on the other gurney. “I’ll leave you alone.”
Achilles stepped closer to the body. Multiple blunt force traumas, abrasions on the upper-right forehead, abrasions on the lower-right forehead above the eyebrow, multiple contusions on the right cheek and lower nose, back of head. Abrasions on his chest, lower coastal margin. Contusions on the left arm, elbow, forearm, wrist, upper inner arm. Contusions and abrasions on the right elbow, foot, toes; hemorrhage on the rib area and leg. The left temple was concave, skull flattened, as if he had been struck with a brick or another heavy, blunt object. Eyes swollen, lips cracked. Teeth knocked out. Finger pads filed down. Deep fissures ran up the cheeks.
A sheet attached to the gurney detailed the injuries. “Bone fractures, rib fractures, contusions on midabdomen, back, and buttocks extending to the left flank, abrasions, lateral cuts on buttocks. Contusions on back of legs and knees, abrasions on knees, left fingers, and encircling to left wrist. Lacerations, right forth and fifth fingers. Blunt force injuries, predominately recent contusions on torso and lower extremities.”
Achilles looked again. The mole on his right cheek was lost in the bruises. The shoulders were broad enough, reaching almost to the edges of the gurney. There were faint lines across his cheeks. He was thin, almost as thin as Wexler. Almost as thin as he had been after jump school. He was rawboned in the face and shoulders, the skin stretched tight over the large jaw and cheekbones and oddly protruded shoulder, the skin appearing borrowed and two sizes too small for his frame.
Through all the bruises, Achilles couldn’t make out the cut under his eye sustained when they wrestled Josh; the scar on his neck that their mother’s cat gave him one of the many times they teased it and forced it into the house, where it would get in trouble; the V-shaped scar from the minefield, his only war injury. Achilles lifted the hand—the birthday scar on the palm was there, as was the scar above his eye where the pellet caught him after he shot the rock. There was the cut on his bicep from the water tower ladder. Achilles touched his face, cold and firm. The skin didn’t spring back, remaining depressed as if still bearing the weight of Achilles’s touch. One tear landed on Troy’s chin. Not now! Achilles held his breath; that tear was all he would allow himself. His brother was a hero. He went into a minefield after Wexler. Troy wasn’t reckless. He was brave. He was here, and must be avenged before being mourned. As Merriweather would say, “We don’t get down, we get even.”
He took Troy’s hand, running his finger along the long scar on the palm, and he switched the tags, putting the child’s tag on Troy. He closed the door silently behind him, as if to avoid waking anybody. Marcus leaned against the wall staring at his shoes and twirling a cigarette.
“What happened to him?” asked Achilles.
“Abrasions consistent with the use of restraints. Manner of death is homicide.” Marcus flipped through his clipboard. “Found outside of Banneker Homes two days ago.”
“Banneker Homes?”
“Benjamin Banneker.”
“Benjamin Banneker?” asked Achilles.
“The Bricks. He was dead before the ambulance arrived. Broken neck, crushed vertebrae, probably from a fall. One set of bruises is postnecrotic. It’s like he fell from a building, twice. Seen a couple like this before, caught up with Pepper and them.”
“Poor kid.”
“Hmm?” said Marcus.
“That’s not my brother.”
“Are you sure?” Marcus grunted.
“I’d know my brother. That’s not him. But thanks for calling.” On the way to the elevator, he passed a group of old women shuffling down the hall, a young boy enfolded in one of their arms; a father and mother and two daughters huddled together as if seeking protection from the elements; another family in their Sunday best, another in capris, a group of men in sweats and bandanas, a kid with a red lollipop ring around his mouth: all the men stood with narrow eyes, their mouths tight, like dams.
Achilles hurried past them and to his car, his arms limp, numb from the wrist down as if the nerves had been cut. He beat them against the steering wheel until he could feel again. He took out the photo he carried in his wallet, the photo of him and Troy at the amusement park. His favorite photo he didn’t have with him. It was from Pennsylvania. They had crossed the County Line Highway, which they were forbidden to do, and snuck out to the old water tower. It was the first time Achilles had figured out the auto-timer on the camera, before which self-portraits were assholes and elbows.
That day, Achilles climbed to the top of the water tower. Troy cut his hand on the rusty ladder and chickened out halfway. Achilles had escorted him down and cleaned the wound with spit, to prevent lockjaw. On that day, like so many others, he was brave when it mattered least. Helping Troy down from the tower had been easy, but Achilles was elated to have saved the day. He’d wanted to mark it with a photograph. In the photo, both of their faces are blurry from fidgeting; only they know who they are. Achilles, ten, is still taller and stronger. Troy, eight, hasn’t had his first g
rowth spurt yet. They stand side by side in their secondhand Tuffskins. It’s a sunny day, and they squint against the light, so bright that it washed out the flash. The candy bars melted in their pockets. How sweet they were, the chocolate sticking to their hands. He licked his right off, but Troy rubbed some on his cheek and held his sticky palm next to Achilles. “Now we look like brothers.”
Troy, ever present. When Achilles, his baseball bat in the trunk of his defaced Ford LTD, high-wheeled it to Gary’s Cycle Shop to confront Janice’s burly brothers only to discover they weren’t working that day, Troy was there. When Achilles buried Buster, the rabbit he kept hidden behind the house in a makeshift kennel of cardboard and milk crates, Troy was there. When Achilles’s father lost his temper on that birthday, Troy was there, his quavering voice, scored with fear, pleading for their father to stop.
Wexler and Sammy were playing cards on the front porch. A sheet of gray clouds hung low in the sky. Achilles honked from the street. Wexler waved. Achilles honked again.
They waved him up to the porch and returned their attention to the game. Achilles trotted up, marched Sammy to the car and buckled him in, then stomped back to the porch.
The floorboards creaked as Wexler shifted his weight. “He’s a natural card shark. Better than the Duke,” he said, flashing his grin, as if to say, All is forgotten.
Shot through with love, Achilles closed the distance and wrapped Wexler in a bear hug. When Achilles at last felt his friend hug him back, he said, “Thank you.”
Stepping back, he opened his mouth to say good-bye, but settled for raising his hand. As he walked back to his car and pulled away, he didn’t look back, careful to avoid seeing Wexler make those stiff turns and limp back into the house. He didn’t turn even to look in the rearview mirror when Wexler called, “Connie, wait.”
As they drove off, Achilles said, “Remember what I said earlier, right Sammy?”
Sammy nodded. “Brothers keep secrets.”
Hold It 'Til It Hurts Page 28