Everyday People

by Stewart O'Nan

  “Damn, U man,” Fats said. “Ain’t peeped you in a while.” In his gray pinstripe and gators, he seemed smaller than Eugene remembered, not at all fat, barely even stocky. He gave Eugene the Trey handshake and took him in his arms.

  It was like a reflex. It made Eugene feel like he was lying, like he was being spied on. He could feel the steel under one of Fats’s arms.

  “Long’s it been,” Fats asked, “like two years and shit.”

  Nineteen months, eight days.

  “Too long,” Eugene agreed.

  “Serious,” Leon said. “I couln’t believe you got rolled up like that.”

  “Heard you was working,” Smooth said.

  “S’right,” Eugene said. “You know, s’one of the conditions.” It was strange; ten seconds with them and he was back on the corner talking shit like nothing happened, like he hadn’t been avoiding them. He noticed he was easing into his old homeboy slouch and straightened up.

  “How’s Chris doin’?” Fats asked. “You know we’re all sorry about that.”

  “That shit was hectic,” Leon said.

  “He’s all right, he’s just layin’ up.”

  An older couple came hobbling across the street, and Smooth went over to help them with the curb. Trash blew around the parked cars—sheets of newspaper, fast-food wrappers—and Eugene wanted to run and catch it, start cleaning up the whole city. Nene. He couldn’t believe it.

  “So what’s up with all this?” he asked.

  They looked to Fats.

  “Shit’s fucked up,” Fats said. “You know I got mad love for Nene, but he was just gettin’ outta hand.”

  “Straight cluckhead,” Leon said. “Boy was gone.”

  “All the way lost,” Fats said. “You know he was slangin’ the shit. Afterwhile I guess it just got good to him. You were gone, he started smokin’ up all his product. Got so he was stealin’ shit from his Granmoms.”

  “Dude was wired up nonstop,” Smooth said. “Crazy as a bag of angel dust.”

  “He was into his people for some green, so he started rippin’ people off, sellin’ nem wax, inside of Lemonheads, whatever. He got in a beef with this dude from B-Mo’s crew and went for the steel.”

  “Threw it right up in his face,” Smooth said.

  It was an old story, and Eugene didn’t need to hear the rest of it. In group, they did situations where someone pulled a gat. You were supposed to come up with a peaceful solution. The class went around and around, arguing over whether you had to use it once it was out. Darrin, their leader, wanted them to say no, but they all knew the answer was yes. Nene didn’t, so someone else did, cold smoked his ass.

  And they didn’t need to tell Eugene what Nene had turned into; he knew. Every day on his way to work he’d see him on the corner of Moreland, riding his bike in little circles, crew of shorties running for him. Stone jitterbug. Didn’t matter how cold it was. Sometimes he just stood there in the street, looking around and talking to himself, dancing, laughing at nothing like a crazy motherfucker. Pickup truck would slow down and he’d slide up to the window. “Any happ’nins here?” “Yo, what you need, man?” Nine in the morning or half past midnight. Raining, snowing. Big old nutroll of dollars in his pocket, wearing the same holey old sweatpants all week, that stupid ’fro half flat on one side cause he didn’t remember to look in the mirror, maybe hadn’t slept in a while. “Else you need, man? Got some crazy-ass Indo, ain’t no janky weed neither. Jim Jones too, only three of them left. What you want, I got it. Crazy ill sherm, that nice ice, some of that Karachi. Buddha, moonrock, whatever you need. You know it’s all good.” Eugene knew the smell of money on his palms, the way when you were fiending your brain kept reminding you it was time to smoke up before it really was time, the way that belly habit ate away at you, made you hold yourself like someone gutshot in the movies. It was the life he was trying to forget, to clean out of his own head, so he didn’t go over to see Nene, just kept walking, thinking about work and the hours piling up on his time card, maybe church later. He didn’t have time for that shit anymore, the same way he didn’t have time for Fats and his old homies, and fuck them if they didn’t understand. He couldn’t afford it. Like Darrin said, he was making a concentrated effort. He wasn’t that person anymore.

  The rented limousine with Nene’s Granmoms pulled up, and they all stood at attention, an honor guard. The driver opened the back door and helped her out. She had gloves on, and a veil over her thick glasses. She was a big woman all around, gap-toothed, down-home. Nene did an impression of her looking for her glasses after a shower that used to make Fats fall out laughing. “Godzilla titty one way,” Nene said, and knocked the TV over. They were drinking Eight-ball in the park, sitting on a picnic table and passing a blunt, Nene just buck whylin. “Godzilla titty the other way,” and—boosh —there went the lamp. Fats cackled and dropped off the table. “Turn around—oh Lord, run for the border, here come that nasty Godzilla butt.” He stuck his own out, and Fats slapped the grass like Mr. Fuji surrendering to Andre the Giant, tears squeezing down his chubby cheeks.

  Now he bowed, their ambassador. “Mrs. Jenkins.”

  The look she gave the four of them was half thanks and half warning; today, please, she wasn’t putting up with any trouble.

  Fats nodded; they’d make sure.

  Little Nene was with her, in a suit Eugene recognized as Nene’s, the cuffs at his wrists. He wasn’t a shortie anymore. Sixteen? Seventeen? And stone crazy, always had been. Eugene had forgotten how much he looked like his brother. What was his real name? Eugene didn’t even remember, and he’d known it like his own. That would be hard—he’d always be Little Nene.

  That’s what Fats called him, solemnly offering his hand.

  Little Nene threw the Trey sign, three fingers jabbed at his heart, and glared at Fats as if he’d killed his brother, as if he’d let him down.

  Fats flashed the sign back, and they shook hands, Fats patting his shoulder.

  “You see that little critter?” Leon said when the party had gone inside.

  “He better chill that shit right the fuck out,” Smooth said.

  “I don’t know,” Fats said, looking up at the white sky, and Eugene could see he was thinking. He came to a decision and measured them one by one, throwing the same hard face Little Nene had, letting each of them know. “We got to handle our business. Square business, know what I’m sayin’?”

  Eugene didn’t say he wasn’t down with that, that legally he couldn’t afford to be around any kind of drama. He didn’t remind them that none of them had come to see him, only his Moms and Pops. He couldn’t say, “But I’m doing so good.” In group Darrin made it sound easy, like all you had to do was make your case and the life would just stop and let you off. Put that negativity behind you. Give yourself an alternative. It was easy when you weren’t in it, when it wasn’t where you’d come from, who you were.

  It didn’t get easier when he went up to see Nene in his casket. It had been a shotgun, and he’d taken some pellets in the face. The holes were plugged with something and painted over with makeup, but the light was bright and you could see everything. The organ was going on and on, wandering through some tune. His Granmoms had bought him a new suit, with cuff links even. Little Nene had laid his black belt across his hands. Eugene remembered playing Bruce Lee with him, seeing how high they could leave a sneaker print on his bedroom wall. He had a poster signed by Willie Stargell and a model of Battlestar Galactica hanging from the ceiling on nylon fishing line. Long summer days they walked the train tracks, peeking in boxcars, pretending they were riding the rails, heading down south, home. That’s where he’d be now, Eugene thought, a better place. He bowed his head and said a prayer and went back to the pew.

  Fats and Leon and Smooth were bored, folding their programs, scratching the back of their necks, looking toward the door. Didn’t look like B-Mo was going to show. Eugene settled himself and looked back at the casket. It was a small chapel and there was hardly an
yone there. Above the minister, Jesus gazed down sorrowfully from his cross, and he thought of his mother dragging him to church as a boy, how when his attention wandered he’d flip through the prayer book, searching for the good parts. The Burial of the Dead was a favorite, and the Psalms. Lately he’d found them again, all the complaints to God by the lost, the trials and tribulations of faith. Maybe he was supposed to find them as a child so he could appreciate them now, try to live his life by them.

  He looked over at Fats leafing through his program, Smooth picking his nails. They hadn’t mentioned his getting religion, but he knew what they thought—that he’d gone crazy, that he’d been brainwashed. It was what Chris thought, and Pops. Only Moms thought it was a good thing, and even she wanted to know what happened, how he’d changed so completely.

  Had he?

  Yes, for the better.

  He remembered the last time he and Nene were together, a late night at his crib when he still had a crib, beamin’. They’d smoked up everything and didn’t have enough to get any more. They’d been chopping the rock on the coffee table. First they scraped the top with a razor blade, then they got down on their knees and leaned in over it to see if they’d missed a piece. They licked their fingers and then their palms, trying to swab up some dust. They got down on all fours, pushing the furniture out of the way, their fingers going over the carpet, reading it like a blind man, feeling for any little bump, any crumb, rooting around the room like hound dogs—total ghostbusting.

  He shook his head, smiling, trying not to laugh. But it wasn’t funny, it wasn’t funny at all. Not then and not now, and if no one understood the changes he was going through, that was fine with him. He knew.

  The organist switched tunes, James Cleveland’s “Peace Be Still,” one of his mother’s favorites. Little Nene and his Granmoms went up to see Nene, to say good-bye one last time. He gave her his arm, and she leaned into him for support, every step an effort. Like Fats, she seemed smaller to Eugene, as if she’d withered. She had to be in her seventies, her hair one of those superglue jobs, stiff as a wig under her bonnet. Still with that big old Godzilla butt. Used to take the back of a hairbrush to Nene’s behind, make the two of them fresh blackberry cobbler. She’d buried Nene’s grandfather before Eugene was born, and then her daughter, Nene’s Moms, when he and Nene were in first grade. Now she was burying Nene.

  He’d pictured his own Moms leaning over him, imagined her tears, her screaming. Oh Lord, don’t take him now. Throwing herself on the coffin so all those biddies from the choir would have something to chew on at coffee hour. It wouldn’t be like Miss Fisk standing pinch-faced over Bean for just a second, stunned, still in shock from the news. He was ready for Nene’s Granmoms to go off, to fill the empty chapel with her beseeching. It wouldn’t embarrass him the way it would Fats or Smooth or Leon. No, Eugene thought, she’d earned it.

  Nene’s Granmoms leaned down—to kiss him, maybe—then straightened up again. Eugene thought he heard her crying. Little Nene released her arm and bent down and held his brother, pressed his head against the new suit. He stayed there, his Granmoms’s hand on his shoulder. What would he be saying, Eugene wondered. What would Chris have said to him?

  Finally Little Nene let go and the two of them turned arm in arm and walked back to the pew. Little Nene wiped his eyes, his face shining, lip quivering. His Granmoms helped him in.

  “Aw, man,” Fats said, and looked down at his gators.

  “On the real,” Smooth said.

  In the receiving line, Fats hugged Little Nene like a brother, held him close for too long, whispering in his ear.

  “I told him we’d take care of the situation,” he said in the parking lot. Smooth had a pint of Imperial in his glove compartment and they were passing it around, remembering Nene. Eugene hadn’t had a drink since he’d been in, but out of respect, every time the bottle came around he took a sip, and now he wished he’d eaten breakfast. They were telling stories about the time Nene stole the box of instant lottery tickets from the state store. The five of them sat around his crib scratching off the cards, their thumbs turning silver like the Tinman’s, the losers piling up on the floor. It was still a gyp; they only won a few hundred dollars.

  “But you know that shit di’n’t stop Nene from buying them every week,” Leon said.

  “Then be crying ’bout how he’s losing all the time,” Smooth said. “Dude never had no sense.”

  “Ay,” Fats said. “Squash that shit ’fore I have to smack you.”

  Eugene appreciated him defending Nene; he knew how tight the two of them had been. Strange, he thought, woozy and looking around the circle, how he didn’t feel tight with any of the fellas now. He had their backs if any serious, forreal funk went down, that wasn’t it; he just felt cut loose, floating out there. It would be different, he thought, if Nene was here.

  Well no shit.

  He took the bottle from Leon and tipped it up. The whiskey went down easy but stung his tongue like pepper, left it hot and thick in his mouth.

  “I just remember how funny the motherfucker was,” Fats said. “That’s what I’m gonna miss about him.”

  “And that stupid hair on him,” Leon said.

  “Yeah, that hair,” Eugene agreed.

  They stood there in the lot, knowing they had to go. Smooth was due back at work, they only gave him a half day. Leon was plastering a bathroom. Eugene thought of his job—all the cars in the lot he’d have to wash and wax until someone bought them—and wondered what they thought of him. It didn’t matter, really, but the more he thought of it, the worse it seemed. It was just the whiskey, he shouldn’t have had any.

  Smooth gave him a ride home. He had a Regal, all paid off, with tinted windows and serious gangster walls. He worked at the airport, bucking luggage. The pay was good, and the benefits.

  “It’s loud,” he said. “That’s the only bad part.” He said he might be able to get him in if he was interested.

  “Sure,” Eugene said, and wondered if he’d been wrong not to see them. It wasn’t like he had another set of friends. Besides Pooh Bear and Guy Collins, he didn’t know the people at his prayer meetings. It wasn’t like inside, in group, where he knew what everyone’s story was, and some nights he didn’t speak, just begged off, sipping his coffee, eating the free doughnuts. Some nights he wasn’t sure he belonged there. But where else was there to go?

  “Smooth,” he said.

  “Yeah.”

  “What you think Fats is gonna do?”

  “He’ll find someone to take care of it. You know.”

  “Yeah,” Eugene said.

  They were on Spofford, and Smooth swerved to miss the big pothole. “You got some other plan?”

  He didn’t. He hadn’t forgotten Nene, the holes in his cheeks. Fats would make it stick. It’s like that, that’s all. Motherfuckers, do his partner like that, what did they expect?

  Smooth let him out in front of his building, asking again if he was interested in the job. Eugene thanked him, then watched him off. The street was empty, just some squirrels playing tag on the wires. He stood there and watched them chase each other down a telly pole, thinking absolutely nothing. Just Nene, the wasted day. He climbed the stairs slowly, took his time getting his keys out, then dropped them on the floor. “Fucked up,” he said, and picked them up.

  “Hey,” he called inside.

  “Hey,” Chris said from his room. “How was it?”

  “All right. You eat lunch yet?”

  “No.”

  “I’m ’onna make some soup. You want some?”

  “Okay.”

  First he ran himself a glass of water. Mushroom, tomato, chicken noodle. He opened the chicken noodle and turned on the stove, then stood there gulping the water and stirring. He had a twenty in his pocket. In fifteen minutes he could be in the park, tipping his own pint of Imperial, trading sips for a hit of cheese. He pictured Nene the last time he’d seen him, staggering across the street, his eyelids drooping like he was
about to fall asleep, twitching like a zombie and shit. Eugene had put the freeze on him, breezed right by like he’d never met him.

  “Fuck,” he said, and turned up the burner.

  Chris rolled in in his chair. Eugene still wasn’t used to seeing him like this; he kept thinking he’d stand up, fold the thing up and lean it against the wall. There was lint in his hair, and he had on the same jeans and sweatshirt as yesterday. “How was Nene’s Granmoms, she all right?”

  “Yeah, it was Little Nene who was all broke up.”

  “Straight,” Chris said.

  He poured the soup out and took the bowls over to the table, then wiped the counter with a paper towel. When he sat down, Chris had already started in. They ate for a while, saying nothing.

  “So what’s up with B-Mo and them?” Chris asked.

  “What do you think?”

  “When?”

  “I don’t know when. It’s not my beef.”

  “Oh, it’s not?”

  “What’d I just say?” He put a look on him, but Chris didn’t back down. “Oh, now you’re coming on all hard, is that it?”

  “It’s not your beef—right.”

  “Fuck you, think you know something.”

  “Oh, okay then.”

  “That’s right,” Eugene said.

  When Chris had left, he cleaned up, wondering why they fought. He wasn’t angry with Chris.

  He found him on his bed, drawing something with the TV on.

  “Hey,” he said. “Sorry I went off on you.”

  “That’s all right.”

  “Naw, I’m just fucked up about Nene.”

  “It’s okay,” Chris said. He flipped the big sheets of the sketchpad and showed him what he’d done this morning—a portrait of Nene. Nene was around twelve in the drawing, dressed in his Lynn Swann shirt. He was the way Eugene remembered him: that goofy smile and that Gumby-looking hair. He recognized the pose; it was from a picture his father had taken. Chris had it out, and handed it to him. In the picture it was the two of them, their arms over each other’s shoulders. Eugene was Joe Gilliam, Number 17. Each of them had a hand on the ball, Nene’s under, Eugene’s over, teammates.