Everyday People

by Stewart O'Nan

  ER was just going into its opening credits when they came in, her first, Eugene right behind her like a bodyguard. He sat up straighter, ready for whatever test she had for him.

  “How was practice?” he asked.

  “Good,” she said, handing her overcoat to Eugene, who looked at him with no emotion, like he was waiting for him to make a mistake. “Sister Payne says hello.”

  “You gave her my best, I hope.”

  “Of course.” Behind him now, she peered into the kitchen. He waited for her to appreciate it—indicated by her silence, the time it took to look over the shining counters. She came back in and leaned a hand on the back of the couch. “I’m tired so I’m going to bed.”

  ER was back on, and he actually did want to watch it, but he clicked it off. Everything was a measure of his guilt, his willingness to pay, take his punishment. In his heart he knew it was the right thing to do, despite what he sometimes felt. Hadn’t his father taught him that?

  He went in to say good night to Chris (no dope smell), and motioned for him to put his headphones on. Eugene was in the kitchen, pouring himself some milk.

  “’night,” Harold said, and Eugene said it back, polite. It was hard being around him now, but as he closed the door of their room Harold wasn’t relieved that it was just between him and Jackie, that the rest of the world didn’t exist.

  “You can stay up,” Jackie said from the bathroom.

  “That’s all right.”

  “Isn’t ER on?”

  “It’s a repeat.” Hell, maybe it was; he couldn’t tell. Every show they ran around with the crashcarts, someone died, people fell out of love.

  She came out in her nightgown, her arms heavy, eyes tired. He went in to brush his teeth, still dressed. It was too bright in the mirror, and he looked old. Yet Dre had called him, not the other way around. After the barren weeks, the madness of not seeing him, he could have left any message. His name looked funny in the department secretary’s girlish script. Just a box was checked: Wants you to call. It was wrong, it was harmful. He had to try three times before he got through, and then, with one word, everything returned and he could breathe, no longer hopeless and alone.

  The lights were off when he slid in beside her, the sheets chilly. She seemed to be on his side, her legs rubbery against his butt.

  “How was rehab?” she asked when he’d gotten settled.

  “It’s tough. You know.”

  “But he’s trying hard.”

  “Yeah,” he said, positive, but thought that that might not be enough. Chris knew it too, Willa Mae’s toughlove didn’t fool him for one minute.

  She reached a hand over, and he almost flinched. He was tense whenever she touched him but wasn’t allowed to show it, and her fingers on his skin were torture, the scent of her strong and rotten under the covers. She expected him to reach for her, so he did, feeling the slackness, the fat, not Dre’s hard body. She was kissing him, and he pushed Dre from his mind, thought of nothing (his father driving, looking in the mirror to see how he was doing in the backseat). Her hands worked him up clumsily; after so many years, he thought, she should know how to touch him. His hands strayed across her back, trying to find neutral ground. How selfish he was, what a terrible man.

  Her hand left him and the light clicked on.

  “Open your eyes,” she said. “Look at me.”

  She wanted him above her, she said, where she could see him, and Harold could not say no. There was too much at stake—Chris, and Eugene, the life he needed to provide his family. The bruise accused him, livid. He had no defense in its presence, least of all his feelings. She took him into her, pulled his face down to her mouth. “Tell me you love me,” she said, and he did, thinking Dre would forgive him. “I don’t believe you. Show me.” She wanted him to be with her completely, to stop thinking of the other woman, and trying to put some heat in his kisses, to fool his own body (not his heart, no, it knew the truth), he wondered how much of his life he had to sacrifice. All, he thought. She wanted it all.

  KILLING ME SOFTLY

  HE KNEW WHAT they’d do to him, and how it felt. The boiled food, the cold floors, the stiff jeans and blue uniform shirts starched so hard they scratched the back of your neck open. Fights in the dormitories with hidden pencils, the sharpened butts of toothbrushes, a soap-in-a-sock bolo. Eugene had been in Schuman three times, so he knew what it was like coming back after you thought you were done with it. They all thought you were stupid, a loser. Either that or hard-core, and with one look Eugene could see Little Nene didn’t have that. He wasn’t straight insane like his brother—he just wasn’t thinking at all, Darrin would say.

  His Granmoms called Eugene first thing, and he said he’d go down and help out at the scheduling, though he was sure there was nothing he could do. The hearing was immediately, that night. He shaved and put on his good suit, and Smooth came and picked him up in the Regal.

  “z’at a Bible?” Smooth asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “What are you gonna do?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “Represent, I guess.”

  “You’re not gonna preach now.”

  It was supposed to be a joke, and though both of them laughed, Eugene couldn’t explain why he’d brought it along.

  Even at the Public Safety Building he wasn’t sure what he was doing. He was surprised when the defender pointed to him and the judge asked him to stand up. With her glasses on a chain and her hair pulled back, she reminded him of Mrs. Roby, his old social studies teacher at Reizenstein.

  “Mr. Tolbert, what is your role here?”

  “I’m here to represent Leonard’s family. His grandmother couldn’t be here. His older brother was killed a few weeks ago in a murder.”

  “Gang-related, is that correct?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Is there a male guardian in the household?”

  “No.”

  “Are you proposing to assume guardianship?”

  “No, ma’am. I run a youth program for teens at risk that Leonard’s hoping to enter. I’ve been in the system myself and I want to help him stay out of it.”

  “I see,” she said, and looked at a piece of paper on her desk as if it said something about him. “Thank you.”

  He sat down, feeling their conversation wasn’t over, that she’d call on him again.

  She didn’t. She set the date for the hearing and released Little Nene on bond (Smooth helped him with this, the old place by the bus station), and an hour later the three of them were in the Regal, going home.

  “Guess they din’t have room for you,” Smooth joked.

  In back, Little Nene didn’t laugh.

  “Ay,” Smooth said.

  “My name is LJ.”

  “z’at right?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Listen to that shit.”

  Eugene and Smooth couldn’t get used to it, so they didn’t call him anything, just laughed at his good luck, warned him there wouldn’t be a next time.

  “I ain’t kidding,” Smooth said. “Cause they’ll bump you up to that next level, they don’t care you’re a juvenile. Three strikes and that’s it.”

  “Seriously,” Eugene said, “what do you think you’re doing? An ice-cream truck.”

  “Tony’s truck,” Smooth said, shaking his head at the stupidity of it. “And why you have to go and tag it? Damn!”

  Eugene looked back at him to show him no one understood what he’d done. It was dark until they went under a streetlight, and then a sliding stripe showed him Little Nene looking out the window, giving him the side of his head.

  “You got an answer for that?” Eugene asked.

  “I don’t know,” Little Nene said. He’d been listening, quiet the whole time. “I don’t know why I even took it. I was just walking down the street.”

  “That’s how it happens,” Smooth said. “You’re just walking down the street one second and next thing they’re locking the door on your ass. Shit
happens to me all the time.” He was being harsh partly because he’d been shot at last week in the Regal, a round taking out the back window as he was riding by the park, probably from another car, B-Mo’s people. He’d spent Saturday getting it replaced, and didn’t mention it again, but on their way to work in the mornings, Eugene noticed he didn’t like to sit at the lights on Penn, the line separating Homewood from the white neighborhoods. At work he was fine, but when he let Eugene off, the two of them didn’t sit there and talk like they used to.

  They didn’t tonight either. Smooth pulled up in front of Eugene’s building, and he and Little Nene got out. They thanked him for the ride, he waved and he was gone.

  “Tomorrow night you’re mine,” Eugene said, and Little Nene nodded like he’d been caught. “You be there early to set up.”

  “Okay,” he said, shoulders hunched, like Eugene might slap him.

  “All right,” Eugene said, releasing him.

  The boy didn’t even say thanks, just walked off, leaving Eugene looking at the way he shoved his hands in his pockets, his Pirates cap tipped to one side, Trey-style. He pimped like a jitterbug, bopping his head (that’s right, I’m bad, come on if you got it), ready for anything. It made Eugene chuckle and cover his smile with a hand. Really, the shit was sad, little dude reminded him so much of himself, thinking he could kick the world’s ass, that it hadn’t played a million of him already. That it was just waiting for him to step up and try that tired shit again.

  He’d covered that bet, he thought when he’d gotten inside. Lost it and paid it off. Wasn’t much to spare, but here he was, still young, and smarter, stronger—walking, talking proof.

  Moms was out shopping, Pops wherever it was he went (it was a woman, on the under, and Eugene thought he should just leave; with his new job he could cover the rent himself). Chris was in his room, working on his mural. Eugene was hoping the group could get funding and put it up along the busway, get the state to buy the supplies; it seemed he had all these ideas now, just no way of getting them done.

  They said hey, and Eugene went into his room, set his Bible on the dresser. In the mirror he caught a glimpse of himself in the suit, and he could see how he might look impressive to the judge. He held the Bible up in front of him like a prize, as if the papers were taking his picture. He looked, maybe for the first time in his life, how he felt he should look. Serious. Capable. He thought of what Smooth said—if he was going to preach. If it would help someone, then yes. He’d thought about it in prison, falling just short of pledging his life to the ministry. Then, he began each day dedicating every breath to Jesus, but now it seemed he hadn’t committed himself fully, that out of doubt or selfishness he’d held some small part of his heart back, and it puzzled him.

  Run either hot or cold, he recalled, for if you are lukewarm I will spit you out of my mouth.

  He closed the door, made sure it was locked and got down on his knees in his suit, bent over nearly double, the Bible squeezed in both fists, his forehead resting on its pebbled jacket.

  The week before he was arrested, he’d killed a man. A boy really, no older than Little Nene. They were just riding around, Fats and them, when they decided to cruise Westinghouse Park over in Homewood. It was a dare, just stupid stuff. They’d been smoking and goofing on some car sounds and they were amped. Smooth had this little .22 pistol, and all night U was waving it around for a joke, little peashooter thing, saying they were going to take out those dudes from Larimer with it, they were so weak. “Now we up, see?” he was saying. “SRT up. They straight simps. They simpin’.”

  “Truth, dog!”

  “This is your Minister of Information speaking,” Fats said.

  It was no one’s idea, or all of theirs, or maybe the car was drawn to the park the way rain ends up in the river. The courts were still busy even though most of the lights were broken; the players’ shadows reached through the fence, flew in transition, then bunched under the boards. Fats eased the car along, the windows humming down with the touch of a button, and the person Eugene had been leveled the little pistol at a crowd in one corner bent over a flame. He steadied his wrist on the door, waited until they cleared the whalelike shadow of a parked Continental, then let loose.

  The gun sparked in front of his eyes, blinding him like a flashbulb, throwing a blue halo over everything. It took a second shot into the crowd before they started running (he heard girls screaming, what he thought were return shots), but by then he wasn’t looking, just pulling the trigger, emptying the clip at them, laughing, and Fats hit the gas and they were swerving out of there.

  The next day it was in the paper. A sixteen-year-old named Dawayne Perry. Eugene didn’t even read the article, just looked at the picture, flipped to the box scores to see if the Pirates won. Freak shot, it must have been (he would read in the prison library that it hit him in the eye, drove straight into his brain). It was the boy’s fault for being there; he knew the risk like everyone else. Casualty of war. But months later, in group, when Darrin asked them to remember the time they were most ashamed of themselves, the one thing they’d done that couldn’t be forgiven, that night returned to him and he had no way to shrug it off. He went back to his cell with the boy’s face in his mind, the smiling school picture they’d used to make him look even younger, more innocent. The case was never solved, nothing linked to him, yet nightly Eugene tried himself for the murder of Dawayne Perry, found himself guilty, and, kneeling on the cold stone floor of his cell, a cheap, donated Bible in his hands, pleaded for mercy before the only court he trusted to deliver justice.

  Now he opened his eyes, lifted his head and stood, not at all absolved—if anything, more deeply beholden. He set the Bible on his dresser again and carefully hung up the suit. He cut the lights and lay in bed, wondering if he saw Little Nene as payment for Dawayne. It wasn’t that simple. He still had to pay for himself, and that would take his entire life. Longer, he thought.

  The phone rang in the living room. Chris couldn’t get it, so he got up and wrapped a towel around himself, unlocked the door.

  Chris hadn’t moved at all, still working on his mural, as if it couldn’t be for him.

  It was Nene’s Granmoms, thanking him for getting Leonard out of jail. She was crying like it was a miracle.

  “He still has a hearing next week,” Eugene reminded her. “Did you read his papers?”

  “He’s home,” she said. “That’s all that matters. Now that you’re helping him, I know he’ll be all right. He’ll listen to you.”

  In bed again, he thought she really meant something different—that Little Nene didn’t listen to her. Eugene was flattered she had confidence in him, but wasn’t so sure. Drifting, he imagined what it would take to save the boy. He could see the two of them at some banquet, having come through it, receiving an award. Contributing, like Darrin said, giving back. They smiled for the flash like father and son, like brothers. But exactly how they’d gotten there was a mystery, and in the morning he woke up with the feeling that he hadn’t thought hard enough, had come up with no real answers, only dreams, and that nothing was settled.

  At work he had time to think. When he wasn’t crawling in the dirty bellies of planes or chucking luggage onto a conveyor belt, he sat on a baggage tractor in his headphones and fluorescent vest and plastic knee pads, his gloves in his lap, skimming a discarded newspaper and sipping his coffee, trying to come up with what to say. He remembered Darrin in group. The group did all the talking, Darrin just stepped in when they needed to be set straight. Potential, Darrin always talked about. Using your natural intelligence. What else? Every meeting it seemed he said something for Eugene to think on, something he’d take back to his cell and turn over like a puzzle. Simple things like: What do you want? How are you going to achieve that goal? What are you going to do if that doesn’t succeed?

  A flight was coming in, and he folded the paper away and tugged his gloves on, picked up the orange-tipped batons and walked out to guide it in. On the ground wer
e stenciled markings for the different planes—737, DC-9, A300. He liked the job, except for the wind and the noise and the blue uniform that looked like a janitor’s. The rain was a bitch, but otherwise Smooth was right, it was easy money. You could earn free tickets by working overtime, and every day he pictured himself inside one of these planes, in the cushioned hum, going somewhere like Atlanta or D.C., a Chocolate City with strong churches, a history of struggle and belief that would rub off on him, keep him strong. He’d never been anywhere except Indiana, visiting their grandmother, and she’d been gone almost ten years. Since then he’d been stuck in Pittsburgh, and now it seemed he’d been trapped in the city as much as in that misguided life he was living. Leaving might lift that past off him, give him the perspective he needed, like Malcolm jetting to Mecca. But to go, he’d have to ask his parole officer, and he didn’t see that happening. Patience, Darrin said. Things don’t change in a day. Now, waving the plane in, he saw the pasty faces of the passengers and envied them. Their leisure and freedom, how they took it for granted while he had to fight for the littlest thing. They looked down at him, unseeing. He shoved the sticks in his back pocket, chocked the front wheels and got busy, trying to put that spite out of his mind.

  At lunch in the cafeteria, he could have anything he wanted as long as he paid for it. The first week he’d been astonished by the prices, but now he found the walk along the steaming chafing dishes secretly funny, so close to how it was inside, except he was out now. Sitting down to his soup and sandwich, he was truly grateful, and again, in that moment of saying grace, he felt saved.