I sat up in my seat, unfazed. I explained that the very notion of an immutable identity was a foreign concept to me. Everything was negotiable, and infinitely so. To be sure, I might have felt differently if the identity presently being forced on me conferred even a hint of admiration from my peers. But in point of fact, it was the subject of considerable derision. So I’d cast it off, and after having done so, I’d joined in on the fun. It came so easily to me precisely because I’d pulled that page right out of Mom’s old playbook. It was a time that she hardly cared to recall but that I remembered vividly. Ironically, she’d once recast herself as the person she needed to be to help me at a vulnerable moment in our lives, and now here I was doing pretty much the exact same thing. Now, come to find out, she’d had a crisis of conscience, albeit too late to do me any good. To her I was a lost cause, but I preferred to see myself as a self-styled creature of my own invention who had come to the determination that my relation to Mister Tobias Wetherall Muncie, or anyone else on the maternal side of my family, for that matter, wasn’t anything that I could gain material advantage from in this lifetime or quite likely any other. And as such I was dispensing with it, forthwith and for all time, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. Case closed.
I offered Mom a tissue. The point is, everything she was trying to impose on me felt like a pair of shackles buckled tightly around my ankles. I, on the other hand, desired a self-image with broad wings and long, glorious plumage. I wanted to tell her not to give in—to resist. I was still working out the details, of course, but in the meantime, she shouldn’t let herself be constrained by an anachronistic classification system that was a holdover from the days of phrenology and which took a monochromatic view of our humanity. No, I was a citizen of the world, free to make myself into whatever I chose, and it was my considered opinion that a few conveniently overlooked branches of my family tree didn’t warrant any unnecessary sentimentality. There were so, so many inconveniences in life. One had merely to learn which to prune and which were worth troubling over.
All I’d ever wanted to do was to fit in somewhere. And I finally felt I was making inroads at Claremont. Aside from a few difficulties with binomial expressions early on, there was nothing those other kids had over me, and I knew it. It had taken me a year to see through the self-confidence of my peers, but once I did, it had been like getting a peek behind the velvet curtain to see the Wizard for the small, feeble, and vulnerable man that he was.
It was strange to me that for the last two and a half years, all Mom could talk about was how she had hoped that I would find friends at Claremont in a way that I never had in Akersburg—how much it had saddened her that it wasn’t working out that way—and here I was finally making headway, and all her power to the people, burn baby burn bullshit was making it damned near impossible for me to do just that. My poise was becoming labored.
I shoved the paper forward, suddenly irritated.
Either sign the frickin’ thing or I walk!
The phone rang. Mom got up and answered it. Zuk’s dad was calling from a gas station. He’d gotten off at the wrong exit on the crosstown expressway and landed way up by the natural history museum. He was just a few minutes away.
My chair dropped out from under me. Mom disappeared into the bathroom. I took down the brown baby Jesus hanging over the wall clock in our kitchen, just to be safe. That thing bugged the shit out of me—the way it looked down at me at all hours of the day with those judgmental brown eyes. I shoved it all the way to the very back of the utility drawer, imagining an indelicate slipup from Zuk, him saying, Jesus was no nigger. Isaac, maybe, but not Jesus. Personally, I didn’t care if Jesus was brown or not. I had no skin in the game. He could have been a pimp for all I cared.
I ferreted out an open bottle of Chianti from the cabinet and hid it under the sink. If she took even a sip, I’d be doomed. On second thought, I poured it all out and buried the bottle in the trash. Couldn’t be too safe. Then I collected our entire collection of mousetraps and roach motels from corners and behind the trash can and from inside cabinets and stashed all twenty-three of them under the sink.
Mom had a collection of books a mile high. She particularly liked memoirs and biographies. I took a stack from the kitchen and another from the sofa end table and a third from the bathroom floor beside the john and tossed them all onto my bed, then closed the door behind me and did a quick once-over to make sure I hadn’t missed anything. I took a deep breath. In through the nose, out through the mouth. Just like Mom had taught me. Oh shit. I snatched the last two issues of the Final Call from atop the fridge and tossed them onto my bed. I debated momentarily whether Zuk would have occasion to enter our bedroom. I decided that he had better not and closed the door.
I took up position on the windowsill between the radiator and the TV. It was dark out. I had a bird’s-eye view of the basketball courts below. They were lit by the floodlights girding the courtyard. Kids were out playing a pickup game. Mom hollered out from the bathroom for me to be on the lookout for a green Chevelle.
On second thought, it’d probably be better if I just went downstairs and waited for Zuk there. I hollered out to Mom that I was heading down. I stood inside the heavy steel double doors in our brightly lit lobby, looking out. When the car drove up, I pulled my forehead from the wired glass of the sidelight and went out. Zuk opened his door. He had his back to me and was saying something to his dad in Polish. I greeted him with a pat on the back and leaned into the open door and shook his dad’s hand. He was wearing blue coveralls streaked with grease, and his hands were not so much large as rigid, like a claw. I told Mister Zukowski that my mother sent her regards and assured him that it wasn’t worth his trouble to come up. He’d have to find parking and everything, but I was happy to escort Zuk up alone.
Mister Zukowski looked hesitant. He glanced over my shoulder at the crowd of colored kids gathered around the basketball court behind me. He seemed to be inspecting the older kids who were hanging out along the chain-link fence, sipping beer and passing a joint around.
All zis talk about gateway drugs. I’m starting to sink that’s what basketball is. First they’re in the courts. Then they’re hanging out along the fence by the courts. Then they’re out in the streets next to the courts. And from there they get picked up by the fuzz, never to be seeing from again.
Actually, it was pretty calm for a weekend night. But I didn’t say anything. Still, I found myself wishing that there was some way for me to cover it all up. A car squeezed past Mister Zukowski and honked. Mister Zukowski put his car into gear. I assured him that everything was going to be okay. He said pa one last time to Zuk and pulled back into traffic. He stood at the stop sign at the end of the street. The FDR and the East River were dead ahead. Zuk and I watched him wait for an opening, then entered my building. On the way up, I told Zuk that it was good to see him. He said that it was good to see me, too.
It was weird seeing him in my home. Something about it made him seem like a different person, like somehow I was getting to know him all over again. Zuk had both hands in his pockets and was quietly looking over the cork board hanging beside the elevator. The arrangement of the index cards thumbtacked to it was haphazard, a hodgepodge of things for sale, babysitters needed, and the telephone numbers of building managers, custodians, super, and staff, emergency medical services, and social services. Toward the bottom were pest-extermination dates, water-outage warnings, and large-item collection days.
The elevator chimed and the door slid open. Jimmy was sitting inside in his wheelchair. I had forgotten to warn Zuk. Jimmy was a Vietnam vet who hung out in the elevator all day playing doorman. Mom told me that Jimmy was convinced that he was getting paid for it but that he really wasn’t. Anyway, Jimmy pretty much said anything he damned well pleased, which was a nightmare for someone like me. Otherwise, there was nothing out of the ordinary about him. He was just another angry paraplegic who had an opinion about everything under the sun and who’d come to figure it all out twen
ty years too late for it to be of any use to himself. And even if I didn’t like him because his wheelchair took up half the available space in the only working elevator in the building, and because bitter arguments often erupted when more than four of us tried to squeeze in—God forbid any of us had laundry or groceries—it was too damned bad. Jimmy was just a fact of life. He came with the building.
Zuk was waiting for Jimmy to get out, and Jimmy was looking at Zuk like he was a dumb shit. Jimmy asked what the hell he was waiting for. I took Zuk by the elbow and told him that it was okay, he could get on. I led Zuk into the shiny steel box and pressed 23. Zuk looked confused, probably trying to figure out why Jimmy hadn’t gotten off on the ground floor. The elevator door closed, and we lurched before starting upward on our slow, lumbering ascent.
Jimmy was wearing a black leather vest with little parachute pins all over it. He had on dark sunglasses and driving gloves. His wheelchair was old and beaten up, and the three of us were jammed in so close he was breathing his warm lunch breath on me. His dark sunglasses were angled my way, and I could feel his eyes raking over me behind them. I closed my eyes and waited. I knew what was coming.
Who’s this?
A friend.
I’d answered him with my eyes closed. Somehow I could feel him mulling it over, swishing it around in his mouth, like wine. I’d handed him a bottle of Pinot and he was considering what best to pair it with.
From school?
Uh-huh.
Jimmy was going to have something to say. Jimmy had something to say about everything. I opened my eyes and kept them open. There was no point fighting it.
You one dem fancy niggas that go to some real bullshit school, aintcha? What they teach you about the war? Go on, lay it on me, brutha. All that bullshit learning your school teaches you about the war. I guarantee you it’s bullshit. Every last word, bullshit. So you tellin’ me you spend aaaall that money to learnnn bullshit? You fancy niggas sure are some dumb muthafuckahs.
Jimmy turned to Zuk. His face crinkled up, and all he said was, You got to be fucking kidding me.
We should have taken the stairs. The doors opened and the elevator seemed to spit Zuk out. I stepped out and turned around.
At least I got all my limbs.
Fuck you! You punk-ass muthafuc—
The elevator door closed. The hall was long and dimly lit. We started down it.
Zuk turned to me. Well, he seems nice enough.
I laughed. He’s a four-star loudmouth.
At the end of the long hall, a thick Plexiglas window made looking outside feel like I was looking through one of those brightly lit but hazy fish tanks they keep in the back of Chinese restaurants. That’s where our apartment was. I stopped at our door and knocked our secret knock. Mom opened the door. She was wearing her hair natural. Which surprised me, because she only ever wore it that way on her weekly pilgrimage to the bookstores and hair salons uptown. Not that it looked bad or anything. Mom looks terrific no matter how she wears her hair.
I hesitated in the doorway, then entered. Mom’s hair was less shocking to Zuk on account of him only having seen her once before. Be that as it may, Mom was a hit. She entertained in bell-bottoms, platforms, turtleneck, big hair, and hoop earrings. She looked like Angela Davis, only without that space between her two front teeth. She played the role of cultured, charming, and gregarious host to perfection. She lit candles and incense. She even served up fondue. Zuk loved it. As we sat there dipping bread in melted cheese that we really didn’t have the money for, he said he’d never felt more at home away from home, which made Mom glow. She flashed me a smile and winked. Everything went swimmingly, right up until after dinner, when Zukowski handed over his dirty plate.
That was delicious, Missus Fairchild. You are so talented. And you clean houses, too, if I understand correctly. Wow. How fascinating. Cooking and cleaning, and then raising those twins on top of that. You really are something else, Missus Fairchild. Must be simply fascinating work—the view you get into other people’s lives. Really. I mean, if you think about it, you probably get more insights than professionally trained clinicians. People probably don’t self-censor half as much with you as they do with their shrinks. You should really figure out some way to turn that into a money-making enterprise—maybe take more of a consulting angle. You could offer home-based therapy as an add-on. You know, at an extra charge.
Mom turned around from the sink. Oh, it’s nothing, really. I give the twins tips here and there, of course. And Missus Blumenthal advice about her husband—when she asks me. I just do it to be nice. And because I like them. I wouldn’t think of charging for that.
And your accent—it’s so homey. It has a real ‘we, the people’ feel to it, if you know what I mean. I really like it. And to think that Huey used to talk like that. You’d never know it now, would you? If you don’t mind my asking, where are you guys from again? I think you told me before, but I forget. I’m just curious because Huey here’s always getting ribbed for being from the South. He won’t talk about it, but I’m dying to know all about it. You wanna know what the kids at school call him? I’ll tell you—oh, c’mon, Huey. Lighten up. It’s not a big deal. Because it’s funny, that’s why. Get this, Missus F. They call him Mister Nobody from Nowhere. Can you believe it? On account of the fact that he never talks about himself. He’s like a black box. You are so, Huey. You gotta admit, it’s sort of true. Zuk turned to Mom. Won’t speak of himself in anything but generalities, Missus F. We gotta help him open up. Oh, c’mon, Huey. You gotta be able to poke a little fun at yourself in life or you’re gonna go crazy. How many times has Mister McGovern said that? You gotta be able to laugh at yourself more. If nothing else, it takes the piss out of it. Anyway, I’m getting off track. I wanted to know about your accent. Not sourpuss over here. Where exactly does it come from?
Mom held a hand to her heart and her face lit up. Moi? Oh, I thought you’d never ask. You wait right there, darling. I’ve got just the thing I’d like to show you. You just stay put.
Mom set out a dessert plate, dried her hands, and disappeared into the bedroom. Zuk gazed around blandly at our humble little digs and whistled to himself. I looked up at the dustless outline where the brown baby Jesus had been and prayed I’d get through the evening without having to show him the bedroom that Mom and I shared. Mom reappeared with a newspaper clipping. She pushed the cheese, crackers, and grapes aside and laid it delicately over the kitchen table.
Do you know who this is?
The problem with Mom was that she couldn’t respect a basic agreement. Never mind that she wasn’t wearing the pretty dress she’d promised, she talked peace and love but then came out swinging with her gloves off. She took the viewpoint that Toby should be, if not of universal importance, then at least a household name, right up there with Roosevelt, Stalin, and Churchill, probably. I guess I still didn’t see what the big deal was. I mean, the people I went to school with seemed to be doing just fine without having the slightest clue as to who those “instrumental” people were. Toby never got debated, never got argued over, much less celebrated. He was hardly even a footnote. As far as Claremont was concerned, he never existed.
In the center of a big block of text in the article was a photo of Toby, squinting in the sun with a stack pole in hand, handsome faced, with a wide, toothy grin. He looked genuinely happy. Scrawled in the margin were the words Blakely Register, July 22, 1962. It was one of the few things that Mom had bothered to pack up and bring with us.
No, Missus F. ’Fraid not.
Well, he was in the papers and everything—even made the national news. Anyway, he was from Akersburg. A real firebrand. We’re from the same town. Akersburg. It’s in southwest Georgia. ’Bout three hours’ drive south of Atlanta, a half hour north of Florida. Deep South.
Mom was staring at the clipping. I could tell that it was taking her back.
So many colored people lynched down there, Missus F. You’ll have to excuse me for not being able to
put a name to the face.
And why would he? Nothing in that photo of Toby conjured a sense of the impact he’d had on our lives. I suppose that to Zukowski, Toby looked no different than any other colored field hand poking at the dirt as he humbly tended to someone else’s beans. So I didn’t fault him for that. It just saddened me. Even if it was expected, it saddened me. There was something about his politeness in our conversation about Toby that made his comments feel like they were wrapped in polyurethane.
I got up and pushed in my chair. C’mon, Zuk. It’s almost nine. Whaddya say we wait for your old man downstairs?
Zukowski pulled the clipping nearer. Is he a relation?
No.
Why, Huey!
Blood relation. He meant blood relation. That’s what you meant, right?
Mom came over, shoved me out of the way, and pointed at that obituary like it was a cross and she was exorcising me of some cockeyed notion I’d been harboring for once and all. Further down, around the fourth paragraph or so, my name was listed among Toby’s surviving family members. She snatched up the nearest pencil and underlined it, repeatedly, until the line was dark and bold.
Of course he is. It’s Huey’s uncle. He was my half-sister’s husband. We’re related by marriage. Then to me: Shame on you. And I will not tolerate you talking about your uncle Toby that way. Then back to Zukowski: And if you ask me, it’s a crime there isn’t a monument to him. Why, he should be buried in Arlington, not some patch of dirt behind the outhouse of a church like some ordinary beggar.
I had known something like that was going to happen. Just knew it. It was the dark cloud that followed me everywhere. Zukowski cocked his head, looked at me askance for a moment, as if noticing something for the first time, then turned back to that clipping.
What’s this?
Just a pile of stack poles.
Stack poles?
Yeah. We used them to hold up our peanut stacks. That’s our field there, and those are the peanut stacks. Can we go now?
They Come in All Colors Page 20