South Street

by David Bradley

  The street lay empty in the wee-hours-of-the-morning darkness. There was a chill in the air, and Rayburn pulled his jacket close about him, shuddering, shaking in alcoholic tremens. He had trouble standing, so he hauled himself over to a graffiti-covered wall and leaned against it, trying to hold his head up and his vomit in. The light on the corner changed, but there was no rush of rubber-tired wheels; there was no traffic. Just as the light was changing from yellow to red one lone car, a long pink Cadillac, careened through the intersection, raking its high beams across Rayburn’s slumping form, and vanished in a rush of wind and a blare of radioed soul music mingled with drunken voices. Rayburn watched it go, then he tottered into the alley and retched laboriously over some garbage cans.

  When he had vomited he felt better. He fumbled in his pocket and found change, pulled it out, counted it, unbelieving. There was a dollar there. A dollar. He considered going back in for another drink but shook his head, shoved the money back into his pocket, and struggled back out to the curb. His flat nose wrinkled at an unfamiliar stench, and his eyes darted around erratically until they focused on the body of the cat, lying in the gutter. Rayburn fought down the urge to vomit again, turned right, and began to walk. Every few steps his sense of direction would give out, and he would stagger into a wall and bounce away, half spinning from the impact. He mumbled loudly as he struggled along, conversing with the grimy walls, the light poles, the cars parked at infrequent intervals along the curb. “I ain’t too anxious to be goin’ home,” he informed a dented Ford, “’cause you see, if I goes home, that bitch gonna give me a hard time for sure. I can hear it now. ‘Rayburn, you done gone an’ spent up all the money an’ didn’t give me nothin’.’ As if to say she wouldn’t a spent up all the money. Bitch.” He nodded for emphasis, stumbled on to a garbage can. “But,” he elaborated, “it’s possible, it is definitely possible, that the bitch ain’t gonna be there at all. I mean, it’s hard to know, you know? I don’t know. I don’t even know if I want the bitch to be there. I mean, it’s bad if she do be there, but it’s bad if she ain’t there, too, ’cause then I gotta wait for her to get back, an’ you know I think it all the time, maybe this time she ain’t gonna be comin’ back. Maybe she gone for good. Or maybe she done gone off with somebody an’ she’ll come tippin’ on in tomorrow with some shit about how she was out with that bitch sister a hers an’ she was too tired to come home. Lyin’ her damn head off. She knows I know she’s lyin’. Knows I ain’t gonna call her on it, ’cause if I do she’s liable to go right on an’ tell me all about it. Then what the hell am I gonna do? I mean, I know, but so long as she ain’t tole me nothin’ I don’t got to be believin’ it, you know?” The garbage can declined to reply. Rayburn launched an uncoordinated kick that did more harm to him than to the can, then hobbled, cursing, on down the street. Dark empty windows gazed at him blankly. Rayburn bounced off a wall, gyrated like a tightrope walker along the edge of the curb. “She’ll be back though,” he told the street. “Oh yeah, she be back, switchin’ her ass around like it was a goddamn flyswatter, wavin’ money in ma face. She say, ‘You ain’t got no money, baby? Workin’ in that damn bank, place where they keeps that money, an’ you ain’t got none yourself? What’s the matter with you? You ain’t much of a man, that’s all I got to say.’ An’ then by Jesus I’ll take the bitch in an’ fuck the hell right out of her. Make her forget whoever that bastard was, make her forget his damn name. Fuck him right out of her. Make her climb the damn walls. I can do it too, by God. Only”—Rayburn stopped and addressed the cluttered windows of a long-condemned junk shop—“only you wonder, you know what I mean? You got to be wonderin’ if she even knows who’s doin’ it to her. Maybe it don’t make no difference. Does it make a difference?” Rayburn got no answer and, after a few minutes, forgetting the question, turned east once again and moved on, feet scuffing the cracked sidewalk, past the deserted Salvation Army Mission Post, past the tobacco-juice-stained steps of tubercular rowhouses, his eyes glassed over and tired-looking. He shoved his hands into his pants pockets and held himself for a minute, then tottered into the next alleyway and urinated inaccurately, watching the clear stream splash on the cobblestones and spatter droplets back on his legs, not moving, not reacting at all when the pressure diminished and the stream shortened and the urine dribbled onto his shoes. He zipped his pants and staggered out onto the street again, but now he had forgotten where he was going, so he just kept on walking, past the glittering facade of The Word of Life Church, with its fluorescent cross and flood-lit marquee assuring all and sundry that Jesus saved, past decaying houses and dilapidated stores, past the shadowy entrance beside one burned-out store that led to the apartment he called home. The light from the sign of the Elysium Hotel fell like a wide white bar across the street and the sidewalk in front of him; he moved close to the walls, trying to avoid the harsh light, moving on to the corner, across the street. And then he looked up and stopped, seeing the spire of the bank building rising, shining, puncturing the night sky. He stared up at it, swaying back and forth, then looked down suddenly to see a bus standing in front of him, door open, engine rumbling.

  “C’mon, buddy,” shouted the driver. “I ain’t got all night. You gonna ride or you gonna piss in your pants?” Rayburn stared a second longer, then climbed aboard totteringly, hanging onto the handrail like a tired old lady. “C’mon, for Chrissakes. Ain’t you got a quarter?” Rayburn obediently fished out a quarter and dropped it into the fare box, fumbling for a minute as his erratic coordination made it difficult for him to get his hand over the slot. “Shees,” said the bus driver. “What the hell am I, crazy? Runnin’ around here with nuttin’ but drunks. Take a seat, buddy, before you fall on your ass. Shees!” Rayburn grasped one of the chromium stanchions and eased himself into a seat running lengthwise along the side of the bus. The light changed and the driver pulled away from the curb, working at the big steering wheel, grunting with effort. His stomach hung over the edge of the wheel like a pouting child’s lower lip. “Shees,” he muttered, “shees. One friggin’ fare all friggin’ night. Crazy.” Rayburn stared out the window at the swiftly passing panorama of alleys and bars and darkened storefronts with dim lights glowing in the windows above them, all dingy from the years of smog and dirt and people. “I bet this joker’s soused,” muttered the driver. “Hey, buddy, you drunk?”

  “Say what?” said Rayburn.

  “You drunk? If you’re drunk you gotta get offa here. Regulations.”

  “Nah, shit,” said Rayburn, “I ain’t drunk.”

  “Yeah?” said the driver, peering suspiciously in his rearview mirror. “You sure?”

  “Yeah,” said Rayburn.

  “I dunno, you look kinda beat.”

  “I ain’t drunk, muthafucka,” Rayburn snarled. “If you thought I was drunk, whad you let me on for in the first place?”

  “I gotta let you on,” the driver said. “It’s the law. An’ if you’re drunk, I gotta kick you off. That’s the law too.”

  Rayburn looked at him. “Shit.” He went back to staring out the window.

  “All right, okay, buddy, take it easy, take it easy, I was just askin’. Regulations. Hell, I don’t give a damn if a fella wants to get himself a little one tied on on Saturday night. Hell, I’d be tyin’ one on myself if I wasn’t out tryin’ to pick up a little spare change, you know what I mean?” Rayburn stared out the window. The driver stared in his mirror at the reflection of the side of Rayburn’s head. “I got this wife, see,” said the driver, waving one arm in the air and peeking in the mirror to see if Rayburn were paying any attention. “Chrissakes, I don’t know what I ever wanted to go an’ get married for. All she does is holler. I mean all the time. All the friggin’ time. A man works his fingers down to the knuckles an’ all he hears is, ‘O’Brien, I need a new vacuum cleaner.’ Shees, I just bought her a new vacuum cleaner. Or, ‘O’Brien, the kid needs new shoes.’ That kid must have fifteen pair a shoes already. You know what I mean?” He peered into the mirro
r, but Rayburn’s eyes were on the passing street. “Yeah,” said the driver, “an’ then here I am, ridin’ around in the middle of the night. An’ you know what she’s doin’? She’s havin’ Mrs. Casey in to look at TV. While I’m out here bouncin’ bruises on my backside, she’s watchin’ TV an’ drinkin’ up my beer. I don’t know what I ever wanted to get married for, I swear I don’t. I was free and easy, I was, an’ then she comes along an’ gives me that, ‘No, no, not until we’re married.’ Okay, I says, so I married her. Come to find out I wasn’t even the first one. Can you beat that? Hey, buddy, can you beat that?” The driver stopped for a red light, turned in his seat to stare at Rayburn. “Shees. Saturday night. Nuttin’ but drunks what can’t even carry on an intelligent conversation. Shees!” He turned back and stamped on the accelerator in disgust.

  “Haw, haw, haw,” laughed Big Betsy the whore. “Hey, Leo, didja hear that?”

  “Nope,” said Leo, looking up at her fat face from below the bar, where he was bent over, connecting a fresh keg to one of the taps.

  “I ast him who was he an’ he said he don’t know, did I ever see him before?”

  “Ha,” said Leo, bending back to the keg.

  “You beats everything, you know it?” said Big Betsy, slamming her fist into the young man’s shoulder and almost knocking him off the stool. “You beats hell outa everything. Hey, Leo, he’s buyin’ me another drink. Get off your knees an’ gimme another shot.”

  “Shut up a minute, willya, Betsy,” said Leo, without looking up. He grimaced as he felt for the connection.

  “Haw, haw, haw,” laughed Big Betsy. “Didja hear that?” she said to the young man. She suddenly looked old and worn out and very ugly. “Leo, you black bastard, I wants a drink. You quit suckin’ yourself off down there an’ get me one.”

  Leo straightened up to his full six two and shoved out his jaw. “In a minute,” he said.

  Betsy was about to open her mouth when the young man reached over and laid his hand on her arm. “Take it easy. He’s getting it.”

  “Fuckin’ A, he’s gettin’ it,” grumbled Big Betsy. “He just better be gettin’ it.” She scowled fiercely. Leo looked at her with distaste. He bent down again and completed the connection, stood up, tested the tap, then poured her shot glass full, looked at her, glared at the young man. “Thanks, Leo,” said Big Betsy mildly.

  “Shit,” said Leo.

  “Hey, barkeep,” said a voice at the far end of the bar.

  Leo looked up, quickly concealing a frown. “What can I do for you, Leroy?”

  “Mr. Briggs,” said a fat, dark-chocolate-skinned man. He was wearing a bottle-green suit and a pink wide-collared shirt with a matching tie and highly polished black boots. His eyes were protected from the bar’s dim light by heavy dark glasses.

  Big Betsy gave her companion a gentle nudge that could have broken ribs. “Niggers is all alike,” she said. “They think they’re big shit if they sits around all day like a white man an’ has folks linin’ up to kiss their ass, an’ at night they comes around, all dressed up like it was Halloween, to shit on all the other niggers. They don’t get to be mister until they done had a pint a gin.”

  “What you mumblin’ around about down there, piglady?” said Leroy.

  “Nothin’,” said Big Betsy sullenly.

  “Yeah, well, it better be nothin’.”

  Big Betsy kept her mouth shut, but her cheeks puffed out and her eyes were fixed straight ahead. Leroy watched her for a minute. “Gimme a couple sixes,” he said to Leo out of the corner of his mouth.

  “Hey, Leroy,” somebody called out of the darkness. “What you got out there in that car?”

  Leroy shifted his glance into the darkness and smiled broadly, showing gold-filled teeth. “Oh, just a couple ladies wanted to do a little ridin’, take in the evenin’ air, you know what I mean.”

  “Yeah,” mumbled Big Betsy, “so how come you don’t bring ’em in?”

  Leroy glared at her. “I said they was ladies, not fat-assed old bar bait.”

  Leo set two six-packs of beer on the bar, one on top of the other, slipped a paper bag over the stack, grasped the bag at the bottom and flipped the whole thing over with a snap, rolled the top of the bag down, opened his mouth, and froze into immobility, unable to believe his ears.

  “What’s that mean?” Betsy’s young man was saying, without looking up from his scotch. “They cost more’n two dollars?”

  “Whad he say?” whispered the wino. No one told him. The bar was silent.

  “Well, well,” said Leroy. “What have we here? A funny man? Ha, ha. Very funny, funny man.”

  “Glad you liked it.”

  “No,” Leroy said, “I didn’t like it. And I don’t like you, either.”

  “Damn,” said the young man, still not raising his eyes.

  “Hey, blood,” said Leo, grimacing and shaking his head.

  “You let him be now, Leo,” Leroy said. “Sonny, I don’t think I ever seen you around here.”

  “I haven’t seen you, either,” said the young man.

  “Well,” said Leroy, “let me introduce maself. I’m—”

  “You’re Leroy Briggs,” the young man said.

  “Why, yes. Seein’ as you knows ma name, I guess you knows who I am.”

  “Sure,” said the young man, his eyes still lowered to his glass. “You’re the big bad muthafucka that hasn’t got anything better to do than give rides to cheap whores and call old ladies names and try to make the rest of the world crap in their pants at the sight of you.”

  Leroy’s face darkened. “Like I said, I ain’t seen you around here before, an’ I better not be seein’ you again. If I do, it might be the last time anybody ever sees you.”

  The young man raised his eyes and looked at the bottles on the backbar. “There might be some folks that wouldn’t like that.”

  “There is, huh?” said Leroy, unimpressed.

  “Yeah,” said the young man. He turned his head very slowly and stared Leroy straight in the eye.

  Leroy looked at him for a moment, and then his expression changed ever so slightly. “There is, huh?” he repeated. The young man turned back and sipped at his scotch, then he looked at Leroy and smiled, nodding slightly. “You work for Gino?” Leroy whispered hoarsely.

  “I don’t know any Gino,” the young man said, turning back to his glass.

  “You works for Gino,” said Leroy, with conviction.

  “If you say so.”

  “Well, you listen here. I don’t give a damn ’bout no Gino. I ain’t scared a no Gino. This here’s ma territory.”

  “Sure,” said the young man in a bored tone of voice. He looked at his nearly empty glass. “About dry here, Leo.”

  “You tell Gino,” said Leroy, shaking his finger, “or whoever you works for, you tell ’em I don’t give a shit ’bout no pasty-faced wops. An’ if I ever see your ass around here again you gonna be wishin’ I hadn’t. Where’s ma beer, Leo?”

  “Right here,” said Leo promptly.

  Leroy picked up the paper bag and turned to go. “Hey there, Mr. Briggs,” said the young man without looking up, “you forgot to pay for that beer.”

  Leroy whirled around. “That’s all right,” Leo said quickly, “it’s on the house.” But nobody was paying any attention to Leo. Leroy stared at the young man for a long time, then reached slowly into his pocket and pulled out a five-dollar bill and laid it on the bar. Leo looked back and forth between the two men, then he picked up the bill, took it to the register, rang up the sale, made change, and extended it toward Leroy.

  The young man looked at Leroy. “Keep the change,” he said softly. Leo stood confused, eyes wide. The cords stood out on Leroy’s neck, and he trembled slightly with anger. “Keep it,” the young man said. He smiled at Leroy. Leroy held his ground a moment longer, then whirled and barged out into the night.

  Leo stared after him, stared at the change in his hand, shrugged, turned to the register, and rang up a sale i
n the amount. The cash drawer banged and the sound, like a signal, unstopped a flood of conversation, whispers, nervous laughter. “Haw, haw, haw,” bellowed Big Betsy the whore. “Didja hear that, Leo?”

  “Naw,” said Leo, wiping sweat from his brow and eyeing the young man nervously.

  “Haw, haw, haw,” laughed Big Betsy. “I ast him who Gino was an’ he says he don’t know, he don’t even like hamburgers. Haw, haw, haw.”

  Leo stared at the young man for a long minute, the expression on his face a mixture of admiration, disbelief, and fear. He picked up a bottle of scotch, uncorked it, and poured the shot glass full, setting it and the uncorked bottle on the bar in front of the young man. The young man reached for his wallet, but Leo waved a hand. “On the house,” he said.

  The young man looked at him, shook his head. “I pay.”

  Leo smiled. “It seems to me that Mr. Leroy Briggs done already paid for you,” he said, and walked away.

  Fifth Street: an uneven lane of cobblestones and trolley tracks that dated from sometime before the Civil War. There had been little traffic then, and there was no traffic now except for the dump trucks trundling away loads of rubble from the buildings being razed in an urban-redevelopment project. Rayburn walked along a weedy path that passed for a sidewalk, his shoes darkening as they absorbed moisture from the tall stalks of dandelion and Queen Anne’s Lace. Halfway down the block, on the nether edge of Society Hill—the point at which demolition had been halted—the side of a rowhouse clearly displayed the outlines of the rooms of the building that had once stood next to it. Now a giant wrecking crane stood there, its heavy leaded ball threatening the remaining structure. Rayburn stared at the scene as he passed, thinking he saw a picture still hanging from the plaster that clung desperately to the side of the building. Behind him, on the far side of the street, a door swung in the wind, banged loudly; Rayburn spun too quickly, nearly falling.

  Beyond the hulks of houses was a pit where a high-rise apartment building would one day stand. Rayburn paused outside the white board fence that surrounded the site, peered down into the empty hole. He opened his pants and tried to urinate in order to watch the water fall, but nothing would come. He had just turned away from the fence when he saw the police car turn into the block, and he straightened quickly and tried to walk steadily as he moved farther north. Beside the walls of restored brick he told his troubles to stars made invisible by the glow of the city’s lights: “We as good as dead, her an’ me; good as dead ’cept it ain’t over an’ she still keeps comin’ back. An’ it used to be so fine. But that was when it started. Things is always good when they starts, an’ ends up shit. I’d be comin’ home from the bank an’ she’d be settin’ up there waitin’ for me, prettied up an’ lookin’ fine. It wasn’t gonna last. They tole me that. They said, ‘Rayburn, she’s just like the rest of ’em in that damn family. Every one of ’em wild an’ crazy.’ Well, hell, I wasn’t gonna be listenin’ to that shit. It was good for a while, an’ maybe sometime it’s gonna be good again. Sure it will be. I’ll get things for her some damn way, an’ she’ll be happy. Only, she useta be happy with just me home from work; two in the mornin’ an’ us settin’ up in the front room eatin’ ice cream an’ listenin’ to that little transistor radio, maybe drinkin’ a little beer. An’ she’d come over an’ set up on ma lap just like she was a little girl, an’ I’d hug her an’ pull her hair an’ tease her an’ love her up. If she frowned even, all I ever had to do was say, ‘Hey now, baby,’ an’ she’d cut it right out. They all tole me, they said, ‘She’s just like the rest of ’em, just like her sister, sleepin’ in fifty-cent hotels an’ screwin’ anything that moves.’ I tried to tell ’em she wouldn’ta been doin’ none a that, ’cept she was hungry. Lord knows, nobody oughta have to pay for what they done when they was hungry. An’ she wasn’t nothin’ but seventeen. But they wasn’t gonna listen to me. Well, they was right. Pretty soon she wasn’t happy just havin’ her belly full an’ some clothes on her back. It had to be new. She say, ‘Rayburn, I wants a new dress.’ But I didn’t have no money for a dress like she wanted, an’ I told her so. Only then I come in an’ seen it hangin’ there. …” Rayburn stumbled in a pothole, fell heavily against the side of a building, pushed himself away from it, staggered on.