by Paul Hond
Two men passed across the street. “Le pain!” Mickey cried out at them. “Free! Hello!” He waved the loaves. The men glanced at him, walked more briskly.
An hour went by, and Mickey had yet to give away a single loaf. His fingers, his feet, his ears and nose; all was numbness and cramps and stinging. He stacked the boxes to keep the bottom one warm, then took off his coat and placed it over the top box. He rubbed his hands, blew into them. How could it be? How could he be left with all this bread? Mickey could remember the days of credit-book customers, of giving away far less worthy bread than this. He sat down on the cold pavement and clasped his hands around his knees. There must be someone out here who would take the bread, he thought, someone who was hungry, who had mouths to feed at home. Mickey was embarrassed to think of the image he’d had of himself, distributing loaves to a grateful mob, and wondered if there hadn’t been a self-serving motive after all, a desire to be appreciated, loved, recognized, revered as a hero of sustenance.
He felt himself falling toward a dark, numbing core; his eyes were frozen shut, or so it seemed; he could not open them, didn’t want to open them. His thoughts lifted, faded away.
Some new and dangerous form of sleep had captured him; Mickey felt nothing. The boxes towered above his hunched, shivering frame, a leaning temple at whose foot he appeared to be praying.
21
“Yo, Little Man,” said Hawk, eyeing Nelson in the rearview, “what takin’ this white boy so long? You said he gonna come out by ten o’clock.”
“He’ll be here,” said Nelson, staring at the deep creases on the back of the head of Chuckie Banks, whose steadfast silence—to say nothing of the liquor they’d drunk, or the cold Christmas air seeping through the windows of Chuckie’s car—gave Nelson the shakes, and made him wonder, for the hundredth time that night, just what, exactly, he’d gotten himself into.
From the moment he pulled open the door of the Lerner Bakery and went limping blind and dazed across the lot to the bus stop (fired: it seemed to him the lowest, cruelest, most grievous word in the language), breathless, gasping, his heart beating with such alarming rapidity that he thought he might, as a crowning humiliation, collapse and die right there on the asphalt in full view of the bakery windows—from the moment, really, when it became apparent that Ben Lerner meant to squeeze him out, get rid of him, he knew, even then, that he would have to act; and as he climbed onto the bus and let himself drop like a stack of newspapers into the first available seat and drew his coat around him to hide the grotesque spectacle of his blue jacket and shiny black shoes, there arose one idea that might save him from this new reality of disgrace and impotence and want. One idea: revenge.
In his bewilderment, though, he’d gotten the days mixed up. He’d counted on Mama being at work, but when he walked into the house she was right there, dusting the photographs in the living room. She looked up at him with surprise, and must have seen his own surprise, hard as he tried to swallow it.
“What are you doing home?” she said.
“Got off early,” Nelson said, his voice too rushed, too high. He tried to correct it. “Things got slow. What about you?” He assumed a casual, conversational pose in the doorway. “Shouldn’t you be at work?”
“I’m off today,” Mama said. Her eyes were hard. “I’d’ve thought this was the busiest time of the year at the bakery. Holiday time.”
Nelson was angered that she didn’t seem to believe him, that she should suspect him so readily—angered that she was, as usual, right. But he knew if he got defensive it would only look worse. “Things just got slow,” he said, and, unable to meet her gaze, walked past her (not too quickly), trudged up the stairs as though it were any workday but bracing himself with each step for the eruption of Mama’s voice below, demanding from him the “truth” (a voice that never came, which was more ominous still), went to the bathroom and took a long mournful piss during which he studied his face in the mirror and saw what Mama must have seen: a defeated, frightened young man, wounded, lost, prepared to risk everything for the recovery of his pride.
He turned away from the mirror. How could he face Mama without telling her the truth? What if she confronted him? What should he say? For that matter, what was the truth? Nelson felt a great pressure inside his skull. He gripped his head in his hands. Fired. And yet he could no sooner denounce Ben Lerner for his actions, for bowing to outside pressure, or even, one might conclude, for his own latent racism, than take the blame himself; Mama’s fondness for Ben was, Nelson felt, still his own proudest achievement, so much so that he even considered, for a moment, going back to the bakery and apologizing and, if need be, begging Ben to rehire him (if he could only speak to Bread, he thought; Bread would understand), but the very thought of it—and he could see it clearly, could see himself groveling there in the office, Crumb frowning behind the desk—made him gag with disgust and burn even hotter for retribution. If Ben hadn’t put him back on deliveries in the wake of that incident with the Jewish man, if Ben hadn’t bowed to pressure, then that run-in with Jay Rattner (“You know how to tell time, Nelson? Three o’clock means three o’clock. Big hand on the twelve, little hand on the three. Got it?”)—that fateful exchange on the back lot at Seven Pines, Nelson a few stupid minutes late with the rolls—never would have happened. He couldn’t believe that Rattner had snitched on him to Ben, though admittedly he himself had possibly gone overboard in threatening to shoot Rattner, not that Rattner didn’t deserve it, he did, damn right he did, especially now.
Nelson went to his room and changed into jeans and a sweatshirt and sneakers that were beginning to fall apart. He could forget about buying a new pair; could forget about buying a lot of things. He’d already spent enough on Christmas gifts for Mama and his aunt and his little cousins—the boxes were right there in his closet: silk scarves for the ladies, dolls and comic books for the kids—and then there was the cash he’d given Phil Withers a few weeks ago for the gun. Financially he was way in the hole. So what now? Without money he was nowhere. It was as if his entire life had been taken from him.
He reached under his mattress and pulled out the gun. He’d bought it strictly for protection, but now he could feel in its solid weight other possibilities. Could it be that another life was calling him? The gun felt right in his hand; like holding a ball, he was somehow connected to his potential. He wondered if Crumb ever had the same feeling, holding his gun. No wonder Crumb had the nerve to fire me, Nelson thought. The irony wasn’t lost on him, that he’d given Ben that gun, had provided him that security.
“Nelson!” came Mama’s voice.
Nelson muttered a curse.
“Nelson!”
“What!” Nelson shouted. He gripped the gun.
“I want to talk to you!”
Nelson said nothing.
“You get down here right now. Do you hear me? Nelson?”
Nelson closed his eyes, placed the gun to his head. He was perspiring, his stomach burned. If all else failed, he thought, there was always this.
“Nelson!”
He lowered the gun, then took sudden aim at the full-length mirror on the back of his door. For the first time—and he’d struck such poses before in mirrors—the effect was convincing.
“Nelson!”
The phone rang: Nelson froze. What if it was Crumb? But there was nothing he could do: Mama had already picked up.
Nelson opened his door, tried to listen. This was it, he thought. Crumb calling to explain himself, complain, appeal to Mama’s sympathy. Or maybe—maybe—he was calling to apologize, to make Nelson an offer.
“Hello?” Mama said. “Who is this? Hello?”
Nelson listened as Mama hung up the phone in anger. “That’s the third time in a week!” she said, so that Nelson could hear. “Now who’d be calling here and hanging up like that!”
Mama’s tone implied that it must be Hawk, and Nelson filled with hope. A day before he would have dreaded such a call, but now it was like a godsend: Hawk wa
s reaching out to him through the weeks of their separation, trying one last time to make contact, to recover what had been lost. Nelson felt terrible for having put Hawk off—and who else but Hawk to give him another chance, to instruct him in the meaning of loyalty!
A new world opened up in Nelson’s furious mind: money, opportunity. Yes: Hawk would give him a chance. Hawk would forgive him.
Nelson put on his coat, stuffed the gun in his pocket. He had to get to Hawk. His one friend in the world.
He rushed out of his room and down the steps. Mama was waiting for him at the bottom.
“Where are you going?” she said.
“To get some food,” said Nelson. He squeezed past her and reached the door.
“Nelson!”
“I’ll be back,” he said. He leaped off the stoop into the cold and fading afternoon, and ran toward Hawk’s place down the street.
Hawk’s smart-mouthed sister Stephanie answered the door. As usual, she rolled her eyes at the sight of Nelson. “Kevin!” she hollered behind her. She was fifteen, dark-skinned, still a little chunky with baby fat but, in Nelson’s opinion, good to go, though of course he himself would never try anything, which was maybe why, he thought, she treated him so bad. “Kevin! Little Man at the door!” She slipped Nelson a coy smile. “So why they call you ‘Little?’ Is it ‘cause you ain’t got nothin’?”
Nelson smiled bashfully. “They just jealous,” he said. “But that’s between you and me.”
Stephanie lit up. “Oooh!” she said, regarding Nelson as though he weren’t quite real. There was cruel laughter in her eyes. “Ke-vin!” she called. “Nelson said you jealous!”
Hawk appeared in the doorway. “What up?” he said, as if they’d just seen each other yesterday.
“You been callin’ my house?” said Nelson.
“Naw,” said Hawk.
Nelson didn’t believe him. “You got a minute?” he said.
“Nelson said you jealous, Kevin.”
“No I—”
“Said his thing bigger than y’all’s.”
“Shut the fuck up,” Hawk told his sister. “Go back to your stinky-ass room.”
“This is my house too,” said Stephanie. “I can stay here long as I want.” She folded her arms in defiance.
Hawk tried to smack her head in a half-playful way, but she deflected it.
“You hit me,” she said, “and I’ll call my father.”
Hawk laughed. “Your father wouldn’t care if ten niggas fucked you in your fat stinky butt,” he said as he stepped outside. “Why you think he never calls you?”
Stephanie looked mortified. Nelson knew that it was his own presence which had stirred Hawk’s wrath against his sister—Hawk was still hurting, he sensed—and that he himself had no other choice than to watch Stephanie suffer because of him. He wished there were something he could say in her defense, but found himself laughing uneasily with Hawk when she bit her lip and ran off to cry.
“So,” said Hawk. The laughter was gone. “Figured you must’ve hit the big time.”
“Naw,” said Nelson.
“How come you ain’t at work?”
Nelson shrugged. He couldn’t look at Hawk’s face. Hawk will enjoy this, he thought. But he had to come out with it. “They fired me, yo.”
“Fired you?” Hawk seemed truly shocked. “What the fuck for?”
Nelson realized that Hawk might in fact be disappointed in him. “They set me up,” he said, with some urgency. “It was a race thing.” He spat. “Racial discrimination.” And wasn’t it true?
“Yo,” said Hawk, shaking his head. “That is fucked up.”
Nelson was encouraged. “So, you know,” he said, “if you still got somethin’ goin’ on, you know, some kind of money thing, I’m just puttin’ the word out that I’d be interested.” He was looking straight down at his shoes. “You were right. I chose the wrong side.”
“Naw,” said Hawk. “You was just being true to your nature, that’s all.”
Nelson looked up.
“Everybody different,” Hawk said. He spat. “You you, I’m me. Human nature.”
Nelson smiled, shook his head to suggest a wise knowledge to the contrary. “People change,” he said. “Sometimes, all it take is one incident.” He knew Hawk was skeptical, that he believed, even needed to believe, that Nelson had too much sense to get himself mixed up. But Nelson felt he could no longer afford to live up to those expectations. “Yo: I need some real money,” he said, “I got to get the fuck out my house. My mother drivin’ me crazy.” He wanted to flatter Hawk, win him over. “See, you had it all figured to begin with. I put myself in other people hands. Now I’m just—cut off.” And then it hit him yet again: he’d been fired. It was sinking in slowly, in painful increments, like a stake being driven deeper and deeper into his pride.
“Yo,” said Hawk, and Nelson had a feeling, from the hint of sympathy in Hawk’s voice, that he was in for a letdown. “If it was up to me, I’d let you run with us, but Chuckie want to put his homeboys in.”
“In what? What is it?”
“Can’t say.”
Nelson waved his hands to express his infinite understanding. “A’ight, then,” he said. “You workin’ for Chuck. Chuck call the shots.”
Hawk sighed. “A’ight, I’ll tell you, but you can’t say shit to nobody.”
Nelson nodded.
Hawk shoved his hands in his jeans pockets and bounced on his toes, fighting the cold. “Chuck know some niggas who gonna hook us up in the trade. So now we got to get a team together. Street level and upper management. But like Chuckie say, we can’t be bringin’ in no punks.”
Meaning, Nelson figured, someone who wasn’t alert and savvy and loyal and fearless. But Nelson desperately saw himself as all these things, thinking too that his experience behind the counter at the bakery made him especially valuable from a business standpoint. Businessman. Was it his imagination, or was Hawk already eyeing him as a potential manager, someone to keep the books, handle the money? Is that why Hawk had been calling him?
Nelson said, “Well. I am looking for work.”
“I don’t know, bro. This is serious business.”
Nelson looked away. On the corner, some young kids were hanging out: bulky coats, wool caps: a radio throbbed on the ground by their feet. “If you and Chuck partners,” he said, “maybe you gonna need somebody neutral to cut the money, pay the bills. Keep things on the level.” He paused to let the logic of his words awaken any doubts Hawk may have harbored about Chuckie Banks. “Wouldn’t cost you too much, either.”
Hawk laughed, shook his head. “I don’t know. Chuckie think you soft, yo.”
“Why—’cause I never been locked up?”
“It ain’t that. You just never showed him nothin’. Chuckie always be watchin’ niggas. He say you never stand up for your own self—that time when Rob was fuckin’ with you in the car? How somebody supposed to expect you gonna stand up for them?”
Nelson was speechless: this verdict was too much to bear. He thought to protest, to claim that the reason he hadn’t stood up to Rob was because Hawk had insisted on doing the talking for him (which was exactly what had happened), but Hawk would only turn that around somehow, make him look even worse, and in any case Nelson wasn’t sure that he himself would have acted differently had Hawk not intervened. But why? What was it about him that made him retreat inwardly, even while armed, at the first sign of a threat? How could such a person survive? Or was that in fact the key to survival? But if word got around that you were soft, how many nights could you expect to walk home alone untouched? He thought back to the knife attack, and how Hawk, visiting him in the hospital, had sworn revenge, and had later tried so hard to get him to go back to the scene of the crime: Let’s go, Hawk had said, just the two of us, wait a whole damn week if we have to until one of them niggas walks by: Hawk had wanted to do the shooting himself. And wasn’t it always like that? Wasn’t Hawk always rushing to defend him? Always there
to steal from him the chance for glory? For the first time, Nelson saw the cunning of it: Hawk could look bold and tough without having to do a damn thing, because he knew—damn right he knew, it went all the way back to when they were kids—that Nelson, fearful of the consequences—“sensible”—would refuse to go along, would talk him out of whatever violence he was bent on, which allowed him, afterwards, when he’d cooled off, to proclaim to himself, if not to the world, that he’d have done it if not for Nelson.
“I ain’t soft,” Nelson mumbled. His new understanding of Hawk seemed to kindle in him the very courage in which Hawk and Chuckie found him lacking. “A’ight?”
Hawk shook his head. “Sorry, Little Man.” He glanced back at the door. “Wish I could help you.”
“I ain’t soft, Hawk.”
“Prob’ly didn’t even say nothin’ to them people who fired you.”
Nelson’s voice was small. “You wrong,” he said.
“If that’s me? I’d be takin’ niggas out.”
Nelson glared at his friend. “I bet you never took nobody out in your life,” he said.
“Nigga, you crazy.”
“Who, then?”
“Nigga, you don’t even know me.”
“I know you as good as anyone.” Nelson, his blood racing, looked Hawk square in the eye, daring him to deny it, daring him, no, forcing him, to read the deeper meaning of his words, which was that Nelson knew his soul, yes, knew that he, too, was a punk, a mama’s boy, and that his reputation was built on nothing but bluster and lies. “I know you,” Nelson said, fearful that he might not bring it off, wondering if it was too late to swerve, to turn it into a joke, but no, it was too late, he’d committed himself, he had to go through with it, he was, he knew, lost, he had only his voice, his words, they were taking him to the heart of things, he would follow them, he would die with them. He said, “I know what you about.”