Drop

by Mat Johnson

  ‘Gimme some money, man.’

  Seeing the vision, I put my food down. ‘You want some quick money?’ I asked him.

  ‘Yeah. Gimme some money.’

  ‘I’m not just going to give it to you. I got something I need you to do. Some quick, easy work. What’s up? You want to earn it?’

  Yam-man stood, dripping, looking at me for a moment with his head slightly cocked, then said, ‘Nah’, and walked away from me. Back into the fountain, his soap in hand. I went after him.

  Yam-man knew I was coming as soon as I splashed into the water behind him. Revealing a startled look over his shoulder, he began wading out of my way. When he saw I was getting closer, he started running, staying inside the fountain circle as if his feet wouldn’t work on dry land. I splashed after him, struggling to keep my footing on its slimy bottom, but gaining still, and after a few times around the circle I was nearly on him. I dived forth, catching his legs, and we splashed down together.

  ‘What the hell’s wrong with you?’ he asked. I’m sure that question had been asked of him countless times before.

  ‘I want to give you money. I want to help you out.’

  ‘Well, gimme the damn money and leave me alone.’

  ‘No. No charity. You take care of yourself this time.’

  The yam-skinned man was the perfect size; even the shoes fit him. He was so good in that suit, his dreads clean and brushed to order, looking like a redbone Frederick Douglass. This was the man somebody had wanted him to be, the one some mother had imagined. As people started walking by to work, you almost expected him to join them, to grab a suitcase from under a park bench and follow. You could almost believe that somewhere there was an office and a set of responsibilities he belonged to. Click click, make it last forever. And didn’t he love getting his picture taken? Turn this way, a little, a little, good. So many people focused on him, he blossomed with the shutter’s every clench. Prancing about as if he were the only monument in this town worth noticing. Once I got him to keep his teeth hidden while he smiled, we were grooving. I could see the billboards already. When I saw the Polaroid proofs, I could already hear Saul’s voice telling me that I had the job, I could already feel that check being passed into my hand, could see myself looking at it, knowing that my imprisonment was over. So clear was this vision that, a week later, when I went over to the meet with Saul and all of that actually happened, I felt as if I was living a rerun. It was anti-climax for me. Those Polaroids in my hand, I already understood that I was gone.

  We broke at eight o’clock. Things were going so smooth that I suggested we head up to Strawberry Mansion to get a jump on the park shots. Yam-man nodded OK. A day like this should be prolonged. I could work with what we’d accomplished through a week of rainstorms. We just had to pack, get something to eat, and then we’d drive up to North Philly and continue. Even the stylist seemed cool with it.

  After locking up the van, I finally retrieved the food that had been crying for me, my mouth overflowing with desire. Yam-man sat on the nearest bench, so I joined him. My hands trembling with hunger, I ripped the bags open. On the other side of my feast, Yam-man sat with his suit on. He was staring down 15th Street, watching the cars stop at the red light. From his face, it looked as if the craziness was catching up to him. Seated, the fact that he didn’t have socks on was evident.

  ‘Nice, shiny day, right?’ I remarked, ripping tinfoil desperately away from the still warm sandwich. Even in August you could see the steam rising. The salt dried my nostrils as I sniffed it into me.

  ‘Yup,’ Yam-man said back, swiveling his head around and immediately noticing the food I had acquired. I gave him the money right after we’d finished shooting: I could still see the twenties hanging out like a handkerchief from his breast pocket.

  ‘I got it over there,’ I said, pointing. ‘From that guy.’ Yam-man kept his eyes linked to my bounty. Maybe it had been so long he didn’t know how to use bills any more, particularly of this denomination. I pulled open my chocolate milk and I took the paper off the straw.

  ‘Drinking,’ Yam-man said, staring at it.

  ‘Over there. Look’ – he didn’t – ‘over there.’ I kept pointing until he glanced away from my beverage and towards my finger. As soon my hand dropped, so did his eyes, watching me get the lid off.

  ‘Starving’ Yam-man said as saliva stretched from his bottom lip to his lap, making a charcoal pool in the gray herringbone.

  ‘I gave you money,’ I reminded him, poking at it in his breast pocket. His body rocked with my push, then came back again.

  ‘Need some eats,’ he added, his eyes watering.

  ‘Yam-man, go buy some of your own.’

  ‘Name’s sir.’

  ‘All right, sir,’ I smiled.

  ‘Sir Love.’

  ‘Shit,’ I said, and gave in to him. Pushing my food his way till he reached out for it. Nudging my drink over so he could wash it down.

  You never saw somebody enjoy food like that. Taking that sandwich in bites the size of his hand. Gulping half the chocolate milk at once and then sloshing it through his teeth like mouthwash before swallowing it. When the brother was done, I handed him a napkin to wipe the ketchup and grease off his mouth. He used it and handed it back to me. We were just sitting there, two Philly boys, content to lean back where we were and feel the sun lay down upon us. Comfortable with our destinies, our place in the world. No other life to run to, no lot to run desperately from. Funny how much nicer this town was when you couldn’t feel it sitting on you.

  My Sign

  I had a gig and a check to prove it. After I left Saul’s office I kept peeking at it, peeling back its envelope in the crowded elevator: I see you. It was a little, thin piece of paper, but it was real; this I kept trying to believe in. Insubstantial in weight, yes, but if I rolled it into a ball and threw it in the eye of that security guard at the front door, it would hurt him: it existed. If I opened my envelope and took out my check and folded it into a paper airplane, it would fly: it had properties. If I planted it in my checking account, within days it would sprout cash that I, in turn, would have access to. I would have access, too. That was the reality I had the most difficulty accepting.

  For days after it was deposited, to procrastinate from my real duty of preparing for the campaign to come, I dialed the bank’s number to see if my promise had bloomed. Limiting myself to one perusal each hour, never boring of the same automated denial because I knew eventually I would call and my dream would be true. The absurd yet standard-rate price I was being paid to oversee the creative of this marketing drive would in one moment appear. Boom. Cash. That was magic. In anticipation, some of that imaginary money had already been spent. These ghost dollars whose power had no relation to their physical substance. Because of them, the travel agency already had my tickets on reserve, the checks for overdue bills had been mailed (to P.O. box addresses in boring states, it would be weeks before they would be deposited). Because of them I wasn’t going crazy from the absence of one stubborn buck-toothed female. Because of them I could at least spend time investing in a plan to make that reality an outdated one. Maybe that was the purpose of the Alex Reconciliation Agenda: to keep me sane with the illusion that I had some control over the matter. To let me focus my anxiety on to a physical thing, a series of tasks that I could handle.

  Of course, the Agenda was not a particularly elaborate plan – I was just going to get my Philly ad for Sir Love the Yam-man blown up to poster size and present it to her – but the goals of the mission were modest as well. True, the ultimate success determinant would have been total conflict resolution, complete forgiveness, but that was neither realistic nor dwelled upon. The stated victory parameters were much simpler: I just wanted her to know that I was trying, that maybe I was even changing also. Even if she decided not to let me back in her life, I wanted her to base that decision on the man I was and not some outdated reality.

  It was this necessity that motivated me as I called to ord
er the poster from the lithographic shop over on Arch. They were talking size, dimensions; I was talking passion, sincere emotional angst! Do not speak to me of this 1′ by 4′, this 3′ by 6′ nonsense! What do I care of abstract measurements? Give me size! Make this poster so big that there is no way Alex can ignore either one of us. If an extra inch improves my chances, so be it.

  My former job seemed to be a problem. Apparently, Mrs Hutton’s comment that ‘If you miss another day, don’t bother coming in’ was not as literal a statement as I had originally interpreted it. Regardless of the fact that I called the night before my absence to offer my sincere apology for leaving the electric company on such awkward terms, there was still a misunderstanding. It was explained to me (by my former parasite/temp agency) that Mrs Hutton was not entirely pleased with my behavior, and this displeasure had manifested itself in her refusal to sign my time-slip until ‘you go in there and quit proper.’ While I barely had the time and no longer needed the money, in respect to the week I spent working for that cash, I decided to take up the challenge and right there, right then, walked out the door.

  My trolley was, as all trolleys are, a slow thing. Bicycles whose riders used no hands glided casually past us even as we attempted full speed. By the time I actually arrived at 23rd Street, my bravado had evaporated like the mist it was. There was, I realized now that I was close to making contact, a chance that Mrs Hutton might yell at me. What if she yelled at me and then didn’t sign my check at all? What if she got Cindy to hold me down as she slapped me around a bit? For a brief, unexplained moment that seemed entirely rational. I decided that a more prudent action would be to delay this confrontation as long as possible, and it was this that led to the first of the miracles that would happen that day. I walked over to an ATM to check my ghost balance, to try to get out more cash than I thought was yet there, and I actually heard it, that near forgotten song, the – thank God – flutter of real cash coming back out at me.

  I damn near expected Fionna to emerge from hiding behind a parking meter to rejoin me. Motivated by this newly realized fortune, I decided to further delay my appointment with the electric company by picking up my poster.

  It was at least a three-mile walk, but I was prepared. Of late, I’d been walking everywhere, taking in paths I’d been content for years to see blur pass. To ensure a random mugging wouldn’t make the act impossible, I even swung past the travel agent’s on Samson to take care of my reservations. So simple, I trade my paper for theirs, and then I have tickets in my hand, a promise that on a certain date, at a certain time, I could fly out of here. Not even earth-moving news any more since I could already feel that gravity lessening beneath me as I took Aldrin hops down the road, seeing things around this town I hadn’t noticed since childhood. I was almost disappointed when I arrived at my destination so soon.

  I stepped up proudly to the counter and declared I was there to pick up my order. Soon I was whipping out a book of checks that floated instead of bounced. Yes, the price quoted seemed quite obscene. I would not be ordering from here again anytime soon!

  ‘So, where’s your car? If it’s in front you’ll want to pull around back. We can load it on there.’

  ‘Naw, that’s cool, I’m walking.’

  ‘Walking?’

  ‘Yes. Well, eventually I’ll probably hop the El, but walking there and back, yes.’ What was wrong with that? It was a nice day. My shoes were comfortable and showed good sense. People don’t walk enough any more. A door opened from the side of the room and another attendant (they all had the same blue tennis shirt, wasn’t that nice?) came in pulling a dolly holding a dozen absurdly large cardboard graham crackers. When he said my name I hopped with glee to meet him. Mine? I asked of the sheet on top, and he nodded, so I grabbed my poster, thanked them both for doing good business, and headed for the door. My booty was a large thing, as tall as I was, and I was taking care to balance it as I tried to open the door, nearly succeeding before I heard, ‘Yo cuz, when you gonna pick up the rest? We close at seven.’

  ‘What are you talking about? This is my order.’

  ‘You sure?’ the attendant asked me, and apparently I wasn’t, because when he took my package from me, laid it on the counter, and lifted half of its cardboard packaging off and away, what was revealed to me was not the yam-man in all his glory, but merely a huge tile of the elephantized foot of him, a blow-up of that spot of ankle between his shoe and cuff that I had PhotoShopped to make it look like he had socks on.

  ‘So, money, how you gonna get the rest of them?’

  I am stupid. I looked at him like he might tell me.

  I walked back to Center City, trying to negotiate the inconceivable but true: the Alex Agenda was threatened. This could not be tolerated, my pace increased just thinking about it. I needed to commission a photographer soon, and if it wasn’t her, I would need to book in advance. It had to be her. I tried to remain calm as I ducked in the electric company building. Instead of being met and escorted in by armed guards, the front desk trolls barely noticed my arrival. With swipe-key in hand, I slipped through the entrance as if I still worked there, petrified that maybe that was true, that the past weeks had been nothing but a glucose reaction spiked by one too many lunchtime visits to 30th Street Station for a super-size drink and fries. But the delusion didn’t take hold. I couldn’t feel it: that pull, that dull tugging of my ass to that gray seat in there, that mute demand of the monotonous life from which five P.M. only provided a momentary reprieve. I was a free man – I knew this as I pushed open my door to the familiar office and saw the room of those still in captivity.

  They were all there, sucked to their seats. The phones were barely ringing; it was July, even back-due heating bills had been taken care of. Relieved to be able to pause from trying to look busy, they looked up at me. It was after lunch, but all Reggie had on his desk was a bag of pork rinds: for shame, they still hadn’t been paid. Reggie pushed up his glasses to get a better look and yelled, ‘Chris boogie!’ before Mrs Hutton came out of her office to greet me.

  I was to be berated publicly – fine. As Mrs Hutton had perceived it, I had undermined her leadership, so I appreciated her need to reestablish authority. ‘You don’t just disappear, one day you’re there, the next you ain’t. There are responsibilities …’ This too was warranted. I knew I was an awful former teleservice agent, although I would have accentuated the ‘former’ if she gave me the chance to open my mouth. Vent your months of frustrations. Yes, I was truly incompetent at this job, so wasn’t it fantastic that I would never have to do it again? Wasn’t that just the best outcome for all? This is why I was smiling, not because Cindy was giving me a wink of support behind Mrs Hutton’s back, and certainly not out of any desire to belittle my former manager, and yet my pleasure seemed to make her yell louder. Her angry face, with its heat, its engorged eyes, red nose and cheeks, was a scary thing. But when you know you’ll never have to deal with it again, it can be such a joyous sight. That’s when I felt myself kind of bouncing, rocking back in forth to my life’s song. I had thought it an ever so slight movement until I saw the way Mrs Hutton was looking at me: What broke in him? Chains, darling! When Clive – he was looking so good today, must be four weeks rock-free – started snapping his bony fingers along with my rhythm, I just fell into it. This joy. I was dancing. Very odd but true, I was moving with glee, with freedom, and I must have been doing something right, because Mrs Hutton stopped talking, instead taking out my timesheet in slow, cautious movements; without missing one of Clive’s digitally produced beats, I watched her sign it.

  Who knew, if I took this to the temp agency, if it would one day clear? Who knew if I would see any of these people again? Who knew anything? At the exit, hand on the knob of a door already opened, I turned back to them. Natalie was smiling at me, those oft hidden incisors punctuating her grin.

  ‘You all should come with me!’ I insisted. Mrs Hutton shook with my words, spun around and stomped to the back room, presumably to call s
ecurity.

  ‘Nigger, you better make a break for it,’ Cindy offered.

  ‘I’ve got work for the day, for you. I’ll pay you. I’ll pay you as much as you make in a week.’ They all just kept looking at me, not knowing what I was. But I saw them: people I wanted to give something to, people who could help me solve my Alex needs.

  ‘Come on, you’re not even getting paid! You might as well get some money to hold you over while you look for a new job. I’ll give you what you make in a week to just get up and come with me right now!’ I would give twice this just to see it happen. I reached into my pocket and held the emerald beacons up to them.

  At the site of the cash, Reggie stood up so fast he nearly knocked his monitor over, but I knew Reggie and understood that this was a purely physical reaction. But then Natalie got up, too, grabbing her fake leather pocketbook and keys off the table, and I realized something was happening here. Forget Lynol, who sat in my old seat laughing at me; I could see how his stare was caught on my hand. When Cindy and Clive stood up in unison, pushing their chairs in behind them, I raised the mast of my arm higher, proudly waving my herald.

  Reggie and Cindy got the billboard. Natalie was sent to get packing tape and hoagies. Clive and I were off to 43rd Street to get the wood that would allow us to hoist it up. We were to meet back up at the abandoned supermarket behind Alex’s block. Everybody knew the one.

  At the lumberyard, I asked to use their phone and got the proper measurements from the printer. What I needed was not a permanent structure, nothing to be mounted on some wall to last for months of inspection. Alex just had to see it, take it in for as long as she needed to. My goal was to nail together one beam to go across its top, four more to hold it up in the air. If I had something like that, then we could tape the image’s panels together from the back, and hang it like a curtain.