Them

by Nathan McCall

  He reared back, reading, sipping coffee and reflecting on life. He considered a phrase he had seen on a poster somewhere:

  Life. Be in it.

  He wondered, How can a man be in life if he can’t figure out how to live?

  Life. Be in it.

  He went back to reading.

  There was a cool morning breeze blowing through the backyard. It was the kind of breeze that rustled the trees and made you feel at peace, even if there was nothing going right in your life. Barlowe was sitting out there reading and feeling rather peaceful when his new next-door neighbors came outside. He studied them a moment as they smiled at each other and slipped on gardening gloves.

  He hadn’t yet figured out what to make of them moving into the Old Fourth Ward. Last he’d heard they’d vacated the cities and fled to the woods. He thought they were happy out there. Now it appeared they’d changed their minds.

  White folks. He shook his head. Crazy as they ever wanna be.

  Now one of the neighbors appeared to look his way. He hoped they hadn’t noticed him on the porch. He didn’t care to be seen by them. If they saw him they might say hello. Then he might have to say hello back. They might even come over to the edge of the yard and try to start a conversation.

  He wasn’t feeling up to that. He dreaded the thought of getting trapped in one of those strange exchanges where everybody feels uneasy and nobody knows exactly what to say, so they walk on eggshells and talk around the edges of things until they can’t stand it anymore.

  He got up and went into the house, leaving his coffee and books with the birds.

  Sean and Sandy stood outside and inhaled the fresh Sunday morning air. They both saw their next-door neighbor get up and leave the porch—and without even saying hello!

  No matter. The morning was too beautiful to let anything bother them. They looked into each other’s eyes, full of the sense that, already, the move to the Old Fourth Ward was impacting their lives in ways they had not imagined. In some ways, their new lives—sharing a neighborhood among the strangest of strangers—was like an adventure drawing them closer. They now spent more time together and talked more about their experiences and observations.

  In other ways, the adjustment drew them further inward, each one chewing on private doubts. Sometimes Sean worried about his wife, especially since she got home from work before him most evenings. Why shouldn’t he worry? There were two weird-acting men next door, and neither of them seemed very friendly.

  Sean had run into them both by now. One refused to even acknowledge him. The other, the one with the bushy hair, had exchanged greetings at the mailbox once, but that hadn’t seemed to go so well.

  Sean felt vaguely concerned that there were no women living in that house. Having grown up in Pittsburgh with two sisters, he knew how females could take the edge off a place.

  Sandy nursed her own set of private fears. The move seemed to have raised more questions than she had answers for. Since the experience at the mini-mart, she’d wondered if she could ever feel at ease in the neighborhood. What if she’d made a bad decision about the move?

  She was too proud to admit her doubts to Sean. Besides, it was too soon to tell, anyway. They had to give it a real chance, if for no other reason than the most practical one: They had bought a home; they were committed. They were here—right in the heart of the Old Fourth Ward.

  And so that lovely Sunday morning, they decided to work in the yard. The weather was charming. There were rosebuds blossoming, and crab apples and dogwoods sprouting everywhere.

  By 9 A.M., they had cleared all the weeds from around the flower beds and planted begonias out front. They planned to go to Pike Family Nursery later to buy more bales of pine needles and pick up some tulips to plant on each side of the house.

  “They’ll be pretty when they bloom,” said Sandy.

  She wore bib overalls, which made her appear young and playful. Looking at her made Sean feel young and playful, too. That was exactly what they needed these days—to lighten up a bit.

  Sean got down on all fours, then stood up straight. “We need more potting soil.” He tossed off his gloves and bounced indoors.

  Sandy followed, fresh with an idea to surprise her husband: The occasion called for an early morning mimosa toast.

  Except for a shaggy mutt lying lazily beside the Auburn Avenue Mini-Mart, the streets of the Old Fourth Ward were fairly deserted. The only sound to be heard was the raspy voice of Viola, who fussed at The Hawk about the frustrating pace of their progress on the five-block walk from Davenport’s house.

  “C’mon, man! You too slow!”

  “Hole up, woman. I’m comin.”

  The Hawk was too drunk to accelerate. He took a few shaky steps, then stopped and carefully lowered his lanky body to the curb, near Barlowe’s house. He dropped his head between his legs, in a feeble attempt to clear his mind.

  Viola was drunk, too, but not so blind-high that she didn’t know what time it was. In another half-hour or so, people would start showing up at The Way of the Cross Baptist Church at the end of Auburn Avenue. Viola had seen them before; mostly prim old ladies in patent leather pumps and elaborate hats with those stupid flowers propped on top. As they headed to church to praise the Lord, they’d turn their wide noses up at “sinners” they passed in the street.

  Viola looked at least as bad as she felt. There was no need to let those snooty people make her feel worse. So she pressed her drinking partner, and sometime lover, to push on.

  “C’mon!”

  But he couldn’t. Being drunk and prone to grave miscalculations, it was a wonder The Hawk had made it that far. He rose to his feet and tried to follow, but every time he stepped too fast, Jim Beam commanded him to “halt!” And being experienced enough to know his limits, The Hawk obeyed. It was either obey or vomit. After twenty-five years of hard drinking, he still hated that feeling—the violent convulsions that made him feel like his high-yellow skin had just turned seaweed green.

  So he gave in to Mr. Beam. He knelt down on one knee, as though offering up a Sunday prayer. Then he cursed his woman. “Damn you, Viola.”

  Problem was, she heard him. She doubled back and smacked him once. Whack! “I’m sick a waitin on yo sorry ass!”

  She adjusted her wig and staggered off through the shortcut between Barlowe’s house and the Gilmores’ place.

  The Hawk raised his head and squinted, barely able to make out the fading outline of her skinny frame. “Thas all right! Go on and leave me if you wont! You gonna miss me when I’m gone!”

  He got up and stumbled to the huge oak tree and unzipped his pants to take a leak.

  Meanwhile, Sean came back outside and set down the bag of potting soil.

  Standing on opposite sides of the big oak, neither man noticed the other right off. Sean knelt to open the bag and stood up to stretch his legs. At that moment, The Hawk turned to leave. Zipping his pants, he took a few sloppy steps forward.

  That’s when it happened: The two men’s eyes met, each staring at the other through the grim prism of history.

  Sean reached down and grabbed his garden hoe, standing ready to defend his life. “Don’t move!…I don’t have any money!”

  The Hawk squinted. “Me, neither.”

  Sean tried to run inside to dial 911, but found he couldn’t move. The Hawk tried to dash away, but found he couldn’t move. So they each stood there, frozen, staring.

  The Hawk finally broke the stalemate. He took two slow sideways steps, like a child tipping cautiously across a wet kitchen floor. Moving with all the dignity a drunk can muster, he picked up the pace, heading speedily toward his place, one street over.

  Sean watched and waited, still gripping the hoe. When he was sure the intruder was a safe distance away, he dashed into the kitchen and slumped heavily against a wall.

  Sandy was busy pouring drinks. She swung around.

  “Sean. What’s wrong?”

  He let out a great, big sigh. “Thank God! I made
it! I was almost mugged!”

  “What?!”

  “A man! He sneaked right up on me! I chased him off with the garden hoe!”

  Meanwhile, The Hawk scurried around the corner and stopped near a neighbor’s house to catch his breath. He leaned against the house and considered that he could have been arrested for something.

  The brief, harrowing encounter left both men shaken and wondering what unknown dangers lurked ahead.

  Chapter 15

  On the way past the mini-mart one day, Barlowe bumped into Henny Penn and one of his boys. This day, Henny wore a blue velour jogging suit. (He owned every color jogging suit there was to own.) He sported high-end sneakers, white and new. In one hand he held a toothbrush, used to spruce the sneakers.

  Barlowe didn’t care for Henny. More and more, during his neighborhood patrols, he had seen Henny scouting out near the Purple Palace, supervising graft and prostitution.

  Henny saw Barlowe patrolling, too.

  “Yo,” he said now, as he brushed past Barlowe coming around the corner. “You wanna be a lawman when you grow up?”

  Barlowe fixed on him with a wicked gaze and pointed a finger in his face. “Don’t play with me, boy. I ain’t to be played with. Hear?”

  Henny could see in Barlowe’s eyes that he meant what he said. Everybody else around there knew, too. Barlowe was cockstrong. He had knocked a man cold one day, right out there in front of the store.

  Still, Henny waved Barlowe off. “Whatever.” He and his partner went in the store.

  Barlowe continued up the sidewalk on Auburn Avenue, thinking that it wouldn’t bother him if Caesar got ahold of Henny Penn.

  He headed southwest into the Sweet Auburn district, a compact, quarter-mile stretch of black-owned businesses that flowed from the Old Fourth Ward into downtown Atlanta. He passed places that sold Caribbean music, Ethiopian food and clothes from Ghana. He breezed by the Masonic lodge, where old men in tasseled fezzes claimed to know the secrets of the pyramids. He passed teenagers hanging out in low-riding baggy pants, and he saw old-school hustlers, sporting flashy threads from yesteryear.

  Near the corner of Auburn and Bell he stepped into the Black Leopard Cafe, a gritty bar with a hand-painted sign hanging over the door:

  Every Hour Is Happy Hour!

  He hadn’t been there in a while. He sat near the window and ordered a beer. He looked around, noting the flimsy tables scattered about. They looked like secondhand card tables, with folding chairs shoved up against each one. All around the room the walls were decorated with black-and-white glossies of blues and jazz greats: B. B. King, Bobby Blue Bland, Sarah Vaughan, Miles and others.

  Two pretty young ladies sat at a table nearby. They wore different clothes but somehow looked the same: Spike heels; skirts rising high on shapely thighs; slinky blouses that showed lots of flesh. The women sat with their legs crossed just so, like the clueless beauties used as stage props on BET. They chatted and pretended not to notice the hungry stares from men around the room.

  Barlowe considered sending drinks to the table. Then he thought better of taking the risk. Finally, the ladies stood up to leave. Tyrone appeared in the doorway, briefly blocking the exit. He leaned down and peered above the rim of a pair of sunshades, set delicately on the tip of his nose. He whispered something to one of the women. She giggled and slid past, brushing lightly against him as she disappeared.

  Tyrone moseyed to Barlowe’s table, nodding toward the doorway.

  “You see that?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Poke chops, smothered in gravy!”

  When the waitress returned, Tyrone gave her the up and down. “Hey, precious.”

  She almost blushed. Tyrone’s eyes rode her backside as she took their orders and slinked away. He reared back in his chair and turned to Barlowe. “Talk fast, Unk. I got thangs to do.”

  Barlowe looked askance at his nephew. “I hope you not takin somebody to the house.”

  “I’m straight. This lady got her own crib.”

  Barlowe studied Tyrone’s face. “Where you meet all these women, anyhow?”

  Tyrone bent down to tie a shoelace. “You know what they say: Produce, baby.”

  “What?”

  “Produce section in the grocery stoe.”

  “You serous?”

  “Is true. Honeys be hangin out near the fruits and lettuce and shit.”

  “Produce, huh?”

  “Yeah, produce.”

  “What happened to that gal you were runnin after last month?”

  “Who, Lucy?”

  “The one you said you could marry.”

  “Oh, Vicky!”

  “Yeah.” Tyrone had brought Vicky to the house once. Barlowe wished he had met her first. “She was pretty.”

  “Nah,” said Tyrone. “She weren’t my type.”

  “Why not?”

  “Biscuit heels.”

  “What?”

  “Biscuit heels. Ash all on the back of her feet…I couldn’t work wit that.”

  When the waitress brought their drinks, the two men sat in silence awhile, each taking a sip every now and then. Barlowe got up to go to the bathroom. Tyrone studied his awkward gait. The khakis, he thought, were a bit too tight. Tyrone would never wear his pants that snug.

  When Barlowe returned, Tyrone glanced at his watch and leaned forward. “So, Unk. Whas up? Tell me what you wanna talk about.”

  “I wonted to ax about your job.”

  “What?”

  “How they treatin you?”

  “Fine, man. They treatin me fine.”

  “You workin hard?”

  “Hell naw! Me and some dudes got a system goin. We punch the clock and take turns sleepin in the back. Sometimes we go get steak or beer and come back in time to punch out.”

  Barlowe appeared concerned. “Everything okay?”

  “Tell you the truth, I’m spoiled, man. If they made me work eight hours, I’d haveta file a grievance.”

  “You gonna be all right for a while? You not bout to quit or nothin, right?”

  “Uh-uh. Why you axin, anyway?”

  “I got somethin I’m tryin to do.”

  “Nigger, what you tryin to do?”

  “The house, man. I’m tryin to nail down the house. Mr. Crawford promised that when he sells he’ll give me first dibs and a break on the price.”

  Tyrone scowled. “So, Unk.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Tell me the real reason why you wanna buy this house.”

  Barlowe’s lips parted, like he was about to speak, then he stopped himself. It struck him that nobody in his family had ever owned a home. He came from generations of renters; people like his daddy in Milledgeville, who’d leased land from them all their lives. There was a great big old world out there, and as long as Barlowe could remember, none of his people had ever owned much of anything in it. And they had accepted owning nothing as simple proof of the way things are.

  So how could he convey the depth of his yearning to Tyrone, who was a spitting reflection of such resignation? How could he explain to Tyrone, who really didn’t give a rat’s ass about such things?

  “Is time,” he said, after a long pause.

  “Is time? Thas all you gotta say? Is time? What you mean is time?”

  Barlowe sat up straight. “They say you save on taxes when you own a house.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah. They say you save a lotta money.”

  “I bet you spend a lot, too.”

  Barlowe glanced out the window. There was an old man out on the walk, begging for coins.

  “Ty. I’m grown.”

  “What you wont, nigger, a trophy?”

  “I’m a grown man, Ty.”

  “So. What you wont?”

  Tyrone laughed. Barlowe’s mouth turned up in a grin, but no sound came out.

  “A grown man gotta settle down.”

  Tyrone shook his head. “I worry bout you.”

  “What you worry bout,
Ty?”

  “I worry you gonna fuck around and make life complicated.”

  “Life gets complicated when you get grown. Thas jus the way it is.”

  “That ain’t how it gotta be. Take me.” Tyrone poked a finger at his chest. “Me, I’m happy with the simple thangs: I try to stay outta jail, keep a li’l money in my pocket and git a li’l pussy ever now and then, and I’m set.”

  Barlowe gulped beer and puckered. “Yeah, but I can’t put my hands on that. A house is somethin you can put your hands on. Know what I mean?”

  Tyrone looked through him without responding. Barlowe finished his beer and ordered another.

  “When you gonna buy?”

  “I figure I might have enough saved sometime within the next year or two.” He looked Tyrone in the eye. “Thas why I wonted to talk to you. I’m gonna have to raise the rent.”

  Tyrone clucked his tongue and leaned back hard against the chair. “I knew that was comin soon or later. I knew it, I knew it, I knew it!”

  “Not much,” said Barlowe. “Maybe twenny, thirty extra, thas all…You okay with that?”

  “Ain’t got no choice but to be okay wit it. Do I?”

  “You always got a choice. Might not be one you like, but you got one.”

  After a long stretch of silence, Tyrone said, “You gonna have a mortgage, man.”

  “I thought about that. Thas why I need to know how is going on your job. I need to know we got the money comin in.”

  “You really thank old man Crawford gon give you a break on the price?”

  “Thas what he said.”

  Barlowe pondered the folly in that remark. It implied some measure of faith on his part. Faith in Crawford’s promise required him to vouch for the soul of a white man, which, on its face, seemed a crazy thing to try to do. Besides, his read on Crawford was more intuitive than concrete. His read on Crawford had evolved only in relation to other white men he had come across. Men like Spivey. Crawford was strange in his own way, but Billy was worse than strange. Above all else, Billy was fiercely committed to being white. That was his main source of being and pride. Crawford seemed more green than white. More than anything, he pledged allegiance to the dollar.