I crawled from the womb of the overturned cart and leapt over the counter. My brother was shooting the breeze with Number One, who moonfaced me.
“Glad you could duh-duh-drop in,” he said.
Number One had aggie eyes and a bulldog’s smile and skin the color of butterscotch syrup. He wore his kinky hair in a sharp high-and-tight and had hands the size of boxing gloves. Next to me he was my brother’s best friend, and next to my brother he was mine. He lived with his family at Fort Seltrum Air Force Base, which was less than a mile from where we lived, and me and my brother came to know him by accident.
He’d gone cruising “civvy” neighborhoods on a motocross bike he’d gotten for his twelfth birthday when he saw us doing lawn work on the sideyard of our house. He decided to show off. He reversed his painter’s cap around the crown of his forehead, gritted his teeth and picked up speed, then performed a series of rolling skids, figure eights, and running gutterjumps. Once he’d gotten our attention he stopped where he was, wiped his face with the front of his T-shirt, lifted his bicycle up by the handlebars, and proceeded to pull off a block-long wheelie. When he’d finished he whipped his bicycle right back around, still in wheelie position, and pedaled down the opposite side of the street. He was going along pretty good till he came to a patch of engine grease in the road before our yard. It lifted him off his bike and deposited him backwards on the hard concrete. A line of blood spilled from where his head was opened, and he lay on the pavement staring at the sky. We asked him if he needed any help. He nodded.
“Suh-seventy two two,” he said. “Zero two fuh-four.”
My brother and I stared at each other. We couldn’t make heads or tails out of what he was saying.
“Suh-suh-seventy two two,” he said. “Zero two fuh-four.”
I scratched my head and studied him. His breathing came in quick shortwinded puffs, like an overloaded engine.
“Suh-suh-suh-seventy two two!” he moaned. “Zuh-zuh-zuh-zero two four!”
I tapped my brother on the shoulder.
“Maybe it’s his Social Security number,” I said.
My brother considered this and bent down. He asked him if it was.
“No,” Number One answered. We didn’t know his name was Number One then. “Phuh-phuh-phuh-phone.”
My brother slapped his hand against his forehead.
“I get it!” he cried.
He had Number One repeat the phone number so he could memorize it, then he ran inside to dial for help. When he’d gone, Number One looked up at me miserably and let his tongue loll out a little and said, “I ain’t never stuttered afore till you guh-guh-guys come along.” It made me feel lousy, but it was the truth. His daddy, a shy black man who came to haul him away in the back of a longbed Chevy, verified it.
“What’s wrong with you?” he said, looking at him like maybe he was some type of squashed tomato. “What you talking that way for?”
Number One put his arms around his daddy’s neck and let himself be lifted into the bed of the truck. “I don’t know,” he told his daddy, shaking his head confoundedly, eyes rolling back in his head white and milky. “I suppose it was the juh-jolt.”
His daddy laid him to rest with a thump. We piled in the back of the longbed too.
“I suppose,” his daddy muttered, slamming the door of the truck. “I suppose it was.”
Though Number One got his head sewed up, his speech was forever scarred. It didn’t keep him from talking none; it was all that boy ever did, you should have heard him. Not a minute went by that he wasn’t sputtering on about something, his jaws clapping up and down, head jiggling nervously like a plastic dashboard poodle, lips sucked inward and bulletdrops of spittle spraying outward like some summer sprinkler switched forever on. He was something, all right. It would’ve been sufficient grounds to drop him as a friend had my brother and I not felt in part responsible for bringing on a condition that was clearly his for life. But Number One was our best friend, and we couldn’t’ve asked for better.
We stood behind the counter at the McDonald’s trying hard to look at home and ever-innocent as angels. Number One glanced from the left to the right to make sure no one suspected us. Luckily, the patrons and police officers had pinned the blame on the bagboys, so for the time being we were off scotfree. Number One took both of us by the arm and led us through the kitchen to the backdoor of the restaurant. He paused for a moment on the threshold of the doorway, looking from the kitchen to the world of night outside. Grunting, he threw down the rag he’d been holding in his hand.
“Let’s guh-get outta this place,” he said. “I’m duh-dead tired of wuh-working here anyway.”
We left the McDonald’s parking lot a different way than how we’d come in. As we were leaving I saw the bagboy with the face like a foot being shoved into a squad car. My brother saw him too.
“Teach him to mess with me,” he said.
Number One looked at my brother and smiled. He patted my brother on the back so hard he coughed.
“Bad man,” he said. “Real buh-buh-bad!”
I grinned.
Number One was a little older than my brother, a little taller and wider and wiser too. Though I wouldn’t go so far’s to stake my life or reputation on it, I might even say that he was the smartest kid I’d ever met, never mind appearances. He walked around dropjawed, like God was stepping on his head, and his size-eleven feet stuck out a good bit farther than the rest of his body. His paws sometimes hung clear down to his knees, depending on the poorness of the day’s posture, and oftentimes he farted without announcement nor apology. He talked stupid too. He said things like “warsh and wrench” when he meant to say “wash and rinse,” used “ain’t” when he meant to say “can’t” and “am’t” when he couldn’t say “ain’t,” and he was forever using the nonsense word “finna.” “I finna be going huh-home,” he would tell us at the end of a long day at our house; or, in the middle of a wrestling match, up he’d pop with fists balled fat and a nasty, scraggly look on his face: “I fuh-finna scrap for real!” Once, in an effort to find out why he talked the way he did, I asked him where his family came from. He got a wild look in his eyes, frothed a little at the mouth, and shook me by the shoulders. “Fuh-from the muh-motherfucking muh-moon!” he howled, and laughed for about an hour. He certainly had a mouth on him, for a stutterer and all.
We were heading back down Caritas, in the direction of the air force base. Number One produced a packet of chewing gum from his pocket and held out two fresh sticks.
“Have some Wruh-wruh-Wrigley’s?” he said.
We took the gum and unwrapped it and shoved it in our mouths. As I walked along I watched Number One.
He hadn’t eaten his piece of chewing gum yet. As a matter of fact, he’d stopped dead in his tracks just to examine it. He held it before his nose with two long pink breakfast-sausage fingers, then his mouth opened up and his tongue dangled out and lapped the gum away. As he worked the stick around in his mouth he began to walk faster, and as the gum settled into a sugary gray pulp he resumed his normal pace, smiling as wide as any split melon. Every time we asked him a question he had to stop chewing the gum in order to think about it. But he wasn’t thick, he wasn’t thick at all. Or, if he was thick, at least his thickness ran deep.
“Wuh-what’d you guh-guys come and suh-see me for?”
My brother stared at his feet.
“We thought maybe you might wrangle us some burgers.”
Number One wagged his head dolefully.
“Tuh-too late for thuh-that,” he said. “I done kuh-kuh-quit.”
We crossed the intersection at Caritas and found ourselves on Fort Seltrum Road. It was understood by Number One that we were going to spend the night.
“We can play puh-poker,” he said, “and tell guh-guh-guh-ghost stories. We can even make crank tuh-tuh-telephone calls!” A look of absolute satisfaction settled on his face. “You two can have muh-my bed, and I can suh-suh-sleep on the cold hard fluh-fluh
-fluh … on the hard stone fluh-fluh-fluh …” He gathered his breath and tried a third time. “I said I can sleep on the cold tuh-terrazzo fluh-fluh-fluh—”
“Floor,” we told him.
He smiled.
“You guh-got that right. Floor.”
My brother and me’d spent a lot of nights at Number One’s house. His folks knew what our daddy could be like because he’d cussed them out for their ways once, and his mother had taken to calling the two of us Romulus and Remus. She was a smart, thin, good-looking lady with pearly white skin, and she read lots of books and fixed a better breakfast than anyone I knew. Number One’s daddy was a quiet, secret man. He spent most of his time working on his truck and making homemade beer in the family tool shed. He was a drunk too, but not like our daddy.
“You pop’s a puh-puhfessuhpuh …” Number One said once. “What do they cuh-call it?”
“A professional,” my brother answered.
Whenever Number One realized the impact of observations like this, his soft eyes would cloud up milkier than usual, as if to say, “I ruh-really didn’t muh-mean it.” But we understood.
As we walked along, Number One proceeded to take off various pieces of his McDonald’s uniform. First, he unpinned his nametag. “Get shut of this thuh-thing,” he said. Next, he took off his haircap and slapped it down on my head. “Suh-sanitary, they say.” Then he unbuttoned his long-sleeve shirt and tossed it in a drainage ditch. “Right where it belongs, tuh-too.” The only thing left were his pants, which were his. He tugged on the elastic band and let it snap against his belly. “I’m fuh-fuh-fuh …” he struggled. “I’m fuh-fuh-fuh … Goddamnit,” he said. “I’m fuh—”
“Free,” we told him.
He touched his nose and chewed his gum like a horse.
“Buh-bingo,” he said.
My brother got a charge out of Number One. Whenever he was around him he couldn’t not-grin if his life depended on it. Only thing was, Number One sort of took my brother’s breath away. He was too quick and fast and funny, whereas my brother was kind of the hardy-harring straightman. In an effort to shed his side-kick image, my brother kept in store various jokes guaranteed to floor Number One. None of them were any good, but that didn’t keep him from telling them.
“Hey, Number One,” my brother said, wiping his nose on the sleeve of his army jacket.
“Wuh-what?” Number One asked.
“I got a joke for you.”
Number One looked at me. He winked.
“All right. Guh-go ahead.”
My brother’s face was all loaded smiles.
“What’s a Pollock lady put behind her ears to attrac’ men?”
Number One thought about it, then conceded.
“You guh-got me,” he said. “Wuh-what?”
My brother slapped himself on the side.
“Her heels!” he screamed. “Hardy har har har!”
Number One refused to smile. I didn’t get it.
“Like a lead balloon,” I told him.
He glared at me.
“You shut up.”
A mosquito lit on the tip of my nose and I crushed it with my fingers and licked away the blood. We came to an intersection with a burnt-out traffic light. It had been converted into a four-way Stop, which was buh-better, Number One said, because it didn’t guh-get very much traffic, anyway. That reminded him, had he ever tuh-told us the story of the Crazy Red Light Lady? I felt goose pimples roll like dominoes down my spine. Number One told a story damn near better than anyone.
“No,” I told him. “No, you haven’t. Tell us all about it.”
Number One gathered up his store of saliva and fiddled busily with the fingers of his hands. Whenever Number One told a story he made real good use of those boxing gloves of his, sticking them out in front of his belly if he were talking about a pregnant lady, wrapping them tight around his throat when relating the doings of a grisly murder, tapping them quick along the ground if he were playing the part of an old man with a cane, and running them slow down his face in full imitation of a heartbroken kid. Because he couldn’t speak right, his stories were five times as long as anybody else’s, but that only added to the suspense. Both my brother and I would’ve stuttered a lifetime in order to spin a tale half as well as he could. Once my brother’d even attempted to imitate Number One’s storytelling, complete with stutters and stammers and pulse-ripping pauses of speech. Hearing him, Number One took serious offense. He knocked three teeth clean out of my brother’s head. At the Fort Seltrum dentist’s office Number One told the outraged doctor: “Sir, a guy can’t help it if he stutters his words. He shouldn’t be mocked nor made fun of. It ain’t right.” It was the only time I’d ever heard Number One make it through more than one sentence without flubbing up. Too bad my brother hadn’t been awake to hear it.
“The Tale of the Cuh-Crazy Ruh-Red Light Luh-Lady,” Number One began, accompanied by a peal of coincidental thunder. “A Suh-Swearin’ to Guh-Gawd True Story.”
We’d settled down in the middle of the intersection, directly below the burnt-out traffic light. I kept looking to see if any cars were coming, but the streets were washed clean. When Number One spoke the slow-moving world rolled to a dead halt. It was time for everybody to shut up and listen.
I looked at him. He sat with his legs crossed, a mask of dread seriousness fixed across his face, white eyes filled with the black stuff of legends. His voice dropped a notch deeper, and his back set itself straight. I noticed that he wouldn’t look at my brother. Instead, he trained his gaze on me. My brother had settled his head in the cushion of my lap and was busy guzzling from his tipped canteen. But Number One’s eyes would not leave mine—I was his audience, I had willed this tale.
“Are you ruh-ready?” Number One whispered.
I nodded. It began to rain. The burnt-out traffic light flickered suddenly on, swinging solid red in the slow steady downpour.
“I’m ready,” I said.
He began.
“At fuh-four o’clock in the morning, in the muh-middle of a night fuh-full of harmless ruh-rain, it happened.
“I’d just gotten off the late cuh-cleaning shift at McDonald’s, had just fuh-finished muh-mopping the floors and shuh-shuh-shining up the old grease puh-pit, and I duh-don’t think I need to tell you I was tired as a buh-body could buh-be. I took the same route home thuh-that night that we all took tonight, straight down Cuh-Caritas to Fuh-Fort Seltrum, and it led me to the very spot where we’re suh-sitting at now.
“Luh-listen, buh-boy: I was worn down, used up, chewed to buh-bits and spit right out. Thuh-that’s how tired I fuh-felt. I thought the next step I’d take was buh-bound to be my last, and I collapsed on the guh-grass on the suh-side of the ruh-road.
“‘Is thuh-this what I spend my life wuh-wuh-wuh-working for?’ I asked muh-muh-muh … I asked muh-muh-muh … uhhh: I said to myself. ‘Is this fuh-feeling worth all the work that’s been done? The sum tuh-total of wuh-one day’s suh-sweat and tuh-tears?’ I shook my head for the tuh-tragedy of it all, fuh-felt my own sorrow creep in ruh-rivers down my chuh-cheeks. ‘If this is luh-life in the land of the luh-living, Lord oh Lord!’ I wailed to the heavens. ‘Luh-let me uhh-out!’ I was so all-fuh-fire fuh-fed up I tuh-took off my shuh-shoes and threw them in the duh-ditch and cuh-crawled like a dog to the center of the intersuh-suh-section. I luh-laid down my burdened bag o’ buh-bones and stared buh-belly up at the black ass of the night. I wuh-wanted to die.
“I suppose I duh-don’t have to tuh-tell you this was before they duh-done put the four-Stop in. Thuh-this here intersection yuh-yuh-used to be spoke for by thuh-that there four-sided traffic light. When I finally decided to lay down my buh-burden, I saw way up above me the old tuh-traffic light shuh-shone red. Thuh-this was cuh-comforting. It meant no cuh-cars coming north-to-south could ruh-run me over, and for a while I was actually huh-hopeful. Then it duh-dawned on me. One light red muh-means another’s set guh-green. Oh, for a huh-heaven of uh-everlasting yellow! Tuh-tempo
rary safety from the nuh-north and the suh-south means guh-guaranteed duh-death from the east and wuh-west! ‘Oh, Lord!’ I cried. ‘Is there no end to my muh-misery?’ The kuh-kuh-question was no longer whether I’d get huh-hit, but huh-how, from what duh-duh-rection would this puh-poor buh-beaten boy at last cuh-come to pass? From the north, leaving me in the puh-pavement like a wad of wasted chuh-chaw, or from the east, leaving my innards to cuh-curl up outta muh-me like so many worms in a dead muh-man’s garden? Boy, this is the Guh-God’s truth: I was at the end of my stick.
“So I struck upon a plan, a puh-plan to suh-suh-save my life by my own huh-hands, and buh-better still, a plan to duh-duh-liver my vuh-very own soul in the event that I got ruh-run over before my phuh-physical salvation.
“I’d give Jesus an ultimuh-matum. If he duh-didn’t come an’ deliver me from the arms of duh-death by the tuh-time I finished praying—and when I say ‘deliver’ I mean to impuh-puh-puh-ply live-and-in-person three-D deliverance—if he duh-didn’t arrive and lead me by the hand to safety—and buh-by ‘arrive’ I mean to imply from a guh-golden cloud, with his shuh-shepherd’s staff et cetera or muh-maybe just struh-struh-strutting in his fluorescent ruh-robes down the wuh-whiteline Fort Seltrum meridian—if he duh-didn’t come to suh-save me from my sadness and exhuh-austion with at least a duh-dash of Huh-Holly-wood fuh-flash, I’d let myself suh-sleep the night on the intersection, come hell or travel tuh-trailer.
“Buh-but, as you and your buh-brother wouldn’t know, being that you’re huh-heathens and cuh-cursed to hellfire anyway, getting to Juh-Jesus is uh-always a roundabout propuh-zuh-zuh-sition. First you guh-gotta go through his mother; she softens him up for the Huh-Holy Spirit. That boy’s the salesman, and he puh-primes Jesus for the Big Man. By the tuh-time you’ve duh-done your appealing through God the Fuh-Fuh-Father, Jesus has gotten such a wuh-working over that he can’t huh-help but answer your puh-prayers.
“And as you wuh-wouldn’t know, Jesus sometimes answers an honest puh-prayer, ‘No.’ Which was exactly what huh-happened to me on thuh-that suh-sor’ful August night.
Life in the Land of the Living Page 6
