Everyday People

by Stewart O'Nan

  Jackie tried to read the way she approached Chris, alert for the smallest hint of pity, watching where she let her hands land and then rest. She gauged Chris’s stiffness, listened for any tremor in what Vanessa said, any false giddiness, knowing Chris was in no mood. She compared the girl’s composure to her own. Was it selfish, thinking she was better with him, or just jealousy?

  Chris held Rashaan on his lap, doing a Daffy Duck voice, trying to smile for him, but as soon as he looked up at Vanessa, his face snapped back to serious, as if it were an effort.

  “Ready to jet?” he asked, and she was. They never stayed long. The city had finally installed the lift they promised, so he didn’t need Eugene’s help with the stairs. He could go out every day if he wanted, but he never did, just Saturdays when she came over. Jackie knew not to walk them out, waited for the hum of the elevator, the clash as it rolled open its doors.

  What did he feel, she wondered. What did he miss? Sometimes, walking across a room, she paid attention to her movements, how easily they came to her. Harold said some of the people in Chris’s therapy were learning to walk again. How did anyone learn in the first place?

  A doughnut and then it was her turn to get ready. She zipped her robe into a hanging bag, made sure she had some honey-lemon cough drops in her purse. Harold and Eugene both asked if she wanted them to go with her, but she held fast. One thing all this trouble had done was make her stronger. If she had to rely on herself, she could. Wouldn’t her mother be proud?

  She stopped by Marita’s place first. There was no mail in the mailbox, no Courier slipped inside the storm door. She rang the bell five times, then stood on the porch, listening for her. Nine hundred dollars, she thought. She must have really loved that dog. Maybe she’d paid in advance and the burial was today. She hoped so. All the other explanations Jackie could come up with were too depressing.

  The van was full of altos. They went quiet when she got on, and she took a seat in back by a window so she wouldn’t feel stared at. It was cloudy out, and Penn Circle was empty. They were finally tearing down the Sears. Crossing the busway, she looked down and caught a glimpse of the road, workers grooming the dirt on both sides, then pulled back as if she might fall.

  No one was looking at her. She was ready to freeze the first person that did, but everyone was talking and drinking coffee, bumping along. So that was how it was going to be. People were such cowards.

  She thought of Harold, how he couldn’t say it to her face. When she demanded to know her name, she could see he was lying. Did he really think that would satisfy her?

  Nothing would. Not for a long time.

  The truth.

  They changed in the basement, zipping each other up, going over the hard parts. Jackie stuck with the sopranos, pretending like the rest of them that this was just another practice, as if it were possible not to think of Chris. This wasn’t betraying him; this was something she needed to do. Sister Turner had just had her hair done, shiny waves caught in midbreak rising above a skirt of bangs. She had new glasses too, clear frames with a red tint, the lenses square as TVs. “Give me tenors,” she said, and had them line up before sending them off. “Baritones, you’re next.”

  They marched to the site like troops, drivers honking at them, children waving. She watched the altos ahead of her, their feet hidden beneath their robes as if they were gliding. She was walking without even thinking of it, lifting one foot, putting the other down, over and over, the muscles working automatically, triggered by a signal, a chemical. She thought she should be grateful for it, stop taking it for granted like the rest of them, but it only made her angry, as if she’d been cheated.

  The closer they got to the site, the more she realized she’d been mistaken. People were looking back, stealing glances at her. It reminded her of going to school when the other children found out her mother cleaned houses—whispers, fingers pointing from the swing set. But she’d had Daphne then, and that had not been her fault.

  Did they really think this was?

  Some of them did, she was sure. A mother, she would always be judged by her sons.

  Ahead, the tenors were turning down the exit ramp, the baritones right behind. They seemed to be hurrying, and when she slowed down, someone stepped on her heel. She stumbled, then rescued herself, an arm flailing out for balance. The shock brought a sudden heat to her face. She would give them nothing, she thought, become that child again, pinched and closed over, hard as an Indiana winter.

  The road was wider than she expected. They walked down the middle of the ramp, a white line peeking out from under their robes. Below, men in blue Penndot jumpsuits were spraypainting the dirt green, the silver cans on their backs making them look like deep-sea divers, spacemen. From here, the bridge didn’t seem so high, and Jackie thought it couldn’t be the one. Eugene had said there was graffiti, but she didn’t see any.

  She looked up as the flock of them crossed the busway, shielding her eyes from the light. The workers had stopped to watch. Nothing, just a bridge, a curved chain-link fence. What did she expect?

  A makeshift stage stood against the far wall, a maroon curtain behind two rows of folding chairs, a dais with a microphone. Their risers circled the back, and Sister Turner herded them on by tiers—first the tall tenors, then the baritones, the altos, and finally the sopranos up front. Jackie was turned away from the bridge, facing a long swath of green dirt. The road was so new it shone white.

  Sister Turner fitted her music stand together and spread out her papers. Jackie waited, trying to ignore the eyes sneaking a peek at her. She could feel the bridge lurking behind her, fought the temptation to turn her shoulder and glance back at it, Lot’s wife. She wished Marita were here, just to have someone to talk to. She thought she was doing okay so far. She looked around at the raw concrete walls, the absolutely flat mud strewn with hay, interrupted by the cages of sewer drains. Was that it? Was that all she had to contend with?

  She’d imagined what happened that night over and over—Benny’s hand slipping, Chris reaching for him—but always she saw it in the dark, in the rain, the streetlights and the blackness beneath them dramatic. Not this barrenness. If she didn’t know it had happened here, she never would have guessed. This didn’t seem frightening, and yet she knew that this was the right bridge, that it did happen here. Chris on the wet road, his legs motionless, the paramedics rolling the stretcher. The very blandness of the busway disguised the truth, like Harold watching TV or bringing home a box of doughnuts. That was how the world worked. How could she explain it to Chris? Things seemed normal and then the masks came off, the trapdoors gave way, and you were falling. Your life could be swept up in invisible currents. Yet, even hidden, the truth still announced itself. You avoided it at your own risk. Her mother would understand.

  It seemed so clear here:

  Harold didn’t love her. Chris would never walk again. Vanessa would leave him eventually.

  Good, she thought. It was better to know these things.

  Was it really?

  “All right,” Sister Turner said, raising her hands. “‘O Happy Day.’ Sopranos only. One two three four.”

  Yes. The time for lying was over. No more of this go-along-to-get-along mess.

  She turned her head and there was the bridge, solid as fact. It did seem special now, different, though she couldn’t pick out anything specific. It held her eyes longer than she wanted, refused to let go, as if it might change, become something else, divulge another, deeper secret she needed.

  The others were clapping, stomping their feet so the risers shook.

  They could look all they wanted, she thought.

  Their voices lifted, rich and filled with praise, making the bridge seem small and far away. She looked back, and there was Sister Turner stabbing a finger at her. Yes, her. She wanted to hear her, to see if she’d learned the hard part. She was testing everyone, digging for the weak spot like any good director. She raised her palm for more volume, cocked a hand to her ear, her
face a question. The others were waiting, staying in rhythm, but softer, giving Jackie room, almost like a soloist.

  What choice did she have?

  She gathered her breath and sang.

  GIANT STEPS

  THEY CAN’T RIDE in the van with him, so Crest is alone again, Han Solo going into the deep freeze. Not alone alone, that would be too easy, they got him in with the old biddies, it’s getting so he knows them—Miss Phillips locked in beside him, munching her gums like she’s chewing a plug of Skoal, Mrs. Morris right up next to her, wheel to wheel, listening to her books on tape, the player making a munchkin voice in her earphones, Mrs. Mackey smiling away up front, pleased to see him. Crest sits his mirrors on the bridge of his nose and chills, arms folded, doing a Huey Newton. Smells like a drugstore exploded, every cleaner under the sink mixed together and then cat pee on top of that, a million dead anchovies left for a month in the sun. He’s the only man (and half of one at that, he thinks), the only one not going back to the nursing home when this is over.

  “Good morning, Chris,” Mrs. Mackey says.

  “Hey,” he says, not too cool; he knows they don’t go for that. He had a grandmother once, hasn’t forgotten how she’d just glance at that willow switch and your calves would sting for a week. Could hit me all she wants now, he thinks.

  Damn lift is still going down, Mr. Washington with his thumb on the button. He wears gloves to move their chairs, then takes them off when he drives, like he might catch something. Almost as old as the biddies, goofy white sideburns like he’s fighting the Civil War, looking like Ossie Davis in Do the Right Thing, Da Mayor and shit. Drives slow as a mo too, makes Crest want to jump up front and commandeer the motherfucker, Speed III, baby.

  Outside, they’re looking through the door at him, Vanessa and Rashaan, Pops and U, waiting till he’s all in. Go ’head, he wants to tell them, but they wait by the steps in their church clothes like it’s his funeral, V silked to the bone in that black suit, looking like home cooking, hair done up in braids, little man stylin in his bow tie. They wait till Mr. Washington slips the pin in to secure the lift and thumps the double doors shut. Vanessa waves Rashaan’s arm, and Crest waves back.

  “That your little boy?” Mrs. Mackey asks. “He’s a peanut.”

  “Precious,” Miss Phillips says, “little, chile,” smacking her wet lips between words, weighing and tasting each one before letting them go like they might be her last. They just might. Her hands shake when she picks them up from the armrests, wiggle like Ali’s. He was going to put The Champ up, but now, with Martin Robinson dead, he’s rethinking everything.

  Vanessa told him this morning before church, quiet, like it was a secret and not the headline in today’s Post-Gazette. She wanted him to be more upset, like he was the real Martin or something. He thought she was taking it too hard but didn’t argue. Her mother had been on shift when it happened. They’re all coming in her car, not that there’s going to be parking. It’s turned into a big thing, the dedication, a tribute to Martin Robinson.

  That’s what he wants the piece to be now, a tribute to those already gone, to the people that brought them here across the years, the ones that need to be remembered. He’s had to rethink the whole scheme of the piece, move around names and faces, even leave spots blank for the time being. No Louis Farrakhan or Kordell Stewart, no Spike Lee and Michael Jordan. Let someone else remember them. He wants people who gave up something for the people. Everyone’s going to be dead, like on the Vietnam Wall.

  But The Champ, he thinks, The Champ took us a long way.

  He’ll go soon though. Have to leave room, put him up right by Nene whose Ali used to break everyone up. Dancing all stupid, whistling jabs, doing the rope-a-dope. I’m sweet! I’m pretty! I’m a ba-a-a-d man!

  Put Bean off the other side of him, then someone big in the middle. Not Martin, not Malcolm. Martin Robinson? He’ll have to read up on him, get Vanessa to help.

  Things have been better between them lately, even though nothing’s changed with him. Times he wants to say don’t if it’s just to cheer him up. But she’s changed too, gone smart on him, talking all this college nonsense. U God-struck, Pops dressing up for church first time since Crest was a little kid—’s like everyone around him’s on the pipe or something, Invasion of the Body Snatchers and shit.

  Mr. Washington guns the van, leaving the key turned so the starter screeches, and everyone steps back. How he got the job Crest will never know. S’pose no one else wanted to drive the old biddies around.

  “Hold on, ladies,” Mr. Washington says, and now U and Pops wave too. Crest doesn’t bother waving back. It’s stupid, they’re going to see him in ten minutes.

  Off down Spofford, out from under the trees so the sun cuts in the window and hits his face. The brake’s on, and his chair’s clipped in; if they hit a telly pole and catch on fire they’ll all be meat. Watching too much TV, he thinks, just like Moms says. Taking too many meds. It’s not even fun anymore, that stand-still feeling the pills give him, like time is stuck right on him, locked on to that minute, and he can ride it, hold that note, keep that sweet feeling before it turns into shit again and someone has to remind him to empty his bag, change his bed for him, take him to the park like a dog. It’s gone sour on him now so when that sweetness hits it’s like it’s already over, like he can see past it.

  It’s like his dreams, he thinks. He can walk, run, fuck. Not like he’s the Six Million Dollar Man, but it’s all right. Last night he was chasing flies through rooms, smashing them with superhuman accuracy. Waking up, he thought: Naw, not this shit again.

  Think The Champ thinks that? Mrs. Mackey? He looks at Miss Phillips, her head bent over like a dead flower, and he doesn’t know.

  Left onto Taine past the Liberty Grill, brown and green beer bottles on the barred windowsills, a sagging plastic banner advertising ladies’ night. He tries to picture his ladies in the Liberty, oiled up, wheeling around the pool table, packing the booths. Can’t see himself in there either; he’d never get up the one step. Have to do his drinking in the park at a picnic table, nursing a 40 in a sack like Nene, like U before he cleaned up. His bag would be full before he even got a buzz on, nasty, all foaming and shit, no, he ain’t going out like that.

  It’s bright outside, kind of day for a playoff game if the Pirates didn’t get eliminated last week, cheap motherfuckers. (Roberto Clemente, definitely; Jackie Robinson he’s not sure.) The Charlie Brown Halloween special’s been on TNT twice so far, but it’s still warm in the sun, the trees keeping their leaves. They all fall at once, he knows from raking Miss Fisk’s yard, Bean and him getting paid ten dollars, going to the movies Saturday afternoon. Remembers seeing Jurassic Park, the two of them hiding behind the seats in front of them, watching Samuel L. Jackson with one eye, figuring he’d be killed, only brother in the picture. The whole Bellmawr booed too, knew it was a ripoff. Shit, you see Juice? Samuel L. Jackson is bad, I don’t care, no old dinosaur gonna take him out.

  Crest slips the temptation to think of Bean the same way, gives him a little juke, slick little stutter-step, and he’s behind him and gone down the sideline. Only takes one step—like Wile E. Coyote going over the cliff and knowing it. Bean man, can you get to that step?

  Now when I step up in the place, ay yo, I step correct. Woo-hah, woo-hah! I got you all in check.

  Sometimes at night—okay, in the day too, you want to know the truth—Crest tries to move his toes. Stops what he’s doing and concentrates on the big one on his right foot, thinks he remembers how to send a message to it. Move, you fucking piece of shit. The doctors have got to be wrong sometimes (like with his dick). He watches his clean Filas sitting on the footrests or his bare feet lying in the sheets, ashy ankles. The muscles in his head flex he’s thinking so hard, he can feel them bunch up at his temples. Come on now, just a wiggle, it’s not like he wants to pick up a sock with his toes. But he’s got nothing, lets his breath out like he’s exercising, the same noise he makes at therapy when o
ld Willie Mays is working him hard. He can make his own lunch now if Moms didn’t leave him one every day. He can find a job in computers. He can do anything.

  This kind of shit isn’t getting him anywhere, mize well be dreaming about some dumb flies, so he watches East Liberty roll by slow outside, Mr. Washington coasting light to light on Highland, past the black iron fence of the seminary with the spikes on top to keep people out. Remembers the time Bean and him—

  But everything’s a Bean story, if you let it. Like the two of them are everywhere here, sometime in their life. Street corner, cemetery, Original Hot Dog Stand. Sometime today, two, three times maybe, Crest knows he’s going to see Bean’s name and his own up on a wall, the side of a truck, an overpass, a billboard, and he’ll remember how it was to run down the train tracks with his pack on, Krylons dinging, climbing the rusty fence behind the tool and die at night, a barb catching the cuff of his jeans, his fingers all cut up the next morning, burning when he soaps them in the shower. Remember how they’d race to see who could tag a new section of fence or fresh-painted wall first, or just a clean bus window, slashing that candy with his purple Mean Streaks. Search and destroy, boy. The feel of shingles slanting under his Filas. The view of Highland Park from the roof of the projects. The way paint sticks to concrete. How pressure-treated lumber sucks. The full bathtub sound of the water tower when you bump against it. The smell that gets you high so the big pieces seem better than they really are at the end. All of it will dump on him like a flood, and he’ll just sit there and let it, like watching a rerun. Fuck’s the point?

  “Look,” Mrs. Mackey says.

  He’s heard they’re tearing down Sears, now here it is, a skeleton blocked off from the street by a wall of plywood. No one’s touched it, or just a weak blast from EYZ, some punk he doesn’t know. Y’ain’t fadin nothin over here with that shit. From the jump he’s thinking horizontal, killing, what to fill the space with—a worm, a train, a bus—and how to fuck with this trick-ass EYZ, fit them into the mix, make them just a reflection in the eye of a snake, a face in a cage. Damn, it’s the right height too, he could do it from the chair, and the waste of it hits him.