Everyday People

by Stewart O'Nan

  “I used to work there,” Mrs. Mackey says to everyone—really to Crest, because Miss Phillips is nodding off, Mrs. Morris deep into her story, the little voice going on like infinity. “In pets.”

  “I used to go there all the time,” Crest says, trying to remember a pet department, a solid wall of fish tanks and guinea pigs. One thing he’s learned from riding the van: Old people will make stuff up on you when there’s no way to check it. All he remembers is the escalators, the smell of the perfume counter, the stiff Toughskins Moms made him try on.

  “Everyone did,” Mrs. Mackey says. “I don’t know why they have to tear it down.”

  Because it’s old, Crest wants to say. Because no one goes there anymore. Look across the street, all the storefronts are for lease except the laundromat, and there’s no one in there, the doors from the dryers hanging open in a line. Busted windows, signs for old GOING OUT OF BUSINESS SALEs, MADAME WALKER’S BEAUTY PRODUCTS. The Kroger’s closed up; in summer they use the parking lot for the flea market. Everything’s down the mall now.

  “I don’t know,” Crest says.

  “Well I think it’s a shame,” she says, and he agrees, for real. A tight squeeze, but he can see how he’d do the ugly blue tower in between Little Nene and George Jackson. And what about Kroger’s? The Original Hot Dog Stand. The Bellmawr, a total crack spot now, smelling of piss and pigeon shit, waiting for some rock star with a torch to burn it down around him. Crest tries to think who’s still up, who’s dead. Arthur Ashe, Sojourner Truth. U’s showed him a picture of the wall where the plaque’s supposed to go, but Crest needs to see what kind of room he’s got to work with. He’s greedy, he wants the Bellmawr now, for Bean.

  So this is a scout, basically. It’s not the only reason he’s going, but it’s the one he tells himself. He’s seen Moms sing, just saw Vanessa yesterday. He doesn’t know Martin Robinson besides his picture in the Courier. It’s not like he wants to go back and peep the place, lay a bouquet of flowers or anything. He doesn’t have to go anywhere to see Bean, he’s with him all the time, can’t get a second away from him. Won’t till he gets him up, nothing superstitious about it either.

  Just like the Vietnam Wall, finally give these people their props. Makes sense, since it’s a war.

  Traffic backs up as they come around the circle. He can see police up ahead at the top of the exit, a big crowd gathered around. Probably frisking people. Smooth got his car shot up yesterday in Garfield; he’s fine but that hooptie of his is looking strictly pitiful, mize well stick a target on it. As they nose closer, Crest sees the cops are all brothers and sisters, a smart move after what they did to Little Nene. Johnny Gammage, he’s up. They’re making folks unzip backpacks and flip open the lids of coolers. It’s like a carnival. The WAMO van is handing out balloons, and there’s Tony’s truck three deep with kids. Mr. Washington tries to slide over to the curb, but people are streaming between the cars, families coming straight from late church, gussied up, bonnets and fedoras like the forties. Dudes macking against the fence, checking out all the sisters. Damn, girl, who fried that hair? There’s Cardell fronting hard as always in a pair of mirrors just like his, Fats right beside him, looking like Biggie in his leather jacket and cap.

  He’ll get Biggie and Tupac together, East meets West.

  Marvin Gaye, no doubt about it.

  Medgar Evans.

  Goddamn, seems all the best ones are dead—cept The Champ. Champ just gonna have to wait.

  Mr. Washington grinds the hubcap along the curb like the Titanic so everyone stares at the van. Jumps out and comes around. When he opens the door, Al Green is singing and a rush of barbecue smoke just crushes the stink, and breakfast seems like yesterday. One of those Colemans bopping around in a T-shirt that says Property of Jesus, a balloon tied to his wrist. Ay, Crest wants to call out, waving an Abe, ay little man, go get me some of that Q. But there’s a spread waiting at home, he knows, smothered chicken and macaroni, homemade potato salad, Moms went all out.

  Ladies first. Vanessa is waiting there with her mother, and Al Green’s singing Hay-ay-ay-ay-ay-ay-ay, let’s stay togethuh-uh-huh, lovin you-ou whe-thuh-uh, and then Mr. Washington fucks it up by getting the lift stuck halfway, and everyone walking by pinning him like he can’t see. Fuck you looking at? Like he’s Roy Campanella and shit. Is Teddy Pendergrass dead yet? Pops and U each take an arm and muscle the chair down. They leave Mr. Washington still punching the buttons like that’ll fix it.

  There’s the bridge. From this angle he can’t see if their piece is still on it. He can remember if he chooses to, it’s not like he’s forgotten anything.

  The ladies all have pushers, but Crest doesn’t want one. A Port Authority guy with a walkie-talkie leads them down the exit ramp, saying there’s a space up front for them. At home his chair is fast, knocking into the frigerator before he can stop it, but now, going downhill, it seems slow. His face is level with everyone else’s stomach, which is okay with Vanessa, but … It’s been a while since he’s seen this many white folks in East Liberty. He’s afraid of running into people, clipping their Achilles tendons with his footrests. “Comin’ through,” the PAT guy says, and people turn and look down, surprised, giving him that I’m sorry vibe he hates.

  “Sorry,” Crest says, secretly replacing the footrests with buzz saws like on the Mach 5. Out the fucking way.

  And boo-yah, there it is, BEAN in wildstyle on a Penndot water truck, blowing up like nitro. Shoulda known he’d represent. Shit is raw. Crest remembers doing the other side, the two of them walking around it to check each other’s pieces. Beam me up, Bean, it’s your world.

  But it’s not. It’s just his now.

  Down on the road things clear out a little, and he can see they’ve erased their piece, buffed Kenny’s weak shit too. The bridge is clean all the way across, and the walls as far as he can see. It’s his. He wants to pop out of his chair and start mobbing, burn the motherfucker up, MDP back in effect. Instead, one front wheel gets hung up on a reflector cemented into the middle line, and his chair tips, he leans to regain his balance, and only Vanessa saves him from going over.

  “I’m all right,” he says, slapping at her hands, but V’s on override, straight ice. Girl got it going on in that suit. Why’s she still with him, just because of Rashaan? She knows she got his nose open and there’s nothing he can do for her.

  They’ve sprayed the mud with something green, but the smell comes through, reminds him of that night, the road hard on his cheek as he lay there. The police said someone heard him screaming, but he doesn’t remember it, only the cold, the sound the rain made on the concrete.

  Cardell shows up beside him, leans in to give him a grip—straight, not Trey, cause U’s right behind him. “S’up, man.”

  “You know,” Crest says, “just kickin it.”

  “A’ight,” Cardell says, “keep it real,” drops a nod to Pops and U and Vanessa before he jets. For some reason it makes Crest feel better; he never thought Cardell was like that, but he is.

  Up front, the choir’s already onstage. The curtain behind them’s nearly the exact size of the piece. He’s got it gridded out at home like Michelangelo, broken into squares a yard long. From here it doesn’t seem like enough room if he’s going to do buildings too. Maybe just Sears and the Bellmawr. Maybe he doesn’t need Marvin Gaye.

  Fuck yeah he needs Marvin.

  John Coltrane.

  Miles Davis.

  Billy Strayhorn, who grew up right here. Billy Eckstine too, and Romare Bearden. (See, now he’s dropping some knowledge on y’all.)

  The TV people have run a bundle of cables across the aisle and he needs Pops to wheelie him over it. Keep moving.

  James Baldwin, a beautiful dead motherfucker. And Thelonious Monk, another one.

  On the way they run into Miss Fisk, all done up with this shoebox-looking hat with a veil on it. She’s wearing gloves and carrying an old funeral-home fan with JFK and Martin Luther King on it. Vanessa’s mother hugs her, th
en wipes at her eyes with a tissue. Vanessa gives her a kiss and hands her Rashaan. He clings to Miss Fisk, gives her some sugar too, and they all coo over him, then laugh at their harmony.

  “Chris,” she says, taking his hand. Her gloves are soft, and she squeezes his fingers gently, like they might break. She holds on to him, doesn’t let go. “I haven’t seen much of you.”

  “I don’t think I can get up your steps.” But it’s too late to make like he doesn’t understand. They both know. Why can’t he just say he’s sorry, let it go at that?

  “Maybe I could bring Rashaan around during the day, if you’d like that.”

  “It’s not like I’m going anywhere.”

  “All right,” she says, like it’s a deal, and takes her hand back.

  They keep inching toward the front, where the rows of folding chairs give way to a roped-off swath of green dirt. The PAT guy nearly has the ladies there. Crest imagines the piece already done, that it’s the reason everyone’s here, the big unveiling. They’re going to do it even if they don’t get the money, U says, and Crest thinks that’s better anyway. They’ll have to come down here at three in the morning, undercover, sneak by the abandoned generators and graders and water trucks, work by moonlight. The other way’s fake, just another government okey-doke. They’d want it all don’t-worry-be-happy and shit, uplifting, like that bogus grass they got going. Cardell’s telling the truth, you got to keep it real, square business.

  Gonna need like a hundred cans, all colors, and he can see Fats racking the whole display down at the True Value, old Poindexter boy frozen behind the counter, watching him walk out with it.

  PATman comes back to block for them, and they get there. Crest picks a spot and they open the folding chairs around him. Vanessa’s right by his side, Rashaan climbing on him, then back to her lap. Her mother’s still sniffling and wiping her eyes. Pops and U are sitting on the other side of him, waving to Moms, who Crest finds in the front row of the choir like every Sunday, except Sister Payne isn’t right beside her, just an empty space. He waves too, and Moms waves back.

  They all talked about it earlier, when Moms was ironing. Sister Payne’s dog died and she can’t deal, so they invited her for lunch after; they’re supposed to cheer her up—if she comes. No one’s seen her all week. “Why doesn’t she just get another dog?” Pops said, and Moms gave him a look that made him take it back. Crest thought it was good he apologized, that it meant things were better. Now U’s the one who’s worried about them, keeping his eye on Pops.

  “Scuse me,” U says, and gets up and walks off.

  “Where’s he going?” Pops asks no one, and Crest sees it’s Nene’s Granmoms a few rows over, wearing an armband for Martin Robinson. U sits with her, takes her hands. The other night when he said he was going to be a preacher, Crest almost fell out his chair. And he’ll do it too, Crest could see it in him. Crest didn’t need to come back and say he wanted to be an artist, that Vanessa had convinced him to go back to school; U’s already working on a scholarship for him.

  Onstage, the politicians come out to take their chairs, and a buzz runs through the crowd. The mayor’s there, Valerie McDonald and some of the other city council members, but the one people have come to see is the new congressman from Brushton, Somebody Armstrong, skinny yellow dude in a big suit and glasses. No one goes to the podium, they just sit there talking with each other. Behind them, Sister Turner gets up, and the choir stands. The crowd goes quiet, then claps along to start.

  When they really sing, everyone stands up except Vanessa, who smiles at him. He claps too, to show it’s okay. Her mother’s stopped crying, slipping the tissue in her cuff so she can sing. He’s heard the song a hundred times and lets his mind rest in the familiar lyrics, thinking how they’ll have to set the grid up, work from the top down. Put Bean up first. Then how did he have it? He’s stuck on the Bellmawr, and what to do with the train tracks they dug up to build this. The wall’s only about twenty feet. Maybe if he scales down, makes everything a little smaller. Need to leave room too. Can’t freeze out The Champ.

  Who really needs to be up?

  First, everyone from the block. All the old heads: Baconman, T-Pop and Marcus. BooBoo. Bean. Nene and Little Nene. All the ones they lost.

  There’s more, he just can’t think of them with the curtain in the way, like it’s hiding the piece it’s going to be, the piece it already is under there, like the plywood in front of Sears turning into the snake or the train. He can almost see the colors burning through the curtain, the faces and names. It’s so strong he wants to start now. These people need to remember.

  He watches Pops swaying, watching Moms. Can’t sing a lick but he tries. Makes Crest think of church a long time ago, U pinching him through his good suit, trying to make him cry. Those hard shoes could put a dent in your shins. He looks over at U singing with Nene’s Granmoms and wonders how they all got here, where they’re going to go. He sees faces he doesn’t know, people he thinks he recognizes just to see. All of East Liberty’s here, and some of Homewood too, Lincoln-Larimer, Morningside, even people come up from Oakland and the Hill to say good-bye to Martin Robinson, and looking at the crowd around him in the bright sunlight, Crest wants to do a piece with everyone in it.

  The next one, he thinks. He’s still got to figure this one out.

  The song finishes and everyone sits down and folds their hands. They’re ready to hear some speeches, some bigtime testifying. They’ve heard one sermon today, most of them, so whoever gets up there had better flow like Brother Ike, blow heavy or sit their tired ass down. Except the mayor, of course, he doesn’t count, being a white boy.

  Crest doesn’t even listen to them, doesn’t have to to know what they’re saying. Their voices echo off the concrete. It’s what they’re not saying, who they’re not talking about that he’s thinking of. He’s already putting together that second piece, peeking around the crowd at the little kids bouncing on their chairs, making paper airplanes of their programs, the mothers and fathers who came straight from church, who’ve got to wake up early for work tomorrow. Looks around, doesn’t see anyone famous here, no Julian Bonds or Shirley Chisholms, no Paul Robesons, just folks, everyday people.

  But that’s next. First the dead, then the living. Got to know what you lost to know what you got.

  They sing another song, and then Senator Armstrong’s the last one up. He takes the longest, and he’s weak, reading his speech off a bunch of index cards, zero flow, standing stiff between the flags. The other ones have said everything already, and no one murmurs and nods when he tells anything close to the truth, no church ladies call out, “A-men!” or “Yes, Jesus!” or “Praise God!”

  It needs the firehouse, Crest thinks. The old city swimming pool they called the Inkwell.

  Sister Payne’s little dog.

  His own legs.

  Someone’s balloon flies off to the sky, but he doesn’t hear anyone crying. In a minute it’s just a dot, then gone.

  It’s all about Bean—still. Always will be.

  “And so it is with great pride,” Senator Armstrong says, “that I ask you to join me in dedicating the Martin Robinson Memorial Express Busway.”

  He lifts his arm as the curtain behind him pulls up on wires, and the choir breaks into “O Happy Day.”

  Everyone rises except Crest. Everyone cheers. For a second he can’t see, only Vanessa beside him with Rashaan, her mother, Pops, U still with Nene’s Granmoms. And then he can.

  The wall beneath the curtain isn’t his piece, a song for everyone they’ve lost, so true and brilliant that people weep, but bare concrete gray as tablet paper, a shit-ass little brass plaque about halfway up. Pretty much what he expected. He’s not disappointed, Crest says to himself. No, it’s only now, with the blank wall in front of him, with the crowd around him, that he sees how it’s all going to fit.

  OUTBOUND

  THE BUSWAY’S DOING East Liberty just the way everyone said it would, keeping people out, keeping busine
ss from coming in. Oh, we’ve got the Home Depot but none of the real money from it. Put an apron on you so you can make change, lift the heavy shit, sweep up before going home. And you know Nabisco’s closed down now. Still no new community center, no plans for it either. Congressman Armstrong’s turning conservative on you. Lives in Harrisburg, worries about the financial crisis in Thailand. Traffic’s nice and light though.

  The young people go the way they’ve been going, most of them. The old people keep off the streets, think they’re all gone crazy on drugs. Get a shooting or two every month, fires in the winter, slow emergency-response times. Go to all the open meetings and protest, but the city says it doesn’t have enough money to tear down the empty buildings.

  They didn’t have money for Chris’s masterpiece either, but they spend enough trying to make it go away. Sandblasting, steamcleaning. They’re down there all the time, and then the next week it’s back up, courtesy of the MDP. Even tried this special Teflon concrete from L.A. The thing grows. People call it The Wall. It’s turned into a kind of tourist attraction. Last week there was a TV crew from Germany shooting it. People are hoping all the attention will keep the city from painting it over. Whitewash is the only thing that works. It’s turned into a big censorship thing, letters in the Post-Gazette.

  But that’s the whole thing: It’s the city against East Liberty, against the people. It’s old-style redlining, divide and conquer, nothing new. They’d like you to just shut up, go away, and The Wall says that’s not gonna happen. It’s a flag waving in their face. You like seeing it, like we’re getting over somehow.

  Sometimes The Wall glows in the dark. When it rains the colors shine brighter. People say you can see Martin Robinson crying, and at night they say Malcolm bleeds. Folks go down and touch it, leave things, notes and such, pictures of loved ones. It’s not enough but it’s something. You’re never going to get a square deal, not in this city.