Only the Strong

by Jabari Asim

  Pearl noted the hi-fi speakers mounted near the ceiling in each corner of the room, through which a popular ballad was softly playing.

  “Johnny Mathis. Mrs. Goode’s favorite singer,” Lawrence whispered. “You can get a little closer.”

  Pearl took a tentative step forward. She had already gotten as close as she wanted to get.

  What was left of Lucille Goode curled fetus-like in the center of the bed. Her body, shriveled down to 59 pounds, was a tiny, indistinguishable lump. Only her head was full-sized. It hung limply atop her impossibly frail shoulders, crowned here and there with wisps of hair. A tube ran from her abdomen and into a machine next to the bed. Her eyes were closed and her mouth was open.

  “Mrs. Goode,” Lawrence said. “Guts is here. And this is his friend, Miss Pearl.”

  Guts removed his hat. “Nice to see you again, Mrs. Goode,” he said.

  Both men looked expectantly at Pearl.

  “H-hello,” she stammered.

  After what seemed to Pearl an unbearably long time, Lawrence escorted them out. He took one last peek, shut the door softly, and joined them in the living room.

  “We don’t know how aware she is, whether she can hear anything,” he said. “So we try to keep a conversation going in hopes she can understand.”

  Keep dreaming, Pearl thought. “What was that thing she was wrapped in?”

  “An oxygen tent,” Lawrence explained. “It pumps in fresh air to make it easier for her to breathe. It monitors the carbon dioxide she exhales and removes it.”

  “I see,” Pearl said. She waited for them to tell her what had happened to Mrs. Goode. When neither man volunteered, she lost her patience.

  “Which one of you is going to tell me how she got like that?”

  The men looked at each other.

  “It was supposed to be a hit on Mr. G. Mrs. Goode—and their son—got in the way,” Guts said.

  “Son? I didn’t know Mr. Goode had a son.”

  “He doesn’t,” Lawrence said. “He did but now he doesn’t.”

  Pearl had to leave. Right away.

  “Nice to meet you, Lawrence,” she said. She was out the door before he could respond.

  Guts hustled out after her.

  She turned on him, eyes flashing. “You’re trying to scare me, Lorenzo. There must be an easier way to break my heart.”

  “I ain’t trying to hurt you. I just wanted you to see why I think like I do.”

  “That was her destiny,” Pearl said. “Not mine. I’m supposed to die with all my wits about me, an old lady in a nice bed surrounded by all my grandchildren. I could have told you that if you asked me. I’m as sure of that as I’m black. But you didn’t ask me. Instead you drag me over to your boss’s house for some kind of horror show, trying to scare me. Sometimes I think you don’t have the sense God gave a grape. I’m catching a cab back to work—and it won’t be one of yours.”

  Later that day, Pearl smiled as she waited on one of her few black customers, an elegant woman who always bought classy silk lingerie.

  Outside the store, dusk was gathering. PeeWee Jefferson found his spot on the parking lot amid a clump of shrubbery, just beyond the reach of the streetlights. He had lurked here often, watching as the employees and customers came and went. Now, he was convinced, the time had come to strike.

  Pearl rang up the woman’s purchases. She was so dignified, so reserved, that Pearl wondered if she actually wore the sexy stuff she bought. Maybe she bought it to support the store’s only black salesgirl. Pearl handed the woman her packages. “Thank you,” said the customer, flashing a brief smile before resuming her usual cool pose.

  “Thank you, Dr. Noel,” Pearl said. “Have a nice evening.”

  Dr. Noel headed to the parking lot humming softly. Watching her, PeeWee fingered the ring in his pocket. She was distracted, a fact in his favor. She was also tiny. Hell, her packages are almost bigger than she is. Stroking the ring, he prepared to pounce.

  A solid chop to his nose sent him sprawling on his back. The blow wasn’t intended to knock him out, just disturb him.

  PeeWee groaned. “What the—?”

  “Here, let me give you a hand.”

  The hand extended in PeeWee’s direction wore a ring almost as distinctive as the one in PeeWee’s pocket. It was large, rectangular, and emerald green. PeeWee got to a sitting position and scooted backward. Now he could see he’d been surprised by a tall, slender figure with a scary grin. He wore green rectangular sunglasses, a green suit, and green alligator shoes. His bright yellow tie sported a green tie tack.

  PeeWee rubbed his nose. “Who the hell are you?”

  “I’m the man you’ll one day thank for saving you from being sent up on a humble. Call me Sharps. Listen, son, I know what you’re thinking. Only rich bitches go to this store, so that one’s pocketbook must be busting with cash. You’re right but you’re thinking small, small fry.”

  “The name’s PeeWee.”

  “Uh-huh. Let’s take a ride, shall we? I’ll drive. Those tore-up sneakers tell me you don’t have a car.”

  “I ain’t going nowhere with you.”

  Sharps chuckled and glanced at his watch. “Kid, if I wanted to hurt you, your pitiful black ass would already be on a slab somewhere, or at the very least rotting in an alley. Let’s roll before the bitch gets away.”

  Moments later, PeeWee sulked in the front seat as Sharps eased his Eldorado onto Kingshighway. He headed west, keeping a few cars between him and Dr. Noel. Finally they sat in the shadows across the street from an impressive mansion overlooking the city’s largest park, watching as their quarry brought her packages to her front porch.

  “Now you see what I’m getting at,” Sharps said. “That bitch has more money than she knows what to do with. There’s stuff in there that’s worth plenty. Furniture, art. I’m guessing those hardwood floors are dressed up in Persian rugs. And a safe, there’s got to be a safe. Enough in there to be shared, kid.”

  “I get it,” PeeWee said, his hand on the door handle. “Let’s do it.”

  “Not so fast,” Sharps cautioned. “You’re not ready for a job like this. It’s not like snatching a purse. You need practice, training. I’m gonna put you with one of my associates. He’s got experience and can show you the ropes.”

  PeeWee puffed out his chest. “I’m used to running my own thing,” he said. “What makes you think I’ll work for you?”

  Sharps laughed. “Because you’re tired of being hungry and I know how to make sure a nigger’s well fed.”

  PeeWee sighed. “All right then. But on a trial basis only.”

  Sharps put the car in drive. “Whatever you want to call it, kid. As long as you remember to do what I say.”

  Guts was buying sweet potatoes. He chose carefully, and when he had a dozen that met his standards, he paid for them and drove to Mr. Logan’s house on Finney Avenue. The first thing he noticed was that the grass was getting high. He made a mental note to have it mowed. The second thing he noticed was three teenage boys sitting on Mr. Logan’s lower front steps, the same steps he had sat on when he was their age. They sat with their legs spread out. Empty bottles sat nearby in the grass. One of the boys ate from a bag of sunflower seeds and spat the shells.

  “What it is?” Guts asked as he approached. One of the boys nodded. The second one muttered “Whassup?” The third just spat.

  “Y’all some kin to Mr. Logan?”

  The boys looked at each other and shrugged. “Who?” one of them asked.

  “The man who lives here,” Guts replied.

  None of the boys replied. They stared beyond Guts as if he wasn’t there.

  “It’s getting late,” Guts continued. “Don’t y’all have school tomorrow?”

  “School’s out,” the seed-eating boy said. “Been out for a week.”

  Guts reached in his waistband and pulled out a peppermint. “Tell you what. Mr. Logan needs his rest. Peace and quiet is good for him. Y’all gonna have to take y
our little party somewhere else. I’m gonna unwrap this candy and put it in my mouth. Y’all got that much time.”

  The boys sat still while Guts went through the motions. One yawned. The second smiled and muttered, “crazy muthafucka.” The third just spat.

  “What? Y’all are still here?”

  “Fuck you, fat man,” the third boy said. He reached for his bag of seeds and found that they were missing. Puzzled, he looked up and saw them being crushed in Guts’s fist.

  Guts smiled. “Pretty fast for a fat man, right? I can get your throat just as quick.”

  The boy started to reply but Guts grabbed him by the neck and hoisted him skyward. While the boy kicked and gasped, Guts turned to his friends. “If y’all move your asses, he might still be breathing when I put him back down.”

  The two boys ran away and the third took off as soon as Guts lowered him to the ground. “Wait,” Guts called after him. “Don’t you want your seeds?”

  Mr. Logan’s skin and eyes were as close to the burnished orange-brown of sweet potato flesh that a human complexion can get. Guts half-suspected it was because Mr. Logan had eaten at least one roasted sweet potato every day since he was a small boy. He smiled when Guts came in carrying a bag.

  “Ah,” he said. “I’ve already got the oven warmed up.” He took out a couple of potatoes and put them in the sink.

  “They’ve been scrubbed,” Guts said.

  “I know. And I’m going to scrub them again. Thanks for the ride to see Fish off. Alice always cut my hair, but after she passed I started going to Fish. Not that I had much to cut.” What little hair he had left congregated above his ears.

  He shrugged when Guts asked him about the kids on his steps.

  “I don’t sit out on the porch as much as I used to.”

  “Why not? You love the sun.”

  “Well, it’s not the same with all those kids out there. I’ve had my days of sun. It’s their time now.” Mr. Logan removed the potatoes from the sink and patted them dry.

  “No,” Guts said. “It’s your time. It’s your time and it’s your yard. They’ve only been doing this since school let out, right?”

  “Longer than that. I don’t think they’re the schoolboy types.”

  “Don’t worry,” Guts assured him. “I’ll take care of them.”

  “Leave them alone, Lorenzo. They’re just kids. No fathers. No helping hand.” He rubbed the potatoes with oil and sat them in a baking pan.

  “I ain’t buying it,” Guts said. “There’s a boys club right up the street. Gabe Patterson’s running it now.”

  “Too many kids,” Mr. Logan said. “Not enough Gabe Pattersons.”

  “I’m still going to run them off your front.”

  “I didn’t run you off.”

  “And look how well I turned out.”

  Mr. Logan put the pan in the oven and set the timer. “What’s eating you, Lorenzo?”

  “Nothing.”

  “I see. You know, I think I’m going to have to stop saying ‘I see’—with these cataracts, I rely mostly on sound.”

  “It’s Pearl. She’s done with me.”

  “That’s no good. How come?”

  “I don’t know. I won’t marry her because I don’t want her to have to deal with any payback coming my way from hurting people.”

  “You’ve done more than hurt people. You’ve killed people. I love you, son, you know that. But I’ve told you before and I’ll say it again: Somehow, someway, you’re gonna have to pay for what you’ve done. I’m happy that you’re backing away from that kind of thing. But it doesn’t make it like the past never happened.”

  “That’s what I’m saying. When the time comes for me to pay, I don’t want Pearl around.”

  “What does she say?”

  “She’s not worried about it. She said she’s going to die an old lady in her bed.”

  “What does that mean to you?”

  “She’s trying to let me off the hook. She doesn’t want me to feel responsible for protecting her.”

  Mr. Logan smiled. “We can’t even save ourselves in the end. But that’s not the point. I’d give everything to be able to have Alice with me, holding my hand as everything around me goes dark. But I’m grateful that I got to have her at all. My memories of her, that’s my light. We loved each other as best we could. Maybe that’s all Pearl wants.”

  Mr. Logan got out plates and poured two glasses of Coca-Cola, the strongest thing he drank. He arranged an empty place setting for Alice, a ritual he’d practiced ever since she died four years ago.

  Guts broke the silence. “About the things I’ve done. Most of the time I was just doing my job. A lot of them, if I hadn’t gotten to them first, someone else would have. They weren’t people to me. They were jobs.”

  “And the man in the shoeshine parlor? Was he a job?”

  Guts sighed. “You know he wasn’t.”

  “You’ve always had a good heart, Guts. I knew that when I first met you. What I can’t figure out is how a good heart ever led to bad deeds. You’re gonna have to solve that one for yourself.”

  When the potatoes were done, Guts pulled them from the oven. After they’d cooled a few minutes, he slit them open and dropped in thick squares of butter. They sat down to the small table where the young Guts had eaten many meals that Alice Logan had prepared, meals that sustained him in his lowest moments. He always felt 13 again when he sat at the Logans’ table. Guts picked up his spoon but Mr. Logan grabbed his wrist.

  “Lorenzo, I’m going to say something to God before we eat. You don’t have to pray, but you do have to listen.”

  “Yes, sir,” Guts said. He bowed his head.

  LORENZO LIFTED THE CUFFLINKS and weighed them carefully in his hand. He turned them, examining them in the light. He put them back in the box, took out another pair, and looked at them just as carefully.

  “That’s right, son,” his father said. “Take your time.” Clad in undershirt, shorts, and stocking cap, Chauncey Tolliver sat back in his chair. He licked the edge of his cigarette paper and rolled it into a tight tube. Bobbing his head to the W.C. Handy tune playing softly in the background, he touched a match to the end.

  Lorenzo’s mother called from the next room. “Chauncey! I know you’re not about to light up a cigarette when we’re supposed to be getting ready.”

  “Relax, Lucille.” Chauncey winked at his son, who was sprawled out on his belly on the floor. “Lorenzo’s picking out some cufflinks for me.”

  Lucille Tolliver came in, fastening her dress. Her hair was done and her face made up. She stood taller than most men in just her stocking feet. Lorenzo thought she had the most beautiful face in the world.

  “The Butlers and Chauffeurs Ball don’t come but once a year. But you’re sitting there just as easy as you please, like we have one every other week.”

  Chauncey sat his cigarette in an ashtray and stood up. He was a full head taller than his Amazonian wife. “A shindig ain’t a shindig without us,” he told her.

  Having settled on a winning pair at last, Lorenzo turned over and held the cufflinks up toward his father. He started to speak but saw that his parents were embracing, looking deeply into each other’s eyes and swaying to the music as if they were alone in the room.

  “Watch yourself, Chauncey,” Lucille said, smiling. “Our baby is right there.”

  “Baby? That boy’s 13. Almost a man. Ain’t that right, Lorenzo?”

  Lorenzo smiled bashfully. He was already six feet tall and two hundred pounds.

  That night, Lorenzo woke to the sound of weeping. His father was sitting on the side of his bed. It was still dark, and the dim glow of a streetlight outside his window made a shadowy mask of his father’s features.

  “Papa?”

  “It’s me, Lorenzo.”

  “Papa, what’s wrong? What happened?”

  Chauncey Tolliver said nothing.

  Lorenzo climbed out of bed and turned on the light. His father’s bow tie was ask
ew. Dirt and blood soiled his collar and the front of his suit. Lorenzo stared at the stains. “Where’s Mama?” he asked.

  His father wrung his hands. He closed his eyes, clenched them tight. He opened them and, finding the world unchanged, he began to cry even more. In between racking sobs, he gave his son the bad news.

  “On the way back from the ball, we had a flat tire,” he began. “I pulled over to fix it. A couple of the lug nuts were stuck, so I was going slower than usual. Your mama needed to stretch her legs.”

  This time Lorenzo closed his eyes. Unlike his father, he kept them shut.

  “A car hit her. She’s gone, Lorenzo. Our beautiful Lucille is gone.”

  The funeral was a Butlers and Chauffeurs Ball in reverse, all of white society’s servants again decked out in finery, not to celebrate, but to send one of their own to Glory. It was a dizzying experience for Lorenzo: Sympathetic mourners clasped his hands, others squeezed his shoulders, and still others chanted “God bless” softly into his ear until the voices and faces of his parents’ friends and coworkers—the Logans, the Lennixes, the Morrises—all melted together into a confusing, heartbreaking mess.

  In the weeks that followed, Chauncey became a child again. He forgot how to feed himself, couldn’t tie his shoes properly, and couldn’t roll his own cigarettes. Refusing to sleep in the bed he had shared with Lucille, every night he sat in his chair in the front parlor until he nodded off. When Lorenzo propped up his father and buttoned his shirt for him in the morning, Chauncey would drop his chin to his chest and mutter the same mournful refrain: “It should have been me, son. It should have been me.” At night, when Lorenzo spooned canned soup (one of the few things he could make) between his father’s lips, he said it again: “It should have been me.”

  Once Lorenzo woke in the middle of the night to the smell of smoke. His father had fallen asleep in the chair with a cigarette lit, nearly setting himself and the apartment ablaze. How he made it to work every day was a mystery beyond Lorenzo’s wisdom—but it turned out the mystery was solved when Lorenzo came home from school and found an eviction notice pasted to their door.