Only the Strong

by Jabari Asim

  Curlers sobbed quietly. Pearl rose slowly, looking around at her frightened audience.

  “Anybody else got something to say? No? Good.”

  She stomped out of Ardell’s, marched straight to the nearest barbershop, and slammed the door. An hour later, she came out with a spanking new natural: short, perfectly round, and gleaming with Afro Sheen. She was still mad, though, and muttering to herself. “That heifer made me curse,” she said.

  Back at the cabstand, Rip Crenshaw was holding his audience spellbound with the story of how he busted up Hoyt Wilhelm’s no-hitter. “With a knuckleballer,” he explained, “you just close your eyes and swing. But I went one better. I pretended I was taking a whack at George Wallace.”

  Even Oliver, who had been slow to warm to the ballplayer, laughed heartily. Guts joined the group, his conversation with Playfair still lingering in his thoughts. Playfair and his parakeets had already left, but more than a few feathers had been left behind.

  “Don’t tell me,” Guts said. “You were in the neighborhood and decided to drop by.”

  Crenshaw grinned. “How’d you guess? I had a few hours to kill and I hadn’t heard from you. Thought maybe you had some news.”

  Guts led Crenshaw into his office and closed the door. “The chains? You’ll never see them again.”

  “Figured as much. Don’t care.”

  “And somewhere between Summer, Spring, Autumn, and the fence who boosted the chains, the ring disappeared.”

  “Son of a bitch. Can’t you torture them gals and find out exactly what happened?”

  “Naw, I can’t do that. Besides, I haven’t found them yet. They went out of town looking for bigger parties.”

  “You mean bigger fools.”

  “I didn’t say that. Isn’t this a little early for you to be going exploring? The clubs won’t open for a long while. You want to pick up women off the street?”

  “Never thought I’d say this,” Crenshaw confided, “but I may have had enough of females for a minute. Them gals took advantage of my innocence. When you’re as rich and pretty as I am, people don’t always have your best interests in mind.”

  Guts nearly gagged on his peppermint. His coughing so disturbed Crenshaw that the slugger reached out and tapped him carefully on the back until it subsided. “I know,” he said in as comforting a tone as he could muster. “It’s got me choked up too.”

  “Let’s take a ride,” Guts suggested.

  “To go look for the ring?”

  “No, I told you I’m on that. If it’s meant to turn up, it will.”

  “So what are we riding for?”

  “I just want you to see that there’s more to the North Side than hoes who steal jewelry. There’s a lot of history here. Let me call my friend. He’ll be the perfect tour guide.”

  Crenshaw did a double take. “You have a friend?”

  They took off in Guts’s Plymouth. When they arrived at the house on Finney, Guts rang the bell.

  “It takes him a bit to hear it.” He pressed the bell again. “His eyesight’s not great either. But he’s like family to me. He and his wife took me in when I had no place else to go.”

  “Your folks kicked you out?”

  “My folks died.”

  The door creaked open and Mr. Logan peeked out.

  “Rip Crenshaw, meet Mr. Logan. Without him, I would most certainly be dead.”

  “For real?” Crenshaw asked. “Well, we ’preciate you keeping him among the living.”

  “Lorenzo exaggerates,” Mr. Logan said, “and please, call me Cephus. Lorenzo’s been stuck on ‘Mister’ for more than 20 years.”

  Now Mr. Logan was exaggerating. Guts had hardly crossed his path for 15 years and might not ever have reconnected if it weren’t for Nifty Poindexter. Nifty would pick a busy street corner, lay down a square of cardboard, and sit on it. He’d tangle his triple-jointed limbs so improbably that he looked completely unable to loosen them, let alone rise up and walk. Rush hours and lunchtime were particularly lucrative for Nifty. Compassionate passersby seldom hesitated to unburden their wallets and purses and stuff his cup to bursting. Nights found Nifty miraculously cured and the life of the party. He’d cut the rug until the wee, wee hours, then be back on his cardboard before the early birds began their commute. He “worked” on Sundays too, the better to take advantage of holy-minded citizens with salvation on their minds.

  One Sunday in 1966, Mrs. Logan had just heard Rev. Washington’s sermon on the Good Samaritan when she crossed a street to put money in Nifty’s cup. She, of course, had no idea he was a fraud. She was equally unaware of the bus careening toward her. Guts showed up for her funeral, regretful over never saying goodbye to her so many years before. Mr. Logan, grief-stricken though he was, made Guts promise not to kill Nifty, so Guts came up with making him run in place instead. The idea was to make Nifty’s fitness so well known that no one would ever fall for his fake cripple act again.

  After Mr. Logan said a blessing, Guts and Crenshaw sat down to a lunch of roasted sweet potatoes. “I know you’re not used to this,” Logan said to Crenshaw. “But I don’t apologize. We ate a sweet potato every day in the fields. I grew up in Arkansas, working in the hot sun like a mule. Sweet potatoes kept us going.”

  Crenshaw licked his spoon. “Actually, this is exactly what I’m used to,” he said. “I’m from a little place called Wigwam, West Virginia. We swear by sweet potatoes.”

  “Well,” Mr. Logan said. “I see no reason at all why you and I won’t get along just fine.”

  Mr. Logan showed Crenshaw the city’s first black high school (the first of its kind west of the Mississippi), its oldest black church, the street where the slave pens used to be located, and the neighborhood where the pioneers of ragtime first tickled the ivories. The last stop on Mr. Logan’s history tour was downtown, near the river. He pointed to a great domed building with his cane. “See the Old Courthouse there? It’s just spitting distance from where you play first base. That’s where one of the earliest court decisions was handed down in slavery days. The judge ruled that people like us weren’t people at all. Just property, like pack animals or a chair. Turn right and there’s the main post office. Used to be a big tree there before there was a building. A black man was burned to death on the spot.”

  Crenshaw leaned over and whispered in Guts’s ear. “Man, is he like this all the time?”

  Guts ignored him. “Mr. Logan, can we go down by the docks now?”

  “I’ll get close as I can, but I can’t go as far as you two. Those cobblestones are too much for my old knees.”

  Guts and Crenshaw stood on the stones and watched the muddy river slap the bank. Nearby, a pair of barges loaded with cargo inched their way into port. “W.C. Handy slept here,” Guts said.

  “Who? Slept where?”

  “The Father of the Blues. He slept right here on these stones when he landed in town. He was a young man and didn’t know nobody.”

  “You know, that would be interesting to me if we were talking about James Brown or somebody. I’m all for this black history thing but a little of it goes a long way. Y’all got me thinking about a nap.”

  “One last stop,” Mr. Logan said when they climbed the cobblestones and once again stood beside him. “But first we need to pick up somebody who can speak on the place with authority.”

  They drove to a modest little home on Glasgow Avenue. A man in his late sixties opened the door. “Hey, Cephus, long time,” he said with enthusiasm. “Come on in.”

  “You looking good,” Mr. Logan said. “Still in tip-top shape, I see. I brought some young people with me. This is Rip Crenshaw and Lorenzo Tolliver. This here’s Stanley J. He’s well known in these parts.”

  Crenshaw struggled to stifle a yawn. “Yeah? What are you known for?” He paused to study a photo on the wall. It was a team portrait of the Gateway City Blues, a one-time Negro League powerhouse. Next to it was a publicity photo of a bowlegged center fielder pretending to circle under a pop fly.
Crenshaw lifted his shades and took a closer look. Then he turned toward the bowlegged old man, who was reaching to lift his cap—a baseball cap—off a coat tree.

  “’Course, most people don’t know me as Stanley J. Most people know me as —” He put on the cap and turned around.

  “Slick Daddy Johnson!” Rip exclaimed. “Hot damn!”

  Johnson smiled. “In the flesh,” he said. He shook Crenshaw’s hand.

  “I saw you play,” Crenshaw said. “I must have been about eight years old. You played an exhibition in Wigwam. It was you, Cool Papa Bell, Ray Dandridge—”

  “And a bunch of other old-timers,” Johnson said. “That would have been 1950. I hung up my spikes after that.”

  Crenshaw reluctantly let go of Johnson’s hand.

  “They say you could go from home to first in three seconds.”

  “Sounds about right. Although these days it might take me four and a half. Sylvia, come on in here and meet these young fellas.”

  A beautiful woman about Johnson’s age entered with a smile. “Hello,” she said.

  “You know Cephus. This here’s Lorenzo Tolliver. Doesn’t he remind you of Roy Campanella just a little bit? And this is Rip Crenshaw, first baseman for the home team.”

  “Pleased to meet you both. Hello again, Cephus. Can I get you boys something to drink? Beer? Lemonade?”

  “Lemonade,” Guts said, and a beat later Crenshaw said, “Beer.” Crenshaw looked at Guts. “Lemonade,” he conceded.

  “I’ll get it, honey,” Slick Daddy said. “I know your story’s about to come on.”

  “One Life to Live,” Mrs. Johnson said. “I hope you gentlemen will excuse me.” She departed.

  “I love that accent,” Mr. Logan said. “It must be a joy to hear her talk.”

  “It never gets old,” Johnson said, “but I do.”

  Mr. Logan laughed. “You think you’re old? Wait until you get to be my age. That’s old.”

  “Where is Mrs. Johnson from?” Guts asked.

  “Dominican Republic. I met her when I was playing winter ball down there. Knew I’d never be the same if I didn’t bring her back with me.”

  “How long did you play winter ball?” Crenshaw asked.

  “Twenty-one years. D.R., Mexico, Cuba—I played in Montreal too. I hit three homers in a game in Cuba, second man to do it.”

  “Who was first?” Guts asked.

  “Cool Papa,” Crenshaw said confidently.

  “That’s right,” Johnson agreed.

  Mr. Logan raised his eyebrows in surprise.

  “What? Some kinds of history I get,” Crenshaw said. “Twenty-one years, huh?” He whistled.

  “We were playing mostly for fun,” Johnson said. “Wasn’t nobody making a whole lot of money. When I played for Gateway City—shoot, we played one hundred and eighty, two hundred games a year.”

  “But you couldn’t have played all year here. Too cold.”

  “That’s right. We played five months. We had other jobs.”

  “What did you do?”

  “Worked at International Packing House.”

  He pantomimed swinging a bat at a ball. “See, this is a line drive to left center.”

  He swung again, shifting slightly. “See, this is a sledgehammer to a cow’s head. Made about $30 a week doing that. On the field, I played five games a week and made $90 a month. Wanna see the field?”

  They piled in Guts’s Plymouth, and 15 minutes later they were standing at the corner of Compton and Market, in front of Gateway Teachers College.

  “I don’t get it,” Crenshaw said.

  “This is where our field used to be. Right field line went that way. Left field was over there. Had a trolley barn in it, if you can believe that. Center field sitting in between, that was my kingdom. Seventy-five cents a seat. We’d draw about three thousand, six thousand on Sundays. We had lights before the white leagues did. We played the Detroit Tigers here in 1933, beat ’em two out of three.”

  “I’m not surprised,” Crenshaw said, his voice heavy with reverence. “Now that we play with the white players, we go first class. And the game is easier too, better equipment, a livelier ball. I’m not sure I could’ve cut it with you guys.”

  “You could’ve cut it anytime, anyplace,” Johnson assured him. “You’re a lock for the All-Star game next month.”

  “I wish I was as sure as you are. Nobody argues with what I do on the field. But off it? They say I’m a loudmouth, a bad influence. You should have seen Sports Illustrated last week. They had a picture of me on the cover. The headline said, ‘Is Baseball in Trouble?’”

  “I know you like your liquor and your horses, women too, but ain’t nothing new about that. You’re a choirboy next to Ty Cobb. Hell, he wouldn’t even play against us when we whipped the Tigers. He was hateful. Hateful and scared.”

  “Scared?”

  “Yeah. Afraid we’d make him look bad. Next time somebody come around calling you out your name, you tell them you’re a man demanding his proper respect. But you also got to respect the game—our game. When you play, you not just playing for yourself. You’re playing for the rest of us.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Johnson’s voice softened. “We had our own World Series, you know. The whites got all the attention but we knew—hell, the world knew—who the real champions were. We had our own Series, our own trophies. You have a ring, don’t you, son? You got it on you?”

  Crenshaw looked helplessly at Guts, then back at Johnson. “Well, I, see, uh—”

  “You probably keep it locked up. I understand.”

  “The truth is, I lost it.”

  “Hmm. Well. Listen here, if you get it back, drop in on Slick Daddy and let him have a look.”

  “Yes, sir, Mr. Johnson,” Crenshaw said. “I’ll be sure to do that.”

  They dropped the Negro Leaguer at home and took Crenshaw back to the Park Plaza, just three blocks up the road from where PeeWee was lurking in the shrubbery outside Dr. Noel’s apparently unoccupied house. PeeWee rolled the ring around in his hand and stared at the dark windows through a pair of binoculars. It was boring work, but at least he was alone, unlike those days when he had to work with that freaky motherfucker Sharps had paired him with. And he was getting paid, couldn’t complain about that. He hadn’t felt so good since he ran with the Warriors of Freedom in his revolutionary days. That hadn’t turned out too well, with the group disbanding and their leader falling for some bitch. Last PeeWee heard, Gabe Patterson was running the boys club. What kind of shit was that? But that was the past. This is a whole new decade, baby. Between the gig and the ring, everything’s all right uptight.

  Guts pulled up in front of Mr. Logan’s house. “A long time ago,” Mr. Logan said, “I’d sit on the porch in the rocker and you’d sit on the top step. Just taking in the sun, talking about whatever came to mind. You remember?”

  “It wasn’t that long ago,” Guts said. “I think we still know how to do it.”

  He helped the older man up the porch stairs and settled him into the rocker. Guts sat on the top step and watched shadows made by the afternoon sun glide slowly from house to house.

  “I was thinking the other day and I remembered something,” Guts said. “You called Mrs. Logan ‘Queen B,’ but her name was Alice.”

  “I only called her that at home.”

  “And she called you Phil. Is Philip your middle name?”

  “No. It’s short for Philemon. She called me Cephus in public.”

  “I’m not following.”

  “B was short for Baucis. Legend says that Baucis and Philemon were an old couple that lived in ancient Greece. Two gods disguised themselves as humans and came to visit this one town. Everybody treated them bad except for the old couple. As a reward, the gods showed their true selves and offered them anything they wanted. They wanted to always be together, even in death. So they made Baucis a linden tree and turned Philemon into an oak. The two trees wrapped their trunks around each other. That�
��s how we wanted to be, always together. So we called ourselves Baucis and Philemon.”

  They sat in silence a moment. Guts was pretty sure the old man was reading his mind.

  “Are you going to give Pearl a call?”

  Yep, he was reading his mind. “I’ve been calling her. She doesn’t answer.”

  A mile and a half to the west, Sharps slowed to a stop in front of Goode’s house and climbed from behind the wheel. He went around, opened the rear passenger door, and waited attentively while Goode got out. He then hustled back to the driver’s side and opened the door for Goode. He waited until his boss was comfortably seated behind the wheel, then said goodbye. He got into his own car and drove around the block. Turning again onto Lewis Place, Sharps then did what Guts Tolliver had never done in his many years of service to Goode. He followed him.

  GUTS AWOKE on Mr. Logan’s couch, amused to discover that a blanket had been spread over him while he slept. He looked at his watch. It was a little after three a.m. After making sure all the windows and doors were secure and peeking in on his host to make sure he was still breathing, Guts quietly exited. He paused on the front porch. Finney Avenue was quiet except for a tireless chorus of crickets and the occasional distant moan of a train. Glancing at Mr. Logan’s unkempt lawn, he made a mental note to send someone over to mow it—again. The old man could remember the details of a Supreme Court decision from 1857, but couldn’t remember to take care of his lawn. I should live so long, Guts thought as he got in his car and cranked the engine. But he quickly checked himself. He’d never given much thought to living a long, happy life. The deaths of his parents had taught him that such fantasies were a useless waste of time. He’d seen a lot more deaths since then. Each of them, including Fish’s violent, messy end, had confirmed his initial impressions. The best a man could hope for was temporary joy, a brief escape from the daily business of being hurt and hurting others.

  Pearl had different ideas. She seemed to think that putting up pretty pictures and buying dishes in matched sets would somehow guarantee that he’d come home every night in one piece. Sometimes, in bed, she would go on about picket fences, candlelit suppers, and bundles of joy while running her lovely hands over his expansive chest. Guts, despite being pleasantly buzzed from Pearl’s expert lovemaking, could only respond with vague, noncommittal grunts. At 35, he believed he’d seen and done enough to conclude that rose-colored dreams were for suckers.