Only the Strong

by Jabari Asim

  Pearl removed her foot, bringing Guts out of his reverie. Aside from the nail polish, her apron, and her engagement ring, she was in her birthday suit.

  “Vanilla wafers,” she said. “For your pudding. Hurry up now.”

  Guts groaned. “I was out earlier,” he said. “Why didn’t you tell me about the cookies then?”

  “Just go get them before I put some clothes on.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Yeah, get some milk and eggs.”

  “Milk, eggs, and vanilla wafers, coming right up.”

  Guts kissed Pearl and headed toward the door. He stole a glance in the mirror before he left. Crenshaw was right. Being domesticated did look good on him.

  Sharps had made them wait until dark before they broke in. Now safely inside, PeeWee scanned Artinces’s bookshelves in her downstairs library. He heard Nifty overhead, thumping around like Long John Silver. Instead of a peg leg, the triple-jointed freak had a sword strapped to his waist. The weapon was slightly curved, like a cutlass, and nearly reached his feet. The plan had been to get in and out quickly, and neither Sharps nor PeeWee could see how the sword would help them do that. Nifty had insisted. He had been carrying it everywhere. For protection, he said. In case he needed to “cut a nigger down to size.”

  Sharps had cursed and sighed. “We don’t have time to argue,” he finally said. “Let’s do this.”

  PeeWee had never seen so many books outside a public library. He pulled down a well-worn volume and glanced at the title. A Book of Medical Discourses. Boring shit, he should have known. When PeeWee had flirted with being a revolutionary, he’d carried around a copy of Eldridge Cleaver’s Soul on Ice. He’d even cracked it open a couple times. But he’d never gotten past the first paragraph. He was surprised to see it on the shelf in front of him. What’s this siddity bitch doing with revolutionary stuff?

  When some bright but troubled young men had contacted Artinces about her research on infant nutrition, she actually flew to their Bay Area headquarters and gave them a crash course. They had plans to start a breakfast program. PeeWee had no way of knowing that. Even if he bothered to read the Gateway Citizen, he wouldn’t have found it there.

  Moving to the desk, he found a book spread open. Across two pages, a full-color portrait showed three white men dressed in old-fashioned suits. They stood around a black woman kneeling on a table. She was clad in a ragged sackcloth dress and her hair was wrapped in a red kerchief. Two other black women peered from a behind a curtain stretched across the background. One woman wore a kerchief. The other was bareheaded with long, black, woolly braids. Fascinated, PeeWee sat on a chair and looked closer. The caption read, “J. Marion Sims, Gynecologic Surgeon.” The accompanying text described the “excruciating ordeal” of slave women Lucy, Betsy, and Anarcha. Apparently Dr. Sims had purchased the women and experimented on them repeatedly without anesthesia. Ultimately, his work led to improved gynecological and reproductive health for generations of women. The trio suffered, the book said, so that other women might experience the joy of good health and fertility. PeeWee saw that Artinces had scribbled a note in the margin. “There you are,” it read.

  “Weird shit,” he muttered.

  Sharps was concealed in the shrubbery when Artinces rode up in Vernon Reid’s taxi. He waited quietly while the doctor politely rejected the old man’s offer to walk her to her door. He stared, puzzled, as his diminutive prey appeared to have a conversation with herself.

  Artinces hesitated. The three women stood resolutely in front of her door, silent and intimidating. The bareheaded one had lost her smile. Artinces took a step forward.

  “Lucy. Betsy. Anarcha. See, I know who you are. And I know why you’re here. You want to punish me for a mistake I made a long time ago.”

  The women remained silent, inscrutable, as if their appearance in this world had come at the price of speech.

  “I understand that you didn’t endure what you did so that women like me can do what I did. It was a long time ago and I won’t define my life by the things I’ve done wrong. And I won’t let you do it either.” Taking a deep breath, she walked right through them.

  When she entered the house, a slight movement—of feathers, it turned out—caught her eye. Leaving the door slightly ajar, she turned and looked at Shabazz. Clearly agitated, he hopped in a circle, thrashing his wings.

  “Watch yourself,” he said.

  Upon hearing the bird, it occurred to Artinces that instead of merely blocking her path, Lucy, Betsy, and Anarcha had actually been trying to keep her out of harm’s way, some danger that they had anticipated but to which she was blind. But realization dawned too late.

  The glare from the other car’s headlights made it hard to see. Charlotte saw two figures advancing on her. Before she could make out their faces, a solid punch to the solar plexus dropped her to her knees. Gasping, she looked up into the leering face of a brown-skinned man, not much older than her, thin, wiry, and quick. Peering from behind him, Young Mom emerged. The girl she’d fought with on the bus.

  “Remember me, bitch?” she jeered. “I told you that me and Bumpy was gonna get your ass!” Still on her knees, Charlotte watched Bumpy raise his weapon. It looked like a table leg wrapped in electrical tape. She closed her eyes and flinched but Bumpy was just faking her out. Instead, he swung at her driver’s side window, shattering it. Charlotte thought she’d have a chance if she could just get back to her car. Her bag was on the front seat. Inside it was Percy’s gun.

  She tried to get to her feet, but Bumpy casually planted his foot in her chest. Extending his leg, he pushed her onto her back. Charlotte began to scoot away from him, backward. Another car entered the street and slowed down. Bumpy waved his club at the driver. “Get on away from here,” he yelled. “Mind your own goddamn business.” The driver took his advice and screeched away.

  “Say you sorry,” Bumpy ordered. “Tell her you sorry and I just might let you live.”

  “Kiss my ass,” Charlotte replied.

  “What did you say?”

  “I. Said. Kiss. My. Ass!”

  “Aw, this bitch is crazy,” Bumpy decided. “I’m gonna enjoy this.”

  “Bumpy!” Young Mom shouted. “Look out!”

  Bumpy looked up, puzzled, as another car, headlights blazing, roared up to within three feet of him and braked to a halt. “Who the fuck is that?” Bumpy said. When he got no answer he advanced on the car, swinging his club. “I said, who the fuck—”

  The driver’s door swung open and smacked into him, knocking him to the ground.

  “Bumpy!” Young Mom yelled again. She ran to him. The driver’s door shut.

  The door on the passenger side opened. Charlotte got up and ran around. She peeked in and saw the plump, familiar face of Guts Tolliver.

  “Hurry up,” he demanded. “Get in!”

  Charlotte moved toward the seat but remembered her bag. “One second,” she said. She retrieved her bag, took the keys out of the ignition, and returned to Guts.

  Bumpy was holding his side and groaning. “This ain’t over!” Young Mom shouted. “You hear me? This ain’t over!”

  Bored with the books and dissatisfied with the work assignments—he was nothing more than a glorified lackey, when he really should have been running things—PeeWee slipped his trusty World Series ring from his pocket and held it under the lamp on the desk. He never tired of that, turning the ring slowly as light slid through the jewel and threw blackness everywhere.

  Dr. Noel sprung from the shadows near the floor and slashed his Achilles tendon with the scalpel she kept in her lab coat. “Ow! What the fuck?”

  He dropped to one knee, enabling her to slice the same tendon behind his other ankle. While he wobbled, she grabbed her bust of Dr. Charles Drew from its pedestal and swung it against his head. PeeWee grunted and slumped to the floor. The ring fell from his hand and rolled into the hallway. Artinces heard furniture moving overhead, the sound of drawers being yanked out and tossed aside. />
  Sharps entered. He saw PeeWee on the floor, out cold. From behind the desk, Artinces hurled the bust at him. But it was too heavy to sustain much momentum and he easily avoided it. “Well,” he said, “the doctor’s in the house.”

  Guts’s car was in motion before Charlotte yanked the door shut. He wasn’t sure but it was almost as if the girl was angry with him.

  “Are you following me?”

  Guts shook his head. “Just picking up some vanilla wafers.”

  “I can take care of myself, you know.”

  “Yeah,” Guts said, “I can see that. Want to tell me where we’re going?”

  “Just keep driving. I’ll tell you when to turn.”

  They rode in silence for a while.

  “You in college or high school?”

  “College. I was, anyway.”

  “Why ‘was’?”

  “I might not go back. I want some time to think about things.”

  “To think? What are you, about 19?”

  “Almost.”

  “Eighteen then. What you got to think about? You got your whole life in front of you. Opportunities. Good things.”

  “You think that? You really think that?”

  The girl turned toward him, looking for an argument. He kept his eyes on the road.

  Sharps had a wide-open stance, like a bull rider in a rodeo. Artinces threw herself at the opening, hoping to slide through his legs and slash at his testicles as she passed. But Sharps was as quick as he was slick. She got a piece of his thigh as he shifted his feet, inflicting only enough damage to make him mad. Sharps roared. He pressed his hand to his thigh, felt the warm trickle of blood.

  “Bitch! If I didn’t know any better. I’d think you were trying to kill me. Guess what—you’re not the first.”

  He snatched her up as she tried to run. He punched her in the face and hurled her into a bookcase. Pain sizzled from her tailbone to her skull like oil poured into a hot skillet. An avalanche of books tumbled on her as she blinked, trying to focus. Twin images of Sharps swayed before her. Both of them were bellowing.

  Following Charlotte’s directions, Guts headed west on Delmar. The tiresome landmarks flashed as they rolled. Package Liquor. Chinese Food. Church.

  The girl seemed calmer now, reflective. Despite her boyish disguise, Guts recognized her as the girl he’d saved behind the Comet Theatre. He’d seen her again at the grand opening of the Harry Truman Boys Club not long after. But not since then.

  “What were you doing when you were my age?”

  Guts thought a minute. “Nothing good, I can tell you that. Besides learning about love.”

  “What about it?”

  “How hard it is to get over it. She was beautiful. And nice to me. Made me feel like right beside her was my place to be in this world.”

  “What happened?”

  Guts glanced at the girl. She was pretty when she wasn’t scowling. More landmarks flickered in the side-view mirror. Colt 45. Fried Rice. Jesus.

  “It didn’t work out,” he said.

  Summoning what was left of her waning strength, Artinces struggled to a sitting position. Breathing hard, she rested her back gingerly against the bookshelf. Her tongue felt thick and her mouth was full of blood.

  Sharps leaned close to her face. He was done yelling. “Bitch, what all you got in here? You got Goode’s shit? Where the stock certificates? Where the diamonds?”

  She laughed. The man was making no sense at all. She spat a tooth into the palm of her hand. “Makes no difference,” she said. “Diamonds, turnips, they come from the same dirt.”

  Sharps stared at her. Before he could reply, they both heard a car pulling up outside. “Shut up,” he instructed. “Don’t say a word.” Muttering curses, he grabbed her by the hair and dragged her into the next room.

  Outside the Noel mansion, Guts raised his eyebrows.

  “You live here?”

  “Dr. Noel lives here. I just take up space.”

  Guts insisted on walking Charlotte to the door. He sensed a wisecrack about to bubble forth from her lips. She surprised him by swallowing it. Instead, she accepted his offer. They got out of the car. She looked even younger out in the open, more vulnerable. At the porch, Guts noticed that the door wasn’t completely closed. There was also a pungent, familiar scent that set his nerves on edge. What was it Goode used to say? Something about a skunk.

  He turned to the girl. “What’s your name?”

  “What?”

  “Tell me your name.”

  “It’s Charlotte. Why?”

  “Charlotte, I want you to go wait in my car.”

  “Why?” She was sullen again.

  “I need you to trust me. Have I let you down so far?”

  “No,” she replied. “No, you haven’t.” She almost smiled, revealing a comma-shaped dimple on one side of her face. It reminded Guts of something, but he couldn’t put his finger on it.

  “Okay then. I need you to go back to the car and stay there. Don’t come out until I let you know it’s safe.”

  Charlotte nodded. She jogged back to the Plymouth.

  Slowly, Guts pushed the door open. On the floor in the middle of the hallway, a tiny object glittered on the marble floor. It was a ring. A World Series ring. What the hell was it doing here?

  Bingo, he thought. He reached down and pocketed the ring. A streak of blood led him to the library, where he saw PeeWee stretched out on the ground. Books were strewn everywhere. A curtain was torn and one bookshelf was toppled completely over. A sculpture of a man’s head sat on the floor in chunks.

  PeeWee sat up and mumbled something about three women. Guts punched him and sent him back to sleep. Guts heard sounds of movement overhead, heavy breathing, something being dragged.

  He stealthily climbed the long, winding staircase, arriving on the second floor without a sound. The torn-up interior of the master bedroom reminded him of the streets of North Gateway after the riots. The mattress had been slit and flipped over. The bureau and chifforobe were in splinters. Earrings, underwear, and necklaces hung from the ceiling fan. Any space not blanketed with discarded items of clothing was covered by papers, some still in neat stacks and others shuffled and tossed like playing cards. In the center of the room with his back to the door, calmly studying what looked like bank documents, stood Nifty Carmichael.

  Guts began to creep toward him.

  “Figured you’d be here,” Nifty said.

  Guts stopped.

  “What? You surprised? Sharps ain’t the only nigger that stinks. Except he smells like rotten flowers. You? You smell like blood.”

  Guts listened, mind racing. Something was different about Nifty. Besides the fact that he wasn’t running in place.

  “We been connected, me and you. Ever since that old bitch stepped in front of that bus trying to give me a quarter.”

  Whatever it was that was different about Nifty made Guts hesitant, unsure. Nifty usually shook helplessly in Guts’s presence, teeth chattering, like a nudist at the North Pole. Sometimes he even wet his pants. Where was that Nifty and what had this impostor done with him?

  “I don’t just watch the streets, Guts. I watch you, too. I been studying you for years, waiting for you to get careless. Lo and behold, it finally happened. Love does that to you, right? Steady pussy makes a man weak. I seen you keeping company with that bitch that works at Aldo’s. That’s one fine bitch, finer than you’re used to. I knew she’d have you limping soon enough. Knew I’d catch you one day, dragging a leg behind you and grinning like a fool.”

  Guts took a step toward Nifty. Instead of scampering like a rabbit, Nifty stayed put. He wagged a finger at Guts. “Not so fast, fat man. Daddy’s talking. Where was I? Oh, yeah. So when a business associate approached me about taking down Ananias Goode, I signed on. Because wherever that motherfucker’s involved, good-for-nothing Guts is bound to show his ass.”

  Guts leaped. He expected Nifty to run but he didn’t, so Guts overshot his mark. He s
pun around, caught Nifty’s arm and gave it a vicious twist, yanking it up and behind him. But there was no satisfying snap. Nifty popped his joints and wriggled loose, giving him just enough time to free his sword and catch Guts as he came at him again. He raised the sword and swung down with all his might. The blade entered cleanly, just where Guts’s shoulder connected to his trunk. His eyes opened wide in wonder as he fell.

  The whole room rattled when he landed against the ruined chifforobe. He slumped against it as dazed as a fighter caught between the ropes, sucking air while the referee counted him out. Guts’s brain sent urgent messages through the nerves snaking along his damaged appendage, commanding it to rise, recover, revive. But his arm wasn’t listening.

  He was vaguely aware of Nifty crowing and strutting. “I told everybody,” he boasted. “I told anybody who would listen that you’d gone soft. I told ’em you weren’t as fast as you used to be. Guess I was right.”

  Guts struggled to stay alert. He shook off thoughts of his parents, Pearl, the ducks on the pond in Fairgrounds Park. He needed to be fully present with Nifty, to wait for the blustering freak to dance too close to his working hand.

  “I bet you wonder where I got this sword,” Nifty said. “Got it from Playfair. Naw, he didn’t sell it to me. He wouldn’t do that because he’s too loyal to you. I stole it out of his Buick while he slept. You should see the things he has in that trunk. It’s true what they say. He has everything a brother needs.”

  Guts scanned the room in search of something that could be turned into a weapon. His eyes landed on a framed photo that Nifty had knocked from Dr. Noel’s nightstand. It was a picture of a couple in a nightclub, smiling against a backdrop of sequins and jazz. He saw that the couple was Dr. Noel and Ananias Goode.

  Guts thought that he and Pearl should take a picture like that. He and Pearl.

  Nifty held the sword like a bat. He moved it slowly through the air at a phantom target, like Rip Crenshaw warming up before the crowd. Guts slumped farther. He looked limp, sweaty, barely responsive. Watching Nifty, he thought of the Louisville Slugger in his trunk, the gift from Crenshaw. Why didn’t he have the presence of mind to bring it with him? Nifty squatted beside him. “You should have killed me a long time ago, Guts. The North Side ain’t big enough for the both of us. So I got to make some room. One of us has to go and it has to be y—”