The Baker

by Paul Hond

  “My nephew’s in the Guard,” said the waitress as she set down their glasses. “Got me worried sick.” She lowered her voice and said confidentially, “I heard the coloreds were shootin’ at the firemen last night. From rooftops.” She shook her head, then sauntered off to wait on another table.

  Outside, it had gotten warmer. Mickey breathed in deep: through the exhaust fumes from passing cars he thought he could smell honeysuckle, and behind a fence at the back of the restaurant he saw the first bright yellow shocks of forsythia. The trees across the street were touched with a baby-green mist, a pea fluorescence, whereas the day before, they had been brown and bare. These were hopeful signs, he felt; the push of life. He turned to Emi and said, “I think I’ll drop you at the house and then go down and have a look at the bakery.”

  “The bakery?” Her eyes picked up the green of the trees like a musical idea. “I want to go with you.”

  Mickey hesitated. “It could be dangerous, Emi.”

  “Mickey. I’m going with you.”

  “Okay,” said Mickey, no match for her determination, which reminded him, fleetingly, of his mother’s. “But I’m sure everything’s fine.”

  “May I drive?”

  He looked at her like he hadn’t heard right.

  “I’m very good.” She ran her hand through her hair, as if this gesture alone demonstrated her competence.

  Mickey wondered what she was up to. Did she think he was too upset to drive? Or was she just plain adventurous?

  Emi put her finger in his pocket. “Give me the keys,” she said. “I’m a big girl.”

  Mickey thought to refuse on the grounds that she didn’t have a license, but that seemed a silly argument in the face of a general insurrection. He’d have to yield, then, but deftly; the important thing was to make his concessions seem like gifts as opposed to abject surrender, to appear to deal from a position of strength.

  He flashed a devilish smile, letting on that he was okaying this little no-no, but as she took the keys from his fingers he saw that she hadn’t even noticed.

  They had driven less than a mile when they found themselves surrounded by the cry of store alarms, shrill and loud as the song of the cicadas that had come fifteen years earlier: Mickey could remember the sky darkening with them, and his mother holding her ears and complaining as his father drove them out to Bryce’s Farm to get ice cream. And afterwards how their shells were everywhere, clinging to tree trunks, to brick walls. The shells were perfect casts of their bodies, completely intact, and Mickey could never figure out how they could leave their own skins without breaking them.

  Now he saw a broken window at Caplan’s Meats. Further down, a man was being held down by troopers in front of a ten-cent store. It was not clear if he had been wounded.

  Emi pointed to a building on the next block. White smoke poured from a second-story window. Funnel clouds of smoke appeared on the horizon.

  “Jesus,” Mickey said.

  There was a soldier on nearly every corner. Carloads of Negroes sped past, blaring their horns. Black rags, like the ones they wore on their heads—“do-rags,” they called them—flew from the aerials.

  On Pennsylvania Avenue a gang of youths attacked a car at a red light: they beat on the hood with their fists before the white motorist charged through the intersection. The gang chased the car around the corner, hurling stones.

  Emi remained calm.

  “Turn right at the second light,” said Mickey. “Even if it’s red.”

  The military presence was heavier on North Avenue. There were groups of soldiers on the corners of larger intersections, their bayonets pointing up like spires.

  Mickey could see that the smoke was beyond his store by two or three blocks, and as his own block came into view he averted his eyes.

  “Slow down,” he said. “Stop.”

  Emi pulled over to the curb. “Is this the place?” she said.

  Mickey forced himself to look, and at first felt a jolt of relief, for he did not recognize the block, and thought at once that they must have driven past it; and even as he realized that chief among the burned-out units on the strip was his own bakery, the relief held stubbornly on in his brain, so that as he stared through the empty store window at the blackened guts of his business, he could wonder what sort of pain he was about to feel.

  “Go forward a little,” he heard himself say. The car rolled and stopped.

  The LERNER BAKERY sign above the entrance had been scorched down, not inappropriately, to T AKE, the T formed by the surviving lines of the second ER. Mickey could make out the counter at the back, but that was it. Even the pictures on the wall were gone. Hideous black shapes hung down from the ceiling, and the floor was covered with the bread he hadn’t gotten rid of for Passover—most of it black, but some of it merely charred, or even white, like the hands and feet of burned bodies.

  The sidewalk in front winked in the sunlight; Mickey tried to imagine fitting all the tiny pieces of glass back together, but it seemed impossible that they would equal so large a window as the one that had been there the night before, and for so many years before that.

  Two soldiers patrolled the block, even though there wasn’t much left to defend. One of the soldiers entertained himself by using the end of his gun to knock off fangs of glass from the top of the window frame.

  Mickey clutched his stomach and rested his head on the dashboard. He was soon to be a husband and father, and because he was not yet aware of the government loans that would be made available to him to rebuild his business, he believed himself ruined, and at once saw an abortion not only as an immediate way to relieve his financial burden, but as a kind of retaliation—against whom, he couldn’t be sure—for the murder of his own child; for the bakery was—had been—his baby.

  But mostly he thought of his father, who had started the business so many years before, a business that had allowed him, after his death, to live on in small but poignant ways, be it in the smile of a child eating an éclair, or in the prayers over the bread in pious homes. Now it was all gone.

  “Mickey.”

  At her voice, the alarms and sirens came back to him, and he could hear the grit of glass beneath the soldiers’ boots.

  He felt her hand on the back of his neck, warm, knowing; there was an influence in her touch, a strength, all of it too effortless and unexpected to have stemmed from his imagination; there was nothing about her that he could have invented, and herein lay a truth that he had yet to fully comprehend: he would never possess her the way she might eventually desire to be possessed. And yet at the moment he was thankful for this very fact, for nothing fit for his possession could ever be of such comfort to him, nor could anything so easily construed that he might master it ever make as much sense to him as that warm hand on his skin.

  “Bastards,” he said. “Goddamned bastards.”

  “Yes,” Emi said. “You have a right to be angry. But please. Do not hate because of this.”

  Mickey turned to her. “Are you crazy?” he said. “I’m ruined. Understand? Not insured. I’ve lost everything!”

  “Yes,” she said. “I understand.”

  “Do you?”

  “Yes. But you must understand too.”

  “Understand what? Whose side are you on?”

  “Don’t you see? We are all on the same side. You, the people who did this—both are victims.”

  “Oh yeah?” said Mickey. Suddenly he hated her. “Go to hell!” He got out of the car and ran toward the rubble.

  “Mickey!”

  “God Almighty.” Mickey saw, on the blackened counter, the bread slicer, the register. “How could they do this to me?” he called out from the blindness of his rage. “Why? What did I do?” He stumbled forth, drunk with anguish. “Ashes! It’s all ashes!”

  “Hey!” said a voice. “Get back!” A soldier grabbed Mickey by the arm. “Mister. This area is off-limits.”

  “This was mine. Look what they did! Look!” Mickey closed his eyes; h
is body went slack. “Bastards!”

  “Hey, lady—ma’am—you with him?”

  “Yes,” came Emi’s voice. Mickey felt himself being transferred from the soldier’s grip to Emi’s. “I will take him home.”

  “No,” said Mickey. He swung his arm free, wanting to take a swing at her, at someone, anyone; he stood there, fists clenched, trembling, and then, the sun in his face, his vision shattered by the glare of metal, of glass, he fell to his knees. The world had slipped from him; he had lost control and was falling.

  Emi held him. “Mickey.”

  He crumbled in her arms. “Bastards,” he said. “I’ll kill them!”

  “Mickey,” she said, stroking his hair. “We’ll get through this. I promise. I promise, Mickey. It’s going to be okay.”

  Mickey wondered how long he’d been sitting there in the garden. An hour? Two hours? He closed his eyes, and his memory took him through the events following the fire: the brief ceremony at City Hall (Joe and Morris in attendance, Emi in her mod outfit, the mood desperately casual, wisecracks flying self-consciously as though it were the overdue funeral of a long-suffering relation), the abortion a week later arranged in secrecy through Mickey’s doctor (they’d agreed to tell everyone it was a miscarriage), and then, a dozen years after that, the surprise arrival of Benjie, the light from whose bedroom window was now shining through the branches of the cherry tree and into Mickey’s wet, stinging eyes.

  Mickey stood under the wide night sky and regarded his house. It might have been in another lifetime that he’d brought Emi home, another lifetime that they’d driven down to North Avenue and made their awful discovery. And Emi had gotten him through it; she’d held him, counseled him, made sure he kept his head, supported his effort to open a new store. A fine contrast with his behavior tonight! She’d asked him to bear with her, but all he could do was think about his own needs. Sure, it was frustrating. Of course it was. But that was no reason for him to have blown up like he did. They were adults. He had to trust her. He had to give her the benefit of the doubt.

  Exhausted, penitent, he went inside. Emi had begun practicing again.

  Mickey opened the basement door and went down. Emi looked up at him. “Are you back for round two?” she said, lowering her instrument. “Because this really isn’t the best time.”

  “I’m sorry, baby,” Mickey said. “That’s all I wanted to say. Okay?”

  Emi wilted visibly under his apology. “Okay,” she said. There was a softness in her voice; she raised her eyebrows, bit her lower lip.

  “See you upstairs?” Mickey said.

  “Soon,” she said. “I haven’t even gotten a chance to see Ben. This page has been driving me crazy.”

  “Don’t worry,” Mickey said. “I’ll tell him you’re busy. He’ll just have to understand.”

  Emi sighed.

  “Well,” Mickey said, “good luck with that page.”

  “Oh,” said Emi. “There’s something I meant to tell you.”

  Mickey bounced on his toes, knowing that she was about to make amends, or try to. Usually it was a bit of cheery financial news—a check she was expecting, a job she’d been offered; she saved these tidbits up, it seemed, to cover her debts in their arguments, and Mickey wondered if he didn’t provoke her sometimes just to get at the reward at the end.

  She raised her violin. “Tomorrow night,” she said, “if you’re not too tired, there’s a party at David Shaw’s.”

  4

  “Next time,” said Nelson, one hand on the wheel, “I’ll shut you down. Dunk on y’ass all day.”

  “Shit,” said Ben. “You couldn’t dunk with a ladder.”

  Nelson winced. “You couldn’t dunk if you was on coke.”

  Ben laughed. “You couldn’t dunk if you was wearin’ your mama’s high heels.”

  “Yo. Don’t talk about my mother.”

  “Your grandmother’s high heels.”

  “A’ight then, Breadcrumb.” Nelson popped a stick of Wrigley’s in his mouth. “A’ight then.” He had one of those dark, bald heads on which you could see every muscle move when he chewed. Temples popping. Tiny pointed ears that stuck almost straight out, wiggling. “Nex’ time, we put money on it.” When he smiled, it was always out of the side of his mouth: cautious, tough. Like he knew.

  “A’ight,” said Ben. “Fifty bucks.”

  Nelson laughed. “Better get a job, boy.”

  Ben remembered when he was twelve, thirteen years old, playing ball on the outdoor courts at school (the only courts around for miles that had nets) with a bunch of serious homeboys, for whom the phenomenon of actual netting hanging from a hoop was enough to draw them up from the city in carloads. All Ben had back then was a love for the game. Couldn’t shoot, couldn’t dribble. His shots rattled the wooden backboard or sailed enthusiastically over it. No control. To compensate he played a pesky, epileptic defense, flailing his arms, batting his hands, going for the ball at all costs and occasionally succeeding in knocking it away from his opponent. Niggas called him Ichabod.

  In time, the nets were removed by the Recreation and Parks people at the request of concerned neighbors—the same ones who used to play tennis on the adjoining courts, and now jogged around the track that circled the football field—who could remember a time when the only shvartzes you ever saw out your window were the garbage collectors. But even without the nets they came: shirtless, muscular blacks, running, shouting, jumping up and hanging on to the rim, legs twisted in midair in a crushing ballet whose music—pounding rap, clinking forties—could be heard clear across the baseball diamonds behind the school. The nets hadn’t been the main attraction after all: it was more the green grass of the ballfields, the elms and oaks, the pretty houses.

  Without the nets Ben was forced to zero in. His eye became sharper, his touch more assured. He watched the other guys, picked up on their moves. Later, when he played with nets in the school gymnasium, the hoop seemed twice as big. His shots began to fall.

  Come summer, more blacks outside. Hot, angry games. Niggas chin to chin. The community newspaper reported an increase in break-ins, stolen cars, robberies, even shootings.

  Petitions circulated. Local politicians got involved. Something had to be done. And so finally the hoops themselves were removed.

  Now it was just these blank white boards.

  Ben and Nelson had to go elsewhere to play. Whenever Ben accompanied Nelson on deliveries, they tried to squeeze in a game or two, weather permitting. Serious games. Nelson, like a lot of black guys Ben had played with, refused to concede defeat. Disputed everything. Hurled accusations. Cried foul every time he missed an easy lay-up, saw conspiracies in every point scored against him. Would literally walk off the court if he didn’t get his way.

  And when he buried one from outside? Shot out his arm and pointed a long, ruthless finger at his opponent. Strutted. Scowled.

  Claimed he got scouted by Maryland, Georgetown, N.C. State.

  “They all was watchin’ me,” he’d say. “Then I got hurt.” And he’d look the other way, rubbing his chin as the undisclosed injury rose up in a mysterious bandage-colored cloud.

  His lies were too big to be challenged; their size astonished, overwhelmed. Sometimes they instilled fear. Left alone, they settled and formed their own semblance of legend.

  The van went over some potholes. The metal walls rattled, and the boxes in the back, filled with rolls and pastries, slid across the floor.

  Despite everything, Ben felt lucky to have Nelson as a friend. At school he’d hung around mostly with his teammates, but they’d never really accepted him. It wasn’t just a question of race; had he been a star, they’d’ve probably let him hang. As it was, he stayed quiet: poured drinks alone at parties as the guys laughed and cornered girls; raised his glass to them as they disappeared down dark hallways.

  He himself had never actually gotten laid—he was shy, unconfident, cowed by both the professed virility of his peers and gigantic visions of his own sexual
failure—but Nelson was under a slightly different impression. Ben felt entitled to his own lies, and of course there was no one around to catch him out: the teammates with whom he’d graduated had all moved on, and as for the guys still at school, well, they’d have nothing to do with him now: he was an old man, a nobody; he’d failed to leave a mark.

  “What’s wrong, Crumb? You all quiet.”

  “Nothing,” said Ben. They passed a shopping center, a car dealership.

  “You sure?” said Nelson.

  Ben sighed. “I’ve got to do something.”

  Nelson cracked his gum. “You mean get a job?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Come on now,” said Nelson. “You got it made. Last week—remember?—last week you was runnin’ the show. King for a Day ‘n’ shit.” It seemed he was forcing his optimism. “Bread be gettin’ you ready,” he said, using his favorite nickname for Mickey. “Bread preparin’ your ass.”

  “For what? The bakery?”

  “Hell, yeah.”

  Ben laughed. “Shit. I’m gonna be a shopkeeper the rest of my life?”

  “Ain’t no shopkeeper,” said Nelson, staring straight ahead at the road. “Businessman.”

  “Shit.” Ben could sense, behind Nelson’s grave and reverent verdict, a jealousy, a resentment, and so waved off the idea, as though being groomed for a lofty position were beneath him, something for punks, for white boys who had everything handed to them on a platter. Still, the notion of a powerful Lerner legacy was appealing, and Ben was careful not to deny to Nelson the existence of a possible nepotism. What Nelson didn’t know was that the only reason Mickey was encouraging Ben toward the bakery—“preparing” him, as Nelson put it—was because he wanted someone who could afford him an occasional day off. Certainly he had no aim toward installing his son permanently, and Ben, who had never stirred in his father a great confidence in his ability, knew better than to expect any gift. Still, he wished it would happen, wished Mickey would retire a few years early and hand him the reins. A businessman. He liked the ring of that.

  Sometimes he imagined Mickey having a stroke or something and himself stepping in heroically to keep the business afloat, and, in distinguishing himself, inspiring Mickey to recovery. But such a scenario was about as unlikely as an early retirement: Mickey was healthy as a man half his age, and showed little sign of slowing down. And so Ben was reduced to baser fantasies, schemes to disable his father, put him on the sidelines long enough to establish himself behind the counter. A gardening accident, maybe? A fall down the steps? Ben assuaged his guilt over these thoughts—and they were, really, just harmless thoughts—by reminding himself that the whole idea was to make his father proud of him.