Them

by Nathan McCall

  “I’m sorry, Barlowe…I got plans.”

  He stood up and gathered his things. “You got plans? I got plans, too.”

  He had plans, all right. He planned to buy his lottery tickets; he planned to get himself a nice, cold beer; he planned to go home and relax on the porch and listen to the pigeons coo.

  Barlowe started for the door. Nell walked behind him, keeping a safe distance in case he moved to grab her around the waist. On the way out, he stopped in the doorway. She stepped back and folded her arms tight, like a sudden chill had rushed in the house.

  Nell said good-bye and Barlowe left, half-hoping she would stop him like she’d done before.

  Barlowe took the back way home, down Memorial Drive. He cut through Cabbagetown, with its shotgun houses and narrow streets. The few days in the dungeon had inspired in him a fresh appreciation for natural air and light. He took it all in, every bit, as his clunker rattled down the street, the windshield wipers swishing every time he hit the left-turn signal switch.

  He whizzed past the ash-brick factories now being converted into trendy lofts to make way for the chi-chi Yuppies swarming in. The poor white trash in Cabbagetown despised chi-chi Yuppies a tad less than they hated niggers. They had more in common with the blacks, but you could never convince them of that.

  He crossed onto Edgewood Avenue and entered the Old Fourth Ward, where the people’s faces were mostly dark and unsure, like his own. He tapped on brakes and waited as Viola and The Hawk shuffled forward and stepped unsteadily off the curb, in front of his car. Viola and The Hawk were two neighborhood drunks. As usual, they had taken the shortcut through the trampled dirt pathway between the house Barlowe rented and the place next door. They were headed to Davenport’s place to toast another day of sunshine, another day of living, another day of anything to justify another drink.

  Barlowe parked in front of his house, got out and looked around. He could see the horizon in the backdrop of downtown Atlanta, its towering skyscrapers standing pompous and smug.

  He went indoors and passed a pair of dirty sneakers on the living room floor and whiffed pork chops frying on the stove. He went through the kitchen and opened the back door, which led to a partially enclosed porch.

  A voice, speaking low, gentle, floated to the doorway. “There ya go, baby. C’mon, do this for me. Thas it. Ri there. Riii tthhheerre…”

  Barlowe stepped onto the porch, flopped in a chair and studied his nephew, who was feeding his three pigeons.

  “Ty.”

  Tyrone jerked around. “Yo, Unk. I din’t hear you come in.”

  Barlowe didn’t say anything to that. He stared blankly at the birds.

  Tyrone released the pigeons into the backyard, to let them stretch their wings a bit. As usual, the birds flew into the big oak tree in the yard next door. They sat there awhile, then returned to Tyrone, who gently placed them back in the cage.

  Barlowe watched, marveling at how hands that handled animals with such loving care were so quick to shed human blood.

  Tyrone picked up a beer and took a chug. “Where you been the last few days, Unk, bangin some honey on the sly?”

  Barlowe ran a hand wearily through his knotty head, using the fingers like an Afro pick.

  “Yeah. I been bangin.”

  “Nell?”

  “No,” Barlowe said. “No.”

  “So what honey kept you on lockdown for three whole days?”

  Barlowe thought about the brown lady on the post office stamps. “Jus a gal,” he said. “You wouldn’t know her.”

  “What you wanna bet?”

  “Make it light on yourself.”

  Tyrone chuckled. He went into the kitchen, grabbed a pot holder and took the pork chops off the stove. He placed them onto an ugly platter, then turned to Barlowe.

  “C’mon, Unk. Les grub and go ride.”

  “Ride?”

  “You got a birfday comin up, right? The big 4-0, right?”

  “Thas still a few weeks off yet. Ain’t no point in rushin that.”

  “So what?! Les celebrate early! C’mon. On me.”

  Barlowe liked a good time as much as the next man, but it was too early in the day for that. Besides, he didn’t hang out much with Tyrone. There was a solid fifteen years between them, and in their heads—their ways of looking at things—they were at least more than twice that far apart. And right now he craved a little peace and quiet. He needed time to bathe and chase the sights and smells of the dungeon from his head.

  “I’ma stay home and chill.”

  “Suit yourself. Me, I gotta git in the wind.”

  “Then git, then.”

  Tyrone laughed. He had a funny, chee-hee-hee laugh that made you want to laugh, too, just because he was laughing. Tyrone had a bright, baby-face smile and a mustache that never seemed to grow more than a wisp of fuzz. With smooth, olive skin and jet-black curly hair, he could pass for East Indian at least three days a week. He was quick to tell anybody who needed to hear that he was black, pure black, “A hunnered percent!”

  After he and Barlowe finished talking, Tyrone went to his room. He came out a few hours later, scrubbed and sharply dressed.

  Barlowe didn’t care much for clothes. Except for very special occasions, he wore his khaki uniform every day. Now he studied Tyrone, giving him the up and down.

  “Where you goin all dressed up?”

  “Gotta git wit this honey I jus met.”

  “You gonna poke her, or what?”

  “Gawd willin.” Tyrone paused. “I gotta play this one smart, though. She a house girl. She ain’t never had no real trash like me.”

  “How old is she?”

  “Don’t know for sho. I can tell she got some mileage on her, though. When she talk, you can see that silver shit in back of her mouf.”

  “She good-lookin?”

  “Phatter than a Bojangles biscuit wit butter.”

  When he said Bojangles, Tyrone dragged out the first syllable for emphasis. Bo-jangles. Barlowe got the picture.

  Soon, a car horn sounded. Tyrone headed for the door. Barlowe followed, hoping to steal a peek at tender flesh. When Tyrone and his date drove off, Barlowe scanned casually up and down the block. He spotted one of his neighbors, Miss Carol Lilly. She was bent over, working in her flower bed, her wide butt sticking straight up in the air. Barlowe waved at old Mr. Smith across the street, then something bizarre caught his eye. It was a man—a white man—standing on the sidewalk near the front of the house. Dressed in a shirt and tie, the man looked Barlowe dead in the face, then turned and hurriedly walked away. He walked about ten yards along Randolph Street and got in a black Lincoln Town Car parked at the curb. Another white man waited inside.

  Barlowe watched them closely, thinking, Surveillance! Maybe it had something to do with him refusing flags.

  Ever since the planes struck, there was all kinds of surveillance going on. He had read in the papers how Caesar now sifted through folks’ e-mail and eavesdropped on private phone conversations. They even checked people’s library records, to see what kinds of books they read.

  Barlowe considered that as he studied the two white men. They sat there a moment, taking notes and talking. Finally, the car cranked and drove away.

  It was odd, Barlowe thought. Long before the planes struck, he had felt like he was under surveillance. His whole life he’d felt people—them—watching like they expected him to do something violent or strange. In a weird way it would seem almost fitting if the suspicion that had dogged him so long somehow got formalized.

  The boys at the store swore Barlowe was paranoid, and to a certain extent he agreed. He was born here but he couldn’t recall a time when he felt he belonged. He had never been outside the country, yet he didn’t feel safe inside it, either. In fact, he felt downright vulnerable. And now all the public hysteria had left him even more on edge.

  Later, Barlowe ate some pork chops and macaroni and cheese and washed the dishes. Afterward, he sat down in the living room
and picked up the newspaper. As he read, a pang of loneliness whipped through him. After all the musty manliness in jail, he craved a woman’s scent and softness. He thought about Nell:

  “You too cozy.”

  Normally, Nell’s words would have rolled off his back like so much rain, but her timing—and Barlowe’s history—made them stick. He would be turning forty soon, and he had begun to ponder what that meant, or what it was supposed to mean. Somehow, forty seemed miles apart from thirty-nine. At forty, he figured, a man should be firmly established and grounded. He was approaching the fourth decade of his life and the truth was, he hadn’t yet figured out how to live.

  Still, Nell had no right to put him down the way she’d done. It proved she wasn’t right for him. He might have seen it before now if his two heads hadn’t collided so.

  Now he shifted focus back to the strange white men he’d seen earlier, and he was reminded that Nell wasn’t his only problem. His court case was scheduled two months out. Then he’d have to face Caesar. His court-appointed attorney predicted he’d likely get off with a lightweight fine. All he had to do, the lawyerman said, was go before the judge and explain why he busted up that stamp machine. He made it sound easy as pie, but Barlowe feared otherwise. How could he explain to a judge, a judge, the way flags affected him?

  Ever since the planes struck, he couldn’t get away from them. People hung flags—the biggest ones they could find!—on porches and trees in front of their houses; draped them from buildings in every big city and poot-butt town. Folks wore flag T-shirts, sweatshirts, jackets and hats; plastered them across the sides of garbage trucks. TV newscasters wore flag pins on their freakin coat lapels! Flags screamed from huge billboards and fluttered from gigantic poles in front of car dealerships. One day, Barlowe passed a bunch of long-haired bikers—a motorcycle gang!—with flags pasted across their sleeveless leather jackets.

  Is crazy.

  Barlowe wasn’t sure how other folks felt. Maybe they felt the same as him and just weren’t saying. Who knew these days? The trip to jail had taught him one thing, though: He would have to exercise more self-control. He would have to, or he wouldn’t last long, not with all the paranoia since the planes struck.

  He got up to go take a leak. It would be nice, he thought, standing over the commode, if he had someplace safe to go. Not someplace far or foreign or isolated, like jail. He never wanted to go back there. It might be nice to live beneath the radar and, at the same time, be free to move about in the open air.

  He flushed the toilet and returned to the living room, chewing on that idea. Then he considered something: He actually felt halfway safe on the ragged patch of land where he now stood. He cherished having his own dark, separate corner of the world, where he wouldn’t be judged or watched or pushed around.

  Funny; that notion hadn’t come to him like that before. It came now as a kind of dawning, an epiphany. He was at least partly insulated in the neighborhood, nestled among people who looked like him. These were his people. They were all he had. These were his people. These were the people of the Old Fourth Ward.

  Chapter 3

  Nearly two months to the day after the arrest, Barlowe stepped outside the courthouse, where blistering sunlight bore down hard. It was a searing June heat, a bit like the anguish burning inside his chest.

  Driving home, he sighed and contemplated the verdict: Guilty. Disorderly conduct and destruction of property. The judge ordered him to pay for the broken stamp machine, then pointed a crooked finger and lectured him about the sanctity of the law.

  “…You understand?”

  “Fug you.” That’s what Barlowe had a mind to say. “Fug you and the law.”

  He would have loved to say it and storm from the courtroom, leaving the words dangling in the air to marinate. But he kept quiet. With an elbow prod from his lawyer, he shot His Honor a stony stare and nodded, yes. The gavel struck, and it was over.

  Now the strain of holding back, of not speaking his mind, sloshed around in Barlowe’s stomach like sour milk. That judge had lectured him like he was a child. He was a man, a grown man deserving of a man’s respect. He was a man, yet he had been unable, unwilling maybe, to pay the steep price to demand that Caesar properly reverence him.

  He didn’t feel good about that. He didn’t feel good at all.

  Beyond the verdict, though, there was one small comfort to be had. He had been doing some thinking lately. He had been thinking that a man don’t always have to eat what he’s fed in life. If he wants, a man can fix a meal of his own choosing. Barlowe planned to get to work on that; he planned to get on it soon.

  For now he craved distraction, something to help him get past the public lashing he’d endured in court. For starters, a pair of lotto tickets might boost the spirits some. And then, maybe, the camaraderie of friends.

  He reached home and stepped across the street. Nearby, a group of children played along the curb. They uncorked a fire hydrant and squealed gleefully as bursts of water cooled them off.

  Barlowe went to the corner store, the Auburn Avenue Mini-Mart. The size of the average matchbox house, the one-story, wood-frame store was stocked from floor to ceiling with everything short of bicycles and auto parts. Among the mini-mart’s most loyal clients were three men (Barlowe called them the elders) who lived as boarders in the shotgun rooming house next to the store. On most days, they hauled rickety kitchen chairs outside and held court in the shade of a maple tree. They came out early mornings to critique the rush-hour traffic and retreated indoors at noon to escape the smog or sun. Like clockwork, they returned in the cool of evening time.

  Grizzled old coots, the elders were the self-appointed eyes and ears of the Old Fourth Ward. Nothing much escaped their notice. They were quite nosy and, they thought, keenly perceptive, too. Rough-edged and straightforward as rumbling trains, these were men Barlowe could talk with and be listened to in the way he most needed to be heard. Which is to say, without judgment, and sometimes, without reply.

  All his life he had preferred the company of older men. People back in Milledgeville had said it was because he was an old soul himself, a change-of-life baby, born when his mama was going through menopause. So he joined the elders around flameless campfires, where they spoke, sometimes through gritted teeth, about matters that pertain to life and men. They shared fantastic stories, about good, pretty women they’d conquered and lost, or fistfights or poker games they’d managed to win. And sometimes, if the liquor loosened their manly restraints, they even shared deep regrets—over jobs quit, rejected or yanked away; over words spoken too hastily, too harshly or not at all; over what might have been if not for roadblocks thrown up by them.

  At the moment, the one called Ely had gone inside the mini-mart for liquor, thanks to a newly arrived Social Security check. His comrades, Amos and Willie, sat outdoors waiting with plastic champagne glasses.

  As Ely browsed, the door swung open, and a brooding Barlowe came plodding in. He was trailed a few steps behind by Lucretia Wiggins, the neighborhood diva. Barlowe said hey, but Ely didn’t hear. He cut a sharp eye at Lucretia, who drifted quietly down the second aisle. Ely could have bought his whiskey and left right away. Instead, he scooted to another aisle and pretended to consider some sardines and soda crackers on the shelf.

  He often saw Lucretia switching her pear-shaped bottom through the neighborhood on the way to and from her mama’s house. But Ely rarely got a chance to get close up on her.

  While he spied, she glided to the last aisle, her trim hips bouncing softly on flat-heeled shoes. When she breezed past Ely on the way to the register he noticed she held a pack of hair extensions in one hand and clutched something tightly in the other fist. Ely moved in closer and stood near the crates of bottled water as Lucretia paid the store owner, Juliette. When she left, Ely’s eyes trailed her firm bottom through the door.

  He bought a pint of Wild Turkey, then rushed outside to his friends. He sat down and prepared to pour himself a drink, rolling his big fal
se teeth around in his head.

  “Eh! Y’all see Eye Candy come through heah?”

  No response. The boys resented that he’d taken so long to bring the spirits. Ely downed a few swigs and peered at Amos, who blithely waved at the mailman across the street.

  “That gurl oughta be shamed a hurself.” Ely leaned forward, pushing his teeth outward from the gums. The teeth were uncomfortable, mainly because they weren’t fitted for him. Ely had bought them from a low-rate dentist who’d had them made for another client. When the client died unexpectedly, the dentist offered them on sale to Ely, no extra charge for installation, of course.

  Now Barlowe came outside, carefully studying his lotto sheets. Amos and Willie prepared to start a game of checkers.

  “Barlowe,” Amos called to him while Willie set up the pieces. “How did yore court case go?”

  “It went.”

  They all took that to mean the topic was shut down for the day. Willie moved a checker piece and changed the subject.

  “What that gurl oughta be shamed for, Ely, wearin them britches tight like that?”

  “I ain’t studin the britches. I’m talkin bout what she bought in there.”

  “Wha she buy?”

  Ely sipped from his glass and let the warm liquor glide down real slow. Then he winked at Barlowe, who was pouring himself a drink.

  “Don’t look at me,” said Barlowe. “I didn’t see nothin to speak about.”

  “Ely, go on and tell us, gotdammit,” barked Amos. “You done started now.”

  Amos had a scraggly beard and a shock of salt-and-pepper wool that looked like an Afro but lacked enough symmetry to call it that. He topped it off with a baseball cap, which he now removed and used to wipe his round forehead.

  Ely rolled his eyes and set his glass down easy, taking his sweet time.

  “Come on, Ely. Wha she buy?”

  When he could no longer stand his own suspense, Ely leaned forward and whispered: “Rubbers.”