Them

by Nathan McCall

  “We got along fine on most things, far as I could see. But now I realize I couldn’t see so far.”

  He watched closely for her reaction. She kept quiet, hoping he’d continue.

  “Some a our differences came down to her being a woman and me being a man. I couldn’t get past all the bridges and walls that came with that. I couldn’t get it, even though I wonted to.”

  “So what happened?”

  “After a while, I guess she had to decide whether to keep tryin with me or to cut her losses and move on.”

  “And what did she do?”

  “She moved on.”

  Sandy shrugged. “Well, then, I guess that was her loss.”

  “What you mean?”

  “As long as someone is willing to try, you’ve got to be willing to work at it.”

  “And what if it can’t work for reasons that are bigger than botha you put together?”

  Sandy gazed at him with that certain look. He recognized it now. It was the look of defiance, resolve, the game face she put on when defending one of her cherished principles.

  “You’ve got to keep working at it, no matter what. I believe that. I truly do.”

  She thought that for once they might reach some accord on something. (Barlowe always seemed to find a reason to disagree.) But his reaction left her more puzzled than before. He looked upon her with a strange, vacant wonder. It was the look of a man standing at the edge of the Grand Canyon, contemplating the vast distance to the other side.

  He likely could have bridged at least some of the gap by expanding on the awkward parable that he’d just tried to share. But he couldn’t. He was wholly unable to conjure the words to adequately express the profundity of all he knew.

  If Barlowe could have assembled the words that reflected his knowing, he might have said something like this: “Between two people with perceptions shaped by realities as alien as ours, some things really are inscrutable; one person’s truths can transcend another’s language, rendering them utterly incapable of seeing eye to eye.”

  But Barlowe couldn’t come anywhere close to conveying that thought, so he opted out. He muttered, simply, “Never mind. Forget it.”

  They both rushed to end the conversation after that.

  In later exchanges, they took only occasional minor risks. Mostly, they chitchatted about grass and flowers and hornets’ nests.

  This day, though, Sandy finished hanging clothes and headed indoors without even venturing into small talk.

  Barlowe had gone into the yard to rearrange flowerpots. He briefly wondered why she seemed so aloof.

  Maybe she got a lot on her mind.

  He got up from his knees to empty dead plants into the trash. Viola appeared from behind. She was alone, and she looked sickly and weak from lack of food. She cut through the yard on Barlowe’s side, trying to appear confident, like she had every right to strut through there.

  Barlowe nodded a silent hello. Viola nodded back and continued on until she was out of sight.

  Chapter 31

  “Come on, Sandy! We’re late!”

  “I’ll be there in a minute!”

  Sean rose from a living room chair, put on his jacket and waited. A sharp pain shot through his head, forcing him to sit down again. He needed aspirin. He had taken aspirin just an hour ago, which meant he’d have to hold off and tough it out—again.

  Ever since Tyrone had nearly choked him to death, Sean had not been himself. First he’d been hounded by constant fear. Now he experienced full-blown panic attacks—intense, charged moments when he felt as if he might jump out of his skin.

  There was virtually no relief in sleep, either. He had nightmares about intruders. He had visions of them, bursting into his home, some choking him to death while others had their way with his screaming wife in another room.

  It was horrifying. Maybe I need to see a doctor, he thought.

  Now Sandy appeared from the kitchen carrying a covered dish. She joined him at the front door.

  The Gilmores had been invited to Eric and Katheryn Harper’s place, two streets over. Katheryn had framed the invite as an “informal potluck dinner.” Sandy hadn’t thought much about that description at first. Now it gnawed at her.

  The invite came on the heels of news that someone had thrown a brick through the plate glass window of a white couple’s house. There had been a burglary at another home after that, followed by a testy civic league meeting that ended in an ugly shouting match.

  The Harpers lived on Irwin Street. Their huge home, a hundred-year-old Colonial Revival, with a second-floor dormer window, was widely considered the most fabulously restored house in the neighborhood.

  The Gilmores were among the last dinner guests to arrive. After exchanging hellos, Sandy scanned the well-appointed room, noting the sameness in the faces of the people there. Among the guests, about twenty in all, Greg Barron and his wife, Melissa, were there; Danny and his partner, Keith, had come; Sara and Ted Murphy showed up. Blue-eyed Jake Waxman, a bachelor, came without a date. Bill Buckner and his wife, Alice, also dropped in.

  Now it crystallized for Sandy why she’d avoided talking to Barlowe earlier in the backyard that day: She was unsure if any of them had been invited. She couldn’t bear to talk to him and not mention the gathering. At the same time, she wondered why she felt obligated to mention it to him.

  Standing in the Harpers’ expansive living room, with its glorious wrought-iron stairway winding to the second floor, she shifted uneasily on her heels.

  Relax. You’re here. Don’t think too much.

  She was distracted by Katheryn Harper. A tall, lean brunette with a full mane of hair cascading down to her shoulders, Kathy gently took her arm and led her in.

  “We’re so glad you could come.” Her voice was warm, sincere. “We’ve been meaning to do this for some time now.”

  “Yes,” Sean said, smiling. “We should have been getting together all along.”

  We? We? Who’s we? Sandy would ask him to explain that remark when they got home.

  Eric Harper, a soft-spoken man with sensitive, penetrating eyes, brought them each a glass of wine. He ushered them into the dining room, to an oblong table filled with food. Some guests milled around the table, appraising the various potluck dishes and exchanging favorite recipes: tuna casserole, beef tips, pork chops, lamb stew, etc.

  “Aaaahhh! Lasagna!” Ted Murphy cried. “Who brought lasagna?”

  Sandy curtsied, smiling.

  “God bless you, my dear! God bless you!”

  “It’s vegetarian.” Sean said it as though issuing a warning.

  “My favorite,” said Ted. “I don’t eat meat.”

  The Harpers directed their guests to the dinnerware. They formed a buffet line and sat around a huge table, where they ate, drank more wine and splintered off into several clustered conversations.

  Sean plunged into playful sports banter with Bill Buckner. Sandy was glad to see him so animated.

  She was drawn to a chat among women dispensing their takes on books they’d read. She was pleased to learn that Sara Murphy shared her love of poetry, and even did some writing herself. She found Sara quite engaging, so much so that they agreed to keep each other informed about poetry readings around town.

  During exchanges, Sandy learned more about some of her neighbors. She discovered Bill practiced civil law; Kathy worked in corporate accounts for IBM. Jake Waxman was a young high school history teacher, and Eric, a therapist, volunteered for Habitat for Humanity, building homes for the poor.

  Intriguing people with intriguing lives: perfect for a dinner party.

  As they sat in the gorgeous house, with elaborate chandeliers hanging above their heads, it was hard to imagine the conflicts raging just beyond those doors. They all ate heartily and tried to forget.

  Midway through the meal, Eric tapped a spoon against a glass. The chatter subsided as guests turned their attention to him.

  “Kathy and I want to thank you all for coming
out this evening.” Eric remained seated, to keep the mood informal. “With all the excitement that’s been going on, we thought this gathering would be a good way for us to better get to know one another, to mingle and talk about something unrelated to community problems.”

  He paused. “We know it’s been tough for some of you.” His eyes fell on Sean and Sandy. “We just want to say, ‘Hang in there.’ Things will get better in time.

  “With that said, let’s just eat, drink and enjoy ourselves.”

  The dinner guests held up their glasses in a toast. “Cheers!” An awkward silence followed. Kathy Harper, ever the gracious hostess, moved to rescue the moment.

  “You heard Eric! Serious stuff aside! No politics or social discourse permitted tonight!”

  Having downed her third glass of wine, she was slightly tipsy now. She rose from the table and pointed to the living room bar, where stronger libations were stored. She glided to the stereo, snapping her fingers. “Whaddaya say we party a little!”

  Some folks sprang from their seats and danced to the nostalgic rhythms of Diana Ross and the Supremes. Others finished eating, wandered to the living room and gathered around the well-stocked bar. Over the next few hours, every corner of the main floor filled with chatter. Laughter grew louder as glasses were filled, emptied and filled again.

  Sandy stood off to the side with a glass in her hand, thinking, watching. She studied the dinner guests, whose boozy faces glowed with gratitude, glee and mostly relief.

  Relief from what?

  This: The strain that was ever-present at civic league meetings. A white person could hardly make a harmless remark without risk of inviting a rant from one of them.

  And this, too: Relief from being made to feel guilty about simply wanting to improve the neighborhood.

  Relief.

  The dinner guests’ delighted faces made it clear. A private gathering like this was sorely needed, a time to relax and get smashed—a chance to simply be.

  Standing there, Sandy realized that she also craved relief. It left her feeling guilty, and slightly defeated. She struggled to reconcile the guilt with the undeniable fact that for once in a long while she was enjoying herself.

  Still, she constantly shooed away pesky intruding thoughts: Maybe they weren’t invited for fear they would feel uneasy. She willed herself to seek distraction. She floated around, dipping in and out of conversations in search of airy banter, or even empty gossip (she hated empty gossip) that might whisk her away from nagging guilt.

  She approached one group and heard Ted ask Greg Barron, “How’s the petition drive going?”

  Greg replied with a sullen silence, prompting Danny to fill in.

  “Dead in the water. For the life of me, I can’t understand why they were so opposed to that…”

  “Something’s gotta be done,” Barron added. He panned the faces in the cluster.

  Sandy surmised from the affirming nods that some grim consensus had been reached without a vote. Beyond eye contact, no tally was needed; no more, no less than tacit affirmation of natural kinship bonds.

  Determined to honor the hosts’ directive to avoid serious talk, Sandy drifted off in search of another cell. Along the way, she passed Kathy Harper, who now was being twirled wildly on the dance floor by the man named Frank. While she flailed and dipped and shimmied, her voice filled the room with ecstatic screams.

  Sandy joined Sean in a smaller group, certain he’d be engrossed in shallow conversation.

  “I think we’re about to turn the corner,” she heard someone say as she approached.

  “You really believe that?” Alice Buckner’s voice was high-pitched, grating. “Or are you force-feeding yourself the optimist view?”

  Sean jumped in. He held an empty glass. Sandy could see that he was fairly lit: “I think things will improve once everybody calms down and accepts that this is not personal. This is not personal. This is about real estate.”

  Jake Waxman, his blue eyes sparkling, fired a pointed question. “Is real estate or community the issue here?”

  Sean blinked, startled. “Well…um, actually…”

  He avoided looking at Sandy. That was precisely the kind of question she would raise.

  She sensed the avoidance and cooperated, keeping her eyes averted as Sean rummaged through his head for a coherent response.

  Jake stood there, coiled, waiting.

  Kathy Harper, now fully wasted, unwittingly rescued the moment again. Flouncing wildly to the beat of a Four Tops classic, she attempted a ’50s swing maneuver. She slipped through Frank’s outstretched arms and loudly hit the floor. Splat!

  All eyes shifted to the fallen hostess. The commotion spared Sean, momentarily at least, the strain of addressing Jake’s social angst.

  Again, Sandy slithered away in search of superficial talk. She spotted some people across the room, holding court near the fireplace. She poked in her head and found to her dismay that they were exchanging neighborhood horror tales. They eventually got themselves all worked up, outraged over the injustices they were subjected to. “Tyrannies!” someone shouted.

  Meanwhile, Bill, the lawyer, now blind-high, began misquoting pertinent sections of the Constitution.

  Throughout the house, the ranks of the disheartened seemed to swell as the evening wore on. The effects of the liquor dug in deeper, unleashing pent-up resentments that clearly had been mounting for some time now.

  Then, when the libations had claimed near-total control in the house, someone, speaking in garbled words and phrases, recalled the stubborn will of Martin Luther King. It was as if King’s own spirit had been channeled through those doors to pledge allegiance to their cause.

  With the gritty sound of the Temptations bellowing through the speakers, some smashed soul shouted above the music, invoking a civil rights battle cry:

  We shall not be moved!

  Some—among them Sara and Eric and Sandy and Jake—distanced themselves from the drunken pep rally that followed. They each staked out a secluded space and watched in painful silence while the loaded partygoers locked arm-in-arm and sang, kicking their legs way up high in a ragtag chorus line:

  Weeee shall nooott bee!

  We shall not be moved!

  Weeee shall nooott bee!

  We shall not be moved!

  Studying the scene, Sandy thought, oddly, of Barlowe, then homed in on Sean, her staggering husband. Apparently recovered from Jake’s affront, Sean had wriggled his way into the middle of the raucous troupe.

  It could well have been her imagination, but it appeared to Sandy that he kicked his legs higher than everyone else.

  Chapter 32

  William Crawford appeared at the house, unannounced, and started toward the door. Barlowe had been outside working. He caught up with him on the porch.

  “Mr. Crawford.”

  “Oh, hi, son. I was just about to ring the bell.”

  Barlowe took off his gardening gloves. “What can I do for you?”

  “I came to check the water pipes.”

  “The pipes? Tyrone call about the pipes?”

  The mention of Tyrone made the old man’s glasses fog.

  “No, Tyrone didn’t call…He here now?”

  “No. He didn’t come home last night.”

  Crawford seemed disappointed. “Oh. Well, I need to check the pipes. It’s been a while since I checked the pipes…”

  They went inside and looked around. Barlowe stood over Crawford in the kitchen as he knelt down and checked beneath the sink. He stuck in his head and rattled a few pipes, then came out and stood up straight, smiling nervously.

  “They look all right to me. Mind if I check outside?”

  “Fine, but wait right here before we go, Mr. Crawford. I got somethin to give you.”

  Barlowe ducked into his bedroom and plucked up something from a dresser drawer. Crawford could see him scribbling on paper. Barlowe returned with an envelope, which he handed to Crawford.

  The landlord look
ed at it. “What’s this?”

  “A check for some a the down payment we talked about. I’ll have the rest in a little while.”

  Crawford took the envelope, reluctantly, and stuffed it in his shirt pocket without checking the amount. He leaned against the countertop, wiped sweat from his brow, then turned and headed onto the back porch.

  The birds cooed and shuffled around inside the cage.

  Crawford turned to Barlowe. He had a solemn look about him. “I need to talk to you about something.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yes.” He dropped his eyes. “I’m afraid you’re gonna have to get rid of the birds.”

  A strange, dry sensation filled Barlowe’s throat. “Mr. Crawford, those are Tyrone’s birds. You know how he is about his birds.”

  Crawford held up his hand with the palm open. “Nothing I can do about that. Sorry. It’s city code.”

  “Mr. Crawford, you knew all along about the birds. You were here when Tyrone first brought em in.”

  Crawford scratched his head and looked away. “Yeah, well somebody called downtown and complained.” He turned and stepped off the back porch and onto the ground.

  Barlowe followed. “Who called?”

  “That’s not important, Barlowe. The bottom line is, it’s the law. The city says it’s a health hazard raising wild animals in town. They could have diseases, you know?”

  Crawford went around to the side of the house. Again, Barlowe followed close behind. The old man knelt down and squeezed into a crawlspace. He came out five minutes later, brushing dirt from his pants.

  He scanned the yard, like he was searching for something else to inspect.

  “Well,” he declared, finally, “I gotta go.” He took a few steps, stopped and turned around. “I really do need you to get rid of the birds. Tell Tyrone to find em another home.”

  “Right. Will do.” Barlowe seethed.

  Crawford made another move to leave, then stopped again and reached inside his shirt pocket. He handed Barlowe the envelope back.

  “Wait till I tell you I’m ready to sell. Then we can talk money.”