by Amor Towles
To his credit, Townhouse didn’t make a big deal of it, even after Ackerly got out the switch. And when I tried to apologize, he just shrugged it off—like a guy who’s come to expect that he’s going to get a beating every now and then whether he deserves it or not. Still, I could tell he wasn’t thrilled with the turn of events, any more than I would have been were the positions reversed. So in exchange for his taking the beating, I knew I owed him something.
What made the math complicated was the Tommy Ladue business. The son of an Okie who hadn’t had enough sense to leave Oklahoma back in the thirties, Tommy Ladue was the sort of guy who looked like he was wearing overalls even when he wasn’t.
When Townhouse joined us in Bunkhouse Four as Emmett’s bunkmate, Tommy was none too pleased. As an Oklahoman, he said, he was of a mind that the Negroes should be housed in their own barracks and eat at their own tables in the company of their own kind. To look at the picture of Tommy’s family in front of their farmhouse, you might wonder what the Ladues of Oklahoma were trying so hard to keep the black folks from, but that didn’t seem to occur to Tommy.
That first night, as Townhouse was stowing his newly issued clothes in his footlocker, Tommy came over to set a few things straight. He explained that while Townhouse could come and go to his bed, he was not welcome in the western half of the bunkhouse. In the bathroom, which had four sinks, he was only to use the one that was farthest from the door. And as to eye contact, he’d best keep that to a minimum.
Townhouse looked like someone who could take care of himself, but Emmett had no patience with that sort of talk. He told Tommy that an inmate was an inmate, a sink was a sink, and Townhouse could move as freely through the barracks as the rest of us. If Tommy had been two inches taller, twenty pounds heavier, and twice as courageous, he might have taken a swing at Emmett. Instead, he went back to the western half of the bunkhouse in order to nurse his grievance.
Life on a work farm is designed to dull your wits. They wake you at dawn, work you till dusk, give you half an hour to eat, half an hour to settle down, and then it’s out with the lights. Like one of those blindered horses in Central Park, you’re not supposed to see anything other than the next two steps in front of you. But if you’re a kid who’s been raised in the company of traveling entertainers, which is to say small-time grifters and petty thieves, you never let yourself get that unobservant.
Case in point: I had noticed how Tommy had been cozying up to Bo Finlay, the like-minded guard from Macon, Georgia; I had overheard them casting aspersions upon the darker races as well as the white men who favored them; one night behind the kitchen, I had seen Bo slipping two narrow blue boxes into Tommy’s hands; and at two in the morning, I had watched as Tommy tiptoed across the bunkhouse in order to stow them inside Townhouse’s footlocker.
So, I wasn’t particularly surprised when during the morning review, Old Testament Ackerly—in the company of Bo and two other guards—announced that someone had been stealing from the pantry; I wasn’t surprised when he walked straight up to Townhouse and ordered him to unpack his things onto his freshly made bed; and I certainly wasn’t surprised when all that came out of Townhouse’s footlocker were his clothes.
The ones who were surprised were Bo and Tommy—so surprised, they didn’t have the good sense not to look at each other.
In a hilarious show of poor self-restraint, Bo actually brushed Townhouse aside and flipped his mattress over in order to see what was hiding underneath.
—Enough of that, said the warden, looking none too happy.
That’s when I piped up.
—Warden Ackerly? I says, says I. If the pantry has been pilfered, and some scoundrel has impugned our honor by claiming that the culprit resides in Bunkhouse Four, I am of the opinion that you should search every one of our footlockers. For that is the only way to restore our good name.
—We’ll decide what to do, said Bo.
—I’ll decide what to do, said Ackerly. Open ’em up.
At Ackerly’s command, the guards began moving from bunk to bunk, emptying each and every footlocker. And lo and behold, what did they find at the bottom of Tommy Ladue’s but a brand-new box of Oreos.
—What can you tell us about this, said Ackerly to Tommy, while holding up the damning dessert.
A wise young man might have stood his ground and declared that he had never seen that light-blue box. A wily one might even have asserted with the confidence of the technically honest: I did not put those cookies in my locker. Because, after all, he hadn’t. But without skipping a beat, Tommy looked from the warden to Bo and sputtered:
—If I was the one who took the Oreos, then where’s the other box!
God bless him.
Later that night, while Tommy was sweating it out in the penalty shed and Bo was muttering into his mirror, all the boys in Bunkhouse Four gathered around to ask me what the hell had happened. And I told them. I told them how I’d seen Tommy cozying up to Bo, and the suspicious exchange behind the kitchen, and the late-night planting of evidence.
—But how did the cookies get from Townhouse’s locker into Tommy’s? asked some helpful half-wit, right on cue.
By way of response, I took a look at my fingernails.
—Let’s just say they didn’t walk there themselves.
The boys all had a good laugh over that one.
Then the never-to-be-underestimated Woolly Martin asked the pertinent question.
—If Bo gave Tommy two boxes of cookies and one of the boxes ended up in Tommy’s locker, then what happened to the other box?
On the wall in the middle of the barracks was a big green board painted with all the rules and regulations we were meant to abide by. Reaching behind it, I retrieved the narrow blue box and produced it with a flourish.
—Voilà!
Then we all had a gay old time, passing around the cookies and laughing about Tommy’s sputtering and the flipping of the mattress by Bo.
But once the laughter subsided, Townhouse shook his head and observed that I had taken quite a chance. At that, all of them looked at me with a touch of curiosity. Why did I do it, they were suddenly wondering. Why did I take the risk of pissing off Tommy and Bo for a barrackmate I hardly knew? And a black one at that.
In the silence that followed, I rested a hand on the hilt of my sword and looked from visage to visage.
—Took a chance? I said. No chance was taken here today, my friends. The chance was given. Each one of us has come from disparate parts to serve our disparate sentences for the commission of disparate crimes. But faced with a shared tribulation, we are given an opportunity—a rare and precious opportunity—to be men of one accord. Let us not shirk before what Fortune has laid at our feet. Let us take it up like a banner and march into the breach, such that many years from now, when we look back, we will be able to say that though we were condemned to days of drudgery, we faced them undaunted and shoulder to shoulder. We few, we happy few, we band of brothers.
Oh, you should have seen them!
They were rapt, I tell you, hanging on every syllable. And when I hit them with the old band of brothers, they let out a rousing cheer. If my father had been there, he would have been proud, if he weren’t so inclined to be jealous.
After all the backs had been slapped and the boys had returned to their bunks with smiles on their faces and cookies in their stomachs, Townhouse approached.
—I owe you, he said.
And he was right. He did.
Even if we were a band of brothers.
But all these months later, the question remained: How much did he owe me? If Ackerly had found those cookies in Townhouse’s footlocker, Townhouse would have been the one sweating in the penalty shed instead of Tommy, and for four nights instead of two. It was a credit to my account all right, but as credits go, I knew it wasn’t enough to offset the eight strokes of the switch that Town
house had received on his back.
That’s what I was mulling over when I left Woolly at his sister’s house in Hastings-on-Hudson, and what I kept mulling over all the way to Harlem.
* * *
At some point, Townhouse had told me that he lived on 126th Street, which seemed straightforward enough. But I had to drive the length of it six times before I found him.
He was sitting at the top of a brownstone’s stoop, his boys assembled around him. Pulling over to the curb across the street, I watched through the windshield. On the step below Townhouse sat a big fat fella with a smile on his face, then a fair-skinned black with freckles, and on the bottom step, two kids in their early teens. I guess it was arranged like a little platoon, with the captain at the top, then his first lieutenant, his second lieutenant, and two foot soldiers. But the order could have been reversed, with Townhouse on the bottom step, and he still would have towered over the rest of them. It made you wonder what they had done with themselves while he was in Kansas. They’d probably bitten their nails and counted the days until his release. Now with Townhouse back in charge, they could exhibit a studied indifference, advertising to any who passed that they cared as little about their futures as they did about the weather.
When I crossed the street and approached, the young teens rose and took a step toward me, as if they were going to ask me for the password.
Looking over their heads, I addressed Townhouse with a smile.
—So, is this one of those dangerous street gangs I keep hearing about?
When Townhouse realized it was me, he looked almost as surprised as Emmett had.
—Jesus Christ, he said.
—You know this cracker? asked the freckle-faced one.
Townhouse and I both ignored him.
—What are you doing here, Duchess?
—I came to see you.
—About what?
—Come on down and I’ll explain.
—Townhouse don’t come off the stoop for no one, said freckles.
—Shut up, Maurice, said Townhouse.
I looked at Maurice with a feeling of sympathy. All he had wanted was to be a dutiful soldier. What he didn’t understand was that when he says something like Townhouse don’t come off the stoop for no one, a man like Townhouse has no choice but to do exactly that. Because while he may not take instructions from the likes of me, he doesn’t take instructions from his second lieutenant either.
Townhouse rose to his feet and the boys made way for him like the Red Sea making way for Moses. When he got to the sidewalk, I told him how good it was to see him, but he just shook his head.
—You AWOL?
—In a manner of speaking. Woolly and I are passing through on our way to his family’s place upstate.
—Woolly’s with you?
—He is. And I know he’d love to see you. We’re going to the Circus tomorrow night for the six o’clock show. Why don’t you come along?
—The Circus isn’t my sort of thing, Duchess, but give Woolly my regards just the same.
—I’ll do so.
—All right then, Townhouse said after a moment. What’s so important that you had to come to Harlem just to see me.
I gave him the shrug of the penitent.
—It’s the Hondo fiasco.
Townhouse looked at me like he had no idea what I was talking about.
—You know. The John Wayne picture that we went to see on that rainy night back in Salina. I feel bad because of the beating you took.
At the word beating, Townhouse’s boys dropped any semblance of indifference. It was like a jolt of electricity had gone right up the stoop. The big fella must have been too insulated to feel the full force of the charge because he just shifted in place, but Maurice came to his feet.
—A beating? asked the big fella with a smile.
I could see that Townhouse wanted to tell the big fella to shut up too, but he kept his eyes on me.
—Maybe I took a beating and maybe I didn’t, Duchess. Either way, I don’t see as it would be any cause of concern for you.
—You’re your own man, Townhouse. I’d be the first to say so. But let’s face it: You wouldn’t have had to take this beating that you did or didn’t take, if I hadn’t hitched the ride from the cop.
This sent another jolt of electricity up the stoop.
Townhouse took a deep breath and gazed down the street almost wistfully, like he was looking back on simpler times. But he didn’t contradict me. Because there was nothing to contradict. I was the one who baked the lasagna and he was the one who cleaned up the kitchen. It was as simple as that.
—What now? he asked after a moment. Don’t tell me you came all this way to apologize.
I laughed.
—No, I don’t put much stake in apologies. They always seem a day late and a dollar short. What I had in mind is something more concrete. Like a settling of accounts.
—A settling of accounts.
—Exactly.
—And how is that supposed to work?
—If it were only a matter of the movie, it could have been a switch for a switch. Eight minus eight and we’d be done. The problem is that you still owe me for the Oreo incident.
—The Oreo incident? said the big fella with an even bigger smile.
—It may not be worth the same as a switching, I continued, but it should count for something. Rather than an eight minus eight sort of situation, what we have here is more of an eight minus five. So I figure if you take three swings at me, that should make us even.
All the boys on the stoop were looking at me with varying degrees of disbelief. An act of honor has a way of doing that to the common man.
—You want to have a fight, said Townhouse.
—No, I said with a wave of the hand. Not a fight. A fight would imply that I’d try to hit you back. What I’m going to do is stand here and let you hit me, uncontested.
—You’re going to let me hit you.
—Three times, I emphasized.
—What the fuck? said Maurice, his disbelief having transitioned into some form of hostility.
But the big fella, he was trembling with soundless laughter. After a moment, Townhouse turned to him.
—What do you make of this, Otis?
Wiping the tears from his eyes, Otis shook his head.
—I don’t know, T. On the one hand, it seems pretty crazy. But on the other, if a white boy comes all the way from Kansas to ask you for a beating, I think you gotta give it to him.
As Otis began laughing again in his silent way, Townhouse just shook his head. He was disinclined to do it. I could tell. And if it were just the two of us, he probably would have sent me on my way, unsatisfied. But Maurice was staring at me now with a look of borrowed indignation.
—If you won’t hit him, I will, he said.
There he goes again, I thought. Maurice just didn’t seem to understand the chain of command. To make matters worse, when he volunteered to hit me, he did so with just enough bravado to imply that maybe the reason Townhouse was stalling was because he wasn’t up to the task.
Townhouse turned to Maurice very slowly.
—Maurice, he said, just because you’re my cousin doesn’t mean I’m not willing to shut you the fuck up.
That put so much color into Maurice’s face that his freckles almost disappeared. Then he was the one gazing down the street wishing it was simpler times.
It made me feel a little sorry for him, watching him get humiliated like that in front of the rest of us. But I also could tell that through his injudiciousness, he had raised Townhouse’s temperature, which was just as well.
Sticking my chin out toward Townhouse, I pointed to it.
—Just give me a pop, T. What’ve you got to lose?
When I called him T, Townhouse grimaced like I knew
he would.
Showing disrespect toward Townhouse was the last thing I wanted to do, but the challenge before me was to get him to take that first swing. Once he took the first one, I knew the rest would come easy. Because even if he didn’t gripe about the switching, I’m sure he still carried a bit of a grudge.
—Come on, I said, intending to call him T one more time.
Before I got the chance, he delivered. The punch landed right where it was supposed to, but it only knocked me a few steps back, like he hadn’t put everything into it.
—There you go, I said encouragingly. That’s a pretty good one. But this time, why don’t you give it some of the old Joe Louis.
And that’s what he did. I mean, I didn’t even see it coming. One second I’m standing there egging him on, and the next second I’m lying on the sidewalk aware of that strange aroma that you only smell when your skull has been rattled.
Planting both hands on the concrete, I pushed myself off the ground, rose to my feet, and went back to the hitting spot—just like Emmett.
The young teens were practically jumping up and down.
—Give it to him, Townhouse, they shouted.
—He asked for it, muttered Maurice.
—Mother Mary, said Otis in sustained disbelief.
Though all four spoke at once, I could hear each of them as clearly as if they’d spoken alone. But Townhouse couldn’t. He couldn’t hear any of them at all because he wasn’t on 126th Street. He was back at Salina. Back in that moment that he’d sworn he’d never think about again: taking Ackerly’s beating as the rest of us watched. It was the fire of justice that was burning through Townhouse now. The fire of justice that appeases the injured spirit and sets the record straight.
The third blow was an uppercut that put me flat on the pavement.
It was a thing of beauty, I tell you.
Townhouse took two steps back, heaving a little from the exertion, the sweat running down his forehead. Then he took another step back like he needed to, like he was worried that if he were any closer, he would hit me again and again, and might not be able to stop.
