The Contender (3 page)

“T
HE WHITE MAN
’
S
got his foot on your throat,” roared the shaven-skulled man on the stepladder. “You gonna lick his shoe?”

“Noooo, brother,” chanted the street-corner crowd.

“He shoots you down in the street. You gonna keep turning the other cheek?”

“Hell-o, that’s tellin’ it.”

Aunt Pearl sailed serenely past the nationalist rally, the three girls clustered around her like starched white tugboats escorting a blue cotton ocean liner. She looked neither right nor left, eyes focused straight ahead, her face glowing with the quiet joys of Sunday, her day. Alfred trailed a few steps behind, a strange new excitement bubbling in his stomach. He had hardly slept, the time in Donatelli’s gym running through his mind all night, like a movie. But he felt more awake than he usually did on Sunday morning, and the streets seemed more alive than ever before.

The nationalist on the stepladder, his quick hands slashing through the air, was whipping his growing audience out of its morning listlessness.

“You gonna keep beggin’ Whitey for crumbs off his table?”

“No.”

“You gonna…Well, look at that.” His forefinger stabbed out toward Alfred. “Ain’t that sweet? On his way to pray to Whitey’s God, learn to Tom and turn the other cheek….”

Alfred hurried on, away from the crowd’s nervous laughter, past young men leaning against padlocked shop doors, tapping their shiny shoes and nodding their heads to silent music. He pushed through chattering families, past cool Ivy-League types and their light-skinned girl friends. He had almost caught up to his aunt’s bobbing white hat when someone yelled, “Brooksy, hey Brooksy.”

A stocky boy with horn-rimmed glasses came out of a crowd of young people lining up at the corner. He had a thick sheaf of leaflets under his arm. Alfred pretended he hadn’t heard him, a big-shot politician he had never liked in high school.

“Come on with us, Brooksy, we’re having a march,” he said, grabbing Alfred’s sleeve.

“Can’t,” said Alfred. “I’m going to church.”

“We need you, man, come on,” he said. Alfred shook his arm free. “Come on, we have to wake our people up, things are happening, man.”

“Maybe later,” said Alfred, starting to edge away as a slim girl joined the boy. “Not now.”

“Now,” she said firmly. “We want our rights now, and you can be part of this….”

“Save your breath, Lynn,” said the boy. “Can’t you see that Alfred Brooks is a happy little darky.”

“Harold,” snapped Lynn, “that’s no way to get new…”

Alfred moved on, faster, angry at the sudden sting in his eyes, the sudden emptiness in his stomach. He brushed past the outstretched hand of a wino and caught up to his aunt and cousins. The serene look on Aunt Pearl’s face calmed him at first, then made him angrier. Sometimes you’d think she was deaf, dumb, and blind, he thought.

The little store-front church was only half filled when they walked in, but Reverend Price
was already behind the lectern, thumbing through his Bible. His wife, Sister Lucille, was in her tall wooden chair on one side of the pulpit. Aunt Pearl took her place up front with the choir, and the girls picked up their tambourines and sat in metal folding chairs behind her. Alfred took a chair toward the rear.

He tried to slide into his soft, dreamy Sunday morning trance, but it didn’t come even when the hymns began and Aunt Pearl’s pure, sweet voice rose above the others, filling the little room with a sound like golden honey. The other members of the congregation turned to watch her, as they always did, and most of them were smiling.

Reverend Price began to speak in his deep, heavy voice, the words booming out like beats on a muffled drum. Sister Lucille waved her arms, leading the congregation in the response.

“…Amen, preacher, say it again,” they chanted.

Somebody poked Alfred in the ribs. He turned. A man sitting near him pointed toward the back door. Alfred twisted around in his seat.

Major was standing in the doorway, his
muscular hands clamped to his wide leather belt. Behind him Hollis was grinning, his big teeth hanging out over his lower lip. Alfred turned away quickly. The back of his neck began to itch and burn. He tried not to, but he had to turn around again. They were gone.

Services had never seemed so long, the metal chairs never seemed to have so many digging edges. He forced himself to listen to the sermon just to blot out the picture of Major and Hollis.

“…The devil’s agents wear new uniforms these trying days, but their poisons are the same. They say go out and hate the white man. They say go set yourself down in places where you are not wanted. They say…”

Alfred let the words wash over him. Devil’s agents. What did they look like? Shaven skulls maybe, or big muscles. That pretty girl, Lynn, at the march. Was she a devil’s agent? He’d have to ask James. James would roll his eyes that comical way he had and say, Alfred, my man, if she’s a devil’s agent I’m gonna go right down and apply for a…James. In jail now, maybe thinking I put him there. Pray they don’t beat him too bad.

The morning services finally ended. The children turned their tambourines upside down and took the collection. Aunt Pearl was the last one out, telling the Reverend how much she enjoyed his sermon, how sad she was at having to miss his afternoon teachings. She probably is, thought Alfred.

The subway ride out to Jamaica took more than an hour. Aunt Pearl kept her eyes closed, as if she were still in prayer, except when Charlene, Sandra, and Paula got restless and started giggling among themselves. Then she opened her eyes and scowled them into silence. It was hot in the subway car. Big black fans turned slowly on the ceiling, moving the hot air around and spinning off bits of soot. The splintery wicker of the subway seat pressed through his damp pants.

A pretty girl his age came aboard wearing a fresh-looking pink dress, and sat opposite him. Her skin was smooth and cocoa-colored, and she stared right back at him through oversized sunglasses. Alfred looked away first, wishing something would happen, the train would get stuck between stations, the girl
would fall down and need help, anything so he could walk over, suave and sophisticated, “I’m Alfred Brooks, may I be of service?”—just like in the movies.

But the train reached Jamaica without any trouble, and their bus was waiting at the corner. They rode past grimy little factories and projects and, after a while, along clean, grassy streets lined with neat little houses. Aunt Pearl was always so proud that one of her sisters married a man with a good job who bought her a house in Queens. Just before they got off the bus, Aunt Pearl leaned over and whispered, “Lord help me, Alfred, but I told Dorothy and Wilson on the phone how you fell off that stone fence. Be no need to say nothing else.”

Aunt Dorothy, tall and bony, was waiting at the front door with her own small daughter, Diane. She hugged the three little girls and Aunt Pearl, then hooked her arm into Alfred’s, kissed him on the cheek, and pulled him inside. Uncle Wilson, tall and bony, too, loped across the front room and dropped a big hand on Alfred’s shoulder. “You’re getting taller, boy, you’re gonna be big as Jeff one of these days.”

They sat down to eat right away—cold
chicken, thick slices of ham and cheese, potato salad, macaroni salad, bread, plenty of lemonade, a seven-layer cake. Uncle Wilson, Alfred, and the four girls dug in, but Pearl and Dorothy, acting as if they didn’t talk on the phone at least twice a week, chattered away, picking daintily at their food. Afterwards the girls ran upstairs to Diane’s room, and Aunt Dorothy and Aunt Pearl cleared the table and went into the kitchen. Alfred followed his uncle out to the back porch and watched him carefully fill his pipe and light it. The afternoon sun made shadows on his uncle’s bony face, deepening the hollows under his cheekbones. Wilson rocked in his chair and pointed his pipe stem at Alfred.

“Still at the grocery store?”

“Yes.”

“Like it there?”

“It’s all right.”

“Opportunity for advancement?”

Alfred shrugged.

“You got to be thinking ahead, Alfred. World is changing, opening up for colored people.” He sucked on his pipe, staring out at a row of purple flowers.

“Yes, sir, Alfred, world is changing. Me, I never was past the county line until the war came. Now your cousin Jeff’s been all over the country. Talkin’ about joining the Peace Corps after college, go to Africa. Got a letter from him the other day, says he’s going to be ready when the opportunities come.” Uncle Wilson smiled into the cloud of smoke rising from his pipe, and he crossed his bony legs.

“Been thinking about your future, Alfred?”

“Some.”

“The trades is opening up. Electricians, carpenters, bricklayers make good money these days. They’ll be more places for colored people soon. But you have to be ready, have to have your education. Have to be qualified. You think about the trades at all?”

“Sometimes.”

“Jeff says he might go into law, maybe teaching. He’s going South this summer, work in those voter registration schools. Says once colored people are all voting the—what’s he call it?—yeah, the white power structure going to find more jobs for them, more opportunities for advancement. World is changing.”

They lapsed into silence, Wilson comparing
his pipe clouds, Alfred slouching in the porch chair. He could hear the girls giggling upstairs, and the chatter of the women in the kitchen. He tried to remember Jeff. He must be nineteen or twenty now, very tall, taller than his father and bigger across the chest and shoulders. He had only seen Jeff a few times in the last three years since he went away to college. But he always heard about Jeff, winning all the prizes at high school graduation, a scholarship to college. And he had to look at all the pictures—Jeff in a tuxedo at his freshman prom, Jeff being sworn in as president of his sophomore class, Jeff shaking hands with somebody important. He sank deeper into the chair, feeling all the good food lying heavily on his stomach.

Wilson rocked and smoked, and after a while they talked about the Yankees and how the Mets’ pitching was perking up. Alfred felt better then. It was peaceful out here. Uncle Wilson and his pipe seemed so strong and wise. For one wild moment he wanted to tell him about Mr. Donatelli, but he swallowed it back and the moment passed. The light began to fade, and Dorothy called them in for more cake and lemonade, and then it was time to
calm down the girls, who were cranky, say good-bye, and start back to Harlem.

“You think about the trades, Alfred,” said Uncle Wilson, and then the bus came.

Aunt Pearl and the girls dozed on the subway, but Alfred wasn’t tired. He watched a huge black man, drunk and bleeding from a cut on his head, sprawl out in the middle of the car and go to sleep. Twice, when the train lurched, he sat up, looking around fiercely. Alfred tensed, wondering how he could stop the man if he went crazy and attacked Aunt Pearl or the girls. But each time, the man lay down, smiling sweetly, and went back to sleep.

The streets seemed dirtier when they got out, and the apartment seemed smaller. It always happened after visiting in Queens. Alfred helped Aunt Pearl open the couch and put the girls to sleep. Then they sat down in the kitchen and drank some milk.

“What’s troubling you, Alfred?”

“What made you ask that?”

“You been so quiet. You thinking about James?”

“Some.”

“You want to talk about it?”

“Not right now.”

“When you do, honey, you know you can always talk to me.” She kissed him on the forehead and went into her bedroom.

Alfred unfolded his bed, and sat down on the edge, staring at the green-painted plaster beginning to crack over the kitchen sink. A roach scurried over the cabinet, paused, then scurried back into the wall. There was a scuffling noise out in the hall. The addicts.

Tomorrow was Monday, blue Monday, dirty Monday. The store would be filthy, there would be dozens of cartons and cans to stack. Opportunity for advancement? Sure, they might even let me deliver on the bicycle. He saw Major shuffle along the clubroom floor. Uncle Alfred. The Epsteins would be asking about the attempted robbery. About James. He would scratch his head and play dumb, like you always do when the white man asks those questions you better not answer. He’s got his foot on your throat, you gonna lick his shoe? Come march with us, Alfred. Maybe later. Happy little darky. World is opening up for colored people. Devil’s got new uniforms. We’ll get you. Everybody wants to be a champion, Alfred.
Slave. Nothing’s promised you. Slave. Opportunity for advancement? You have to start by wanting to be a contender.

He stood up quietly, and tiptoed into his aunt’s room. She was snoring. He took the alarm clock from her bureau and put it on the kitchen cabinet. He stared at it for a long time before he set it for five-thirty. Then he snapped off the light. He kept waking up through the night, listening for the tick, staring at the glowing hands. Had he set it right, was it wound up enough, was the alarm button pulled out?

The last time he looked at the clock it was quarter to four, and the faintest tinge of pink was brushing the window.

T
HE GRASS WAS SPONGY
with dew and the air was cool and sweet, filling his lungs until they pressed against his ribs and a stitch ran up and down his side. Then he was crunching over gravel. The sky was blood-red. It was going to be another warm day but not yet. He couldn’t help smiling, he’d sing if he had the breath. He was all alone in the park. The birds were chattering in the overhanging trees, sitting on their stoops telling all the bird gossip. Smooth and easy, Alfred, build up the wind and the legs, smooth and easy, pick up those feet. The breeze streamed past his cheeks, cooling, and the muscles of his legs stretched and got warm and his elbows swung along his sides and the silly smile grew wider and he thought he’d burst from the joy of…

“Hold it right there.”

Two policemen stepped out from behind a bush, and the birds stopped their chatter.

“Where you going this time of morning?”

“I’m running.”

“I can see that,” said the smaller cop. “Where you running to?”

“Just running, officer. I’m in training.”

“For what?” asked the bigger cop.

“Boxing,” said Alfred.

The two policemen looked at each other, and the little one winked. “Oh, yeah, I know you. Fighting for the heavyweight championship of the world next week, right?”

Alfred shook his head. His mouth suddenly felt dry and gritty and his tongue thick. “Just starting.”

“Who’s your manager?”

“Mr. Donatelli.”

The big cop nodded. “I’ve heard of him. Had three champions, two at the same time, I think. What’s your name, boy?”

“Alfred Brooks.”

“Okay, Al, you keep training. We’ll look for your picture in the papers.” They laughed and disappeared back into the bushes.

The spring was out of his step, and suddenly the stitch seemed unbearable, and he could hear cars moving through the park. Gas
fumes. That’s enough for today, he thought, knowing it wasn’t, and he slowed down again and started trudging back to the apartment. The good feeling was gone. His sneakers felt heavy, as if they were filled with water.

Aunt Pearl was bustling around the kitchen, getting the girls ready for school when he came in.

“Alfred. Where you been? Are you just getting in now? You been out all night?”

“Took a walk.”

“A walk?”

Sandra saved him, screaming that Paula had hidden her hair ribbons. Aunt Pearl got busy quieting them down, feeding them breakfast, helping Charlene make the lunch sandwiches. When the girls finally left for school, Aunt Pearl turned back to Alfred, her eyebrows raised.

“Now. Where you been?”

“Just went out. Couldn’t sleep.”

“Where you been you need the alarm clock?”

“Took a walk.”

“You said that already, Alfred. You look at me now. Are you in trouble?”

“No.”

Her voice dropped to a whisper. “Somebody after you for something?”

“No.”

“I ain’t gonna press you, Alfred, you do a man’s work and I ain’t gonna treat you like a boy. But I know something’s wrong. We eat all right, don’t we?”

“Yes.”

“We ain’t on welfare, the rent’s paid up, we got nice Sunday clothes. We’re doin’ all right. Did your Uncle Wilson get you all upset?”

“Uncle Wilson?”

“I heard him braggin’ about Jeff. You do all right, too. You got a job, you…”

“Big job.”

“Alfred! You be glad you’re workin’. Streets are full of men hangin’ around, waitin’ for trouble.”

“I’m gonna be somebody,” he said, feeling his throat tighten up again.

She surrounded him with her soft arms. “You somebody right now, Alfred. A good, God-fearing boy, minds his aunt, helps…”

“Somebody special,” he said, pulling away.

She dropped her arms and took a step back,
peering up into his face. “How you mean, Alfred?”

He shrugged. “Some way.”

“Alfred,” she whispered, “you wasn’t really fixin’ to go with James that night…Alfred!”

She was still calling his name as he ran out the door.

Lou Epstein, the oldest, shortest, and baldest of the three Epstein brothers, barely looked up from the cash register when Alfred entered the store.

“I want to talk to you,” he said.

He signaled to Jake, the middle brother, to take over the cash register. He led Alfred back to the storeroom. Ben, the youngest brother, was licking a black crayon and marking prices on soap-flake boxes when they walked in. Lou jerked his bald head, and Ben left the room.

“Some boys tried to break into the store Friday night. You hear about it?”

“No.”

“That friend of yours, James Mosely. The police caught him. Put him in jail over the weekend.”

There was a long silence, and Alfred studied the green vegetable stains on Lou’s apron.
“What are they going to do with him?”

“They’ll let him go on probation. First offense, and nothing was stolen. You didn’t even hear about it?”

“I heard something.”

“You heard something.” Lou rubbed his pale scalp. “You heard maybe who the other boys were?”

Alfred shook his head and lowered his eyes to Lou’s shoes. They were worn and cracked, with holes for Lou’s bunions.

“You’re a good boy, Alfred, we all think you’re a good boy. I told the police not to bother you. But sometimes it’s hard to…well, we trust you, but for your own sake there’s no point tempting fate. You understand.”

Alfred shook his head again, and Lou shrugged his thin shoulders. “We’ll see, we’ll see. Okay. After you get done sweeping up, help Ben with the new crates.” He went back to the cash register.

They said very little through the morning. Jake kept shooting glances at Alfred out of the corner of his eye. Even Ben was quiet, Ben who always asked Alfred how he had spent his weekend, and then winked knowingly when
Alfred said he had seen some movies, watched television, and hung around. There was tension in the store, as thick and heavy as the air before a rainstorm. Aunt Pearl sensed it, too, when she came in on her way to work. She didn’t say anything about Alfred’s leaving without breakfast or forgetting his lunch. She just put the paper bag on the counter and walked out, frowning.

He ate in the back of the store, alone, chewing sandwiches that tasted like cardboard in his dry mouth. The Epsteins always let him take soda or milk and a piece of fruit. But today he felt too uncomfortable to pick out the rest of his lunch.

The afternoon was hot. Flies buzzed in through the door, landing on the open water-melons and the sweet corn, climbing up the sweating pickle barrel. Two heavy-set white men, perspiring through their summer suits, came in and whispered with Jake and Lou. They looked like detectives to Alfred. One of them wrote something in a black leather notebook, nodded, and snapped it shut.

“We’ll stay in touch, Lou. Bet you’re glad now you took our advice on that new alarm.”

There was plenty of work to do, and he
could pretend to concentrate hard on peeling the rotten leaves off the cabbages or sponging the spilt milk from the refrigerator floor. He was arranging the fruit in the front window, half-watching Lonny, the sixty-year-old delivery boy, park his bicycle, when he first saw James. The round face, swollen and grim, was framed between hand-printed window signs advertising the week’s special sales.

“Hey,” Alfred called, starting toward the door. He stopped at the cold, hard look in James’ eyes. James turned and swaggered away. Like Major.

At quarter to three, Lou Epstein banged open the lower cash drawer and counted the big bills into a brown envelope. Alfred went to the back to wash his hands while Lou filled out the deposit slip. When he came out, Jake was stuffing the envelope into a pocket. Sure, thought Alfred, now I understand about no point tempting fate. They don’t even trust me to go to the bank anymore.

There was little to do in the late afternoon. Alfred swept and reswept the dark wooden floor just to keep moving, his head down, avoiding the Epsteins’ sad, distrustful looks. He
kept remembering how good he had felt in the park, jogging over the gravel, the wind in his face, his muscles heating up. Hold it right there, said the cop. He kept seeing James’ face on the wooden floor, cold eyes in a swollen face.

He swept his way into the back room, jamming the straw broom into nooks and crannies he had already swept clean. The tiny wires of the new burglar alarm snaked along the molding of the back door, and for an instant he thought of sweeping them loose, one good, hard swipe should do it. Come back at night, get in the back…Wait until next Friday when there would be a lot of money in the register….Come back with James, then he’d know I didn’t purposely let him walk into a trap. He swept his way out among the shelves. Can’t do it. Maybe never be able to do anything but sweep up this crummy store.

Nothing’s promised you, that’s what Mr. Donatelli said. Why’d I have to go up there, listen to all that foolishness, get excited about it like a little kid? Glad nobody but those cops saw me running this morning, that was foolishness, too. Hold it right there, said the cop. Slave, said Major. Good boy, said Lou.

Alfred felt in his pocket. Enough for a nice dark movie, he thought, sit and watch it forever.

“Hey, Alfred.”

He looked up, startled. “Henry.”

“What time you comin’ by?”

“Where?” He stared at the ever-grinning face peering in through the door.

“The gym.”

“Gym?”

“Yeah. Mr. Donatelli said you was up Saturday night. He asked me about you.”

“What you tell him—”

“Gotta run. See you later.”

“Henry.” But he was gone.