Them (4 page)

For Barlowe, there was something else special—something mythical—about living in the Old Fourth Ward. In Atlanta, where Martin Luther King sits in glory on the right hand of God, the neighborhood boasted a prominent claim to M.L.K. He was born there; his birth home and tomb were there, preserved for the stream of tourists who came daily in double-decker buses and Bermuda shorts to gawk, snap pictures and reflect on “The Dream.”

Living amid all that rich history and driving past King's crypt on his way to and from work every day inspired in Barlowe a sense of hope sometimes.

Now hope was the thing he clung to as he sat in the living room, meeting with William Crawford.

“How much money you got saved?” the old man asked.

“Well—” Barlowe had exactly $138 in his bank account. With his shaky credit, no mortgage banker in his right mind would extend him a loan. But he had read in the papers that you could sometimes lease a house with the intention to buy.

“You got enough for a good down payment?”

Whas a good down payment?
Barlowe had to be careful. If there was a way to cheat a man in this world, then a man would be cheated, and William Crawford was just the one to do the cheating.

“Well. Right now I'm startin mostly with an idea, and then I thought, dependin on what you said, I'd work from there.”

“An idea? An idea won't get you nothing but another idea. You need money,
cash,
to make anything happen in this doggone world.”

Crawford stood, signaling he was ready to leave. He had no more time to waste. He turned to the door, then something happened that gave him pause: Tyrone appeared from the back bedroom. He had showered and gotten dressed in a spiffy outfit, accented by shiny things. He wore a Kangol cap and a blue suit, with a matching shirt. He wore a fake-diamond-studded ring in one ear, and a thick gold chain around his neck. He had on a pair of black alligator shoes, shining so bright you could see your face in them.

He smiled broadly. “Hey, Mr. Crawford!”

Crawford's face lit up like a big marquee. “Hey, Scooter!”

Crawford fondly called him “Scooter.” He liked to hear Tyrone brag about the young women he had bedded. He liked to soak up stories about wild adventures in the fast lane, which, being old and married with grown children, Crawford could visit only in his dreams.

“Where you on your way to, Scooter?”

“Me and a dude goin over to the nekkid club.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“Yeah, they got a new girl dancin there now…Albino!” He whistled and rolled his eyes around in his head.

The two men chatted a moment, then Tyrone rushed out the door. Crawford prepared to follow. Before leaving, he stopped and turned to Barlowe.

“Tell you what, son. Let me get back to you on this business about the house. I'll think about it and let you know what's on my mind.”

“Thas all I can ax, Mr. Crawford. Sounds fair to me.”

When the old man left, Barlowe sat down and crossed his legs. He crunched a few peanuts and considered the way the brief talk had gone. Crawford had made no promises, true. Nor had he flat-out turned him down. Which meant he could be persuaded.

For a long while, Barlowe sat there and stared up at the ceiling, thinking. He had turned forty, and it had occurred to him that in all his life he had never been committed to much. He'd always known what he was against: He was against Caesar and taxes and stuff like that. But up until now he hadn't given much thought to what he was
for
. He had latched onto something concrete now.

If Crawford cooperated, this place would be his; he would become a property owner, an official resident of the Old Fourth Ward.

 

Tyrone came in later, staggering a bit. His eyes were glassy, and his hat was cocked so far to the side that it looked like it would fall off if he moved an inch. His right hand was wrapped in a bloody rag.

Barlowe was relaxing on the back porch. He had taken a nice, long bath. He had spread newspaper on the floor, beneath his bare feet. He was bent over, clipping his toenails, and lost deep in thought about something he had seen earlier, after he let Crawford out the door. He'd seen another white man. Dressed in nylon shorts and a T-shirt, the man came jogging past and trotted down Randolph Street. Barlowe had studied him closely. The white man turned left onto Edgewood Avenue and disappeared.

Except for tourists who were lost or turned around, white people rarely ventured on foot to that end of Auburn Avenue.

“What you thinkin bout so hard?” Tyrone disrupted his train of thought.

“Nothin,” said Barlowe. “What happened to your hand?”

“Got in a scrap with that punk Black Sam, down at the Purple Palace. We was shootin dice and the nigger tried to say I cheated. Had the nerve to act like he wonted some a me. We took it outside, and everybody stood back and let us go, heads-up.”

Using his good hand, he inspected the birdcage, checking the food and water. The pigeons fluttered against the cage, clamoring to be set free. When he released them, they flew straight next door and settled in the big oak tree. He had taped red I.D. tags to their legs, in case they got lost.

Moments later, the birds returned, their heads bobbing as they scooted in the cage. Tyrone closed the door, then held up his bloody knuckle and examined it some more, thinking about Black Sam.

“I dusted im off, good. Gave im a
country
stompin…Made me hurt my damned hand, though.”

Barlowe kept on clipping nails. After a while he sat up straight and faced Tyrone.

“Listen. I had a li'l talk with Mr. Crawford.”

“What fo?”

“Bizness.”

“What kinda bizness?”

“House bizness,” said Barlowe.

“It gonna mean payin mo rent?”

“Hope not.”

“Me, too. I'm po as a broke-dick dog.”

Barlowe regarded his nephew pensively, as if trying to decide whether to let him in on a secret. Then he started: “I axed Mr. Crawford to sell me the house.”

He felt a surge of pride when he said those words. Tyrone, however, was unimpressed.

“You wanna buy
this
ol thang?”

“Yeah. This ol thing.”

“Why you wanna do that fo?”

Barlowe's face sagged with the weighty impatience of having to explain something that should already be understood. He looked squarely at his nephew. “Ty, I'm forty.”

That was all he said. It was all he could
think
to say.

Tyrone responded with a blank expression. Living with Barlowe he'd learned to keep harmony, mainly by tuning his uncle out when the need arose. Whenever Barlowe started talking high-minded or paranoid Tyrone would simply blast away; he'd send his mind racing right through the door.

Barlowe recognized the vacant look and instantly discerned its meaning. He went back to clipping nails.

With the foolish house-talk abated, Tyrone casually reached in his waistband and pulled out a gun. It was a gleaming .38, an old-school standard, with a white pearl handle. He held the gun aloft, admiring it like it was a pretty girl.

“I started to pistol-whip Black Sam.”

Barlowe looked up from his toes, wondering how long he could keep his nephew away from trouble. “Be careful, Ty. Be
real
careful with that. Remember. You still on parole.”

Tyrone stuffed his gun away. “Don't worry, Unk. I got everthang under control.”

He went toward his bedroom and disappeared.

Barlowe balled up the newspaper with the clipped toenails and threw it in a trash can near the door. Sitting there, he weighed the potential for things to shape up some. If he got that house, he thought, he would dig right in. He would find a good woman—maybe a “house girl” like the one Tyrone described—and build a real life for himself.

That's what he wanted: Something he could put his hands on.

A
month after the talk with Barlowe, William Crawford showed up at the house to oversee delivery of a new refrigerator. After sputtering and groaning and hanging on for years, the old fridge had finally given up the ghost. Crawford replaced the thing with one he'd picked up from the Sears scratch-and-dent sale. It would be ages before he'd come out of his pocket to upgrade anything else. So the visit doubled as a dedication without a ribbon cutting, a chance for Crawford to publicly commend himself.

When the deliverymen left, Crawford jangled his car keys, signaling that he, too, was about to go. Barlowe stopped him. “Wait a minute, Mr. Crawford. I wanna pick up where we left off before.”

Crawford furrowed a thick brow, feigning puzzlement. “Huh?”

“The house,” said Barlowe. “You said you were gonna think about the house.”

“Oh,
that
.” The old man sat down and wiped his forehead. He hadn't come here for that. Which meant he hadn't prepared a suitable lie. He wiped his head again. “This neighborhood is historic, you know, with Martin Luther King here and all.”

There it is,
Barlowe thought.
There's the play to jack up the price.

Crawford wiped his forehead once more. “I just dunno…I'm fine having you as a tenant…That refrigerator in there”—he pointed at the kitchen—“I don't do that for everybody. But I like
you
. You pay on time. You keep things quiet. I kind of like the way things are.”

Barlowe stuffed his hands deep in his pockets and tried not to let his disappointment show. But it was there. It was there, and it ran deeper than he cared to admit. Since the idea of buying the house took hold, cravings had bubbled up inside him from places he hadn't even known about. He had become vaguely aware of being swept along by desires rooted deeper than his capacity to control. So he had progressed from
wanting
that house to
needing
that house. He hadn't considered the distinction before.

For a moment, he held that need inside like a man holding his breath underwater. Finally, when he couldn't hold it anymore, he let go:

“Mr. Crawford.
Please
.”

He hadn't known what else to say, but as soon as he uttered that word,
please
, Barlowe instinctively knew he had gone too far. He knew he'd breached some barrier, built up over years with painstaking care; he'd flung open mighty gates to some deeply private, sacred fort.

It wasn't the word alone that bothered him. It was the slight inflection in his voice, the hint of a subtle pleading, and to a
white
man, that left him shaken. He hadn't intended that at all, at least not consciously.

The word spilled out on its own and whisked him back some thirty years. He was a young boy, maybe ten, when the “officials” of Milledgeville came to the house to talk to his daddy. His daddy was a lease farmer who had taken over from
his
daddy, a sharecropper before him.

Barlowe and his four brothers were weeding the field when the white men showed up. The men rode in an official car, with an official city seal on the side door. A picture of the flag shone beneath the seal.

The men got out, leaned against the car and folded their arms, waiting for Barlowe's daddy to come to them.

He went. They talked.

Barlowe couldn't hear what was being said. He figured it was serious, because his daddy mostly listened. He listened and nodded now and then as the men addressed him in hushed, paternal tones.

Their business done, the white men politely tipped their hats and turned to leave. His daddy took one step forward and raised his voice after them in a desperate plea.

“Sir. Please!”

The man standing closest to him whipped around. He jabbed a finger in his chest and sharply chastened him. That done, the men climbed into their official car, with the official seal and the red, white and blue flag painted on the side door. They drove away, sending a cloud of dust swirling high as the treetops.

When Barlowe's daddy turned around, his face was ashen. He looked like he'd aged fifty years.

He plodded over to his sons. “They say we grown too much crops. We gotta burn half the field.”

The boys, stunned, destroyed the family's good yield like they were told. In the years that followed, the family struggled, hard. Barlowe's daddy was never the same man after that.

Please.

Now having used that word, Barlowe hated himself. He hated himself and Crawford, too. In fact, he hated the whole world. He hated the world and everybody who had ever lived in it since the beginning of time. He wished like hell that he could take back that word. He wished he had never allowed it to slip from his tongue:

Please.

Sitting there, he reminded himself that, above all else, he was a man. He was a man, just like Crawford was a man. Either they would do business man-to-man, or not at all.

As if to restore what morsel of manhood that might have been diminished by his clumsy slip, Barlowe resolved, then and there, to drop the issue of the house.
Fuggit
. That's what he thought.
Fug the whole damned thing
.

He extended an ink-stained hand, signaling to Crawford that he would let it go. “Fine,” he said. “Fine.”

He held his head high, even as he saw his dream fading like leather exposed to too much sun.

“Fine.” He said it once more, for good measure.

Crawford appeared both confused and relieved. He prepared to go, to take the opening and run on through.

Then something almost magical happened—magical only in the sense of its quirky timing: Tyrone came to the front door and fumbled with the lock. Just as Barlowe moved to open it, he turned the knob and stumbled in. His eyes were glazed, and the smell of reefer clung heavy to his clothes. He took one glance at Barlowe and Crawford, looking all serious, and he broke into a wicked grin.

“Hey, Mr. Crawford!”

“Hey, Scooter! How you doing?”

“If it got any better I'd have to go jump off a cliff!”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Bet y'all don't know where I been!”

Crawford grinned. “Off juking somebody's daughter, I'm sure.”

“Been over to the titty bar on Piedmont Road.”

“That right?”

Tyrone whistled. “They got gals can do thangs make you stand on your toes!”

Crawford's eyes rolled around in the sockets like steel balls in a pinball machine. The look of the voyeur spread across his face.

“I never been to one a those places before, Scooter. Can you believe it? Been in this town more than twenty years, and never set foot in a single one.”

Tyrone gazed upon Crawford with sincere pity. “Aw, c'mon, Mr. Crawford. Don't tell me that. Fitty thousand nekkid bars in Lanta, and you ain't never been to
one
?”

Crawford held up his right hand, like he was being sworn into public office. “The God's honest truth.”

“You don't know what you missin.”

“Pretty gals, huh?”

“Pretty!?” Tyrone reared back unsteadily on his heels. “They got eighteen-inch waists and big, ol jellyroll butts!”

Crawford swallowed hard, like there was a lump in his throat. He sat back on the couch, eager for more.

“On Tuesdays,” explained Tyrone, “you get the first table dance for
free
!”

“Free?” Crawford appeared embarrassed and excited, all at once. He slapped his knee hard, signaling that he'd reached a firm resolve.

“Okay, Scooter. You win. I'll go.”

“Bet.”

Crawford waited for him to propose a date. Tyrone tilted slightly to one side and slapped him five. Then he waved good-bye. He staggered to his room and closed the door.

Crawford took out his handkerchief again and wiped his neck. He was sweating pretty heavy now. He looked at Barlowe and nodded toward the bathroom.

“Yeah,” said Barlowe. “Help yourself.”

Crawford returned minutes later, walking slow and wide-legged, like he had peed in his pants. He sat down again and faced Barlowe.

Selling a house was a bit much to ask, but there was no need telling his tenant that; not now, anyway. No point in crushing the man's motivation.

“Tell ya what, son,” said Crawford, leaning forward. “Tell you what I'm gonna do…”