Everyday People (11 page)

Nene's Granmoms leaned down—to kiss him, maybe—then straightened up again. Eugene thought he heard her crying. Little Nene released her arm and bent down and held
his brother, pressed his head against the new suit. He stayed there, his Granmoms's hand on his shoulder. What would he be saying, Eugene wondered. What would Chris have said to him?

Finally Little Nene let go and the two of them turned arm in arm and walked back to the pew. Little Nene wiped his eyes, his face shining, lip quivering. His Granmoms helped him in.

“Aw, man,” Fats said, and looked down at his gators.

“On the real,” Smooth said.

In the receiving line, Fats hugged Little Nene like a brother, held him close for too long, whispering in his ear.

“I told him we'd take care of the situation,” he said in the parking lot. Smooth had a pint of Imperial in his glove compartment and they were passing it around, remembering Nene. Eugene hadn't had a drink since he'd been in, but out of respect, every time the bottle came around he took a sip, and now he wished he'd eaten breakfast. They were telling stories about the time Nene stole the box of instant lottery tickets from the state store. The five of them sat around his crib scratching off the cards, their thumbs turning silver like the Tinman's, the losers piling up on the floor. It was still a gyp; they only won a few hundred dollars.

“But you know that shit di'n't stop Nene from buying them every week,” Leon said.

“Then be crying 'bout how he's losing all the time,” Smooth said. “Dude never had
no
sense.”

“Ay,” Fats said. “Squash that shit 'fore I have to smack you.”

Eugene appreciated him defending Nene; he knew how tight the two of them had been. Strange, he thought, woozy and looking around the circle, how he didn't feel tight with any of the fellas now. He had their backs if any serious, forreal funk went down, that wasn't it; he just felt cut loose, floating out there. It would be different, he thought, if Nene was here.

Well no shit.

He took the bottle from Leon and tipped it up. The whiskey went down easy but stung his tongue like pepper, left it hot and thick in his mouth.

“I just remember how funny the motherfucker was,” Fats said. “That's what I'm gonna miss about him.”

“And that stupid hair on him,” Leon said.

“Yeah, that hair,” Eugene agreed.

They stood there in the lot, knowing they had to go. Smooth was due back at work, they only gave him a half day. Leon was plastering a bathroom. Eugene thought of his job—all the cars in the lot he'd have to wash and wax until someone bought them—and wondered what they thought of him. It didn't matter, really, but the more he thought of it, the worse it seemed. It was just the whiskey, he shouldn't have had any.

Smooth gave him a ride home. He had a Regal, all paid off, with tinted windows and serious gangster walls. He worked at the airport, bucking luggage. The pay was good, and the benefits.

“It's loud,” he said. “That's the only bad part.” He said he might be able to get him in if he was interested.

“Sure,” Eugene said, and wondered if he'd been wrong not to see them. It wasn't like he had another set of friends. Besides Pooh Bear and Guy Collins, he didn't know the people at his prayer meetings. It wasn't like inside, in group, where he knew what everyone's story was, and some nights he didn't speak, just begged off, sipping his coffee, eating the free doughnuts. Some nights he wasn't sure he belonged there. But where else was there to go?

“Smooth,” he said.

“Yeah.”

“What you think Fats is gonna do?”

“He'll find someone to take care of it. You know.”

“Yeah,” Eugene said.

They were on Spofford, and Smooth swerved to miss the big pothole. “You got some other plan?”

He didn't. He hadn't forgotten Nene, the holes in his cheeks. Fats would make it stick. It's like that, that's all. Motherfuckers, do his partner like that, what did they expect?

Smooth let him out in front of his building, asking again if he was interested in the job. Eugene thanked him, then watched him off. The street was empty, just some squirrels playing tag on the wires. He stood there and watched them chase each other down a telly pole, thinking absolutely nothing. Just Nene, the wasted day. He climbed the stairs slowly, took his time getting his keys out, then dropped them on the floor. “Fucked up,” he said, and picked them up.

“Hey,” he called inside.

“Hey,” Chris said from his room. “How was it?”

“All right. You eat lunch yet?”

“No.”

“I'm 'onna make some soup. You want some?”

“Okay.”

First he ran himself a glass of water. Mushroom, tomato, chicken noodle. He opened the chicken noodle and turned on the stove, then stood there gulping the water and stirring. He had a twenty in his pocket. In fifteen minutes he could be in the park, tipping his own pint of Imperial, trading sips for a hit of cheese. He pictured Nene the last time he'd seen him, staggering across the street, his eyelids drooping like he was about to fall asleep, twitching like a zombie and shit. Eugene had put the freeze on him, breezed right by like he'd never met him.

“Fuck,” he said, and turned up the burner.

Chris rolled in in his chair. Eugene still wasn't used to seeing him like this; he kept thinking he'd stand up, fold the thing up and lean it against the wall. There was lint in his hair, and he had on the same jeans and sweatshirt as yesterday. “How was Nene's Granmoms, she all right?”

“Yeah, it was Little Nene who was all broke up.”

“Straight,” Chris said.

He poured the soup out and took the bowls over to the table, then wiped the counter with a paper towel. When he sat down, Chris had already started in. They ate for a while, saying nothing.

“So what's up with B-Mo and them?” Chris asked.

“What do you think?”

“When?”

“I don't know when. It's not my beef.”

“Oh, it's not?”

“What'd I just say?” He put a look on him, but Chris didn't back down. “Oh, now you're coming on all hard, is that it?”

“It's not your beef—right.”

“Fuck you, think you know something.”

“Oh, okay then.”

“That's right,” Eugene said.

When Chris had left, he cleaned up, wondering why they fought. He wasn't angry with Chris.

He found him on his bed, drawing something with the TV on.

“Hey,” he said. “Sorry I went off on you.”

“That's all right.”

“Naw, I'm just fucked up about Nene.”

“It's okay,” Chris said. He flipped the big sheets of the sketchpad and showed him what he'd done this morning—a portrait of Nene. Nene was around twelve in the drawing, dressed in his Lynn Swann shirt. He was the way Eugene remembered him: that goofy smile and that Gumby-looking hair. He recognized the pose; it was from a picture his father had taken. Chris had it out, and handed it to him. In the picture it was the two of them, their arms over each other's shoulders. Eugene was Joe Gilliam, Number 17. Each of them had a hand on the ball, Nene's under, Eugene's over, teammates.

“That's nice,” Eugene said. “That's real nice.”

“I thought his Granmoms might like it, you know.”

No, Eugene thought,
I
want it, but said, “That's a good idea.”

“I'm going to put him up on the bridge,” Chris said. “I'm going to put everyone up.”

And Eugene didn't ask how, didn't bother figuring out the ropes and pulleys they'd need. He just said, “I'll help you.”

That night Fats called. Pops held the phone out for him, already watching TV again.

“Yo, U,” Fats said, “you're all set. Much love, my brother.” That was it, the phone went dead.

A few hours later it was on the news. Two unidentified teens in Brushton, the anchorwoman said—late-model car, senseless violence, the usual deal. Even the pictures were stock: a police car, yellow tape knotted to a fence, looped around a telly pole. A neighbor holding a baby said she heard shots and looked out and saw them on the ground. “A shame” was all the anchorwoman could say; the man agreed with her. It was amazing how little they knew about anything.

He couldn't sleep, thinking about it. He clicked his light on and took his Bible from the nightstand, leafing through it, trying to find a passage that was meant for him, but there was nothing, just wedding feasts and easy miracles. He closed it and tried to reconnect with his group, think of the circle of them in the dayroom, poring over their dog-eared Bibles like a team with a new playbook. The intensity of belief, that's what he missed. The certainty of a new direction. You've paid the wages, Darrin said, now stay focused on your choices. Understand that you're not in control of the situation, you can only control yourself. Be responsible
for your actions. Get yourself to a place where you can help others.

Had he even tried to do that?

He saw Nene's Granmoms walking back from the casket, dry-eyed behind her glasses, tired, as if she'd been waiting for it, as if it was natural. And he wondered about his own Moms, if she'd had the same vision he had, except instead of him looking up at her, she was looking down at him. She must have. That would be harder, he thought. To see what was going on and not be able to do anything—like him and Nene.

In the morning the story was in the paper, back by the obituaries. It gave their names and ages. Bryan Tolliver, 15. Jamal White, 17. There was nothing else about them or their families, only that the police suspected it was drug-related. The ad for the Wilkinsburg funeral home was bigger than the whole article. He tore the story out and stuck it in his shirt pocket, and at lunch he took it out and read it again, remembering his own worst sins, a boy that age he was responsible for, a night he didn't like to think about. He saw the two of them standing on the sidewalk, kicking it in their Timbs, joning and vibing off each other, waiting for someone to pull up. Someone did. Fucking little knuckleheads.

That afternoon he was rubbing down a new Lumina, still turning the pictures over in his head. Folks were getting shot on the corner when he was a little shortie. It just didn't stop. It was like no one ever learned. He'd had to. It was like Darrin said the first day: Either you smarten up or you die, one or the other, your choice. It took him a while
to get to it, but Eugene knew it was true. He knew Nene was headed that way, everyone did. Only Little Nene was surprised by it.

The Lumina was navy blue, and he could see his face in the quarterpanel, stretched like at Kennywood, the crazy mirrors the one free thing in the penny arcade. He had his Baierl Chevrolet jumpsuit on, and a white rag in his hand. He could still be in the slam, working motor pool.

But you're not, he thought. You're out. You've got a job. You've got some direction. Don't fall back into that old trap. You need to focus on what you need to do for yourself, then start thinking about the community. Don't forget, Darrin always said, you've got a chance to be a leader.

A leader of what? He stared at the man in the quarterpanel. He didn't look like a leader of anything, just some fool with a rinky-dink eight-hour slave.

He walked home along the sunken busway. The road was done except for the exit ramps, and those were laid out, plotted off with string. Graders sat abandoned like dinosaurs. Eugene walked up the middle of the road, looking at the walls on both sides, the graffiti he knew was Bean's and Chris's. MDP IN EFFECT, one big piece said, ten feet tall, a fierce-looking hawk spreading its wings. He didn't stop to appreciate the yellow highlights on every feather, the fresh, wet shine Chris gave the letters. As he crossed under the footbridge, he turned and looked up, and there, beneath the tribute Kenny did for them, was their last, unfinished piece.

Eugene couldn't tell what it was supposed to be. It was a blue outline, kind of square, just the beginning of something.
A word? MDP again? It wasn't even that big. He pictured the two of them working above him, a rainy night, laughing, the hiss and rattle of cans, and then it was just him and Nene playing Chinese checkers or some dumb game in his room, lying on that zebra shag, wondering if his Granmoms had any frozen burritos in the fridge.

He looked around for evidence of the accident—a spraycan flattened by the dump trucks, a single blue Puma, a smudged rag—but there was nothing, only the unfinished piece. BEAN & CREST, Kenny's said, with clouds around it, sun just breaking through. Not even their real names, Eugene thought. Ben and Chris. Why did he think he could have done something?

He was crossing Allegheny when he saw Little Nene on the corner of Moreland. He was riding Nene's ten-speed, bumping it over the curb and into the street, then back on the sidewalk again, circling a bunch of little critters Eugene didn't recognize. Little wannabes straight perpetratin'. Would have made him laugh back in the day. Not now.

A van pulled up and one of the shorties ran around the driver's side, his back to Eugene. He reached a hand through the window.

“Motherfucker,” Eugene said, and started running down Moreland toward them. “Yo!” he hollered. “Yo, hold up!” waving his arms like a cop.

The dude in the van saw him and hit it, peeling away, nearly running over the kid.

Everyone else bounced, split like roaches, threw their sweetest ghost move, Little Nene booking down a walkway between two houses. By the time Eugene reached the corner,
he was alone. Around him Moreland was deserted, the gutter matted with glassine envelopes and spent Bics. He scowled at the houses and their empty windows, searching for a single concerned face. The place across the street had burnt down months ago, the windows boarded up, the yard overgrown, going yellow. Why did he expect anyone to give a shit?

After supper he put on his good suit and helped Chris into the elevator and down the front steps. The city was supposed to put in a lift for him but so far only a surveyor had come by. He had Nene's picture in his lap, in a frame they bought. Moms had wrapped it for them, and it looked sharp. On the sidewalk Chris used his motor, and Eugene had to slow down to stay beside him. Still, it was good; Chris didn't get out enough.