Them (23 page)

He reached Interstate 285 and shifted into the speeding lane. He reclined his seat and drove, pondering his predicament. For a brief moment, his attention shifted to a classic, souped-up Camaro. It zoomed by. Sean felt vaguely annoyed to see a black guy behind the wheel. The guy leaned down real low with his head propped against the driver's-side door.

Sean leaned back in his seat, too. He thought of Sandy and grunted: “Huummph.” He should have known better than to be totally frank with her. He knew she would react the way she did. He knew she would label him, with no regard for the complexities of things. That's how it was with her. Everything was black or white.

Sean hadn't realized that about her when they first fell in love. There were a lot of things he hadn't realized in the beginning. He hadn't even recognized the flaw in himself, his eagerness
not
to see.

They'd first met in college. The first time he saw Sandy she was giving a speech. Sean was on his way to lunch and happened upon a campus rally. Sandy stood on a stage, railing against the evils of the conservative tide sweeping the nation. Her zeal, the passion that she exuded, was alluring to him.

Before then, Sean had given no real thought to the issues she talked about: abortion, genocide, poverty and greed. He had gone to college for one reason: to earn a degree so he could provide more for his family than his father had been able to do when Sean was growing up. And so Sean had focused on the things that mattered most to him: good grades; job prospects; getting laid once in a while.

Sean had always been a good person in a general way, but Sandy in her speech urged students to be more than good people; she urged them to be doers, to demonstrate their caring by getting involved.

The speech was powerful, electrifying. People responded with cheers and a standing ovation. After that speech, Sean became a secret Sandy Peterson stalker. Using his computer skills, he found out everything on public record about her. He tracked her activities on campus, mainly by monitoring the website of an organization she belonged to: Students Against Oppressive Powers (SAOP). He followed SAOP's calendar and began attending its functions. He eventually met Sandy at one of the group's socials. They talked, and he was even more swept away by the dirty blonde with the fiery spirit. After a few more conversations, he mustered the nerve to ask her out.

The week before the date, he crammed as though studying for semester finals. He read the
New York Times
every day, focusing on national and world affairs. When they went to dinner he was at least familiar enough with current events to hold a decent conversation.

Sandy was impressed, even if he was, as he confessed, “relatively new” to social activism. He wanted to learn more, he told her. He cared and wanted to help make a difference in the world.

After that date, Sandy seemed eager to teach him. And so their romance began as two people who shared a mutual concern for environmental issues and social justice. Sean got the girl, and all he had to do to keep the girl was to match her compassion for human beings.

That seemed easy enough. Sean figured that when he graduated and launched a career, he could donate money to various causes; he could even give of his time, maybe tutor some black kid once in a while, if that was what Sandy wanted.

None of that charity threatened to disrupt his goals. Sean dreamed of marrying someday. He dreamed of having children—three, to be exact. He dreamed of owning a home—nicer than the one he'd grown up in.

When they got married after college, Sean knew that life with Sandy meant they would always contribute
to
The Cause, however she defined it at a given time. Never in his most extreme imaginings, though, had he considered that he might be called upon to live
in
The Cause.

He wanted Sandy Peterson, but he had never signed on to suffer. Now it seemed she expected him to do just that, and it didn't seem fair.

Driving along the interstate now, Sean told himself that he had suffered enough already: He'd nearly been robbed; been almost choked to death; had his mailbox set aflame.

Running through the list of transgressions he'd endured, he decided that a change was in order. He couldn't afford to be passive anymore. There was too much at stake; their very lives, for heaven's sake!

Then it came to him: He needed protection. Without protection, something tragic would happen. He could feel it.

After being attacked by Tyrone, Sean had scrounged up an old army knife. Following the fire, he'd shifted the knife to the glove compartment in his car. Now having just seen those hoodlums on the street, looking hardened and ruthless, he wondered, who was he fooling? These people were dangerous. A knife wouldn't be enough against the likes of them.

He shifted his attention a moment and took note of where he was. He had driven a good ways on the perimeter. Now he approached a sign that said
Chattanooga
. He wondered if Chattanooga had these social problems. Probably not. Chattanooga was probably peaceful. Beautiful mountains and country music. Maybe that's where he and Sandy should move; someplace like Chattanooga.

He circled the perimeter once more before heading home. He glanced at the dashboard clock. Nearly three hours had passed. He pulled into the driveway and turned off the engine.

Sitting in the car a moment, he realized he was drenched in sweat. He sat there, sweating and thinking:
Yes, I will get real protection for my wife and me
.

He went in the house and closed the door.

B
arlowe sat on the supply table and watched the printing press, its engine whirring like a low-speed locomotive. He liked the sound of the press, especially when it was set up right. When the registers were set right on the machine, the paper shot from back to front like bullets fired from a gun. He liked the sound of the paper, too. Each sheet made a sharp snapping sound as it whizzed up front to the cylinder, where the plate pressed the image onto the page. It sounded like a snare drum.
Snap, snap, snap, snap.

While the machine ran, he collected ink-stained cloths strewn about in his work area. He tossed the cloths in the big laundry basket set up against the wall. He had returned to his press and bent down to restock reams of paper and supplies, when a voice snatched him away from his peace.

“Hi.”

It was a woman. She was standing across from him, on the other side of the print machine. She held a manila envelope in her hand.

“I need to have five thousand of these flyers printed by tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?” Barlowe kept his eyes glued to the paper running through the press.
Snap, snap, snap, snap.

The woman struck an apologetic tone. “I know this is short notice, but the man over there said you might be able to help me. He said you were the best person for a rush job like this.”

Barlowe looked in the direction the woman pointed and saw Billy Spivey standing in his office doorway. Spivey hunched his shoulders, implying he had no say in the matter.

Barlowe turned back to the woman. “How many sheets you say you need?”

“I'd like to have five thousand…but if that's a problem, I can get by with half for now and maybe pick up the rest later…It's just that we want to start distributing these as soon as possible.”

Barlowe focused squarely on the woman for the first time now. Her hair was styled in thick cornrows, which flowed back into a bun at the base of her neck. She was dark-complexioned, with very dark eyes, which seemed to take him in fully. She had dimples, which, he thought, complemented her pretty face.

He pointed at the envelope. “Lemme see what you got there.”

The woman opened the flap and pulled out handwritten instructions for the flyer she wanted. In near-perfect cursive writing, she had specified the type size and style. Barlowe studied the sheet. It was an announcement for a concert to be held soon at Spelman College. The concert featured a group called Sweet Honey in the Rock.

“I'll do it,” Barlowe said, plainly. “I'll squeeze it in somewhere.”

“Thank you sooo much.” The woman smiled. He noticed a gap between her two front teeth. The gap complemented the dimples, he thought.

“What time do you need to pick these up?”

“
You
tell me. I'll come whenever you say.”

He liked the sound of that sentence.
I'll come whenever you say
. He would love to hear those words spoken in another context sometime. They were the kind of words that lately had been missing from his life.

“I'll have it ready by ten.”

“Thanks. Ten. I'll see you at ten.”

As the woman turned and walked away, he studied her hips, which were accented by a wide, patent leather belt. She wore blue jean shorts that revealed feminine but sturdy legs.

When she had gone, Barlowe leaned down and adjusted a knob on the side of his press. He straightened up and was startled to see the woman standing there again.

“I came back to tell you that I have an extra ticket if you're interested in coming. It should be an excellent show.”

“I might do that,” said Barlowe. “This contact name on this sheet; is that you?”

“Yes, and you can reach me at that number.”

“Will do.”

When she left, Barlowe looked at the contact name: Louise Grimes. He looked again at the rest of the flyer. Sweet Honey in the Rock.
Strange name,
he thought. He had never heard of the group. If he went to that concert, he wouldn't know what to expect. It could be a gospel group, or worse, some rap band. He hated rap music.

He finished his print run. He was scheduled to start on another job, ten thousand brochures, but decided it could wait until morning. He wanted to start on the concert flyers right away, to guarantee they'd be ready when Louise Grimes came in.

So he typed and printed all five thousand flyers, and kept an extra one for himself.

A
fter the Auburn Avenue Mini-Mart was sold, the store closed in no time at all. Juliette James took the money and moved with her family to Florida. Now there was a big plastic banner flung across the top of the door where the old store sign used to hang:

COMING SOON: THE CAFE LATTE!

In the months that followed, the boys next door still brought their chairs outside, like they had done for years. With the store closed, they seemed lost sitting out there near a “No Trespassing” sign. They sat and argued as usual, but in their quiet moments each man chewed on private fears. With little money and few relatives willing or able to take them in, they wondered when the mounting changes in the Old Fourth Ward would swoop down and swallow them.

 

Barlowe was standing in the front yard, talking with Mr. Smith, when two white men came up the walk. They each carried a yellow legal pad. They stared directly at Barlowe and Mr. Smith with the determined look of Jehovah's Witnesses.

One of the men extended a hand as they approached. “Hi, friends.”

Mr. Smith turned and walked away. Barlowe would have left, too, but he was curious to see what the men were up to.

He recognized the men as neighbors. One of them lived on his street. The shorter of the two, the one with the pencil-thin mustache, spoke first.

“I'm Danny and this is Greg. We're part of a team circulating a petition. We'd like to know if you'll be wonderful enough to sign.”

“For what?”

The taller man, whose skin was the color of lobster, took a turn.

“We want to create a jogging and bicycle lane on Randolph Street.”

“What?”

“Yes, the Murphys—you know the Murphys?”

“No.”

“The Murphys live on Howell Street. Anyway, they've come up with a great idea. Some of us are bikers, and we'd like to be able to ride from Randolph Street to the path that leads to Stone Mountain.”

He smiled, waiting for Barlowe to acknowledge the brilliance of the idea.

Barlowe grunted instead. “Um.”

The shorter man jumped in, pushing his sunglasses up the bridge of his nose. “We've drawn up plans to submit to the Urban Design Commission. We've already checked to make sure there's no problem with the city's historic preservation guidelines.”

Then the other chimed in cheerily: “We need signatures from at least two-thirds of the households on the street, to show that this has strong community support.”

The sales pitch was disrupted by the squeaky sound of Ricky Brown's grocery cart. Ricky came up the street and stopped right there. He wore dingy pants, a black skullcap and huge, block-shaped glasses, with thick black frames. He had a small radio fastened to his belt, with wires and plugs running to his ears. He wore powder blue earmuffs, to hold the plugs in place.

Ricky glanced at Barlowe's house, then turned to him and shouted, “Look like yo gutters need cleanin!”

“I don't think so, Ricky. Not today.”

“I do a good job! You'll love my wurk!”

“Not now.”

Ricky turned to the white men. One man pretended to study the names on the petition. The other diverted his eyes across the street.

Barlowe was tempted to drag out the conversation with Ricky, just for the living hell of it. Instead, he gave Ricky a final no, then sent him on his way. Ricky went up the street, stopping midway along the block to pick up an aluminum can.

The white men resumed their pitch: “So. Would you care to sign?”

“No.”

“It'll be really nice. We—”

“I ain't sayin yes to everything.” The tone was curt, icy.

The men appeared stumped, mystified.
Everything? What did he mean, everything?
They wanted Barlowe to explain, to elaborate on his veiled reference to “everything.” But they sensed in him a certain attitude. So they plastered on polite smiles, said good-bye and left, frustrated about the progress of their project, which had been met so far with stiff resistance.

 

When the men had gone, Barlowe went around to the back porch to get his work shoes. Tyrone's pigeons flitted around in the cage. The birds fluttered wildly, like they were restless, agitated.

Barlowe heard a noise across the way.

It was Sandy Gilmore. She had come outdoors to hang clothes on the line. Barlowe studied her a moment. She was probably one of those folks, he thought, who refused to buy a dryer.
She probably prefers to let her clothes dry in the fresh open air.

Sandy instinctively felt Barlowe's eyes fixed on her. She turned and looked his way. She smiled weakly and waved. He waved back, then poured some extra birdseed into the tray and waited to see if she would signal that she wanted to talk.

They chatted fairly regularly at the fence nowadays. Through some unspoken agreement, they talked only when Sean was away from the house. In some ways their conversations had grown easier, more relaxed, though they still struggled to get beyond a certain point. Sandy wrestled with ways to unravel the source of Barlowe's leeriness. For him, that leeriness was less about choice than survival. Despite a reluctant fondness for Sandy, his instincts still warned him to beware. She was nice enough, and clearly well-intentioned. Still, nice people like her trampled folks like him all the time, and pretended they never knew they were underfoot.

Sometimes when they talked, Sandy suggested Barlowe was simply afraid to trust. Once, she peppered him with a string of questions, hoping to pull him out:

“What is there to lose in being more open?”

“What,” he countered, “is there to gain?”

One day, he actually took an awkward crack at explaining himself. They had been chatting, and in a rare revealing moment he said: “I had a good relationship once.”

Sandy perked up, curious. “Oh, yeah? Was she nice?”

“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.