Them (7 page)

Barlowe watched the policemen leave. Likewise, the Gilmores climbed in Joe Folkes's shiny Cadillac and disappeared.

When the cars glided out of sight, Barlowe left the window. He flopped down hard onto the couch and sat staring emptily into space.

“Caesar!”

He picked up a glass from the coffee table and shattered it against a wall.

 

On the drive back to his office, Joe Folkes stopped at a light and turned to Sean, who was seated beside him. “Isn't it a dandy?”

“Yeah, nice.” Sean was surprised at how much he liked the house. “And it has more space than the place we're in.”

Oddly, he thought of Sandy's father; the old man would have conniptions if he were here.

Sandy was lost in her own thoughts, about landscape ideas and furniture placement. Her enmity toward Joe had receded some.
Maybe he's not so bad after all.

Joe sensed he had the Gilmores hooked. He had them wriggling like striped bass on a bamboo rod. Now it was time to reel them in.

“It will officially go on the market in another week or so.
We're
listing it so you've got a chance to beat the rush…Better get it now, though. This baby won't last long.”

He didn't really have to work the sale. Sandy had already made up her mind. Without saying it in front of Joe, she knew they wanted that house. The spacious rooms and the skyline view were clearly major plusses. But just as impressive was the strong sense of community there.

Imagine. Someone actually cared enough to call the cops
.

That settled it for her. Sean and Sandy were moving to the Old Fourth Ward.

B
arlowe stepped through the double doors of the Auburn Avenue Research Library and dumped an armload of books into the front seat of his car. He rushed around to the driver's side, feeling giddy as a child with a new batch of toys. It was Friday evening, and he had his weekend all laid out. He would spend much of it on the back porch, soaking up those books. He had gone to the library to find a book that explained the workings of mortgages and loans. Then he'd drifted to the history section.

From there it was on to the travel books. He liked to look at pictures of faraway places and read about the backgrounds and cultures of different people. He planned to go to some of those places one day. He intended to see for himself how other people got along.

Some folks traveled to faraway places on their own, but Barlowe hadn't seen a way to do that yet. When was there ever time and money to venture out
there,
to journey to exotic places just for fun?

When he was younger he had tried to figure out a way to see the world for free. Three of his brothers joined the army and navy and were shipped to Germany, Korea, places like that. But he hadn't wanted to travel that way—serving Caesar's causes for reasons he could never trust.

He almost joined the merchant marine once. He'd thought that he might join the merchant marine and travel the world while getting paid to do decent work. Then life got in the way: His mama got sick; a girl named Joan said she missed her period (it turned out to be a false alarm); one thing or another kept him pinned down and stuck at home.

Moving to Atlanta had been a major deal, though not nearly enough to satisfy. So he went and got a library card and started reading about the rest of the world, which sometimes seemed about as out of reach as a pearl buried on the ocean floor.

Now he had a routine down. On most Friday evenings after work he'd buy his lottery tickets, pick up a six-pack and head to the Auburn Avenue Research Library downtown. He went there so much now the librarians knew him by name. They'd see him come in, shambling slow and tired in his ink-stained khakis. They'd watch him browse the shelves, sometimes for hours.

When he first began going there, one librarian, a high-yellow, cheeky girl named Rachel Worthman, studied him closer than anyone else. She wondered if he was actually reading books or merely gazing at pictures on the pages.

When she could no longer stand the suspense, Rachel tested Barlowe one day. He had come to the front desk with an armload of books that he planned to skim that week. She scanned the books and lobbed a question, framed as an offhand compliment.

“My. With all these travel books you're reading, I'll bet you know all the continents now.”

“I guess I do,” he said, matter-of-factly. He rattled them off, one by one, in alphabetical order.

In other brief exchanges, Rachel Worthman discovered he knew a little bit about many things. He could tell you the seasonal rituals of Africa's Dahomey people, and he knew the main industries in Nigeria and Brazil. He had memorized other trivia, such as the average annual rainfall in Zurich, Milan and Johannesburg.

Rachel was taken by Barlowe's raw intelligence. She also thought he was kind of cute with his thick, untamed hair and pearly whites. With no ring on his finger, she wondered if he might not be spoken for.

Now she looked forward to seeing him come through those tall, ornate doors on Friday evenings. She began wearing her special sweater on Fridays, just for him. It was a pink sweater, made of angora wool, the one her mother gave her for Christmas.

Rachel wasn't sure if Barlowe had noticed her in a certain way. She straightened her sweater and flashed an inviting smile whenever he approached the desk. Lately, she had started trailing him into the aisles sometimes, to ask if he needed help finding anything. He would politely say, “No, thank you,” then move on to another row.

This day, though, Rachel had hung shyly behind the desk, careful not to scare him off. Barlowe browsed the shelves for a full hour, until he found the mortgage guide and other books he was looking for. In the travel section he had searched for a book that told the story of the Gullah people. He had met a wild Geechie girl somewhere once; she was black as coal, and so pretty the sight of her made his armpits moist. She told him her people descended from slaves who had escaped to the islands off the South Carolina coast. She said the Gullah people held an annual festival, in a place called Beaufort.

Barlowe promised himself that one of these years, when his money was right, he would go to the Gullah festival, and maybe even look up that fine Geechie gal.

As usual, he took the books up front and plopped them down on the desk. Rachel Worthman smiled and poked out her chest, which was quite qualified to be poked out that way.

“Find everything you were looking for?”

“Yeah. I did all right today.”

He leaned over to slide a book beneath the scanner. He felt Rachel's eyes bearing down and could hear her breathing hard, like she had a mild case of emphysema.

Rachel glanced at one of the titles:
Bo Rabbit Smart for True: Folktales from the Gullah
. Then she held up the book below it:
The Legacy of Ibo Landing: Gullah Roots of African American Culture
.

She smiled. “Oh. The Gullah people. They have a festival every year.”

“Yeah. I heard about that.”

“I'll bet it's nice.”

She fixed on his face with a hopeful look and cocked her head slightly to her good side. In her own homely way she tried to look delicious. It didn't wear right on her.

Barlowe dropped his eyes, first to the full breasts poking against the angora wool. Oddly, he thought of Tyrone. No doubt, Tyrone would declare that Rachel Worthman had promise. She had strong headlights. Tyrone insisted strong headlights were always a good place to start in a relationship.

Barlowe's gaze shifted from Rachel's headlights to her eyes. That was when he realized there could be no future there. The eyes were dull, lifeless. They suggested she might be one of the sheep, one of those drab and dreary people who play life by the numbers. That seemed mildly confusing, considering she was a librarian, with access to all those books.

And another thing: The eyes were awfully tame; tame as a cat curled up on a fluffy couch. He studied Rachel closely while she assisted a patron across the desk. As she turned to a computer, he noted again the languid movements and depthless gaze.

He thought:
She'd require brown liquor to loosen up.

It would be just his luck that Rachel didn't drink. And even if she did indulge, it might be tough getting to sleep after a good romp with her. Barlowe imagined himself lying in the dark, waiting for sunrise while Rachel snored. He was sure she snored.

So what did he want, then? If not a decent house girl, a librarian like Rachel, what did he want?

In the daytime, he swore he wanted substance, a woman who thought serious thoughts and followed current events. At night, it was different: He craved debauchery, full-tilt; someone wild—like Nell.

He recalled how Nell used to lose herself in lovemaking. Sometimes she'd lose herself so completely that she'd wrench free of his clutches and bolt from bed to catch her breath. She'd flop against a wall, furiously fanning her face with her hand, whispering, imploring herself to settle down.

Sometimes she would…Now Barlowe stopped himself. He didn't want to think about Nell.

In the neighborhood, he'd found himself paying more attention lately to Lucretia Wiggins. Some days he stood in the front window and watched her switch up and down the walk. He liked the way she strutted—sassy and light, like she was gliding barefoot. Without having to be told, he knew what she was like. More and more, the idea of her excited him.

It was settled, then, in the library that day. Barlowe would leave Rachel Worthman to tend to her books and seek his pleasures in other places. He said, “Thank you,” to Rachel and turned and walked out the door.

Heading to the car it occurred to him that he should maybe find another library branch. He drove away, glancing every now and then at his new stack of books, especially the ones about the Gullah people.

Who knew? Maybe he would go to Beaufort one day and find that big-leg Geechie gal.

 

Barlowe reached home and came across a sight that brought a triumphant smile to his face. Ricky Brown stood in the front yard, raking leaves. More than three weeks had passed since Ricky disappeared. Now he'd returned, and even brought back the red gas can he took away.

When Barlowe approached, Ricky spoke fast, like he'd memorized the words. “I came to do what I promised long time ago!”

“I been waitin on you,” said Barlowe. “One more week and I was gonna come lookin. That wouldna been a pretty sight.”

Ricky raked faster. “I woulda been back fore now but I got hung up on some thangs. Don't worry. You ain't gotta pay me nothin. I'ma do it anyway. I always do what I say. So I'ma do it, whedder you pay me or not.”

He glanced over his sunshades.

“All right, then, Ricky. All right, do what you promised.” Barlowe headed to the curb to check for mail.

If he had paid closer attention to Ricky's mouth, he might have guessed the reason for the sudden reappearance. There was a front tooth missing, separated from its owner just the day before. Ricky had collected some aluminum and glass from the streets and pushed his grocery cart to the satellite recycling station on John Wesley Dobbs Avenue. He and his friends went there at noon each day and waited for a white man in a pickup truck, who paid for the scraps and cans they gathered.

Ricky was waiting in line to be paid, when a hand—strong, forceful—grabbed him from behind. The hand squeezed his shoulder blade so hard he collapsed to the ground.

“Oooowwww!!!”

He looked up and caught a fist, flush in the mouth.
Whack!

It was Tyrone. He had been walking up the street and spotted Ricky.

“Nigger, ain't you got some work to do?”

“Who, me?”

“You was sposed to rake my yard!”
Whack!
Tyrone pummeled him.

Ricky's buddies drew back, repulsed by the violence.

When the dusting was done, Ricky leaned over and coughed up blood. “I'ma do it! I'ma do it!”

Tyrone smacked him.
Whack!
“I
know
you are! And you gonna do it soon!”

Ricky spit more blood and examined a loose tooth, half-wondering if he could push it back into his bleeding gums.

The next day, Ricky, his lip still slightly swollen, hurried to Randolph Street and rang the bell. Tyrone escorted him around back and handed him a rake and garbage bags. “Now do what you promised. You sposed to live up to your obligations, nigger.”

Ricky was anxious to finish the job, mainly because Tyrone threatened to deliver a “fresh ass-whuppin” each week it went undone.

All that drama was lost on Barlowe now as he emptied the mailbox and strolled back toward the house. He stopped and watched briefly while Ricky gathered leaves and stuffed them in the bloated bags. Ricky worked hard, like he didn't mind doing the chore at all.

Heading into the house, Barlowe felt a surge of pride. That's what he liked about living in the Old Fourth Ward. He had given a man a chance to make an honest dollar, and after all that time the man had been moved to come back and prove himself.