FOR THE FIRST TIME since he had started construction work, John asked for permission to leave early, and went straight home to sleep. He was tired and willing to admit it to the foreman. A little after ten that night, he woke from a nightmare he could not remember, but he felt its residual effects, the sweat, racing heart, tensed muscles. He rubbed his stomach, remembered how, when he was twenty years old, he thought he was pregnant. No one had believed him, so he had forced himself to throw up every morning to prove it. For nine months, he waited to give birth, surprised by how little his belly had grown.
“This is going to be the smallest baby ever,” John had told Olivia. “You’re going to be a huge grandmother. Gigantic. The biggest grandmother ever.”
John had decided to have his baby at home because he hated hospitals and doctors, though he loved the nurses with their white nylons and long eyelashes. Using his latest paycheck, John made a list and then bought all the items he’d written down:
towels, clean and hot
hammer and nails
baby blankets and toys
bottle
graham crackers and milk
needle and thread
radio
sharp knife
soup
brand-new tool belt
rent money
newspapers with all the want ads cut out
On his delivery date, John lay naked on his bed, waiting for the baby. He watched the digital clock. 7:51. 7:52. 7:53. But the baby would not come. John felt his stomach, wished for labor pains, and heard the music growing louder and louder.
“No!” he’d shouted. “Don’t cheat me! Don’t cheat me again!”
But the baby never arrived, and John realized he had never been pregnant. He felt foolish. He had told everybody that he was pregnant, his mother and father, the woman who worked at the supermarket, his landlord. John packed up all his birthing supplies, the toys and blankets, knife and newspapers, and packed them into a box. He shoved the box under his bed and never looked at it. No. He opened it sometimes to take inventory, to make sure everything was still there. Criminals were everywhere these days, especially in his neighborhood. A girl had been shot and killed outside Ballard High School, just a few blocks away from his apartment. He was not going to take any chances with his possessions.
John smiled at the memory of his failed pregnancy. He was awake. He had to work the next day and he always tried to get plenty of sleep on work nights. The foreman liked to start early, so they would be done before that late afternoon sun took over. John thought this a strange belief, especially during winter in Seattle, when the skies were gray and rain fell constantly. John had seen one of his co-workers fall over with heat exhaustion a few summers earlier, but had never known it to happen since. Still, the foreman knew that an unconscious worker was an unproductive worker and made sure his men drank lots of water. John worried about what might have been in the water, but he usually drank it anyway.
John could not fall back to sleep. He crawled from bed, dressed in his work clothes, and walked to the all-hours donut shop on the corner. Seattle’s Best Donuts. John liked their donuts well enough, but he was not sure if they were the best in Seattle. He had once asked if there had been some kind of contest, but the manager just laughed. The shop was small, simple, and passably clean, as if one wet rag had been used to clean the entire place. A large picture window fronted the store. A window display of donuts at the end of the counter and another display hanging on the wall behind the counter. The kitchen was dark and mysterious behind the swinging doors.
“Lookee here, lookee here,” said Paul, the graveyard shift worker at the donut shop, when John walked in. Paul was a twenty-year-old black man, an art major at the University. He was handsome, with clear eyes and a strong chin. His hair was shaved close to his head. He worked the shift with Paul Too, an old black man whose great-great-grandmother had escaped slavery by marrying into the Seminole tribe. Paul Too sat at the counter, smoking a cigarette and reading the newspaper. He had a face like an old map, stained with age and folded incorrectly one too many times.
“Good morning, John,” said Paul. “You having the usual?”
“Yeah,” John said and sat beside Paul Too, who looked up from his newspaper and nodded. Paul set a jelly-filled donut and a cup of coffee in front of John. Paul Too picked up John’s donut, took a bite, and set it back down. Then he sipped a little of John’s coffee. John watched Paul Too very carefully. One minute, two minutes went by. Paul Too had survived. The food had not been poisoned. John took a bite of his donut and washed it down with coffee.
“So, John,” said Paul. “You couldn’t sleep again?”
John shook his head.
“That’s horrible. I hate it when I can’t sleep. And I’ll tell you, this graveyard shift messes with my sleeping. I never know what time it is. Never. Ain’t that right, Paul Too?”
Paul Too sighed deeply and nodded his head in agreement, never lifting his eyes from the paper.
“How’s your health been?” asked Paul. “Been quiet?”
John shrugged his shoulders.
“Yeah, I know how that goes. I hate it when things get loud. I need peace and quiet myself. Time to paint well, to let the colors in my head be the colors on the canvas, you know what I’m saying? A man doesn’t need much in this world, does he, John? Just a little food, a little house, and a little peace and quiet. I once heard that a man needs a full stomach and a warm house before he’ll listen to anybody’s sermon.”
Paul Too cleared his throat.
“I know, I know,” said Paul. “I was going to give you credit, you grumpy old man.”
John looked from Paul to Paul Too.
“You see, John,” said Paul. “Old Paul Too told me that. He said every man needs a good meal, a big blanket, and some peace and quiet. He said it. I’m just paraphrasing.”
Paul Too loudly turned a page, newsprint crinkling like a little bit of thunder.
“Okay, okay,” Paul said. “So it was Bessie Smith who said it first. I was just paraphrasing Paul Too’s paraphrase of Ms. Smith. Are you happy now, old man?”
John finished his donut, drank the last of his coffee. Paul swept them away and wiped the counter clean, leaving the rag for John to inspect. It was blue. John knew the blue rags were sterilized.
“So,” said Paul. “How’s your folks?”
John felt a little heat in his belly. Olivia and Daniel often came to the donut shop searching for John. Sometimes, they found him there. Other times, they just ate donuts and waited for John to arrive. John did not know if the donuts here were the best in Seattle, but his parents thought they were.
“I haven’t seen them for a bit,” Paul said. “I was just wondering.” Then to change the subject: “Do you know who Bessie Smith was?”
John shook his head.
“She was a singer, a fine black woman, back in the twenties and thirties, sang like nobody can sing. Sang good enough to make you crazy, John. Just like what you hear in your head, except everybody could hear it. How’s that for crazy? Drove the whole world insane and then she bled to death because they wouldn’t let her in a white hospital.”
Paul Too looked up at Paul.
“Yeah,” said Paul to Paul Too, “I know you think it was murder. But you think everything is a conspiracy.” Then to John. “Paul Too here thinks that Richard Nixon killed both Kennedys, Martin Luther King, and Malcolm X.”
Paul Too wagged a finger at Paul.
“And,” added Paul, “he thinks Mr. Nixon designed Pintos. You know what I’m saying? Those ugly little cars that looked like insects? You remember how they used to blow up? One little tap on the bumper and boom!”
Paul slapped his hands together loudly. John jumped up from his seat.
“Hey,” Paul said. “I’m sorry there, John. Please, have a seat.”
John sat down. Paul Too smoothed his pants and shirt, smoothed his hair with his left hand, picked up the local news section, and exhaled slowly.
“They found a white man’s body,” said Paul Too, reading from his newspaper.
“What man?” asked Paul.
“A dead man. They found his body in some empty house near Fremont. Houses all around there and nobody saw nothing. He was all messed up. What do they say here? Multiple stab wounds.”
Paul whistled.
“How many is multiple?” asked Paul Too. “How do they say things like that? What do they do? Count them up and measure them? Well, this is a bunch of stab wounds, and this is a lot. But Jesus, this is multiple. I don’t much care for it, you hear?”
“I hear,” Paul said.
“What was his name?” John asked, surprising both Pauls. He rarely talked in the donut shop.
“Well,” Paul said. “Tell the man what his name was.”
“It says here his name was Justin Summers. Now, if that ain’t the whitest white-guy name of all time, then I don’t know what. It’s just a damn shame.”
John started to cry.
“What is it?” asked both Pauls, bracing for the worst. Olivia and Daniel’s phone number was on a list near the telephone.
John covered his face with his hands.
“Did you know him?” asked Paul Too.
John shook his head furiously.
“Are you okay?” Paul asked. “Do you need anything?”
John put his face down on the counter, his shoulders and back heaving, loud sobs. No. Now he was laughing, deep belly laughs, his eyes still wet with tears. He laughed until he felt sick. Paul and Paul Too watched him. He might have laughed until he passed out, he had done it before, but another customer walked in the door and broke the spell.
“Well, hello there, Mr. Ruffatto,” Paul said to the regular.
Paul Too placed a hand on John’s shoulder. John stared at the hand, black skin, long fingers, wrinkled knuckles, a huge hand, callused and old. John eased out from under that hand, backed out of the shop, and started walking. He walked downtown and sat outside the building site. He stared up at the last skyscraper in Seattle. It was small, even by Seattle standards, and pointless. Why were they finishing this tall building when most of the skyscrapers in downtown Seattle were already in financial trouble? So many vacant spaces, so many failed businesses. None of the buildings in downtown Seattle were owned by the people who had originally financed their construction. Nothing was original. John watched his building. A few night people passed by, but John ignored them. He sat alone and quiet, wondering what would happen to him after the construction was complete.