Barlowe worked at finishing his last print job for the day. As usual, he was far ahead of the rest of the boys. He had the press running at medium speed, doing a one-color job of twenty thousand sheets. He was feeling pretty good about the day—better than he’d felt since that church meeting. He planned to go home, suck down a few beers and skim through a travel book he’d picked up from the library the week before.
Across the room he saw skinny Franky Doyle, who worked at the press a few feet away from his machine. As usual, Franky was goofing off, stalking a boy named Freddy up a narrow aisle. Freddy ran, and Franky chased, popping his backside with one of the cloths.
Barlowe had returned to his work area and begun arranging printing plates for the next day’s run, when Billy Spivey appeared from out of nowhere. His britches hitched up high and jaw puffed with a wad of tobacco, Billy stopped at Barlowe’s machine.
“Hey, Barlowe.”
“Billy.”
“I got a big ol dragon for you to keel.”
Barlowe kept his eyes fixed on his press.
“Yeah, Billy? Whas up?”
“They got one a them religious conventions goin on over at the World Congress Center. Alla sudden somebody remembered they need thirty thousand Jesus flyers, on the spot.”
He spit in the cup, then smiled a nervous, brown-toothed smile.
Barlowe grabbed more printing plates and checked his watch.
“Thas not good, Billy. Is pretty close to quittin time.”
Spivey checked his watch, too. “Yeah, you right bout that. Tell ya the truth it pisses me off. But the boss told em we could do it.” He spit in the cup. “You know Mr. Scott. He weren’t gonna let no bizness get away.”
The foreman checked his watch again and shifted his weight to the other foot. “You can hep us out?”
Barlowe nodded toward Franky, who had just returned to his machine.
“What about him?”
Billy half-turned around. He didn’t see Franky, but he knew he was there.
“He goin to a concert tonight. Toby Keith and Reba McEntire. A man cain’t rightly pass up on Reba and Toby.”
Barlowe hadn’t seen the books, but he was sure Franky was paid more than him. Of course it was supposed to be his imagination that there was something wrong with that.
“Can you hep us out?”
Barlowe cranked up the press speed, partly to drown out Spivey’s voice. The papers fired faster now.
“Boss said we gotta do it, Barlowe. We may as well face it. It gotta get done.”
Barlowe looked up from his machine. “Well, then. I guess it gotta be done, Billy.”
The foreman smiled and slapped him across the back. “Thanks, buddy.” He spit in the cup, then hurried off.
A piece of paper jammed in Barlowe’s press. He stopped the machine and pulled it out. The sheet was crumpled and splotched with ink. It had run catty-corner beneath the plate. He checked the tray up top to make sure the ink supply was strong. He cleaned the plate and wiped down the rollers, then cranked up the machine to finish the job.
It took nearly two hours to complete the convention programs. The press run went without a hitch. When he was done, Barlowe entered the time in his log. He used to treat overtime like he used to treat money: He paid little attention to either one unless he really needed to. He needed both now, so he kept a strict time log, down to the minute.
The job done, he left the shop. He got in his car and pulled away. He flicked on the radio, sank into the rhythm of an up-tempo jazz tune and melted into the traffic flow.
The rush-hour traffic was heavy now, with city worker bees out in force. Women dressed in business suits and clunky sneakers rushed down walkways, toward parking lots. Men wearing cheap white shirts and wrinkled ties headed for the subway line.
He cruised past Woodruff Park, where homeless men who learned to play chess in jail held makeshift tournaments on park benches until the big conventions came to town. Then the vagrants were rounded up like so much cattle and whisked back to jail until the conventions ended and the tourists left.
Driving along, Barlowe wondered if Billy Spivey was trying to mess with his head. He wondered if the foreman was trying to set him up to be fired or get him pissed-off enough to quit.
It made him shift his thinking about working for other shops. In fact, he had recently applied to a shop across town. He might take that job if they made him a decent offer. They might not treat him any better than he was being treated now, but they’d surely pay him something closer to what he was worth. Life being what it was, there likely would be trade-offs somehow.
He stopped at a traffic light. A car filled with white people pulled alongside him in the next lane. He glanced at them, then shifted his attention to the string of folks parading down sidewalks. One man shuffled along in tattered clothes, his dark face a brooding testimony to life’s power to unhinge the soul.
Barlowe glanced back at the white people in the car beside him. A woman in the front seat pointed at the derelict, who now sifted through a garbage can. Barlowe could see the woman’s lips moving. A backseat passenger flapped his jaws, too. They all laughed.
Barlowe wondered what they were laughing at.
The light changed, and he pulled away. Riding down the street, he thought about William Crawford. Maybe he could ask the old man if he’d accept a lower down payment. Barlowe had managed to save some more money, though there was still a good ways to go.
Gliding along, he felt his spirit soothed some by the music on the radio. It was Johnny Hartman. He cruised and watched the world pass by as he got lost in the lyrics—lyrics about love; love lost and love found. He got so swept away by Johnny Hartman crooning against the backdrop of people walking the city streets that he decided to take the long way home.
Down near Pine Street, whole platoons of homeless women and men lounged in the doorways of vacant buildings, waiting for the next shelter feeding time. Tourists with high-tech cameras hung around their necks walked in tight, nervous clusters, studying maps and keeping wary eyes out for beggars.
Barlowe drove up Peachtree Street, on up by the peep show joints, to the intersection near the Fox Theater. He hung a right onto Ponce de Leon Avenue and went to the Krispy Kreme doughnut place.
It was Wednesday evening. Glazed doughnuts went on sale on Wednesdays. He bought a dozen glazed and a quart of milk, then pulled back onto Ponce, trying to decide which way to go. If he turned left off Ponce he would run into the heart of Midtown, which was mostly white. If he turned right off Ponce, it would take him toward the Old Fourth Ward.
Barlowe turned left. He wasn’t ready to go in yet. He rode around Midtown, eating doughnuts and taking in the city scenes. He approached a construction site, where the routine sound of progress drifted his way. It was the persistent knock of hammers against those gigantic nails; the clack of Sheetrock being hastily slapped onto building frames.
A sign out front announced now-familiar news:
COMING SOON!
LUXURY CONDOS
LOW $200s!
Barlowe suddenly slammed on the brakes. A squirrel had run into the street. Caught in the middle of the road, the creature froze, then dashed off and leapt onto a tree trunk nearby. Barlowe turned down a narrow street, lined on both sides with trees and cars. He swung onto 10th Street and drove past Piedmont Park. He went straight through to Virginia-Highland and hung a right onto North Highland Avenue.
On North Highland, the scene transformed into a world of cheery Yuppie clones. Everywhere, there were people, them, walking along sidewalks in groups of twos, threes and fours, strolling down happy lanes, some with springy Lab retrievers leading the way.
WASPish and smug, they seemed to be out celebrating life.
Life. Be in it.
Barlowe stopped at a light and checked them out. One couple strolled along the walk licking ice cream cones. The woman wore blue leather flats and neatly creased silk pants. She had a sweater draped perfectly around her slender shoulders. The sleeves were cross-tied and hung loosely over her chest, like the models in the L.L. Bean catalogues.
Her companion, a lanky man with moussed-up hair, wore creased denims and a burgundy knit shirt, with penny loafers and no socks.
Barlowe wondered, Who taught these people how to live?
People in Virginia-Highland looked like they all had enrolled in the same Life seminars: They married young—right around thirty—remained newlyweds for about eighteen months, then started families. They sprouted apple-cheeked babies (usually one, sometimes two), then traded in their Saabs and BMWs for SUVs and minivans. They settled into homes furnished by Ethan Allen, hired Hispanics to tend their lawns, and traded fitness club memberships for three-wheeled jogging strollers.
Like rickshaws in India, those strollers were everywhere. The sidewalks of Virginia-Highland were flooded with them, running, panting behind three-wheeled strollers, with wide-eyed, apple-cheeked babies riding high.
Barlowe pulled to another stoplight. Folks sat outdoors at restaurants, laughing, chattering and drinking beer. In front of him, a pickup truck sat waiting for the light to change. There were bumper stickers pasted on each side of the flatbed door. On the left side, a sticker featured an American flag, plastered below these words:
UNITED WE STAND!
The truck had another flag, too. A faded picture of the Confederate flag adorned the right side of the flatbed gate.
Barlowe sighed. He couldn’t seem to get away from flags. Even when he sat down to watch sports on TV, he noticed them, pasted on the backs of football players’ helmets and sewn across their jersey fronts. They were stitched on basketball players’ uniforms. Watching the Atlanta Hawks play one night, he spotted tiny flag stickers taped to the bottom corner of the basketball goals––on both ends of the floor!
It was crazy.
Now Barlowe stared at both flags in front of him and sucked his teeth, disgusted. Then, with no conscious thought about it, he released his foot from the brake pedal. The car eased forward, bumping the back of the pickup truck.
The driver, a white man with a long, blond, irreverent mane, poked his head out the window. He flung open the door, spitting and cussing, and started toward the back to assess the damage.
Barlowe got out, too. He walked slowly, fixing a stern gaze on the white man’s eyes. When the two men met, Barlowe got right up on him; he got right up in his face.
“You got somethin to say to me, chief?” His fists were balled, tight, ready.
The white man looked in Barlowe’s cold eyes and, oddly, thought about health insurance. He glimpsed his bumper, which was slightly dented.
He forced a smile. “Ain’t enough damage thar to poke a finger at. Forgitaboutit.” He turned around, climbed in his truck and drove away.
Barlowe left Virginia-Highland, too, heading toward home. He took North Highland up through the run-down industrial area and stopped at a corner grocery store. A sign pasted up high on the back wall inside the store announced that the Georgia lottery was up to five million dollars now.
He bought a bunch of tickets. On the way out he thought about what he could do if he won the lottery. He would buy a new house, one bigger and better than the one he was in. He’d buy a new car, too—this time, a foreign brand. And he would take himself on a nice vacation. He had never gone on a real vacation before. He took time off work every now and then, but he never had extra money to go anywhere, except to an occasional baseball game.
He could do a lot of things if he won the lottery. He could even quit his job.
He went back in the store and bought four more tickets.
Heading home, he stopped at a light down near Glen Iris Drive. Just as he was about to pull away, a woman sprang from nowhere and stumbled in front of the car. She waved wildly for him to stop. Barlowe slammed on the brakes, barely missing her thigh. She rushed to the passenger-side door. When he rolled down the window, she poked her head inside.
“I ain’t had nothin to eat. I need a ride. Gimme a ride a few streets over.”
The woman was brown-skinned, with an oval face that looked like it might have been pretty once. Her hair was thrown back on her head like she had left somewhere in a hurry. Her eyes had the glazed look that he saw in Tyrone sometimes.
She looked wild-eyed, desperate.
Barlowe hesitated, then leaned across the seat and pulled the door handle. She climbed in and slumped back heavily on the seat.
As they rode along in silence, she leaned her head back on the headrest and closed her eyes. Barlowe stole a closer look. The woman was plump, with meaty thighs that hugged her dirty jeans. She wore a simple gold-colored blouse, with three buttons loose at the top.
He wondered if she was clean.
“You say you need to go a few blocks over?”
“Uh-huh.” She opened her eyes, then closed them again.
“You all right, lady?”
“Yeah. I jus got outta jail. I only had money for bus fare home. I’m hongry.” She looked at him. “I need fi dollars to get somethin to eat.”
Barlowe drew his wallet, pulled out a ten-dollar bill and handed it over.
The woman stuffed it away, quickly. She pointed a finger, directing him where to go. He drove down a narrow street. She motioned for him to turn. He drove a few blocks until the street dead-ended.
“Park here,” she said, matter-of-factly.
He turned the car around and parked, then scanned the area. It was a lonely, desolate place. No real signs of life; not even a squirrel or a stray dog walking about. There were a few boarded, abandoned houses nearby; a few others had newspapers plastered across front windows, or battered cars sitting out front.
The woman gazed straight ahead, her eyes not focused on anything. She began to rub her breasts. She caressed herself as though she’d forgotten Barlowe was there.
He panned the area again, then peered at the woman. Her eyes were closed.
Barlowe shut his eyes, too. Soon he felt fingers creep onto his crotch. He grabbed the woman’s hand near the wrist, but left it resting in its place. His heart pounded, and his manhood stiffened.
Relax.
He released his hold on the woman’s hand and tried not to think. Sweat beads formed on his brow.
The woman unzipped his pants and leaned down low, moving her hand up and down. Barlowe felt a warm, moist sensation.
Relax.
She worked his manhood. He trembled and heard himself moan. He leaned the seat back a little, almost against his will.
Relax.
The pressure inside him rose. It rose slowly, then gushed forth. He released, freeing a thousand pent-up tensions in staccato bursts.
When it was over, the woman sat up straight. Once more, she leaned back on the headrest and closed her eyes.
Barlowe zipped his pants. He started the car and drove away.
The woman directed him a few blocks over. He pulled in front of a shabby house, with shingles missing from the roof. Several men stood out front, smoking cigarettes and talking. Before Barlowe stopped the car, the woman leaned on the door. She seemed in a hurry now.
Without looking back, she climbed from the car and rushed toward the house. Barlowe glanced in his rearview mirror in time to see the woman vanish through the doorway. He drove off, eager to get home. He intended to take a long, hot bath and give himself a good talking-to.
He hoped Tyrone was away. He wanted to get a cold beer and sit alone with the lights turned off.
It was dark outside now. He reached Randolph Street and found he could barely get onto his end of the block. A crowd had gathered along the sidewalks, spilling over into the middle of the road.
Closer to his place, the crowd grew dense. He saw familiar faces. Willie and Ely and Amos had drifted over from the Auburn Avenue Mini-Mart; Mr. Smith and Zelda were out there; even Viola and The Hawk had stopped to see what the hoo-ha was all about.
Barlowe pulled to the curb in front of his house. That’s when he saw. People stood around, staring at the Gilmores’ place. Sean and Sandy stood on the sidewalk, side by side, with their arms folded, staring blankly into space. Twenty feet away, their mailbox had gone up in flames. Smoke billowed ten feet high.
Sirens blared from up the street as a fire engine raced toward the scene.
The fire burned fiercely, its flames ascending the wooden mailbox pole, reaching well beyond the top. Flames flickered and smoke curled and swirled toward the blackened sky.
Barlowe got out of the car and took his place among the people. They watched in silence, the light from the flames reflecting off their faces.
Lapping the edges of the charred mailbox, the flames formed the shape of the old rugged cross.