Chapter 1
from TUFF
Paul Beatty
Now on this, the last cool night of spring, Brooklyn was short three more niggers for Winston to hate. Although he addressed
all black men as "God," Chilly Most, apparently less than divine, was unable to resurrect himself. Zoltan Yarborough, who was always running off at the mouth about his proud Brooklyn roots, "Brownsville, never ran, never will," had become the rigid embodiment of his slogan. He had one leg over the windowsill, and a bullet hole in him that, like everything his mother ever told him, went in one ear and out the other. Demetrius Broadnax from "Do-or-die Bed-Stuy" was shirtless on the floor with a column of bullet holes from sternum to belly button in his muddy brown torso. Winston gloated over Demetrius's body, looking into his ex-boss's glassy eyes, tempted to say "I quit" and ask for his severance pay. Instead he walked to the aquarium, pressed his nose against the glass, and wondered who was going to feed the goldfish.
Like most of the jobs Winston had taken since graduating high school, this one also ended prematurely, after a job interview only two weeks ago where the look on his face was his résumé and two sentences from his best friend, Fariq Cole, were his references. "This fat nigger ain't no joke. Yo-known uptown for straight KO'ing niggers." There was no "So, Mr. Foshay, how do your personal career goals mesh with our corporate mission? Would you consider yourself to be a self-starter? What was the last book you read?" Demetrius simply handed Winston the inner-city union card, a small black .22 Raven automatic pistol, which Winston coolly, but immediately, handed back.
"What, your ass don't need a burner?"
"Naw."
"Look, fool, maybe you can body-slam niggers out on the street, but in this business, people don't walk in the door shaking their fists in your face. You ain't shook, are you? You don't seem the scary type."
"Never back down. Once a nigger back down, he stay down, know what I'm saying? Just don't like guns."
"Well, when some niggers do come in blasting, your big ass be in the way and shit, two, three motherfuckers can hide behind you. Be here tomorrow afternoon at four."
When Winston started work, he was "in the way and shit," but not in the manner Demetrius had hoped. Winston's job description was simple: four to ten, five days a week, answer the door, look mean and yell, "Pay this motherfucker, now!" at the balky customers. But the trip into Brooklyn made Winston edgy. His childhood traumas kicked in, undoing his cool. Instead of suavely sauntering around counting his money every five minutes, Winston fumbled about the drug den, stepping on people's toes, toppling everything he touched, and talking nonstop. He tried to lighten the somber felonious atmosphere by telling embarrassingly bad jokes. ("You hear the one about why Scots wear kilts?") After the flat punch lines ("Because sheep can hear a zipper open from one hundred meters away") there would be a barely audible metallic click, the sound of Demetrius switching the gun's safety to the off position.
Winston had trouble keeping track of the Brooklyn drug mores. Which colored caps went with what size plastic vials? Were portable televisions an acceptable form of payment? He was unable to distinguish one crew's secret whistle from another's. How often had Demetrius yelled at him, "You moron, don't flush the drugs! That's the mating call of the ruby-crowned kinglet!" Then Chilly Most and the others would join in with their snide castigations: "As opposed to our secret signal-"
"The flight song of the skylark."
"A gentle woo-dukkadukka-woo."
"Good ol' Alauda arvenis, indigenous to Eurasia, but common in the Northwest Territories of Canada, if I'm not mistaken."
"You are not, you nigger ornithologist, you."
The last time Winston heard the cherished secret whistle, he answered the door and two niggers he'd never seen before, brandishing firearms, rushed past him and, before they could be properly announced, introduced themselves with a bullet in Chilly Most's newly shorn bald head. Winston did what his coworkers always said he'd do if he'd ever found himself face-to-face with a gun: he fainted "like a bitch."
Three minutes had passed since Winston regained consciousness, and he couldn't leave the apartment. It was as if he were spacewalking, tethered to some mother ship treading Brooklyn ether. He would clamber for the door and a muffled sound in the hallway or a distant siren would drive him back into the living room. He began to mumble: "This like that flick, the bugged-out Spanish one where the rich people couldn't leave the house. Luis Bustelo or some shit. What is it . . . surrealism? Well, I got the surrealisms."
A creak in the floor behind him stopped Winston's babbling. He quickly about-faced, balling his shaky hands into fists.
"Who dat?"
"Who dat?" came the response. Winston relaxed. He smiled, "Nigger," unclenched his fists, and plopped down on the sofa.
Fariq Cole hobbled into the living room, his crutches splayed out to the side, propelling him forward. Fariq's friends called him Smush because his nose, lips, and forehead shared the same Euclidean plane, giving him a profile that had all the contours of cardboard box. Each herky-jerky step undulated Fariq's body toward Winston like a Slinky, alternately coiling and uncoiling.
A solid gold dollar-sign pendant and a diamond-inlaid ankh whipped about his neck in an elliptical orbit like a jewel-encrusted satellite. Fariq stopped next to the doorjamb, tilted his head to the side, and cut his friend a dubious look.
"Who was you talking to?"
"Nobody. Just trying figure out why I was still here."
"You still here because you couldn't leave without me, your so-called boy."
"You is. But it wasn't you-I barely got to work ten minutes ago, I didn't even know you was here. Naw, it's something else."
Fariq was the coolest of the many cool handicapped Harlemites. His appearance was inner-city dapper, functional and physically fit assimilationist. Despite the soft spot in his head where his skull had never fused, it'd been a long time since he'd worn a cyclist's helmet. The bill of his fiberglass-reinforced Yankee baseball cap hung over his left eye, shadowing the surgical scars. The baggy corduroys covered up his leg braces. His clubfeet were squeezed into a pair of expensive sneakers, though he'd never run a step in his life. Fariq ran his tongue over his precious-metal-filled mouth, the front four incisors, top and bottom, capped in a gold-and-silver checkerboard pattern. Etched on his two front teeth were small black king and queen chess pieces, christened "Fariq" and "Nadine" in microscopic handwriting.
"Now look at these no-money motherfuckers-who going to take care of their families?" Fariq said, a rubber-tipped crutch sweeping across the carnage. "That's why a prudent motherfucker like me has an IRA account, some short-term T-bills, a grip invested in long-term corporate bonds and high-risk foreign stock. Shit, the twenty-first-century nigger gots to have a diversified portfolio-never know when you gon' have a rainy day. And look like it was thunderin' and lightnin' in this motherfucker."
from JUNKY
William Burroughs
The H caps cost three dollars each and you need at least three per day to get by. I was short, so I began "working the hole" with Roy. We would ride along, each looking out one side of the subway car until one of us spotted a "flop" sleeping on a bench. Then we would get off the train. I stood in front of the bench with a newspaper and covered Roy while he went through the lush's pockets. Roy would whisper instructions to me-"a little left, too far, a little back, there, hold it there"-and I would move to keep him covered. Often, we were late and the lush would be lying there with his pockets turned inside out.
We also worked on the cars. I would sit down next to the lush and open a newspaper. Roy would reach across my back and go through the lush's pockets. If the lush woke up, he could see that I had both hands on the paper. We averaged about ten dollars per night.
An average night went more or less like this. We started work about eleven o'clock, getting on the uptown IRT at Times Square. At 149th Street, I spotted a flop and we got off. 149th Street is a station with several levels and dangerous for lush-workers because there are so many spots where cops can hide, and it is not possible to cover from every angle. On the lower level the only way out is by the elevator.
We approached the flop casually, as though we did not see him. He was middle-aged, sprawled against the wall, breathing loudly. Roy sat down beside him and I stationed myself in front of them with an open newspaper. Roy said, "A little to the right, too far, back a little, there, that's good."
Suddenly the heavy breathing stopped. I thought of the scene in the movies where the breathing stops during the operation. I could feel Roy's tense immobility behind me. The drunk muttered something and shifted his position. Slowly the breathing started again. Roy got up. "Okay," he said, and walked rapidly to the other end of the platform. He took a crumpled mass of bills from his pocket and counted out eight dollars. He handed me four. "Had it in his pants pocket. I couldn't find a poke. I thought for a minute he was going to come up on us."
We started back downtown. At 116th we spotted one and got off, but the flop got up and walked away before we could get near him. A shabby man with a wide, loose mouth accosted Roy and started talking. He ...
