T. Johnson - Hold It 'Til It Hurts

Ines nudged Sammy, who, eyes down, said, “Apology accepted.”

“Well?” asked Ines. “Is it?”

“Yes ma’am,” said the barker.

“Answer him.” Ines glanced at Achilles as if to say, You can deal with him or me.

“It’s loaded.” The barker pursed his lips.

Sammy asked, “Are you sure?”

“Yes sir,” muttered the barker.

Sammy pushed his shoulders back, held his neck straight, and tried again. Spurred by Ines’s intercession, Achilles hefted one of the rifles, a lightweight BB gun with misaligned sights. He handed it to Sammy. Sammy turned the gun around and stared down the barrel, just as Troy had when he first handled a rifle. Achilles placed his hand over the end of the barrel and snatched the gun away. Sammy froze.

“Never, ever, ever, ever,” Achilles paused, “ever look down the barrel of a loaded gun. Never ever, ever, ever point a gun at yourself or anyone else, even as a joke.”

Sammy nodded timidly.

“What’s the first rule?”

“Never, ever, ever, ever,” Sammy paused, “ever look down the barrel of a loaded gun. Never ever, ever, ever point a gun at yourself or anyone else, even as a joke.”

“Smart ass,” said Achilles before he caught himself, and when he glanced at Ines she was trying to stifle her laughter too. Dropping to one knee, Achilles guided the butt to Sammy’s shoulder. He smelled like baby powder. “First, Kentucky windage, because this isn’t zeroed.” His voice dropped to a whisper. “Aim for a fixed point above the ducks.”

Sammy was a quick study. He hit the target three times. Ines handed the contrite barker more tickets. “Again!” Achilles remained on his knee at Sammy’s side, guiding his little hands and adjusting his posture, as his father had done for him, and as he had done for Troy. Soon Sammy had shot the six in a row needed to claim a prize. He chose a koala and, being too old for toys, awarded it to Ines to keep her other stuffed koala, Ricky, company. Sammy gave Achilles a hug, his short arms straining to wrap around Achilles’s waist. Ines gave him a kiss on the neck, her cheek wet. Whirling teacups, the spinning Ferris wheel, laughing parents, screaming children, dancing neon. A clown in one dunk tank, a blonde in another. Achilles breathed in the traces of Ines’s perfume, the smell of alcohol on the barker, the aroma of funnel cake, and the smell of Sammy’s jawbreaker and held it all in as they walked away.

After they had gone a few feet, Ines squatted so she was eye-level with Sammy. “You remember what I always tell you?”

“I’m a man. I’m no one’s son but my mother’s,” said Sammy.

“That’s right,” she said, looking up at Achilles. “Can you believe that? Son? Can you believe that?”

Achilles grunted.

“The barker’s nineteen? Twenty? Sammy’s nine. Every Southern white man thinks every black man is his son. But if you ask them, they’ll say that race doesn’t matter, son. They ignore the implications of that paternalistic attitude.”

If he said nothing, she would fade out. His mother used that trick with his father. Ines spoke loudly enough for passersby to hear, and they were within earshot of the barker, whose black pompadour and Doc Martins reminded Achilles of his goth friends in high school. He glanced over her shoulder to see if the barker was listening.

“Noooo.” Her eyes narrowed. She stuck her chin out, like a boxer luring her opponent in for a punch. “Did you just look at him?” Ines put her hands over Sammy’s ears. “Did you just check in? Are you worried massah might think you gettin’ uppity?”

Before Ines, he had never known how much some black people talked about race. He told her on several occasions that he’d fought side by side and trusted his life with whites; even using the word in that context sounded strange to him. “All white people aren’t bad. Sammy is a kid.” A white couple passed with a stroller, speeding up to put distance between them.

“All white people aren’t bad? Is that a proverb? You’re like a bad fortune cookie. I’m not talking about all white people. I’m talking about right here, right now. Being a young black man without a father, Sammy doesn’t need some half-drunk trailer-park trash calling him son. Your jokes are fine, but the world is not the suburb you grew up in. The same cop calling him ‘son’ will be the first to draw his gun when Sammy is eighteen and makes a wrong turn. He has to learn now, or be shocked later. He’s not the sarcastic type. He doesn’t have your sense of humor.”

At least he had a sense of humor now. Earlier she accused him of hiding behind deep irony and fake disaffection, whatever that meant. She had been snippy ever since leaving Nola. “I’m sorry. Forget I said anything.”

“Okay.” She sighed.

He sighed.

“So, we’re supposed to forget? We’re supposed to forget because they don’t mean anything by it, and all white people aren’t bad? Look around, that’s all I’m saying. On the job, in the stores, everywhere. We’re followed by clerks while some white kid is the one shoplifting; we’re pulled over by the police while some white kid whistles by with a trunk full of guns, planning to shoot up his school. Character assassinations against black athletes while corporate criminals bilk investors out of millions. And you say they’re not all bad, but racism is the bus that runs us over, every day, and while maybe only the racists are driving, every white is along for the ride: every one that makes more for the same job, that gets called in for an interview when Ashante doesn’t, every one that then moves to a better neighborhood, sends their kids to better schools, then to colleges, then their kids get called in for an interview when Ashante Jr. does not. They’re not all bad, but they’re a hell of a lot luckier. And you want Sammy to forget, to go back to that white boarding school thinking there’s something wrong with him because he isn’t treated like the other kids. Or complain and be told it’s in his head— Race doesn’t matter. We’re all the same and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. ”

“He offered Sammy a free round.”

“That’s white nice. They double-charge you, then give you a discount. They take your land, then offer you a reservation. They enslave you, then emancipate you.”

What about his parents, and everything they had done for him after he was abandoned by his people? They weren’t riding a “racist” bus. Wages was scraping by, just like Achilles’s parents had. After the factory burned down, Achilles’s father took a job at the school as a football coach. His mother worked part-time as a bookkeeper at the mill, which employed blacks in both the factory and the yard. If only Ines could meet his mom, she’d understand there was no bus bursting with white people careening down the road, taking out black pedestrians. The image was upsetting, the suggestion ludicrous. Ines made it sound like white people had it easier just because they were white. Achilles knew better. He knew a lot of white people, and none of them had ever mentioned this privilege to him. Being white wasn’t keeping down the rising property taxes his mom paid because of all the rich people moving in from DC. And, things were getting better; he’d heard that Illinois elected the fifth black senator in U.S. history. Besides, people shouldn’t name kids Ashante, not if they wanted them to get jobs.

They walked toward the truck, Ines storm troopering ahead. Cars swooshed down Buford Highway, dashing between the ethnic restaurants that dotted this area of the city.

Sammy asked, “Are we leaving already?”

Achilles and Ines looked down at Sammy, then up at each other. “No.”