Michael Thomas - Man Gone Down

Big Nig was schizophrenic, that’s what he was told. So one day he stopped taking his medication. Nothing happened. So he went out, to be himself — walking streets that seemed familiar and strange at the same time. Familiar because they were the streets that he’d known as a boy, but now they were strange, too. They’d once been strange because they had been new — the names, where they led, how they would lead him back to where he’d begun. Now they were strange because he recognized them as layered. He’d seen, over the years, the men with the loud trucks and the heat and stink of tar. He’d walked them with both his mother and father and alone, fearing and fantasizing about the places they would take him. He’d run them, too, run away — being Big Nig, there was much to run away from. So Big Nig walks the multiply resurfaced streets of his now and then and they seem to move like giant black snakes, caterpillar-like, not serpentine in their locomotion, so it seems that they barely move — but they do — tendon and ligament and muscle under new skin set to emerge from the dull old. He does not know where he is going.

Big Nig was born in the summer of love, came into consciousness for Nixon, came of age in the age of Reagan. He was a late bloomer, so he didn’t become truly sexually active until the age of AIDS and Bush I. When the time of Clintonian plenty came — premium cigars, specialty vodka and caviar, steak and small-batch whiskey, escalating stock and real estate prices — he went under-ground. He missed hip-hop and grunge rock. He played his old vinyl 33s bare.

I hear the back door open. Ponytail says something to someone, drops what sounds like a box on the floor, and leaves again. On the bottom of the napkin, I try a quick sketch of her standing behind the counter, but the lines are too blurry. I get a new one. I don’t know where I’m going with this so at the top of the new page I write “Notes for a novella,” a disclaimer against charging myself with nonsense later on. Notes, these are only notes. I’ll fill in the rest later.

Big Nig slides a note to the bank teller. He feels guilty. Not because of what he’s about to do, but because of to whom he’s about to do it. For some reason, he based his plan solely on memory and not up-to-date research. He’d remembered when all the tellers were white. Then they became machines. Now they were all brown and for an instant he confuses the teller with the institution — that they are the same. He doesn’t want to cause her any trouble. He wonders if she can lose her job over this. She isn’t young — perhaps fifty. There aren’t many jobs for middle-aged women whose first language isn’t the King’s English. Big Nig pauses and then pauses within that pause, wondering if his hesitation will cost him dearly later. No matter, he needs the break. He has to do this and it’s too far gone now to stop. But her chubby face. Are those moles or freckles? The way her hand took the note. His hand on the white faux-Carrera.

“Are you trying to put us out of business?” a deep voice asks from above. A man who looks startlingly like me stands before the table, with a hand opened to the napkins. He leans, just a bit, pretending to read the blurry ink. He straightens again and produces from behind his back a small writing tablet. “Joy,” he calls back to the counter in a high-end basso. “Do you see what I’m doing?” She pretends to focus on him. “I’m not wasting napkins.” He places the pad on the table, picks up the remaining napkins, and clears his throat. “How are you?”

“I’m well, thank you.” I gesture at the used napkins. “I’m sorry.”

“No need. I’m just asserting my right — one overly dramatic moment a day per person. I figured this could be mine.” He straightens, puts his hands behind his back. “How is everything, okay?”

“Yes, thank you.”

“Anything else you’d like, or are you set for now?”

“For now, thank you.”

“We have lovely sandwiches.”

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” He turns to the back. “Joy?”

“Yes.”

“There’s no music. Will you put some on, please?”

“Sure. What do you want to hear?”

He leans toward the table. He really doesn’t look like me at all, just the shape of his body, but his face is round, small, his skin tone has much more yellow, his eyes are almost black.

“Excuse me,” he croons. “Do you like reggae?”

“Oh, yes.”

He straightens again. “Joy, would you put that reggae mix on?”

“Sure.”

“And would you bring him some more coffee, please. I’m going outside to kill myself.”

“Oh, Ben,” she moans, hitting notes I would’ve thought to be too low for her. He puts a finger to his lips, silently shushes her, and leans into the door to open it. He gives me a warm smile just before he exits. I try to reciprocate, but I’m too slow.

Drum roll. Marley scats, introducing “Ride Natty Ride.” Joy appears beside the table with the tray and matching pitcher. She looks down into my full cup, to me, and then back to the cup. I lift it quickly, swallow half of it, and put it back down. She shows me that funky tooth, warms the cup, and spins, slower this time, away.

Ben is smoking a cigarette, watching people walk past. He goes to lean against the window and catches me looking at him. He gives me the same smile, warm, too warm to seem genuine, but what other reason would he have for flashing it? Behind the counter Joy tears into that box and begins arranging things on the hidden shelves. Her thin leg and little foot stick out into view. She half hums, half sings along. She can’t sing very well, but the fact that she is singing, discreetly, but without shame, makes me want to listen. I stack the used napkins, fold the pile in half, and put them in my pocket. I sit back with my coffee and watch Joy rotate her ankle back and forth in time.

I remember moving day in our old apartment. The boys were confused and moping among the stacked boxes. I put the stereo on — one of the few things left unpacked. The boys jump to their feet, ready to dance and sing. “. . the stone that the builder refused. .,” sings Bob, “. . shall be the head cornerstone . .” They twist and dip and jump, moving so far out of time that any particular rhythm ceases to matter — it never mattered. My girl uses my leg to pull herself to standing. I bend down low. “Fire!” Bob and I cry. “Fire!” yell the boys in response. My girl, only a few months steady on her feet, rocking her head and body, smiling, watching her brothers: C, the silent brooder, the magician with his alchemical potions of toothpaste and juice and spit. X, the stomping tyrant lizard king, the warrior, little lord of the flying head butt. Everybody’s dancing. “Fire!” Teaching my boys, right in front of their Brahmin mother, to hold the burning spear. Whipping them into righteous rage and indignation — the young lions. C, the griot enchanter. X, the Brahmin eater. The song ends. The boys are panting and sweaty. My girl, still rocking, waits for our eyes to meet and blows me a kiss.

I stand up abruptly and almost upset the table. I catch it and step into the aisle, ready to do something, but I’m not sure what. I should go, but I don’t know where. I think about the soccer store, the Ronaldo shirt, and admit that it’s not in the budget — nothing’s in the budget. Claire’s pants will have to go back, too. The image of empty-handed me telling her, “I got to go. .” I shake it off, get out the list, and still standing, copy it from the sandpaper to a clean sheet from the tablet. I start to write down what I have in my pocket, but it seems that such an act would concretize the amount — make it much more difficult to alter: Twenty-four hours to go, over twelve thousand dollars short, and I’m in a little café doing nothing. I’ve got to go. Ben has disappeared. Joy’s foot is gone. I hear myself weakly call out to her like a half-doped patient asking for his nurse.