Julie Iromuanya - Mr. and Mrs. Doctor

“Job, come on, don’t play the race card. Nobody’s picking on you. Have we ever treated you differently?”

“No,” Job said with resolve. “No, I will not leave.”

“If you don’t leave now, I’ll have to call security.”

Job collected his things. He shuffled out the door.

When the cab pulled up to the curb of his apartment, Job froze in awe. Could this all have been a dream? he thought to himself. Parked on the street in front of his building, as if it had never been moved, was his Audi. All of it, even the dent in its side, even its cracked taillight. Without his eyes leaving the sight before him, he hastily threw a few bills to the driver. As the cab screeched away, his brow furrowed in bewilderment. Maybe there had never been any troublemaking youngsters. Maybe there had never been a police station.

He shook his head. Of course it had all happened. The officer, Officer Widebottom, had proven to be competent after all. He must have tracked down the assailants and returned Job’s car to him. Job would have to thank him — and he would have to stop thinking of him as Widebottom. At that, he rushed to the windows and peeped in, taking in the cracked leather interior. A loud creak answered as he swung the door open. Everything was just as he had left it. Even the old tape deck was still in place. A deep breath of relief escaped his lungs. Every tight knot, every ache in his body melted away. Feeling more alive than he had in months, Job started for the apartment. My wife, he could hear himself saying, yesterday’s matter has been resolved.

But when he reached the steps to the building he froze. There was one thing he had forgotten. He swallowed, turning slowly to face his car once more. Feeling the cold snow rush past his ankles, up his thighs, he crouched to the ground and slipped his hand into his secret place under the driver’s seat. Nothing. He gulped deeply and felt again, pushing farther. Surely there has been a mistake, he told himself. Still nothing. It is here, he insisted. But after searching all the seats, he was finally forced to give up. Won-der-ful! he thought as the horror began to set in. Of all the things, his plastic bag with his scrubs and nametag had to be missing.

Kneeling before the old car, he whispered a prayer: “Take the car, but please do not take the bag.” One last time, he splayed his hands and reached as far as he could under the seats in search of the bag. But his hands only met the cold metal surface of the seat rails. Someone knew his secret. But perhaps it is only this Officer Peete! Perhaps he had swept the car for the drugs that he had accused Job of taking, and after finding nothing, he had sheepishly returned Job’s vehicle to him. Yes, that’s it. As he made his way to the apartment, Job found himself smiling.

Old Mrs. Janik glared at him from her porch, the only witness to his frantic search. Still wrapped in her bathrobe, with a shawl drawn across her shoulders, her curlers half-undone, she looked like a madwoman. Job shuddered, wondering yet again how someone with his father’s name could have ever ended up in such a place with such people. Only in America.

“I wouldn’t trust them. They’re criminals. And prostitutes. All of them. Don’t believe a word they say,” she called out to him.

Nodding, he called back, “Yes, that’s right,” as he hurried to his building.

Mrs. Janik hobbled down the steps, cut across the snow, and blocked his path. “Oh, you think I’m crazy, but I’m telling you, that wife of yours is a fool dealing with those types. They’re corrupting her. You’re good folks. Not like them,” she said. “My folks were immigrant types, like you. Nobody gave us what we have. We worked for it. We didn’t take no handouts. Not like them.”

“Not like them,” Job repeated her words. He sighed, giving in, and settled his lips into a patronizing smile. “Not like whom, Mrs. Janik?”

“I waited right there on my stoop until I saw you pull up, because I knew they were up to no good. Niggers, that’s what they are.”

Job jerked at the sound of the word. She had said that. The old madwoman had said that. Unable to find the words to respond to her, once more he hastily started for the building.

Only she followed. “Trouble. Every one of them. I don’t blame her. She’s not been in this country long enough to know like you and me.”

She is speaking of them, not me. Bright, flashing camera bulbs flickered in his eyes. A cold, clinical glare hardened on Job’s features. Officer Peete’s voice boomed above the clicking camera shutters. Black like you. “No,” Job protested. “Not like them .”

“That’s right,” Mrs. Janik said, her voice filling with gusto. “It’s them and the Mexicans. Prostitutes. Drug dealers. Rapists. But you, you’re not like them. You’re like me. We’re good people. Good immigrant stock.”

“Yes,” he said slowly, sadly. Because that was not him. That could never be him.

All he could hear was the sound of those words, echoing in his ears as he took the stairs two at a time. Black like you. Not like them. At the top of the landing, he found his apartment door unlocked. He would have to warn Ifi to lock the doors at all times. Because of them. He yanked the door open and thrust it closed behind him, unknowingly putting the door between him and Mrs. Janik.

Like a floating beach ball, Ifi’s belly rose and fell with each breath. A plastic bag was on her lap. My bag! he thought in horror. His plastic bag, with his scrubs, with his uniform, with his nametag. Heat seared Job’s face, but there was no time to think, no time to explain himself, for there, squeezed on the couch alongside Ifi, were two figures: a tall black woman and one of his attackers, Sleepy Eyes. Job drew in a sharp breath. His eyes met the wrinkled plastic bag, rising and falling with each of Ifi’s breaths.

“You!” He charged across the room, lifted the boy by his shoulders, and dragged him to the door. It took everything in his power to keep him from tightening his hands around the boy’s flailing neck. I could kill him, Job thought to himself, and no police will come. I have seen how the law operates in America. All it would take was a small movement, and he could cut off the boy’s airway, and the boy would crumble to the floor before him. “You are not so strong without your friends, eh?”

“Let me go.” Tears dampened the boy’s lashes. “I’m sorry.”

“You see what you have done to my face? You see your work?”

Balancing her weight on a palm at the small of her back, Ifi stood up. “Job, release him.”

Job loosened his grip but remained within inches of the boy’s face, a boy who, in the strange light, looked like a skinny cat. Once again, Job eyed the bag. It was still tied in his careful knot. Maybe, he thought to himself. Maybe she has not even opened it. When he had his chance, he would take the bag. He would tell her it was rubbish, pretend to take it out to the dump, and instead slip it back into the car. He would find another hiding place.

“This is our neighbor, Mary, from across the street, and her nephew, Jamal.”

“My brother’s son,” Mary offered. She was tall, shaped like a pear, with lips red from lipstick. Her hair was flattened where the curls had rested against the wall behind her. Eyes filled with fear, she made no movement toward Job. As if wading in deep waters, her hands wavered out in front of her. “Tell him,” she said to the boy. “Go on, tell him.”