Paul Beatty - Tuff

The idea was to stalk the parks and streets of Manhattan luring unleashed dogs into the bushes with whistles, kindhearted “Here, boy”s, and hickory-smoked slabs of beef sausage. The poor, whining creatures left tethered to parking meters while their owners kibitzed over cappuccino were liberated with garden shears. Then the boys waited for the rewards to be posted and returned to collect the bounty. “Yeah, lady, the dog was wandering the streets of Harlem. Some crackheads had put an apple in his mouth and was fixing to skewer him with a barbecue spit up the ass, talking about ‘pooch du jour,’ when we rescued him and brought him here. Would fifty dollars be enough? Well, frankly, no.”

Winston ran up to Fariq and with one flabby arm buried his friend’s head in a boys-will-be-boys headlock. Fariq’s eyes bulged with pain, “Ow, Tuff! You know better than to do that shit.”

“Sorry, man — just trying show you some love, glad you alive and shit. Was it the spina bifida or the rickets flaring up? I can never remember which one you got.”

“Both, nigger, both. But I’m just sore from hiding in the tub. Heard that first shot, I belted my pants, fell into the tub, and pulled the shower curtain closed. Thank goodness those niggers didn’t have to piss.”

“We need to be out, son. Rollers going to show up any minute now.”

“The po-po ain’t here by now, they ain’t coming.”

“Well, them shoot-’em-up cowboys might be back to get me — don’t want to leave no witnesses behind.”

“Man, after they sparked up these clowns, I could hear them laughing at your big ass passed out on the floor. They ain’t worried about no swooning motherfucker coming back to get them. I thought I was going to come out and have to splash water on your face. Slap you around a bit, James Cagney style.”

“I didn’t faint. I was playing possum and shit.”

“Yeah, right. Let’s get ghost.”

“Who you, the leader now?”

“Fuck you, Tonto. Hi-yo, Silver, and away, nigger.”

“Robin.”

“Batgirl.”

“Al Cowlings.”

“Oh, a low blow.”

They left the apartment with a bravado that belied their fear. The halls normally filled with kids and the sounds of blaring televisions were silent. The refugees were holed up in their urban-renewal hovels waiting for the occupying forces to leave. A little girl, wearing a belled choker, peeked out of a doorway, stuck out her tongue at the two boys, and was snatched by her ponytails back inside so quickly the bell didn’t even tinkle. The building’s elevators never worked, so Winston carried Fariq in his arms down twelve flights of stairs, gently setting him down next to a battered block of mailboxes. Readjusting the collar on Fariq’s shirt, Winston stepped back and snapped his fingers. “Wait here. Now I know why I couldn’t leave — I forgot something. Be right back.” Before Fariq could say, “Naw, nigger, don’t leave me,” Winston was springing up the flight of stairs two and three steps at time.

Fariq was nervous about being left alone, but pleased to see Winston’s famed agility return. Nigger was fumbling around the spot telling jokes like he Henny Youngman and shit. Talking to himself. I know the boy don’t like Brooklyn, but goddamn, fainting? Many times fools pulled guns on him? Tuffy be like, “Shoot me, motherfucker!” I guess the good thing about fainting in the face of death is that it keeps you from begging. That’s the old Tuffy, running them stairs like the big Kodiak bear of a brother he is . Fariq grinned, recalling how during the summer-long games of tag, only the fastest kids on East 109th Street could outrun Tuffy, avoiding his painful, heavy-handed tag back. Fariq’s toes began to tingle. He could feel the vibrations — the vibrations from the scraping of his corrective shoes as he dragged them over the craggy pavement, trying to run. Fariq was It for an entire summer: lumbering after screaming hordes of children on his crutches, feeling like the neighborhood leper, never catching anyone. On the first day of fifth grade Fariq had to resort to ringing Sharif Middleton’s doorbell at six-thirty in the morning, tagging the unsuspecting mope with a crutch in the gut as he answered the door wiping the sleep from his eyes. Tuffy, my nukka, where you at?

Winston entered the apartment, stepped over a body, and grabbed a brown lunch bag from the rear of the refrigerator. He reached inside the sack and gobbled down a cold, soggy ham-and-cheese sandwich. His mouth still full, Winston flipped the plastic sandwich bag inside-out, walked over to the aquarium, sprinkled the crumbs into the water, and when the fish rose to the surface, deftly scooped it out, barely wetting his hands.

Winston was knotting the plastic bag and on his way out when he heard a tinny ringing sound. The girl from the hallway was cowering in the corner of the living room, holding three puffy wallets, some jewelry, and Demetrius’s.22 Raven pistol in the folds of her dress. Winston bristled. “You little vulture, these fools ain’t cold and you rifling pockets.”

“Finders keepers, losers weepers.”

“Christ, everybody and they mama got a hustle. Give me the gun.”

The girl scrunched her face and backed even further into the corner, sticking her tongue out again. Winston walked up to the girl and took the gun from her hands, then lifted her to her feet by the elbow.

“Go home.”

She skipped down the hall to her apartment, the door opened, and a thin hand reeled her inside by the hem of her dress. The door slammed shut. Winston waited for the click of the lock, stuffed the gun into his pants pocket, gently placed the fish into the lunch bag, and hustled back down the stairs.

“Where you been, man?” Fariq said in a nervous whisper. “Somebody’s out there.”

“I told you, I forgot something,” Winston answered, holding up the bag.

“You forgot your lunch? Here we are … niggers trying to kill—”

“Shhh! Cállete , man.” Winston peered around the corner. The security guard was sitting at his desk, scribbling phony names on the visitors’ sign-in sheet. The putrefied zombies of Al Capone, King Kong, and Mao could have entered the building, loading tommy guns, pining for Fay Wray, and talking about a Cultural Revolution, and this minimum-wage watchman was going to wave them through, no questions asked.

“Ain’t nobody out there, just the rent-a-cop — let’s see if he know what the fuck up.” Winston, still out of sight, called the guard’s attention. “Hey yo, Barney Fife, couple of niggers come this way telling war stories?”

“Yup, came through a few minutes ago saying they now have to find and kill some crippled motherfucker. Asked me if I wanted to feel the guns. I did, and they was hot as a preacher’s brow Sunday morning.”

Fariq’s body buckled at the pelvis, the crutches slipping out from under his arms. As he righted himself, his peptic ulcer rumbled like an active volcano and a small accumulation of warm, lumpy excrement flowed into his underpants. “Shit.”

“Which way did they go?” Winston asked the guard.

“No way.”

“What?”

“They’re right out front, smoking Phillies and talking to some honeys.”

Fariq’s yellowed eyes closed softly as every affliction kicked in at once. His arrhythmic heartbeat grew more erratic, pumping his sickle-celled blood in stops and starts. Bracing himself against the broken elevator, he cursed his mother for drinking, smoking, and shunning prenatal care during her pregnancy. Swallowing hard, he repeatedly pressed the Up button and castigated his father for thinking that his two-month-premature birth meant that he was born “ready for Freddy.” That boy don’t need no incubator. He’s not no chicken .