Paul Beatty - Tuff

“Chloroform.”

Convicted of child endangerment, the state sentenced him to six months’ probation.

“Any of those jobs interest you, Winston?”

“Ms. Nomura, can I get a job putting up jobs on the job board?”

“No.”

“This sumo sounds interesting. Is there a sumo school near here? Maybe I can be professional sumo wrestler.”

“Get serious!”

“Chill, Pops.”

Winston put a beefy hand to the side of his face, a makeshift horse-blinder blocking out the distractions on his determined run for the roses.

“If you’re going to get a job, get one you look forward to going to,” suggested Spencer. “Winston, what do you look forward to?”

“This documentary called Seven Up , where they follow these British people around. But it only comes out once every seven years.”

Winston got up from his chair and, hands on knees, studied the board. Reading each card carefully, he hoped something in the text would jump out at him, showing itself from among the overabundance of data-entry positions. NEW YORK CITY PLANETARIUM — ASTRONOMER’S ASST. “Hey, I like this one,” he said, tapping the card with his finger. “Look into the sky all night. Naming stars, look for spaceships — who knows, maybe I’ll discover a comet. Tuffy’s Comet. Sounds kind of ill. This might could work.”

“You should be a comet, ’cause niggers like you don’t come around too often.”

Winston frowned at his father’s insult. Inez asked him to read the bottom of the card, trying her best not to sound too discouraging.

His voice hesitant, Tuffy began reading. “ ‘Excellent math skills required. All applicants must have working knowledge of basic physics.’ Is my math that bad?”

Fariq, who during games of twenty-one always knew when Winston had over fifteen in his hand because he’d roll his eyes into his head, count his fingers, and take forever to say “Hit me,” spat out, “You ain’t never even had pre-algebra, kid. What x stand for?”

Winston shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“Actually, that’s right —x stands for the unknown.”

“Told you. Ask me another one.”

“What’s an average?” Inez said impatiently.

“Average? Let’s see …” Winston answered cautiously, gauging the correctness of his response by the twists and frowns in Inez’s expression, “that’s like the most regular. If you put everything together and picked out the most typical. I’ll use it in a sentence. ‘The average black man can whip four or five white boys.’ ” A look of skepticism swept over Inez’s face. “I mean, because of the anger,” Winston said quickly.

Yolanda pointed at the job board. “Once more.”

“I’m just playing.” Winston giggled. “I know what average is. That’s when you add the numbers, divide, and come up with the number in the middle. Ha, I’m about to be an Astronomer’s Assistant. Later for all y’all.”

“I have one,” said Spencer. “In the equation E = mc 2 , what does c represent?”

Clifford waved his hand in disgust. “Forget that. Ask him what’s physics.”

Winston said nothing and returned to the board. Embarrassed, he read one of the campaign flyers aloud, as if to prove a point. “Collette Cox — City Councilwoman for the 8th District. Vote Social Democrat for Justice. September 9th.” He looked back at the poster of Debs, then ripped the handbill from the wall and sat back down. “You all would back me in anything I do, long as it’s positive, right?”

“Of course,” said the collective.

He slid the campaign flyer across the table and announced, “I’m going to run for City Council.” The assuredness in his voice surprised him. Everyone but Inez scooted away from the table like tapped-out poker players. Winston had a satisfied smirk on his face. Politician. Don’t need to know physics to run for some bullshit office . Jordy scrambled up his father’s face, using Winston’s ears, lips, and eye sockets for toe- and handholds.

“You stupid?” asked Fariq. “This is a waste of time, this boy is hopeless.” Clifford added, “This shit isn’t funny.”

“I’m serious. Ever since I can remember, you, Moms, Yolanda, my counselors been going on about how I need to meet the challenges of life. That I need to stop taking the easy way out. Well, here go my challenge.”

“Tuffy, leave me out of this.”

“Didn’t nobody say nothing about you, Smush.”

“I just challenge you to pay me back my money. Anyway, I don’t know why you talking this nonsense about running for City Council when you don’t even vote.”

Having reached the top of Winston’s head, Jordy planted a flag of saliva on the bristly peak. “I vote,” Winston said, wiping the top of his head with a napkin.

“Who you voted for?”

“Voted for president.”

“The one we got now?”

“Fuck I look like? I walked in the booth, looked at the bullshit candidates, and said to the lady at the desk, ‘What if I don’t like none of these motherfuckers runnin’?’ She gave me a big ol’ ballot and said I could write in whoever I wanted.”

“And?”

“Nigger.”

“What?”

“I wrote your crippled ass in. ‘I, Winston Foshay, vote for my man, Fariq Cole, for president. If you don’t know, you better ask somebody. And in case you still don’t know, he lives at 154 East 109th Street, first floor. When he walks his knees bend backwards like a flamingo’s.’ ”

“Damn, yo — you voted for me for president?”

“Yeah, bro. Swear on my mother.”

Flattered, Fariq looked away, blinking his eyes. “Damn, yo. That’s lovely, kid.” Winston, already assuming victory at the polls, began doling out political patronage. “Don’t sweat that, dude. When I win, you going to be chief of the fire department, Armello going to be chief of police, Whitey chief of white people. Ms. Nomura, you my chief of education. No, scratch that — chief of fair play. Somebody should be in charge of fair play, don’t you think?”

Swinging a leg over Winston’s shoulder, Jordy used his father’s arm like a fireman’s pole and slid down to the floor, where he untied Winston’s shoelaces.

“You showing your ass, son.”

“That’s all right, I got a lot of ass to show.”

“Get real and get this thought of running for City Council out of your head, because you’re unqualified, boy.”

Yolanda bunny-hopped her chair closer to her man. “Now, Clifford, I’m not saying Winston should run, but think about it — who’s qualified? That black man they always talking running for president in the next election? Because he gives a good press conference he’s qualified? If he ever does decide to run, you know what the first thing he’s going to be— un qualified.”

Although he didn’t know what black man Yolanda was talking about, Winston nodded his head. Ms. Nomura, her hands clasped together like a nun administering to a bedridden child, said, “Winston, maybe you should get involved in politics at a more basic level.” Tuffy shook his head. “I already tried that. Every time you ask me to go to one of your demonstrations I go. I picket the army recruiting station when you tell me the U.S. fixing to bomb some defenseless country for no reason. What happens? The fuckers get bombed anyway. Remember, I went hunger-striking with you for them goddamn refugees?”

“What refugees?”

“Some dirty jungle motherfuckers in some country I never heard of was getting mistreated. We were in front of the UN Building.”

“I don’t remember.”

“The time I was the only one who got arrested, because that man was heckling me. ‘That’s not fair, hunger-striking with the fat kid. It’ll take him a whole year to die.’ I had to beat that man’s ass.”