Paul Beatty - Tuff

“Yeah, that’s me,” he said to the woman.

“I thought so.” The hesitancy disappeared from her voice; her posture slumped with a friendly casualness. Her hand dropped away from the flap of her purse. “Why you look so mean in that picture? You a rapper or something?”

Winston frowned. The woman’s misconception was a common one. There was a slew of overweight rap artists, and rarely a week passed in which someone didn’t mistake him for Chub Boogie, Fat Max, or Tonnage, and request that Winston “kick a verse” or “bust a rhyme.”

“Why a fat nigger always got to be a faggot-ass rapper?”

“I’m sorry. I just thought since you out here handing out flyers and got a poster up, you was promoting your album. You never see a poster of a nigger your age on the wall unless he selling records.”

“True, but I’m running for City Council.”

“Oh snap, you really running? I thought City Council was the name of your posse or something. You serious?”

“I guess so.”

Winston gave her a flyer and showed her his clipboard.

“You registered?” he asked. The woman shook her head.

“Well, fill out this card, sign right here, and you can vote for me come September.”

As she scribbled in the pertinent information, Winston looked over her shoulder. “Mmm, you smell good. Let me ask you something — what’s that you wearing?”

“Let me ask you something — how you funding your campaign?” Snapping to attention, Winston stalled for time. He wasn’t about to admit that this morning Inez gave him fifteen thousand dollars, two thousand flyers, the campaign’s single poster, and a pep talk. With tears in her eyes, she explained half in Japanese and half in English, how at seven-fifteen this morning, she stormed into the local congressman’s office, an ex-socialist ally turned capitalist pawn, and threatening his lone staffer that she knew her reparation check was old, but if the United States government didn’t cash it immediately, she’d rally every concentration camp survivor, bus them down to Washington, D.C., bind their wrists with barbed wire, and sit them down on the steps of the Capitol building until they bled to death trickle by trickle or her check was cashed. Then she handed the staffer a photo of the congressman as a young radical intern proudly showing off his birthday gifts, a framed photo of Stalin, a plastic Sputnik model, a signed copy of Das Kapital , and a lid of grass — Maui Wowee to be specific. A call was made to D.C., and an hour ago Inez gravely pushed fifteen thousand dollars across her coffee table.

Winston had seen ten times that amount in various neighborhood drug spots, but he knew how much suffering the money represented, and like the millionaire Hollywood megastar who acts flabbergasted at having found one hundred thousand dollars in a duffel bag, he perfunctorily bulged his eyes and dropped his jaw. As he jammed the money into his pockets, his mood changed. He began to feel a sense of indebtedness to Inez. “Ms. Nomura, I’ll help collect the nine hundred signatures, but I ain’t doing shit else but the sumo thing and the debate. No shaking hands and kissing babies.”

“I know,” she had said, and handed him an extra five hundred dollars.

“I got a little scratch saved up,” Winston told the woman. “You know, gots to be prudent with your funds.”

The woman brushed aside a loose braid and tucked it behind her ear.

“Where I know you from?” he asked her.

“Didn’t you run with Eric and Tango over on Mount Pleasant?”

“Yeah, how you know?”

“I’m Isabel’s sister.”

“You shitting me. So you must’ve been there when Alex and Kayson got into their little thing.”

“Who you think mopped up the blood? I knew I knew you. Now I know how you got your money — that place was a goldmine. You the only one I know who held on to any of it. You must’ve broke out before Lester got popped.”

“Right after. Fifty came in and blew up the spot, next day my shit was ghost.”

“You know T.J. got a thirty-year bid behind that.”

“I heard.”

“Well, anyway, I got to go to work,” the woman said, handing back the clipboard. “I’m going to vote for you — I like a man who supports the community. You better not get in office and start fucking up.”

“What could I possibly do to make things worse?”

When the morning rush hour ended, Fariq and Charley surrendered to the tedium. Turning their clipboards in to Inez, they abandoned the struggle, going home to catch up on the sleep they’d lost the night before. Winston spent the rest of the day fending off the advances of aggressive women who were just glad to see a young nigger doing something positive, listening to people’s problems, and shrugging his shoulders when they asked what would he do for them if elected. “At least you honest,” they’d say, signing the petition while prattling on about an inept mayor, a do-nothing school board, disrespectful kids.

It was now late afternoon. The old-timers were out in force, trolling the streets for opportunity; yet their protégés, those wild-eyed, disrespectful kids, were missing in action. Now that Winston had noticed it, their absence was off-putting, and he was angry with himself for not being aware of it earlier.

Winston counted the number of signatures on his petition. Eighty-six. That ain’t so bad. With what everybody else got I’m probably damn near halfway there .

A voice came to Winston from above. “You got my vote, you fat motherfucker! Anything to keep your crazy ass off the streets, moreno .” Tuffy looked skyward, not bothering to shield his eyes from the sun. “Amante, what up, bro? Where the party at?” Perched on a rooftop, Edgar Amante, the local party promoter, was running wires from a small transformer into a washtub-sized satellite dish, working his day job. “ Qué te pasa, papi? I heard you was running for City Council, I ain’t believe the shit till I seen the poster.”

“But I’m saying, where the set at tonight? I need to get loose.”

“No party tonight. Everybody’s gone to the Rock or to the Tombs.”

“What?”

“Word up, son. You ain’t know? The task force was rolling deep last night. UCs was popping niggers left and fucking right, bro. The news said it was something like nine hundred niggers arrested. Matter fact, what you doing out here?”

“I was in Brooklyn last night.”

“You lucky, B.”

“Thanks, yo. I’m out.”

“How’s the descrambler I hooked you up with working out?”

“Straight.”

Winston ran across the street toward Inez, Yolanda, and Jordy. “Honey, I’m going down to the precinct. I know where I can get some signatures.”

Winston kissed Jordy, then reversed course and tromped up the hill to 102nd Street. He was headed for the police station with a dumbfounded Yolanda and Inez in tow. Halfway down the block he spotted a police cruiser backing out of its parking space and blasting hip-hop music through the PA system. Winston threw himself into the backseat, slamming the door behind him. Both officers stopped bobbing their heads and wheeled about, guns drawn, yelling commands over the music: “Hands, motherfucker!”

Slowly, Winston peeked around the barrels of the guns pointed in his face. “Bendito, that you?” he asked the driver.

“Tuffy? Puñeta , I almost blew you away.”

“Bendito!” Tuffy lowered his hands, “You’re a real cop now? Gun, badge, and everything? Shit, man, congratulations.” Bendito’s partner went ballistic. Leaning over the seat, he jabbed the gun into Winston’s cheek. “I said hands, you son-of-a-bitch!”

Winston glowered at the officer and dropped his hands into his lap. “Son, you best to get that gun out my face before I take it from you and beat you to death with the butt end. Bendito, you better tell your boy something.” Bendito lowered the music and his partner’s gun. “It’s okay, I know this one.” The officer holstered his weapon, “You don’t know how close you were to getting lit up.”