Paul Beatty - Tuff

Experts in urban eschatology, the rappers’ monodies and laments weaved a dense skein of verse from the spindles of despair and cautious optimism that unraveled from the looms in their hearts and minds. Spencer could only make out the guttural call-and-response what-whats, uh-huhs, okays, mm-hmms, and yes-yes-y’alls. Even Winston, though somewhat better versed in ghetto colloquialism, understood only about three-quarters of the machine-gun poetics.

A shirtless young man wearing a Jackie Coogan cap and a pair of Tom Sawyer denim overalls peeled away from the group. He weaved toward Winston waving a paper-bagged pint of liquor like a metronome, spewing his freestyle like a drunken Nubian skald.

… this here is Bucknaked

life expectancy of a fly ,

ready to die

so no time for faking it .

Bucknaked in your sphere —

ass out, talking loud ,

farting rain clouds .

Penis flapping ,

nuts hanging ,

lube the pubes

’cause bitches I’m banging .

Like my nigger Tuff

call your bluff .

My whole race got a poker face ,

treys over queens ,

and like they say I’m keeping it real .

Don’t what that means ,

but I know how it feels …

After Bucknaked dropped his last “lyrical bomb,” the session ended, the rappers’ scorched-earth policy having temporarily defoliated the briar patch that was once the quadrangle of the Wagner projects and left the night as brittle as rice paper. Exhausted and speaking in wheezes, the boys gathered around Winston to catch their breath with small talk.

“With them posters up, nigger, everybody think you rapping.”

“I know.”

“When’s the election?”

“Next Tuesday. Y’all niggers going to vote for me?”

A slender snaggle-toothed boy waved his hand in front of his face. “Get real, dog. I’m from the projects, dog. That vote shit ain’t for niggers like me.”

Tuffy raised a hand, feigning a backhanded slap in the pessimist’s direction. “Who you think you talking to, a nigger from Mars? What your birth certificate say—‘Place of Birth: Projects’? You better save that ‘I’m from the projects’ bullshit for a somebody that give a fuck.”

The boy shuffled his feet and with sanguine eyes looked up at Winston.

“I ain’t saying waste your vote on me, because I ain’t the somebody that give a fuck, but you need to vote for somebody.”

“Check, Tuff out, son!” one of the group exclaimed. “You been around Smush and Five Percenter shit too long, because you talking in circles now.”

Bucknaked was staring intently at Winston, rubbing his chin. “On the real, yo, I would vote, but that shit just puts me in the system, B. Give them motherfuckers one more address to bust up. Feel me?”

“Man, the worst that can happen is they call you to jury duty.”

“You been called?”

“Had to serve last November. Paid me twenty-five dollars a day or some shit.”

“Federal?”

“I wish. Some joker was suing the electric company.”

“I’m sayin’,” said Bucknaked, feeling his apathy vindicated by Winston’s jury experience, “that right there is why I ain’t registered. What if I get on some boring-ass long-drawn-out case where you have to live in a Roach Motel for six month? I got no time for the city, not for no measly twenty-five a day. I could steal that out my mama’s purse.”

“You would, nigger,” commented the project baby.

“Damn straight. And I have, too,” snorted Bucknaked.

“It ain’t all that. If you don’t like the case it’s ways to get out of it.”

“Like how, nigger?”

“Motherfuckers tried to put me on that electric-company-blew-up-my-house madness. I wasn’t having it — Joe Whiteman vs. Amalgamated So-and-So, who give a fuck? So we broke for lunch, I came back eating a bean pie and holding a copy of The Final Call . Headline in big-ass letters: MINISTER CITES SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE — WHITE MAN IS THE DEVIL. They wasn’t going to pick me for shit after that. But I got to thinking, as much as I been in court, I ain’t never seen a nigger like me in the jury box.”

Bucknaked reconsidered his stance and in a fit of giddiness started jumping up and down like he’d won some local raffle. “Word life, son. If I was on the jury I be like, ‘Let my people go! Videotape, smideotape! DNA, NBA! The nigger didn’t do it!’ ”

Spencer unzipped his rucksack. The group was startled by the sound like a herd of bucks catching a whiff of the hunter. Their relief was palpable when his hand produced nothing more than a notebook and a pen. For a second Spencer thought he saw a gun in the hands of the buck-toothed kid. Now his hands were empty and Spencer couldn’t guess where he’d stashed his weapon. “Who this nigger, man?”

The pen and paper had increased the discomfort in regard to his presence, and the rappers backed away from him. Spencer waited for Winston to introduce him to his friends to ease the tension. He wondered what would be the term of endearment: Big Brother, Rabbi Spence, Ace? He’s a Jew, but he’s all right .

Winston snatched the pad out of Spencer’s hand. “Fuck you doing?”

“I’m just jotting down some thoughts for the next installment. I don’t want to forget anything.” Winston tossed the book back to Spencer and said, “Big Brother, Little Brother over. Rabbi, you need to be out. This ain’t no zoo.”

“Who is this nigger, G?”

“Nobody. Motherfucker just writing some article about me for the paper. Some King-of-the-Jungle-type shit. But the safari over now.”

Spencer wanted to defend his actions but knew that anything he’d say would sound hollow. Goose bumps rose on his skin. He felt as if he were shrinking before Winston, soluble in his own bullshit, his body bubbling and floating toward the sky in tiny pieces like an antacid tablet dissolving into the night. Before disappearing completely, he turned to leave. “See you tomorrow afternoon at the debate, okay? Two-thirty?”

Winston wrested the paper bag from Bucknaked, took a long pull from the bottle, then slung an arm around his friend’s shoulders. Together they and rest of the boys bopped down a labyrinthian walkway and into the depths of the Wagner Projects. This level of hell was off limits to Spencer, and he began the trek back to his car, feeling slighted he hadn’t been introduced, and guilty for taking out his notebook. He knew that he’d never have the access to Winston the others had, and it suddenly dawned on him why: he was more afraid of Winston than for him. Afraid of his reputation. Afraid of his latent intellect. Afraid of being judged — and being judged fairly.

As Spencer walked to the edge of the apartment complex, the boy who’d fetched Winston the beer and cake jumped in front of him. “Hey yo,” the imp said, stepping directly in his path. “My man say you gave him a Frisbee.” Spencer followed the boy’s outstretched arm across a small patch of grass and recognized the child he’d given the Frisbee to after his first visit to Winston’s. “Yes, I did.”

“Do you have any more, mister?”

It was an innocent request, and for the first time the kid’s tone of voice matched his age. Regretfully, Spencer shook his head and lightly reached out to touch the youngster’s forehead. He’d just started to mumble a benediction when the boy slapped his hand away and yelled, “Well, fuck you then!”

On the stage of the community center’s auditorium, Winston, dressed in pleated slacks and shirt and tie, was fidgeting in his seat, fighting the tedium of democracy. He’d finished his pitcher of water before the associate director of the New York chapter of the NAACP had finished welcoming the sparse audience to the debate. Now the moderator, the managing editor of El Diario newspaper, was reviewing the ground rules. Each candidate would have three minutes for opening remarks, after which the moderator would read questions submitted by the audience on index cards.