Paul Beatty - Tuff

Lying there on his back, beer can in hand, Tuffy swore he could feel the earth moving, its rotation gluing him to this patch of grass. He opened his sumo book to a page at random and shaded his face with it.

Two unheralded yet important components of a wrestler’s training are his diet and sleeping habits. The post-practice meal is rice and hearty helpings of chanko-nabe, a tasty miso-based stew of meat, fish, vegetables and noodles. After lunch it’s straight to the futon for a metabolism-slowing afternoon nap .

Winston, his metabolism slowed to a crawl, dreamed of rough-and-tumble sumo matches fought inside the rings of Saturn.

On election day, Tuffy was in the kitchen roasting a hot dog over the stove’s gas burner. Using a fork as a spit, he rotated his lunch, flaming, sizzling droplets of grease falling onto the stove top. “Come on, Winston. Let’s go vote, I have to get to the computer center before it closes. I ain’t got time to be waiting on you. Plus you talking about going to the movies.”

“The polls are open till nine. If you want, go on to school and vote when you get back. I’ll watch Jordy. I ain’t doing nothing.”

“Just hurry the fuck on up. Every fucking time.”

When the meat was bubbled and burnt to perfection, Winston wrapped the frankfurter in a doughy slice of wheat bread, covered it with loops of ketchup and mustard, then stuffed half of it into his mouth. On his way out the door he stopped in front of the casserole dish. Plucking his pets out of the water, he gave each a loving kiss on the lips, then dropped them back into the ersatz aquarium.

Three abreast and hand in hand, the Foshays looked like a trio of paper-cutout dolls on their way to join the rest of the foldout accordion. But any similarity to the mythical happy-go-lucky American family on their way to exercise their inalienable rights was purely superficial.

“I need something to drink.”

“Winston, you promised, no alcohol before eight o’clock at night.”

“I don’t want no beer. I’m going to get me a malta,” Winston said, referring to the small bottles of carbonated molasses.

Yolanda protested. “No, baby, that has alcohol in it.”

“Less than point five percent,” Winston countered. “I probably drank more alcohol than that this morning when I was eating your stank-stank.”

“Winston!”

“For real, that strong-ass douche you be using probably ten times the proof of a malta.”

“God, you’re nasty.”

“You wasn’t saying that this morning.”

“No malta.”

Resigned to a soda pop, Winston entered a bodega just as two young children carrying book bags and ripping open bags of goodies with their teeth exited. “What time is it?” he asked Yolanda.

“These kids just getting out of school, so I guess it’s about three o’ clock.”

Pulling on Yolanda’s hand, Winston steered her and Jordy toward 108th Street. “Come on, we late.” The dress rehearsal of the bank robbery was scheduled for three. When they arrived at the corner of 108th and Second Avenue, the bank’s security guard was holding the door as the day’s last customers filed out. He saw Armello calmly waiting in an idling Dodge Winston didn’t recognize, but he thought the baby seat in the back was a nice attention-deflecting touch. Armello gestured toward the side of the bank, where Fariq, holding a box, was leaning against a brick wall. Next to him was an extension ladder, Ms. O’Koren, Charley O’, and a dreadlocked male whom Charles was busy manhanding.

“What’s up, nigger?” Charles asked. “Yolanda.”

Winston noticed Charles was wearing only one shoe; his other foot was bare and soiled. Whitey twisted his hostage’s right arm so severely his knuckles touched his forearm. The dread lifted his head and yelped. The tube sock stuffed in his mouth muffled his cry. It was La Mega, the boy Winston had beat senseless a few months ago. Winston slipped a hand under his shirt and rubbed the keloid scar La Mega’s box cutter had raised. La Mega saw Winston and cowered into a fetal position. Winston’s eyes followed the rungs of the ladder. Nadine was on the roof, her hands filled with smoke bombs. She waved hello.

Fariq lifted a white lab coat from the box. “Got an extra lab coat for you. It’s not too late.”

Winston knew the basics of the plan. When the next-to-last customer left the bank, on Armello’s signal Ms. O’Koren was to approach the guard, claiming that she had some urgent business and needed to see the manager. After the guard let her in, she’d wait a few moments, giving Nadine time to light the smoke bombs and drop them into air ducts. When the bank filled with smoke, Ms. O’Koren would spill a vial of ammonia, say “What’s that smell?” and pretend to pass out. Fariq and Whitey would enter the bank holding handkerchiefs over their mouths and flashing phony tags that identified them as city terrorism experts. In his best British accent, Charles would quickly explain there’d been a sarin gas leak and if the employees wanted to live they’d have forty-five seconds to drink the antidote — the antidote being a concoction of blueberry-flavored Thirstbusters, Armello’s Rohypnol, and some knockout drug Fariq had gotten from who knows where. Plan B? There was no Plan B. “Why La Mega here?”

“Man, we forgot to test the antidote,” Fariq explained. “We about to go home, and this unlucky motherfucker walked by.”

Winston knew the plan would never work but was curious whether the antidote would. He grabbed La Mega from Charles, lifted his dreads off his face, and pressed his finger into the soft spot behind his earlobe. La Mega dropped to his knees. Fariq tossed Whitey a spiked Thirstbuster. “Charley, tilt his head back and pinch his nose,” Winston ordered. “When he start gagging, Ms. O’Koren, you pull the sock out his mouth.” Charles squeezed La Mega’s nostrils shut. “Yolanda, take Jordy around the corner.” Yolanda stayed put. With two hands Ms. O’Koren gingerly pulled on the knee-high sock like a magician’s assistant removing a rope of knot scarves from his mouth. The toe of the sock caught on one of La Mega’s incisors. Ms. O’Koren yanked. La Mega gasped for air. Another yank. The sock was still tangled. La Mega was blabbering in radio Spanish, “Foxes Nightclub de Jersey City — Damas cinco dolares y caballeros diez … Western Union es confianza … llame al dos uno dos seis, cuarenta cinco …,” when Tuffy dislodged the sock with a boot heel to the jaw. Still holding La Mega’s nose, Whitey poured the liquid into his mouth, careful not to get any blood on his clothes. Fariq set his watch. La Mega went limp and fell to the ground as Winston released his hair.

“Six seconds!” Fariq said, looking up from his watch. “That shit works quick.”

With his shod foot, Charles nudged La Mega’s head. “That nigger’s out, but I don’t know, I think Tuffy’s kick did it.”

Armello honked his horn, the signal that there was only one customer left in the bank. Nadine climbed down the ladder. “We can’t go through with it now. We don’t even know if the stuff works or not.” Looking at Yolanda, she jabbed her thumb in Winston’s direction. “Your man fuckin’ shit up as usual.” Not knowing what was causing the delay, Armello, trying to be inconspicuous, lightly beeped the car horn. Charles knelt down beside La Mega and thumbed open one of his eyelids. “Damn, Tuff, you forever knockin’ motherfuckers out.”

Fariq shook his head. “I ain’t too sure it was Tuff who did it. That nigger’s eyes was rolling back in his head before Tuffy put the boot to him.”

“I don’t know, Winston kicked him pretty hard.”