Paul Beatty - Tuff

Everyone stared at La Mega. Armello gave a long blast of the car horn, and rolled down the window. “What the fuck?” Ms. O’Koren tugged at her dress, hiked her purse high on her shoulder and walked around the corner and into the bank. Winston wanted to tackle her, but did nothing but look quizzically at Charles. “Don’t ask. That six thou she won didn’t do nothing but wet her whistle.”

“Y’all fuckin’ insane,” said Yolanda.

“Probably,” Whitey replied, putting on his lab coat. “But if you think I’m about to let Moms go in alone, you insane. Rest of you motherfuckers come on if you want.”

Fariq motioned for Nadine to scramble back up the ladder, then he hobbled over to Tuffy. He handed him his crutches. “Let me lean on you for a second.” Slowly, Fariq put his arms through the sleeves. “You know we voted for your ass before we came down here, nigger. I didn’t believe it but your name is on the ballot. I thought I’d walk in there and have to be all loud and shit: ’How do you vote for Winston Foshay in this bitch? But your name on the paper.”

“I got three votes at least.”

“Naw, just two, Nadine voted for German Jordan.”

“No, Tuffy got three. My mother voted for him,” Charley O’ said, patting Winston on the back. “But I didn’t expect to be so nervous. The curtain and shit. I didn’t know if it was naked lady behind there or priest. Voting is fuckin’ weird, what they need to play some music in there to set the mood.” Whitey ran a comb through his hair, placed a stethoscope around his neck, then put on a pair of thick black-framed Medicaid glasses. “How I look, yo?” he asked.

“Like a doctor, I guess,” answered Winston.

Nadine stuck her head over the edge of the roof. “Okay, all the smoke bombs is lit.”

Fariq grabbed his crutches. “Well, we be right back.”

“Except we going be rich and shit,” laughed Charles, picking up the Thirstbusters and easing in behind Fariq.

Winston watched them disappear. Yolanda pulled on his elbow. “Let’s go.” Eyes glued to the bank’s entrance they walked past Armello and the Dodge. Winston stopped and backtracked to the getaway car while Nadine and Jordy kept walking to the intersection. “What are you doing?”

“I’ll be right there.”

He leaned against the car’s rear door. “Let me get some of them potato chips.” Together they waited for the smoked glass doors to open. At any moment Tuffy half-expected Smush, Whitey, and Ms. O’Koren to come stumbling out of the bank drenched in blood, one hand clutching a bag of money, the other a bullet wound to the stomach. “What you still doin’ here?” It was Nadine, down from the roof and clapping the dust from her clothes.

“Waiting.”

Without asking she dug her hand into the bag of chips and pulled out more than her share. Aroused from his slumber, La Mega slithered past them, cautiously staying outside of arm’s reach, but still blathering. “La nueva Mega! La emisora oficial para salsa y merengue. La nueva Mega con mas música contigua cada hora! La nueva M-e-e-g-a-a!”

“Jesus, that fool’s crazy,” Nadine commented, spitting overcooked bits of chips onto the sidewalk.

“Somethin’ wrong.”

“Ain’t nothin’ wrong, Tuffy. It ain’t been but four or five minutes. Give them some time.”

“I don’t know, somethin’ not right.”

Armello drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. “You right, kid. La Mega wasn’t out long enough. Even if the knock-out potion work, he wasn’t out long enough for them to rob shit.”

Winston sucked his teeth, raised up off the car. “Smush always got to be so elaborate all the damn time. Why didn’t y’all use guns like some normal motherfuckers?”

“Niggers not try to catch no armed robbery charge, that’s why.”

As Winston walked toward the bank, Yolanda put Jordy on her hip and marched toward him, joining him at the entrance. Faces pressed against the glass and hands cupped over their eyes so they could see through the tinted window, they evaluated the situation.

“Blue smoke, Tuffy?”

“I guess.”

“But why is it all in one corner?”

“I don’t know.”

“Look at Whitey’s mother. She look like she really passed out. Everyone in the bank standing around her looking all concerned. And look at Whitey checking her pulse and listening to her heart like he’s a doctor. But where are the Thirstbusters?”

“I have no idea.”

“Well nobody’s behind the counter. Smush should be robbing the place.… Where Smush at?”

“He over there in the smoke. See him? Near the safe.” Though the dense cloud of blue smoke obscured him, the spindly figure had to be Fariq. And judging by the way he was squirming on the floor, downing pills and sucking on his inhaler, he seemed to be having a grand mal seizure of indeterminate origin. Panic-stricken, he unwrapped a hypodermic needle and jammed it into his thigh. The shaking stopped.

“He don’t look good.”

The smoke around Fariq began to thin. Worried about being seen by the security cameras, he stuck his inhaler in his mouth, discreetly removed a smoke bomb from a lab-coat pocket, lit the fuse, placed it on the floor next to him, and vanished in the billowy haze like a cheesy television genie. Winston noticed the security guard, though unconcerned about the O’Korens, seemed to be getting edgy about Fariq’s being so close to the open safe.

“I don’t like how that security guard lookin’ at Smush.”

“Why? You thinking about doing something?”

“I don’t know.”

“It doesn’t look like anyone suspects them of trying to rob the bank, so they can end this fiasco anytime they want. All they have to do is get up and go. And you can do the same thing.”

“Smush don’t look like he got the strength to walk. And look at him, he can’t take his eyes off the safe.”

“So what are you going to do?”

Winston stuck a hand in his pocket and clicked off the safety of his gun, then he picked up a paper bag off the sidewalk, and poked two eye holes into it. “I’m going to go in there and stick my gun in somebody’s face,” he said. The comic struggle of him trying to slip the medium-sized sack over his large head almost negated his seriousness. Disgusted, Yolanda snatched the bag, which fit him like a brown chef’s hat, off her husband’s head. “Don’t be stupid.”

“What then?”

“Just go in there and get Smush.”

Winston motioned for Nadine to get in the car, and for Armello to be ready to drive off. He took a deep breath and balled his fists so hard his knuckles cracked. “Don’t go in there all Nigger Tuffy from Ninth Street,” Yolanda cautioned, slipping her hand into his pocket and clicking on the pistol’s safety. “Don’t be all ‘What? What?’ You’re liable to get everybody shot. Go in there and be another nigger. All right?”

Who? Winston wondered as he walked in the door, stepping over the threshold and into a puddle of spilled Thirstbusters. As soon as the door closed behind him, the security guard and a well-dressed man Tuffy took to be the bank manager rushed him. Winston’s first thought was to emulate an action hero and slam their noggins together like orchestra cymbals. Always wanted to do that. I wonder if it works like in the movies? But as the men approached him, they walked past an easel that displayed one of his campaign flyers next to the interest rates for CDs and treasury bills. Winston now knew who the other nigger was.

“Sir, we’re closed.”

“That’s okay, I’m Winston Foshay, that’s my picture on the flyer.”

Seeing that the burly local in front of them was indeed the politician on the flyer, the men calmed down appreciably. Winston shook each man’s hand. “I came to … uh … check on my medical staff.… We’re … uh … giving out free checkups around the corner, and they were supposed to get some money because we ran out of … uh … uh … those wooden things they stick in your mouth.”