Paul Beatty - Tuff

“Tongue depressors.”

“Yeah, tongue depressors. What happened?”

“This woman,” the bank manager said, pointing to Ms. O’Koren who was just starting to come around, “one of our most valued customers, came into the bank, when all of a sudden there was blue smoke coming from the vent and the smell of ammonia. She passed out. We called an ambulance, then, thank goodness, these two doctors came in a few seconds later, but the handicapped one had some sort of attack. He knocked the blue drinks out the other one’s hands and staggered into the smoke, saying to stay away from him, he was a doctor, and he’d be okay.”

Winston punched his palm in pretend disappointment. “Those drinks was for the kids.”

Charles stood up and helped his mother to her feet. “Is this citizen okay, Dr.… Dr. Whitey, I mean Dr. White?” Winston asked Charles, biting the insides of his cheeks to keep from smiling. “I say, I believe she’s starting to show some life. It was nothing more than a dizzy spell brought on by the smoke and fumes and all that rot. Some proper rest, a spot of tea, and she’ll be fine,” Charles answered, barely hiding his own grin and enunciating like an Oxford graduate. “Bit of a fright, though.”

Winston jogged over to Fariq, who, groggy from the medication, was working his crutches like chopsticks, trying to pick up a loose bundle of hundred-dollar bills that was just out of reach. “Come on, kid, let’s go,” Winston whispered, as he lifted his limp friend by the knees and armpits.

“Yo, Tuffy, we came in ready to get this money, yo. Ms. O’Koren fakin’ a seizure, and my ass get a real one.” Fariq raised a crutch toward the vault. “Look at all that money, son. What you doin’, nigger? Go back! Go back!”

“Chill, man. You ’posed to be a doctor.”

Tuffy hustled Fariq past the bewildered employees. “Dr. Allah seems a bit woozy.” Stopping at the doorway, he thanked everyone for their help and reminded them to vote for him. When they got to the car Winston placed the gelatin-jointed Fariq in the backseat, folding each loose limb into the cramped space like a puppeteer putting his favorite marionette back in the box. Everyone thanked him for his efforts, Charley O’s gratitude laced with his usual aspersion. “Yeah boy, your shit was on time like German railroad, but you did come in kinda pussy. All ‘Howdy, y’all. Glad to meet you,’ and shit. You supposed to come to the rescue toolie out, blasting shots U.S. cavalry style.” Armello put a fist to his lips and blew into his air bugle. “Dit doot dit doot ditooo. Charge!”

Charley O’ nodded his head, “Yeah, Tuffy, if you not going to use the gun, give that shit to me.”

Winston backed out of the window, his hands still gripping the car door. He looked at his boys, Armello at the wheel, Fariq and Charley O’ smashed shoulder to shoulder in the backseat, crowded with a baby chair and Ms. O’Koren. They reminded him of the doomed gun-boat crew in Apocalypse Now headed upriver to Cambodia, the Bronx, to who knows where. He could hear Robert Duvall yelling in his ear over the shelling:

“Do you want to surf soldier?”

“Yes, sir!”

“That’s good, son, because you either surf or fight.”

Winston wanted to surf like never before. He pressed down the car door’s lock. “We out, y’all.”

“You got your pager, nukka?” Fariq asked. Tuffy nodded. “Then I’ll beep you in an hour or so. We’ll go to Old Timers’. Smoke some isms. Get some drink.”

“We probably goin’ to be at the movies, so …”

Fariq tapped Armello on the shoulder and the car pulled away.

On the way to the elementary school Winston held Yolanda’s hand so tight they could feel one another’s pulses.

“You kicked that guy on purpose, didn’t you?”

“It wasn’t no accident.”

“You know what I mean. You meant to knock him out.” Tuffy raised a foot in the air. “Timberland makes a hell of a shoe. These shits is waterproof. No-skid soles. Reinforced heels.”

“Thanks, Boo.”

“For what?”

“Nothing.”

A block away the band of addicts and derelicts hired by Inez stormed a municipal bus like Entebbe commandos. After handing out flyers to the passengers, they poured into Second Avenue, halting traffic, slipping the handbills under the wipers of stopped cars, tossing them through open windows. The chaos caused an onslaught of blaring car horns. Winston squeezed Yolanda’s hand even tighter. Her knuckles cracked. She was the only thing in his life that was real. Even Jordy plodding in front of them, nose to the ground like an anteater scouting bug lairs, seemed imaginary. Little light-skin motherfucker don’t even look like me . The pressure from Yolanda’s return squeeze quieted his fears.

When they got to the school the flag over the entrance was flying at half-mast because the pulleys had rusted shut. A cracked-out man stood outside the door exchanging goo-goo eyes with a preteen. “What you doing, Marvin? I thought Ms. Nomura hired you to hand out flyers today.”

“I’m talking to my girl.”

“My flyers better not be in the Dumpster, nigger.” Winston spat. “You vote?”

Marvin shook his head and tried to gauge Winston’s mood. Tuffy looked calm, but he took a step back just in case. “Didn’t I register you at Papo’s spot?”

“Uh-huh, you stepped on my jumbo too.”

“That was an accident.”

Marvin pursed his lips and shifted them from side to side.

“It was, nigger.” Downcast about the memory of his lost crack rock and allowing Winston to punk him in front of his girlfriend, Marvin stared at the ground. “Listen, you go vote, I’ll give you your twenty dollars back.”

Marvin hurried through the entrance, the school’s thick metal doors closing slowly behind him. Winston turned to the girl. “That nigger not for you, hear me?” The girl remained standoffish, her hands on a set of bony hips cocked at an angle.

“She waiting for her tip,” Yolanda said.

“I should’ve never told Marvin I was giving him twenty dollars. I should’ve just threatened to beat his ass.” Tuffy handed the girl twenty dollars. She walked away, switching her nonexistent behind like an anorexic flapper full of whiskey.

“They growing up fast.”

“How much of that money you got left?”

“Enough for the movies.”

Marvin poked his head out from between the doors. “Tuff?”

“What you doin’ out here, man? You supposed to be voting!”

“I don’t know your real name.”

Winston chuckled. “This shit’s insane.” Climbing the stairs, he held the door open and said, “Foshay. Winston Foshay.”

The voting booths were downstairs in the cafeteria. Bendito, on election day duty, leaned against a soda machine, looking bored. He spotted Winston first. “Truce.”

“Truce.”

Inez stood behind the volunteers, looking over their shoulders like an exam proctor. Yolanda checked in and headed to an empty booth, leaving Jordy with his father.

“Lighten up on them, Ms. Nomura, dag.”

“Winston, you have no idea what the city will do to rig the election. I just came from the polls at P.S. 57 and they’ve got six cops standing out in front of the place. Now people in this neighborhood, especially the people who’d vote for you, wouldn’t walk through six policemen to get free beer, much less vote.”

“Come on, now, Ms. Nomura, it can’t be that serious.”

“Oh, it can’t be that serious? Before that I was at Carver projects next door to the old folks’ home. Do you know where the voting booths in Carver projects are located?”

“No.”

“They’re in the rec room on the eighth floor.”