Paul Beatty - Tuff

As she made her way back to her register, Winston retreated a few steps and let his hungry friends surge ahead of him in line. That wasn’t no “Welcome to Burger King” smile , Winston thought. Baby trying to say a little something . Yolanda avoided Winston’s stare. As she took the orders of his friends, she absentmindedly stroked the thin baby hairs meticulously greased to her temples, silently repeating the dating mantra passed down by generations of black women: Niggers ain’t shit. Niggers ain’t shit. Niggers ain’t shit .

“Next person in line, please,” Yolanda politely called out. Winston bellied up to the register and gazed at the menu. He took his time, carefully choosing his opening words to the woman he knew would be the love of his life: “One Whopper cheese, no pickles, no onion. Two king-size chicken sandwiches, light on the dressing.”

Yolanda repeated the order into the microphone, hiding the thrill she felt in the back of her throat. “Will there be anything else, sir?” Oops, she walked into it, the lounge lizard’s classic window of opportunity. Yolanda gripped the microphone tightly and steeled herself for the inevitable pickup line.

“Yes — large onion rings and two apple turnovers.”

Yolanda felt both relieved and disappointed. Maybe he didn’t like her. Maybe he wasn’t staring at her but at the conveyor belt of greasy burgers behind her. She looked into Winston’s cupcake-brown face and repeated his order. Remembering her customer protocol, Yolanda pushed the fries and beverages. “Would you like to try our new cheddar cheese curly fries and something to drink?”

“I’ll take an orange soda.”

“What size?”

“ ’Bout your size.”

Yolanda blushed but didn’t waver a second. “That be about a medium.”

Winston laughed, leaned over the countertop, and shouldered his way into her life. “You from Queens.”

Normally Yolanda would ask a customer to step aside so she could take the next order. Now she glanced from Winston’s face to his hands, marveling at the smoothness of his skin. “How can you tell?” she asked.

“The dolphin earrings, the cellophane-crimped bangs, more silver than gold on your wrists. Might even have a little Long Island in you.” Though Winston’s deductions were correct, Yolanda pretended to be unimpressed with a sassy “Sooo.”

“Where at? Hollis? Kew Gardens?”

“Queens Village, near the track. That okay with you?”

“Long as you ain’t from Brooklyn, I’m straight. You got a man?”

Yolanda held up her hands, showing off her collection of department-store promise rings.

“But can he be burnt?” Winston asked.

“Light a match.”

Holding trays of lukewarm burgers in wax paper and brimming with more jealousy than they’d care to admit, Winston’s boys chided him into hastening his mack.

“Let’s be out, Chubbsy Ubbsy.”

“Oh, Miss Crabtree, I have something heavy on my heart.”

“You going to have something heavy on your lip in a minute.”

“Baby girl going to have something heavy on her lap in minute.”

Winston struggled to resist the gravitational pull of his boys. He didn’t want to succumb to the forces of friendship physics, huddle up and get into a bitch-this-and-bitch-that round-table synopsis. Yolanda rescued the conversation by acknowledging the nappy-headed ballast hindering the weightlessness of puppy love. “Your team cock-blocking and shit.”

“Yeah.”

“What’s your name?”

“Winston.”

“What they call you on the streets?”

“Tuffy.”

“Yolanda.”

Yolanda slid Winston a brown tray overflowing with food he didn’t order. Jammed into a forest of french fries, a two-inch figurine of the Burger King surveyed his cholesterol domain. Impaled on the king’s lance was the receipt with Yolanda’s phone number scribbled over the subtotal. Winston dropped a bundle of crumpled bills in her hand and assured her of a phone call that evening. A macho “All right then” and he was off to share his spoils with the homies, forgetting the change. As Yolanda watched him plod away, she wondered what her friends would say when she showed up at the club with a big-boned roughneck. She could hear Tasha now: “That huge nigger sure is ugly, hope he can sing.” With a smile at her musing, she called out, “Next,” and without looking back Winston answered, “Me, goddammit!”

Their first and only date was a Christmas Eve boat tour circumnavigating Manhattan. Yolanda and Winston met at the Battery Park marina, Winston punctual for the first time for an appointment that didn’t involve a court proceeding. Yolanda arrived an independent woman’s mandatory fifteen minutes late. Winston flashed the tickets he’d bought a week in advance and the giddy couple ran down the gangplank, elbowing past the out-of-towners and racing up the spiral stairs to the upper deck. Yolanda sat next to a porthole window and Winston squeezed in beside her.

“Got enough room?”

“Plenty.”

Winston lifted Yolanda’s curls and a cold sea breeze raised goose bumps on her neck. She braced for a kiss; instead, Winston slapped a Dramamine patch behind her ear. “What’s that?” Yolanda asked.

“In case you get seasick.”

“Thanks, but the boat don’t go but two miles an hour.”

“Knots.”

“I know.”

As the boat chugged around snowy Gotham, they talked over the droll tour guide, defining the landmarks for themselves. “See that building?” Yolanda asked, pointing at a limestone-and-steel skyscraper, “I used to work there two summers ago — thirty-second floor, in the cafeteria.”

“For real? You know that tan building right next to it? I used to slave there, Strudder, Farragut, and Peabody.”

“What’d you do?”

“Kept the fax machine from getting clogged.”

“That’s it?”

“My shit was high-tech, right? I lasted two whole days on that one.”

The roof speaker crackled, “Ladies and gentlemen, I know it’s a cloudy night, but those of you with binoculars can see the Rikers Island guard towers just past the Triborough Bridge. Commissioned in 1936, Rikers Island jail is the former residence of nefarious felons such as the Son of Sam, alias David Berkowitz, child-killer Joel Steinberg, the Cosa Nostra don John Gotti, and Harlem drug lord Nicky Barnes—”

Yolanda stood up and waved at the distant jailhouse. “Ahoy, Luscious and Tabitha! Jasmine, what up, girl?” Winston hissed and looked down at his feet. “You okay?” Yolanda asked, knuckling the brooding boy on the chin. “You know somebody in Rikers?”

“Please, I know much niggers on the rock.”

“ ‘Many niggers,’ or ‘a lot of niggers,’ ” Yolanda corrected.

Winston nodded, blinking to hold back his tears and a slew of sins past, present, and future. “You got bad memories?” Yolanda asked. Winston kept looking at his feet. Yolanda pulled on Winston’s earlobe, stroked his eyebrows, looking for the hidden lever that spins the bookcase, revealing the secret room. Winston raised his head and took a deep breath. He unlocked his chest plate and removed his armor piece by heavy piece. Fuck it . Winston started with his first arrest at age thirteen after a summer’s day spent shoplifting and chain snatching with every teenage boy from the block. At dusk, he and the posse were walking down Forty-fifth Street, nineteen deep — pissy drunk, brash and boisterous as soldiers on a three-day pass. Someone shouted “Pockets!” pointing at a man exiting the movie house. Before the sex fiend noticed the red-eyed wolf pack surrounding him, they were on him. Four kids grabbed a pocket and yanked. With a loud Mama-making-Sunday-morning-dustrags tear, the man’s pants fell apart at the seams. His billfold dropped to the ground and vanished before he had a chance to shout “Hey!” Coins and peep-show tokens clattered onto the sidewalk and raced around his shoes. The man scrambled after what remained of his belongings, trying to hold up his shredded pants, and fight off the boys, who descended upon the coins like pigeons upon breadcrumbs.