Now it’s my turn to laugh. I lean away from him. “Why not? They’re made to intimidate the individual, aren’t they? Make him feel small in the great institutional shadow.”
“My my. You’re certainly the innovator.”
“I don’t know whether you’re flattering or insulting me.”
“No ‘or.’ Pure flattery.” He smiles. “Actually, I’m looking for an innovator to work with us. Someone who knows the ins and outs of public relations, who’s comfortable in that gray zone between business, politics, citizens …”
“City planning is hardly PR.”
“Still, it’s a public service. Clearly, you understand the value of image, of selling ideas.”
“And what ideas do you need to sell?”
“Myself. The idea that a company run by a black man can be integral to the city’s health.” He sits forward. “You know what it’s like, right? I’m one of the few black CEOs in this town. That means I’ve got to be twice as prepared as my white counterparts. I’ve got to be smoother, better-dressed, better-behaved. Hell, I’ve had to learn to play golf He laughs. “Control my temper — slightest irritation, I’ll get tagged as the ‘angry black man,’ and that’s the end of my business.”
“I imagine a lot of folks are extra careful around you, too.”
“Oh, absolutely! You do understand! Some of these fellows, man, they get so self-conscious … I never figured politeness would make me cringe.” He folds his hands on his knee. “I founded this company, gave it direction … when I started, my friends assured me, ‘Green is the only color business looks at.’ But when it came to raising the scratch, I learned early to send white representatives to our potential investors. You’re with that, right?”
“I am.”
“So.”
“Is this a job interview?”
“When can you get me your résumé?”
I laugh, but he’s not kidding.
“I trust my instincts,” he says. “Move quickly, lock my key personnel into place. That’s why E-Future has grown so fast.”
“Can I ask you … what were you doing in the cemetery the other day?”
He smiles and smoothes his tie. “We need some tax shelters. We’re thinking of acquiring land, developing new sites.”
“Disturbing those graves?”
“We were just looking.”
“For the sake of argument. If I came to work for you, that’s the first thing I’d try to talk you out of. It’s a historic neighborhood. It needs to be left alone.”
“It’s crime-ridden and poor. It’s going to be developed sooner or later. That’s inevitable. Isn’t it better if a black man has an interest in it?”
“Is it?”
“I’d like a chance to convince you.”
“If you’re serious about this,” I say, slow, measured, “you need to know …”
“Yes?”
“Things are up in the air for me right now.”
He nods. “I hope you don’t mind. I’ve talked to Reggie. I know a little about your situation. I was going to call you.”
I feel my face go hot.
“Your uncle, your ties to this place … it got me thinking. I figured you might be interested in a position in town.”
“I don’t know.”
His earring catches the sun. “What do you want? Humanly?”
Our eyes meet, then Natalie appears in a doorway behind the receptionist’s desk, wearing a long red dress.
“Think about it,” he tells me, rising. “We’re a solid, honest, black-owned company, still on the ground floor but growing. And I’m committed to investing in our local community.”
Another caretaker. These men. Goddam.
Natalie tells Rufus good-bye. He smiles at us both, hands me a card with his fax number on it and the sctibbled instruction, “Résumé.”
“You can just drop me off at home, and I’ll walk to class from there,” Natalie says. For several blocks we sit stiffly in the car. It’s hard for me to concentrate on anything but Bowen’s offer. I ask, “How’s Michael these days?”
“Hanging.”
“And you? The job’s working out?” I brake too hard, jostling us.
“Takes a lot of time away from my kids — and half my pay goes for child-care. I’ll probably have to quit school soon.”
“Oh, I hope not. That would be a shame.”
“The hardest part would be telling Reggie. Hell, school’s not gonna bring me anything better’n this.”
“Anyway. I’m glad things are nice for you,” I say. Nice?
She snorts. “A year ago I was nearly dead on the street. Anything’s nicer than that.” She points to a shack on the edge of Freedmen’s Town, next to a burnt store and an abandoned car. Someone has spray-painted on a cinder-block fence, “Five-dollar whores in two-dollar gowns at the funeral of Hope and Love.”
“Old freak room in there,” Natalie says. “We’d cook the rocks, I’d smoke that sweet stuff and, man, I didn’t care how many fellas asked me to give ‘em brains. I’d suck ‘em all night, long’s they kept the goods coming. Living high in the Rock Resort! I have to say, I miss it sometimes.”
“Well. I hope you find a way to stay in school.” She’s too tired to listen. Maybe it’s just as well. Join a sorority? Look at Goya? Where would that get her?
She steps out by the Row Houses, thanks me again. Behind her, Michael sails through the air with a ball. Angry. Innocent? Golden.
Editorials appear in the Chronicle decrying America’s “declining values” and the “pathology” of African American communities. The child-murder suspect — the paper doesn’t name him; is it Johnson? — was “apparently delusional”: a blurry bio of a blurry existence on the edge of booming Houston. No word yet on whether all the bodies have been found.
Reggie has been exceedingly attentive to Ariyeh; I’ve seen little of them both. He’s commissioned a new sculpture from Kwako for the Row Houses, and she’s been helping them clear a space next to one of the porches.
Bitter is still wearing nutmegs, feeling chest pains. “You’re sleep-walking right into trouble,” I told him last night.
“You know what they say, Seam. Never wake a sleepwalker. Let him go where he wants, cause he just might head for hidden treasure.”
He no longer seemed mad at me for leaving his house; resigned, maybe. She’s her mama’s child, all right. He asked about my “accommodations” and the possibility of my fixing him some okra one night. “Of course,” I said.
“This come for you.” He handed me a letter. A second apology from Elias Woods: “I just want everything to be right before I go. Please forgive me.”
When I left, Bitter was sitting on his porch singing,
Coming home, Lord, coming home. Wade in the water, children, wade in the water. Wade in the water, children. God’s a-gonna trouble the waves. Walk together, children. Don’t you get weary. Don’t you get weary, there’s a great meeting in the Promised Land. Ya-a-as, Lord, I’m trying to make Heaven my home.
Ariyeh weeps softly beside me. The dead kids’ parents huddle in the front pew. Crespi stands by the door, clasping his hands. Photos of the children, enlarged to the size of standard house windows, have been affixed to posterboards and mounted on thin wooden easels behind the altar.
A gap-toothed grin. Merry eyes.