Reaching the corner, Lincoln looked at his watch. Eight thirty a.m. Unbeknownst to him, at that very moment another man, from the apartment complex five blocks south, committed suicide when he ran onto the Eisenhower Expressway and was struck by a Cleaning Magic diaper-service truck — a pilot without a flight plan, riding a rainbow’s arc fifty feet above the expressway — in virtually the same spot where Lincoln would be struck the following morning. Second morning, second truck. The two men were strangers to one another, but the same womb had borne them both. It was only at the moment of his death that Lincoln Roosevelt Lincoln realized the conspiracy against him. Two men unaware, moving toward the same fate, in the same city. A spider retracting two threads into the center of its web.
Lincoln observed a traffic cop directing two phalanxes of moving steel, one northbound, the other southbound. Even from where he stood, Lincoln could tell that the cop’s skin was rough, like a stone worn away by water. His uniform shone a navy blue and he held his head high, a cap on top. Lincoln moved closer, saw the cop’s tiny buckshot eyes, heard a voice loud enough to wake the dead. The cop closed his eyes with every shout, carried away by deep emotion. Keep moving. Open. Keep moving. Shut. That’s green, not greens. Don’t stop to eat. That yellow ain’t no chicken. That red ain’t no wine, so don’t you whine. So lucky God didn’t make me a cabdriver.
At the next corner Lincoln saw a boy as tall as him, only leaner. Shoe shine, brother? the boy asked.
Lincoln accepted the offer.
The boy put black polish on the edges of his fingers, then moved his hands over Lincoln’s cordovans, the pointed toes like weapons. Soon, the boy was slapping and rubbing a rag against them.
Brother, you know those white men are devils. He popped the rag.
Lincoln didn’t say anything.
Bent over at the waist, the boy kept his legs locked straight, careful not to get any polish on his short-sleeve white dress shirt. He wore a black tie — snake-tongue thin — jeans, and Nike gym shoes. He had wonderfully clear skin, but his nose was pushed back into his face as if recoiling from some foul odor. So that no one might miss it, his body emitted the peculiar sweet and powdered smell of a baby.
Lincoln was about to enter the yard, when Glory called him.
See my hands? She removed her gloves.
Yes, ma’am.
I got frostbitten when I was a baby.
Yes, ma’am.
See these arms? She rolled up her sleeves.
Yes, ma’am.
I got burned when I was a baby.
Yes, ma’am. Lincoln pressed back into the squeezing dark of the hall, smiling to himself.
I may be short and fat, but I knows my wings gon fit me well.
Yes, ma’am.
He got a white robe for me.
Yes, ma’am.
He got me a seat up in the kingdom.
Yes, ma’am.
He got me a bed in the upper room.
Yes, ma’am.
I will walk on golden clouds, hand in hand with my Jesus. O flesh of my flesh!
Nothing but devils. The boy lifted his head and looked up into Lincoln’s face, eyes bright with the memory of some deed.
They were standing on the corner of Congress Avenue, Lincoln facing the street, the steel wall of the Garden Tower Apartments behind him. He loved corners. Here, the world was going on, and he was there to perceive it.
What do you think of the white man?
The only white man Lincoln gave a damn about was Jesus, the Holy Redeemer, the man who had appeared to Glory in a dream. Chop off that nigger’s dirty dick, Jesus said, and to thee all things shall be added.
Was Jesus a white man? Lincoln asked.
Yes, Glory said. Unless he’s passing.
Glory hated white folks. God is black, she said. She sought out TV shows that featured white people being maimed or killed. She cheered every death, every gunshot. And whenever she watched news broadcasts and saw that a white person had died in a car accident or a plane crash or by falling glass, she would bow her head and say, Thank you, Jesus. Thank you. We are surely God’s chosen people. At night, Lincoln heard her pray for God to put ground glass or spiders in every white person’s buttermilk. He never discovered the actual source of her hatred, and at the time of her death, Jesus remained the only white man she liked.
Brother, what do you think about the white man?
I don’t know, Lincoln said.
What? The boy scrunched up his face in disbelief. What?
Lincoln was tired of black folks blaming the white man for everything. Tired of them (us) marching and demonstrating and singing and shouting our lives away. White man this, white man that. Spilled milk, spoiled milk, injustices both real and imagined nothing more than specks of events and facts in the larger canvas of history. But why reveal his true feelings to this insignificant boy? Expression (communication) involves the monumental task of encounter.
I don’t know, he said.
Cars zoomed past, coming and going, waves of noise and exhaust like an accumulation of ghostly presences heard and felt but unseen. People bunched together at the pedestrian crossing like herds of cattle. Others rushed about in all directions as if hurrying out of the rain. But the day was bright and the sun was high and Lincoln felt sun crawling on his face and arms, felt sun transforming him into some being of light and heat. The boy’s nostrils cocked up at him, wide and deep, so much so that Lincoln imagined himself falling tragically inside them, lost forever.
As far as he knew, Glory was never sick a day in her life. The morning she gave up her spirit, she called him into her room. Her green shutters were thrown open to the world, sunlight pouring through the window and splattering the wall behind her bed, where she lay, her small head resting on a pillow, her magical quilt drawn up to her chin, as hot as it was, with only her two black hands and face outside it. Lincoln moved close to her side and saw wrinkles radiating out from the center of her nose, making her face look like a broken plate that had been pieced back together. A dim fire lit her cheeks.
I am bounding toward my God and my reward, she said.
Yes, ma’am.
Jesus will be calling you too someday.
Yes, ma’am.
She reminded him of the mason jars in the cellar, filled with quarters and half-dollars, the jewelry in the cookie jars under her bed, and the drawer with her burial policy, savings bonds, will, and lawyer’s name and phone number.
You better mind your p’s and q’s, she said.
Yes, ma’am.
She looked at the ceiling. Lord, open up the gate. She closed her eyes, the fire in her cheeks simmering down then extinguishing. The room became a chamber of silence.
Free at last! Lincoln said, under his breath. He was nineteen and ready to see the other side of the shining coin.
That very morning, he tried to have her body cremated. This postmortem arrangement the will forbade—see the stipulation printed in the next-to-the-last clause—so, without the usual ritual and ceremony, he stuck her in the ground. Sold the house to the first buyer. Sold her magical quilt. For one dollar. Cash.
A swirl of violent life. Lincoln’s face went hot and heavy. He leaned back against the wall, thrown, unmoored.