You all right, brother? Under the sun’s glare, the boy squinted up at Lincoln, who rode waves of light and shadow, saw the boy moving in and out of focus, the crowd swaying this way and that. His lungs needed room to breathe, the street a cage of running motors and rushing feet. He felt hollow, something trembling deep in his stomach, so he shut his eyes and took a deep breath, but the air was thick and bitter in his mouth, and he could hear cars in the distance and smell their fumes. He coughed.
Hey, the boy said.
Lincoln heard the brush fall to the ground.
Don’t cough on me.
Lincoln couldn’t move or speak.
Damn!
But Lincoln was hollow. Body eaten by flames.
Coughing on people and shit.
The boy’s voice came to Lincoln from a distance. Though his eyes were closed, Lincoln felt that everything about him was radiating, sun constricting his face and chest.
Germs. I might catch something. Shit.
Lincoln drew another deep breath, a sanitizing breeze that moved through his body and beat back the sickness. The free oxygen gave him enough strength to raise himself upright. He opened his eyes, looked at the boy from head to foot, slowly and deliberately.
The boy’s face fell a little. Didn’t mean no harm, he said.
Lincoln increased his look to full intensity.
You know I didn’t mean no harm. It’s just that white folks — Man, that’s why we got all these problems. Anger shook the boy’s thin frame. Motherfuck the white man!
Lincoln found himself looking into a face that had hardened into leather, a mouth now set in lines of hatred. The boy’s pose did nothing to lessen his anger. He spoke through clenched teeth. How much do I owe you? He extended a five-dollar bill.
The boy looked at the bill. Five dollars, he said. He snatched the bill. That green counts. He was dead serious.
Lincoln had money in the bank and plenty to spread around. The profits from his books had surpassed his inheritance. No small achievement, for Glory had had substantial property — the house alone was a heap of bread — had had shares in everything from Standard Oil to Rough Rider Saddles.
Lincoln started toward the bus stop, buildings blazing bright in the hot shimmer of the sun. He walked as fast as his legs could carry him, the world on fire.
Fight the white man!
Lincoln didn’t turn around. Moved with determined splashing strides. A billboard looming above the roof of the Walgreen’s across the street read Jesus Is Lord over Our City beneath an illustration of a big white Jesus with one hand raised as if taking a vow, being sworn in, the other hand placed over his heart. But Lincoln did not slow his pace for a better look. He had a client to meet, Mrs. Frieda Lead. He didn’t own a car. Public transportation afforded him the opportunity to study ordinary people firsthand. He quickened his step, shirt sticking to his skin as he moved under the torch of the sun.
He made it to the Metro stand just as the bus came grinding down the middle of Washington Boulevard. It banked sharply, brakes squealing. A decal taped to the windshield greeted all boarding passengers: a white hand and a black hand jointly holding the two ends of a red valentine heart, words penned in black letters across its center—The Love Bus.
The doors squeaked open. Step onto the Love Bus, the driver said. Lincoln boarded the vehicle and slipped a silver dollar into the fare box. The driver cut the bus into the center of the boulevard, throwing Lincoln’s feet out from under him. He struggled to keep his balance.
Welcome to the Love Bus. At the sound of my voice, the time will be eight thirty-five.
Are you trying to be funny?
No, sir. Folks don’t like to be late. Tall, almost a giant, the driver sat cramped down in his seat, leaning forward over the big steering wheel. Excluding his pop eyes, he was well built and handsome. About Lincoln’s age.
You can get hurt that way, Lincoln said. He sat down in the seat perpendicular to the driver’s.
And I can get hurt getting out of bed too, but that don’t mean it’s gon happen.
Lincoln’s throat clogged with words. His whole body tightened.
The driver watched the traffic but held Lincoln in the corner of his eye.
You’re a wise guy, Lincoln said.
Folks don’t like to be late. I have a job to do.
Lincoln read the driver’s nameplate: ULYSSES TUBMAN. I’ll tell you what, Ulysses, Lincoln said.
The driver gave Lincoln a quick full look.
Don’t talk to me, and I won’t talk to you.
The driver tightened his grip on the steering wheel. God bless you, he said.
Lincoln noticed that the driver had propped one of his novels, Hard Rock’s Hole in One, in the space between the windshield and dashboard, but Lincoln suppressed any glow of recognition. You’re lucky I’m in a good mood today, he said.
God bless you, the driver said.
Stupid bastard. He scouted out the other passengers. Two girls sat a few seats behind the driver. The first day of spring found them in bicycle pants and sleeveless T-shirts, their skin like melted caramel under the sunlight. They wore the latest haircuts, one girl completely bald on the right side of her head, thick corn rolls trailing down the left, the other girl bald on her left, corn rolls on her right. An older woman sat a few seats behind them, sharp in a full-length black dress, with a prim white bow at the neck, stockings, and pumps. A sporty tam mushroomed above her head, white hair spilling out from under it like melting snow. Granny, you must have been fine in your day. A white man lay curled up in the seat at the rear of the bus, clutching the boomerang-shaped collar of his winter coat. Some of these poor white trash are worse than the lowest niggers and all their low sorry ways. Lincoln watched the two girls, every movement, every gesture.
Tall, skinny, and knock-kneed, twelve-year-old Mary lived a few houses down from Lincoln — a year older — in the John Henry Homes development, a tidy block of two-flat government housing projects with grass clean enough to eat. Lincoln tried to woo her with sugary gifts of Now and Laters, strawberry pop, barbecue potato chips, licorice, salted sunflower seeds. When this didn’t work, he wrote her poems and letters in the solitude of his room. On a day when he found the courage, he followed her home from school, read snatches of red words.
Mary laughed and laughed. You so corny.
Another day, he pulled out his dick and shook it at her.
Ugh. You so nasty. She kissed him, working her tongue.
They rushed over to her house, since her parents were away laboring for bread and keep.
I don’t want no baby, she said. She wriggled her dress down over her hips.
In the darkness of her room, the bed creaked and her moans crackled in Lincoln’s ears. Perhaps his piston-rhythm piston weight was breaking and crushing her bones, but he didn’t stop until he came. Holy Father! he shouted.
Ugh. You peeing in me, Mary said. She pushed him off her. Left the room and returned, lickety-split, with her German shepherd, a beast with teeth like jagged cliffs. Lincoln finished zipping his pants. Mary pointed at him. Frankenstein, sic! But Lincoln had already started for the door. He proved faster than the dog.
Lincoln could still feel Mary’s kiss burning on his lips.
Cool air blew through the bus, which had taken on a little speed, tires humming. Frieda Lead lived in Crescent Hills, at the very end of the boulevard, an interracial suburb with smoothly paved streets, gravel drives, trees on low hills, mowed lawns, and trimmed hedges. The bus traveled a perfect loop, so that, later, Lincoln had only to cross to the other side of the boulevard for the return ride home.