‘Come on, momma!’ Andre said suddenly — stepping outside. He tugged her back out onto the sidewalk.
‘Let’s go,’ he said. Evelyn pulled her arm from his grip and headed back inside. She nearly tripped over the man who lay on the floor in a white butcher’s apron. It was stained with three black splotches. His eyes were wide. His mouth gaped underneath his bushy mustache. Mr Cantu was covered in flies.
Evelyn felt like screaming, but she didn’t panic. She marched out of the store and grabbed Andre’s arm. She towed him straight down the block to the south. Her walk was purposeful, and it forced Andre to break his long-practiced saunter just to keep up with her pace. His hundred-dollar hightops flopped all about — their laces untied as was the fashion.
‘Where we goin’, momma?’
‘Hush up, I said!’
By the time they got down to 96th, people were out in the streets like it was a holiday. There was no sense of danger, just an air of excitement, an energy. Everyone was talking and laughing and pointing at the smoke. There were sirens of every sort near and far. But Evelyn hadn’t yet seen any police cars or fire trucks.
Except up ahead. They stopped at the sight of it. Lights flashed through the gaps in the crowd. It looked like a riot, but she couldn’t see or hear any signs of a disturbance. With tentative, wary steps, they waded into the mass of people. ‘Excuse me. Excuse me,’ Evelyn repeated over and over as the mostly indifferent crowd let her pass. They seemed to have gathered only to gawk at whatever lurid crime had been committed. After a minute or so, Evelyn and Andre reached the front ranks.
It was an amazing sight. New York City police cars were parked bumper-to-bumper all along 95th Street from east to west for as far as the eye could see. The lights on their roofs were all flashing. Evelyn grasped the brightly colored wooden barricades erected a few feet short of the cars. There was another barricade running along the opposite side of the street.
‘What’s going on?’ Evelyn asked the woman next to her.
She looked Evelyn up and down and said, ‘They’re not lettin’ anybody cross down from Harlem.’
Evelyn looked at the barricades. It was like a wall had descended across the city. But a few yards to her left, the wooden barriers opened into a corridor through the new border. A gauntlet of uniformed police officers with dogs lined the passage which led from the anarchy of the blighted northern borough.
‘Excuse me!’ Evelyn began again… but loudly. She pushed her way for the opening with Andre in tow. Police on horseback inside No Man’s Land kept watch deep into the crowd from Harlem. Tired men milled about in full riot gear — their helmets’ visors raised. Clear plastic shields leaned against police cars, and long black truncheons lay on the pavement next to them.
A man wearing a black bulletproof vest and holding a large shotgun propped on his hips stood asking questions at the entrance to the crossing. Evelyn and Andre got in line and waited.
‘This is America!’ a man shouted up at the head of the line. An argument ensued. The man finally turned back in anger.
Next up was a woman wearing a white nurse’s dress under a dark sweater. She got through with no hassles, but she had to lift her large purse high above her head as snivelling police dogs strained at their leashes on both sides.
‘I’m a maintenance engineer at the Garden,’ the next man said.
‘What does that mean?’ asked the cop with the shotgun. ‘You clean up elephant shit when the circus is in town?’ There was silence. ‘Go o-o-on,’ the cop barked.
Finally, it was Evelyn’s and Andre’s turn. ‘Where you headed?’ the tall white cop asked — addressing Evelyn but eyeing Andre. He ran a hand-held metal detector over their bodies — raising a Latex-covered finger and spinning to indicate that they should turn around. Evelyn complied, but Andre just stared back at the man. Evelyn backhanded the boy. ‘What’s the matter?’ the cop asked. ‘Them looters steal your tongue?’
‘Downtown,’ Evelyn said quietly.
‘Oh, yeah? What ya doin’ down there today?’
‘I got me some business to take care of,’ Evelyn said softly. Her eyes were cast down toward the cop’s shiny buttons.
‘Whoa-hoa! Some business, ya say? I suppose you gotta deal with your stocks and bonds and shit.’ Evelyn looked up. Through the open corridor ahead she saw taxis and people and activity. Life. ‘Go on!’ the cop growled — a grin on his meaty face.
Evelyn and Andre headed through. A German Shepherd reared up on its hind legs as it lunged. It was stopped by its leash, but not before its nose left saliva on Evelyn’s good coat.
It was like crossing a border into a foreign country, Andre thought, although he had never seen a border before. Once they were across, they were free to roam the streets of the United States.
But the people on those streets shied away from Andre. Purses were clutched to sides or switched to the opposite shoulder. Conversations were halted until they were safely past. Eyes were kept warily fixed on him, Andre noticed, even by the well-dressed black businessmen. He smiled, thinking all he needed was to yell ‘boo’ and they’d hand him their wallets.
They walked block after block. Andre finally said, ‘Where the hell are we goin’ momma?’ She said nothing. She just limped along with her head held high and her eyes fixed straight ahead. People passing in the opposite direction clutched purses and grabbed for children’s hands.
‘We’re here,’ she said finally. She grabbed Andre by the jacket and pulled him toward a nondescript door. There were pictures like travel posters in the windows. ‘U.S. Army Recruiting Center,’ the sign said over the door.
‘What the hell is this, momma?’
‘You can read!’
‘Yeah, I know what it say, but…’
‘Your daddy died on these streets.’ Andre hung his head. ‘It was Friday, and he’d been paid. He just couldn’t give up that money. He’d worked too hard just to give it up. I will not lose you too, Andre. You hear me?’
Andre still avoided her eyes. ‘But the Army?’
‘Your daddy was in the Army. I married him when he was in the Army.’
‘I know all about that, momma! And I know he got sent to a war, too!’
‘He was a boy just like you when he went off. He was a man when he came back from that desert.’ Andre frowned. ‘What you gonna do now that school’s over, huh? I gave you all summer to think it over ’cause you done so good graduating, but what you gonna do now?’
Andre shrugged. ‘Get a job,’ he muttered.
‘Doin’ what? Loadin’ trucks? Diggin’ up streets on cold winter days? Honey, the Army don’t take no one without that degree. It means somethin’ to them. And the Army teaches you special things like computers. It’ll teach you to get along with different people.’ Andre rared back. ‘Ain’t nothin’ wrong with actin’ a certain way if it helps you get ahead.’
‘Puttin’ on is what it is,’ Andre mumbled.
‘What?’ she snapped sharply. ‘You’re a man, now, Andre. My oldest. Time to start actin’ like one.’
‘Momma, if I’m a man, I can make my own decisions!’
She nodded, then nodded again. ‘Yes. Yes you can.’ She sniffed. Her eyes moistened. It was killing Andre. He couldn’t stand seeing her give up on him.
She waited outside for an hour.