You serious? he says.
Dead serious, I say.
Well, if that’s what you gone do, bro, he says, you best put the hurry-up on it. You seen the signs? These house prices is so high it’s disrespect.
The house on Sixth, home, ain’t even up for sale, but I leave that bit of info out. How I’d hustle enough money to buy it if it was — tis a question, a damn good question.
The bell sounds again. The bell is always sounding on Saturdays.
My barber swivels me towards the wall of fold-up chairs where Canaan and KJ share a seat and sit quiet and watchful, and oh what a difference a decent fade makes; we look as if we could be some kin.
Ding! There goes the bell. A white man strolls in — I’m talking the average white man, the everyman’s white man, as in there couldn’t be a whiter white man in all of America, as in the man has his Oxford shirt elbow-rolled, his collar flipped, and pennies in his penny loafers.
The clerk calls down to a barber, the only barber in the shop who takes appointments, and he motions at the white man. You should hear how fast the shop is overcome.
Well I’ll be goddamned! Look at this!
He’s my client
And what’s your client’s name?
My name is Jeff, Jeff says.
Jeff, okay, Jeff. If it’s not too much of us to ask, where do you live — close?
Yes. Moved a few blocks away a few weeks ago.
We see, we see. So how you likin it?
It’s a wonderful neighborhood!
WONDERFUL NEIGHBORHOOD! Ya’ll here this?
Jeff moseys down to his barber. The barber snaps on the cape, wets Jeff’s stark-blond strands, combs them over his eyes, plucks a pair of scissors from his supplies. He swivels Jeff to face us.
And this is how you spell mistake.
Jeff, if it’s not too much of us to ask, do you mind telling us if you’re buying or renting?
Buying, he says. Isn’t owning a home the American dream?
That’s what they say, Jeff. So, Jeff, the shop would like to know, did you have much trouble finding a bank to finance that dream?
What are you implying? he says.
Famous, tell him. Let him know.
Hey, buddy, I’m not the bad guy here, Jeff says.
My barber snaps off my cape and I step out the chair and brush my sleeves. I look over at my bros both caught in shades of juvenile angst.
He’s right, I say to the shop. Right about it being a dream.
Oh boy, look who comes to his defense.
No defense. Just truth, I say.
Jeff’s barber twists him away from the crowd.
Got eyes on my back while I bop over and ask the shop clerk how much I owe and give my bros dollars for tip. These shop hawks caught for the moment in a rapture, but then a big mouth self-appointed hoopologist chirps about last night’s ticker and just that fast the shop is back to its chattering self. The doorbell sounds and in swanks a wicked ex Crip who’s grand among us for beating a racketeering beef. He and I nod at each other — a silent salute, before we (the we being me and my bros) push outside. Outside, I look far this way and far that way.
Would you believe me if I told you there ain’t a single pale-skinned-home-owning-dog-walking distance runner in sight?
Chapter 13
That’s it, just a month?
Of all my boys, Champ was the most collickly. When he was a baby, he’d pitch fits, crying and flailing his fists to where you couldn’t do nothing to calm him. We were living with my grandmother Mama Liza then, and sometimes, to keep him from wailing the whole house awake, I’d strap him in the backseat and drive. After a few blocks with the radio low and the engine humming, instead of crying he’d be cooing and rubbing his booties together. It never took more than one side of a cassette and a smooth road to lull him to sleep. But after a while the rides were as much for me as they were for him. Whether he was crying or not, I’d steal out and venture to Laurelhurst or Lake Oswego or Gresham or Milwaukie or the spot on Marine Drive where I would sit and watch the planes take off. Most nights I was back before the last newscast, but some nights I wandered until the TV snowed off-air.
Champ shows late morning playing a slow song from the sixties.
Your music, I say. You act like you as old as me with this music.
Well, you about as old as me by tastes, he says. So don’t that make us even?
We wheel out to a lot on Division and park a few blocks away because my eldest has a theory about never letting a salesman see you pull up.
There’s a circle of salesmen near an office huffing cigs. One of them stamps out his smoke and hustles over. Welcome to Treasure Auto, he says. He pats the breast of a ragged wool coat and takes out a card and thumps it and offers it to Champ. He says his name, a name you forget, and asks if my eldest and I are siblings.
So who’s leaving here in a new car? he says.
He flashes a mended smile, shakes a finger scorched from days, months, years of smoking to nubs, and this is why, while he and Champ tour, I drag feet back.
Soon as you see what you want, you let me know, he says, his breath making wreaths in the cold. And I’ll make sure you leave here with it.
You could loll a day care of upset babies to sleep with how long it takes him to show us a car that’s worth our time. This one’s gray and boxy with a lightning-shaped crack in the windshield. Champ gets in and starts it up. The engine sounds like an engine should — I’ve heard enough sick ones to know — and the inside’s nice too, as if the old owners kept it covered in plastic. Champ revs the gas and tests the heat and checks the glove and flips the visors and twists on the wipers — high speed, low speed, intermittent, and it all checks out, plus the price falls within what Champ said we had to spend. But it’s a Dodge, and I can’t get past the thought of me wheeling by every person I’ve known in life, in a car meant for someone twice my age. The salesman asks if we wanna take it for a spin.
No, thank you, I say.
Not a good fit, eh? he says. Not to worry, we’ve got a car that’s right for you or I’m in the wrong business. We let him lead us farther and farther into a used car abyss: a Rabbit with a dented bumper, an Escort with stained cloth seats, a Pontiac built before power steering. Name your price, he says, and taps a hood. No reasonable offer will be refused. Unreasonable offers may be considered.
Champ stops him midway through another pitch. Thanks, he says. But we’re going to check a few more spots. He grabs me by the arm. He’s never had a tough time making choices, or not as tough a time as me.
Hey, don’t leave, he says. Wait a sec. Wait a sec. We have more.
But my eldest has already made up his mind.
If not for me calling and calling Champ after shifts for a ride, we might not be here. It was a few shifts ago when he offered. He’d come to pick me up from a double and I was outside enjoying a smoke.
You ain’t gone stop till there’s a hole in your throat? he said.
Do we really have to start? I said.
Yes, he says. We do. So I’ve been thinking, and here’s the deal. You quit that nasty habit and I’ll buy you a ride.
You’re just talkin? I said.
When am I just talking? he said.
Give me a month, he said.
That’s it, just a month? I said.
Yes, he said. Have you made it a month before?
Guess not, I said.
Know not, he said.
They say the first one’s the toughest, he said. That it takes at least a month to form habit.