Tuff

Chapter One Now on this, the last cool night of summer, Brooklyn was short three more niggers for Winston to hate. Although he addressed all black men as "God," Chilly Most, apparently less than divine, was unable to resurrect himself. Zoltan Yarborough, who was always running off at the mouth about his proud Brooklyn roots, "Brownsville, never ran, never will," had become the rigid embodiment of his slogan. He had one leg over the windowsill, and a bullet hole in him that, like everything his mother ever told him, went in one ear and out the other. Demetrius Broadnax from "Do-or-die Bed-Stuy" was shirtless on the floor with a column of bullet holes from sternum to belly button in his muddy brown torso. Winston gloated over Demetrius's body, looking into his ex-boss's glassy eyes, tempted to say "I quit" and ask for his severance pay. Instead he walked to the aquarium, pressed his nose against the glass, and wondered who was going to feed the goldfish. Like most of the jobs Winston had taken since graduating high school, this one also ended prematurely, after a job interview only two weeks ago where the look on his face was his rAsumA and two sentences from his best friend, Fariq Cole, were his references. "This fat nigger ain't no joke. Yo -- known uptown for straight KO'ing niggers." There was no "So, Mr. Foshay, how do your personal career goals mesh with our corporate mission? Would you consider yourself to be a self-starter? What was the last book you read?" Demetrius simply handed Winston the inner-city union card, a small black .22 Raven automatic pistol, which Winston coolly, but immediately, handed back. "What, your ass don't need a burner?" "Naw." "Look, fool, maybe you can body-slam niggers out on the street, but in this business, people don't walk in the door shaking their fists in your face." Winston shrugged. Demetrius studied him up and down and asked, "You ain't shook, are you? You don't seem the scary type." "Never back down. Once a nigger back down, he stay down, know what I'm saying? Just don't like guns." "Well, when some niggers do come in blasting, your big ass be in the way and shit, two, three motherfuckers can hide behind you. Be here tomorrow afternoon at four." When Winston started work, he was "in the way and shit," but not in the manner Demetrius had hoped. Winston's job description was simple: four to ten, five days a week, answer the door, look mean and yell, "Pay this motherfucker, now!" at the balky customers. But the trip into Brooklyn made him edgy. His childhood traumas kicked in, undoing his cool. Instead of suavely sauntering around counting his money every five minutes, Winston fumbled about the drug den, stepping on people's toes, toppling everything he touched, and talking nonstop. He tried to lighten the somber felonious atmosphere by telling embarrassingly bad jokes. ("You hear the one about why Scots wear kilts?") After the flat punchlines ("Because sheep can hear a zipper open from one hundred feet away") there would be a barely audible metallic click, the sound of Demetrius switching the gun's safety to the off position. Winston had trouble keeping track of the Brooklyn drug mores. Which colored caps went with what size plastic vials? Were portable televisions an acceptable form of payment? He was unable to distinguish one crew's secret whistle from another's. How often had Demetrius yelled at him, "You moron, don't flush the drugs! That's the mating call of the ruby-crowned kinglet!" Then Chilly Most and the others would join in with their snide castigations: "As opposed to our secret signal -- " "The flight song of the skylark." "A gentle woo-dukkadukka-wBeatty, Paul is the author of 'Tuff' with ISBN 9780375401220 and ISBN 0375401229.