Everyday People Read Free

spoon from her ice cream at Pops the other night.
    â€œWhy are you here?” she’s screaming. “Why don’t you just go then?”
    And Pops saying nothing, taking his paper out on the stoop, sitting there monking, smoking his stogie and going through the batting averages till she went to bed. Now she’s out, working at Mellon Bank downtown in the checkroom, counting other people’s money. The place is quiet but it’s a quiet he doesn’t like. It’ll all change when she gets home at eleven. Pops will hang in for a while, then say he’s taking a walk like he’s afraid of her. Crest doesn’t want to think what that means about him and Vanessa. The doctor says there’s nothing physically wrong, that everything should work like before. Yeah, well you fucking try it then. He goes out in the hall and rolls sideways up to the elevator so he can reach the button. A lot of being in the chair is just waiting around.
    The dude that chased them that time, skinny yellow buckethead dude, freckles all over his nose. Was it just bombing or were they on a mission, some interplanetary shit,putting up one of their boys? NOT FORGOTTEN. They did a big one with everyone from East Liberty: Baconman, T-Pop, Marcus. It’s hard to tell now, Crest so mellow doing his two painkillers three times a day all week long, world without end amen. That’s how the summer got past him so fast—laid back coasting with U’s big fan going over him, Brother Sony bringing all of Hollywood, even free pay-per-view. September now, everyone back in school, the block quiet all day, fall coming on. Not many more nights like this, and he’ll miss it.
    That was some running. Old Poindexter boy musta run track at Peabody. Crest kept looking back thinking they were free but that orange apron just kept on coming. Cooking past the old Original Hot Dog with its dead windows soaped, number on it no one ever gonna call, all those famous pictures inside gone—dead John F. Kennedy, dead Martin Luther King eating black-and-white all-beef weenies, shaking hands with some Greek dude in a pussy hat like Smooth used to wear when he worked there. Booking past the post office with its barbwire and its rows of old Jeeps, good target practice on a Friday night behind a 40 of Eight-Ball, lobbing up chunks of old Simonton Street, falling out when metal went cronk or—Kordell looking deep!—glass smashed. Hit the fence where Fats broke out the wire cutters and it rings the way a chain net drains a swish, past the busted-up garages no one’s stupid enough to use, and finally Mr. Stockboy from over Homewood can’t keep up, doesn’t know the back alleys, the yards and their dogs, sounding like they’re hungry for some nice juicy booty. Back on the block Bean’s capping on him. “Crest, you slower than dirtand uglier than Patrick Ewing.” Crest just trying to get his breath, throat like a washboard. Never could run for shit—or bunt; no infield hits—thrown out at home so many times he can’t remember. One hop and the catcher stick that mitt up your nose so you smell it all the way home. But Bean, now my boy could scoot.
    Yeah, Bean.
    Not forgotten. That’s right, Crest thinks, ever get a chance I’ma do one for you.
    Yeah, boy, right on the bridge. Right there, big as old BooBoo’s up on the water tower—stupid big, somewhere everyone gonna peep it.
    But just as he’s dreaming this the elevator comes and goddamn if it’s not one inch too high—fucking Mr. Linney, I’ll kick his dumb ugly ass he don’t fix this—and he has to try three times before he rolls over the bump, arms burning like when he’s lifting in rehab, veins sticking out like highways. Makes him sweat, and he wanted to look good tonight.
Voyager,
everybody be there, maybe even Vanessa come back to say she’s sorry, she’s wrong. He’d like to see Rashaan.