Them Read Free

studied history, even after dropping out. He’d read Before the Mayflower —fourteen times—and he had devoured stories about the ’60s, tales about how Caesar used black people’s tax dollars to train the police dogs they sicced on them.
    Times had changed some, though not as much as people liked to pretend they had. The white folks in Milledgeville had proven that.
    Things. He had met Nell years before, when she came into the print shop and ordered flyers to advertise the salon. After the printing, she slipped him a number and asked him to call. He phoned, they talked and later dated. Eventually, he even moved in with her.
    Barlowe was so taken by her fine looks that it took a while to notice who she was. Now, sitting in her living room, it was clear: The two of them were like mismatched socks.
    All of a sudden he felt weary. “I ain’t sure I’m what you wont, Nell. I ain’t even sure I wanna be.”
    She leaned forward, almost eagerly. “I guess this is it, then. You can’t say I didn’t try.”
    She got up and went to her bedroom and returned minutes later with her hands full. She had gathered his belongings—a shaver, toiletries and two crisply ironed uniforms that he kept there for overnight stays.
    â€œI’m sorry, Barlowe…I got plans.”
    He stood up and gathered his things . “You got plans? I got plans, too.”
    He had plans, all right. He planned to buy his lottery tickets; he planned to get himself a nice, cold beer; he planned to go home and relax on the porch and listen to the pigeons coo.
    Barlowe started for the door. Nell walked behind him, keeping a safe distance in case he moved to grab her around the waist. On the way out, he stopped in the doorway. She stepped back and folded her arms tight, like a sudden chill had rushed in the house.
    Nell said good-bye and Barlowe left, half-hoping she would stop him like she’d done before.
    Â 
    Barlowe took the back way home, down Memorial Drive. He cut through Cabbagetown, with its shotgun houses and narrow streets. The few days in the dungeon had inspired in him a fresh appreciation for natural air and light. He took it all in, every bit, as his clunker rattled down the street, the windshield wipers swishing every time he hit the left-turn signal switch.
    He whizzed past the ash-brick factories now being converted into trendy lofts to make way for the chi-chi Yuppies swarming in. The poor white trash in Cabbagetown despised chi-chi Yuppies a tad less than they hated niggers. They had more in common with the blacks, but you could never convince them of that.
    He crossed onto Edgewood Avenue and entered the Old Fourth Ward, where the people’s faces were mostly dark and unsure, like his own. He tapped on brakes and waited as Viola and The Hawk shuffled forward and stepped unsteadily off the curb, in front of his car. Viola and The Hawk were two neighborhood drunks. As usual, they had taken the shortcut through the trampled dirt pathway between the house Barlowe rented and the place next door. They were headed to Davenport’s place to toast another day of sunshine, another day of living, another day of anything to justify another drink.
    Barlowe parked in front of his house, got out and looked around. He could see the horizon in the backdrop of downtown Atlanta, its towering skyscrapers standing pompous and smug.
    He went indoors and passed a pair of dirty sneakers on the living room floor and whiffed pork chops frying on the stove. He went through the kitchen and opened the back door, which led to a partially enclosed porch.
    A voice, speaking low, gentle, floated to the doorway. “There ya go, baby. C’mon, do this for me. Thas it. Ri there. Riii tthhheerre…”
    Barlowe stepped onto the porch, flopped in a chair and studied his nephew, who was feeding his three pigeons.
    â€œTy.”
    Tyrone jerked around. “Yo, Unk. I din’t hear you come