The Turnaround

Ten

How’d that dude get that job?” said Raymond Monroe.

“He was a comedian before this,” said Kendall Robertson.

“He’s never made me laugh,” said Monroe. “Not once.”

“Me, neither,” said Marcus Robertson.

They were in Kendall’s row house on Quebec Place, eating carryout, watching that popular nighttime game show with the bald-headed host, had the trumpet-player hipster patch beneath his lower lip.

“I’d like to know where you apply for that job,” said Monroe. “ ’Cause I know I could do it better than him.”

“You ever see a black game show host?”

“Didn’t Arsenio host one?”

“He’s not funny, either.”

“I could be the first. Break that game show host color line. I’m sayin, if Mr. Clean can do it, I can, too. Because this man is, like, talentless. Is that a word?”

“I think so.”

“You wanna know how he got that job? Luck. Like, four-leaf-clover, bust-the-casino kinda luck. I mean, this dude must have a golden horseshoe lodged up in his -”

“Raymond!”

Marcus laughed. “He’s lucky.”

“That’s what I’m sayin, Peanut.”

Monroe had given the boy the nickname because of his stature and the funny shape of his shaved head. Marcus didn’t mind when he called him that. He liked Mr. Raymond, and when he gave Marcus the name, it was a sign that Mr. Raymond liked him, too.

“What are we watching this for?” said Kendall.

“You’re right,” said Monroe. “I don’t know why they call it a game if there’s no skill to it. It’s all about greed.”

Monroe got up from the kitchen table and turned off the television set.

“That was easy,” said Kendall.

“Ought to do it more often,” said Monroe. “C’mon, little man, let’s have a look at your bike.”

“He needs to do his math,” said Kendall.

“I will, Mom.”

“You promise your mother you’re gonna do your homework later?” said Monroe.

“Yes.”

“Let’s go, then.”

Kendall gave Monroe an approving glance as he crossed the room with the boy. They went out the back door, down wood stairs to a cracked sidewalk bordered by two small patches of dirt, weeds, and a little grass, and entered a small detached garage next to the alley.

Kendall had bought the house for fifty thousand and change ten years back, and now it was worth several hundred thousand dollars. She had endured the drug dealing, break-ins, and violent crime in the neighborhood, and though the problems had not been completely eradicated, her vision of a Park View transformed was beginning to take hold.

Many of the homes on her street had been turned over to new-generation ownership and were being reconditioned. Though she had made no major improvements, Kendall kept her place in clean good shape. Monroe handled the basic maintenance, which was often no more than throwing a fresh coat of paint on a wall, drilling new screw holes for those that had been stripped, caulking the bathtub and shower stall, and replacing broken windows, a skill his father had taught him and James when they were boys.

Monroe had also organized the garage. His parents had not had one in Heathrow, and it was a luxury for him. He had screws, nuts, bolts, washers, and nails in clear film canisters, labeled by Sharpies on tape, aligned on a wooden shelf. Motor oil, transmission fluid, brake fluid, rags, cleaning supplies, windshield washer fluid, and antifreeze were lined up in a row against one cinder-block wall. He had brought his toolbox down here and took it back to his mother’s as needed. He supposed he was slowly moving in.

“I don’t know how the tire got flat,” said Marcus, as Monroe upended his bike, a Dyno 2000 with rear pegs, and set it on its saddle and bars.

“You ran over something, I expect. Go get me those tire levers off the shelf.” When Marcus did not move, Monroe said, “Those blue things, thick plastic, a few inches long. Got hooks on the end.”

Raymond showed the boy how to insert the thick end of the tire lever between the tire and the rim, and how to hook it onto the spoke. He instructed him to use the second lever the same way, hooking it two spokes down. By working it around in this fashion, the tire could be removed from the rim.

“Now run your hand real careful inside that tire. You’re gonna find a bit of glass or a sharp twig, something like that in there. Whatever it was punctured that tube.”

“It was this,” said Marcus, holding a small triangle of forest green glass carefully between his fingers.

Monroe gave the new inner tube a couple of pumps of air and fitted it into the empty tire. He pulled the valve through the hole in the rim and seated one side of the tire into the rim’s edge. He turned the bike around and used his thumbs and muscle to fit the other side. He completed the replacement by inflating the tire to its suggested pressure. All the while he talked to the boy, describing the process with simple language.

Marcus watched him as he worked. He noticed the veins jump on the back of Mr. Raymond’s hands and how they stood out like wire on his forearms. The tight way he wore his knit watch cap cocked a little sideways on his head. His thin, neat mustache. Marcus was going to grow one just like it someday.

“You should be good now,” said Monroe.

“Can I ride it down to the Avenue and back?”

“It’s too dark. I’m worried about the cars seein you. But you can walk with me to the market if you want. I noticed your mother needed some milk.”

On the way to Georgia, Monroe talked to Marcus about body language. “Chin up, and keep your shoulders square, like you’re balancing a broom handle on there. Make eye contact, but not too long, hear? You don’t want to be challenging anyone for no good reason. On the other hand, you don’t want to look like a potential victim, either.”

“How’s a victim look?” said Marcus.

“Like someone you could rob or steal in the face,” said Monroe. He had said these things to Kenji when he was a little boy. Raymond’s father, Ernest Monroe, had said them to him.

Down on the Avenue, as the foot traffic increased, Marcus reached out and held Monroe’s hand.

Charles Baker sat in the passenger seat of Cody Kruger’s Honda, looking through the windshield at a gray four-square colonial at the corner of 39th and Livingston. Deon Brown was in the backseat, shifting his considerable weight. They were parked down the block, near Legation Street. Two blacks and a white, sitting in a beat-up car in one of the city’s wealthier neighborhoods. Anyone who came up on them would know they were wrong.

“These houses are nice,” said Cody.

“Big trees, too,” said Baker. “This here’s a burglar’s paradise during the day.”

They were in Friendship Heights. Baker had done some break-ins in neighborhoods just like this one. Two men in, one lookout in the car. Go directly to the master bedroom and toss it. People liked to keep their jewelry, furs, and cash close to where they slept. But he and his crew had been retired from that game by the law. He wasn’t about to go back to prison for a fur coat. If he was going to fall, it would be for something worthwhile.

“All this money,” said Cody. “Why they not drivin nicer whips?”

“Look careful,” said Baker. “They’re showing that they got it in a quiet way, but they’re sayin something else, too.”

This was not the new-money, look-what’s-in-my-driveway lifestyle of a Potomac or a McLean. The residents here had it, but they did not care to advertise it. Their cars weren’t flashy, even when they were fast, but they were fairly new and environmentally correct. All-wheel-drive Volvos, Saab sedans, SUV hybrids, Infiniti Gs, and Acuras lined the streets.

“They sayin, ‘Look at me,’ ” said Baker. “ ‘I can afford a Mercedes, but I choose not to own one.’ They gonna spend fifty thousand dollars on a Lexus hybrid so they can save a few miles per gallon on gas and boast about it at their next dinner party. But ask one of these motherfuckers to give a thousand dollars to a school on the other side of town, so a poor black kid can have a computer and a chance? You gonna see the door slam right in your face.”

How do you know? thought Deon, tiring of the cynical drawl in Baker’s voice. When have you ever done anything for any kind of kid, poor or otherwise?

“Ain’t that right, Deon?”

Deon adjusted his body. He had big legs and was uncomfortable in the small backseat. “Right, Mr. Charles.”

“I can’t stand these people,” said Baker, and Cody nodded his head.

“Can we go?” said Deon.

“In a minute,” said Baker.

Deon wasn’t comfortable in this part of the city. Even when he dressed right, even when he was straight, he got looks. It wasn’t just his color, though that was a large part of the reaction. The locals could sense he didn’t belong here. Once he bought a shirt from one of those stores over on Wisconsin Avenue, on what they called the Rodeo Drive of Chevy Chase, and when he took it to the register, they asked for his ID, even though he was paying cash. His mother told him he should have asked why, but he had been too humiliated to question the clerk. He never went shopping on that fancy strip of stores again.

The side door to the four-square colonial opened. A tall, thin man in a sport jacket and slacks stepped out of the house. His hair was thick, gray, and on the long side, falling a little over his ears. He held a leash, and on the end of it was a fat dachshund. The man stopped to light a cigar, then walked north.

“Every night,” said Baker.

Cody touched the handle of the door.

“Not yet,” said Baker. “Let him go some.”

“How you know he’s not gonna be right back?”

“He’s off to that nice little rec center and ball field they got, just a block or so away. Takes a little while for him to get there ’cause his poor excuse for a dog got them short little legs.”

“Dark ball field be a good place to rob his ass,” said Cody.

“What I want can’t fit in a wallet,” said Baker. “His debt is bigger than that.”

The man cut left on Livingston and disappeared.

“Here you go,” said Baker, handing Cody a security-tinted envelope. The name Peter Whitten was printed on its face.

Cody got out of the car, jogged down the block, and placed the envelope in the mailbox beside the door of the colonial. He returned to the Honda, excited, pink of face, and short of breath.

“Go, boy,” said Baker.

Cody turned the ignition and pulled out of the space. They drove east, headed back to their side of town.

Vicki had gone to bed early, as she tended to do since Gus was killed. She could not bear to watch the serial-killer and autopsy shows that dominated the television schedule late in the evening, and she had never been a reader. Alex spent most nights in his chair in the living room, alone, with a trade paperback and a glass of red wine. He still read novels but alternated them with biographies, battlefield memoirs written by soldiers, and nonfiction books about the politics of war.

The house ticked and settled. Johnny was out with his friends, and Vicki by now was asleep. Alex dog-eared the page and poured out the rest of his wine in the kitchen sink. He left a light on for Johnny and went upstairs.

He entered Gus’s bedroom. They had kept it as it was. Neither he nor Vicki had been able to box up his football trophies, give away his clothing, or take down the posters Gus had tacked to his walls. Alex had talked about relocating, selling the house and moving on, but both of them decided that leaving the house would mean leaving Gus behind.

Alex wasn’t mentally unsound. A year ago, he had been close enough to madness to know how it felt to be scrambled. After that day, after the men in uniform came to the front door, after they’d buried what was left of Gus, Alex went half crazy with bitterness and rage. He took to hard liquor for the first time in his life. He thought of burning his house down. He had violent thoughts about the president. He talked to God aloud and asked him why he had not taken him first. One black night he asked God why he had not taken Johnny instead of Gus, and cried out for forgiveness until Vicki came to him and took him in her arms.

The woman the army sent explained the stages of grief. He said, “Fuck your stages of grief,” and repeated it to her back as she walked quickly from his house.

It got better. Time passed and it hurt less. He stopped drinking scotch. He grew tired of being angry. He wrote a letter to the army shrink and apologized. He had a business to run, a wife to take care of. He wanted to see Johnny settled. He wanted a grandson.

Alex looked at Gus’s bookshelf, which held few books but many trophies, mostly from his days in Pop Warner, the good years for Gus that were Alex’s best years, too. Driving the boys to the games, hearing their conversations, boasts, and predictions as their favorite hip-hop tunes played in the car. After the game, Gus on one knee, sometimes happy, sometimes tearful, listening intently to his coach, steam rising off his head, sweat beaded and streaked on his face, sod clumped in the cage of the helmet he cradled against his chest. Gus slept with a football then. His goal was to play for the Hurricanes. He wanted his father to move them to Florida so he could train year-round.

He was not much of a student. He was goal oriented only in athletics and at work, where he spent summers with his father down at the coffee shop, delivering food. His high school football career was a disappointment due to the limited talent and lackluster efforts of his teammates, and his grades were substandard. By his senior year, it was clear that he was not headed for college. A recruitment officer who hung around the strip mall near his high school began to talk to him. Gus was the perfect candidate: fit and strong, not particularly book smart, eager to test himself and tie his manhood to training and the battlefield. He watched commercials that made soldiering seem like a cross between a knight’s quest, an Outward Bound adventure, and a video game, and they filled him with emotion. Gus wanted to scale the mountain, pull the sword from the stone, and face the dragon. He enlisted at the age of eighteen.

“Don’t worry, Dad. When I come back, we’ll grow the business together.”

“That’s what the sign says,” said Alex, bringing his son roughly into his arms and hugging him tightly. “I’m keeping it for you, boy.”

Shortly after his nineteenth birthday, Gus was killed by a makeshift bomb detonated beneath his Humvee, west of Baghdad.

Alex held a trophy in his hand and read its plate: Gus Pappas, MVP, 1998. At the Boys Club banquet, Gus had swaggered to the podium to receive the award, stopping to replicate the Heisman pose to the laughter of his teammates.

“Son,” said Alex softly, replacing the trophy on the dusty shelf. And, as he often did on nights like this one, he thought, Why?