it? They must not have seen it. This I do not understand.'
'Sometimes folk don't want to see,' Cincinnatus said. 'I reckon that had a lot to do with it.'
'But why would anyone blind himself on purpose?' Thorstein asked, seeming more bewildered still.
Cincinnatus had asked himself the same question, more than once. He said, 'Seems to me they got a choice. They can look square in the mirror and see how ugly they are, or they can be blind. Looks like they done picked what they aim to do.'
'Uh- huh.' Olaf Thorstein chewed on that. At last, he asked, 'And what would a Freedom Party man say about what you just said?'
'Oh, that one's easy.' Cincinnatus laughed. 'Reckon he'd say I was an uppity nigger, a crazy nigger. Reckon he'd be right. When I used to live in the CSA, I wouldn't never've said nothin' like that. Colored fella livin' in the CSA got to be crazy to talk that way. But I been in the USA since 1914 now. This ain't no great place for black folks-don't reckon there's anywhere that's a great place for black folks-but you take it all in all an' it's a lot better than the Confederate States ever was. I got me a chance here-not a good one, maybe, but a chance. Down there?' He shook his head. 'No way, nohow, not before the Freedom Party, an' not now, neither.'
Again, Thorstein thought before he spoke. 'I have never heard a Negro talk so freely of these things,' he said, and then shrugged. 'How many Negroes are there in Des Moines for me to talk to?'
'Not many. We're thin on the ground here. We're thin on the ground all over the USA,' Cincinnatus said. And maybe that's why things are a little easier for us here, he thought. White folks in the USA don't like us much, but they ain't afraid of us like in the Confederate States. Not enough of us here to be afraid of.
'I hope I have not delayed you too much,' the furniture-store owner said. 'I know you need as much work as you can get. Who does not, the way things are these days?'
'It's all right, Mr. Thorstein. Don't you worry about it none,' Cincinnatus said, for Thorstein really did sound concerned. 'When I seen in the paper that that Featherston fella won, I was so upset, I didn't know what to do. Times gonna be hard for colored folks down in the CSA-gonna be real hard. Glad I got me a chance to talk about it some.'
He was less glad when he got back to the railroad yard just in time to see another driver go off with a choice load that might have been his had he returned five minutes earlier. But he got a load for himself half an hour after that, when a train full of canned salmon from the Northwest puffed to a stop. Several groceries were waiting for their fish, and he took them a lot of it.
He was tired but happy-he'd made good money that day-when he got back to his apartment building and parked the truck in front of it. Joey Chang, the Chinaman who lived upstairs, was checking his mailbox when Cincinnatus walked into the lobby. 'Hello,' Cincinnatus said, affably enough. He got on well with Chang, who brewed good beer in a dry state.
'Hello,' Chang answered, his English flavored with an accent unlike any other Cincinnatus had heard. 'We talk a few minutes?'
'Sure,' Cincinnatus said in some surprise. 'What's on your mind?'
'Your son Achilles ask my daughter Grace to go to the cinema with him,' Chang replied. 'What you think of this?'
' Did he?' Cincinnatus said, and the other man solemnly nodded. Achilles had said he thought Grace Chang was cute. As Olaf Thorstein had remarked, there weren't that many Negroes in Des Moines. If Achilles found somebody he might like who wasn't a Negro… Well, if he did, what then? 'What do you think of that, Mr. Chang?' Cincinnatus asked.
'Don't know what to think,' Chang said, which struck Cincinnatus as basically honest. He went on, 'Your Achilles good boy. I don't say he not good boy, you understand? But he not Chinese.'
Cincinnatus nodded. He had similar reservations about Grace. He asked, 'What's your daughter think?'
'She is modern. She wants to be modern.' Mr. Chang made it sound like a curse. 'She says, what difference it make? But it makes a difference, oh yes.'
'Sure does,' Cincinnatus said. The laundryman gave him a surprised look. Perhaps Chang hadn't thought a Negro might mind if his son wanted to take a Chinese girl to the cinema. After scratching his head, Cincinnatus went on, 'Maybe we just ought to let 'em go out and not say anything about it. Going to the moving pictures together ain't like gettin' married. And if we tell 'em no, that'll only make 'em want to do it more to rile us up. Leastways, Achilles is like that. Dunno 'bout your Grace.'
'Her, too,' Chang said morosely. 'The more I do not like, the more she does. Modern.' He made the word sound even worse than he had before. Now he screwed up his face. 'Yes, maybe we do this. I talk to my wife, see what she say.' By his tone, whatever Mrs. Chang decided would prevail.
'Fair enough,' Cincinnatus said. 'I'll talk to Elizabeth, too-and to Achilles.'
His wife wasn't home yet. Neither was his son. After graduating from high school, Achilles was doing odd jobs and looking-along with so many others-for something more permanent. He got home before Elizabeth did, and set two dollars on the kitchen table, where Amanda sat doing homework. He was a good kid; he brought his pay home every day he worked.
As casually as Cincinnatus could, he said, 'Hear you're goin' to the pictures with Grace Chang.' Amanda dropped her pencil.
Achilles glared defiance. 'That's right. What about it? I think some of the money I make ought to be mine to have some fun with. Don't you?'
Having fun with the money wasn't the point. Having fun with Grace Chang was. But all Cincinnatus said was, 'Reckon I do. It's all right with me. Just wish I'd've heard about it from you and not from Grace's pa.'
Set for a fight, Achilles didn't seem to know what to do when he didn't get one. 'Oh,' he said, and left his mouth hanging open. After a long moment, he added, 'I figured you'd have a fit.' Another pause, even longer. 'Maybe I was wrong.'
'Maybe you was,' Cincinnatus agreed. 'No matter what you think, son, I ain't quite one o' them dinosaur things. Not quite.' He waited out one more pause. At last, Achilles nodded. His agreement made Cincinnatus feel he'd done a few things right after all.
T hanksgiving was supposed to be one of the happiest days of the year. When Chester Martin and Rita went to his parents' apartment for dinner, that was in the back of his mind. In the front of his mind was the chance to stuff himself till he was about ready to burst at the seams. The money his father had given him let his wife and him keep their own apartment and keep eating. It didn't let them keep eating well. He was sick of cabbage and potatoes and boiled noodles and day-old brown bread.
'Turkey,' he said dreamily as he and Rita got off the trolley and walked toward the block of flats where he'd lived so long. The weather was sunny but crisp-a perfect late November afternoon. ' Roast turkey. Stuffing with giblet gravy.' He'd eaten a lot of giblets since losing his job, but they belonged in gravy. 'Mashed potatoes. Sweet potatoes. Rolls and butter. Pumpkin pie. Apple pie, too. Whipped cream.'
'Stop it, Chester,' Rita said. 'I'm going to drool on my shoes.' A motorcar went by. Somebody inside waved. The Chevrolet parked in front of the apartment building. 'There's your sister and her husband and little Pete.'
'I see 'em.' Chester waved back. His brother-in-law, Otis Blake, worked in a plate-glass plant and still had a job. He'd never given Chester a hard time about losing his. He couldn't very well, not when his own brother was out of work.
'Uncle Chester! Aunt Rita!' Pete Blake, who was five, hit Chester in the knees with a tackle harder than a good many he'd met on the gridiron.
'Careful there, tiger.' Martin ruffled his hair. 'You almost knocked me on my can. You gonna be a tough guy when you grow up?'
'Tough guy!' Pete yelled. Then he gave Rita a kiss. Either he wasn't so tough yet, or he knew a pretty girl when he saw one.
Chester hugged Sue and shook hands with her husband. Otis Blake had his blond hair permanently parted in the middle by a scar from a scalp wound during the war. An inch lower and he wouldn't have been standing there. 'How are you?' he asked now.
With a shrug, Martin answered, 'I'm still here. They haven't knocked me out yet.'
'Good,' Blake said. 'That's good.'
'Come on. Let's go up to the place,' Sue said. She turned to Pete. 'You want to see Gramps and Grandma, don't you?'
