The two Tommys were cleaning up. “Closed,” they said to a man who poked his face in the door. “Shop’s closing.” The conversation died down and the men who were just hanging around seemed reluctant to go. Guitar too, but finally he slipped on his jacket, shadow-boxed with Empire State, and joined Milkman at the door. Southside shops were featuring feeble wreaths and lights, made more feeble by the tacky Yuletide streamers and bells the city had strung up on the lampposts. Only downtown were the lights large, bright, festive, and full of hope.
The two men walked down Tenth Street, headed for Guitar’s room.
“Freaky,” said Milkman. “Some freaky shit.”
“Freaky world,” said Guitar. “A freaky, fucked-up world.”
Milkman nodded. “Railroad Tommy said the boy had on saddle shoes.”
“Did he?” Guitar asked.
“Did he? You know he did. You were laughing right along with the rest of us.”
Guitar glanced at him. “What you opening your nose for?”
“I know when I’m being put off.”
“Then that’s what it is, man. Nothing else. Maybe I don’t feel like discussing it.”
“You mean you don’t feel like discussing it with me. You were full of discussion in Tommy’s.”
“Look, Milk, we’ve been tight a long time, right? But that don’t mean we’re not different people. We can’t always think the same way about things. Can’t we leave it like that? There are all kinds of people in this world. Some are curious, some ain’t; some talk, some scream; some are kickers and other people are kicked. Take your daddy, now. He’s a kicker. First time I laid eyes on him, he was kicking us out of our house. That was a difference right there between you and me, but we got to be friends anyway….”
Milkman stopped and forced Guitar to stop too and turn around. “I know you’re not going to give me a bullshit lecture.”
“No lecture, man. I’m trying to tell you something.”
“Well, tell me. Don’t give me no fuckin bullshit lecture.”
“What do you call a lecture?” asked Guitar. “When
“A lecture is when somebody talks to a thirty-one-year-old man like he’s a ten-year-old kid.”
“You want me to talk or not?”
“Go ahead. Talk. Just don’t talk to me in that funny tone. Like you a teacher and I’m some snot-nosed kid.”
“That’s the problem, Milkman. You’re more interested in my tone than in what I’m saying. I’m trying to say that we don’t have to agree on everything; that you and me are different; that—”
“You mean you got some secret shit you don’t want me to know about.”
“I mean there are things that interest me that don’t interest you.”
“How you know they don’t interest me?”
“I know you. Been knowing you. You got your high-tone friends and your picnics on Honore Island and you can afford to spend fifty percent of your brainpower thinking about a piece of ass. You got that red-headed bitch and you got a Southside bitch and no telling what in between.”
“I don’t believe it. After all these years you putting me down because of where I live?”
“Not where you live—where you hang out. You don’t live nowhere. Not Not Doctor Street
“You begrudge me—”
“I don’t begrudge you a thing.”
“You’re welcome everywhere I go. I’ve tried to get you to come to Honore—”
“Fuck Honore! You hear me? The only way I’ll go to that nigger heaven is with a case of dynamite and a book of matches.”
“You used to like it.”
“I never liked it! I went with you, but I never liked it. Never.”
“What’s wrong with Negroes owning beach houses? What do you want, Guitar? You mad at every Negro who ain’t scrubbing floors and picking cotton. This ain’t Montgomery, Alabama.”
Guitar looked at him, first in rage, and then he began to laugh. “You’re right, Milkman. You have never in your life said a truer word. This definitely is not Montgomery, Alabama. Tell me. What would you do if it was? If this turned out to be another Montgomery?”
“Buy a plane ticket.”
“Exactly. Now you know something about yourself you didn’t know before: who you are and what you are.”
“Yeah. A man that refuses to live in Montgomery, Alabama.”
“No. A man that can’t live there. If things ever got tough, you’d melt. You’re not a serious person, Milkman.”
“Serious is just another word for miserable. I know all about serious. My old man is serious. My sisters are serious. And nobody is more serious than my mother. She’s so serious, she wasting away. I was looking at her in
