“Some? I hear tell everybody up North got big money.”
“Lotta people up North got nothing.” Milkman made his voice pleasant, but he knew something was developing.
“That’s hard to believe. Why would anybody want to stay there if they ain’t no big money?”
“The sights, I guess.” Another man answered the first. “The sights and the women.”
“You kiddin,” said the first man in mock dismay. “You mean to tell me pussy different up North?”
“Naw,” said the second. “Pussy the same everywhere. Smell like the ocean; taste like the sea.”
“Can’t be,” said a third. “Got to be different.”
“Maybe the pricks is different.” The first man spoke again.
“Reckon?” asked the second man.
“So I hear tell,” said the first man.
“How different?” asked the second man.
“Wee little,” said the first man. “Wee, wee little.”
“Naw!” said the second man.
“So they tell me. That’s why they pants so tight. That true?” The first man looked at Milkman for an answer.
“I wouldn’t know,” said Milkman. “I never spent much time smacking my lips over another man’s dick.” Everybody smiled, including Milkman. It was about to begin.
“What about his ass hole? Ever smack your lips over that?”
“Once,” said Milkman. “When a little young nigger made me mad and I had to jam a Coke bottle up his ass.”
“What’d you use a bottle for? Your cock wouldn’t fill it?”
“It did. After I took the Coke bottle out. Filled his mouth too.”
“Prefer mouth, do you?”
“If it’s big enough, and ugly enough, and belongs to a ignorant motherfucker who is about to get the livin shit whipped out of him.”
The knife glittered.
Milkman laughed. “I ain’t seen one of those since I was fourteen. Where I come from
The first man smiled. “That’s me, motherfucker. Scared to death I’m gonna lose.”
Milkman did the best he could with a broken bottle, but his face got slit, so did his left hand, and so did his pretty beige suit, and he probably would have had his throat cut if two women hadn’t come running in screaming, “Saul! Saul!”
The store was full of people by then and the women couldn’t get through. The men tried to shush them, but they kept on screaming and provided enough lull for Mr. Solomon to interrupt the fight.
“All right. All right. That’s enough of that.”
“Shut your mouth, Solomon.”
“Get them women outta here.”
“Stick him, Saul, stick that cocksucker.”
But Saul had a jagged cut over his eye and the blood pouring from it made it hard to see. It was difficult but not impossible for Mr. Solomon to pull him away. He left cursing Milkman, but his fervor was gone.
Milkman backed up against the counter, waiting to see if anybody else was going to jump him. When it looked as if no one was, and when the people were drifting outside to watch Saul scuffling and cursing at the men pulling him away, he slumped a little and wiped his face. When the entire store save for the owner was empty, Milkman hurled the broken bottle into a corner. It careened by the cooler and bounced off the wall before splintering on the floor. He walked outside, still panting, and looked around. Four older men still sat on the porch, as though nothing had happened. Blood was streaming down Milkman’s face, but it had dried on his hand. He kicked at a white hen and sat down on the top step, wiping the blood with his handkerchief. Three young women with nothing in their hands stood in the road looking at him. Their eyes were wide but noncommittal. Children joined them, circling the women like birds. Nobody said anything. Even the four men on the porch were quiet. Nobody came toward him, offered him a cigarette or a glass of water. Only the children and the hens walked around. Under the hot sun, Milkman was frozen with anger. If he’d had a weapon, he would have slaughtered everybody in sight.
“You pretty good with a bottle. How you with a shotgun?” One of the older men had sidled up to him. The smile on his face was faint. It was as though now that the young men had had their chance, with unsatisfactory results, the older men would take over. Their style, of course, would be different. No name-calling toilet contest for them. No knives either, or hot breath and knotted neck muscles. They would test him, match and beat him, probably, on some other ground.
“Best shot there is,” Milkman lied.
“That so?”
“Yeah, it’s so.”
“Some of us is going huntin later on. Care to join us?”
“That toothless motherfucker going too?”
