“The white one?”
“Yes, that’s it. The white one.”
“Thank you.” They turned to walk away.
“Thank you. No, I mean, you’re welcome,” said Lois.
“He works across the street,” sang out Emma. “You may have to look for him there.” They shut the door and went back to the window.
“Look how they walk!” said Emma. “It’s indecent.”
“It comes from their oppression,” said Lois, as though she understood and had compassion for the world and all its people. “They’re miserable people. It’s such a crime the way they’re treated—they are so frightened of us.”
“You know what they say about them. The men, I mean—” “Emma!”
John was alone when the three came into the garage.
“You John Montgomery?” said the tallest, pushing the newspaper clipping toward him.
John took it in his own hand and put it down. “Yes,” he said.
Without talking, one of them left. The other two watched John and smiled when he looked directly at them and shuffled their feet with their hands in their pockets—making themselves out to be buffoons. John marveled at the subtlety with which they had learned to appear physically unthreatening, making themselves into clownish figures. But beneath that lay hate, maybe so far down that it would never come out, but, through John’s eyes, undeniably, irrevocably there. He felt the impasse—the barriers. The men had told him that two weeks ago, but he hadn’t believed them. They’d kill you just for the chance. He looked at them and wondered if it would be true. There was no way of telling. Too much hidden.
These thoughts filled his mind. Then into the open doorway stepped the fourth—the one who had not come in with the other three—and in the first instant of looking at him John knew why they’d come. They’d brought a champion—someone whose feelings, they thought, could outstrip even a dying saint’s. John looked at him again and decided no, it had been his own idea to come. He was slightly bigger than a person needed to be and three inches blacker than any of his companions. John couldsee why they had wanted him to stay in the car. He was conspicuous—the kind of man a band of hooligans would love to tear apart and hang up in a tree—the kind of man who would never be safe outside his own neighborhood. As might be imagined, his hate was very close to the surface. Handsome and proud.
“That’s him,” said his friend, coming in behind him.
“I can see that,” he said, staring at John.
He’s presumptuous, thought John. I didn’t really mean for them to come here. They should’ve written or something first.
“How do you want to hol’ this here thing?”
“What?” asked John, knowing at the same time what he meant. But before the champion could answer, five Sharon Centerites from a bigger crowd across the street came in and sat down and began pulling out sodas from the machine.
“ ’Lo, John,” said Marion.
“Sure is hot,” said Phil Jordan.
“You ought to get a fan put in here,” said Sy.
“And a swimming pool.”
“I didn’t think you’d be working today, Marion,” said Henry Yoder, walking in and over to the machine. “ ’Lo, John.”
All of this as if there were no one else for ten miles. Across the street was a group of men and women trying to look natural standing at the very edge of Mrs. Miller’s lawn, next to the corner, nearest the garage door without being on the same side of the street.
Ernie came in the side door without knowing, and had to walk in among the black men to get over to the others. “Excuse me,” he said. “Excuse me,” and passed through them looking at his hands, as though he were walking around four rain barrels which, after he got out of their area, were rolled away by four invisible barrel-rollers.
“Afternoon, Ernie,” said Marion.
“Afternoon,” said Ernie. “I see you’re not working today. That makes me feel better, because when a hard worker like you—”
“Listen to that! Listen to that!” said Marion.
John stuffed the advertisement into his back pocket, and blushed.
Somehow he managed to get rid of his neighbors and close his garage door, sealing the building in a cloak of mystery. The champion sent his friends out to the car to wait for him, as a returned courtesy. They closed the side door and faced each other.
“How you want to begin this here thing?”
“I can lift that anvil,” said John. “I can pick it up by the horn.”
“Come on, man, that kind of thing ain’t it.” Pause. “Sure, OK. I’ll pick it up.”
“Forget it,” said John. “You’re right. It doesn’t have much to do with that.”
“No you don’t. You think I can’t. You saying in your mind, ‘He can’t . . . he ain’t the real thing.’ “ The black muscles tightened. The jaw fixed. The anvil came off the ground. He dropped it.
Then John picked it up.
“We’ve got some in the city,” the black man said, “who could pick that up with their teeth.”
“We got them too,” said John. “What’s your name?”
“Prentiss Hilton Brown,” he said, with great dignity. “I already know yours, so let’s get down to what’s this all about.” He took his pocket knife out of his pocket, opened it and went over to the workbench. He cleaned the tools away from an area so that only the dark grease- and oil-stained wood was exposed. Then he opened the front of his pants, took out his penis and laid it out on the table, standing up close to do it. He pushed the knife into the wood as a marker for the length of his soft organ, resealed it back inside his pants and looked at John. The polished knife blade stood poised straight down into the wood, a respectable length from the edge.
My God, thought John, and was so embarrassed and shocked it took him a minute to move or speak—staring as though hypnotized at
