Read Online Tuff by Paul Beatty - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Paul Beatty
Tags: General Fiction
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extremely abridged version of Poe’s “The Raven,” doing a laudable job with just the slightest hesitation at the word “surcease,” and delivering the last lines with the appropriate morbid panache: “And my soul from out that shadow that lies / floating on the floor, / Shall be lifted—nevermore!” Clarence took a deep bow and the actor, his eyes welled with tears, looked into the camera and said, “Isn’t he the little Eliza Doolittle? Make a black boy’s dreams reality, call now.” Winston concentrated on memorizing the number sailing across the bottom of the screen.
Serenaded by the canonical poesy, Jordy had fallen asleep. Winston pressed his ear to his son’s heaving chest and listened to his heartbeat. “You know, little nigger, you was almost fatherless today? A hot second away from growing up to be one of those hard-to-handle motherfuckers. Having to listen to your mother whine, ‘Oh, ever since your daddy died you’ve been impossible.’ Yeah, I saved you from much grief. You’d be crying at night, cursing me because I left you. But I ain’t going nowhere, dog. I got a plan to get my shit together. Put all my caca in one big pile.”
Lifting his right pantleg, Winston scratched the surface of his tattoo: a cherry-red heart, ventricles and all, looking as if it could really pump blood, sitting atop a flaming Grecian torch, coiled concertina wire binding the disparate items together. The tattoo sat about an inch above his ankle and just below the tan line created by cotton crew socks—next to his palms and the bottoms of his feet, the lightest places on his body. Above the heart, in an elegantly smooth cursive, flowing like a solitary ribbon trailing a Red Square gymnast on May Day, was the epigram: BRENDA—I KNOW YOU DIDN’T LEAVE ME ON PURPOSE. I AIN’T MAD AT YOU . Winston told the tattoo artist that he wanted the words legible. “You know them notes in the old black-and-white movies? The star never opens the note and starts squinting, and moving the paper every-which-away, going, ‘What the fuck does this say?’ ”
Winston pressed gently on the borders of his handiwork, as if the skin were still reddened and tender. “What you think about an uncle, Jordy? Get a Big Brother who’ll teach me how to spell, so I can be a movie critic. No, wait. That’s out. You never see no black movie critics. Matter of fact, you never see niggers talk about anything that don’t involve other niggers—well, there’s that fag weatherman on Channel 7. ‘Scattered clouds and drizzles through early morning, oh joy.’ But that’s the move though. Get a designated nigger in my life. An educated motherfucker who’ll provide me with some focus and guidance and shit. Channel 7 will have a real nigger doing the weather. ‘Yo, it’s brick out there today. Cold as hell. You niggers with security jobs dress warm or sneak in the lady. Better yet, quit.’ And Jordy, whatever I learn from my Big Brother I’m going to pass down to your ass. Boy, your father going to be one of those pipe-smoking,
Wall Street Journal–reading
motherfuckers, because I’m tired of being one of these bummy
Raisin in the Sun
niggers.”
4 - T HE S TOOP
T he clicks and buzzes of the lottery machine conveyed an almost telluric importance as it hiccuped the pastel-colored tickets into the operator’s hand one by one. It was as if its grinding sounds somehow helped to keep the world spinning on its axis, or least the neighborhood from collapsing into total ruin. “Okay, 2-2-1 dollar box, 8-4-7 dollar straight, 3-7-3-1 both ways a dollar.” The operator dutifully punched in Winston’s numbers. “5-2-2-4 dollar straight, fifty-cent box.” Yolanda knocked the operator’s hand away from the panel. “One second, Denesh. Winston, where did you get these numbers from?”
“I told you, I’m changing my life. And I’m starting with changing my numbers.”
“But you’re changing
my
numbers.”
“
Our
numbers,
Serenaded by the canonical poesy, Jordy had fallen asleep. Winston pressed his ear to his son’s heaving chest and listened to his heartbeat. “You know, little nigger, you was almost fatherless today? A hot second away from growing up to be one of those hard-to-handle motherfuckers. Having to listen to your mother whine, ‘Oh, ever since your daddy died you’ve been impossible.’ Yeah, I saved you from much grief. You’d be crying at night, cursing me because I left you. But I ain’t going nowhere, dog. I got a plan to get my shit together. Put all my caca in one big pile.”
Lifting his right pantleg, Winston scratched the surface of his tattoo: a cherry-red heart, ventricles and all, looking as if it could really pump blood, sitting atop a flaming Grecian torch, coiled concertina wire binding the disparate items together. The tattoo sat about an inch above his ankle and just below the tan line created by cotton crew socks—next to his palms and the bottoms of his feet, the lightest places on his body. Above the heart, in an elegantly smooth cursive, flowing like a solitary ribbon trailing a Red Square gymnast on May Day, was the epigram: BRENDA—I KNOW YOU DIDN’T LEAVE ME ON PURPOSE. I AIN’T MAD AT YOU . Winston told the tattoo artist that he wanted the words legible. “You know them notes in the old black-and-white movies? The star never opens the note and starts squinting, and moving the paper every-which-away, going, ‘What the fuck does this say?’ ”
Winston pressed gently on the borders of his handiwork, as if the skin were still reddened and tender. “What you think about an uncle, Jordy? Get a Big Brother who’ll teach me how to spell, so I can be a movie critic. No, wait. That’s out. You never see no black movie critics. Matter of fact, you never see niggers talk about anything that don’t involve other niggers—well, there’s that fag weatherman on Channel 7. ‘Scattered clouds and drizzles through early morning, oh joy.’ But that’s the move though. Get a designated nigger in my life. An educated motherfucker who’ll provide me with some focus and guidance and shit. Channel 7 will have a real nigger doing the weather. ‘Yo, it’s brick out there today. Cold as hell. You niggers with security jobs dress warm or sneak in the lady. Better yet, quit.’ And Jordy, whatever I learn from my Big Brother I’m going to pass down to your ass. Boy, your father going to be one of those pipe-smoking,
Wall Street Journal–reading
motherfuckers, because I’m tired of being one of these bummy
Raisin in the Sun
niggers.”
4 - T HE S TOOP
T he clicks and buzzes of the lottery machine conveyed an almost telluric importance as it hiccuped the pastel-colored tickets into the operator’s hand one by one. It was as if its grinding sounds somehow helped to keep the world spinning on its axis, or least the neighborhood from collapsing into total ruin. “Okay, 2-2-1 dollar box, 8-4-7 dollar straight, 3-7-3-1 both ways a dollar.” The operator dutifully punched in Winston’s numbers. “5-2-2-4 dollar straight, fifty-cent box.” Yolanda knocked the operator’s hand away from the panel. “One second, Denesh. Winston, where did you get these numbers from?”
“I told you, I’m changing my life. And I’m starting with changing my numbers.”
“But you’re changing
my
numbers.”
“
Our
numbers,
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