Read Online Tuff by Paul Beatty - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Paul Beatty
Tags: General Fiction
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baby.”
“How much did you put in the pot?”
“Two dollars.”
“Okay, then you get to change two dollars’ worth of numbers.”
Yolanda handed Winston a stubby green pencil and a computer punch card and shoved him away from the counter. “Winston, fill out this week’s Lotto, and stop messing with my numbers.” He pretended to reel from Yolanda’s push and stumbled toward the rack of vacuum-sealed pastries.“I hate these stubby fucking pencils, they don’t have any erasers. If I fill in ‘44’ instead of ‘45,’ I might fuck up the rest of my life because these stupid pencils for midgets don’t have erasers.”
Yolanda laughed. “You thought you were slick, ‘5-2-2-4 dollar straight, fifty-cent box.’ Like I wouldn’t care because it was only a fifty-cent play. Hoo boy, between you and this Big Brother crap and changing my numbers.”
“Almost had your ass, though.”
“You didn’t have shit.”
“Shit, for a second you was like, ‘Hmmm, I like when my man is assertive. Listen to my nigger, “Fifty-cent box.” Doing his thing.’ ” Winston stuffed a cupcake into his mouth and hurriedly filled in his application for a worry-free future. Fariq and the rest of the gang were waiting.
F ariq sat atop his concrete rostrum, the top stair of his 109th Street stoop, poring over a magazine. His eyebrows gull-winged in concentration, Fariq spat business jargon from his mouth like the morning remnants of last night’s tortilla chips. “Earnings per share, decent. Median operating margin, about average. Market value, twenty-four-point-six mil. Profits as of … nothing special. Stockholder’s equity, fifteen-point-seven percent, no shit?” Fariq’s girlfriend, a thin, swaybacked woman named Nadine Primo, slid in closer to him, deposited her chin on his shoulder, and, pointing to the page, said, “This one has a nice employee-to-sales ratio.”
The three men lounging on the stairs below were growing impatient. “What the fuck you talking about, Smush?” asked Armello Solcedo, a lanky half-Dominican, half–Puerto Rican. “I didn’t come out here to waste my Sunday watching you read a magazine,
entiendes
?” Jabbing a thumb at their skeptic friends, Nadine said to Fariq, “Show them.” Fariq removed the magazine from his lap and, with the infinite patience of a kindergarten teacher for his charges, panned it slowly past the blank faces of his boys. “My brothers, this is what we need to be about this summer—major dollars. Economic self-reliance.”
“What the fuck you tripping on?” Asked Winston, rolling down the sidewalk, hand in hand with Yolanda, cradling Jordy like a football. “Your crippled ass
still
reading them kung fu mags? I don’t know why you all excited, they been printing the same articles since I was five. ‘Bruce Lee’sOne-Inch Punch and Other Powerful Jeet Kun Do Techniques Revealed Here—for the First Time Ever.’ With a picture of him doing a one-finger push-up.”
He stopped at the base of the stoop. Every important decision Winston had ever made had been made while sitting on this stoop, from saying yes to his first beer to deciding not to ask Yolanda to get an abortion. He looked over at the kids playing stickball in the street. A boy who had just finished legging out a triple used the last of his breath to gloat in front of the third baseman: “I’ll hit your pitcher all motherfucking day!” If all the world’s a stage, the stoop at 258 East 109th Street was his proscenium of Ghetto Tragedy. Yolanda guided her sheepish man by the elbow. “C’mon, Tuffy, let’s sit.” The couple, dressed alike from sneaker to fisherman’s hat in matching green-and-blue-striped cabana suits, worked their way up the stairs, gingerly stepping over and around the bramble of knobby knees and spindly legs until they settled in a space next to the wrought-iron rail reserved for them. Pleased to see them, the crew, excepting Fariq, greeted Winston and Yolanda with
“How much did you put in the pot?”
“Two dollars.”
“Okay, then you get to change two dollars’ worth of numbers.”
Yolanda handed Winston a stubby green pencil and a computer punch card and shoved him away from the counter. “Winston, fill out this week’s Lotto, and stop messing with my numbers.” He pretended to reel from Yolanda’s push and stumbled toward the rack of vacuum-sealed pastries.“I hate these stubby fucking pencils, they don’t have any erasers. If I fill in ‘44’ instead of ‘45,’ I might fuck up the rest of my life because these stupid pencils for midgets don’t have erasers.”
Yolanda laughed. “You thought you were slick, ‘5-2-2-4 dollar straight, fifty-cent box.’ Like I wouldn’t care because it was only a fifty-cent play. Hoo boy, between you and this Big Brother crap and changing my numbers.”
“Almost had your ass, though.”
“You didn’t have shit.”
“Shit, for a second you was like, ‘Hmmm, I like when my man is assertive. Listen to my nigger, “Fifty-cent box.” Doing his thing.’ ” Winston stuffed a cupcake into his mouth and hurriedly filled in his application for a worry-free future. Fariq and the rest of the gang were waiting.
F ariq sat atop his concrete rostrum, the top stair of his 109th Street stoop, poring over a magazine. His eyebrows gull-winged in concentration, Fariq spat business jargon from his mouth like the morning remnants of last night’s tortilla chips. “Earnings per share, decent. Median operating margin, about average. Market value, twenty-four-point-six mil. Profits as of … nothing special. Stockholder’s equity, fifteen-point-seven percent, no shit?” Fariq’s girlfriend, a thin, swaybacked woman named Nadine Primo, slid in closer to him, deposited her chin on his shoulder, and, pointing to the page, said, “This one has a nice employee-to-sales ratio.”
The three men lounging on the stairs below were growing impatient. “What the fuck you talking about, Smush?” asked Armello Solcedo, a lanky half-Dominican, half–Puerto Rican. “I didn’t come out here to waste my Sunday watching you read a magazine,
entiendes
?” Jabbing a thumb at their skeptic friends, Nadine said to Fariq, “Show them.” Fariq removed the magazine from his lap and, with the infinite patience of a kindergarten teacher for his charges, panned it slowly past the blank faces of his boys. “My brothers, this is what we need to be about this summer—major dollars. Economic self-reliance.”
“What the fuck you tripping on?” Asked Winston, rolling down the sidewalk, hand in hand with Yolanda, cradling Jordy like a football. “Your crippled ass
still
reading them kung fu mags? I don’t know why you all excited, they been printing the same articles since I was five. ‘Bruce Lee’sOne-Inch Punch and Other Powerful Jeet Kun Do Techniques Revealed Here—for the First Time Ever.’ With a picture of him doing a one-finger push-up.”
He stopped at the base of the stoop. Every important decision Winston had ever made had been made while sitting on this stoop, from saying yes to his first beer to deciding not to ask Yolanda to get an abortion. He looked over at the kids playing stickball in the street. A boy who had just finished legging out a triple used the last of his breath to gloat in front of the third baseman: “I’ll hit your pitcher all motherfucking day!” If all the world’s a stage, the stoop at 258 East 109th Street was his proscenium of Ghetto Tragedy. Yolanda guided her sheepish man by the elbow. “C’mon, Tuffy, let’s sit.” The couple, dressed alike from sneaker to fisherman’s hat in matching green-and-blue-striped cabana suits, worked their way up the stairs, gingerly stepping over and around the bramble of knobby knees and spindly legs until they settled in a space next to the wrought-iron rail reserved for them. Pleased to see them, the crew, excepting Fariq, greeted Winston and Yolanda with
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