Disappearing Acts (12 page)

Kendricks walked over to a white guy. “Say, could you tell me where the super is?”

“Who’s looking for him?”

“I am.”

He looked at all eighteen of us, put his hands in his pockets, and then said, “Don’t know,” and kept walking.

We looked at each other, as if to say, It’s gon’ be some shit here today ’cause these motherfuckers already playing games. Somebody musta warned ’em, told ’em we would be here. They always play this silly-ass game when they get tipped.

We walked all around the site, right down into the hole, until we spotted a white dude with papers in his hands. We knew he was the super. Kendricks got close enough to smell his breath.

“Hello, sir.”

“I don’t have no jobs. Got all the men I need right now.”

“Did I
ask
you for a job?”

“You were getting ready to, weren’t you?”

“No. My men and I here are from A Dream Deferred, and we counted thirty-nine men down here and not a single one is black or Hispanic.”

“That’s not true. I got two Cubans, one Hispanic, and two blacks.”

“Where?”

“They just finished the demolition.”

“We’re talking about what we see now. Well, where’s the super for the excavation?”

“He’s down there,” he said, pointing. “But don’t tell him I sent you.”

We walked down to where he was. Kendricks
tapped him on the shoulder. “Excuse me, sir, but we just took a head count, and seems there’s no blacks or Hispanics working on your crew.”

“I’ve got three guys, but two of them are on another job right now, and one isn’t here today.”

“That’s really too bad. If they’re not here, they don’t count. And besides, it ain’t enough anyway. You need at least twelve out of forty.” Kendricks looked around the site again. “The drillers are all white. You’ve got five rigs and you don’t have a black with the driller or the helper. And you’ve got at least ten carpenters and six laborers.”

“Look, I can’t increase my work force. I don’t have any room.”

“Fuck all that shit, man. You know that at least thirty percent of the work force—by trade—is supposed to be black and Hispanic. If you have three men on the job, we’re supposed to get one—by law. And where I live, we’re hundred percent of the population and we still only get fifty percent of the jobs. And I betcha these men are probably from out of town any damn way. Where you live? Connecticut? Jersey? Philly?”

“Look, I got an OEO guy up in the shanty. Talk to him. I don’t have time for this kind of shit.”

“No problem,” Kendricks said, and signaled us to follow him. He knocked on the shanty door, and the brother who opened it stood in the doorway like he wasn’t letting nothing and nobody inside. He was wearing those tortoiseshell glasses, a sports jacket, was high yellow, had his class ring on his right hand and a wide gold band on his left. I’d put money on it that he was married to a white girl. “What do you want?” he asked.

“You know why we here, man, so let’s cut the bullshit,” Kendricks said.

“Say, man, I just came on this job a week ago, and I don’t even have all the figures yet,” he said.

“You don’t need no figures, I got ’em. I just made a head count.”

“Well, make an appointment for the end of the week, and we’ll see if we can put somebody on then.”

Everybody know the OEO person is always black. He gets paid to block blacks and Hispanics from working on the site, and to make us bullshit promises so we won’t stop the job. And to keep the feds off their back, the general contractor’ll hire minorities all right, but they don’t pay them the prevailing wage, and most of ’em don’t even have green cards.

“Look, man,” Kendricks said, “if you can’t put some of my men on today, we gon’ stop the fuckin’ job now.”

He closed the door.

On the way back down in the hole, we picked up some two-by-fours, pipes, and rocks. Kendricks looked at some of the white dudes and said, “Drop your tools. Turn off them engines and stop working.”

The super yelled, “Don’t none of you guys stop working. They aren’t stopping this goddamn job.”

The white dudes didn’t drop or turn off nothing. They just looked at us, to see who was gon’ make the first move. The super turned toward Kendricks and said, “I told you, I don’t need any more men right now.”

“Look around you,” Kendricks said, holding a pipe right next to his thigh. “This is a hundred-and-five-million-dollar contract, and the only
black
guys around here is us. I’ma tell you this one more time. What I have here are eighteen men ready to work. You better put somebody on or else we’ll stop this goddamn job for weeks.”

“You want me to call the cops?”

“Call ’em,” Kendricks said.

This motherfucker whipped out his walkie-talkie and we knew he was talking to Uncle Tom. This wouldn’t be the first time they called the cops on us.

Then Kendricks said, “All I’m trying to do is put some men to work. You’re the one breaking the law. I ain’t breaking the law.”

“I told you. We’ve got enough men. We won’t even be starting the foundation for at least another three weeks. Why don’t you and your men just come back then?”

“We’ll come back then, too. But right now, we got excavators, concrete workers, carpenters—you name it. And we don’t give a goddamn about the men you claim are coming. We got eighteen men right here who are ready to work,
today.
Take at least four or five of ’em now, or won’t nobody make no fuckin’ money today.” Kendricks folded his arms.

“And just what am I supposed to do? Tell the sub he’s got to fire the men he has in order to hire yours?”

“This is America, man. Life just ain’t fair, is it?” The white boys squeezed the handles on their tools. Kendricks was talking plenty of shit, and we was all curious as to how this shit was gon’ go down. We walked right past the super and back over to where the rest of ’em was working. Some of us stepped in front of anything that moved, while another man climbed up next to a driver, and made ’em turn off the ignitions. The rest of the white boys dropped their tools. It was pretty easy today, but sometimes the white boys is ready to fight. Within a few minutes, it was quiet as hell in that hole. And wasn’t nothin’ moving. When we spotted the cops, we still didn’t budge. All three of ’em came down into the hole with their guns out.

“What seems to be the problem here?” one asked all of us.

Kendricks spoke up. “Officer, what we’re doing here is perfectly legal. I’m the director of an organization called A Dream Deferred, whose sole purpose is to assure the Office of Equal Opportunity that at any
construction site where the contract exceeds fifty thousand dollars, that thirty percent of the work force is black and Hispanic. We’re just trying to solve this problem here so we can put some men to work. And since there’s tax abatement money on this site, the super’s breaking the law. We’ve been trying to negotiate, but they don’t want to. So he called you to get us off the site. But we ain’t leaving till some of my men get put on. Simple as that.”

The cops all looked at each other, then around the site.

“Look, we don’t want to press charges,” the super said. “But we’ve told these guys we’d take two men today and set up a meeting to discuss putting on more men.”

All of us brothers looked at each other and tried not to laugh. This motherfucker changed his tune real quick-like. He don’t want this information to get back to the wrong folks. He’d really be up shit’s creek, then.

“Do you have any qualified men?” he asked, with a long sigh.

“Yeah,” Kendricks said. “I’ve got a lot of qualified men. Carpenters and laborers.”

“Then give us two,” he said, “and come back next week and we’ll see what we can do.”

Kendricks looked at one brother, then at me. I was so happy I coulda shit.

I was at the beach, lying on a blanket and reading
One Hundred Years of Solitude
, while I waited for Marie, Portia, and Claudette to show up. Even though I consider them to be my best friends, we don’t see each other that often; everybody’s so busy. The beach wasn’t crowded, because it was a weekday. During the summer, I try to come at least once a week, even though this is the nastiest water I’ve ever seen in my life. A far cry from the Bahamas. Last summer, I got bit by a jellyfish. The most I do now is get my feet wet.

“So was it as good as you thought it would be?” Marie asked. I turned my book facedown and looked up. She was wearing a hot-pink one-piece, and since the girl is six feet tall, has the prettiest legs in the world, and curves in all the right places, she looked fantastic. Her natural hair color was a reddish brown, but the sun had already lightened it a few shades and brought out her freckles.

“I’m not finished with it yet,” I said, even though I knew what she was referring to. It seemed like I’d already told the whole world about Franklin.

“I’m not talking about the damn book.”

“You mean Franklin?”

“Yeah. Now stand up and let me see you. I haven’t seen your fat ass in a two-piece before.”

I stood up.

“Looking good, girl. Go on with your bad self.”

Claudette appeared with a big umbrella in one hand and her baby, Chanelle, in a stroller in the other. Claudette’s one of the darkest, prettiest women I know. Her hair is jet black and hangs down past her shoulders, although she always pulls it back into a ponytail. She likes to swim but hates the sun. As a matter of fact, she had on shorts and a tube top. “So was the cover as good as the book?” she asked, pushing the point of the pole into the sand.

“I wanna know how many inches it is.” That was Portia, of course, who was wearing a white string bikini. She could put Christie Brinkley to shame on any cover of
Sports Illustrated.

“Wait a minute!” I yelled. “This is ridiculous. First of all, to answer your question, Marie: No. It was
better
than I thought it would be, which should answer your question too, Claudette. And, Portia, none of your
damn
business. Let me just say this: It’s big enough.”

“You bitch,” Portia said. “Just tell me what size shoe he wears, how tall he is, and if he’s got big hands. Gives it away every time.”

“That shit is not true,” Claudette said, shaking out her blanket, then rolling Chanelle, who was asleep, over on top of it. “Believe me, you can’t go by that. I’ve had enough tall men with big feet and little dicks to know what I’m talking about. My husband, for one, but I’m not complaining. It’s not the engine, honey, it’s the engineer.”

“Marie, can I have a cigarette?” I asked.

All three of them looked at me like I was crazy.

“A what?”

“You heard me—a cigarette. I don’t need a lecture; just let me have one.”

“Since when did you start smoking?” Claudette asked.

“I smoked when I was in college.”

“So why be stupid and start again?”

“Because I’m nervous, and when I get nervous I eat, and I don’t want to start gaining back what I’ve lost.”

“You’re stupider than you look,” Portia said. “Would you rub some suntan lotion on my back?” I picked up the bottle, and Marie handed me the cigarette anyway. When I finished with Portia’s back, I lit it up.

“You look ridiculous, girl. Turn around and let me rub some of this on your back,” she said.

I shook my head no. That first puff made me dizzy as all get-out. The second one wasn’t so bad. By the third one, I felt like I was high, so I pushed it underneath the sand.

“What are you so damn nervous about?” Marie asked. “We came all the way out here to hear about this Mr. Wonderful, and you haven’t filled us in on a single detail, like can he eat pussy—or if he’s even willing. All you have to tell us is that you’re nervous?”

“All right already. I
think
I’m falling in love. He’s past wonderful. And he feels like a dream come true.”

“And that makes you nervous?” Claudette asked.

“I wasn’t exactly honest with him about a few things.”

Portia looked at me as if she was ready to ask me was it about the epilepsy, then decided against it. “So what?” she said. “Some things we’re supposed to keep to ourself. That’s what’s wrong with women anyway. Get fucked real good, think we’re in love, then we spill our fuckin’ guts, give ’em our love résumés in chronological order, tell ’em all kinds of personal shit that shouldn’t have no bearing or ain’t got nothin’ to do with them, and what kind of information do they give up? Where they were born, how old they are, and where they work and shit. We need to be more like them. And hell, what he don’t know won’t hurt him.” She looked around the beach. “What I wanna know is where the hell are all the men today? It
should be some firemen, policemen—something out here besides all these bald-headed retirees. Damn.”

“They’re at work, which is where you should be,” Claudette said.

“For your information, I’m taking a vacation day. Why aren’t you playing prosecutor?”

“Because when you work for yourself, you make your own hours. What is it you think you should’ve told him?” Claudette asked me, giving Portia the evil eye.

I got a lump in my throat. The baby made a noise. “That I used to be fat. You want me to check the baby?”

“She’s fine, Zora. Is that all? Shoot, it looks like you’ve got it under control, so why bother?”

“Why don’t you just get yourself some diet pills for insurance?” Marie said.

“Don’t you dare,” Claudette said. “You can get addicted to those things.”

“That’s a lie. I take one every now and then, especially when I’ve got a show. All they do is help me stay up, but I’m damn sure not addicted.”

“You drink enough to make up for it,” Portia said.

“Well, at least I don’t auction my pussy just so I can go on a shopping spree. So shut the fuck up, Portia.”

She had a point. And Portia was just about to say something, when Claudette cut in. “Guess who’s pregnant?”

“Not me,” Marie said, and started searching through her beach bag for something.

“It damn sure ain’t me,” Portia said.

“You again?” I asked Claudette.

“Yep. And this is it. We figured we’d go ahead and get it over with. I’m getting my tubes tied after this one.”