The arch protected an oak door that had been painted green in ’64, and again in ’78. The panels on either side of the door were beveled glass when Soupspoon first moved in. The fancy glass had been busted out and replaced with plain glass. The plain glass had been busted out and replaced with pine plank. The graffiti boys put down every curse word they learned in school on those planks.
A large colored man came out of the doorway carrying Soupspoon’s folding chairs and a drawer from his rosewood dresser. He dropped them on the curb, then turned to go back into the building. Another man came out, a white man, carrying the rest of the drawers from the dresser that Soupspoon got when he and Mavis broke up. The white man threw the drawers down, spilling old clothes and bone dominoes out into the greasy, gritty street.
In one of the drawers Soupspoon saw his mouth harp. There was a box of pencils and a bunch of monogrammed handkerchiefs he’d had made when he was a regular on Thursday nights at the Savoy in Chicago. He had sixteen pairs of shoes back then. Each pair a different color to match the suits and sport jackets he wore. They weren’t good shoes. If he wore any one pair for over three weeks running, the soft soles would wear through. But nothing lasted long in the gaudy-colored nightlife of the blues. You looked good and died young, that was the way to play it, because an old bluesman was no better than an old dog.
He wanted to play on that harp, but he couldn’t reach it. He couldn’t even think of standing after being dragged out to the curb like some old broken-down piece of furniture. And anyway, he didn’t have the lip to play a harp anymore; couldn’t even bend his fingers on a cold day in late March when they put old men out to die.
“How much for the guitar?” The white man stood there with an open guitar case in his arms. Soupspoon’s red-enameled twelve-string Gibson lay in the black cardboard case like a king laid out in a poor man’s coffin.
“Fuck you!” Soupspoon shouted, but he sounded like a dog who’d had his voice box cut out.
“What?”
“Goddamn fuck,” Soupspoon wheezed. He pushed himself up by the tattered gold arms of the chair. “I could whip yo’ ass. Now put my guitar down!”
When Soupspoon got to his feet the pain exploded in his hip. He fell to the sidewalk, emitting a hoarse cry that put fear on the white man’s face.
“What’s happenin’ out here, Tony?” The colored man had an armful of Soupspoon’s old suits. The clothes he played music in. The suit he was married in.
“Please, no,” Soupspoon rasped.
“He just fell, Nate. I didn’t do it, I swear I didn’t.”
“Here you go.” Nate dropped the suits and lifted Soupspoon as if he weighed no more than the pile of old clothes.
Nate put the old man back in his chair. He pulled the blankets around his shoulders to cover the smell.
“People from Social Services comin’ to get you, Mr. Wise. Don’t worry, they’ll be here soon.”
“My things,” Soupspoon said as clearly as he could.
“I don’t know,” Nate said. “Mr. Grumbacher said we gotta empty the place. You had notice. You had three months. They’ll be here.”
“My things,” Soupspoon said again. He felt sorry for his poor guitar and for this colored man who didn’t even know how to act with his elders.
“Com’on, Nate.” Tony put his hand on the big black man’s shoulder, and Nate turned away.
When the men were gone, Soupspoon pulled the blanket close. A few people looked down from the hollow windows above. Mrs. Manetti had argued with the men when they moved him outside. But he knew she wouldn’t help him. He thought about all the poor folks huddled up in the apartments; about how scared they were. They were scared to open their doors.
Them two men could go from ’partment to ’partment an’ th’ow out ev’ry one. An’ ain’t not nobody gonna lift a hand t’stop’em. We was poor in the Delta, but we wasn’t never that poor.
The slow creaking of metal wheels sounded down the street. It was the old woman again. She wore a dark green trash bag, cut like a poncho, over many sweaters and blankets, and pushed a shopping cart piled high with junk. As she went by the growing pile of Soupspoon’s belongings, she slowed. Her face was black and streaked, but she was a white woman.
“Get away from here! Go on! Git off!”
The woman took a step closer, and Soupspoon pushed himself up again; the pain made him see glitter in the darkening sky. But that scared her for a minute. She backed off across the street and stayed there — waiting.
Like a big greasy rat waitin’ for Death to come on. Come on, Death. Come on.
Nate and Tony came out of the front door carrying the sofa; the woman moved a little further down the street. They dropped the old couch down and stood a moment to catch their breath.
“Please don’t do this to me,” Soupspoon begged. “It ain’t right.”
“What’s he sayin’, Nate?” Tony asked.
“He just mumblin’, man. Must be hard bein’ put out like that.”
“What in the hell is this?” a redheaded girl cried. She seemed to pop right out from nowhere, pushing her chest forward as she stalked up to the men.
“What the fuck you think you’re doin’?” She went right up to Nate, her pale face no higher than his chest.
“Who are you?” Soupspoon could hear the big Negro’s fear. Big old coward when it came to white folks; even a scrawny little white girl scared him.
“Are you okay, sir?” Kiki asked Soupspoon.
He recognized her. The skinny redheaded girl from upstairs somewhere. She left every morning with matching shoes and dress, and went out every night in jeans and no bra. She used to say hi if he was sitting on his old box out in front of the doors. She was from Arkansas. Something like that.
“My things,” he whispered. She frowned at him and shook her head as if she hadn’t understood his words.
“Mr. Grumbacher called Social Services,” Tony said. “They’re coming to get him.”
“The goddamn sun’s going down!” Kiki yelled. “You can’t leave him out here at night! This is an old man! An old man!”
“Kiki.” A skinny boy was behind her, his hand on her shoulder.
“Get away from me, Randy.”
“But, honey, remember your side.”
“Listen,” the big black coward said. “We got a job to do. He ain’t paid a thing in eighteen months and the eviction has gone through...”
The redheaded girl swung a blue cloth bag suddenly. There was a dull thud and Nate went down in a crouch holding his head and cursing. Soupspoon hadn’t seen anything like it since he saw Bonita Smith knock a St. Charles Parish, Louisiana, sheriff into the street for calling her son a pickaninny.
“Fuck you!” The redhead swung her bag at the white man and the black one in turns. Both men and the Rasta-boy tried to get away from her wild attack.
Soupspoon watched the white girl, really she was a woman past thirty, swinging her bag with one hand and holding her side with the other. Everything seemed slow to him though. The world was winding down like a child’s mechanical toy.
“What the hell?” Tony yelled. He grabbed Randy and balled up his fist. He threw a punch too, but it got tangled up in the gangly boy’s arms.
“What’s the problem over there?” a loudspeaker barked.
The police were already out of their car when Soupspoon turned around to see them.
White boys, neither one of them over twenty-five.
Nate jumped up and ran at the redhead, but the cops were on him before he could get to her.