Everyday People Read online

  The soap opera came on at 10:30 a.m. It was still early enough to make something of the day.

  Back in the room, Yao pulled out his suitcase and retrieved a shirt, trousers, and an iron. As he waited for the appliance to heat up, he oiled his skin, ate some more bread, and psyched himself up for what he had to do: beg his uncle for his old job.

  When he had stepped off the orange Metro Mass Transit Tata bus in Kaneshie Station, with only the 100 Ghana his mother had sent him with in his pocket, he had had employment. His mother’s cousin, the one who had bailed him out of counterback, owned a commercial photo and digital printing shop in Ofankor.

  It had been a relatively painless gig. Most of their customers were local churches and businesses in Accra proper seeking cheaper printing services than they’d find closer to home. All Yao really had to do was take the orders they phoned in and pass them on to the men who manned the industrial printer and cut the flyers, photos, and signboards to size in the back of the shop. But the resentment and embarrassment he had felt having to leave Tafi under a cloud of shame, and the rage he felt at Elinam—coupled with the tiresome four-hour commute: two hours in and out, day after day—gathered into a storm. Impulsively, he quit. Just stopped going to the shop one day and directed his neighbors to say he wasn’t home when his uncle came, twice, to look for him.

  But the signs posted on the electric poles in his neighborhood advertising for garden boys and watchmen had not yielded work in the wake of his abrupt decision. The 100 Ghana evaporated along with the 80 Ghana his uncle had paid him for the two weeks he had helped man the shop.

  His living arrangement with Titus had been predicated on the fact that it would be temporary. Titus, the grandson of a family friend in Tafi, had agreed to let Yao sleep on the floor of his room for 20 Ghana a week until he found something better, though he would have to hide from the landlord.

  Yao tugged the iron’s plug from the wall and dressed quickly before rifling through Titus’s pockets for the change he needed to pay the 2.30 GHS fare from Oyarifa to Circle, and the 1.80 from Circle to Ofankor. He took only 5 Ghana, hoping his restraint would elicit Fortune’s leniency in the form of his uncle restoring his job and sending him back home with the return fare.

  Slipping into his hard-soled black shoes, Yao stepped out into the searing Accra morning. Almost immediately, circles of sweat drenched the armpits of his white shirt as he moved briskly to the trɔtrɔ stop, passing faded election ads along the way.

  After an hour-long ride sitting knee to chest in the now afternoon traffic, Yao stumbled off the trɔtrɔ and wove through the dense foot traffic, passing hawkers peddling all manner of goods from the silver pans on their heads, and men with satchels and backpacks whispering black market exchange rates: “I get dollar, pound, euro.”

  In the trɔtrɔ to Ofankor, Yao tapped his foot as the driver waited for the cab to fill. Trying to suppress the impatience and frustration that had caused him to abandon his job without a fallback, he looked for a view of nearby “Dubai.”

  In the daytime, without the aquarium-blue lights, the new structures circling Kwame Nkrumah’s statue looked a cluttered mess. Former president Mahama had billed it as a “flyover destination,” a landmark for people to identify Accra when they were in the air. He had seen photos of the overhead view online. The monument to Ghana’s first president, nestled in the center of the newly built, overlapping road interchange, was indeed impressive from that vantage point. But most Ghanaians were only able to see it from the ground.

  When the cab filled, the mate who managed the collection of fares slammed the top of the vehicle through his open window, indication they were ready to leave. Yao dozed in his window seat, waking up intermittently to obfuscated views of bumpers and hawkers, before finally alighting in Ofankor.

  It was nearly two p.m. when he strode with gulping breath to the printed poster of the pop star Beyoncé and her newborn twins in the window, miniature versions of the image arranged underneath it like an old-school filmstrip.

  He saw a young woman standing at the computer behind the counter where he had hunched a little over three weeks before.

  “Is Uncle Edem in?”

  Everyone called him Uncle Edem, so the girl didn’t register respect at his familial connection. “Who may I tell him is here?”

  “Yao.”

  “Your surname?” she asked when she emerged from the door that led to the workroom in the back.

  “Denu.”

  When she returned with his uncle, Yao swallowed nervously. Uncle Edem did not return his searching smile.

  “Uncle—”

  The older man raised his hand to stop him. “When Adwoa told me a Yao Denu was here, I was sure she was mistaken. I thought, ‘It could not be the same Yao Denu who, after I had bailed him from counterback and given him a job, left me without so much as a word.’ ”

  Yao’s eyes darted to and away from the girl, who had returned to her post, shame and defiance battling within him at the mention of his encounter at counterback.

  “ ‘It could not be the same boy,’ ” Uncle Edem continued, “ ‘who pretended not to be home when I came looking for him out of fear some danger had befallen my sister’s only son, out of guilt for not insisting he stay with me and my daughters in my home.’ ”

  Yao bowed his head in performance of humility, banking on the sibling-like closeness between his mother and her cousin. He hoped, too, that the 10 Ghana note he had left behind in Titus’s pocket would grant him karmic clemency.

  “But, behold, it is. The same Yao Denu.”

  “Uncle, I am so sorry,” he said. “I was still in shock from the false accusation.” His eyes skipped to the girl with his emphasis of “false.” She stared intently at the computer screen. “But I am ready to—”

  “Ready to do what?”

  “Ready to help you in any way that I can. I am ready to forget about going back to Tafi and work for you here.”

  Uncle Edem laughed through a closed mouth, the cynical sound escaping his nose. “My friend, I am not ready.”

  Yao watched his uncle disappear behind the workroom door, leaving only him and Adwoa in the shop. Beyoncé and her twins hovered with their backs to him. Adwoa looked up at him now as he searched around, regretting his haste in quitting even more. The job hadn’t paid well, but it was easy enough, and his uncle had provided lunch.

  He backed out into the sunshine, inhaling to preempt the impatience he already felt just thinking about the trek home and the dread that dripped in his stomach as he wondered how he would pay Titus rent next week and the week after. He boarded the trɔtrɔ bound for Circle, his mind made up to pass by Shiashie before he went home to Oyarifa. The old woman had made him an offer he would be foolish to refuse now.

  The mate directed the woman sitting next to him to tap him. “Your fare.”

  He pretended to rummage in his pockets, knowing he had spent all but ninety pesewas of the five Ghana he had taken from Titus’s jeans pocket. When the mate didn’t tell him to forget it, he rolled his eyes and gripped the back of the seat in front of him to hoist himself up. His seatmate tapped him again, this time handing him four fifty-pesewa coins. He returned one of the coins, digging in his pocket for the remaining thirty pesewas.

  • • •

  At the sound of the gate bell, Yao looked up from his stooped stance. He twisted the gathered reeds he had been sweeping the compound with and moved to open the door of the visitor gate. Peering through the hole in the rusted metal, he saw a woman in dark glasses.

  Grandma had told him her granddaughter was coming from Holland. He retrieved his key to loosen the padlock, then dragged the side latch and pulled the metal stopper that moored it to the ground. When she was on the other side of the gate, she looked him up and down, from chalewotes to haircut and back again, as she stretched her hand in greeting.

  “Where are Derek and Eric?”

  “They’ve gone for exams.”

  She nodded. “Is
Grandma here?”

  “Of course, I am.”

  The younger woman squealed as she ripped off her glasses.

  “Atuuu!” Grandma cooed the parlance that accompanied hugs, stretching out her arms where she stood, waiting as her granddaughter ran to her.

  “Wisdom!” She called Yao by the nickname she had christened him, disentangling from the embrace. “Come and meet my grandgirl, Stephanie.”

  Yao placed the broom gingerly on the floor.

  “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Wisdom. Have you just started working for Grandma?”

  He nodded even as Grandma shook her head. “What ‘working for’? This is my grandson!”

  Stephanie smirked at the old lady, unsurprised by this presentation of a new relative.

  “Isn’t it so, Wisdom?”

  Yao shyly basked in her embrace of him as family, even as the reason it had come to be taunted him. He averted his eyes from the granddaughter, who was staring at him now, hoping the old lady would dismiss him to return to the solitude of sweeping. Instead, she clasped his hand and dragged him into the sitting room.

  “Come. Sit,” she said, patting an old brocade chair. “I want you to tell Stephanie how you came to be part of the family.”

  BOY/GAMIN

  Brandon Taylor

  les lézards et les fourmis

  Jackson is five, small, and blue-eyed, and he is stepping outside for the first time that day. The heat has not broken yet, but the humidity is receding to the river’s edge four streets over. He lives in a small corner house made of brick painted white. Colors are easy for him; he knows blue, yellow, green, purple, red, brown, black, white, and orange. His box of crayons sticks out of his left pocket, and he has a rolled-up piece of paper in his right hand. All day, he has been begging Mama to let him color on the front porch. It is June and already too hot to spit, she says. He does not like it when it is too hot to spit. Too hot to spit means he can’t go outside to color.

  Mama is tall and blond; her eyes are not blue. He does not know what color they are. He doesn’t have that crayon. She has yellow hair and red lips and white skin with red splotches on her arms when she folds them across her chest. She finally said, “Okay, Jack. Go color. Don’t get mad when your crayons melt.” They weren’t going to melt. The front porch is small and cramped. It is made of concrete. There is a little walkway running to the cracked sidewalk, and a mailbox leaning to the right. Jackson crouches and rolls out his picture. It is a picture of a dog with a big smile and a collar too big for its neck. He balances, rocking back and forth on his feet as he pulls out his box of crayons and, with the wavering inconsistency of a left-hander, begins to color his dog bright orange. He wants an orange dog.

  Daddy’s hair is orange. Daddy comes around on Wednesdays. Jackson knows his days now. He wants to show Daddy with the calendar the way he showed Mama the other day. He climbed on her lap and pointed at each day with his finger, saying in a loud, certain voice, “Sunday. Monday. Tuesday. Wednesday. Thursday. Friday. Saturday.” Sunday is first and Saturday is last, and they are next to each other like brothers. It is weird to him that the start and the end are next to each other, but he is happy that he knows his days, and he wants to show Daddy, but today is not Wednesday. It is Thursday, and it will be a whole Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday before it is Wednesday again.

  Jackson colors his dog, feeling the crayon scratch over rocks and uneven grit on the porch. It makes his orange streaks bumpy. He colors crouching on bare white feet with his body leaned down between his legs, breathing in a watery rattle. Cars rush by and the air they leave behind brushes up against the porch. He stops, looks out, and goes back to coloring. There are four houses next to his on the right. There are five across the street, and another set off to the other side. Some houses have screened enclosures. His has a tall pole that droops wires against the side of it. They get electricity from the poles. The wires hum and drone. It is familiar, like the sounds of the cars and the barking dogs across the street, and the cats that dart through the tall grass.

  He wipes at his nose when it starts to drip. Coloring for ten minutes, the heat from the cement bakes his feet, but he loves being outside on the porch instead of in the dark house, lying around with his mama, who smells like milk and sweat through her skin. A black man walks by in a green shirt down to his knees and black pants; his skin is creased at the corners of his mouth but smooth like purple pen ink everywhere else. The color is oily and full of lots of colors. He glances at Jackson. Jackson’s body goes cold and prickles everywhere. The man’s eyes are white with big black missing spaces in the middle. He smiles, waves with a pale palm in a slow swipe. Jackson waves back, watching him go, trying to make himself smaller the way he does sometimes when the men don’t walk by and instead hop-walk up the three steps to knock on the screen door. They disappear inside with his mama, and he sits outside like a good boy because his mama told him that if he was good, he could get new crayons and a new coloring book. He was always good when his mama had company. He behaved and colored by himself on the porch.

  A long string of ants marches by the end of his paper. He stares down at them in the shadow his body makes. They are the only pets he keeps. He leaves dead bugs for them on the porch. Sometimes he catches grasshoppers in his hands and leaves them for the ants. It doesn’t matter where he leaves the bugs, the ants always find them. Once, he followed the ants, all the way down the side of the porch and around the house. The heat wasn’t so bad earlier in the year. He got to go outside more. Walking barefoot on the spongy grass, he walked until a warm smell came up to his nose and made him want to go home. He had followed the ants to a dead baby bird. They swarmed its tiny blue body. There were no eyes in its head, just more ants. Ants are finders. They are keepers. They find everything and anything that is hidden.

  There is a lizard living on their porch too. He has seen it. Its colors are yellow, orange, and blue. Its tail flicks across the cement. The lizard is not alone. There are lizards everywhere in Montgomery, Alabama. Daddy killed one. Jackson sat and watched while his daddy stepped on the lizard that had come out of the corner of their bedroom.

  It is summer, and in Alabama, that means lizards and ants.

  les garçons de la rivière

  Montgomery, Alabama, has a rail yard next to the state docks. The slope that separates the two is made of blue crushed gravel out of which scraggly ferns and beginning cedars sprout. Jackson is twelve, and he sneaks out of his house to slide down this gravel slope to the banks of the river, but first he stops in the graveyard that is the rail yard. He stands on loose rocks that in the high summer moon glow white and hot from baking in the sun. There are old train cars pushed onto their sides, rusted from the inside out and painted in streaks of gray and gold: gray and gold are the most prominent colors of spray paint sold in Alabama. They must be. He never sees any other color scrawled on the sides of the deserted railcars. Trains still blast through here sometimes. You can hear them from his house. The rails are red-rust metal winding through all the gravel into the tunnel, emerging on the clay bluffs that slope up and into the distance, toward the bridges that take the trains out of state. He does not know what is shipped through Montgomery these days except for cotton. The cotton fields are on the outskirts of town and in West Montgomery. He has seen them. He knows people who work in the fields all summer for money; people turn to sharecroppers to feed their families because the welfare isn’t enough for everything.

  Standing in the rail yards, Jackson waits to become a riverboy. That is what he and his four friends call themselves and each other. They sneak out from their homes and slide down the embankment to the river’s edge. They know better than to go near the buildings. They, instead, move through the brush, rocks slipping under their feet and weight, until they’re at the impromptu jumping block they’ve built from old barrels, blocks, and boards stolen from the abandoned wharf shack.

  There is Tim, James, Eric, and Ben. Eric is the only black one in th
e bunch. They’re from the projects. At the end of the summer, they are all going to different schools. This is the end of the years they have spent leaping into the river and swimming close to shore. They kick at the loose clay and silt. Minnows spin around their feet and kiss their stomachs. Then they drag their bodies out of the water and lie on the warm gravel, staring at the clear sky. Montgomery has no ambient lighting near the water. The cicadas and night birds sing in the wide water oaks and wispy willow trees; there is the creak and groan of the boats tethered nearby, and the cars that rush by on the overpass. But they swim in the black channels underneath, hidden and laughing together, all bare and slim-bodied.

  Tomorrow there will only be two weeks before school starts. Tomorrow they will be another day closer to never talking again. Jackson stares at the hollow mouth of a railcar, trying to imagine what it was in another life. His thoughts intersect with the memory of Daddy, who is still orange-haired and skinny, but now he lives with them again. He and Mama fight a lot. Jackson lies curled up on a small bed in the back, covering his ears, trying to hear something other than their voices mixing higher and higher in the night. There are the sounds of cars on the road, and police sirens spin around in the dark outside of his bedroom window.

  When he is out with the riverboys, he is not listening to Daddy. The railroad makes him think of his daddy, though, of the life he lived before he came back to them. Jackson stares at the railcar and tries to imagine who Daddy was in that other life. A pair of cats howl from the reeds, and he glances that way. The silence of the rail yard echoes with the sounds of the cats fucking, mating like beasts in the dark. Jackson turns and pulls his white shirt over his shoulders and away from his body. He walks with crunching steps toward the shimmering green-tinted black water. His friends are not here yet, but he wants to feel the water against his skin. He wants a few minutes to himself, weightless and free of time and space.