Underground Airlines(86)

He was sweating; a heavy sweat on his forehead like a glaze. Martha looked from him to me, from me to him.

“FWH,” I said. “It’s an abbreviation. From your roster of contract drivers. Please tell me what it means.”

“It’s—that’s…it’s Free White Housing.” His voice quivering like a ribbon. “That’s—our white people. They live here…FWH just means—that’s where they live.”

He was here. The truck driver. Working white. William Fucking Smith lived here.

I got down closer to Mr. Newell, down on my heels. I made my eyes wide and clenched my teeth. I was not going to kill Matty Newell, but his fear was of value. I used it as a gun, as a hundred-dollar bill, as the bent end of a paper clip to spring open a lock.

“FWH nine,” I said. “B eight.”

“Free White Housing area nine. Unit B eight. It’s…it’s like—an apartment complex. I don’t know.”

“Any reason a slave would go there?”

“Go—where?”

“To Free White Housing.”

“Yes. I mean, yes. Not—not usually, but yes. Niggers—I’m sorry. I’m sorry, sir. Slaves—I’m sorry…black persons…I’m sorry. Oh, Lord.” He licked his lips. Snot ran from his nose. When Matty Newell told this story later, he’d say I had a shotgun, at least. Machine gun, maybe. Martha with a pistol in each hand. The both of us dripping with knives.

“Slaves go there? It’s not unusual?”

“It’s not.”

Okay. Okay. I had what I needed, almost. The music had kicked up again, tightening my chest. There was a sickening feeling of excitement getting going in me as I realized what was going to happen. What I was going to have to do. The man was here. William Smith. He was here. I pulled open the top drawer of Newell’s desk and started to rifle through it, thinking quickly. “Okay.”

“What…” said Mr. Newell. “What are you doing?”

“Stay there, man. Stay.” He stayed down on his knees, his hands behind his head.

Mr. Newell looked to Martha, but she did not even see. She was at the desk now: she had found the page I had been looking at. She was staring at the screen. Oh, Martha.

I took the scissors out of Newell’s desk, and his eyes bulged. “No,” he said, his voice rising. Waddling backwards on his haunches, hands behind his head, repeating his refrain, “I never did any harm to any Negro person.”

“Quiet, please.”

I was unbuttoning my shirt. I was stepping out of my shoes. I held the scissors in my right hand and pointed at Newell with them. “How do I get to Free White Housing area nine?”

He told me what I needed to know. While he was talking I turned the scissors to my neck and began to carve, bringing up a deep well of blood, hacking away. Right where I had my inked-in tattoo, right at the root of my neck. I needed blood. I needed a fresh wound. You had to be very sick, puking and shitting sick, to be brought to a doctor’s attention around here, that I knew. A bad cut, though, was not the end of the world. Steroid shot and a bandage, you’re on your way.

“Martha,” I said, “there’s a first-aid kit on the bottom shelf over there. Can you get me some gauze, please?”

She was still at the computer. Transfixed by the screen. Martha was not watching us anymore. Her attention was wholly on that computer screen, where Samson’s face and fate were still displayed. She had taken a step forward; she had reached her hand halfway up toward the screen, a small gesture full of grief.

I got the bandage myself. Worked it slowly around and around my neck. When I was wound up, three thick layers of gauze covering my fresh, credible wound, covering where I would have borne the sheltering G of GGSI, when I had what I needed from Mr. Newell to get across campus, I pulled the cords from the printer and from the computer, one by one. Martha kept looking at the screen, even as it went blank.

I had a couple more questions for Mr. Newell, but when I had all of them answered I pushed him all the way to the ground.

“I never…” he said, sobbing. “Never…”

“I know,” I said. “You never did any harm to any Negro person. But I’m going to tie you up now, bind your hands and feet, bind your mouth to keep you quiet, and put you in the closet.”

I got to it. I did it fast. When he was in there, far from his panic button, far from his phone, I gently guided Martha away from the desk. I took her by the hands. Got her to look at my eyes.

“Here’s what’s happening. You take the elevator down. You walk briskly across the lobby and say thank you to that blond girl and get in your car and drive north.”

“Yeah,” she said. “Okay.”

“Are you listening?”

Her eyes were not on the screen anymore, but that’s where she was. She was with him, she was with her Samson, far away. I squeezed her hands between mine, squeezed each individual finger, trying to gather her attention, get her here with me.

“You go and get Lionel from your sister’s house and get that money I gave you and drive to Canada. Or fly overseas. Go anywhere. Go somewhere good. You got it?”

“I do.”

“That’s enough bread to start a new life, and that’s what I want you to do, okay? Get that boy out of America. Get him out.”