Harlem Shuffle(65)
There had been plenty of relocations and pullings-up of stakes recently. Leland moved his firm from Broadway and 114th to a more affordable space on 125th. Carney and Elizabeth finally made proper use of the apartment fund and split for the river and the boulevard of Carney’s aspirational dreams. The building was integrated, with a lot of black families with children moving in. Elizabeth had made two friends already. Historically, turnover had been low, with little wear and tear to speak of in the individual units. The common areas were well-lit and well-maintained. There was a laundry room in the basement with a bank of brand-new Westinghouse machines, an active tenants’ group, and of course the park was right there.
The furniture store remained where it was, an anchor on 125th and Morningside, and continued to flourish in areas aboveboard, and below.
The new living room had plenty of space for the kids to sprawl. On the thick Moroccan Luxury rug, May flipped through her Richie Rich comics and disjointedly hummed Motown tunes while John harassed a Matchbox fleet with the toy brontosaurus. This year Carney went Argent with regard to his home furniture, opting for the three-piece sectional with the kiln-dried hardwood frame and Herculean blue-and-green upholstery. As he sat on the couch with his legs extended and his ankles crossed, taking in the room and the greenery outside, Carney grudgingly allowed himself a contented moment. He rubbed his fingertips across the tweed cushions to calm himself as his in-laws prattled.
At last Elizabeth arrived with the cookies. The kitchen in the new place was more hospitable than the last one, granting a survey of an uptown battalion of rooftops as opposed to the dead-end air shaft. Marie had been sharing recipes, and this had to be one of hers, so thoroughly did the aroma bend them to its will. Elizabeth gave Carney a smile to reward his forbearance.
The children jumped up for dibs on the best cookies.
“He get that at the World’s Fair?” Leland asked. The little dinosaur.
Carney said yes. They’d taken the subway to Flushing to check out the exhibition last May. “This is what they call ‘Queens,’ guys.” The publicity machine had plugged it so much that it was bound to disappoint, and the editorial pages had wrung their hands over how the city’d pay for it, but the whole production was top-notch. Years from now May and John would look back on it and understand they’d been a part of something special. Sinclair Oil had handed out plastic versions of their brontosaurus mascot at the Dinoland pavilion. John slept with it under his pillow.
“We’d still like to take them,” Leland said. “Max and Judy said that Futurama was something else.” May and John squealed. The fairground was too vast, too stuffed to take in on one visit. The grandchildren provided an alibi for Alma and Leland to mix with the commoners.
“That’s fine,” Carney said.
“If they haven’t looted the place,” Alma said.
“I don’t think burning down the World’s Fair was high on their list, Mommy,” Elizabeth said.
John said, “They burned down the World’s Fair? Why?”
“Who knows what they’re liable to do, those student activists,” Alma said.
“You’re against the protest movement now?” Elizabeth said. “After all those benefits for the Freedom Riders?”
“It’s not the students I mind,” Leland said, “so much as the shiftless element that attached themselves. Did you see what they did to that supermarket on Eighth, next to the AME church?” His ascot was never less than ridiculous and the July heat turned it pathetic. He panted by the window and sipped his lemonade. “They looted everything one day, picked it clean like vultures, and torched it the next. Why would you do that to your own neighborhood store?”
“Why’d that policeman kill a fifteen-year-old boy in cold blood?” Elizabeth said.
“They said he had a knife,” Alma said.
“They say they find a knife the next day and you believe him.”
“Cops,” Carney said.
“I’d like to go to ‘It’s a Small World’ again,” May said, and Elizabeth changed the conversation.
The riots had petered out. It had been hot—ninety-two degrees—when they started, and the kindling went up quick. Wednesday’s rain extinguished the marches and upset in Harlem, and the violence in Bedford-Stuyvesant died down the next night. Everyone was afraid that another incident or confrontation—by police, by a protester—might spark another round. That next eruption is why they talked about the riots as if they were gloomy weather. Far off now, but turn your head and it’s upon you.
Carney said he had to go to the office to take care of a few things and excused himself from his in-laws’ visit.
* * *
*
The walk to work was longer from the new place, but it allowed Carney to savor a few calm blocks before reinsertion into the Harlem mania. Once you walked under the elevated—look up to see the slats cut the sky like prison bars—and crossed Broadway, you were back in the hustle.
At the corner of 125th, next to the subway entrance, Lucky Luke’s Shoe Repair was a blackened ruin. Had it been the best shine? No.
A hulking man in stained yellow dungarees yelled at Carney as he approached, and he steeled himself. Then Carney recognized him—the gentleman had purchased a used dinette set last year, layaway. Jeffrey Martins. Carney waved and grinned. Modern life had put them out of touch with the primitive friend-or-foe sorting but it came back quick. In these aftermath days, folks appraised strangers to see where they fell on the spectrum of outrage. Did their expression say Such strange days, don’t you think? or their balled fists communicate Can you believe they’re going to get away with it again? Had the person before you triple-locked the apartment door and waited in the dark for it to be over, or slashed a cop’s face with a bottle? These were your neighbors.