Up: The Neighborhood

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22 Children

By Paul Ford

One Afternoon

I bought some cooked chicken. The counterman, who spoke with an African accent, had been trying to rip off the man in front of me, who spoke with a West Indian accent. They fought for 5 minutes.

“Fountain costs me 10 cents, can costs me 50 cents,” said the counterman.

“I am 39. Not a child,” said the customer, who had dreadlocks and rope-veins all over his arms. He turned to me. “Look at him trying to rob me, telling me I'm getting a good deal.”

When it was my turn I paid the counterman $10. He gave me change for a $5. I looked at him, stood still, and said nothing.

“I am 45,” he said.

“I have 22 children,” he said. I did not move.

“Aha! I put your $10 here in the $5 drawer.” Pained, smiling, he gave me my change.

Another man came forward from the fryers. “He has 22 children,” he said, laughing. “22!”

I walked out of there with my chicken and into the street. A girl said to her friend:

“So I pay him to help me get ready. I do the dance routine, he says these are n——- moves.”

They walk a few steps.

“I sing and he says I'm doing n——- singing.”

They walk a few steps.

“I try to talk and he says I'm talking like a n——-.”

Dozens of times a day, the word, out of car stereos and music shops, in the air, shouted across streets in greeting.

They walk a few steps. I am right by them, now. Her friend nods as she listens. She is wearing red lip gloss. She is very thin.

“And finally I say yo-well-look-at-me, I'm a n——-.”

I go past them and into the post office, to mail off my used books for money. I think I've been wishing instead of gripping. I feel like I'm filled with ticking clocks. In the post office I break into a sweat. But when I come out it is earlier than I expected, and I have time to do the things I need to do.