The Turnaround Read Online Free PDF Page B

the high school on the rich side of the county. He didn’t run with those white kids at all, but at least they weren’t any kind of mystery to him, as they had been before. And most of these white boys he worked with at the station, he found them to be all right. Not that he hung with them outside the job. They were what they were, and he was from Heathrow Heights. But at work they were all young men, dark blue pants and light blue shirts, their first names written in script on oval sew-on patches. You could be the best of them or you could be average. He wanted to be the best. He wanted respect.
    “Yes, ma’am?” said James, approaching the open window of a white-on-white Cougar, an oldish blond lady under the wheel.
    “Fill it up,” she said, not looking him in the eye. “Hightest.”
    “Right away,” said James, pulling the nozzle out of its holster in the pump. “I’ll go ahead and get those windows for you, too.”
    THE MONROE home was, at a glance, as modest as the other homes in Heathrow Heights. The house was a two-bedroom with wood siding, a storm cellar, and a front porch. Ernest Monroe, being a mechanic, was handy, and he kept the place maintained and right. He had taught his sons the smooth stroke of a paintbrush, the proper swing of a hammer, and the use of glazier points and putty in the replacement of broken windows, a frequent occurrence when boys and baseballs were around. Ernest knew that a fresh coat of paint every two years was the difference between a shabby-looking home and one that told others that a steady workingman lived here and cared about what was his. Didn’t take money to achieve that impression, but rather a little bit of sweat and pride.
    Ernest worked hard, but he also looked forward to his relaxation time. After dinner, his nights were all about sitting in his recliner, watching his bought-on-time twenty-five-inch Sylvania console color TV, drinking a few beers, and smoking his menthol Tiparillo cigars. Once he got in that chair, the late edition of the Washington Post in his lap, he didn’t move except to make trips to the home’s sole bathroom. Ernest would watch his CBS action shows, occasionally reading aloud from the newspaper when something got his attention or amused him, sometimes getting a response from his wife, Almeda, or his sons if they were around and listening. This was entertainment, to him.
    “Y’all keep your voices down for a minute,” said Ernest. “I want to hear the song.”
    Mannix, his favorite detective show, was about to come on. He enjoyed the opening, where they played the music over split-screen shots of Joe Mannix running, drawing his pistol, and rolling over the hoods of cars.
    “Da-dant-de-da, da-dant-de-da-daaaaah,” sang James and Raymond in unison, cracking up and giving each other skin.
    “Quiet,” said Ernest. “I’m not playin.”
    Ernest Monroe was a medium-sized man with ropy forearms built from years of turning wrenches. His thick mustache and modified Afro were flecked with gray. In the evenings his hands smelled of cigar smoke and Lava soap.
    “Da-dant-de-da, da-dant-de-da-daaaaah,” sang James and Raymond, now almost in a whisper, and Ernest grinned. When the music did come on, they stopped the game and let their father hear the song.
    “Work good today, Jimmy?” said Almeda, a thin woman, once pretty, now handsome, in a sleeveless housedress. She was seated between her sons on a worn couch that she had worked on with needle and thread to keep nice. She was fanning herself with a Jet magazine. The house had no air-conditioning and stayed hot in the summer. It didn’t even seem to cool down much at night.
    “Work was all right,” said James.
    “He was pumping Ethyl,” said Raymond.
    “ Raymond, ” said his father.
    “And where were you this afternoon?” she said to Raymond, pointedly ignoring his off-color comment.
    “Just around,” he said. Raymond had been chewing on wintergreen Life Savers up until dinner,