Isaiah looked judgmentally at him and then my work quarters. “What’s got his buttons in a bunch?”
“He’s sensitive to violence,” I said. “Mr. Wallace is a gentle man.”
“Is that why you work here?”
“No,” I said, fitting two shoes in a box like puzzle pieces. “I work here because I don’t have a choice.”
I could feel Isaiah rolling his eyes. “Nick, you always have a choice in being a shoe-sniffer.”
“What a terrible way of framing it! We all need a shoeshine every now and then.”
“Not the point.”
“Then what is the point?” I turned to face him and then caught our reflections in the wardrobe mirror. Even our fashions were more at odds lately. I wore a flat cap and loose shirtwith suspenders to hold my knickerbockers up. He wore a blue suit that fit his muscled form and a matching fedora that complemented his square face. Isaiah’s hair underneath was in close-cut, brushed waves. His complexion was a warm, reddish brown, like chestnut. Mine was similar, but a bit darker.
Three weeks ago, we’d finished the school term, likely our last, and now our futures were the main focus of our lives. Isaiah thought about where he was going more often than I did, and anyone could tell from our clothes that he was destined for greatness and me, for less.
“The point is,” Isaiah went on. “We gon’ be eighteen soon and you still letting life control you, like you some kind of tumbleweed. I ought to call you Tumbleweed Carrington.”
“Tumbleweedis a nice name,” I said, turning away to put the final pair of shoes in its box. “Maybe it would suit me better. I’m named after my grandfather, after all.”
All I could do was joke in the face of Isaiah’s criticism. He talked opportunity all day! Never music, family, romance—the stuff we used to discuss. Just what I should’ve been doing to move up.
What if I didn’t wish to climb as fast as he did in the first place? The world he’d gotten into scared me—its pristine polish, its strange emptiness underneath. It was as if the main purpose of being rich was to impress people rather than to be happy.
I didn’t say anything about it. I preferred not to touch a sore conversation, and to keep the remnants of our friendship intact.
I finished up my final duties and called, “Bye, Mr. Wallace!” as I grabbed my satchel off the coatrack.
I curled out the window, slid down the little gap between the bricks and grass, and fetched my bike from its post outside. Isaiah followed close behind.
We rolled into the streets, where golden sun stretched across the cobbled road. We biked through the channel of brick and wooden storefronts as the shopkeepers reversed their signs fromOpentoClosed. The radio operators hung their headphones on the wall and the mail trucks returned to the post office parking lot.
We were headed past the city and toward the big oil derricks at the end of town. The big, latticed triangles, shaped like Christmas tree angels, manned a strip of country road that separated Greenwood (the Colored district) from the rest of Tulsa, which was white. It was best to travel the road by car and to keep a look out for white people hunting down Negroes. I’d never travel it by myself, but with Isaiah, I could make it through without feeling scared.
The rustling of crickets and cicadas grew louder as the noise of people faded and darkness set in. Here, with no one around us, I nearly remembered that moment—the moment I messed up our friendship. But then, his voice took me out of it.
“You’ll love it, Nick,” Isaiah panted, slightly out of breath. “I promise.”
Soon enough, a glowing streetlamp showed us to the first sign of white Tulsa. It was a little train post at the bottom of a hill. I followed Isaiah up the street that flattened out to a private property. A stern guard in black uniform stood by an iron gate protecting a grand house.
“Hi, Edward!” Isaiah sang as we approached. “I left something in the courtyard, if you don’t mind.”
“Of course, Isaiah.” Edward gave a friendly smile and twisted a key through the gate and pushed it open.
It gave a groggy squeak, and the courtyard expanded before us. A short walk brought us to the heart of the space: a huge pool of light blue water, with palm trees forming columns beside it. These trees, which threw shade everywhere, took me to a tropical place. The house was three stories, with arched windows, a big balcony, and pillars connecting the floors.
I spied a woman at a third-floor window watching us enter, and a familiar discomfort set in my bones. The discomfort that led me to find work in Greenwood rather than Tulsa.
“It’s getting so dark already,” I noted, feeling anxious.
“No offense, Nick, but your pop needs to lighten up on the curfews,” Isaiah said, as he sat on the edge of a fountain and crossed his legs like he owned the place.
“None taken,” I replied. “Maybe he’d listen to you if you told him.”
Isaiah laughed. “No way I’m listening to a lecture on the dangers of the white man. The white man pays me well here. I say if I stick it out for a year, smile, and trim hedges good, I can work my way up to a Touring.”
My friend thought having a nice car would solve all his problems.
