SLOW EDDIE

At eight a.m. on the last Saturday in June Eddie is surprised by a phone call from Nettie. Surprised because people don’t call this early, surprised that it’s Nettie, whose friendship has been limited to the school calendar. “Eddie. This is Nettie. I’m not apologizing ‘cause I know you and me are early morning folks.” “What’s going on, Nettie? The summer starting OK?” “You and I spend too much time alone. Let’s go to some yard sales this morning.” Eddie’s favorite cooler was a yard sale find so he’s tempted. “There some good ones?” “A bunch in Hyannisport listed in the paper.” Eddie pauses but quickly gives in. “Why don’t you come to my place and we’ll go from here?” “Um, um, um. I don’t think so, Eddie. I drive onto your rich honky street and the police be thinking I’m casing the neighborhood.” “Oh give me a break. Ever police officer in town had you for a teacher.” “Be my miserable luck to meet up with some summer rent-a-cop. With a itchy trigger finger.” “You’re paranoid.” “You’d be paranoid too if you were a darkie, Professor.” Eddie laughs but fears there’s some truth in what she says. “OK. I’ll pick you up in a half-hour.” “Don’t you dilly dally now. Things’ll get picked over.” It is a short drive to Nettie’s. She lives behind Hyannis East Elementary, near Eddie’s boyhood home. Nettie is sitting in her big boat of a car, the engine already running. Eddie says, “You don’t want me to drive?” “Professor. No way am I getting into that piece of Euro trash.” “Euro trash?!” Nettie smiles hugely. “I’m the good American here. Plant your scrawny behind in Nettie’s Buick.” Eddie complies. They drive three miles to the West Hyannisport avenues. A multi-family yard sale on Second Avenue has attracted a street full of cars. Nettie parks carefully and unloads her bulk onto the sandy scrub grass apron of the yard. A woman on a mission, she quickly scans the merchandise, a frown in place. Eddie never plans to go to yard sales, only stopping by chance when he drives by one. He checks out the fifteen people meandering around the junk and determines that he is the youngest customer. There is a decent set of barbeque tools, long with leather thongs at the handles. The handles are made of dark wood—teak?—enclosing the forged steel implements. They’re made in China but they look durable and well-constructed. Eddie bargains the price down from ten to seven dollars. A portly guy takes Eddie’s money and says, “My wife will kill me.” Nettie has come up empty and is pushing Eddie to shake a leg. “Come on, Professor. Early bird gets the worm.” They reverse direction to drive into little Hyannisport Village. The Kennedy Compound is close by. Nettie stops at a fifteen-room summer cottage and lumbers up the steps to an expansive, open porch. Eddie thinks the neighbors are probably irritated at the tackiness of a yard sale. Nettie is standing transfixed at a cast iron black jockey boy statue, its arm outstretched. It has garish white lips. A tag hangs from the ring dangling from the jockey boy’s hand. It says $200. Nettie looks at Eddie, winks, smiles malevolently. The owner, old, thin, wearing round tortoiseshell glasses, a long-sleeved button down seersucker shirt, pleated khaki shorts and boat shoes, is clearly uncomfortable that a large black woman is eyeing his suddenly embarrassing jockey boy. Nettie gives him her friendliest smile and says, “Two hundred dollars is a bit rich for my blood. How far can you come down?” The old guy, wishing he had left it in the barn, says, “Ah, well. Why don’t you just make me an offer?” Nettie, her smile no longer masking accusatory eyes, says, “How about twenty dollars?” The old guy knows he is giving it away but hears himself say, “That would be fine.” Nettie digs into her summer cloth bag and pulls out two crisp ten dollar bills. She turns to Eddie, raises one eyebrow, and says, “Boy! Put this here in my trunk!” Eddie, in an Oscar-worthy performance, slumps his shoulders, ducks his head life a whipped dog, and quickly shuffles to the statue, hefting it in a demented trot to the car. Nettie, her shoulders heaving with laughter, says, “You drive, Eddie.” She takes her glasses off after climbing into the passenger seat and wipes her eyes. Tears of glee roll down her large, brown face. Eddie says, “What the hell are you going to do with it?” “Drive me past Covell’s and Craigville.” Eddie goes past the perfect Atlantic beaches, their parking lots already filling. “Where we going?” “Stop on the bridge at the river and pop the trunk.” Eddie stops, pops the trunk. The tide is in, the river high. Middle school kids, mostly boys with a couple of skinny, bikini-clad girls, are standing on the bridge railing, readying to jump. They pause in confusion as Nettie pulls herself out of the car, lifts the jockey boy from the trunk and, like a weightlifter, lofts it over her head before sending it crashing into the water. The kids, dumbstruck, watch the statue quickly submerge then direct their silent surprise back to this big black woman as she climbs in the car. Nettie says, “Wait’ll those teenyboppers show up in my English class.”