Everyday People Read online

  Critical Acclaim for Everyday People:

  “Stewart O’Nan is not concerned with having you know what every word in his narrative signifies at the moment you read it so much as assuring that if you follow the rhythm and pull of his jazz-inflected virtuoso linguistic performance, you will come away touched, maybe even changed… . Like a rendition of John Coltrane’s ‘A Few of My Favorite Things,’ Everyday People is dynamic, out there and operating at a frequency that has you feeling things at the most unexpected of moments… . A complex and moving exploration of the depth of sadness and the shape of ordinary despair.”

  —Manuel Luis Martinez, Chicago Tribune

  “The dreams of everyday people, those who burden and carry one another through the day, are sandblasted away like graffiti. O’Nan’s novel is bent on reclaiming them… . While most white writers would shy away from this territory for fear of getting it wrong, O’Nan risks it all. As a result, the people of East Liberty, even the minor characters, have a remarkable dignity and singularity… . Heartbreaking.”

  —Scott Blackwood, The Austin Chronicle

  “Accomplished and satisfying … Beautiful … The seed of the community in this novel is the family, with all its rough edges and broken branches. Beyond the family orbit are friends and other neighborhoods and political decisions that ignore need and history … [as] written by O’Nan, whose ear is low, low to the ground.”

  —Susan Salter Reynolds, Los Angeles Times

  “Everyday People is lit with dim but inextinguishable rays of hope… . O’Nan’s dry-eyed, matter-of-fact rendition of the high prices they pay highlights their heroism.”

  —Tess Lewis, The Baltimore Sun

  “Everyday People is [O’Nan’s] latest in a long line of surprises, an unusually constructed piece full of unflinching insight… . It’s a wonderful experience for any reader who relishes a subtle challenge wrapped in rhythmic prose.”

  —Robin Vidimos, The Denver Post

  “Stewart O’Nan [is] surely the novelist of his generation most capable of ushering readers into a world that, like their own, is one they won’t want to leave, no matter how its joys collapse and die and its terrors loom… . O’Nan draws [his characters] with such skill that they become people we know better than the people we really know. We know them even better than we’ll ever know ourselves in fact, and that is precisely what makes O’Nan’s every sentence so resonant, his every novel so good.”

  —David Kirby, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

  “Stirring, richly imagined … Like Sherwood Anderson’s Winesburg, Ohio or Gloria Naylor’s The Women of Brewster Place, Everyday People weaves its tale elliptically, through the vignettes that evoke the nuances of East Liberty… . [With] crisp storytelling, O’Nan creates vivid interior worlds, evoking conflicts and joys with astonishing grace and agility.”

  —John Freeman, The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel

  “A deeply satisfying book … O’Nan’s prose is supple and generous, bending to accommodate his characters as one by one they describe, in their own voices, what it is to be a father, an invalid, a waitress, a teenager consumed with bloodlust, an unrepentant killer. What we are left with is a compelling document of the dangers and mercies of being human.”

  —Amy Benfer, Salon

  “Stewart O’Nan has an empathy factor that at times feels almost eerie… . O’Nan travels among [the characters] with the deftness of a medium, penetrating with equal ease the minds of eighteen-year-old hip-hoppers, former or would-be gang-bangers, and heartsick grandmothers. His precise use of language makes scenes materialize vividly.”

  —Tananarive Due, The Miami Herald

  “Vivid, thoughtful … Everyday People is an engaging picture of the lives of the working poor—with plenty of soul and no easy answers. It speaks poignantly of the ‘endless series of tiny self-denials chipping away at the heart,’ a fix more deadly than street drugs.”

  —Judith Wynn, The Boston Herald

  “Stewart O’Nan’s emotional novel depicts a community and its people in gritty, poetic prose.”

  —Lee Milazzo, The Dallas Morning News

  “Voice after voice, novel after novel, Stewart O’Nan crafts some of the finest fiction in America—and some of the most fascinating… . A fine book—one that takes you inside East Liberty and inside its characters’ lives and minds in a way that few novels are able to do. Because those lives so often and convincingly merge and cross, O’Nan creates a living, breathing community out of mere words.”

  —Larry Johnson, Iowa City Gazette

  “A complex picture of a community and a clan intricately linked to each other yet cut off from the world at large … [O’Nan’s] tender, unjudgmental portrayals and his command of slang and popular culture prevent his characters’ lives from devolving into the mere ‘pat tragedies in blackface.’ … Instead, the novel reveals a group of quietly heroic everyday people.”

  —Michael Connery, Time Out New York

  “The title promises lyrical social realism, and the novel delivers, weaving gritty street rhythms with a Faulknerian flow… . Fashioned with poignancy and deep compassion.”

  —Troy Patterson, Entertainment Weekly

  “Quietly passionate, imbued with a subtle understanding of how the personal and political intertwine; another fine effort from an always-intriguing writer.”

  —Kirkus Reviews

  “The protean O’Nan seems determined to touch nearly every facet of human experience in a remarkable variety of times and places… . O’Nan’s empathy for his characters conveys their sense of frustration and powerlessness, the restlessness of teenagers and the older generations stoic dignity.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “A tough, bold, expertly tender, beautiful novel. Everyday People takes us deeply into its singular characters and treats them with respect. Stewart O’Nan is a wise, powerful writer.”

  —Joanna Scott

  Also by the author

  FICTION

  Wish You Were Here

  A Prayer for the Dying

  A World Away

  The Speed Queen

  The Names of the Dead

  Snow Angels

  In the Walled City

  NONFICTION

  The Circus Fire

  AS EDITOR

  The Vietnam Reader

  On Writers and Writing, by John Gardner

  EVERYDAY PEOPLE

  STEWART O’NAN

  For John Edgar Wideman

  Copyright © 2001 by Stewart O’Nan

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review. Any members of educational institutions wishing to photocopy part or all of the work for classroom use, or publishers who would like to obtain permission to include the work in an anthology, should send their inquiries to Grove/Atlantic, Inc., 841 Broadway, New York, NY 10003.

  “Good Morning, Heartache” appeared in slightly different form in Glimmertrain.

  Published simultaneously in Canada

  Printed in the United States of America

  FIRST PAPERBACK EDITION

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  O’Nan, Stewart, 1961–

  Everyday people / Stewart O’Nan.

  p. cm.

  eBook ISBN-13: 978-1-5558-4790-6

  1. East Liberty (Pittsburgh, Pa.)—Fiction. 2. Afro-American neighborhoods

  —Fiction. 3. Afro-American teenage boys—Fiction. 4. Accident victims—

  Fiction. 5. Pittsburgh (Pa.)—Fiction. 6. Afro-Americans—Fiction. 7. Paralytics—Fiction.
I. Title.

  PS3565.N316 E94 2001

  813’.54—dc21 00-049052

  Design by Laura Hammond Hough

  Grove Press

  841 Broadway

  New York, NY 10003

  02 03 04 05 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  There is the sorrow of blackmen

  Lost in cities. But who can conceive

  Of cities lost in a blackman?

  RAYMOND PATTERSON

  Love me

  love me love me

  say you do.

  NINA SIMONE

  INBOUND

  EAST LIBERTY DOESN’T need the Martin Robinson Express Busway. It’s for the commuters who come in every day from Penn Hills and sit in front, hiding behind their Post-Gazettes, their briefcases balanced across their knees. When you get on, their eyes brush up against you, then dart off like scared little fish. They might notice your suit is just as fine as theirs—probably even more styling—but then they look away, and you aren’t there anymore. No one saying a mumbling word. Seats all taken like they got on in twos, driver switched them in like a herd of turkeys can’t think a lick for themselves. Goddamn. 1998, and you’re back in the back of the bus, seats underneath you hot from the big diesel, lump of nasty duct tape grabbing at your slacks.

  What East Liberty wanted was a new community center with a clinic. The old one’s small and falling apart and just lost its funding. What we need is a good clean place to take the babies, some after-school programs for the young people. But that got voted down in city council. The ballots fell by color lines, paper said—not a surprise, especially the way they said it. A Black thing, all your fault, like you were asking for something no one else has. It was predictable, that’s the sad thing; even the good Jewish liberals in Squirrel Hill are pinching their pennies these days. Taxes this and welfare that, like they gonna starve or something. Let’s not even talk about them simple crackers out past that.

  There still had to be some way to get some money into the community. That must have been what Martin Robinson was thinking. You voted for him—have your whole life—so who are you supposed to blame? And the money would come in. Half the contracts were supposed to go to local businesses, and Martin made sure that happened. That’s the good news.

  The bad news is that the Martin Robinson Express Busway basically stops all traffic—white and black and otherwise—from coming through the business district. The way the city council and their planners drew up the project, the busway effectively cuts East Liberty off from the rest of Pittsburgh. State money but they made a deal, took his own bill out of Martin’s hands. Two busy bridges had to go (crowds gathered to count down the perfect explosions), and South Highland had to be rerouted around the business district (meaning the dead Sears there, you understand). So if you ever wanted whitefolks to leave you alone, you ought to be happy now.

  Probably would be if it wasn’t for the money. And the services too, you know. It’ll take that much longer for an ambulance to get over here, and you think that’s a mistake? Fire engine, police when you need them, gas and electric in winter.

  And then they name the thing after him. Good man, Martin Robinson, not one of those sorry-ass Al Sharpton, greasy-hair-wearing, no ’count jackleg preachers with five Cadillacs and ten rings on his fingers and twenty lawyers playing games. Martin’s got thirty years in the state house, might be the best man to come out of East Liberty, definitely the one who’s done the most for the people. Come up on Spofford, regular people, raised right. You ask Miss Fisk, she’ll tell you. Old Mayor Barr who called out the Guard on us in ’67, he got a tunnel named after him, and Dick Caligiuri, the poor man who died of that terrible disease, he got the county courthouse. Martin Robinson deserves the new stadium, or maybe that community center we need, something positive, not some raggedy-ass busway. It’s plain disrespectful.

  Thing has been bad luck from the jump. Martin passed this bill so they had to build walkways over top it so the kids can still get to the park. City council said they had to be covered so no one could throw nothing at the buses—concrete blocks or whatever. While they were building them, at night the kids would climb up there and spraypaint their names. It was a game with them. I’m not saying it’s right, but kids will do that kind of mess, that’s just the way they are. What happens is one night these two youngbloods get up there in the dark and everything half built and something goes wrong, way wrong, and it ends up they fall off, right smack down in the middle of the busway, and one of them dies. Miss Fisk’s grandson, it was, so it hit everybody the way something like that does. Seventeen years old. Other child ends up in a wheelchair, for life they say. Another young black prince. Just a little blip in the paper, not even on TV.

  And that’s nobody’s fault, I’m not saying that, but damn, it seems like that kind of thing happens around here all the time. Here’s two kids who just needed a place to do their thing, and we don’t get that, so there they go doing something foolish and it all turns out wrong.

  I don’t know, I just don’t see the dedication of this busway as something to celebrate. I understand everyone wants to represent, you know, and show love for Martin. I got more love for Martin than anybody, but all this drama, I don’t know. The thing’s a month away. It’s like those people get all excited about Christmas when it’s not even Halloween.

  I understand. It’s a big day for East Liberty, all the TV stations will be here. Put a good face on. I’ll be there, you know I will, cuz, but I’m just being straight with you, it’s not all gravy, this thing. Everything comes with a price, and too many times that price is us. I’m getting real tired of paying it, know what I’m saying?

  GOOD KIRK, EVIL KIRK

  GETS DARK, CREST unplugs his chair and heads outside. Been charging all day, both him and Brother Sony. Got to, you know? It’s Wednesday, and everyone comes around for Voyager. Captain Janeway and shit. Got that voice like she always got a cold.

  “Mr. Tupac,” Bean used to say, “beam us out this motherfucker.” Someone chasing them, Bean used to crack Crest up so bad it’d be killing him to run. Lungs busting like they’re doing nitrous, dizzy whip-cream hits. Bunch of one-fifty-nine Krylons dinging in his pack, some Poindexter pocket-protector brother in a lumberyard apron chasing them cause they tagged the back of the fence by the busway. CREST in six-foot wildstyle, BEAN and his crazy Egyptian shit waking up the Bradys rolling in from Penn Hills. Look up from the Post-Gazette and get it right in their sleepy white eye before they can make downtown and pretend East Liberty doesn’t exist. Woo-hah, I got you all in check. Yeah.

  And speaking of sleeping, there’s Pops crashed on the couch in front of some white-chick comedy on NBC—Suzie in the City or some shit, where they’re all rich and skinny, which Pops definitely isn’t—all the time smelling like a whole truckload of Ritz Bits and Chips Ahoy, like a time card and hard work over Nabisco, barn door open, hands in his pants like he’s trying to hold down his pitiful old Jurassic Park jimmy in his sleep. Sure ain’t my fucking problem, Crest thinks, and sees Vanessa getting dressed and leaving that last time, hauling on her bra, giving up on him, then can’t stop Moms from breaking in, throwing the spoon from her ice cream at Pops the other night.

  “Why are you here?” she’s screaming. “Why don’t you just go then?”

  And Pops saying nothing, taking his paper out on the stoop, sitting there monking, smoking his stogie and going through the batting averages till she went to bed. Now she’s out, working at Mellon Bank downtown in the checkroom, counting other people’s money. The place is quiet but it’s a quiet he doesn’t like. It’ll all change when she gets home at eleven. Pops will hang in for a while, then say he’s taking a walk like he’s afraid of her. Crest doesn’t want to think what that means about him and Vanessa. The doctor says there’s nothing physically wrong, that everything should work like before. Yeah, well you fucking try it then. He goes out in the hall and rolls sideways up to the elevator so he can reach the button. A lot of being in the chair is just waiting
around.

  The dude that chased them that time, skinny yellow buckethead dude, freckles all over his nose. Was it just bombing or were they on a mission, some interplanetary shit, putting up one of their boys? NOT FORGOTTEN. They did a big one with everyone from East Liberty: Baconman, T-Pop, Marcus. It’s hard to tell now, Crest so mellow doing his two painkillers three times a day all week long, world without end amen. That’s how the summer got past him so fast—laid back coasting with U’s big fan going over him, Brother Sony bringing all of Hollywood, even free pay-per-view. September now, everyone back in school, the block quiet all day, fall coming on. Not many more nights like this, and he’ll miss it.

  That was some running. Old Poindexter boy musta run track at Peabody. Crest kept looking back thinking they were free but that orange apron just kept on coming. Cooking past the old Original Hot Dog with its dead windows soaped, number on it no one ever gonna call, all those famous pictures inside gone—dead John F. Kennedy, dead Martin Luther King eating black-and-white all-beef weenies, shaking hands with some Greek dude in a pussy hat like Smooth used to wear when he worked there. Booking past the post office with its barbwire and its rows of old Jeeps, good target practice on a Friday night behind a 40 of Eight-Ball, lobbing up chunks of old Simonton Street, falling out when metal went cronk or—Kordell looking deep!—glass smashed. Hit the fence where Fats broke out the wire cutters and it rings the way a chain net drains a swish, past the busted-up garages no one’s stupid enough to use, and finally Mr. Stockboy from over Homewood can’t keep up, doesn’t know the back alleys, the yards and their dogs, sounding like they’re hungry for some nice juicy booty. Back on the block Bean’s capping on him. “Crest, you slower than dirt and uglier than Patrick Ewing.” Crest just trying to get his breath, throat like a washboard. Never could run for shit—or bunt; no infield hits—thrown out at home so many times he can’t remember. One hop and the catcher stick that mitt up your nose so you smell it all the way home. But Bean, now my boy could scoot.