Free South Street by David Bradley

he had finished a third lap he had decided he might as well. He bent over and pulled on the sweat suit, allowed himself a small swallow of water, picked up the towel, and left the stadium.
    His hangover was gone. He walked to the corner of Thirty-third, contemplating an accident of the city’s geography: on his left was South Street; on his right, the same street was Spruce. Brown looked to his left. Then he turned the other way and began to move west on Spruce, breaking into a jog as if he were in a rush to get away from the intersection. The street was deserted except for parked cars. Brown dodged construction sites, made his way toward a trio of high-rise apartment buildings that erupted from the asphalt like acne blemishes. Brown slowed as he approached one of the buildings, fished in the pocket of his sweat suit for his keys, but the door opened before he got to it. Brown let the keys fall clinking back into his pocket. “Mornin’, Speedy,” he said to the doorman.
    Speedy grinned up at him from his bucket seat behind the electronic security console. “Hey, Adlai,” Speedy said. “Seen you comin’ on the TV.”
    Brown peered over the console. “What the hell?”
    “Brand new,” Speedy said proudly. “With this here contraption, all I got to be doin’ is watchin’ TV. See, you switches the channels just like a reglar TV, an’ you can see in the garage an’ in the elevators an’ everywhere. I had ma eye on you a long time, so you be careful, nigger, or I’ll have the Man on your black ass.”
    Brown chuckled. “The Man lives on ma ass. You see into bedrooms with that thing?”
    “Don’t need to,” Speedy said. “Hell, I can imagine a lot bettern most a these here white folks can fuck. Course there’s exceptions, like that there blond bitch, what’s her name …”
    “I know who you mean,” Brown said.
    Speedy gave him an appraising look. “Oh yeah? You been into that, too?”
    “What you mean, ‘too’?”
    “Oh, nothin’. Just that, way I hears it, when her husband ain’t home, which, just ’tween you an’ me, is mostly, she don’t like nothin’ bettern to go out huntin’ for some black—”
    “No thanks,” Brown said. “It’s all yours.”
    “Hell, I’m too old for that,” Speedy said.
    “So am I,” Brown said. “By about three hundred an’ fifty years.”
    “Yeah, well,” Speedy said. “Anyways, I can imagine what goes on.”
    “Well, you keep on imaginin’ an’ keep that damn TV set outa ma bedroom.”
    “Course, ma man,” Speedy said. “Wouldn’t spy on a brother. Now the super—”
    “Shit,” Brown said, and turned to push the button for the elevator.
    “Your woman lookin’ for you again last night,” Speedy said. “I said I didn’t know where you was.”
    “Umph,” Brown said. “How come it takes this elevator all damn day to get nowhere?”
    “South Street again?”
    “Shit,” Brown said, stabbing at the button again.
    “Man,” Speedy said, “if I was you I’d stay the hell away from there. That street’s a stone bitch. I ’member once upon a time the city was gonna fix it up. Turn the whole damn place into a what you call garden spot. Townhouses, playgrounds, good schools, all that shit. So they went to work an’ condemned all the buildin’s, drove out all the business. Makin’ way for the white folks. That whole street turned into a cemetery. Everybody was livin’ on borrowed time. Then the city changed its mind. Wasn’t nothin’ left but sorry-ass niggers that couldn’t afford nothin’ else.”
    Brown looked at him. “It’s an old story. It happens everywhere.”
    “Sure do,” Speedy agreed. “Every day in every way. Trouble with niggers is they gets old ’fore they gets tired.”
    The elevator door slid open and Brown stepped inside, punched a button. “You watch that bitch,” Speedy said. “She’ll get a hold on you, turn you every way but a-loose.”
    “Which bitch?” Brown asked, as the door slid shut. The car