Back Story

12

Hawk and I were in Codman Square in a coffee shop eating grilled English muffins. A tall, thin, hard-faced black guy with a gray Afro, wearing a white dress shirt buttoned to the neck, walked in and came to our table. Several people in the coffee shop looked at him covertly.

"Hawk," he said.

"Sawyer," Hawk said.

The black man sat down next to Hawk.

"The blue-eyed devil is Spenser," Hawk said. "Sawyer McCann, the last hippie."

We nodded at each other. Sawyer made no attempt to shake hands.

"You notice how out of place you look here," McCann said.

I was the only white person in the room. "I do," I said.

"That is how it feels for us, much of the time."

"I thought of that," I said.

"So how's it make you feel?" McCann said.

"Like clinging to Hawk, but I'm too proud."

Hawk grinned. McCann's face never changed. "Well," he said. "At least you don't apologize for being white."

"Not my fault," I said.

"Sawyer know something about the Dread Scott Brigade," Hawk said.

I nodded and looked at McCann and waited. The waitress came and refilled our coffee cups and poured one for McCann. McCann stirred in six spoonfuls of sugar, pouring it from the old-fashioned glass container into his spoon to measure, and then into the coffee.

McCann sipped some of his coffee, watching me as he did. "I might help you," he said. "But if I do, it's because Hawk ask me."

"Okay."

"I never met a white man I could trust," McCann said.

I waited.

"I never met one I liked."

I let that slide.

"I never met one wasn't a racist motherfucker," McCann said. "You a racist?"

Hawk watched quietly, his eyes bright with pleasant amusement.

"Not till now," I said.

McCann's tight face got tighter. "You fucking with me?" he said.

"I am," I said.

McCann sat back in the booth a little and put his coffee mug down. "You ain't scared of me," he said. "Are you."

"Nope."

"Most white people you get in their face they get scared."

"That's a racist reaction," I said.

Hawk didn't say anything, but there was still a hint of amusement around his eyes.

"I usually count on it," McCann said.

"Sorry," I said.

"Okay," McCann said.

He drank some more coffee.

" 'Bout 1972," he said. "They having a lotta problems between the black prisoners and the white prisoners in the various prison systems. So they invite a bunch of radical white kids from a bunch of, ah, liberal universities to come in and promote racial harmony. Workshops, seminars, that shit. You remember what it was like in 1972."

I nodded.

"And it don't work so well," McCann almost smiled. "Kids decide the black prisoners are victims of white racism and they stir up more trouble than there was before."

"You think the kids were right?" I said.

McCann had decided to accept me, for the moment at least, and most of the hard-case manner had sloughed off, though it hadn't been replaced by anything resembling soft.

"Some of the brothers in jail were political prisoners," McCann said. "Still are. Some of them were rapists and murderers and thieves and bullies, and the kids' problem was they couldn't tell which was which."

"Because they were all black," I said.

"Uh-huh."

"Racism works in mysterious ways," I said. "It's wonders to perform."

"So these kids decide to form the Dread Scott Brigade, which a sort of loose national network to help victims of white fascist oppression," McCann said. "Kind of name college kids would think up. And they going to work for the freedom of the prisoners."

"How'd that go?" I said.

"Couple of the prisoners escaped. Don't know if the kids helped them or not."

I waited. McCann looked thoughtful. The waitress came by and filled our coffee cups. I watched McCann go through his sugar-loading routine. He stirred carefully until he was sure all the sugar had dissolved into the coffee.

"One of the prisoners they working with was a brother name Abner Fancy."

"Abner Fancy," I said.

"He change it to Shaka in prison."

"Don't blame him," I said. "Did he stick with the Dread Scott Brigade?"

"Become the boss," McCann said.

"He shoot the woman in the bank holdup?" I said.

"Don't know."

"You know him?"

"Nope."

"But you heard about him."

"Yep."

"You got any other names?"

"Brother in there with him name Coyote."

"You know his, ah, slave name?"

"No."

"Know any of the white kids?"

"No."

"Know where any of these people are now?" I said.

"No."

"Cops ever talk to you about this?" I said.

"I don't talk to cops," McCann said.

We were silent for a moment.

"How come you never changed your name?" I said.

"Some of us be who we are," McCann said. "You see Jim Brown call himself Shaka?"

"No," I said.

"Everybody get named by somebody," McCann said. "My father named me."

"Funny," I said. "That's what happened to me."

We all drank our coffee. My English muffin was gone. Did I want another one.

"Lemme ask you," McCann said to me. "I decided to come upside your head, you think anyone in here would help you?"

I decided I did want another English muffin, but I wouldn't have one because it would be self-indulgent, and Susan might find out.

"Two answers," I said to McCann. "One, I wouldn't need any help. And, two, he would."

I gestured toward Hawk with my head. McCann shifted his stare onto him.

"You do that?"

"Two answers," Hawk said. "One, I would. And two, I wouldn't need to."

"Why do you ask?" I said.

"Just getting the lay of the land," McCann said.

"Well that's how it lays," I said. "Thanks for your help."

McCann finished his coffee, put the cup down very carefully on the table, nodded at Hawk, stood, and walked away.

"Effervescent," I said.

Hawk smiled. "Sawyer a little stern," he said.

"He is," I said.