Cold Service

56

I SAT IN my car in Roxbury, at the edge of Malcolm X Playground, on a street I didn't know the name of. Across the street, Hawk stood in front of a bench, in the playground, looking down at a very small black boy who was sitting in the lap of a tall black woman I knew to be his grandmother. The boy was the only surviving member of Luther Gillespie's family. His grandmother was maybe forty-five, strong-looking, with careful cornrows, wearing jeans and a freshly laundered man's white dress shirt with the sleeves half rolled and the shirttails hanging out. The boy pressed against her, staring up at Hawk without moving. He held onto her shirt with one hand.

Hawk spoke. The woman nodded. Hawk took an envelope out of his coat and handed it to the woman. She didn't take it right away. First, she took the hand that held it, in both of hers, and held it for a minute while she said some animated somethings to Hawk. Hawk nodded. Then she took the envelope and slipped it into her purse on the bench beside her. Hawk continued to look down at the boy. The boy stared silently back. Hawk spoke. The boy didn't answer. Hawk squatted on his heels so that he and the boy were at eye level. The boy turned his face in against his grandmother's breast. The grandmother stroked the boy's head. Hawk stood, nodding to himself. Nobody said anything. For a moment, none of them even moved. Then Hawk nodded again and turned and walked across the street and got into the car.

"We done?" I said.

Hawk nodded.

I put the car in gear, and we drove back toward downtown.

"First installment on Boots's money?" I said.

"Kid's money," Hawk said.

"Is there a grandfather?" I said.

We turned onto Washington Street. The black neighborhoods stretched out on either side, neither elegant nor decrepit. Simply low-end urban housing that looked like any of the other neighborhoods in the city, except everyone was black. Except me.

"No," Hawk said. "She lives with her sisters."

"She work?" I said.

"Yes."

"Sisters take care of the kid?"

"Yes. Kid's great-aunts. One of them is twenty-nine."

"The aunts okay?" I said.

"Think so," Hawk said. "They ain't, I'll see about it."

I nodded.

"They'll be okay. What was all the conversation about?"

"I telling her how much she get and when it would come and who to call if it don't."

"You," I said.

"Un-huh," Hawk said. "Or you."

"Me," I said. "Anything I should know?"

"Kid's name is Richard Luther Gillespie," Hawk said. "I tole him, tole his grandmother really, that he ain't got a father and he ain't got a grandfather. But he got me."

"Jesus," I said.

"I know. Little surprised myself. And I say to them, if something happen to me, he got you."

"He ain't heavy…" I said.

"Yeah, yeah," Hawk said.

He handed me a small index card.

"Grandmother's name is Melinda Rose," he said. "It's all on there. Address. Phone number. She got yours."

I nodded.

"I don't want him calling me Grampy," I said.

"Probably won't," Hawk said.