Freaky Deaky

Chapter 14

What the man liked to do for his nap time, couple of hours before dinner: turn on the stereo way up loud enough to break windows, slide into the pool on his rubber raft naked to Ezio Pinza doing "Some Enchanted Evening" and float around a few minutes before he'd yell, "Donnell?" And Donnell, his hand ready on the button, would shut off the stereo. Like that, Ezio Pinza telling the man to make somebody his own or all through his lifetime he would dream all alone, and then dead silence. No sound at all in the dim swimming pool house, steam hanging over the water, steam rising from the pile of white flesh on the raft, like it was cooking.

Donnell had changed from his black athletic outfit to a loose white cotton pullover shirt, loose white trousers with a drawstring, bare feet in broken-in Mexican huarachis, dressed for an evening at home. Donnell stood at the edge of the pool watching the man float past, eyes closed, Donnell thinking, Stick an apple in his mouth. Thinking, I wish Cochise could see this.

Say to Cochise, "What's it remind you of?" Cochise would see it, sure, like the pig cartoons used to be in The Black Panther. Pigs squealing, a big black fist holding them up by the tail. Pigs hanging from a tree, lynch ropes around their necks. Pig in a cop uniform sweating bullets, going "Oink," a brother holding a pistol in the pig's face.

It was Cochise Patterson had brought him into the Panthers, Cochise telling him the basic tool of liberation was the gun. Cochise reading to him from the minister of defense, Huey P. Newton: "Army .45 will stop all jive. A .357 will win us heaven." It was all to do with the gun and it was cool. Justify packing. Have a reason. For only with the power of the gun could the black masses halt the bullshit terror and brutality perpetrated against them by the jive racist power structure. Cochise telling him they would never stop till they had destroyed and committed destruction on capitalism.

Except Cochise was back in the slam doing fifteen to twenty-five, saying fuck it and reading comic books. Some had learned, some had come around and joined the other side. Look at Eldridge Cleaver, the most famous Panther of all. After running as a fugitive, hiding out in Canada, Mexico, Cuba, North Africa, over in Asia and then France, he had found Jesus and was praising the American Way as the only way. Being called a "world-record-breaking belly crawler" didn't seem to bother him one little bit.

Donnell, too, keeping his eyes open to opportunity, had come around since those revolutionary times. He hadn't found Jesus as his redeemer, but somebody who might be even better.

"Mr. Woody," Donnell said to the white mound on the raft, "you haven't told me what you want for your supper."

The man floated in the steam mist with his eyes closed, hands trailing in the warm water. What would he be thinking, his head all fucked up from booze? What would he see in there? Sights maybe from a long time ago still clear, but the recent shit gone, not having made a good impression in his mind. What had the man done lately that was worth remembering?

"Mr. Woody?"

"What?" Eyes still closed.

"You thought about supper?"

The man worked his mouth like he was getting a bad taste out of it, but no words came from him.

Donnell put the tips of his fingers behind his ear and leaned out over the tiled edge. "Ain't that your tummy I hear growling?"

No answer.

"You upset about your brother, huh?"

No answer. The man was asleep or didn't know what he was talking about. What brother?

"You gonna be hungry you finish your swim. I'll fix you some chicken. How's that sound?"

No answer.

Call the Chinaman, pick up a load of chicken lo mein and pile the shit on a dinner plate for the man. Order some of that shrimp wrapped in bacon for himself. Sometimes they would eat together in the kitchen, the man calling him his buddy.

"You have a funeral parlor you want to use? . . . I'll look up see who did your mama. Don't you worry about it. I'll take care of everything."

Donnell had been doing most of the man's thinking for the past three years now, since one night at All That Jazz on Cadillac Square, never expecting to see somebody like Mr. Woody Ricks in a mostly black lounge. But there was the limo out front, a white boy with a chauffeur hat behind the wheel. Inside the piano bar drinking gin, dropping a ten in the tip bowl each time he spoke to Thelma Dinwiddy playing nonstop nine till two, Thelma playing under the name of Chris Lynn with her satin headband and her lovely smile, playing the ass off those show tunes the man requested. All That Jazz had once been a hotel coffee shop; now it was done-over dark to look like a nightclub: a place black entertainers came to sit in with Thelma's piano or to sing a number. Thelma would find the key and smile as she wrapped chords around a voice doing maybe "Green Dolphin Street" like they'd worked together forever.

Donnell went to the bar that time where he noticed Juicy Mouth was sitting and took the stool next to him, but didn't speak till an old man finished with "Tishamingo Blues," Thelma riding along, the old man saying he was going to Tishamingo to get his hambone boiled, on account of Atlanta women had let his hambone spoil.

Juicy was a Pony Down runner then, selling on street corners before getting promoted, because of his size and meanness, to Booker's bodyguard. Donnell finally said to Juicy, "See that fat man there? Lives in the biggest house you ever saw. His mama gave a party for the Panthers one time, not knowing what she was getting into. Thought it was to raise money for the zoo or some shit. Can you see her friends, these people trying to smile? Like they partied with brothers every weekend? Only you know they never been close to one less it was at the car wash or was a sister cleaned their house." Donnell said to Juicy, who was a kid and didn't know shit about Panthers or any of that, "I want you to do something for me. When the man goes to the men's room, I want you to follow him in and start to vamp on him. Tell him it's fifty bucks to take a piss or you gonna cut his dick off. See, then I come in just then and throw a punch at you like in the movies, dig? And save the man's ass. I don't hit you, I pretend to."

The men's room was out the door of the club and across the lobby, kept locked, so people wouldn't come in off the street and use it. You told the club doorman you were going to the men's and he buzzed the men's door open for you when you got to it. Mr. Woody finally went and Juicy followed.

Then Donnell walked over to the doorman, handed him a ten and said, "Let me have a few minutes' peace in there doing my business." He slipped on black leather gloves before going in and hit Juicy hard, the knife flying, blood flying, hit him in his surprised face again and got the man zipped up and out of there.

Sitting in the back of the man's car with him, Donnell pointed to the guy in the front seat with the chauffeur hat on and said, "What good is he? He drives you, yeah, but what good is he?" Sounding mad because someone wasn't looking out for the man.

The man said, "You saved my life," reaching for his wad of money.

Donnell stopped his hand and said, "I saved you better than that. Now I'll tell you who I am and what I'm willing to do for you out of respect for your mother, a woman I think of and admire to this day."

In the following months Donnell, wearing a tailored black suit now, white shirt, black tie but not the chauffeur hat, would sit down with Mr. Woody from time to time, look the man in the eye with sort of a puzzled frown and ask him:

"What do you need a cook for living here only cooks white Methodist food and acts superior, won't talk to nobody? I happen to learn food preparation in the slam. I cook good. . . .

"What do you need a fat maid for living here watches TV upstairs all day? I can get us a maid to come in, clean up and get out. A cute maid. . . .

"What do you need to write checks for, pay bills, be bothered with all that picky shit? Excuse me. I can do it for you. . . .

"What do you need to put up with your brother whining at you for? You the one has the musical ear. He don't like it, tell him go do his cock rock someplace else. . . .

"What do you need to call your mother's lawyer for, get charged two hundred dollars an hour? I learn food preparation, I also happen to learn about legal affairs. Most time you don't need to get in it, have to sign all those papers. I can talk. I can make deals. I can tell people how it is. . . .

"What do you need to go to court for, have that redhead bitch call a fine man like you a rapist in front of everybody in town? I can talk to her for you."

Coming up pretty soon he would have to look the man in the eye and ask him:

"Don't you need to change your will, now that your brother's gone?" Ask him: "Anybody else you want to put in it?"

Being subtle wouldn't pay, the man spaced on booze and now and then a 'lude slipped him to keep him mellow and manageable, the man always in low gear with his dims on.

It might have to be put to him: "Mr. Woody, I would consider it an honor to be in your will." Play with that idea. Say it in a way to make the man laugh and feel good.

There was a possibility with the redhead bitch to make some good money. If he could get her to go along. He could always write himself a nice check if he ever had to leave in a hurry. No, the deal was to get in the man's will for a big chunk and then work out the next step. Having Markie out of the way should make it easier to become the man's heir. Except, shit, what took Markie out was somebody doing a bomb, and that didn't make any sense however Donnell looked at it. Somebody wanted to kill the man and the man didn't even know it. Floating there this enchanted evening, dreaming all alone. . . .

The front doorbell rang.

Donnell left the swimming pool room, went through the sunroom and along a dark hallway to the foyer. The news people had stopped calling and knocking on the door. He'd watched them out front. He'd watched the dude cop talking to the hard-nose cop, Donnell wondering whose Cadillac that was, and couldn't believe it when the hard-nose cop, the now out-of-work cop, drove off in it. That had been about a half hour ago. Donnell was thinking about it again, wondering how it could be as he bent his head to peek through the peephole in the door, took a look and straightened quick.

The hard-nose cop was back. Standing there with a can of peanuts in his hand.