Walkin The Dog

Little, Brown and Company

Hachette Book Group

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ISBN: 978-0-316-05044-9

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Contents

blue lightning

promise

shift, shift, shift

what would you do?

a day in the park

the mugger

that smell

walkin' the dog

mookie kid

moving on

rascals in the cane

rogue

blue lightning

A

t first he thought the trill and bleating note was part of a dream. A sweet note so high it had to be the angel that Aunt Bellandra said the blue god sent, “to save the black mens from fallin’ out the world complete. He got a real high voice like a trumpet an’ he always come at the last second, after a fool done lost his job, his money, his wife, his self-respect and just about everything else he got. Just about dead,” Bellandra proclaimed, clapping her hands together loudly, “an’ that's when the angel sing.”

Back when he was a little boy, Socrates feared his tall and severe auntie. But he was also enthralled by her stories about the black race in a white world under a blue god who barely noticed man.

“When he almost gone that angel just might make his move,” she'd say. “And when a black man hear that honied voice all the terrible loss an' pain fall right away an' the man look up an' see that he always knew the right road but he never made the move.”

Again the high note. This time strained a bit. This time a little warble in Socrates' sleep.

“But not everybody could hear it. Some dope fiends too high an' some mens hatin' too hard. Sometimes the angel is that much too late and his song becomes a funeral hymn.”

Socrates jerked himself upright in the bed, opening his eyes as wide as he could. He was afraid that the music he heard in his dream was really the dirge of that tardy angel—that he'd died in the night and it was too late for him to make up for all the suffering he'd caused in his evil years.

He sat up on his fold-out sofa bed. There was a slight whistle in his throat at the tail end of each breath, a whistle that blended into the high notes of the trumpet playing somewhere outside.

The music was like crying. A long sigh breaking down into a cascade of tears and then gasping, pleading notes that seemed to be begging for death.

The luminescent hands on the alarm clock told the ex-convict that it was three thirty-four. In less than an hour and a half he had to get up and get ready to go to work.

He listened for the song in the notes but the horn went silent. Socrates let his eyes close for a moment, then opened them briefly only to let them close for a few seconds more. He was considering putting his head back down on the couch cushion when the horn sounded again. This time it was playing a slow blues; a train coming into the station or maybe just leaving.

Socrates' sleepy nod turned into appreciation for the music. He swung his feet over to the edge of the bed, stepped into the overalls that were on the floor and stood up, pulling the straps over his shoulders. He slid his feet into the large leather sandals he'd found in a trash can on one of his delivery runs for Bounty.

Leather slapping against his heels, Socrates walked out of his apartment door and into the small vegetable garden that led to the alley. The black dog raised up on his two legs and dragged himself to his master's feet.

The horn song was coming from the left, from the lot where a warehouse once stood. The warehouse had once supplied the two furniture stores, now abandoned, that flanked Socrates' sliver of a home—a corridor between the two stores that had been walled off.

Outside, the trumpet notes were loud and clear. The music took on an angry tone in the open air.

The night stars seemed to accompany the song. Socrates wondered why he didn't get up before dawn more often. The night sky was beautiful. There wasn't anyone out and it was peaceful and he was free to go anywhere with no metal bars or prison guards to stop him.

The burned-out lot was vacant but it wasn't empty. Two rusted-out cars, several large appliance boxes, various metal barrels and cans, piles of trash and even a rough and ready structure stood here and there designed by the temporary traveler, the homeless or the mad.

Socrates couldn't see the musician but that blues train continued rolling. His aunt Bellandra's words were still cold in his mind. Leaving the black dog behind the gate, Socrates walked toward the lot, leather heels slapping and gravel crackling in his wake. Everything seemed to have reason and deep purpose—the yellow light in Mrs. Melendez's window, the cold from the night breeze on his shoulders that he felt without shivering.

He stopped at the edge of the lot and watched the half moon just above the horizon.

Baby bought a new hat,

Socrates imagined the notes were saying.

She bought a yellow dress.

They were the words to a song the barber used to play on the phonograph on Saturdays when his half brother Garwood would take him for his biweekly buzz cut.

She's gonna ride that Greyhound bus and take away my best.

“Hey!” Socrates shouted and the music stopped. “Hey!”

The answering silence was like a pressure on Socrates' eardrums.

He didn't know why he'd come out into the dark night unarmed, out in the dangerous streets of his neighborhood. Three weeks earlier a woman had been shot to death, execution style, and dropped in the alley. The neighbors said that all she wore was a silver miniskirt and one red shoe. He'd forgotten the name but she wasn't even twenty, brown and slender except that she had large breasts. When he heard of her death, Socrates' first thought was that when she was born he had already been fifteen years in an Indiana prison cell.

Something hard and metal fell. Socrates moved quickly in his awkward shoes.

“Stay 'way!” A small man leapt over a toppled water heater and ran the length of the lot through to another alley. By the time Socrates reached the end of the lot, the little man was gone.

“Looks like your watch must be a little slow today, Mr. Fortlow,” Jason Fulbright said in way of greeting. It was seven fifty-seven A.M.

“Say what?” Socrates answered, none too friendly. Fulbright was a tan-colored black man with thick lips that he compressed into the thinnest disapproving frown that he could muster. He showed Socrates his own wristwatch, tapping the crystal.

“It's almost eight,” he said, his high voice like an accusing catbird. “You're on the seven forty-five shift aren't you?”

“My bus driver must'a got it mixed up today,” Socrates said in a bit milder tone. He liked his job. He felt good coming in to work every day. He needed that paycheck too.

“Your bus gets you in too late. You should take an earlier one,” the young man said. “Even if you get in a little early at least you'll be on time. Yes sir, if you want to make it in this business you got to take the early bus.”

Fulbright clapped Socrates on the shoulder. Maybe when he felt the rock-hard muscle of that upper arm he began to realize that he was in over his head.

“Don't put your hands on me, man,” Socrates uttered on a slight breath.

“What did you say?”

“I said, keep your hands to yourself if you wanna keep 'em at all.” All the reserve he had built up, all the times he told himself that men like Jason Fulbright were just fools and not to be listened to—all of that was gone. Just a few hours of missing sleep and a strong dream— a fool playing his trumpet in the middle of the night—that's all it took, one bad morning, and Socrates was ready to throw everything away.

Unconsciously Fulbright took half a step back, but Socrates could see in the man's face that he still intended to say something else. And no matter what he said it was going to cause a fight. Not a fight but a slaughter. Fulbright was tall and strong from playing sport, but he didn't know the meaning of the kind of violence he called up in the ex-con. Socrates couldn't shake the fists out of his hands.

“Good morning, Jason, Socrates,” Marty Gonzalez, the senior store manager said.

Fulbright and Fortlow had to turn away from each other in order to return the greeting.

“Mr. Gonzales,” Jason said.

Socrates merely nodded. He liked the fire plug manager. Marty had once shown Socrates a pocket watch he carried that held a picture of his great-grandsire, Ernesto Gonzalez, pasted opposite the timepiece. He remarked on how much he looked like his ancestor from Sonora but how little like him he was.

“I don't speak Spanish,” Marty had said. “Been to Vietnam but never to Mexico. My wife was born in Denmark. My kid has blue hair and thinks that Taco Bell is all he needs to know about Chicano culture.”

Now he stood between them.

“What's happening?” the dark-eyed manager asked.

“I don't know what the heck's going on to tell you the truth, Mr. Gonzalez,” Jason began.

He was going to say more but Marty cut him off. “Uh-huh. Hey, Jason, why don't you go and make sure that the twins did a shelf count and order form last night?”

“Okay, Mr. Gonzalez. If that's what you want.” Jason fixed his brown and red striped tie and gave the two men a questioning stare.

“Yeah,” Marty said, clapping Jason on the shoulder. “You just go on and check out the twins' work.”

The twins were Sarah Shulberg, a Jewish girl who lived on Spalding Drive, and Robyn Craig, a light-skinned Negro child whose father was a plastic surgeon with an office on Roxbury. Sarah and Robyn did everything together. They dressed alike, talked about cute boys. Their mothers took turns driving them to work and home again.

“I swear I'ma break that mothahfuckah's head right open he don't get up offa me,” Socrates said loudly as Jason walked away.

Marty gestured with both hands for his employee to lower the volume.

“I know,” the manager said. He was broad but short and had to look up to address the big man. “He's a prissy prick.”

“You better talk to him, Marty,” Socrates said. “He come up here sayin' that my watch must be busted, that I better get on a earlier bus. Man, I take the first bus leave in the mornin' an' I ain't ever even owned no watch.”

“It's okay, Socco. Jason's just a kiss ass. He don't know.”

“He gonna find out soon enough he keep on fuckin' wit' me like that.”

“What's bothering you, Socco?”

“Nuthin',” the big man said. “He just made me mad, that's all.”

Marty nodded and looked down at his feet.

“Yeah, he's a bitch all right,” the manager said. “Why don't you'n me and Hector unload the big truck this mornin'? Give us somethin' to do.”

Socrates liked unloading the big truck that delivered on Monday mornings. Tons of groceries had to be pulled off onto the loading dock at the side of the store. It was hard work but Socrates was a strong man. More often than not he was the strongest man in the room.

He lifted and toted, stacked and wheeled thousands of pounds off the truck that day. Hector La Forna and Marty Gonzalez had to take turns just to keep up with the big, bald, black man. He worked until the sweat was glistening on his head. He knew he'd be sore for a week because even though his muscles were strong they were still old and reluctant.

“Lets break for lunch,” Marty suggested at eleven fifteen.

“Lunch ain't till twelve twenty for the seven forty-five shift,” Socrates reminded him.

“Fuck that. Let's get some corned beef sandwiches from the deli and go over to the park. I'll tell Jason that he can be in charge while we're gone. That'll give him such a hard-on that his wife'll send me a thank-you card.”

The little patch of green across the street from the Bounty supermarket had a park bench and table, a bronze statue of a nameless prospector and a boulder more than nine feet high and almost as broad, all shaded by a very old and green pine. Marty bought the sandwiches, with beer for after the meal. Socrates accepted the apology for Jason Fulbright's behavior and relaxed for the first time since three thirty-four that morning.

After some solid eating and drinking Socrates nodded and blinked. Maybe he napped for a minute or three. In the stupor he leaned a little too far forward and had to jerk up quickly to keep from falling.

Marty was grinning at him.

“What time is it?” Socrates made to stand but relaxed when Marty put up his hand.

“It's about a quarter to one.”

“I'm a half hour late. What's Fulbright gonna do wit' that?”

“What's wrong, Socco? Why're you so nervous today?” Marty's eyes were so black that they seemed like bullet holes to the ex-con.

“Wrong? Lotsa stuff is wrong. All kinds a shit. I seen in the paper last night where the cops beat up a whole truckload of illegal Mexicans again. Right in broad daylight. Right on TV. But nobody cares. They didn't learn nothin' from them riots.”

“But that's every day, Mr. Fortlow,” Marty said. “What's wrong today? I mean, they didn't kick your butt.”

“You mean they didn't try. 'Cause you know, man, the next moth-ahfuckah try an' kick my ass gonna be dead. Cop or whatever. I don't play that shit. How about that for wrong?”

Marty Gonzalez was lying on his side, propped up on an elbow.

“What?” Socrates asked after a few moments' silence.

“I didn't say anything.”

“You wanna go back?”

“Whatever you say, Socco.” Marty shrugged one shoulder but otherwise stayed still.

“You ever worry that you might be goin' crazy, Marty?” Socrates didn't even know what he'd been thinking until the question found words.

Marty nodded. “Every time my wife's mother comes to dinner until about an hour after she leaves.”

Socrates' laugh sounded like far-off explosions, a battery of cannon laying siege to a defenseless town.

“You always been a fool, Marty?”

“I guess so. What about you?”

“Yeah, I guess,” Socrates rubbed his rock-breaking left hand over his pate. “Fool to begin wit' now it looks like I'm comin' back for another shot at it. You know I was gonna break Jason's face for 'im if you didn't show up.”

“And I almost let you do it too.” Marty smiled. “You'd be doing that brother a favor but I'd surely hate to lose you, Socco. You're the only full-grown man in the whole store. Outside of you, it's just women, kids and kiss asses.”

Socrates laughed again. “Yeah,” he said. “I know what you mean. Uh-huh. Sometimes I wonder how some'a these men get dressed in the mornin'. An' here I got to listen to this shit just to make four ninety-five a hour.”

“That's all we're payin' you?” Marty actually seemed shocked.

“Yeah. Don't you know what you pay people?”

“Uh-uh. They cut the checks by grade downtown. But I thought you'd at least be a grade four by now. You been here over a year. That boy you look after, Darryl's making four sixty.”

“Shit. I'm lucky to have a job.” Socrates looked left and right then pulled himself up and on to his feet. “We better be gettin' back.”

Marty stood up too. He put himself face to neck with the big black man. “Gibbs is leaving the produce department to go downtown. He's going to supervise the southwestern purchasing area.”

“Yeah. He deserves it, I guess.”

“I need a new produce manager.” Marty's eyes did not blink.

“Uh, yeah, I guess you do. Benny lookin' to move up. He got a wife and kid.”

“How old are you, Mr. Fortlow?”

“Me an' sixty's kissin' cousins.”

“And you work harder than two Jason Fulbrights.”

“Not if I sit out here suckin' beer all day.” Socrates bit his lower lip with a row of powerful yellow teeth.

“You could be my produce manager, Socco.”

“Naw, Marty. Not me. I just come in and do what I'm told. Pick that up, put that down—that's me.”

“You're the best man I got, Socco. And I need somebody I can trust in produce. Produce and meat—they're perishable and need a responsible eye on 'em.”

Socrates turned away from his supervisor and looked across the street at the huge supermarket with its vast parking lot. It seemed very far away.

“We better get goin', man,” Socrates said to his boss.

Socrates and Darryl worked next to each other on checkout counters five and six, bagging groceries for the four o'clock rush.

“How you doin' in school, little D?” Socrates asked his young friend.

“S'okay I guess.” The boy concentrated on the number ten cans of tomatoes he was placing at the bottom of the bag.

“Okay good or okay bad?” Socrates pressed. He could bag twice as fast as any child in the store. His hands did his thinking for him— a trait that brought him more trouble than help over the years.

“I already brought my report card home to Mr. and Mrs. MacDaniels. They got it.”

Socrates finished putting his six bags into the wire cart for a small white woman. He recognized her face but couldn't recall her name.

“Can you help me, young man?” The white lady smiled at Socrates while skinny Darryl struggled with the heavy bag he'd loaded. Socrates could have told the boy that he was putting too many big cans in one bag but Darryl needed to learn for himself.

“Sure,” Socrates said to the little white woman in the synthetic brown pants suit. “Happy to.”

When Socrates returned Darryl was still working counter six but the only other opening was on number fourteen. They worked through the rush until it was time for the late afternoon break. Darryl was the first to get the nod from the assistant supervisor of the late shift, Evelyn Lau.

Darryl left through the deli department. Evelyn always kept Socrates on until the end because he was the best worker at Bounty; the only one who could bag for two checkout counters at the same time.

After Evelyn gave him the nod, Socrates found Darryl smoking cigarettes with some of the other children around the Dumpster at back of the store.

“Come on, we gotta talk,” Socrates told the boy.

Darryl dropped his cigarette and crushed it with his Nike shoe.

They walked around to the ice-making machine at the other side of the store and stood there for a while watching the blue skies darken.

“How much that shoe cost you, boy?” Socrates asked.

“Regular one sixty for a pair, but I got these for ninety on sale.” There was pride in the boy's voice but he squinted and flinched a little because he could hear a lesson behind Socrates' question.

“And you gonna stamp out a cigarette with a rubber-soled shoe that cost you a whole week's salary.”

“It's mines. I bought it.” Darryl said. But the defiance was only in the words, none of it in his tone.

Socrates was the only man that had a right to hit him, that's what Darryl thought. Even though Hallie and Costas MacDaniels were his foster parents, Socrates was the one who had taken him out of a life of gangs and forgave his mortal crime. The social welfare department wouldn't let a convicted felon adopt the boy, but Socrates looked after Darryl anyway and made sure that he had a chance.

“You work two weeks for shoes you shouldn't be burnin' 'em like that. Bad enough yo' feet outgrow 'em in six months. I mean where you think money come from anyways?”

Socrates could see that Darryl was angry but he didn't mind.

“And what about that report card?” Socrates asked. “You gonna tell me about that?”

“I got dees and stuff.”

“An' what stuff?”

“You know.”

“What's wrong?” Socrates wanted to know. “Don't you do your homework?”

“They'ont like me, that's all. They just don't care. I'ont know what they be talkin' 'bout. An' if I ask they'ont even say.” The glower in Darryl's eyes reminded him of the boy who spent so much time with his Aunt Bellandra.

“Why ain't they gonna like you, Darryl? It's a school. You a student. It's their job to tell you what things mean.”

“But they don't. I just don't get it. They think I'm stupid, that's all.”

“You not stupid,” Socrates said. “You not. But that ain't gonna help if you fail in school. I mean what you gonna do if you fail?”

“I could work right here wichyou. People work here. Mr. Gonzalez do.”

“If that's what you want,” Socrates said. “If that's what you want. But don't make it all you could have. Ain't no shame in bein' a grocer but it's bitch and a half if they think that that's all you're good for.”

Socrates made German potato salad for his dinner that night. He boiled six potatoes and fried bacon on his butane camping stove. He used two tablespoons of good vinegar with mustard and minced onion, garlic powder, and a pinch of cayenne for seasoning. He ate until he couldn't swallow any more.

Then he pulled on his fatigue pants and jacket, stepped into his high army surplus boots, and put two pints of Myrtle's brand brandy in the inside pockets of the lined army coat. In the vacant lot he climbed into a Westinghouse refrigerator box carrying a red plastic milk carton box for his seat.

The sun was down and there was a chill in the air but between Myrtle's brand and Uncle Sam Socrates was snug and warm.

He used the oversized bottle cap for his shot glass and poked a hole in the box to see the night sights. He had brought a half gallon plastic milk container to use as a urinal. Socrates was on a mission like a small boy camping in the backyard, or a sniper laying in wait.

He nodded out now and then, talking to his Aunt Bellandra in a brandy stupor on the plastic milk crate.

“Does the angel play for white men?” the boy Socrates asked.

“No, baby,” Bellandra replied in a surprisingly gentle manner. Socrates thought that she must have been drunk to be so friendly like that. “White men don't need that angel, neither do white women nor black ones either. It's just black men so hardheaded that they cain't do right even by themselves.”

“Oh Reggie! Oh yeah!” a woman's voice cried. “Oh do that! Do that! Yeah.”

Socrates came awake to the sound of the lovers. The young woman's pleas got him half hard in his refrigerator box and he had a difficult time getting the right angle with the milk container to relieve himself. After a while he got it right but the stream was noisier than he would have liked.

“What's that?” a man, probably Reggie, said.

“Uh, what?” asked his girlfriend.

Socrates managed to stop urinating but the last few drops were as loud as tapping fingers on a tight drumhead.

“Who's that?” Reggie called out.

Socrates stifled a giggle thinking about how he was hiding in a box way past midnight. There he was with some clown swinging his dick in the night air and calling him out.

“Who's there? Motherfucker, I find you an' I'm'onna cut you too!”

Socrates zipped up his pants because he didn't want to fight with his business hanging out.

“Sh! You hear that, Tanika?”

“Let's go, baby. Maybe it's Arnold.”

“Motherfucker!” Reggie shouted. “Is that you?”

Socrates wondered what those children would think if he stood up and busted out of his box, if he broke out on them and yelled boo.

But no. That's not why he was there. He took a sip of brandy and listened to the footsteps of the sneak lovers recede.

“Beety beety dwa dwaaaa! Dwa dwaaaa!” the horn said. Just that fast sleeping Socrates was awake and sober and so excited he began to sweat.

He put his eye up next to the hole and looked. At first he couldn't see anything because his eye was still asleep. But the horn kept playing and he kept looking until finally he saw a foot, a toe-tapping foot that beat out a fast tempo for the slow sweet tune.

Socrates ripped the box apart and was on the small wide-eyed horn-player, a lion on a lamb.

“What who you want?” the little colored man cried. “What?”

He was more gray than brown, more boy than man. He was old and tiny and slender like a child.

Socrates raised the small man by the shoulder and cried, “What the fuck you doin' out here playin' that gotdamned horn in the middle'a the mothahfuckin' night like a fool?”

He didn't mean to say all that. He didn't care why the man was there.

“Lemme go, brother,” the man said. “I ain't got nuthin' but this beat-up horn an' it ain't worth two dollars.”

Socrates sucked down a deep breath and tried not to squeeze too hard. His grip was a bone breaker, a skull buster. His hands were weapons trained from childhood for war.

“I don't want your horn, man,” Socrates said after a few breaths. “It's just your music woke me up. I'ont know why, I mean why I'm out here. What's your name?”

“Hoagland. Hoagland Mars.”

“My name is Socrates, Socrates Fortlow.”

Hoagland Mars nodded and eyed his attacker with concern.

“You wanna drink, Hoagland Mars?”

Socrates took the second pint of Myrtle's brand from his army jacket, cracked the seal and passed it over. The musician smacked his lips over his first sip and took another before passing it back.

“That's the right stuff right there,” he said.

They went back to Socrates' small home after a few sips. Hoagland sat at the kitchen table playing his two-dollar horn and tasting the cheap brandy. Socrates glowered and plodded toward drunk but Mr. Mars didn't seem worried at what his host might do.

“Yeah, man,” Hoagland opined, “I played behind T-Bone Walker and right besides Lips McGee. I played the Dark Room in Chi and all through Motown records. You know I figure you could hear my horn a hunnert times every day on the oldies radio station. Shit.”

Socrates was surprised that Hoagland had such thin lips. “A black man, a horn player,” he told Stony Wile a few weeks later. “And he had lips like a white girl ain't never been kissed.”

Near dawn Myrtle and Hoagland's horn both ran dry. The little man was flagging, head dipping halfway to his knees.

“What you do with all that money?” Socrates asked.

“Spent it,” the musician said. “Spent every dime. Real brandy and real blondes. Stayed in hotels where the ashtrays cost more than my whole Mississippi cotton-pickin' family could pull down in a year. Huh. Shit. I'd drop a hundred dollars on a handkerchief or tie. You know I done lived.”

“So why you out in a alley in Watts tonight?” Socrates asked. “What brought you down here?”

“Black man cain't keep nuthin', brother. All we could do is borrah an' you know the white man wan' it all back—wit' interest.”

Socrates didn't wake up until ten thirty-five. His pocket change was missing from the kitchen counter. Twenty dollars he kept in a sock in a shoe under the sofa bed was gone. He didn't remember pulling down the bed or falling in it. He hadn't heard Hoagland Mars stealing and neither did he care.

Socrates got to work at twelve fifteen. The first thing he saw was Jason Fulbright headed straight for him down the center aisle. But before Jason reached Socrates Marty Gonzalez grabbed the assistant manager by the arm and talked to him, told a joke, it seemed, and then sent him on his way.

The stocky manager greeted Socrates and smiled. “You look a little better,” Marty said.

“Say what?”

“I told Jason that you told me yesterday that you were sick and had to see the doctor. You know I'd forget my head if it wasn't for my neck.”

“I'll make it up, Marty. I'll stay late and help the twins with their inventory.”

Socrates skipped lunch and both his breaks. He worked straight until eight forty-five and then hurried out of the sliding doors.

“Socco!” Marty called at the big man's back. “Hey, Socrates.”

“I gotta run, Marty. I got to catch the eight fifty bus. The next one is over a hour from now.”

“Hold up,” Marty said. “I'll give you a ride down to Venice and you can catch the two eighty-three.”

He slapped Socrates hard on the back and walked him out to his Ford Explorer. In the high driver's seat Socrates rode with no seat belt looking out at the dark streets of Beverly Hills.

“Car's nicer than my place,” Socrates said. “Bet you pay more on insurance than I pay rent.”

“What's your rent?” Marty asked.

“Nuthin'. I used to pay this dude but he musta died or sumpin'. But you know the place ain't worth much, it's just a space between two empty stores.”

“Yeah, well,” Marty said as he swerved past a red Bonneville that had loud bass music playing out of its open trunk. “I guess you can't beat that.”

“Yeah,” Socrates said, not really agreeing.

“So, Socco,” Marty said. “What about that produce job?”

“I got a job. I mean I know it's a low hourly wage but I get tips for deliveries and I know if I get sick that somebody can take my place.”

“I looked up your record. Today's the first time you were ever even late as far as I can see. You've only been sick twice.”

“Man, I was four hours late today, I'm almost sixty, and you don't know me. How you know that you could trust me with that kinda responsibility?”

“I want you to be one of my men, Socco,” Marty said. “I need people who I can rely on to roll up their sleeves, people who work.”

Marty took a left on Olympic heading east. The wide street was lined with low apartment buildings and nice single-family homes. Not many streetlights and not much traffic to speak of. They made good speed down toward Fairfax.

The car, Socrates thought, was as quiet as a tomb.

“No,” he said as they turned south of Fairfax. “You let Benny have it, Marty. And just call on me for anything extra you need.”

“You sure?”

“Sure as sin on Sunday.”

There was silence past Pico and Saturn and Pickford. Silence across Airdome and Eighteenth and all the way down to Venice. But when they pulled up to the bus stop and Socrates opened the door Marty said, “Gibbs isn't leaving for six weeks. I won't make my decision until the day he's gone.”

Socrates swung one leg out of the door and then turned back to his boss.

“Why you want me, man?”

“I like working with you, Mr. Fortlow. I trust you.”

“You don't know nuthin' about me.”

“I don't know anything about anybody down at the store. We work together, that's all. It's none of my business what you do some place else.”

“I'll think about it,” Socrates said. “But I don't know. I mean if you give the job away before I get back to ya it'll be okay by me.”

“Six weeks,” the store manager repeated. “You got till then.”

The bus ride took over two hours. He had to transfer twice. The connections were slow but Socrates didn't care. He was used to wasting time. All convicts were.

When he got to his place he had the feeling of coming home. Home to his illegal gap. Home to a place that had no street address, a jury-rigged electrical system, plumbing that turned off every once in a while, sometimes for weeks. It was a hard place. Sometimes when he was hungry, before he had a job, he had thought that jail might be better than starving freedom; jail or death. It was a place he slept in, a place to read or drink or almost cry. But it had never been home. It had never been hearth or asylum but now it was both of these things. For the first time he was thankful for what little he had. He was safe at least for one night more.

promise

N

ineteen years after Levering Jordan died, and nine years after his own release from prison, Socrates was bagging groceries when he remembered the promise he'd made.

Longarm Levering Jordan had been Socrates' back for five years in the Indiana slam. He was in for fifty-six years but prison had a way of killing some men early. It didn't matter that Levering was tall and powerful. Strength was an asset in the penitentiary but that didn't mean you'd survive.

“Brawn, brains, nor beggin' could keep you alive in here if you was born to be free,” old man Cap Richmond had always said. Cap had gone down for assault on a white woman in an armed robbery in 'forty-nine. He got seventy-four years for his crime. By 1988, when Socrates was let free, Cap had seen a thousand murderers come, serve their terms and leave.

“Seventy-four years for a slap,” Cap would say. “Din't even knock out no tooth.”

Levering never got used to being locked down. Any night that Socrates awoke in his own tight cell he knew that he could look out of the metal grid and see Longarm across the way, his fingers laced with the steel cage, his eyes willing the walls to break open.

Maybe it was five years without sleep that finally took the toll on Levering. In the last months he was skinny and weak. One of the big rats that came out at night could have knocked him over. But the rats didn't bother and the predators among the convict population knew better than to mess with a friend of Socrates Fortlow.

“Socrates'll kill ya,” was the phrase most often used to explain to new cons how they should deal with him. Even the guards came in threes when Socrates had to be disciplined or

managed.

When Levering was dying, the chaplain, a woman named Patricia James, had three guards bring Socrates to that special room in the infirmary where they brought prisoners to die.

It was a nice room for a prison. Gray nylon carpet and a picture of flowers on the wall. The window had bars but they were widely spaced and the sun, they said, came in almost all afternoon on a clear day.

“Even if you dyin',” the bookmaker B. B. Moffat once said, “they got ya. Put you in a room to let you see what you ain't never gonna have again. Give you a carpet an' then bring you to the grave.”

Socrates sat on a stool next to the dying man's cot. The gaunt-faced Levering smiled once and then gestured for Socrates to lean close.

“Hold it,” one of the white guards said.

“Leave him alone,” Chaplain James commanded with a whisper. “Have respect for a man when he's dying.”

Socrates bent forward and looked into Death's eyes.

“I want you to plant me a tree,” Levering wheezed.

“What kinda tree?” Socrates asked.

“A African tree if it grow where you live. But any tree that can get tall. Maybe one with flowers.”

“You got it.”

“An' another thing, man.”

“Yeah?”

“Right after you plant it I want you to fuck me a girl.”

Socrates smiled for the first time in a long time.

“No lie, man,” Levering said. “She got to be pretty, she got to be black, an' she got to be young. All right? You gonna do that for me?”

“I will if I can, man. But you know by the time I get outta here my thing might not get out no mo'.” Socrates laughed for real and Levering shared his joke.

“They kill ya every way they can,” the dying man said. “But even if you can just slap up against it that's okay. I just wanna tree an' some love for me somewhere. You know I been sittin' here lookin' at the sun an' thinkin' on it.”

It was the sunlight flowing through the windows at Bounty supermarket that jogged Socrates' memory. He had spent ten more years in prison after Levering died. They gave him parole even though they didn't have to. Unlike Cap, Socrates' victims were black and the Indiana Department of Corrections decided that twenty-seven years four months and sixteen days was the price for that crime.

He'd been free for nine years but that didn't mean a thing. Socrates had cut off everything from his old life. He had no old friends or debts. He was through with Indiana, prison, family and friends. His pledge to Levering got swept away with everything else.

Also, Socrates never thought that he'd be able to honor that pledge. It was just a friendly laugh at the end of a good man's life.

But standing there putting spicy Italian sausages and Lysol disinfectant in a white plastic bag, Socrates realized that he had a debt to pay.

“Can I help you?” the small white man asked, emphasizing each word.

“That's why I'm here.”

“The job we have has already been taken,” the flabby-faced man said.

“Ain't this a nursery?” Socrates asked.

The man squinted behind his thick rectangular lenses as if he was being addressed in a foreign language that he could not even identify.

“You sell these here plants, right?” Socrates asked, gesturing at the potted plants around the outside lot.

“Yes?”

“Well I come here to buy one, or order one.”

“Ooooooh.” The word made the white man's lips pucker. That combined with his eyes, magnified by the lenses, made him look like some sort of albino bottom fish. “Something for your yard?”

“Ebony tree,” Socrates said. He decided to keep the talk to a minimum, do his business and get out of there before something made him mad.

“Very rare, tropical.” The nursery man became excited. He took off his glasses and wiped them on the dirty green apron. “Not indigenous. From India and Africa and Ceylon. Can't grow here at all. It's the heartwood you know. The heartwood's what they want.” He shook his head. “No we don't have that. Can't grow it.”

“Ain't there some kinda American ebony trees?” Socrates splayed out his fingers to inhibit his fist-forming reflex.

Again the lumpy faced fish stare. “Why yes. Not true ebony but almost the same thing. Comes from somewhere in the Caribbean I believe. Trinidad …”

“Jamaica,” Socrates said. “I called you yesterday evening an' you said that there's ebony in Jamaica that might could grow here in L.A.”

The fish smiled at Socrates.

“I want a Jamaican ebony tree,” the ex-con said.

The smile remained but no words or gestures accompanied it.

“I want to buy a Jamaican ebony tree.”

“We don't have any.”

“I thought that you could get any plant from anywhere in the world. Ain't that what your ad say?”

“It's very difficult to find a plant like that and it can be very expensive. Maybe a shrub palm or a rosebush …”

“I got a rosebush already. I want what I said.”

The fish slowly became a man. Lips relaxed, eyes narrowing down to some kind of reasonable size. As the gardener became human so, it seemed, did Socrates in the gardener's eyes.

“My name is Antoine,” he said.

“Socrates. Socrates Fortlow. I don't wanna cause no problem, Antoine. I just want what I want. You know I live on the other side of town but this was the only place seem to know how to get it.”

“You probably talked to Joseph,” Antoine said. “He knows about exotic plants. I can have him look up this Jamaican ebony of yours and call you.”

“Um. Well you know my phone line is out. Phone company said that the lines is all busted up and they'd have to give me a new number. But I could come back in a couple'a days. When's this Joseph gonna be in?”

“On Friday.” The nursery man's face had changed again. This time he was trying to read the story behind Socrates' eyes.

“I'll see ya then,” Socrates said. “Tell'im I'll come on Friday.

It was Tuesday, meat loaf day at Iula's diner on Slauson.

Socrates got there late, about nine. He climbed the rickety aluminum stairs to the restaurant, which was constructed from two old-time yellow school buses welded together side by side and hoisted above Tony's Mechanical Repair Yard.

Socrates liked to eat his meat loaf alone, but after seven Iula's was always full of people. She cooked soul food like in the old days. Collard greens and fried fish, corn bread and hog maws. She made black-eyed peas and blue crab gumbo every Friday. And there were always three kinds of homemade pie: lemon, apple and mince; sweet potato, pecan and pineapple. She had pumpkin pie and strawberry-rhubarb, even green tomato pie sometimes in the summer.

Iula could cook.

She had broad hips and smiling lips, freckles and orange-brown skin. Gold on her teeth and no rings on her fingers. She was Socrates' girlfriend—sometimes. And sometimes just his friend.

“Hey, Socco,” Bernard Williams hailed.

Bernie, a liquor store salesman, sat next to Stony Wile and Stony's woman-on-the side, Charlene. Bernie was older than Socrates, tall and dark. Stony was much lighter, brawny and closer to the ground. Charlene was all that beauty could be in a black woman, at least that's what Socrates thought. She was long like Bernie but not tall or awkward. She had dark skin and sculptured lips, a high forehead and eyes that looked right down into your heart.

Charlene was born to be a high-society woman but her parents were down-home Baptists who believed in hell and God with only human beings to separate them. So she paid dearly for every stick of lipstick and glimpse in the mirror. Beauty was wanton in her mother's eyes and the love of beauty was a sin. Charlene learned to hate her natural elegance and to find men who treated her like trash.

Now in her forties, when Charlene's wild oats should have been cultivated by some minister or well-to-do businessman, she was still in the streets trading a slapper for a shouter, turning in good men for tramps.

“Hey, Bernie, Stony,” Socrates said. He looked at Charlene and she made the slightest kiss with her lips. The ex-con looked away, momentarily shy. When he looked back, she was smiling at the discomfort she had caused.

“Mr. Fortlow,” she said sweetly.

“How you tonight, Charlene?”

“Stony wanna stop me from drinkin'. You think I need to change, Mr. Fortlow?”

Socrates didn't want to insult Stony by flirting with Charlene so he just shook his head to say that she was fine the way she was. But there was something too strong, even in that little head movement, and Stony stared down angrily at his meat loaf and greens.

“Come on an' sit down with us here,” Bernie offered. They were at a booth by the window.

Socrates sat next to the liquor salesman and took in the bus.

Iula sat behind the long counter that ran the space where the buses were joined. All seven stools were occupied. He recognized Veronica Ashanti and Topper, one of the last black undertakers on Central Avenue. There were a few others whose names he knew, the rest were familiar but no more. Many people were standing around waiting for takeout or seats. But Iula was taking her time talking to Tony LaPort, her landlord and ex-husband, at the end of the counter. She could afford to take it easy because she had hired Charles Rinnet to work in the back bus, which served as the kitchen, during the heavy hours between seven and eleven.

She had once offered Socrates that job but he was still afraid of his hands back then. The hands of a killer had to be careful of what they did.

“What you doin', Socrates?” Bernie asked. “You still workin' at that supermarket?”

“Yeah, yeah. Still packin' them bags. How's Harold?”

“Cheap as a motherfucker,” Bernie complained. “You know I asked him for a two-dollar raise after nuthin' for three years an' he told me I could leave.”

“Yeah?” Socrates was interested.

“Uh-huh.”

“So what you do?”

“I worked out my week and quit. You know they said that when black men owned businesses it was gonna be better but I went over to Zimmerman on Sixtieth and he hired me like that.” Bernie snapped his long fingers.

“But I thought you was still with Harold?” Socrates asked.

“I am,” Bernie replied. “Harold came to me,

to me

. Because you know nobody like him. The only reason they come to that store is 'cause I know how to respect peoples. An' here he is worse than a white man.”

“You got your two dollars?”

Bernie nodded his head like a bass man on a groove. “Motherfucker gimme three.”

Socrates laughed deeply. Charlene leaned toward him over the table, drawn to his powerful pleasure. She was wearing a blue sweater that was tight and V-necked.

Socrates turned to Stony and asked, “So, Stony, what's happenin' with you?”

“Nuthin',” the ex-ship welder said petulantly.

Socrates shook his head and stood up.

“I got to go talk to I,” he said.

“You gonna come back, Socrates?” Charlene wanted to know.

“Maybe in a little while. But first I got to see what I can see.”

Iula noticed Socrates' approach. Tony turned around following her gaze. The look in his eye reminded Socrates of Stony's.

Stony and Tony

he thought. The rhyme didn't make him smile.

“Hey, Tony,” Socrates said. “I.”

Tony was of medium height and had dusky skin. His features were half the way between Negro and white. His most noticeable features were his eyes, which were both small and flat. Instead of responding he rose, kissing Iula on the cheek before walking off.

Socrates had never known Tony to be rude. He'd never seen him kiss Iula either. But he took the empty stool and slapped his hands together a couple of times to indicate that he had something to say.

“Meat loaf plate?” Iula asked.

This was also new. Iula always asked how he was doing before plying her trade.

“I wanted to ask you sumpin',” the big man grumbled.

“Well you know I'm pretty busy. This here is rush hour for the restaurant business.”

“Okay.” Socrates moved to leave but Iula put out her hand. She touched his hard forearm with three fingers. His muscles bunched together and bulged under the gentle pressure.

“Tony want me to get back together wit' him,” she said in a flat, accusing tone.

“He wanna get married again?”

“That's what he said.”

The noise in the room became an irritating buzz in Socrates' ears. He flicked his powerful fingers at the side of his head and grimaced.

“You want that?” he asked.

“Ain't nobody else askin' me nuthin',” Iula said.

“That what you want? You want somebody t'ask you sumpin'?”

“What I want don't matter.”

Looking at those hard lips Socrates knew he wasn't going to get kissed. He knew that she wasn't going to come over and help him plant Levering's tree.

“Well?” Iula's question was a concession to the passion she felt for the ex-con. He knew that. He knew what she wanted. He knew what he should say.

“You know how they say some folks ain't got a pot to piss in?” Socrates asked.

“Uh-huh.”

“Well I got me a pot okay,” he said. “But it's old an' it's rusty an' it done sprung more'n one leak.”

“What you talkin' 'bout, Socrates Fortlow?”

The diner didn't seem noisy any more. Now it felt as if they had all gone quiet to hear his sad excuse.

“You got a business here, I,” Socrates whispered. He glanced over his shoulder but no one was looking his way. They were all still talking and eating, minding their own affairs.

“Yeah,” Iula said. “An' it's a good business too.”

“I know it is,” Socrates responded. “Tony's always workin' too. You got that sour boy doin' dishes in the back. Tony got a four-legged German shepherd an' here my own dog only got two front legs to drag around wit'.”

“You have a job, Socrates.”

“I put groceries in bags, I. I live in a house that nobody knows is there. You know I been workin' for a year an' I'm still savin' up for the deposit on a phone.”

Socrates was looking at the three big freckles on Iula's face. There were seven more on her back. He remembered kissing all ten of those dark beauty marks. The last one was in the middle of her left buttock. When he got there Iula let out such a sigh of pleasure that he could have gone home right then sure of her satisfaction. He could see that Iula was thinking about those kisses. But this time there was ice instead of fire in her eyes.

“Maybe you can wait forever, Mr. Fortlow,” she said. “But you know this black woman got to get on with her life.”

She stood up and walked toward the kitchen. He didn't reach out to stop her. He didn't even have his Tuesday meat loaf plate.

Antoine and Joseph stood so close to one another that Socrates thought they might have been frightened of him. Slender Joseph was a few inches taller than his nursery friend.

“Antoine says that you were here for the ebony tree already,” Joseph said. He extended his skinny neck and gave Socrates a gawking grin. “That's sweet.”

“You said that you might could get it,” Socrates answered.

“I was wrong,” Joseph said with his head nodding forward and back as if he were following some complex melody. “The ebony, real or not, cannot thrive in this climate. Maybe if you had a hot house environment…”

“Naw, man. All I got is a yard. And it don't get sun but half the day.”

The men were both beaming with pride. Antoine was barely suppressing a grin.

“I was sorry to be so rude the other day, Mr. Fortlow,” Antoine began. “Joseph and I talked about it at home last night and we came up with an idea you might like. Come on.”

The men turned in unison beckoning the big man to follow. They walked through the entrance of the shelter they used as their office. It was just an arched tunnel of heavy plastic fabric supported by thick bamboo poles. On the left were bird of paradise, dwarf avocado trees, rosebushes, and other potted plants for the yard. On the right were cut flowers in rubber vases of various heights waiting for young men to buy in the early evening before going out with their girlfriends. It flashed through Socrates' mind that he could get a big sunflower for Iula. But the idea receded when he remembered how hard she had looked on Tuesday night.

They went out through the back end of the shelter into a large yard of potted trees. They came to a small green rubber tub with a small white tree in it.

“Isn't it beautiful?” Joseph asked.

“It sure is,” Antoine said. For the first time Socrates noticed a slight southern drawl in Antoine's words.

“What is it?” asked Socrates.

“Coral tree,” Joseph informed him. “Very exotic, from Japan. And expensive if it's full grown. But this sapling's only forty dollars.”

Socrates wondered if these men were trying to fool him out of his money; if they were trying to sell him some apple seed that fell in a barrel full of dirt. How did he know what this twig was?

“Have you seen those beautiful white trees with the crimson flowers down the middle of Olympic Boulevard out in Santa Monica?” Antoine asked.

“The ones that's mostly bare?” Socrates could see the tall trees with the orange-red flowers in his mind, their brawny white limbs circled with black seams. He remembered how they spread out over the street and found himself smiling, no longer worried about being cheated.

“They grow pretty fast,” Joseph said.

“How do I plant it?” Socrates asked.

Socrates carried the tub from the bus stop to a phone booth on Central. He took a slip of paper from his pocket. On it he had written a phone number given to him by Bernie at Harold's Liquors the night before.

The phone only rang once.

“Hello,” she said.

“Charlene?”

“Is that Socrates Fortlow?”

“You recognized me, that's pretty good.”

“Stony's at home with his wife and kids,” she said.

“I really wanted to talk to you, Charry.”

“Oh?”

Socrates could feel his heart beating. He took in a deep breath through his nostrils and exhaled through his mouth.

“Yeah, Charlene. I bought me a tree and I plan to plant it in my li'l yard here. An' … well, it's kinda special.”

“Special how?”

“It's for a friend. A friend that died. He died a long time ago but still I should, I mean I want to do this for him.”

“Uh-huh, I see,” Charlene said. “But what you want from me? You wanna borrah a shovel or somethin'?”

“Levering, that was my friend's name, he was a ladies' man but they had him in prison and he died there. Anyway he asked me to invite a beautiful woman over when I plant the tree and say some words. He wanted to know that a pretty girl was there for his last request.”

The phone was silent for a moment and then a moment more.

“Charlene, you there?”

“Uh-huh,” she whispered.

“I don't mean to disrespect you now, sister. It's just that's what Levering …”

“You couldn't be disrespectful if you tried, Mr. Fortlow. No I don't believe that you could.”

Socrates' chest filled with air. The growing erection made him shift his position at the pay phone.

“I just meant that it would be a favor to me if you could come watch and then maybe drink a toast.”

“What time you want me?”

“Tomorrah afternoon 'bout five'd be good. I mean if you ain't busy.”

“I'll be there at five.”

“I live at…”

“I know where you live at. In that alley offa Central where them old boarded-up stores is, right?”

“Yeah. How'd you know?”

“Stony showed me once. He said how you was so poor that you just lived in a crack between two buildin's. He was makin' fun but I remembered just in case I had to come by one day.”

Socrates shifted his stance once more.

“So I'll see ya tomorrah?” he asked.

“At five. Bye now, baby.”

On the way home Socrates was glad that he had the tub to hold in front of his pants. He was relieved to get home but he wasn't relaxed.

Socrates' dick stayed hard, off and on, all night. He had to take off his pants to ease the discomfort. But he was just as miserable naked. There he was walking around the place like a teenage boy after his first kiss. He was almost sixty. It was a shame and indicated weakness, that's what Socrates felt.

He didn't want to lose control because of a woman. He cursed himself for inviting her. What did Levering care or know about who came to his tree planting and who didn't?

The erection was persistent. Sometimes it would deflate a little but as soon as he remembered Charlene's words, and the huskiness that accompanied them, he was back to full mast and angry.

His dreams didn't help. All the prison dreams about women came on him in a rush. It wasn't one dream or one woman but all of the women he had known or dreamed about. Even Muriel, the woman he'd murdered, was there stroking his brow and begging for more.

In the middle of the night when he got up to go to the toilet he was hard. He wondered if something had broken, a blood vessel or something. But he knew that it was a dam that had burst, a dam that he had built in his heart many years before. Somewhere between Iula's angry lips and Charlene's eager willingness, somewhere between his promise to Levering Jones and his job, Socrates had allowed himself to want. But the wanting scared him. Charlene scared him.

He decided that he would meet her in the yard and stay there. If she wanted to go to the toilet he'd point the way but stay outside. If she said she was hungry he'd take her to Bolger's for short ribs and corn bread.

That way he wouldn't have to do something that might get out of hand. That way he could honor Levering without going crazy and doing something wrong.

Socrates spent the morning excavating a hole for the coral tree. After that he went down to the nursery on Hooper to get fertilizer for the soil. He read the newspaper and ate canned chili for lunch. Then he went down to Harold's to buy a bottle of Old Grand-Dad just in case Charlene wanted a drink.

“Old Grand-Dad?” Bernie asked with a sly grin.

“Yeah, what of it?” Socrates said.

“Nuthin', man. Nuthin',” Bernie said. “It's just that Old Grand-Dad is Charlene's favorite whiskey and you just axed me for her number the other day …”

In his mind Socrates was afraid. Deeply afraid, but not for his physical safety. He knew a hundred ways to kill a man. He knew how to disappear and show up when you least expected it. He wasn't afraid of Stony Wile's jealousy and neither was he afraid to die.

But there he was again, still doing the same thing, making the same mistake after thirty-six years of prison and poverty. His fear was that he couldn't stop making the same mistake. He didn't want to kill another man over a woman who smiled his way. That's what frightened Socrates: he was afraid that he couldn't control his own urges and that those urges would wipe out all the good he had tried to do.

But the fear was on the inside of Socrates' mind. His face was, to judge by Bernie's reaction, a visage of black rage.

“Hey, Socco. Hey, man. I was just jokin',” Bernie stammered. “I didn't mean nuthin', man. You know what you do is your business an' you better bet I ain't gonna get in that. Here, take this fifth. It's on me, brother. On me.”

Socrates accepted the gift because he knew that he couldn't talk without throwing his fists. He gritted his teeth and shoved the paper bag under his arm then he nodded to Bernie and walked out holding his breath.

For a long time after he got home Socrates rehearsed how he'd plant the tree and drink a toast and then tell Charlene that he had to go to work to do an overnight inventory at Bounty.

But then four-thirty rolled around and he got hard again. He went out into the yard and began playing with Killer. Socrates had set up two seven-foot steel poles at diagonal opposites across his small yard. He attached them with thick nylon cord. He took another cord, nine inches shy of six feet, attaching one end to the high wire and the other end to a leather harness that supported Killer's backside. That way Killer had the run of the yard and Socrates could take down the short cord and use it as a kind of leash to take his dog for walks. It was good exercise for the ex-con because even without his hind legs Killer was seventy pounds of jet-black mutt.

By five thirty Socrates could hear his heart beating. By six he was sure she wouldn't show.

When she finally appeared at six fifteen he didn't know what he was feeling.

She was wearing a black dress that you would have said, if you saw it on a wire hanger, belonged on a woman half a foot shorter and twenty pounds lighter. But Socrates didn't complain about the deep brown cleavage or the flesh of her thighs. He didn't ask why she was late. He didn't even remember that she was late. He said no more to Charlene than he had to Bernie but his face was an open book.

She said, “Hi,” and he opened the gate to the alley. She held out her hand and he took it to lead her across the threshold. They walked past the hole he'd dug and the tree next to it. Killer shoved his friendly snout up under the short dress. Charlene giggled and scratched his ear.

In the kitchen Socrates took Charlene by her waist and guided her to sit in his one good wood chair. He took off her flat-heeled black suede shoes and caressed her calf with a hand that knew a hundred ways to kill.

Charlene sighed and he said, “Stand up.”

He pulled the black straps off her shoulders and then went down on his knees again as he pulled the dress toward her ankles. He swung around to sit in the chair. Using his hands he turned her slowly around to look at the body that had lived in his dreams.

“Baby,” Charlene said in a voice that was almost pleading.

Socrates could see that she was getting shy from his deep scrutiny and his powerful hands.

“What?” he asked her.

“I don't know,” she said.

They played love until nearly midnight. It wasn't until then that Socrates broke the seal on his whiskey. They had only one drink before going back to bed.

“What you thinkin'?” Charlene asked him in the darkness of his sleeping room.

“That it's always about me,” Socrates said.

“What you mean?”

“Here I am sayin' that I did this for Levering. But Levering is gone and I'm here with you. You know I think I woulda bust if you didn't come over. It was me had to sleep with you. Even though I knew it was wrong.”

“What's wrong with it? I ain't married. You ain't neither. Are you?”

“Maybe it ain't. I don't know. At least nobody died over it.”

“I almost did,” Charlene sighed.

They fell asleep in each other's arms.

At four o'clock the next afternoon Socrates went to Iula's diner. Before he climbed the aluminum ladder he saw Tony working in the machine shop below the restaurant. Socrates waved at Tony who had a blowtorch in his hand. The mechanic made some kind of gesture and Socrates continued his climb.

Iula was alone behind the counter. Charles Rinnet was in the kitchen bus behind.

“Hello,” Iula said in a neutral tone.

“I,” Socrates said.

“Not quite ready yet but if you give us ten minutes you could have somethin'.”

“I just had to say somethin'.” Socrates' voice was full of the love that Charlene gave him. It arrested his ex-girlfriend and she gave him a nod.

“I ain't stayin',” Socrates said. “I just wanted to say that you mean somethin' to me and I care a lot about you. You a good woman. You got a lot goin' for you that any man would like to share. If you need a man today you should have that. And I'm sorry it ain't me. But you know I got business t'take care of before I could saddle a woman with this here heart I got. You know sometimes I feel like I'm gonna explode. An' you cain't blow up on someone you love, baby. No.”

Iula said nothing but she didn't seem angry. She just nodded and looked at him.

He kissed her on the cheek and left.

That night he sat outside with the black dog's head in his lap drinking toasts to Levering's coral tree. At some point he fell asleep. Hours later he came awake. The stars were shining and his neighborhood was quiet and peaceful. He felt safe even though he was outside because there was no light stronger than a star shining on him or his promise.

shift, shift, shift

B

ut I ain't did nuthin',” Darryl said in a voice that was sometimes husky and sometimes high.

“If you ain't did nuthin' then why they kick you outta school?” The ex-convict asked. They were facing each other in Socrates' apartment.

“It wasn't my fault,” the skinny boy said. He had shot up in the last year. Almost as tall as Socrates, the boy slouched under the angry glare.

“Then whose fault is it?”

“It was Cassandra. If she wasn't always messin' wit' me everythin' woulda been okay. But she always wanna be makin' fun.”

“So you hit her?”

Darryl's head bowed even lower.

“You hit a girl on the school yard but it wasn't your fault? Somebody threw your fist for you?” Socrates brought his knuckle underneath Darryl's chin and pulled him up straight. “Huh?”

“I didn't hit her wit' no fists. I just pushed her an' she fell. I'idn't mean it.”

What Darryl saw in Socrates' eyes had meant death for some unlucky men in the past. Darryl knew all those men's names and the exact time of each death. He was the closest living being on earth to the ex-convict/murderer turned boxboy. Darryl had also killed once and confessed to Socrates. There were no secrets between man and boy.

“Ain't you learned nuthin', Darryl? Ain't you listened t'me at all?”

“She was makin' fun'a my clothes. I asked her to go out wit' me an' she run to her friends an' started talkin' to them 'bout how I was dirty an' dressed bad.” Darryl was shaking with rage even while he cowered under Socrates' stare.

“What the MacDaniels said about this?” Socrates asked.

“Nuthin'.”

“You told 'em?”

“Yeah,” Darryl complained. “They just said not to do that no more and that I better just go to Bounty for the day I was suspended so I don't get in no trouble while they at work.”

“They didn't make you do nuthin' else?”

“No.”

Darryl slumped away from the big hand. The ex-convict could see by the way the boy held his shoulders that he expected to get hit. He'd been standing in that posture ever since Socrates came up and asked him why he was at work when it was a school day.

“I'm not gonna hit you, li'l brother,” the man said. “Somethin's wrong here but hittin' ain't gonna make it right.”

“What then?” Darryl asked.

Before Socrates could answer, Killer started barking in the yard. Then a hard knock came on the door.

Socrates hesitated a moment. Maybe, if Darryl wasn't there, he would have fished his .38 from behind the loose board in his kitchen wall.

Instead he called out, “Who's out there bangin' like that?”

“Police!”

There were three white men standing at Socrates' only door. Two of them were in uniform and one sported a well-worn brown suit. Socrates cursed himself silently for never putting in the escape door he'd always thought about.

“Socrates Fortlow?” the man in the suit asked.

“You got a badge, man?” Socrates said in a voice that didn't give away his fast-pumping heart.

“Don't fuck with me, jailbird,” the man in the brown suit said.

He was short and well built for a middle-aged man. His face was flat and oval. He had squinty eyes and tight skin but he was still a white man, confident with the tall and athletic-looking cops at his back.

Confident but no fool. He made sure that Socrates' hands were in sight. They were big hands. A giant's hands really.

“Inspector Beryl,” the plainclothes cop said as he displayed a badge and identity card in a leather fold. “Homicide.”

The spasm that went through Socrates' neck and shoulders was one tick away from attempted murder.

“Are you Socrates Fortlow?” Inspector Beryl asked again.

“Yeah. What you want?”

“Put your hands against the wall behind you and spread your legs.”

Again Socrates' mind went to violence. The policemen were standing close to each other. None of the three had weapon drawn. Socrates was almost sixty and they weren't afraid of him. He could have easily bowled them over. There was a spade propped up against the outside wall that he could grab after bringing them down with his weight. The chances were good that he'd get away. But almost definitely somebody would die.

A second had elapsed.

“Put your hands on the wall … ,” Beryl began the command anew.

It would have to be then that Socrates moved. Those men were all younger than him. He'd have to use surprise to the hilt.

He turned his head, pretending that he was going to comply. Darryl was standing there trying not to look scared. Socrates felt Beryl's hand against his shoulder.

The moment for escape passed. Maybe if he had been alone. Socrates chuckled.

“What you say?” the plainclothes cop asked.

“I said, you're welcome, officer.”

At the station they took his green army belt, folding knife and shoelaces. Then he was led to an interrogation room and made to sit down on a metal chair that was bolted to the floor. They attached his handcuffs to two thick metal rings screwed into the floor and then left him alone.

The only thing that showed how fast Socrates' heart was working was the sweat that glistened on his bald black head. Otherwise the ex-con could have been a dark statue placed in the center of that small room by some sculptor who knew that the truth could only be told in secret.

After some time the door to the room opened again and Beryl appeared with two other men in suits. One was white and the other a milky brown. The colored man had a thick mustache. The white one had a big belly hanging down. They were about the same height, not over six feet.

“Socrates Fortlow?” the big-bellied cop said.

“You gonna charge me or what?”

“My name is Kirkshaw,” the big white cop continued. “Captain Kirkshaw. Tell us what you know about Minnie Dawn Lee.”

There was a mechanical hum somewhere in the wall. Socrates wondered where it came from.

“Do you understand me?” the policeman asked.

“Do I get a lawyer?”

“Do you need a lawyer?” the milky brown cop asked.

Socrates turned toward his fellow black man but he didn't say anything.

“The key to those chains is the truth.” Inspector Beryl spoke for the first time.

He almost cursed them but Socrates knew that any show of feeling would bring on some sort of assault. They'd wait until he opened up a crack and then they'd concentrate on that chink until he was either dead or guilty.

But Socrates could outwait any man who had a home to go to. From the moment those policemen showed up at his door he was a convict again. And a convict could wait his whole life without cracking a smile or shedding a tear.

“You killed a woman in Indiana,” Biggers, the Negro cop, said. “Did you shoot her too?”

Socrates' nose itched but he wouldn't have scratched it even if his hands were free. Just that small gesture would have given up too much to the thugs who called themselves law.

It had already been over two hours. All Socrates had asked for was a lawyer or some kind of charge. He was thirsty and thinking about the woman he'd murdered thirty-six years before, Muriel. He could feel the husky gust of her last breath against his face. He didn't remember the night of the murder at first but this last gasp had returned to him in a dream he had in prison many years later.

“Tell us about it, Fortlow,” Kirkshaw said. “What happened with Minnie? You wanted a blow job for free? Is that it?”

The easiest time in a black man's life is when he cain't fight at all.

The words were from his aunt Bellandra after the first time Socrates had been brought home for fighting in the street.

He don't care about winnin'. No. He know he ain't never gonna win. But as long as he can swing his fists he thinks at least he could hurt somebody else. But once he caint fight at all, even if that mean he gonna die, the black man don't have to worry. He give it his one shot an' now he can take his medicine.

Socrates let his shoulders slump down when he remembered the words of his crazy auntie and Muriel's dying sigh. The men hovering about him were in charge. They could do whatever they wanted and so he wasn't responsible for a thing.

“You worried, huh?” Kirkshaw said, mistaking Socrates' relaxed shoulders for defeat.

Socrates looked at the man's shoes thinking that it wasn't the first time he'd been kicked.

The questioning went on for about five hours. Finally the shift was up and the overtime was no longer worth it. They hit him with rolled-up newspapers and open-hand slaps. The only blood was on the inside of his mouth. Bruises didn't show on black skin unless there was swelling.

When they brought Socrates to his cell, he was tired. He'd learned that the girl in the silver miniskirt, the one found in his alley a month earlier, was Minnie Dawn Lee, a party girl. The police were investigating but they had no leads until someone said something about the ex-con who lived in that alley. They got his records from the prison authority and figured they could close the case before Friday.

He wasn't a suspect, they said, and so he didn't get read his rights or given a lawyer. All he got was some questions, that's what they said.

Socrates was put in a holding cell with another man, Tiny Jones.

“He was the kinda man,” Socrates told Darryl a few days later, “scare the panties offa some white woman at Bounty. Nineteen years old an about three hundred fifty pounds. He come up to me not one minute after I was there an' say, ‘You got some fuckin’ cigarettes on you, old man?'”

“What you say?” Darryl asked.

“I pushed him wit' one hand an' he fount himself up against the wall. After that he just went back to his cot an' stayed quiet.”

“Fortlow.” The voice came from far away. Socrates imagined a black giant that sometimes appeared in his dreams. A big man with powerful limbs who came to remind Socrates, now and then, that there was a lot of work left for him to do.

“Fortlow.” But it was only a policeman, a guard really. “Your lawyer's here.”

“Have I been charged?”

“Come on,” the uniformed guard said. “I don't have time to waste on you.”

“Ernesto Chavez,” the lawyer said to Socrates. He was slender and sharp with a razor thin mustache and eyebrows that might have been plucked. His skin was olive and his eyes were the sleek color of a black widow spider's skin.

“Who sent you?” Socrates asked.

“Marty Gonzalez asked me to represent you.”

“Shit,” Socrates said through the mouthpiece in the wire-reinforced plate glass. “Man, I couldn't even buy you pomade.”

Ernesto Chavez had perfect white teeth and a good sense of humor to show them off.

“You got that right, bro,” he said. “But this is free.”

“Free?”

“Marty used to bring me a care package from the store every week when I was in law school. You know …” Chavez finished the sentence by rubbing his hands together indicating how one washed the other.

Socrates understood.

“So,” Ernesto continued. “You got a problem here.”

“Somebody killed a girl and dumped her in the alley not too far from my door. I was in for a murder in sixty-one. They think it's in my blood.”

“Did you tell them anything?”

“Nuthin' to tell.”

“But maybe they made something up,” Ernesto suggested. “Your eye's kinda swollen.”

“I asked 'em for a lawyer. They said that there wasn't no charge.”

The young man's eyes rolled and a smile flitted underneath his mustache.

“You have some good friends, Mr. Fortlow. They came down here with the money to get you out but I think a quick call to the court will work just as well. You didn't tell 'em anything, right?”

Socrates stood up and gestured to the guard that he was ready to leave.

Outside the police station that morning Socrates found Marty Gonzalez, his friend Howard Shakur and Darryl, along with the lawyer, Ernie Chavez. Howard was by far the largest of the men and Socrates was most surprised to see him there.

“Darryl called me,” triple-chinned Howard said. “He got my number from Luvia and called out to Venice.”

“Are you okay, Socco?” Marty Gonzalez asked. “Did they do that to your eye?”

Socrates didn't answer Marty's question. There were too many things going through his head. It was early in the morning. Each man there was missing something, work or sleep or a paycheck or school.

“You okay, Mr. Fortlow?” Ernesto Chavez asked.

“Man, I don't even know you,” Socrates said.

“He's my cousin,” Marty Gonzalez said.

All Socrates could do was stare. His friends looked at each other.

“Well,” big Howard said. “I got to go home and get to bed. You know I just did the graveyard shift. You wanna ride to school, Darryl?”

The boy looked at Socrates.

“Try to stay in it this time,” Socrates said.

“You wanna ride to work?” Marty asked.

“No.” Socrates was curt. “I got to do some things at home first. I'll be in at about noon.”

“You wanna a ride home before I take Darryl?” Howard wanted to know.

“Just lea'me alone, all right?”

They left him standing on the street in front of the police station. Again he was like a statue; a slightly larger than life-size image of a black man against white stone. His khaki pants and black T-shirt were tight over arms and legs that bulged with angry strength. His head tilted up slightly.

The assistant manager Jason Fulbright looked at the clock when he saw Socrates coming through the sliding glass doors of Bounty. Socrates followed his immediate boss's eyes to see that it was two fifteen.

Socrates stifled the urge to go up to the younger black man and say, “I have a good excuse, boss man. I had to wipe the prints offa my thirty-eight and go hide it under a wreck in the empty lot down the alley from my place. 'Cause you know a ex-con been down for double murder and rape cain't own no pistol to protect himself in this country. In this country they got to protect niggahs like you.”

Socrates realized that he was speaking under his breath, saying what he was thinking and building into a fury. So he turned away and went to the back of the store where he could find some hard work for his hands to do.

“The police came to see me today before you got here,” Marty Gonzalez, the store manager, told Socrates.

It was ten fifteen that night and the last customer had been let out of the front door with a key by Sarah Shulberg and her best friend, the black girl Robyn Craig.

“Oh yeah?”

“They said that you killed two people, that you raped the woman, and that you were labeled incorrigible at a prison in the Midwest.”

They were standing next to a bin of pink grapefruits that were piled in a pyramid.

“Oh yeah? What you say?”

“I said that to begin with I knew about your record and that Bounty had a policy of giving people a chance to reform. And then I told them that midwestern prisons must be pretty strange to release incorrigibles and let them move out of state.”

“I ain't told you 'bout my record,” Socrates said.

“It's not any of my business and those cops were wrong to tell me.”

Socrates wanted to hit Marty. He wanted to pick up a grapefruit and squeeze it until all of the bitter juice was wasted on the floor. His distress was physical. His head ached and his stomach was ready to roll over. Socrates' mouth was filling up with saliva when he said, “I got to get outta here, Marty.”

The shorter supervisor put his hand on Socrates' right biceps.

“I still want you for my produce man, Socco.”

“I gotta go” was the only answer he could give.

Weakness was the convict's worst enemy. Soft muscles, bad eyesight, poor mental faculties or just plain tired—all of these were life threatening conditions in the state pen.

Socrates couldn't rise out of bed for twenty minutes after he woke up the next morning. The room was spinning. He hadn't eaten since the afternoon of the day before. In the slam the guards would have beaten him to his feet, or to the floor.

Because of the dizziness he had to sit down to urinate. He was still on the toilet when the knocking started.

They knocked for a long time. Long enough for Socrates to drag himself to the door.

Beryl and Biggers stood side by side.

“Can we come in?” the milk chocolate man asked.

Socrates slumped in his good chair while the two cops leaned up against the wall.

“You know we got a quota down at the station, Fortlow,” Beryl was explaining. “They expect us to solve one out of three murders and they expect one out of five of the perps to be put in jail. It's not as bad as it sounds. Because you see if you killed once you probably will again. I mean it's like a habit with you people.”

Socrates looked at Biggers but the black cop didn't seem to think his partner meant any insult to

his

race or kind.

“One out of five is more like three or four outta five because the one you get's prob'ly done a couple'a others.” Beryl smiled. “Like those three Mexican kids killed up on MLK last March. Girl was raped and shot just like this Minnie Lee. Would you submit to a blood test, Mr. Fortlow?”

Whatever it was they expected from Socrates, it wasn't laughter.

“Shit, man,” the big friendly killer replied. He took a deep breath and then sat up straight. “I ain't never bled for nobody wasn't willin' t'give up sumpin' too. Shit.”

“We know you killed her, Socrates.” Biggers spoke so softly it was almost a whisper. “And we intend to bust you for it, don't make any mistake about that.”

“Tell me, Detective Biggers,” Socrates said. “What's your first name?”

“We're asking the questions here,” Beryl answered for his partner.

“Listen t'me, motherfucker.” Socrates stood up from his chair. “I ain't afraid of you. You get that? You ain't gonna scare me into pleadin'. An' if you think you could hurt me then you don't know what pain is.” Socrates thumped a heavy point finger against his own chest. “

I

am pain. Me. I ain't killed nobody in a lotta years. So you could forget a confession. Ain't nuthin' that the cop squad gonna get outta me. You sure cain't hurt me. You could kill me. You could set me up. You can put chains on my arms and legs but you sure the fuck cain't make me lie on myself.”

The policemen stood straight and made subtle defensive motions with their hands. Socrates laughed again.

He looked into Bigger's face and said, “Listen, brother. You one'a them, I know that, but you one'a us too. You know what it's like out here. You know what it's like. Read up on me, brother. Read about how when I woke up and found I had killed my friends I just wandered off to a bar somewhere, I didn't even know where I was. When the cops come and th'ew down on me I gave up. They asked if I knew why I was bein' arrested. I said yeah. I knew. I knew. I ain't no gangster, man. I ain't no thief or hired muscle. I'm just mad, mothahfuckah. Now take this white man an' get outta my house.”

The veins on Socrates' neck writhed as if some unnatural evil threatened to burst through his skin.

Beryl stepped in front of his partner but there was no need.Neither man would have stood up to Socrates, not in the mood he was in, not if he was eighty.

“We're gonna take you down on this one, Fortlow. You'll be back in prison soon enough. And this time there won't be any parole for you.”

Socrates went in to work. He was only half an hour late. He avoided Marty most of the day. Even when they had to talk, Socrates kept it short and gave away nothing of what was going on.

“How's it going?” Marty asked after the lunch break.

“Fine.”

“The police come to see you any more?”

“Naw. They just want somebody t'pin it on. I woulda been the one if you hadn't put your cousin on the case. Thanks, Marty. I owe you.”

“Have you—” the manager began.

“I got to get to work, Marty,” Socrates said. “Talk to you later.”

Socrates was sure that the knock on the door at six thirty that evening was the police again. He looked forward to their visit more than any friends. Enemies brought out his strength. Somebody to go up against where you knew the trouble and were ready for war. That's what Socrates knew best.

He put away his evil grin before pulling the door open but the men standing there were not official.

“Darryl. Howard. How you boys doin'?”

“You gonna stand outta the way an' let us in?” Howard asked.

“I'm tired, man. Been workin' all day. What you want?”

“We done drove all the way out here,” Howard said. “You know I picked up Darryl 'cause he was worried about you.”

“Well I'm fine. Just fine. You don't have to worry 'bout me.” Socrates shifted from one foot to the other as if he wanted to close the door but didn't want to be rude. Howard put three hundred and some odd pounds across the threshold to make sure that the door stayed open.

“What's wrong with you, Howard?” Socrates said. “You wanna get hurt?”

“What's wrong wit'

you,

man? Here we come on down to the jail wit' our piggy banks and lawyers an' all you got to say is you tired and please step out the way.”

Socrates looked hard at his friend. Howard was one of the few men that Socrates was jealous of. He had a beautiful wife who had a job, he had kids that were just like butter and brown sugar. He had a job working with computers and lived in Venice down near the beach. Howard had more than Socrates could ever hope for but he didn't seem thankful or even proud.

“Let us in, Socco,” the big man said. “We got stuff to talk about.”

“… so I went over to the MacDaniels' an' told 'em that me an' Corina would be happy to take Darryl in,” Howard was saying. He and Darryl were sitting on folding chairs in Socrates' sleeping room. Socrates only had two rooms. One was the kitchen, where he ate, and one was for sleeping and talking to his guests.

Darryl was quiet and so was Socrates. Howard explained how when he drove Darryl to school they talked about how he had been suspended for hitting a girl.

“I told 'em that maybe Darryl needed a little more supervision from somebody who come from down where he was from,” Howard said. “'Cause you know old Mr. MacDaniels is okay but he don't know how to thump a boy upside his head when he get fresh or sullen.”

Howard playfully flicked a finger at Darryl's ear. Socrates saw the pain on the boy's face but Darryl didn't complain.

“When they took him in they thought he'd be just like their son that died, like he'd know all the rules. But I told'em that Darryl's a hardheaded boy from the hood an' he needed somebody like me t'keep him straight.”

“What they say?” Socrates asked Howard.

“They were scared, man. Scared 'cause 'a how their son died in that drive-by. You know they worried that Darryl be arguin' 'bout goin' t'bed at night. They think that might lead to crack.” Howard laughed at his own joke while Socrates and Darryl watched. “Naw, man, they want somebody t'take Darryl.”

“They said that?”

“I'ma bring the papers down to social welfare next week.”