Walkin The Dog

“I like what you had to say,” Chip Lowe said to Socrates once they were on the way. He drove a 1959 pink and turquoise Chevy pickup. It looked as good as the day it was new.

The ex-con had no reply.

“I mean,” the watch captain continued, “we got to settle this shit about men and women to get on with the problems we got down here. Don't you think so?”

“I don't know.”

“But that's why we get together,” Lowe said. This was the first time he'd been talkative with Socrates. Before that night he had been cold, even suspicious. “So we can talk all this stuff out. You know, everyday people talking. Not no Jesse Jackson or soul brother number one. Just folks. Right?”

Socrates looked over at Chip, who was looking back.

“I'ont know, man,” Socrates said. “Talk is cheap.” He was thinking about a man, J. T. Helms, who they said was having a conversation about the upcoming presidential election all the way to the electric chair. He talked until he died.

“But why would you wanna come to Nelson's if you don't think it matters?”

“I like chicken and wine,” Socrates offered. “An' anyway, cheap is all a poor man can afford.”

“But what you said back there to Leon came from your heart,” Chip said with conviction.

“Maybe,” Socrates admitted. “Maybe I felt it but feelin' don't make the difference. If all you leave wit' is a good feelin' you coulda stayed home.”

Chip frowned and turned his eyes to traffic. Then he glanced at Socrates and looked away again. After he'd done this a few times Socrates realized that the man had something to say.

“You know there's been some talk about you, brother,” Chip Lowe said.

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah. I mean I'm not the sort to get in a man's business but some people out here just ain't happy 'less they can run somebody else down.”

Socrates' window was open. There was a scent in the breeze, the odor of human waste.

“I just wanted to tell you that people been talkin',” Chip said. Then he paused giving Socrates a chance to say something.

“Okay,” the ex-con answered.

“Okay what?”

“Okay I hear ya. People been talkin'. I know, people talk.”

The odor was picking up strength. Socrates tried to pierce the night darkness and see where the smell came from.

“It's just that I thought you should know about it,” Chip said. “A man should know when he's bein' bad-mouthed.”

“And now I know.” When the odor began to lose strength Socrates gave up his surveillance.

“But you don't know what they said.”

“I ain't askin' you about gossip, Chip Lowe. If you got somethin' t'say then just get on wit' it.”

“It's the police,” Chip said in a heavy tone.

“Yeah?”

“They said that they suspect you of killin' that girl, that Minnie Lee that they found four months ago near your place. They told the watch to be careful around you because you were in prison for murder and they think you still at it.”

“How long ago they tell you this?” Socrates asked.

“I don't know.”

“Yesterday?”

“No.”

“Last week then?”

“Well …”

“How about last month? They tell you about me last month?”

“Maybe, maybe it was then.” Chip looked up to see what cross street they were at.

“But you waited till now to tell me.”

When Socrates rubbed his hand over his head Chip stiffened a little.

For the rest of the ride, only a few minutes, both men were silent. When Chip pulled up to the front gate in the back alley, Socrates waited before he opened the door.

“I don't hold it against you, Mr. Lowe. You got to wait before you can know if a man is trustworthy. But I cain't help ya either. I am who I am, you know what I mean?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I guess so.”

With that Socrates climbed out of the truck and went in to pet and feed his dog.

The next day he was at work again, bagging groceries and making deliveries around the Beverly Glen district. It was a hot day but overcast and gloomy. Socrates did his work without thinking much except every once in a while that odor came back to him. The smell of a man or woman who had lost control and was sending out a scent that would bring predators and death.

“Socrates, can I talk to you?” Marty Gonzalez came upon him in the back room among the other older employees of the store.

Ben Rickman, Larry Cross, and Hal Crown all stood up to leave. They were white men, lifetime supermarket employees. Socrates was the only one of the group who hovered around minimum wage but he was accepted among them because of his age and maturity.

“What, Marty?” Socrates asked his boss.

“I can't hold that job open too much longer,” the small bronze man said. There was no trace of a Spanish or Mexican accent in his words. “You know I've been without a produce man for six weeks now.”

Socrates wanted to say that Marty should give that job to somebody else. He wanted to be left alone but somehow he couldn't get the words out. He thought about Leon and Nelson and especially about Cynthia and how she dismissed men. The smell from the street seemed to follow Marty's question.

“Well, Socco?” Marty asked. “What's it going to be?” “Gimme one day, Marty. One day and I'll let you know for sure.”

“Yeah I think you should do it,” Darryl told his self-appointed guardian. “You could do that job wit' no problem.”

“I guess so,” Socrates said. “And Marty's behind me, that's for sure.”

They were having donuts and hot chocolate at the House of Donuts in a mini-mall eight blocks down from Bounty Supermarket. They watched five young white boys practicing on their skateboards in the parking lot of the mall.

“Then you gonna take it?”

“But what if in order to get this new job they got to look in my record again?” Socrates asked. He didn't expect an answer but Darryl had one anyway.

“They ain't checked yet. And so what if they do? You could get another job. But at least this way you got a chance t'get a better check.”

“I don't know if it's worth all that bother.”

“But if you get paid better,” Darryl reasoned, “you could get a phone and maybe you could move.”

“I don't need to move.”

“But if you did I could come stay wit' you. If you lived in a place where nobody knew me, then I could stay at your house and you wouldn't have to think that the old gang might get me.”

Socrates got off the bus early on his way home, giving himself twelve blocks or so to walk and think. He meant to make a decision about Marty's offer to promote him to produce manager. It was a good job and he deserved it; at least he had done well at work.

But when he got off the bus Socrates caught a whiff of that same odor he smelled out the window of Chip Lowe's car. The smell of someone without a home or hope. The smell of someone dying.

For two blocks the scent gained potency. Socrates passed two liquor stores, a beauty shop, a travel agency and three times that in closed storefronts. He realized that the smell was coming from behind the block and so he went down a side street to an alley behind the stores.

Halfway down the alley he came upon a small wooden structure that was once meant to house trash cans for the weekly dump truck. The graying pine cube now contained the life of a man.

He wore white tennis shoes that had been blackened from the street. His jeans would have fit a child, and the pink shirt was unbuttoned, revealing parchment-like brown skin over brittle bones. The smell was heralded by flies that buzzed everywhere. Socrates recognized the trumpet player.

“Hoagland Mars,” Socrates said loudly enough to rouse the man from his doze.

“I ain't,” the small man whispered, “I ain't got it no mo'.”

“Ain't got what?”

“I spent it on wine, man. Yo' money is gone, brother. Gone.” Hoagland's eyes closed and then slowly opened again. “You still here?”

The odor intensified the longer Socrates stood there. He already felt that he should go home and wash away the horn-player's stench.

“Get up,” Socrates ordered. “Get up.” He caught the soiled man by his shoulder, lifting him to his feet.

“Ow! Damn, man, what's wrong wit' you?” Hoagland was suddenly wide awake. He tried to pull away but Socrates held on to the boy-sized man. He held him at arm's length to keep from suffocating on the fumes released by lifting the wino.

“Lemme go, brother. I ain't got nuthin'. You cain't take nuthin'. Just lemme go or hit me an' leave.” Hoagland was unsure on his feet but Socrates kept him upright, then he began to walk.

“Where you goin'?” the wino protested.

But Socrates didn't answer. He dragged Hoagland Mars to a phone booth on Ninety-second and made a call to a man named after a poet.

“… and bring a tarp or sumpin' that we could put'im on, Milton,” Socrates said into the mouthpiece, “ 'cause he smell more'n a outhouse and he might vomit any minute.”

The twenty-five-year-old gold Lincoln Continental pulled up twenty minutes later. Hoagland was sleeping on the sidewalk.

“Damn, man,” Milton Langonier, semiretired gypsy cab driver, said. “That smell might get inta the seats.”

“Just to Luvia's,” Socrates said. “You can keep the windows open an' I'll pay ya ten bucks.”

Socrates laid the unconscious jazz man on the painter's tarp that Milton used to cover his backseat. Milton drove with all the windows and vents open. He also turned on the air conditioner and waved one free hand under his nose.

Socrates carried the man like a boy in his arms. He let the legs swing down and supported Hoagland with his right arm while he rapped on the door with his other hand.

He didn't know what to expect when Luvia saw the mess he'd brought to her doorstep. They had been at a partial truce ever since Socrates had started to pay for her monthly visits to Right Burke's grave. Socrates accompanied her, driven by Milton Langonier. He spoke very little and respected her few moments alone with the old man she'd taken care of and loved in silence.

Rail thin, and mean in a way that only some Christians seemed to master, Luvia opened the door and scowled at Socrates. She looked at Hoagland Mars dangling off the side of the ex-convict like a Siamese twin who had died and withered, leaving his brother the task of carrying him until the day that he too passed away.

Luvia didn't wrinkle up her nose or fan her face.

“This here is—” Socrates began.

“Bring him out back to the garage,” Luvia interrupted. “I got a tub out there we could use. I usually use it for old clothes we get in but it'll do.”

She turned and walked down the narrow hallway that went through the house and out a door into a small cement yard. Across the yard was a double door that led to a garage. Therein stood two washing machines, an industrial-sized sink, and a huge iron tub lined with cracked porcelain.

Luvia connected a small red rubber hose to the spigot and tested the water between hot and cold as if she were preparing to bathe an infant.

Socrates didn't need directions to undress Hoagland. It was impossible to tell if the man, who was semiconscious at best, had any objections. Socrates stood Hoagland up in the tub and then he took the hose from Luvia and formed a weak spray by applying pressure against the spout with his huge bone-breaking thumb.

Hoagland began to laugh. He giggled and assumed modest poses like a young girl walked in upon while dressing. He squealed and turned, using his hands to cover his genitals. Finally he sat down in the tub and allowed Luvia to scrub him with an oversized sponge.

Socrates gave her the hose. She just laid it down in the unplugged basin, using it to rinse off the places that needed it. Hoagland Mars lay back in a languorous euphoria allowing Luvia to wash him and move him with ease.

When it was all over the wino had fallen into a deep sleep. Socrates carried him to an attic room on the fourth floor of the house. He laid Hoagland out on a cot. Luvia covered the man and brushed his forehead with her hand. A smile came across the hard woman's face.

“If you gimme a hunnert dollars a mont',” Luvia said in clipped words. “I could get that much again from the city an' then my church will come in with any extra if it's needed.”

“That's what everybody stay wit' you has to pay?”

“Somebody got to pay it. I cain't make water into wine or pull bread out from a hat.”

They were sitting in a small room on the bottom floor. Socrates sat on the sofa because no chair in the room looked like it would support him. Annie Rodgers, the feeble-minded woman whose mother had died when Annie was forty-two, stood in the hall watching Luvia.

“Who paid for Right?” Socrates asked.

“Right Burke was a guest in my house,” Luvia said proudly.

She was still angry at Socrates. She would always blame him for Right's death. He accepted the burden. Guilt seemed to be the proper change for the kind of love he could give.

“My daddy was like that,” Socrates said.

“Like what?”

“A drunk. Died on the street just like Mars was gonna do. They brought us to the hospital when they found him. He smelled just like that, just like Hoagland did.”

“I don't have no sense'a smell,” Luvia said as she batted the fingers of her left hand against her nose. “Smell don't bother me. I don't have to worry about it.”

“You don't smell nuthin'?”

Luvia almost snarled as she shook her head.

“I'll come up with the money for at least three months,” he said. “After that I'll put a clothespin on my own nose and mind my own business if he goes back on the street.”

“How much a produce manager get?” Socrates asked Marty Gonzalez the next morning at eight fifteen.

“It's a level twelve,” the short man said.

“How's that in dollars?”

“Eleven forty-five an hour based on a forty-hour week,” Marty replied. “But we expect a man in that position to work until he gets the job done. You only get paid for overtime if you have to come in special or stay overnight.”

“That's near about five hundred a week.” Socrates had always been good with numbers. He just thought about the equation and had a general notion of the result.

“Four fifty-eight,” Marty said nodding. “A lot more than you get now.”

“They might look at my record,” Socrates said.

“Not if I don't check that box,” Marty countered.

“I'll be sixty next year.”

“Newman worked till he was sixty-nine down on Sepulveda. He only retired because his wife got sick. The way it works now is that a man's not old till he proves it. And you're stronger than any other man in the store right now.”

Marty was smiling at the glower on his employee.

“You got three people workin' in produce right now,” Socrates said. “What about what they say when you promote me over them?”

“Do you care what Kelly or Billings thinks?”

“Fuck no but you might.”

“If I cared about a white man's opinion about me I'd be in a grave in East L.A. right this minute.”

It was the first time that Marty had ever said anything about race or prejudice. Socrates had begun to think that Marty was one of those men who pretended to themselves that they were white. He wore a white shirt and tie, he spoke like a white man and married a white wife. But there it was—him and the white man,

them

and the white man.

Socrates liked Kelly and Billings. They were friendly and courteous. They asked after your health when you'd been sick and listened to what was going on with you. Marty didn't hate those men but he knew, Socrates did too, that colored men had suffered under white disapproval where when a brown man was angry it was spit in the wind.

“So what do I do?” Socrates asked.

“You take off that blue apron and put on a green one,” Marty said. “I'll have the papers in my office tomorrow morning. Just practice your signature tonight and tomorrow make it plain.”

“It's a man's world,” Leon Spellman said that Wednesday night at the Saint-Paul Mortuary. “From the president on down, from Martin Luther King on down, from Al Capone on down—it's a man sits on top and say what's what and who's who.”

“And that's just why the world is in such a mess,” Cynthia said with disgust. “We got a man in the driver's seat and he's drunk as a skunk.”

“That's not fair, Cyn,” Nelson the undertaker said. “The boy said Martin Luther King. You cain't call Martin Luther King no drunkard or fool.”

“He was a good man but he was a man, Topper,” Cynthia replied. “And a man wanna rattle his sword and shake his fist. A man wanna lead and the rest wanna follow. But when that man is cut down, we're lost. The head is gone, the man is gone and all the plans is gone too. A man, no matter how good he is, makes a mess.”

“You know Cynthia's right there,” Veronica agreed. “I don't want no man out there yellin' and fightin' when he could be home wit' me. It's the Bible tell me what's right. It's the Lord lead me. It breaks my heart when they kill our men like that, or when they kill each other. It breaks my heart.”

“But what else can we do?” Socrates thought but he said it out loud too.

“Say what?” Chip Lowe asked.

“It's like nobody listens,” Socrates said. “It's like you always alone. Most of the time it's like you got to yell or hit or somethin' 'cause nobody's listenin'. You got to do somethin'. You got to let somebody know. Other people don't have that problem. One of 'em look to the other one and they both nod and they know.”

“What you talkin' 'bout, Socrates?” Nelson Saint-Paul asked.

“I don't know,” Socrates said. “But it's somethin'. Cynthia's right. Other people don't have a leader you could point to and they seem okay. You got your Chinese in Chinatown and your Koreans with their language all over billboards and stores up on Olympic. And the Jews all over the country help each other without sayin' they need another Moses to set 'em free.”

“What that supposed to mean?” Chip Lowe asked.

“It means that I'm tired, man. Tired,” Socrates said. “We dyin' out here.”

“I don't understand, Socrates,” Veronica said as she lit her stogie. “What do you mean?”

“I don't know, baby. It's like there's somethin' missin'. Somethin' I ain't got in my head. I know what's wrong but I don't know what's right. You know what I mean?”

Veronica nodded slowly but the gesture seemed to say,

No, but I'd like to understand.

Cynthia and Leon and Chip Lowe were all frowning.

“We all know what's right, Socrates,” Nelson Saint-Paul said.

“All of us?” Socrates asked.

Nelson nodded while sticking out his pudgy lower lip with conviction.

“Then why do we have it so bad out here? Why don't we all get out in the street an' clean up what we got and then get together to take back what's been stolen?” Socrates' voice cracked and he blinked.

“It's complex,” Nelson Saint-Paul answered. “Black people have been—”

“I know what it is stop me,” Socrates said interrupting his host. “It's 'cause I'd be alone out there. I'd be crazy because I'm the only one and how can one man matter? It's like a butterfly in a hurricane.”

For a few moments there was silence that befitted a mortuary. But soon there was talk again. Socrates listened. He heard what his friends had to say but he was thinking too.

He was thinking about the first time he heard Hoagland Mars play his coronet in the alley outside his door at three in the morning. The music was beautiful but it woke him up and gave him a scare. He was still scared and he was foolish. That combination of thoughts was enough to make Socrates smile.

Six weeks later Socrates had a telephone installed in his home. He was produce manager at Bounty. He had a new pair of shoes and a watch made from steel.

He walked to Marvane Street up to Luvia's front door. Even half a block away he could hear the jazz man playing out of the fourth floor window.

“He's upstairs,” Luvia said, not frowning. “I'm sure you could hear it.”

Hoagland put down his horn when Socrates walked into the room. He was wearing black jeans and a blue T-shirt, his feet were bare and his stiff hair was combed straight back.

“Yes?” Hoagland asked, not recognizing his patron.

“My name is Socrates.”

“Oh yeah,” Hoagland said. “You the one fount me and brought me over here.”

Socrates nodded. Hoagland did too.

“You know,” Hoagland said. “I have to thank you for bringin' me to Luvia. She just the kinda woman I need to keep my shit straight. I know she said that you thought I was dyin' out there, that I was hopeless and a drunk but you know it was just the intestinal flu.”

“What?”

“I got put outta my place and then I come down with flu. That's what was goin' on. Just sick. But I thank you anyway. Even when I got better I prob'ly wouldn't'a found my way here.”

“You need anything?” Socrates asked.

Hoagland shook his head to say no. “Luvia's church got a social club. They hired me to play 'em some jazz on Wednesdays. You could come on by and listen if you want. It only cost three dollars and you know I can blow.”

“I'm busy on Wednesdays but good luck to you.”

Hoagland Mars nodded and smirked. Socrates smiled to himself and said, “Well I better get goin'.”

He turned and left the room without shaking hands.

walkin' the dog

O

n a clear day in August, when the hot air seemed to be boiling with flies, Socrates decided to take his dog for a walk. The ex-convict put on black sweatpants and a white T-shirt. He thought about putting a knife in his sock but, for a reason he couldn't explain, he went unarmed into the yard. There he found Killer capering expectantly with the help of the harness attached to his legless backside.

Socrates unhooked the short leader that connected Killer's halter to the suspension rope. He wrapped the bright yellow cord twice around his big fist and said, “Okay, boy. Let's go show 'em what you could do.”

They walked a few blocks down the alley, Killer prancing proudly on his two powerful front legs. He was a heavy dog, seventy pounds easily. He had weighed more before the accident on the day Socrates saved him in the streets of West L.A.

Killer survived the amputations and, earlier on that summer, he made it through two operations. He was strong and brave too. Socrates would have said that he loved that dog if he ever said those two words about anyone or anything.

His right biceps bulged as the hot sun came down on his bald black head but Socrates didn't acknowledge the strain of his labors. Killer was the first pet that he'd ever owned. Other men in the penitentiary kept garden snakes, rats and pigeons for pets. Some of them swore that they had favorite cockroaches who returned each night for special crumbs they'd hoarded. But Socrates didn't love in prison. Love was weakness and Socrates' armor had nary a chink.

He never had a pet as a child. His father was a drunk and his mother worked too hard even to love Socrates most of the time. His aunt Bellandra loved him but she was crazy; she was too worried about her visions to have some furry creature mewling around begging for food.

“The white Christians call Him the Shepherd,” Bellandra would tell Socrates, who was old enough to remember but not of an age to comprehend. “That makes them sheep. They made us pray like that, like we was sheep too. And you know what happens to sheep, don't ya? They cut off their woolly hair to humiliate 'em. They put the dogs on 'em. They slaughter 'em too. Now why would God want man to be lined up with sheep?”

Children were playing softball in the alley four blocks down. Socrates noticed that there were little Mexican children sprinkled in among the blacks. Too young to hate yet. Too young to separate and draw lines; to play a different game with guns and knives.

The children stopped and gawked at the big man and his deformed dog.

“Hey, mister,” one black child shouted. “What happent to his legs?”

“Front part run so fast,” Socrates responded, “that he left the back part behind.”

“Huh?” the boy grunted, his friends mouthing the same wordless question.

But before they could say more Socrates was moving away, Killer barking joyously at the boys and their big white softball.

Socrates made a left on the next block. It was a street full of music and barbecue smoke, makeshift lawn chairs and people wandering back and forth. Down the middle of the street a gang of boys rode their bicycles in a swarm. Two or three old women sat on painted concrete porches fanning themselves and watching.

A few people motioned toward the dog, pointing out his deformity. If Socrates noticed them the gesture turned into a wave.

Killer tried hard to pull his master toward the smell of burnt flesh, but even if he had four legs he couldn't have budged the muscle built by so many years of prison life.

There wasn't a day that Socrates forgot the single cell, the smell of rust and sweat, the sounds of metal on stone that surrounded and imprisoned him. He was like a guerrilla soldier back then, secreted underground, waiting for the moment to rise and strike; waiting for freedom that he knew would probably come only in the form of a coffin.

But now, after twenty-seven years in storage and after nine years out, Socrates walked his crippled dog in the bright sun, unarmed and at an uneasy truce with his enemies.

The policeman, the salesman in the store, the newspaperman or TV anchor, Socrates didn't trust any one of them. He knew that their jobs were to hold him down and rob him, and then afterward to tell him lies about what had really gone down. It was a crazy thought, he told himself, but then he'd say, “But not as crazy as this world,” and then he'd laugh.

He was laughing right then on the way to the park.

From behind a sickly pine bush sprang a feathery red-haired dog. The animal, one-sixth the size of Killer, bared its sharp teeth and snarled. Killer saw no harm in the dog and danced on his front paws begging for a smell.

“Johnny, where are you?” a man called in a clear soprano. He appeared from behind the shedding, dying pine. He was tall and thin with a processed hairdo wrapped up in a nylon do-rag. He also wore a long-sleeved purple shirt, with fresh sweat stains in the armpits, and matching purple pants.

Even from a distance of a few feet Socrates was assailed by the thick sweet scent of the man's cologne.

“Oh my,” the younger man said. He held his hands in front of him in a cautious, almost feminine gesture.

“Yo' dog wanna fight and mine wanna make friends,” Socrates said to help the purple man settle down.

“Johnny B. Goode, sit!” the younger man ordered.

The fluffy red dog obeyed instantly.

His master had a pencil-thin mustache and was older than Socrates had at first thought. Forty, maybe even forty-five. He had a slender scar down his left cheek and one eye was a light walnut, the other a deep mahogany brown.

“He like to growl but that's about all,” the man said, still eyeing Socrates cautiously.

“Killer'd lick a razor blade if you'd let 'im. I don't think they taught survival in his brood.”

“Yeah, I know what you mean. Sometimes Johnny be wagging his tail, snarlin', and takin' a piss all at the same time.” The purple man smiled then he stuck out his hand and said, “Lavant Hall.”

Socrates grabbed Lavant's right hand with his left because he was holding on to Killer's rope.

“Socrates Fortlow.”

“What happened to your dog's legs?”

“Run over by a car,” Socrates said, shrugging slightly.

“How come you call him Killer if he so friendly?” Lavant Hall asked.

“I figger that if somebody hear me callin' him that they might stay offa my property on account'a the name.”

Lavant Hall laughed and took a pack of no-name brand cigarettes from his oversized shirt pocket. He shook the pack at Socrates and a single tan filter appeared. Socrates took the cigarette. That was etiquette on the prison yard and a habit Socrates kept even though he rarely smoked after moving to L.A.

When Socrates leaned forward to take a light from the skinny man Killer got a chance to sniff the shiny red dog. Johnny B. Goode snarled but he didn't back away or snap. He was sniffing too.

“That's a fancy-assed dog,” Socrates said with the familiarity of an old friend.

“Grand Long-Haired Red Terrier they call the breed,” Lavant said. “It's a valuable dog but I ain't got the papers.”

“How come you don't?”

“ 'Cause I stole him off the street up in the Pacific Palisades.”

Socrates took a deep drag on his cigarette and held the smoke for a few seconds before exhaling.

“Why you steal him?” Socrates asked. “You gonna sell him?”

“No.”

“Hold him for ransom then?” Socrates was remembering Ahmed Jones, who used to say, on the recreation yard, that kidnapping favorite pets of rich people was just as lucrative as kidnapping their children but that the law didn't get that crazy over a missing cat or a dog.

“I ride a bicycle,” Lavant Hall said, smiling. “I ride it everywheres just so they don't think that they could keep me down here. I don't need to be white or rich or nuthin' to go up in the canyons or down to the beach. Not as long as I got my legs and my bike… .”

Johnny B. Goode jumped on Killer's head but the larger dog shrugged him off and barked. Somehow the motion started the two men walking on a zigzag path through Will Rogers Park.

“… they cain't stop me from usin' the streets,” Lavant continued. “Anyway I was up there at the Canyon Mall lookin' for a liquor store or someplace to get a soda pop 'cause it was hot an' I rode up all the way from down here… .”

There was a young couple lying near a bush in the lawn. They were kissing each other passionately, rubbing their hands all over each other's body. Socrates could see the big man's erection pressing urgently against his loose pants. The woman was holding on to it as if they were in a private room with the doors shut and locked.

“You see that,” Lavant Hall said, nodding toward the lovers. “That's love right there on the ground. Ain't nuthin' t'be shamed about. An' if somebody don't like it then they don't have to look.”

They passed the lovers and Socrates asked, “What about the dog?”

“Yeah,” Lavant said. His smile flashed against a dark background of skin. “I saw this woman wearing a fur coat that was probably chinchilla. I say that 'cause the fur was like feathers, like Johnny look. That's not mink or nuthin'. Mink's heavy. But you know that white woman made me mad. There she had that cute dog and she was wearin' ten or twelve other animals on'er back that looked just like him, at least their hair did.”

“So what you do?” Socrates asked. He was getting angry imagining the blood of some woman shed by a man who saw his own life in that of a dog.

“I followed her,” Lavant said. “She went into a couple'a stores carryin' Johnny in her arms but then she come to this one place, this delicatessen. They wouldn't let no dogs in there. Even that bitch couldn't break that rule and so she tied his leash to a bike rack. That's all I needed.”

The man in purple showed all of his teeth. “You know I pretended like I was lockin' up my bicycle but then that I changed my mind. I scooped up little Johnny and made a beeline back home. He's mine now. License, shots, everythang.”

Lavant put up his hands feigning modesty at pulling off a great prank.

“Why?” Socrates asked.

“It's a war out here, brother,” Lavant Hall said with conviction. “They wanna make us into slaves with the dollar. They wanna make us into slaves next to the TV. They even wanna make you a slave to taxes, my brother. You pay 'em yo' money an' they use it to buy your chains.”

“Listen, man,” Socrates said. “I done heard all that shit in the lockup. All day long you hear men talk about bein' political prisoners an' all that shit. What I wanna know is what's all that got to do with you stealin' that woman's dog?”

They had both stopped walking at the south end of the park. Socrates let Killer's backside down on the grass. But the dog didn't care because he was with his new best friend, barking and biting playfully.

“I didn't steal 'im I freed 'im,” Lavant said with glee in his high voice. “I'm a freedom fighter. That's my job twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. While you sleepin' I'm out fightin' for freedom. While you makin' chains I'm puttin' acid in the locks. While you countin' your pennies on a bare tabletop I'm partyin' with the people free from all the raggedy flags and law books of the Man.”

“You do all that, huh?”

“Yep, I do,” Lavant said.

“Then why ain't I heard about you, you so famous?”

“You done heard you just don't know. I'm all around you but I'm invisible like Ralph Ellison.”

“I don't know him either. And I still don't see why you stole that dog. But I thank you for the cigarette.” Socrates bent down to heft Killer's rope and said, “Come on, boy. Let's get you home before somebody wants to make you free.”

“Hey, brother, hold up,” Lavant Hall said. “What they have you in prison for?”

“I broke the law right on the jaw,” Socrates said. “I fucked it up and they come down on me with a hundred tons of chain.”

The man with the different-color eyes got serious.

“They can lock up your body,” the purple man said. “But your mind is yours even if you don't want it.”

Socrates stopped a moment to think over those words. He nodded and then nodded again. Then he gave a little half wave and turned away.

He walked back toward his own apartment. Before he reached his home he had forgotten about Lavant Hall; except for once in the middle of the night when he was awakened by a thickly sweet odor. He sniffed his left hand in the darkness and realized that it was the scent of Lavant Hall's cologne.

September was hotter than August that year. One Saturday it was so bad that Socrates got a ride from the gypsy cabbie, Milton Langonier, out to Venice Beach where he and Darryl walked along the ocean with Killer at dusk.

Every hundred yards or so Killer would test the waves with his big red tongue, hoping to find fresh water somewhere in that vast ocean.

“How you like yo' new job?” Darryl asked. He was lanky and awkward but Socrates could see the beginning contours of a man's face coming out to replace the child's.

“They miss you down at the store, Darryl. Robyn and Sarah always askin' after you.”

“Really?” the child said. “That Robyn's fine.”

“They both cute.” Socrates liked the black and white girlfriends even though they were wealthy and didn't know a thing.

“I miss 'em too but Howard won't let me work at Bounty no mo'.”

“That ain't true an' you know it, boy. Me an' Howard an' Corina all talked to that vice principal. He said you got to buckle down if you wanna get good grades.”

Darryl bent down quickly and picked up a fistful of sand, which he threw into the water. Killer barked and lurched against Socrates' grip, looking for the ball he used to chase when he had four legs.

“Come on, boy,” Socrates said. “Let's go on up and get you a chili dog.”

There was a big boarded-up building on the promenade. It was vacant but not abandoned. Men had been working on the inside changing it into some new business to sell trinkets or junk food at the beach. There was an unfinished pine plank blocking the main entrance. Socrates and Darryl sat on the step there eating their hot dogs and fries.

Pasted on the planking was a large yellow poster which was printed with bright red lettering.

It's War!

The racist and imperialist forces of Amerika are waging a war on you; a war in your schools, a war on your bodies and your minds. The poison in your food is chemical warfare. The lies in the schools are propaganda and nothing less.

Wake up! Wake up, Amerika! Don't let your children drown in the gutter. Don't let the so-called Democrats and their so-called free elections tell you what's on your mind. You got freedom on your mind. You got love on your mind. You got a good time with good neighbors on your mind.

They're using your money to kill in Rwanda, to kill in South Amerika, and right here in your own backyard. They put the blood in your hands but don't you drink it.

If there's a war you could win it. Just stand up and fight. Burn down the raggedy flags of the Man.

Rebel, Rebel

Socrates eyed the poster because of the bright red letters on the yellow paper. He looked closer at the texture of the paper than at the words. It was rough fabric plastered with thick glue onto the wall. There had been attempts to tear it away but the poster had resisted. Looking closer Socrates realized that the words were handwritten, each letter painstakingly rendered between faint pencil lines. It was then that Socrates felt something familiar about the poster. Not the words but the poster itself.

“So you like it?” Darryl asked.

“Like what?”

“The produce job?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I like it fine,” Socrates said. “Work hard though. Harder'n motherfucker when Marty gets a bug in his ass. But I make some money though. A poor man might think I was rich.”

“You gonna move?” Darryl asked.

“I just barely got a phone, man. Gimme some time.”

“It's just that they got some good apartments out around here. You could come live out here if you wanted.” Darryl pulled his head back, indicating that it didn't matter one way or another if Socrates moved closer to him.

But Socrates knew better. He looked up at the poster again.

“Huh,” the big man grunted.

“What?”

“I was just thinkin',” Socrates said. “You wanna come stay out at my house tonight?”

“Yeah,” the boy said without hesitation.

The next morning they were both up early. Killer was ready for a walk. They went down to Iula's house where they made pancakes and pork links for her.

“We figure that you cook every day, I,” Socrates told his weekend girlfriend. “At least one day a year somebody should make a meal for you.”

Iula smiled and drank her coffee. She took only a bite of pancake, explaining that she never really ate until afternoon.

“But thank you for the meal, baby,” she said to the boy while smiling for the man. “It's nice to be thought of any way you get it.”

They ate in her small backyard under the thin branches of a pomegranate tree. Iula made the second batch of pancakes. Socrates helped by standing behind her with his hands on her hips.

“You ever meet a man name'a Lavant Hall?” he asked after kissing her ear twice.

“Mmmm,” the diner owner crooned. “Smell like a whole bot-tle'a perfume done falled on his head. I always thought he was one'a them funny men. Why?”

“I don't know. I met'im 'bout a month ago. He had this fluffy red dog. He said somethin' that I didn't think about at the time but now I wanna talk to'im about it and I was wonderin' where he lives.”

“He stay up in Theda Johnston's garage. He don't pay rent but I think he know somethin' about electricals and he rewired and did some other stuff for her.”

Socrates and Darryl and Killer made it to Theda Johnston's house on Denker at two in the afternoon.

It was a big house for the block. Only one story but wide, with a front porch that almost ran the full length of the property. The porch was shaded by overhanging eaves. There was a sofa on either side of the front door and a huge dark evergreen tree in the front yard. Everything about the house looked cool and relaxing. Except for the loud African music coming from the backyard. The three Sunday strollers followed the music back to a garage that was newly painted yellow with crayon blue trim.

Johnny B. Goode leapt from some secret hiding place growling and barking and wagging his tail. Killer lunged forward to nuzzle his old friend.

“Dang,” Darryl said, frightened by the sudden attack.

The music cut off.

“Who's out there?” someone shouted from behind the partially open yellow door.

“Socrates, Lavant. Me and a friend come by to see where you live at.”

The door swung open and Lavant Hall came out holding a claw hammer in his left hand. He was wearing the same purple clothes with what looked like the same sweat stains. His eyes registered fear and distrust.

“You remember my dog don't you, Lavant?” Socrates found himself trying to put the man at ease again. “We met at the park last month. You remember.”

“What you want?” the purple man asked.

“Just wanted to say hey, brother.” Socrates hoped that his words didn't sound as unnatural as they felt in his mouth. “And to ask you somethin'.”

“Ask me what?”

“ 'Bout the raggedy flags of America, man. About them yellow posters you been puttin' up from here to the sea.”

“Who told you that?”

“You did.”

“Me?”

“I remembered you talkin' 'bout raggedy flags but even before that—I don't know, it was like that poster reminded me'a you. Neat but all handmade.”

The wary look on Lavant Hall's face slowly turned into a smile. He lowered his hammer and called Johnny B. Goode. Then he threw the door to the garage open and waved an inviting hand at his uninvited guests.

The garage had a high unfinished ceiling. The rafters were piled with junk, but it was neat. There was a platform loft halfway up the far end where Socrates spied a bed. The main room was dominated by a huge worktable supported by boxes and sawhorses. On the table was a big rectangular tub full of a pasty yellow fluid. There were coffee cans that held artist's brushes. A yellow poster page was spread out in front of a high swivel chair that had been set up for Lavant to write out one of his political manifestos.

“This is it,” he said proudly, holding up his skinny arms.

“Dog,” Darryl said, looking around the darkly cavernous room. The only lights were one overhead lamp that shone down on the yellow sheet and another, smaller bulb that lighted the loft space above.

“It's sumpin',” Socrates agreed. “But what is it?”

“This is where the revolution's gonna come from,” Lavant said. “Here and everywhere where people work for ideas instead'a for money.”

“You mean these here papers you writin'?” Darryl asked.

“It's thinkin' that makes a man, son,” Lavant lectured. “Ideas make us responsible for each other. Most people got money-colored glasses on. They think that they can put life in a wallet. They think they buy their souls when really all they do is sell 'em and then die and go to hell.”

Darryl looked down to avoid the zealot's eyes. He nodded and mumbled something.

“I thought it was you,” Socrates said. “I thought it was you and so I come by to see.”

“That's what we need,” Lavant said. “People who think about somethin' that ain't in your pocket, your stomach, or your crotch.”

Darryl giggled at the last word and Socrates smiled.

“So you a revolutionary, huh,” the ex-con said.

“Rebel,” Lavant said in way of correction. “I don't have a revolutionary ideology. I fight anything that wants to keep a human being from being free.”

“An' you think puttin' up these posters do all that?” Socrates' words were a challenge but Lavant could tell that his visitor wanted to believe.

“The truth

will

set you free, brother,” the purple-clad fanatic replied. “Did you know that there were three black African popes that sat in the Vatican? Yeah. Saint Gelasius, Saint Miltades an' an' an' um, Saint Victor.”

Socrates stalled for a moment, impressed by this impossible knowledge.

“You see?” Lavant said. “We could tear the walls down with that kinda truth.”

Socrates wondered. He rarely spoke to anyone who told him anything new or hopeful. His Wednesday evening discussion group talked about all kinds of issues but Socrates hadn't learned much for all that talk.

“And that's not all I do,” the younger man continued. “You know I help old folks fill out insurance and government forms and I taught two people how to read. I always bear witness when the cops make an arrest. And I preach to the young people in the streets.”

“You crazy,” Darryl said. “That's what crazy people do.”

“Just remember what I say, boy,” Lavant said with his eyes alight. “I might be crazy but you mark my words.”

Lavant showed Socrates how he made the poster board from rags and permanent dyes. He read to them from past broadsides and showed them a wall map dotted with red pins that indicated where he'd placed his posters.

After that they drank Coca-Colas while Lavant questioned and corrected Darryl's history lessons from school. When the boy started fidgeting, Socrates stood up.

“Well.” Socrates put a hand on Darryl's shoulder. “I got to see Darryl off to a bus so he can get home and get to bed in time to go to school tomorrow.”

Outside the garage, under a strong-smelling bay laurel, Lavant asked Socrates, “You know where the Pink Lady is over on Jeff?”

“Yeah?”

“Two blocks south on the cross side'a the street is a boarded-up hardware store with a picture of a clown on the door.” Lavant smiled. “Around the back, between the buildin's is a door. Come on round after ten and you see what a rebel can do when he's on the job.”

Socrates put Darryl on a crosstown bus and went back to his place. On his butane camp stove he made scrambled eggs with chorizo sausage, garlic and onion. Alongside the eggs he had canned asparagus topped with lemon juice and mayonnaise. The smell of the sausages filled the house for hours. Socrates was reading about poisonous sea snakes in the South Seas in an old

National Geographic

he'd taken from the trash somewhere. He fell asleep reading and came awake a few hours later because of the smell. Not the sharp scent of spiced meat but a sweet odor.

It was Lavant Hill's cologne in the fabric of his clothes. Socrates smelled the hand that Lavant clasped while saying good-bye.

There was a car service garage not far from Socrates' alley. Cigar-smoking Pete Roman ran the graveyard shift. Roman had Lamont Taylor drive Socrates to out near the Pink Lady for four thirty-five plus a one-dollar tip.

There was the sound of drums and strings coming out from the space between the condemned building, with the clown face on the door, and its neighbor. The passageway between the buildings was so narrow that Socrates had to hold his shoulders at an angle to make it down to the source of the music—a tin-plated door.

The man who answered Socrates' knock was six six at least. He wore black pants and a red vest with no shirt. His head was woolly and his hands were large. His arms were thin bands of steel.

“Who the hell you think you is?” the man demanded.

“Lavant invited me,” Socrates said. He didn't want to hurt a man just because he didn't know how to talk.

“Lavant who?”

“Hall,” Socrates said. “He said that he work here. He said I should come by.”

“He went out,” the man said searching Socrates face for signs. “But, uh, I guess you could come in if he invited ya. I mean, most of the people is regular but you don't look like no cop.”

“Cop,” Socrates sputtered and then he laughed.

The giant got the joke and backed away to let the new man in.

It was a big room filled with music and people. All kinds of people. Mexicans and blacks, whites and Asians. Men and women, young and old. There was a bar run out of a black trunk that stood on two tripods. There was also a white banner, with the bright red words

CLICK'S CLUB

printed across it, hanging down from the rafters.

The music was fiddle, clarinet, guitar and drums accompanied by three singers. It was rock and roll, kind of, and soul and blues for sure; improvisation from musicians who knew each other well.

It was truly a condemned building. Linoleum was ripped up to reveal the unfinished wood of the floor. Walls were broken out so that there was just one big room between rotted timbers. It had been dusty but someone had gone through the place with a heavy-duty vacuum and a broom. In some places Socrates thought he could see where water had been sprayed to keep the dust down. There were jury-rigged overhead lamps like the one Lavant had used to illuminate the yellow broadside on his desk.

Many of the people were dancing wildly. Two women had taken off their blouses and were dancing, bare breasted, close to one another. There were lovers in the corners and lively conversations going on at makeshift tables and chairs.

“Drink?” asked a blond-haired black woman with three silver studs in her left nostril. She was standing next to the elevated trunk that was filled with bottles of liquor and wine.

“How much for a shot'a JD?” Socrates said, looking over the labels displayed.

The woman's wide face became a question. “You somebody's guest?”

“Lavant Hall invited me.”

“Oh,” she said, happy again. “This is Click's Club. All drinks one dollar. Everything else is free once you walk in the door.”

The woman poured Socrates' drink in a paper cup and he handed her his dollar. She was young looking but in her forties, Socrates could tell by the lines near her eyes. She was heavy but shapely, responsible at her job but ready to laugh.

“How long you been here?” he asked the woman.

“My name is Venus,” she replied.

“Socrates. How long this place been here, Venus?”

“Just tonight,” she said.

“This your first night?”

“Naw, not like that. I mean it's our first night here. Saturday we be someplace else.”

“You mean you move every night?”

“Every night that we convene. This place is click,” Venus said snapping her fingers and tossing her hair. “We all put up the labor and then we party and congregate all over town.”

“Hey, Venus,” a woman said coming up to the bar.

“Hey, Shy. This is Socrates.”

The woman named for bashfulness was wearing a see-through red wraparound with yellow lipstick. She had bleached white hair. She was a young woman and black too. Socrates had never seen anyone like her.

“Hi,” Shy said with a friendly smile. “Venus, you got some rubbers?”

“How many you need?”

“Um,” Shy mused, “three.”

The bartender smiled knowingly and produced three square green packets from somewhere behind the trunk.

“You're the best,” Shy said kissing the dark woman with her bright yellow lips.

“A lotta that go on around here?” Socrates asked after Shy had gone.

“Everything go on when the Click flag flies,” Venus said. “Everything but drugs and violence, but we don't put them down neither.”

“Yeah, I could see that,” Socrates said. He was looking at an elderly couple, even older than him, sitting next to each other on cinder blocks near the door.

“You do, huh?” Venus asked.

“Sure. People who wanna be free cain't have all that disruption. Fightin' an' drugs kill a good time faster'n the law.”

Venus' laugh was friendly and inviting. She pressed her hand against Socrates' arm and smiled. “How do you know Lavant?” she asked.

“Our dogs are friends,” Socrates replied.

“Oh,” she said making eyes that spoke about something else altogether.

“Can we get some red wine, Veen,” someone asked from behind. Socrates turned to see that it was a white man with a small Asian woman at his side.

Other men and women had come up to ask for drinks. Socrates allowed himself to be pushed away.

“Socrates,” a high voice cried.

“Hey, Lavant. Where you been?”

The skinny man wore a purple dress jacket with camel-colored pants and white patent leather shoes. He was carrying two shopping bags.

“Out shoppin' for food at the twenty-four-hour Bounty over on Exposition. You know we ran outta cold cuts and dancin' makes you hungry.”

Socrates took the two heavy bags and followed his host to a long table set up in what once was the storeroom of the hardware store. Helping hands were there to meet them taking bread and meat, catsup and mayonnaise from the bags and placing them around the table.

The music was playing loudly throughout the empty structure. Socrates looked around at the crowd.

“Somethin' else, huh,” Lavant asked.

“You people ever get caught?”

“Sometimes. Especially when we hit some rich neighborhood. But all we do is walk away. Maybe a night in jail for one or two but you know this is two hundred people here. Nobody owns Click's.” The tone of Lavant's voice changed and Socrates could tell that he was getting excited about his politics again. “The police can't stop a good time and they know it. Look at it, man. Every color and creed. One day all of America will get here.”

“If nobody owns it how does it happen?” Socrates wanted to know. “I mean who sets up where you meet? Where does the money go?”

“There's a board like …” just then Lavant gestured at a skinny white woman who was kissing a heavyset man.

“Hey, Alice!” Lavant cried. “Save some'a that for me, baby.” He laughed and turned back to Socrates. “We used t'be all political and had meetings about the world and how we was gonna change it. You know what it's like. Bunch'a men and women talkin' so hard that they sweat, thinkin' so hard that they get nosebleed.”

Socrates felt the Jack Daniel's then. His smile turned into a chuckle and the music entered his bones.

“That's right,” Lavant continued. “All we did was talk and grunt. One day we was all gonna live together an' have a dozen kids between us. The children would be an army that we'd lead into war. Next mont' we was all gonna go to Cuba and work for the revolution amongst the Afro-Cubanos down there.”

Socrates had enough talk for right then. He wandered off for another whiskey and a few words with Venus. He didn't dance but stood near a mob of men and women shaking to the music.

Socrates nodded to people here and there but he didn't enter into any conversations. Lavant was talking to everybody and Venus was busy with her bottles and paper cups. So Socrates wandered the perimeter of the first floor, locating boarded-up windows and doors.

Once he ran into Shy, who was coming out of the shadows with a young white man. They were both smiling broadly.

“Hi, Socrates.” The yellow lips wrapped themselves around his name.

“Tell me sumpin',” Socrates requested.

“What?”

“Do they like rent this place or what?”

Her smile was anything but shy.

“We know a lotta construction workers and supply people and just plain old folks in the neighborhoods. So when one'a them sees that a place is empty we check it out and make our plans. Sometimes we up in a nice area and somebody let us use their home.”

“But this here is trespassin'?” Socrates asked.

“Only if we get caught.” Shy puckered up her bright lips and kissed the air between her and Socrates.

For all his experience the ex-convict knew little about women. He had lived among men for most of his adult years. He nodded and backed away from her like a barefoot traveler who had come upon a snake.

“I'll prove it,” someone said from behind a walled-off corner.

Socrates peered around the edge and saw a young black woman and a white man standing about three feet apart and staring hard into each other's eyes. She wore a black leather micromini with a tight-fitting elastic halter top. He held a large hunting knife in his left hand. Her eyes seemed to be pleading for this proof and so Socrates held back to see what would happen.

The white man, who was dark haired and half bald, raised his right hand and slashed the wrist. He dropped the knife holding the bleeding hand high. A look of deep satisfaction and grief worked its way into the young woman's features. She took a step forward and touched his bloody fingers. For long seconds she gazed into his unseen face.

Socrates was breathing hard. He'd never witnessed anything like this, not even in prison where suicide was commonplace.

The woman's mouth opened but no words came out. She pulled off the halter. If there wasn't so much blood being let Socrates might have been impressed by her nakedness. She used the halter as a bandage, wrapping it tightly around the wound. She gazed deeply into the white man's face with a need deeper than any love Socrates had known.

The blood was still dripping down between them but slower with the dressing. Socrates watched the lovers as long as they gazed at each other. But when they moved into an embrace he turned away.

A few minutes past three A.M., Socrates was talking to Lavant and the white woman, Alice, asking if there would be someone to give him a ride home, when someone yelled, “Police!”

“Com'on,” Socrates ordered his friend. Then he went toward the back of the building as the tin-plated entrance filled with cops in full riot gear.

Socrates made it to a window that had been blocked with thin plywood. Two well-placed kicks and Socrates, along with Venus, Alice and Lavant, was outside in a concrete yard.

With a nudge of Socrates' shoulder the padlocked fence opened up. Then they were running down the alley, heavy footsteps not far behind.

Socrates allowed Lavant and the women to go before him while he caught a glance of the people behind. They were other refugees from the rave, stumbling along in their awkward party shoes.

From somewhere behind them came the command, “Halt! Police!”

“Keep on goin'!” Socrates told his friends. And then he ran hard with his head down. He knew that the cops would have their hands full with the other escapees. The only thing to worry about was a shot that might go wild.

But no shots were fired.

When the four reached the alley, Alice shouted, “My car's at the end of the block!”

It was a copper-toned Jaguar sedan. Socrates and Venus piled in the back. When Alice hit the gas, Socrates laid a heavy hand on her shoulder and said, “Slow it down to a walk, sugar, we ain't outta the bag yet.”

He left his hand there for twenty blocks or more, until Alice finally moaned, “You're hurting me.”

Socrates sat back thinking about prison; about how they could have pulled him in for B and E. One small party and the rest of his life could have been spent in stir.

“Mothahfuckahs,” he whispered.

Everyone else was silent.

The rage of the ex-con filled up the car but he was unaware of its effect. All he could think about was how small his cell had been. He couldn't even turn around comfortably. He couldn't play music or go through the bars for a bottle of wine. He couldn't even close his own door or open it for a visitor or friend.

It was cramped in Alice's car too. He thought about going home but his apartment was also small and cell-like. He was a prisoner-in-waiting on the streets as far as the cops were concerned.

Those thoughts played through his head again and again. Socrates paid no heed to the car's direction.

When Lavant sighed and said, “That was a close one,” Socrates didn't hear him.

“You saved us,” from Venus, could have been the passing blare of a horn.

The music from the party along with the scramble of feet on the gravel of the alley still filled Socrates' ears. He slipped into a daze that was closer to sleep than it was to consciousness. Sweat beaded up on his forehead and his blood ran cool.

Alice drove them up into Malibu hills, to her home.

The living room was sunken below the entrance hall. It was shallow and arching but over fifty feet wide. The walls were all glass. To the left you could see the million winking lights of Los Angeles and to the right there was darkness where Socrates knew the ocean lay.

“Nice, eh, Socco?” Lavant said at his shoulder.

“Yeah,” Socrates said. “Yeah, this is more like it.”

“If you like the view now,” Alice said. “Wait until the sun comes up.”

She wasn't yet forty, Socrates surmised, thin and plain, but the hunger in her eyes made up for a bad complexion. She wore a green, loose-knit sweater dress that came down to mid-thigh.

Lavant came up and put his arm around her.

“I can hardly wait,” Socrates said. “To see the sun come up and not be in jail are the two best things there is.”

Lavant and Alice went off to her bed. Venus touched Socrates' shoulder but he told her that he was going to stay up for a while.

Venus was well named but Socrates was too angry to be with a woman. He didn't feel safe in his own skin.

He opened the sliding glass door and sat out on the terrace that looked over Alice's rock garden, swimming pool and the sea. He couldn't make out the ocean but he could smell it and every once in a while there came the faint sound of breaking waves.

Two hours later the Pacific shifted into existence and morning gulls cried. Socrates sat completely still, afraid to move a finger lest the spell would break.

The smell of coffee came with daylight.

“Good morning, Mr. Fortlow,” Alice said at the door. She came out with a cup of coffee in each hand.

“Mornin',” Socrates said. “Thank you.”

His hostess wore a full-length white terry cloth robe. She sat down in the chair beside him.

“I love this view,” she said. There were dark patches under her eyes and her hair was a mess.

“It's like we ran through hell and went right up to heaven,” Socrates said. “Damn.”

Venus and Lavant soon appeared and they went off saying that they would make breakfast. Alice joined them but Socrates stayed outside. He walked down through the rock garden, stuck his toes in the pool. He walked out to the edge of the property which looked down into a sheer gorge that led down to the sea.

“Where you wanna go, Socco?” Lavant called.

Socrates was standing near the pool.

Lavant and Alice and Venus came over to the edge when the big man didn't answer.

“Did you sleep at all last night?” Venus asked him.

“I don't think so,” he replied.

“Why'ont you stay here and take a nap, brother,” Lavant suggested. “Alice gonna take me down to Sam Flax in Westwood to get some razor blades and brushes. That's okay, right, baby?”

“Well,” the homeowner stalled. “I …”

“He

did

save your butt last night, girl.”

“Okay,” she said after a long hesitation. “We're going for art supplies and maybe some lunch. We'll drop Venus off at work and Lavant promised to help me pick up a chair that I bought.”

Socrates fell asleep on the sofa in the wide living room and dreamed of being in that house forever with the breeze from the ocean and the sweet sounds of the world.

He was walking on a large grassy field with Killer running around him on all four legs. There were sheep everywhere bleating and eating grass.

“Hey, Socco,” someone called.

He turned and saw Right Burke approaching him wearing his sergeant's uniform from World War II. He was no longer crippled but he was still an old man.

“Hey, Burke, what's happenin'?” Socrates hailed.

“You think these sheep think they sheep?” Burke asked.

Killer howled in reply.

Socrates woke up half expecting Killer to be there. The house was still empty and he went right out the door. He wandered the narrow and steep pathways of the canyon, walking in the street mainly because there were few sidewalks up there. After some time he made it down to Sunset Boulevard. There he found a bus that got him to work by two fifteen.

Nobody complained about his absence. Socrates was a hard worker and respected among his peers.

When he got home that evening, Killer barked and stamped his forepaws to show how hungry he was.

“I learned a lot from that dog,” he told Iula later that night as they lay together in each other's arms.

“What could you learn from a dog?” Iula asked playfully.

“That you can be hungry but you don't have to be mad.” A wave of emotion choked off the end of his sentence. He stayed quiet for a few moments. “That bravery ain't no big thing. Bravery is just doin' what you do wit' what you got an' where you find yourself. But it's, but it's love that gives life. It's that that calls out for you.”

“You don't need a dog to teach you about love. Everybody knows about love.” Iula sounded angry.

“Not me,” Socrates replied. “I never bled for nobody didn't bleed for me.”

“What's blood got to do with it?”

“I wish I knew. I mean it seem like every time somethin' gets serious or important you got to put up blood and freedom just to stay in the game.”

“What?” Iula said, exasperation filling her voice, “what are you talking about?”

“I'ont know what it means, honey. Just know that that's what I know.”

mookie kid

T

he phone rang at 6:25 on Wednesday evening, just as Socrates got to the door. He took his time with the padlock and put the groceries down carefully before going to answer the phone. It was on the eleventh ring that Socrates picked up the receiver. Whoever it was had just lost heart and cut off the connection.

The big man put away his cans of tuna and bag of white rice. He had stripped down to his boxer shorts and was busy washing himself at the kitchen sink when the phone rang again. It only rang eight times before Socrates answered.

“Hello.”

Nothing.

“Hello. Who is this?”

No response.

“Shit,” Socrates said. Just as he took the phone from his ear he thought he heard something: a quick breath or hiss, maybe the beginning of a word, maybe the start of his name. But he was angry and slammed the phone down before he could be sure.

The ex-convict finished his toilet and then brought a saucepan half full of water to a boil on his butane stove. When the rice was cooked he added a can of tuna with onions, hot sauce, and soy sauce.He let that simmer for a while. He intended to blend in half a can of peas that had been keeping in his large Styrofoam cooler, but the ice had melted and the peas gone sour.

Lately he'd been thinking about getting another small refrigerator. The last one he had burned out because of a bad electrical connection. He could splice in another outlet off the 220 line and modify it for a 110 appliance. He'd learned how to do that from Michael Porter, an out-of-work electrician who liked to play dominoes in the park.

Socrates pulled away a section of wall shared with the vacant furniture store next door. With a flashlight he located the box he needed to use. There was one hot box left in the furniture store. Whether it was a mistake or not, Socrates had used the free electricity for nine years. His old landlord, Price Landers, said that the electricity came with the rent. But Landers had died years before and Michael Porter pointed out that the connection Socrates had was illegal.

Socrates was studying the fuse box, trying to remember what he had to do when the phone rang again. This time it rang over thirty times before the caller gave up.

Somewhere around midnight Socrates fell asleep speculating on how heavy the refrigerator would be. He also wondered if Stony Wile was still mad at him for going out with his woman-on-the-side, Charlene, for a couple of days. Stony had a pickup truck.

That was the last thing on Socrates' mind, and then the phone was ringing again. He got up and pulled the plug from the wall. When the ringer cut off midtone Socrates relaxed.

Bob's Used Appliances was on Grand Street in downtown L.A. The storefront led to a long and slender aisle piled high on each side with irons, radios, waffle presses, percolators, and just about every other electrical countertop appliance that existed.

Tony LaPort had told Socrates that Bob's was the best place to buy something used.

“Bob give ya a guarantee,” Tony said. “One year and he'll fix anything go wrong.”

Tony and Socrates were on friendly terms once more now that Tony had tried to live with Iula again but failed. Tony was happy in his bachelorhood.

“Five weeks with a woman was just about enough to last me the rest'a my life,” Tony told Socrates.

Sitting immediately inside the door of Bob's Used Appliances was a surly-looking Mexican man. His gaze locked with Socrates' and there was a moment of recognition. The two men had never met but they had something in common: a toughness, a solitary self reliance. The nod they shared was the consolation of heroes home from a war that was lost.

Bob himself was a white man in his sixties but he still had a full head of dirty blond hair. He was seated behind a wood desk at the end of the narrow corridor.

“Tony sent ya, huh?” the white man said. “He got a good place down there.”

Bob was missing one front tooth and the rest were worn down into nubs. For a moment Socrates imagined that the white man chewed on the metal utilities while fixing them.

“Refrigerator huh?” Bob said to himself. “Hey, Julio.”

The man at the front of the store grunted something.

“I'm goin' out back with Mr. Fortlow here. You take over.”

Julio raised his left hand in a halfhearted pledge and then let it drop.

“Come on,” Bob said to Socrates. He pulled on a bookshelf to his left and it swung open like a door.

Bob led the way through a short hallway that was so cramped that Socrates' shoulders rubbed against the walls as he went. This hallway opened into an extremely large room full of appliances that would have never fit into the slender sales room. Washing machines, generators, TVs, there was even a giant strobe light in a far-off corner.

The room was organized according to appliance type. There was a whole row of full-sized refrigerators. Beyond that was a little cul-de-sac of small ones.

“Westinghouse is your best bet,” Bob was saying. He patted the top of a two-foot-square drab green unit. “They built these suckers to last.”

“How much?” Socrates asked. He felt oppressed in that dank atmosphere. The smell reminded him of his days in prison.

“Twenty bucks for this one,” Bob said.

“That's all?”

“I took this one in for scrap and it worked. I opened her up but there wasn't anything wrong.” Bob squatted down and rubbed his hand over the metal door. “You see they had these deep scratches in the paint. I figure that it was an eyesore and the owners just chucked it. That's America for ya. Nobody believes in utility. One day they'll start scrappin' kids for havin' crossed eyes or fat butts.”

Bob looked up at Socrates and winked.

“Most the things I get in here still work,” the fixer continued. “It's just that they went outta style in some way or they got marred.”

Socrates looked around the vast workroom again. It reminded him more than ever of prison.

“How much it weigh?” Socrates asked.

“Twenty-five, thirty. Big fella like you could carry it easy. I got some rope over there. You could make a shoulder hoist and get it to your car.”

Socrates nodded.

Bob helped him tie up the ugly green refrigerator. Socrates used the nylon rope to carry it over his right shoulder. It was a tight fit through the hallway to the front but Socrates made it. He paid his twenty dollars and then thought of a question.

“You got one'a them caller-ID gizmos?”

“Uhhhh, hm. Yeah I think I got one up on the shelf over there next to Julio.” Bob was frowning. “Why?”

“You just connect it to your phone?”

“Naw,” Bob said. “You gotta pay the phone company to let the information in. But there's a better way to do it.”

“What's that?”

“Pick up the phone and ask who's there.”

Socrates spent his Saturday bringing in a double outlet for his refrigerator and caller-ID display. Michael Porter came over on Sunday to check the connections. Porter was a tan-skinned Negro who was small and round. His lips were thin and his nose was turned up like a bulldog's snout.

“She perfect, Socco,” the little electrician said. “You don't need my help.”

They played dominoes after that.

When Porter left it was after nine thirty. Socrates realized that the phone had not rung for three days.

That Monday he called the phone company and had his caller-ID turned on. When the phone rang that night the name Howard Shakur shimmered in green across the small screen.

“Darryl?” Socrates said. “Where you been, boy?”

“How you know it was me?” the startled boy asked.

“Who else gonna be callin' me this time'a night?” The glee of a secret was in Socrates' tone.

“I don't know,” the boy answered uncertainly. “But anyway Howard and Corina and them havin' a picnic next weekend and they wanna know if you comin'.”

“What day?”

“Uh, hold on.” Darryl put his hand over the receiver and shouted something then he said, “On Sunday afternoon.”

“I'll be there,” Socrates said. “How you doin', boy?”

“I got a A on my math test.”

“You did?”

“Uh-huh. I like to divide an' stuff.”

“I always knew you were smart, Darryl.”

“So how did you know it was me on the phone?”

“But you not that smart.”

At about eleven P.M. the small glass screen shimmered, then the phone rang and the name Moorland Kinear appeared with a number beside it. Socrates had a pencil and a pad of paper ready to jot down the information. In case of a blackout he didn't want to lose the memory in his first computer device.

He didn't answer the phone. Instead he studied the name for clues to the caller's purpose.

It might have been a white man's name except that Socrates felt something familiar when he mouthed it. And there weren't that many white men who knew his name, not to mention his number. In his nine years in L.A., from Dumpster-diving for cans and bottles to working at Bounty Supermarket, he couldn't think of anyone named Moorland.

Thinking back over twenty-seven years in an Indiana prison didn't reveal the name either. But it was there.

A man in prison wouldn't have used a name like that.

Moorland

would get some of the uneducated cons, and guards, upset. They'd think that just having a name like that would be putting on airs. He'd have to have a nickname, a handle. But that could be anything. It could be his size or color or the shape of his ears. A nickname could be based on the kind of crimes you committed or the thing you were the most proud of in the outside world. Loverboy, Big Daddy, Longarm and Loose Lips were all handles that might have hidden a name like Poindexter, Archibald or Moorland.

If he's just a salesman,

Socrates thought.

Then why didn't he say something when I answered the line last week?

But maybe this was the first time that Moorland Kinear ever called. Maybe the call last week was somebody else.

But why is that name so familiar?

Because they callin' you, fool. It's somebody who knows you and wants to talk.

If Socrates had had that conversation with another man it might have come to blows. In turns he decided to answer when the phone rang again, to tear the phone out of the wall and discontinue the service, and to get an answering machine and never respond to a call unless the caller stated his business clearly.

He wished he'd never gotten that phone in the first place. He never had a phone as a child or as a convict. It was just another way that people could reach at you, could cause you trouble.

The best kind of life to live was with no contacts and no way for people to find you, Socrates believed. At least that's what part of him believed. But ever since he'd met that boy, that Darryl, he'd been pulled out of his shell. Trying to help Darryl out of trouble, he'd got himself all tangled up with people and confused. He'd gotten the phone so that Darryl could call if he had to.

Socrates lay in his bed thinking that he should disappear, that he should take the money he had buried in a jar in the yard, and leave L.A. He could go to Oakland and start over.

He went to sleep in turmoil, twisting and grunting to the rhythm of his dreams. He saw himself in prison fights and in the

dungeon,

the place where they sent you if you had discipline problems. He remembered wardens and assistant wardens, head guards and new recruits. And then suddenly, in the middle of all that dreaming and worry, Socrates woke up and spoke. “Mookie. It's Mookie Kid the first-floor man.”

Mookie, sometimes known as Mookie Kid and sometimes as the first-floor man, that was Moorland Kinear. He bunked down the row from Socrates for five years. Mookie was a burly man, not very strong but imposing. He liked to find businesses that kept their money and valuables in locked rooms instead of a safe.

“You could always cut through the flo' on a locked room,” Mookie would say. He was christened the first-floor man because, unlike the cat burglar, the second-story man, Mookie usually cut a hole up from the cellar to the first floor.

Mookie was a career criminal. He had never held a job that didn't lead to a crime. Most of his life had been spent eating off tin plates at long tables alongside of rough men.

Socrates issued a harsh syllable that stood for a laugh and then went back to sleep.

It was a sound sleep. No rolling around or dreams that had words or faces or names.

He went to work the next day without fear of being seen or sought out. He got a citrus delivery from Florida Inc. and a shipment of berries from the Central California Farmer's Union. Socrates handled much of the purchasing for his store even though the purchasing office for Bounty would have been glad to handle it for him. Socrates liked his job.

It wasn't until that afternoon that Mookie Kid came back into his thoughts.

Should he call Mookie and see what the ex-con wanted? He already knew what Mookie was up to. Why ask? It was some grocery store or five-and-dime that kept their receipts in a storage room over a poorly guarded basement. Maybe it was some upscale place that wasn't used to criminals with pickaxes and sledgehammers.

Whatever it was Mookie was up to, it had to do with getting caught. Mookie's lifetime of prison food attested to that. Socrates decided not to call. He wouldn't answer any calls from Mookie either.

But why should he hide from Mookie Kid, Moorland Kinear? He wasn't afraid. Nobody could tell him what to say or who to talk to. He could talk to Mookie on the phone if he wanted to. His parole had been up for four years. No one could tell him what to do.

Socrates decided that when he got home he'd call Mookie and say hey. But then, on the bus, on the way home he reconsidered. Why did Mookie Kid want to call him anyway? How did he even get his number? How did he know that Socrates was in L.A? The more he thought about it the more suspicious he became. Better to stay away from someone who was so sneaky as to come up on somebody when he wasn't expecting it. And why didn't he say anything when Socrates answered the phone the first time?

The phone was ringing when Socrates got to his door. He took his time again but the phone kept ringing. The green screen again read MOORLAND KINEAR. Socrates' heart was thumping, even his fingers were sweating. Here he was a man who could face death feeling little more than surprise, even at this late age, and a ringing phone terrorized his soul.

Fury replaced fear and Socrates grabbed the phone. He intended to throw it but then there it was in his hand. A tiny voice said, “Hello?”

Socrates put the phone to his ear.

“Hello?” the voice asked again.

“Mookie, is that you?”

“You remember my voice after all these years?” the first-floor man asked. “And over the phone too?”

“Man, why you callin' me? Where'd you get my number?”

“I looked it up in the phone book,” the voice said. “Really, I called information an' they give it to me. Lionel Heath said that he saw you somewheres down Watts a few years ago …”

“Lionel?” Socrates said. He remembered seeing a man, an old man, who reminded him of someone. The man said something but Socrates was collecting bottles back then and had few words for anyone. It could have been Lionel Heath, or maybe his father.

“Yeah. You know that drug life caught up with him somethin' bad. He said you didn't even recognize him.”

“I'idn't ask the phone company to list my name,” Socrates said.

“They do it automatic,” Mookie said. “You got to pay to be unlisted.”

“Shit.”

The expletive led into a span of silence. Socrates for his part was trying to deal with all the new information he had just received. Lionel Heath's reconnaissance, the phone company's deceit.

“When did you talk to Lionel?” Socrates wanted to know.

“I don't remember, man. He been dead three years. I didn't see him for a while before that. You know they had me in jail up north for eighteen months.”

“He died?” Socrates felt a momentary sense of loss. Lionel Heath knew how to tell a joke. He would have been a comedian if it wasn't for heroin.

“Yeah,” Mookie said. “It was Slim, you know, AIDS. He took it in with the drug an' it ate him alive.”

Socrates pulled up a chair and sat down heavily.

“Damn,” Socrates said. “So what you want, Mookie?”

“I don't want nuthin', Socco. I remembered the other day that Lionel seen you an' I thought I might try you on the phone. So I did. You know. You was straight up in the joint, man. I thought maybe we could grab a drink or sumpin'. You know.”

“I'm pretty busy,” Socrates said. “I been workin'.”

“Where you work at?”

“Post office.”

“Mail carrier?”

“Naw. I'm a sorter. Work all kinda hours.”

“That pay good?”

“Good enough.”

“How they hire you with a record like you got?”

“I cain't let up on all my secrets now, Mookie.”

“So,” Mookie Kid the first-floor man hesitated, “you wanna get together?”

“Lemme call ya back later this week,” Socrates offered. “I got a tight schedule but I'll see.”

“You want my number?”

“Yeah. Shoot.”

Moorland recited his number and Socrates repeated it pretending he was writing it down.

“I'll call the end'a this week, Mookie. You take care.”

After that Socrates put Mookie Kid out of his mind. He worked the rest of the week managing the produce section at Bounty. The purchasing office sent him two double orders of highly perishable fruits and greens. The head dispatcher was a man named Wexler who would never admit to having made a mistake and so Socrates had to find three other stores that would be willing to share the order. That took most of his week.

On Saturday he painted the walls of his sleeping room white. It took the whole day and he was light-headed at the end because there was no cross ventilation in his house and the fumes were powerful.

He was still light-headed when he walked Iula home at midnight. While they were making love he passed out.

As with many of his dreams Socrates found himself in prison. This time his cell was a cave. He had a cellmate but the man died somehow and the guards had not yet removed the body. The corpse had been covered with a blanket but it was rotting and the odor was almost unbearable.

Socrates went to the bars at the entrance of his cell and looked out into a long dark tunnel that was lit by weak blue electric bulbs. There were no other cells that he could see and no one coming.

A fly buzzed in past his ear and Socrates knew that soon the corpse would be alive with maggots. No sooner had this thought entered his mind than a loud buzzing started behind him. Socrates turned and saw waves of small flies rise out of the blanket. It was like the mist in the morning rising off the pond near his aunt Bellandra's home.

“He's free,” escaped Socrates' lips in Iula's high feather bed.

“What, baby?” she asked.

“Free,” Socrates repeated and then, unaware, he turned away from his girlfriend to burrow deeper into the cell of his imagination.

The haze of flies washed over Socrates on their way toward freedom. He felt them as a cool breeze in early autum. He closed his eyes and there was a surge in his chest. The flies were gone when he opened his eyes again.

“A million eyes came forth,” a voice in the dream said. “And now he's free to see everywhere.”

Socrates did not remember the dream in the morning. He was still dizzy from the paint fumes and the failure of his passion.

“You okay?” Iula asked. She was already dressed and ready to leave for her diner.

“What time is it?” Socrates asked.

“It's eight fifteen. I wanna get in early 'cause I'ma make a pork roast for the special this afternoon. But you sleep, baby. Come on down later if you want somethin' t'eat.” Iula kissed Socrates on his forehead and patted his hand.

“Sorry 'bout last night,” the big man said.

“You ain't got a thing to be sorry for, Socrates Fortlow.” Iula looked hard at him. He could see small knots of imperfection in the whites of her eyes; scars that made her all the stronger.

When she was gone Socrates pulled himself up and got dressed. He was still dizzy but there was the Shakurs' picnic that he had to go to. And there was something else, a dream that he couldn't remember. He didn't want to remember it but still it was on his mind.

“Hi, Mr. Fortlow.” Corina Shakur came up to him near the fence at the front of their small yard. Howard, Corina's fat husband, was still cooking ribs on the barbecue grill. Loud R&B; music issued from the boom box near to his feet.

“Hey, Corina,” Socrates said. “You got some nice friends.”

Eight or nine guests had come for the Sunday afternoon picnic in the Shakurs' front yard. It was just a patch of grass that stood a foot or so above the sidewalk. The ocean was just a block and a half down the street.

“Howard got some nice friends down from work,” Corina said, leveling her gaze at the ex-convict's chest. “Wayne's funny.”

Wayne Yashimura was the shift supervisor from Silicon Solution's computer operations center. He was tall and handsome, with funny jokes and a pocket full of joints that he shared with Corina's girlfriends up from Watts. They had smoked the drug in the backyard, over the canal, while Socrates talked to Darryl out front.

Now everyone was together in the front yard laughing and drinking beers.

“How you doin', Corina?” Socrates asked the young woman that he coveted on dark lonely nights.

“Fine,” she said. “I mean Howard's doin' good. He make good money now and I ain't got to worry.”

“You happy?”

“I'ont know,” the young woman answered. “White lady across the street got kids too. We get together sometimes, you know? An' it's nice but you know we never laugh real hard like I do with my friends.” Corina gestured with her head toward the young black women who mingled with the men around the barbecue grill.

“A real friend is somebody know your heart,” Socrates said and instantly he was sorry. He didn't want to let his feelings out about Corina. She was Howard's wife. She stood in for being a mother to Darryl.

“Yeah,” Corina said. “It's like you an' Darryl.”

“What you mean?”

“Howard try an' be like a father around Darryl. He tell him what to do and how to make it in the world. And Darryl listen, but not like when you talk.” Corina took a deep breath and seemed to swell with pride. “When you talk, Darryl's eyes light up an' he's open like. That's how I feel around DeeDee. She just makes me happy. I guess I miss her. You know everybody always sayin' that they wanna good job so that they can move away from South Central, but I miss it. I miss my people, you know?”

On the bus back home Socrates thought of Corina and what she'd said about Darryl. He allowed himself a rare sigh of pleasure.

“That was nice, huh?” Monica Nealy, one of Corina's friends, asked. Socrates had agreed to ride with her, to see her home. The rest of the young women had gone to hear music on the beach with Howard's friends.

“Yeah,” Socrates replied. “Howard can burn some meat.”

The young woman turned away to look out at the dark street. She was big boned and husky but not overweight. And she had hungry eyes. The kind of eyes that drove young men wild with the promise of her kisses.

“Mr. Fortlow?”

“Yeah, Monica?”

“Nuthin'.”

Socrates didn't mind her sudden indecision. By then he was deep in the memory of the dream about a dead man's soul becoming a haze of flies that could go where the man could not.

“Mr. Fortlow?”

“Uh-huh?”

“Did you talk to Wayne?”

“Li'l bit,” Socrates said. “He's a nice guy.”

“It's funny how Howard got friends who's white an' Mexican an' Japanese.”

It was true. Howard had only one Negro friend from work. All of Corina's friends were black women.