White Butterfly

by Mosley, Walter

  Randall Abernathy lived on the top floor in apartment 3C.

  “Go on home, Raymond,” I said.

  “What?”

  “I wanna talk to this one alone.”

  Mouse must have had something else to do, because he didn’t argue with me. I was glad he didn’t. I wanted to be quiet and subtle for a change.

  WHEN I KNOCKED on the door to 3C there were footsteps across the room to the door and then a moment of silence.

  “Who is it?” a careful voice asked.

  “Roger Stockton,” I answered in a loud, hollow voice that I used sometimes.

  “I don’t know any Roger.”

  “I’m from Star Meat Packing in Santa Clara, Mr. Abernathy. I want to discuss a job opportunity with you.”

  A poor man can always use a job. He might already have a job, a good one, but he can never count on that going on forever. The boss might go crazy and fire him tomorrow. Or maybe his mother will get sick and he’ll need that extra cash.

  I don’t know for sure that Abernathy came from poverty, but he did open that door.

  I put on a smile that could have gotten me elected, if I was a white man.

  “Mr. Abernathy!” I grabbed his hand and pumped it. “It’s good to finally meet you face-to-face.”

  A grin stumbled at his lips and Randall tried to return my warmth. But then he frowned for a second and pulled back a bit. In that same second I saw the pewter crucifix hanging around his neck, and I smelled the alcohol of my own breath.

  “I wanna get right down to it, Brother Abernathy, because I don’t wanna disturb your home. I got a job opportunity for a head butcher out at Star and you’re the one I think I want.”

  “What?”

  “Could I come in a minute and go over this with you?”

  I limped past him into the middle of the room. I knew the layout of the apartment because of my own building. It was an efficiency unit. One moderate-size room with a nook for a bed, an alcove for the kitchen, and a small bathroom on the side.

  I could see by the decor that Abernathy was a solitary man. He had a table with one chair and a chest of drawers. The floor was swept, never mopped, and bare.

  Favoring my left leg, I went to the straight-backed chair and lowered myself delicately.

  “You hurt?” Abernathy asked.

  There was an open Bible on the table in front of me. Half of the verses were underlined in blue ink.

  “What? Oh, you mean my leg.”

  Abernathy stood over me and I got ready to give him my lies.

  “In a way this here war wound is why I’m here. I got more shrapnel than bone in this leg. Chinee mortar from a North Korean regular did it… ”

  Abernathy perched himself on the edge of his neatly made bed.

  “…I heard the sucker comin’ and jumped for the nearest hole… only there was this white boy named Tooms in the way so I knocks him over and takes it in the leg.”

  I grimaced a little and touched the imaginary wound.

  Randall asked, “And that’s why you’re here?”

  “This Tooms boy didn’t know that he was in my way. He thought that I saved him on purpose.” I winked. “He thinks that he owes me his life.”

  “If you saved him then I guess he does owe you something,” Abernathy said. He was still confused about the direction of my story but he wanted to sound like he knew what was going on.

  “That’s how I see it too. So when his daddy told him that he wanted him to run the family business, Eugene, that’s the white boy I saved, came right to me and said that he wanted me to be his manager.”

  “And this business is Star Meat Packing?”

  I nodded with a knowing grin on my face.

  “That doesn’t tell me why you here, Mr. Stockton,” the butcher said.

  “Well.” I looked around, a little uncomfortable. “I can see that you’re a religious man, brother, but I can’t lie to you. I was in a bar, I can’t remember the name of it but it was down on Slauson. Anyway, I met this man down there. I told him this same story I told you and he’s the one give me your name. He said that you was a damn good butcher but that a Negro never has no chance if the man he works for is white. I talked to a few people about you and they all said that you was a good worker and smart about meat.”

  “Who was this man?”

  I managed to keep the excitement out of my voice as I said, “I forget his first name but the bartender kept callin’ him Mr. Saunders.”

  Randall couldn’t have stood up faster if he’d been sitting on hot coals.

  “A big man?”

  “With a beard,” I replied, nodding.

  “When did you say this was?”

  I hunched my shoulders. “I don’t know. Two weeks ago, maybe three.”

  “Then why you gettin’ to me just now?” Abernathy was mad about something.

  “I told you. Eugene made me the manager out at Star. He got me workin’, tryin’ t’learn the trade. You know they got me studyin’ saws an’ scales an’ how t’read the black mold on beef. I tell ya, I never knew there was so much to cuttin’ a steak. What’s wrong with callin’ on you three weeks later?”

  “It’s just that I can’t see Saunders braggin’ about me to nobody.”

  “He was actin’ kinda strange, now that you mention it. But I thought it was just how much he was drinkin’. He kept on talkin’ ’bout women too.”

  “Women,” Abernathy said as if it were a curse. “Women is what destroyed that man.” His tone approached that of a minister infused with the Holy Spirit.

  “He looked okay to me.”

  “But on the inside he’s rotten. Rotting away for all the evil he’s done. There’s no hiding from the Lord’s retribution. Without faith them sulfa drugs won’t do a thing. No no. Syphilis is the Lord’s punishment for fornication.”

  His face flushed and his lips quivered. There was some insanity in Saunders’s family, that much was clear.

  “Well, at least he told me about you,” I said. “Why don’t we talk about you coming out to Star.”

  I told him all about Star and how much I needed a head butcher I could trust. We set a date two weeks away for him to come out and meet Eugene Tooms. I gave him a fake number and address.

  Randall was happy by the end of our talk. He was going to double his salary and get a chance to be a partner in the business.

  “Where can I get in touch with your cousin?” I asked at the door.

  “J.T.? Why?”

  “I don’t know. He was good to me. Bought me a few drinks and gave me your name. That’s worth a thank-you I suppose.”

  “He’s gone.”

  “Gone? Gone where?”

  “Up north.”

  “Frisco?”

  “His family lives up in Oakland. They live up there but I’ve never been.”

  REGINA, JESUS, AND EDNA were all on the front porch. Jesus was lying across Regina’s lap and Edna sat next to them playing with a pink-and-blue ball. They all looked at me as I came up the four steps.

  “Hi, honey,” Regina said. Her voice was happy but she didn’t look me in the eye.

  Edna squealed and threw the ball at me.

  “Hi, everybody.”

  Edna tried to run off her chair but Jesus caught her and tickled her so she wouldn’t cry.

  “Jesus,” I said. “Take Edna in the house and play horse for a while.”

  Jesus and Edna loved the horse game. They’d both crawl around on all fours, crashing into things. Regina never let them play it, but I would when I needed to be alone for a while.

  I kissed my wife and led her by the hand to the fence at the front of the yard. Some ignorant city gardener had planted an oak in the unpaved part of the sidewalk. The tree had grown and its roots were buckling the sidewalk on one side and the street on the other. Its trunk was gnarly and dark and it was shady there.

  “What can you tell me about syphilis?” I asked.

  “Why?” Regina’s hand stiffened and she
pulled away from me.

  “Not because’a me, baby,” I said. “But maybe this killer has it. I heard that he had been taking sulfa drugs.”

  “How long has he had it?”

  “I don’t know really. But they say that it’s pretty bad.”

  “If it is bad then all kindsa things could be wrong with him. VD can make you insane.”

  “Do they have special records of people been on these things?” I asked. “I know they had special hospitals down in Texas.”

  “I could find out.”

  “His name is Saunders, J. T. Saunders. And he was on the cure before they came up with penicillin.”

  We kissed lightly but then she moved away from me as we walked back to the house. Jesus and Edna had knocked over a table and there was water all over the floor.

  — 23 —

  THE NEXT MORNING I went around checking on my various properties. I had a carpenter from Guatemala laying a floor in an apartment on Quigley Street and a gardener to talk to who hadn’t mown a lawn in six weeks. I looked at the different places, picked up some trash, and noted certain infractions for Mofass to follow up.

  Then I took a ride over to Mofass’s office.

  I found him hacking from deep in his lungs into a big yellow rag. He was coughing when I came into the room and he coughed while he told me that the DeCampo people had agreed to my demands.

  “Mr. DeCampo called me himself,” Mofass wheezed.

  “That was mighty white of him.”

  I regretted saying that, because it sent Mofass into an even more virulent bout of coughing. Coughs racked his whole frame and tears nearly spurted from his eyes.

  After long moments barking up sputum Mofass finally rasped out a question. “You gonna sign with them?”

  I was afraid to tell him the truth. I thought he would drop dead if I refused him then.

  I said, “Well, let’s meet again and see what they got on paper.”

  I had no intention of letting those thieves steal what was mine. If a major road went near my property then I could deal with a bank and keep a hundred percent of my business.

  “I’m gonna use your phone,” I said.

  “I need to go home anyways,” he said. “This cold got me by the nuts.”

  I watched him put on his overcoat and hat. The weight of his garments seemed to drag him almost to the floor. I watched him go out the door and then I listened as his cough retreated down the stairs.

  I sat down and dialed the number that I knew best.

  “Temple Hospital,” a nasally white woman informed me.

  “Sixth-floor maternity, please.”

  There was a pause and then some clicks and buzzes. Finally another, richer voice said, “Nurse’s station.”

  “Regina Rawlins, please.”

  “She’s kinda busy right now. Who is it?”

  “Louise,” I said, “will you please go get my wife?”

  “Easy?”

  “How you doin’, Louise? Regina said you were workin’ again.”

  “Fine, baby.” I could hear her gap-toothed grin. “I sure do miss you.”

  “You got Regina around there?”

  “Mm. Too in love for a kind word?”

  “With a woman as beautiful as you a man cain’t take no chances, Louise.”

  “Okay. That’s good enough.”

  After another wait my wife finally came on the line.

  “Hi, honey,” she said.

  “Babe.”

  “He was tested in a hospital in Oxnard. It was a public hospital but affiliated with the navy. He was an able-bodied seaman in the merchant marines and they paid for his treatments.”

  “Does he still go there?”

  “Not in a long time. His last visit was in 1938. He only went for three months. The clerk there said that he’d be really sick by now if he didn’t get treatment somewhere.”

  “You get an address?”

  “Just what he left back then. Twenty-four eighty-nine Stockard Street, Oakland, California. The phone was Axminister 2-854.”

  I wrote all that down on a pad that Mofass kept on his desk.

  “I’ll take you out for steaks if you get Gabby Lee to sit for the kids,” I said.

  “I can’t tonight, baby.” She sounded upset about it. “I spent so much time on this stuff for you that I had to promise Miss Butler that I’d stay late.”

  “Can’t you do it tomorrow?”

  “I gotta go now, honey. Good luck.”

  When I cradled the phone I felt very lonely. All of what I had and all I had done was had and done in secret. Nobody knew the real me. Maybe Mouse and Mofass knew something but they weren’t friends that you could kick back and jaw with.

  I thought that maybe Regina was right. But the thought of telling her all about me brought out a cold sweat; the kind of sweat you get when your life is in mortal danger.

  QUINTEN NAYLOR was at his desk when I called. “What is it, Rawlins?”

  “That reward go for me too?”

  “If you catch him it does.”

  “What if he ain’t in town?”

  “Where is he?”

  “Up north.”

  “Oakland?”

  “What makes you ask that? I mean, why wouldn’t you think San Francisco?”

  “What have you found, Rawlins?” Quinten said in his cop voice.

  “I told you ’bout Aretha’s and Gregory Jewel an’ you couldn’t do nuthin’ with it, officer. Now I’ma go find the man myself.”

  Maybe he had something to say about that, but I didn’t hear it because I’d hung up the phone.

  I called Mouse and told him about the reward. He said to meet him in front of Minnie’s at four in the morning.

  “WHY DO YOU have to go up there?” Regina asked. I was packing a small bag for the two- or three-day trip.

  “I told you. They offerin’ fifteen thousand dollars for the ones turn him in. That’s a lot of money.”

  “But you already told them he was up there. Now if they catch him you’ll get the money anyway.”

  What could I say? She was right. But this was a job I’d taken on and I felt that I had to see it through. Anyway, being at home before we got things straight was torture for me. I needed some time away.

  “You just wouldn’t understand,” I said lamely.

  “Oh, I understand, all right. You’re a crook just like that Mouse. You like criminals and bein’ in the street.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You think I don’t know about you? Is that what you think? Your life ain’t no secret, Easy. I heard about you and Junior Fornay and Joppy Shag and Reverend Towne. I can see with my own eyes how you’re in business with Mofass and not workin’ for him. Baby, you cain’t hide in your own house.”

  “I gotta go an’ that’s all there is to it,” I said. “Anything else we can talk about after I get back.”

  Regina put her hand on my chest and then brought her fingers together until they were all pointing at me.

  We stood still for a moment, her nails poised above my heart.

  I wanted to tell her that I loved her but I knew that wasn’t what she wanted to hear.

  “You got to let a woman see the weak parts, Easy. She gotta see that you need her strength. Woman cain’t just be a thing that you th’ow money at. She just cain’t be yo’ baby’s momma.”

  “I’ll let… ” was all I could say until the pressure of her nails stopped me.

  “Shhh,” she hissed. “Let me talk now. A woman don’t care but that you need her love. You know I got a job an’ you ain’t ever even asked me fo’ a penny. So why do I work? You change the baby and water the lawn and even sew up yo’ own clothes. You know you ain’t never asked me for a thing, Easy. Not one damn thing.”

  I always thought that if you did for people they’d like you; maybe even love you. Nobody cared for a man who cried. I cried after my mother died; I cried after my father left. Nobody loved me for that. I knew that a lot of tough-
talking men would go home to their wives at night and cry about how hard their lives were. I never understood why a woman would stick it out with a man like that.

  — 24 —

  MOUSE WAS SLEEPING in the passenger’s seat next to me. The stone and sand cliffs of the California coast loomed on one side with the sun just coming over them. The ocean to our left rose out of its gray sleep into deep blue wonder.

  I watched the terns and gulls wheel awkwardly between wisps of morning mist. Cactus pads grew at crazy angles as if they had rooted while tumbling down the mountainside. Bright and tiny purple flowers beamed from succulent vines at the side of the road.

  My Chrysler was the only car in sight on the Pacific Coast Highway. I felt exhilarated and strong and ready to put everything in its proper place.

  The hum of the engine was in my bones. I could have driven forever.

  “Hey, Ease,” Mouse croaked.

  “You up?”

  “Why you grinnin’ like that, man?”

  “Happy to be alive, Raymond. Just happy to be alive.”

  He uncurled in his seat and yawned. “You gotta be crazy t’be grinnin’ like that this time’a mornin’. Damn. It’s too early for that shit.”

  “I got some coffee in a thermos on the backseat. Some toast and jelly sandwiches too.”

  Mouse attacked the sandwiches and poured a cup of coffee for me. The sun rose over the crest and sparkled on the water’s surface. For the first time in a week I was excited without the help of whiskey. But that thought made me want a drink.

  We went through Oxnard, Ventura, and Santa Barbara. Highway 1 wended inland and by the coast in turns. It was a snaky pathway taken mostly by cars because Highway 101 was a more direct route between San Francisco and L.A.

  We’d been going for some hours before starting to talk. I was happy looking at the scenery, and Mouse’s nature was more suited to the nighttime.

  When we were two hundred miles up the coast he asked, “What happens up north?”

  “J. T. Saunders in Oakland. That’s all I know.”