Pipe Dream

by Solomon Jones

  There was a flurry of voices as the spectators and the jury realized that Latoya Thomas’s tape was indeed real. The judge had to bang his gavel to quiet the room.

  Black’s lawyer allowed for a dramatic pause, then asked a question whose answer was obvious. “Why didn’t you come forward earlier with this tape?”

  “I was afraid,” Clarisse said emphatically. “People have died over this tape.”

  “And how did you get the tape, Miss Williams?”

  “Lieutenant Morgan had this tape in his pocket at the train station. When he was shot, the tape fell out of his pocket, slid across the platform, and landed right in front of me. I picked it up. I don’t know why. Something just said take it. I didn’t know at the time what was on it. But once I found out, I kept it to myself because I was afraid.”

  She lowered her eyes and turned the tape over in her hands.

  “But I can’t be afraid anymore,” she said, looking over at the jury. “Everett is sitting there paralyzed, waiting to be sentenced to death because he couldn’t leave me behind. The least I can do now is stand up with the truth and hope that it’s enough to save his life.”

  The lawyer looked at the judge. “With your permission, Your Honor, I’d like to have this tape admitted as defense exhibit A and play it for the jury.”

  The judge paused. “This is an unusual request. But I’m going to allow it since this tape was mentioned in earlier testimony.”

  The judge directed the bailiff to find a cassette player and plug it into the sound system. When he did, Clarisse passed the tape to the bailiff, and he played it.

  Latoya Thomas’s voice blared over the speakers.

  “Darnell, this man is a detective. He’s going to ask you some questions. It’s my duty to inform you that you don’t have to answer anything that you feel may incriminate you.”

  Her voice was followed by the haunting sound of Butter speaking out from beyond the grave. “He had on a bracelet.”

  Detective Hillman’s voice was next. “Who had on a bracelet?”

  “It was a white man with a big gold bracelet. A link bracelet. Rock took the gun and tried to shoot him, but he missed. The white man pulled back the curtain and . . . It was the white man.”

  “What was the white man?”

  Then Latoya’s voice.

  “Don’t say anything else, Darnell. Save it for the preliminary hearing.”

  Butter spoke again, apparently ignoring his sister’s advice.

  “He had on a white shirt and black pants. He was tall, with blond hair and blue eyes. And he had on this big link bracelet.”

  “And what did the white man do?”

  “He shot the Puerto Rican. He reached out from behind that curtain and shot the Puerto Rican. It was dark. ’Cause I blew out the candles after the Puerto Rican pulled out his gun. We was gon’ rob him, but we couldn’t really get the gun away from him. And when Rock finally got it and tried to shoot him, he missed. But the white man didn’t. He aimed straight at his head and slumped him. Then he ran out the back door.”

  “Where was Leroy?”

  “I heard Leroy, but I ain’t see him. I think he was just comin’ in when everything jumped off.”

  “How about Black?”

  “I ain’t see him, either.”

  The sound of a door opening, and then another voice, apparently a nurse, came over the speakers.

  “That’s enough for now. All of you are going to have to leave.”

  There was a clicking sound as the tape was stopped, and then a three-second hiss, then nothing.

  When the tape finished playing, the jurors exchanged glances. Some of them looked down at the floor. But their eyes all eventually rested on Black. He returned their stares full-on, knowing that they were looking into his eyes to find the guilt that they would never see.

  Clarisse sat up in her chair and looked across the room, across space and time, and into a place deep inside of Black that no one else could touch. She looked down into his soul and brought forth the hope he had never dreamed of and the love he had never felt.

  And there he was, exposed for all the world to see, his humanity pouring out in an endless stream of tears, cleansing him of all his fear and hatred, preparing him to love her for more than just a lifetime.

  Black went through the rest of the proceedings in a daze. When the jury went to deliberations, he didn’t see them. When they came back, he didn’t hear them. And when the “not guilty” verdict was read, he was oblivious.

  The only thing he could feel—the only thing he wanted to feel—was Clarisse. As she took the handles of his chair and rolled him out into the bright sunshine, she settled down into the place he had reserved for her in his heart, filling in the final piece of his puzzle.

  “I love you,” she whispered, and the words echoed in his mind for what seemed like an eternity.

  Black felt his dead loins grow warm as the sound of her voice poured down through his ears like syrup, replacing the hard clank of the prison doors he’d come to know so well. And as he looked up to the clouds that swirled against the expanse of the midday sky, he knew that he would never again indulge the cloud that danced provocatively through the hollow glass tube.

  Because Clarisse had finally set him free from his pipe dream.

  Reading Group Guide for Pipe Dream by Solomon Jones

  Johnny Podres, the murdered city councilman, was undone in part by his enemies but also by his own weakness. On the brink of being exposed, Podres makes a fatal mistake. Why does he agree to go with Pookie to the crack house? Does every person have a weak spot? A breaking point?

  Leroy’s refusal to kill a man in cold blood during a gang rite led to his expulsion from the gang and vicious physical reprisals. How different would his life have been if he had obeyed the gang code? Is Leroy driven to drug use or does he choose it? Why does he provoke the police into shooting him in the end?

  Although Leroy, Pookie, Clarisse, and Black claim to love only the high they get from crack, they eventually realize that their feelings for one another are more than just drug-induced intimacy. How are the two couples—Clarisse and Black, and Leroy and Pookie—influenced by their addiction? Why does Pookie leave Leroy on the train? What are the differences in the relationships between Clarisse and Black and Leroy and Pookie?

  In some ways Black’s journey from the streets to his flight from the police and his eventual capture and trial is one of redemption. What has changed about Black by the time of his trial? What is the significance of his refusal to speak while in jail? What saves him in the end?

  Pipe Dream challenges the conventional wisdom that cops are good and criminals are bad. Who are the good guys and bad guys here? Are Ramirez, Hillman, and the police commissioner right in overlooking police corruption and law breaking? How close to reality is the story?

  Each character’s drug use seems to be triggered by a hurtful event in his or her past—Black’s failed attempt at marriage, Clarisse’s betrayal by her fiancé, Pookie’s destructive affair, and Leroy’s gang experience as a teenager. Does the nature of these events affect the nature of the individual’s addiction? What is each person trying to get out of the high? Had these events not occurred, would they be drug users? Is there any choice in their addiction?

  Despite all the publicity surrounding the Podres murder and the final showdown at the 30th Street station, Black is arrested and charged with murder. How does Black end up going to trial? Are the forces behind police corruption too powerful? What do you think happens to Commissioner Nelson?

  The paradox of crack is that while it offers temporary relief from reality, it reinforces the pain of returning to it. Leroy, Black, Pookie, and, to a lesser extent, Clarisse are all caught in a crack-fueled cycle of self-hatred, need, and desperation. Do any of them think they will survive their addiction? Do they want to? What would help them?

  Clarisse and Pookie find that they are more similar than they first thought; both were successful professionals until b
eing drawn into drugs. Clarisse is in the early stages of her drug use, while Pookie has nearly hit bottom. Is Clarisse on her way to becoming like Pookie? How are the two women different?

  In the face of a corrupt police force, it is the media who emerge as the most aggressive investigators. Are their occasionally deceitful tactics justified? Are there any differences between Jeanette Deveraux, the TV news reporter, and Henry Moore, the newspaper writer?

  To print out copies of this or other Strivers Row Reading Group Guides, visit us at www.atrandom.com/rgg

  For more information, visit www.solomonjones.com

  About the Author

  SOLOMON JONES is a staff writer for the Philadelphia Weekly. He is a native of Philadelphia, where he lives with his wife. He is currently working on his next novel. For more information, visit www.solomonjones.com.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2001 by Solomon Jones

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Strivers Row, an imprint of Villard Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

  VILLARD BOOKS is a registered trademark of Random House, Inc. Strivers Row and colophon are trademarks of Random House, Inc.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Jones, Solomon

  Pipe dream: a novel / Solomon Jones.

  p. cm.

  1. Police—Pennsylvania—Philadelphia—Fiction. 2. Philadelphia (Pa.)— Fiction. 3. Narcotic addicts—Fiction. 4. Crack (Drug)—Fiction. 5. Politicians—Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3560.O5386 P56 2001

  8139’6—dc21 00-068049

  Villard Books website address: www.villard.com

  eISBN: 978-0-375-50659-8

  v3.0