Little Green

by Walter Mosley

She reached out and pulled the child onto her lap. The girl was a little too old for this, maybe nine. She was lighter in color than her mother but still a strong brown.

  The adolescent girl was probably thirteen. She eyed me with some suspicion. She was already starting to have the hard visage of her mother.

  Both children were clad in simple one-color dresses, red for the small one and ocher for the older. The hems on both came down below the knee. I thought they might have had different fathers, but the imprint of Timbale was strong on both of them.

  “This is Mr. Rawlins, LaTonya,” Timbale said to the girl on her lap. “What do you say?”

  “Pleased to meet you, Mr. Rawlins.”

  “And this is Beatrix,” Timbale said, introducing me to the older girl.

  “Do you have a daughter named Feather?” Beatrix asked.

  “Yes, I do.”

  “I thought so. She’s gonna go to Louis Pasteur with me in the fall. I saw you with her once at the Christmas choral they had at Burnside Elementary.”

  “You two go on now,” Timbale said. “Me and Mr. Rawlins have to finish talking and then I’ll make you a snack.”

  LaTonya bounded off. Beatrix moved away more slowly, stopping at the doorway to the foyer, where she looked hard at me again.

  “Beautiful children,” I said when they were gone.

  “I have made a whole lotta mistakes in my life, Mr. Rawlins, but I’ve had my share of blessings. Evander was my biggest mistake and a godsend too.”

  “Does he have any good friends that might have an idea where he’s gone?”

  “He’s a real bookish boy. Most’a my friends complain about their kids bein’ on the phone day and night. Beatrix does a lotta that, but Evy ain’t never on the phone.”

  “Maybe the girls know about people he knows,” I suggested.

  “I already talked to them about it. They said that he talked about the hippies sometimes but he never went up there.”

  It would have been better for me to question the girls myself, but I could see that Timbale would not let that happen.

  I took a business card from the wallet that was still on my lap and handed it to her.

  “Do you have a picture of Evander?”

  The workingwoman put her hand in the solitary pocket and pulled out a three-by-five photograph. After gazing on it for a moment she handed the picture over to me. It was the color photo of a smiling broad-faced boy wearing a graduation cap and gown. There was something familiar about that face but I thought, at the time, it was the look that Timbale had stamped on all her kids.

  “Isn’t he handsome?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  I took a deep breath and stood up with nary a waver.

  “I’ll go up to Sunset tonight and canvass the whole boulevard.”

  She winced at my vow. Maybe she worried that a dead man was only good for finding corpses.

  At the door I stopped and asked her, “What’s the trouble between you and Mr. Alexander?”

  “No trouble. It’s just if I ever see him I will send his narrow high-yellah ass to hell.”

  10

  People have often told me that walking downhill is harder than climbing up. That might be true, but it felt a lot easier descending the stairway from Timbale Noon’s second-floor apartment.

  Before I got to the bottom I heard LaTonya laughing carelessly. I stopped for a few moments, listening to the squeals of childhood’s abandon. It seemed very far away.

  Maybe it was the sugar from the Kool-Aid and not the evocation of my name, but walking back to the car was easier than I expected. I jerked the handle to pull the car door open, then lowered into the passenger’s seat with great concentration.

  “Well?” Mouse asked.

  “Why does that woman hate you, Raymond?”

  “Lotsa people hate me. You think I know all their stories?”

  “I think you know hers.”

  “It ain’t nuthin’, Easy, and it sure don’t have to do with Little Gr—I mean Evander goin’ missin’. You gonna close that door?”

  “She corroborated everything that your friend Lissa told you.”

  “A carburetor?”

  “She said that he went missing up on Sunset some days ago. Other than that all I got was a graduation photograph.”

  “Lemme see it,” Mouse said, less a demand than a request.

  I took the picture from my inside jacket pocket and passed it over.

  He held it at a distance from his face great enough to show that his vision was deteriorating.

  While he gazed intently at the photograph, his face gave up no inkling of what it was that he felt.

  “Mind if I keep this, Easy?”

  “I need it.”

  “You seen it already,” he argued. “You not gonna forget.”

  “When I go around lookin’ for him I’ll need to show that picture to people.”

  “All right then,” he said reluctantly. “Here you go. Now shut that door and let’s get outta here.”

  “I’m walking,” I said.

  “Easy, we already in the car. I know you only a few blocks away but you been hurt, man.”

  “If I’m gonna do this for you I have to test my limits,” I said. “Why don’t you go down to Meaty Meatburgers on Fairfax and pick us up some food. I’ll meet you at my place.”

  With that, using the full strength in both arms, I lifted myself out of the car. I leaned over to peer inside and said, “I’ll see you in twenty minutes,” then levered myself into an erect stance and slammed the door.

  I knew that neighborhood quite well. A block west of the intersection of Pico and Stanley there was a huge metal structure, a hollow, nine-story-high building made from metal plating that had been painted dark yellow, almost the same color as Beatrix’s dress. This was an oil well that plumbed the dark liquid out from under us.

  There was no crossing light at the Stanley corner, so I walked past Spaulding down to my street, Genesee, where there was a light.

  It was really only three blocks from Timbale’s front door to mine, but the fact that I didn’t know her was no surprise. Neighbors don’t necessarily know one another that well in L.A. We spend most of our time in single homes and one-person cars. In the late sixties we moved as often as fleas leaping from one dog’s head to another one’s butt. There was no walking to or from parks or local bars where neighbors might hang out. If you went somewhere it was either to work or family. And if you partied it was rarely with neighbors.

  By the time I made it to the southeast side of Genesee and Pico I was sorely challenged by the exercise. I could feel the exhaustion in the veins across my chest. A bead of sweat came down the side of my head, and I was happy that the traffic light was red. I leaned against the lamppost and sighed.

  “Hey, you!” somebody said.

  The voice came from behind me, but I didn’t have to turn to know who it was.

  I didn’t have to turn, but I did so to greet the two dark blue-clad policemen who were coming at me like twin hyenas on a wounded wildebeest.

  “Officers.”

  The luxury of fatigue left me. I was a soldier again and this was the enemy. The enemy doesn’t ask you if you’re too tired to stand your ground. The enemy has many wounds of his own and he hates you for every one.

  “Let’s see some ID,” the one on the right said.

  They were both young and white and male and had been after me as long as all three of us had lived.

  I handed over my driver’s license and said, “Name’s Easy Rawlins. I live up here ’bout half a block on Genesee.”

  “Have you been drinking, Easy?” the cop on the right asked. I could distinguish him by the mole on his right cheek and the ivory hue to his teeth, which he showed in a false smile.

  “I have not.”

  “We’re going to have to search you,” the other cop said. “Put your arms straight out to your side.”

  “I thought you were asking if I was drunk?”

&nb
sp; “You might have an open half-pint in one of your pockets.”

  I did as they told me. I didn’t like it, but there was other, more pressing business on my mind.

  They went through all my pockets and patted me down to the ankles. One of them, the one without the mole, had very bad halitosis. My walnut-sized stomach throbbed in anguish at the smell.

  “Okay,” the mole-festooned cop said when all they found was my wallet, the graduation photograph, seventy-nine cents, and some lint. “Now we’re going to have you walk a straight line for us.”

  “Hey,” a new voice proclaimed. “What you botherin’ this man fo’?”

  It was a light-colored black man who worked at the auto garage on the corner. He’d been watching, I supposed.

  “This is none of your business,” the unblemished cop informed the newcomer.

  The mechanic was small, wearing gray overalls. He was the color of an old piece of vellum made from cowhide.

  “He wasn’t doin’ nuthin’,” my would-be defender said. “He just walked up to the corner and rested against that pole. He ain’t drivin’ no car, so who cares if he had a drink?”

  “I won’t be warning you again,” the mole-flecked cop said. He had unsheathed his baton.

  “Yeah, nigger,” the partner agreed.

  I was getting worried about the well-being of my good-intentioned advocate when yet another voice joined our impromptu chorus.

  “What did you say?” This from a tall white man, also in gray overalls stretched tight over his big belly. “What did you call my mechanic?”

  “Hey, Sammy, what’s goin’ on out there?” yet another voice chimed in.

  The garage was a low, whitewashed wood building that encompassed a big open space like a hangar for a small plane. Instead of a front wall the garage had a huge gate that was rolled up when the shop was open. I’d noticed the place when driving on Pico or Genesee but never patronized them. I took my car to my old friend Primo in East L.A.

  “This cop just called Bertie a nigger,” the boss man said. “Just like that. Maybe Bertie isn’t as crazy as we said.”

  More men came out of the garage. Now there were nine of us standing on the corner.

  “This guy was just walkin’,” the man I now knew as Bertie said. “And then this one here up and calls me a niggah.”

  There were many fears registering in the white policemen’s eyes: the fear of a complaint lodged against them; the fear of a small roust escalating into a minor riot; the fear of them losing control in a situation that they were not prepared for. But most of all they were afraid of their fellow white man. I didn’t matter. Bertie didn’t matter. But if a white business owner and his white employees stood up against the cops then they were transformed from law enforcement into what they really were—hired help.

  “Why’d you call him a nigger?” the boss, Sammy, asked the clear-skinned cop.

  “I didn’t,” he replied, gesturing vaguely at me.

  “Not him,” Sammy snapped. “Bertie.”

  Cars were slowing down on the street. A couple of them had pulled to the curb.

  Sammy was angry and so was Bertie. The rest of the mechanics worked for Sammy and so felt that they had to stand behind him.

  I suppressed a snicker. It wasn’t so much a nervous laugh as an evil one: a chuckle spawned in the hell of my early life. Even though I couldn’t have thrown a punch, I wanted to cut loose and fight.

  Luckily for all of us, the policeman’s radio started making noise. Mole Man went to the car and grabbed the microphone. He said something; something was garbled back.

  “Hey, Jacob,” he said. “Emergency on Olympic, an armed robbery. We gotta go.”

  And so they both jumped into the car and took off.

  They didn’t even leave us with a warning.

  I had the definite feeling that while I was dead, the world had changed somewhat.

  11

  The policemen stopping me was wrong, but it most certainly saved me from more trouble up ahead.

  I hung around the front of the garage for a few minutes thanking Bertie and Sammy for standing up on my behalf. Then I had to wait for another light. When I made it across the street I was bone-tired. So I sat down on a bus stop bench, breathing and wishing I had a cigarette. This was a desire and not a craving. The days of unconsciousness had weaned me off of the worst part of the smoking addiction. But the cigarettes I had with Mouse had reminded my system of their draw.

  These thoughts blossomed into a full-fledged reexamination of waking up from death, not sleep, and now looking for a way back to what was before.

  “Easy,” Mouse called.

  He had turned off of Pico and pulled to the curb so that his car was pointing north on Genesee—he’d even thrown the passenger’s door open wide.

  I went over to the car and got in without a word.

  “You see?” he said jauntily. “I told you you shouldn’ta walked. I might’ve had to pick you up from the gutter.”

  “You mighta had to go my bail.”

  My place was just a few houses up from the corner. Mouse pulled into the driveway and jumped out faster than I was able. He was approaching the front door when I was just coming around the car.

  “Do’s open,” he announced.

  I remember wondering, inanely, if I had locked up when I’d last gone out—two months before.

  A tall white man got to the door from inside at the same moment I came from up behind Mouse.

  “Can I help you?” he asked.

  He was lanky and courteous, wearing a gray, short-sleeved shirt with little dark blue dots all over and black buttons. He had on black trousers but no shoes or socks. It was the fact that this stranger was standing barefoot in my home that roused me from fatigue.

  “You could tell us what you doin’ in my friend’s house,” Mouse suggested.

  “I don’t understand,” the white man said. “This is my house.”

  He had sandy brown hair that was in retreat from his forehead, a jutting nose, and one pimple over the left side of his upper lip. His skin was the color of those white-sand beaches I saw along the West African coast. I didn’t have time to register the color of his eyes right then because Mouse distracted me.

  Raymond glanced quickly behind him. I mimicked the motion because I knew his next move: If there was no one there he intended some kind of violence.

  The street was empty.

  The next thing I knew there was that old long-barreled .41 in my friend’s hand.

  Before the white man could react Ray had hit him in the center of his vast forehead, knocking him into the living room and flat on his back.

  Mouse stalked in over his victim, shouting to me, “Come on in and close that do’, Easy!”

  Once again, in greatly different circumstances, I did as I was told.

  The white man was rising up on his right elbow when Mouse pushed him back with his foot.

  “Stay down.”

  When the stunned man tried to get up again, Raymond leveled the muzzle of his gun and said once more, “Stay down.”

  The lights were on but the California sun outside had been much brighter. My eyes were as fatigued as the rest of me, and so I struggled to get my vision clear.

  “What’s yo’ name, man?” Mouse said.

  “Jeffrey.”

  “Well, Jeff, let me ask you again. What you doin’ barefoot in Easy here’s house?”

  “I live here,” he claimed indignantly. “The man who owned this place died and I … and I homesteaded it.”

  There was blood coming from Jeffrey’s forehead, but we all knew that that was the least of his problems.

  “It’s my house,” I said. “I had an accident but I didn’t die. I’m back now and you should leave.”

  “Or I will kill you,” Mouse agreed. “Right here, right now.”

  “I have to, have to put my things … I have to pack.” Events were moving very fast for Jeff. One minute he was luxuriating in his home and the n
ext he was homeless.

  “What day is trash day, Easy?” Mouse asked.

  “Tuesday.”

  “You could come by next Tuesday and pick what you want outta the trash.”

  “But that’s—”

  Mouse pulled back the hammer on his revolver to cut Jeffrey’s complaint short.

  As the squatter got to his feet I opened the door.

  “What about my shoes,” he whined. “I got to have my shoes.”

  In reply Mouse hit him on the side of his head with the pistol. The impact propelled Jeffrey out the door and down to his knees on the front lawn. Mouse stood in the doorway waving his gun and said, “If I see you again I will kill you, Jeff. You don’t know me, but believe it when I tell you I don’t fuck around.”

  Mouse slammed the door and turned to me.

  “Can you believe that shit? Mothahfuckah wanna come here and take your house. Claimin’ to be some kinda homesteadah acting like he rolled up on the wagon train.”

  That’s when I started to laugh. Between waking up from death, the acres of pain in Timbale Noon’s eyes, the cops stopping me for walking, and now this squatter, I knew that, even if the whole world had changed, there was still a hard row to go and no hoe in sight.

  Ray laughed with me. I lowered myself onto the sofa and he sat in the padded chair on the side.

  I noticed then that he was carrying a grease-stained brown paper bag in his left hand.

  It struck me as absurd that a man could exhibit such violence while holding on to a bag full of burgers and fries.

  He placed the bag on the low coffee table and ripped it open. The strong smells made me realize how hungry I was and, at the same time, sickened me.

  “They aksed me if I wanted chili and cheese on ’em, Easy,” Mouse was saying as he tore the tawny paper wrapper off of his burger. “I said okay to the cheese but I thought chili might be too much for your gut.”

  I picked up my hefty sandwich and determined to swallow at least eight bites. It was my job to learn how to walk and eat and live like a man in a world where every step was a challenge.

  “You seen Jackson Blue since the accident?” I asked Mouse some hours later.

  I had already called the kids and talked to them. I told Feather that I was going to stay at the Genesee house because I was too tired to move around. She said that she loved me and that she was so happy that I was alive.