“I don't think that you'd ever answer a question of mine straight.”
“So what you want?”
“I read the police reports from Indiana,” Biggers said. “What you said was true. Even the arresting officer said that you were more in shock than unrepentant.”
Socrates had never heard that. He wanted to know more but didn't ask.
“So as far Minnie Lee is concerned, well, it don't mean you did an' it don't mean you didn't. I wouldn't bet one way or the other on that.”
“So you gonna let up on me?”
Biggers shook his head. Maybe he was even sorry.
“No,” he said. “Beryl and the captain got a hard-on for you now. They gonna be down on you every time there's a crime within six blocks of here.”
“Shit. That's every other day.”
“Maybe you should move. You know if you leave the district they'll forget about you.”
Socrates felt a moment of dizziness but that passed quickly.
“Naw, man,” he said. “They know where they can come get me. I'll be right here they need to play around.”
what would you do?
What would you do if you seen a dude stand up at that park bench over there an' then you see that his wallet done falled to the ground behind?” Little Willie Ryan asked.
“Gimme fifteen,” Socrates Fortlow commanded. He slapped down a four/six domino, placing it off of a double four branch in the long line of bones.
“Was it a fat, brown, real leather wallet?” big-boned Brad Godine asked as if the event had actually occurred. “Or just one'a them paper jobs made up to look like it was leather?”
Young Tito Young, a man in his fifties, wrote down Socrates' score on his yellow legal pad, three vertical lines to start a new batch of twenty-five points. The five men were sitting at a picnic table in South Park playing dominoes for a penny a point. Lydell Samuels was searching his tiles for a good play.
“Man,” Little Willie complained. “It's a wallet. Don't matter if it cost a lotta money. What matters is if they's any money in it.”
“Yeah,” Young T Young said. “A man got a good wallet might be too smart to be carryin' a lotta money in it. It's a fool an' his cheap wallet more likely to have a fifty-dollar bill up in there.”
“You gonna play that bone, Lydell?” Socrates asked the carpenter.
“Yeah,” chimed Brad Godine. His face was like an African mask. The bones around his eyes were big and protruding, making the eyes seem like glass orbs in twin caves. His nose was broad and broken in at least three places. The triangle of his face was long and sharp. All in all Brad was the visage of a minor demon. Children loved him, which was lucky because, by his count, he was the father of fifteen by almost as many mothers.
“Hold on,” Lydell said. “I'm lookin'.”
“But maybe a good wallet have some credit cards in it,” Young T postulated. “Smart man gots to have a credit card. That's the way of the future.”
“An' what you gonna do with another man's credit card?” Socrates Fortlow, the deadliest man in sight, asked.
“Sell it down at Blackbird's bar. You know since Craig Hatter took over they give you fifty bucks for a credit card down there,” Willie Ryan said. He was a smallish man with rounded features. His hair was short cropped and dark except for his mustache, which had light red highlights. Women loved his perfectly sculpted lips.
“What would you do wit' that fifty dollars, Willie?” Socrates asked his park friend.
Quietly Lydell put down a three/four domino against one side of a three/three tile which had branched out along a tributary from the main stalk of the game.
“Hah!” Young T cried slapping down his bone. “Twenty points!”
The men went silent momentarily to check out the math on Tito's claim.
“What you axed me, Socco?” Willie Ryan asked.
“What would you do with the fifty dollars you got from that credit card?” Socrates gestured toward the bench where the phantom wallet had been lost.
“Shit, man. I'd get me some'a that good whiskey an' then I'd be down at Linda Harris's place. You know she let up on some leg if you buy her dinner an' fill her glass.”
“So you gonna mess up some man's credit and put him all out with his business so that you could have a hangover and a dose of the clap?” Socrates was smiling but Willie still cowered under his gaze.
“You gonna play, Willie?” Young T asked, still smug over his twenty-point coup.
“Yeah,” Lydell added. “Maybe if you pointed out that the man dropped his billfold he might give you sumpin' for that. Maybe if you did the right thing everything'd be better.”
“Well,” Young T said. “Maybe if you went after him and picked his wallet up. If you did that an' handed it to'im. But if you just said, ‘Hey, you dropped sumpin’,' he'd just give you the nod an' be on his way. You got to touch a man you wanna get touched. Uh-huh.”
Lydell frowned without responding. Willie played a three/two tile, making the board score twenty-two.
Brad Godine lost interest in the conversation for a moment as he studied the seven dominoes that he'd lined down the center of his large hand. Brad had big hands and black/brown skin except where his face bones protruded. Along these ridges Brad's skin was a lighter, almost reddish, brown.
Socrates was looking at Brad's hand. It was big and powerful but nothing compared to the rock breakers that Socrates had.
“What would you do if you found out that somebody sold your wallet to Hatter?” Socrates asked Willie.
“If I'd find the motherfucker,” Young T interrupted. “I'd make him wish that he'da left it alone.”
“Man, how the fuck you gonna do that?” Brad asked.
“I got me somethin' right here in my pocket for big-assed ugly niggers think they can weight lift you to death,” Young T replied. He slapped his windbreaker pocket and sneered.
“Oh yeah?” The dominoes folded into Brad's big fist.
“Yeah.”
“ 'Cause you know I'm half ready to whip yo' ass an' then plug it up wit' whatever it is you think you got in that pocket.”
“Hey, man,” Lydell said. “Cool it. There ain't nuthin' t'fight about here.”
Socrates wondered for a second, maybe even less, at the look on Lydell's face. He wasn't scared or even concerned, it was more like he was heartbroken. Heartbroken over two fools.
“Kill each other if you want,” Socrates said. “But you mess up the bones and you will answer to me.”
Whatever weapons Young T and Brad had, they weren't brave enough to use them against Socrates.
Brad carelessly played a two/six, bumping the table score up to twenty-eight.
Young T took a sealed half-pint of Jack Daniel's and a short stack of five plastic cups from the pocket that supposedly held a weapon. He poured everyone a shot and passed them around. Then he put the bottle back in his pocket just in case the police happened by.
Brad laughed when he got his shot. Young T nodded, agreeing that they were both fools.
“But if you did have a gun,” Socrates began. “You'd shoot'im?”
“Damn straight,” Young T said.
Brad and Willie agreed.
“So then you think it's wrong to take a man's wallet if he drop it.”
“It's wrong if you get caught,” Little Willie Ryan chirped.
Everyone, even Socrates and Lydell, laughed.
“Shit,” Little Willie continued. “You an' me would be best friends, until you find out I been doin' it wit' yo' ole lady.”
Socrates played a six/one, bringing the score back down to twenty-three. When you can't score the best thing to do is to limit the potential of the bones.
“And when I find out about it you dead,” Socrates said in a voice so clear that the men stopped and looked at each other like a room full of strangers who just heard a loud sound from outside.
Willie half rose from the table, looking quickly over his shoulder for a clear avenue of retr
eat.
Socrates stared at the little man. The look was in no way benign.
Lydell had forgotten it was his turn. His face was a study in grief.
“Hey, Socco,” Wille said through a nervous laugh. “Hey, man, I was just talkin'. Talkin' you know.”
“But if I come in my house an' see you stickin' it to my woman then you dead. Shit. If Young T right here pull me to the side an' say that he heard it from Brad who got it straight from Lydell who was told by his wife's girlfriend—just if that I'd prob'ly cut yo' throat right here. Don't give a fuck what the police say.”
A drop of sweat went down the right side of Willie's nose and into the cleft of his perfect lips.
“Now tell me somethin', Willie.”
“What, Socco, what?”
“When I come in on you with my butcherin' knife an' I knock you to the floor. When I let my knee down your chest wit' my full weight an' you feel your breast bone crack open. When I put that knife to your throat an' you feel it tearin' through your flesh and the blood goin' all down your chest. What would you do then?”
“Say what, man?” Willie managed to keep his shaking down to a fidget.
“If you could go back an' fix it. If you could go back an' when that woman smiled at you you just smiled back an' walked away. What if you could go back before I ripped your flesh open like that? What would you do then? That's what I'm askin' you, Willie.”
“You cain't go back, man,” Lydell said. “That shit is over. Nuthin' you could do.”
Brad Godine sat back and shook his head. “We gonna play dominoes or what?”
“It ain't ovah till it's ovah, man,” Socrates said. He was looking at Willie but talking to Lydell.
He knew what he was saying, he was sure of his words, more sure,maybe,than he had ever been. But still Socrates was confused. It was as if he had just come alive when Willie started joking about getting away with his little crimes against his best friends and brothers. He could feel his heart beating and his breath coming in and out. But he wasn't breathing hard. He felt the breeze over his bald head and an ache on the inner side of his right knee.
Socrates felt big and angry. He was like an animal who just caught a whiff of something. Like Killer, his two-legged dog, who for no reason sometimes in the middle of the night sat back on his legless haunches and cried for all he was worth.
All of that was clear to the ex-con. But what he wondered was where was he before Willie called him to life? What was he thinking? Was he just like a dog? Waiting for food or foe or sex to wake him from slumber?
He wanted to say something about all that but didn't know how.
“Socco,” Young Tito Young said. Maybe he'd said it more than once.
“What?”
“You okay, man?”
“I gotta go, Young T,” Socrates said. He fished three dollars out of his jeans pocket and handed them to the potbellied man. “Pay me up at the end an' gimme my change next week.”
Socrates left the unfinished game asking himself the same questions, questions that he could ask only himself.
Three days later Socrates had forgotten the game, the arguments, and the questions he had about himself. If anyone was privy to his inner thoughts and questioned why he had forgotten, he would have answered, “Man, I got a job, a dog who needs care, a boy I look after, and streets where you got to watch where you're steppin' elsewise you might just walk off a cliff.”
Socrates had learned how to survive in prison and you couldn't make many missteps among the convict population. He carried prison around in his pockets like a passport or a small Bible. Sometimes at night he'd wake realizing that even in his sleep he'd been listening to the noises, and silences, on the street just beyond the thin plasterboard wall.
His days were spent watching out of the corner of his eye while working or having conversation. He didn't remember faces so much as hand movements and body size. If two or more big men were walking down the street behind him, even a block away, he'd turn off into an alley or store and watch to see what they did when they passed by.
Socrates didn't have time to think about how his mind worked or how lonely his thoughts were for company. He didn't have much time to think at all.
“It's like in a fight,” Peter David, a heist man serving five years, once said to Socrates in the Indiana state penitentiary. “If you hesitate you're dead. If you think or wonder or ask why you might as well just put the gun to your head. Because there's no time for thinking on the job and a poor man is on the job twenty-four hours a day.”
Socrates was coming home from Bounty Supermarket. He'd been staring out of the bus window only barely aware of how the sights slowly changed from the west side to Watts, from lush green streets that sometimes seemed more like botanical gardens than neighborhoods, to hard cracked sidewalks where a choked palm tree could be found every quarter mile or so. From bustling shops, catering to women who had worked on their outfits and makeup for hours before leaving the house, to burnt out and abandoned businesses standing like barricades against gangs of laughing children watched over by tired mothers, sisters and friends.
Socrates got off the bus twelve blocks from his house. There was a closer stop but he wanted to walk down the street he'd been observing.
“Hey, Socco,” a man called.
Socrates had seen the man's white overalls when he'd scanned the street but dismissed them as being no threat.
“Hey, Lydell. What's happenin'?”
“Hey, Socco,” the slender carpenter repeated. His dark face was long and his features were fine. Again Socrates noticed the grief in that face.
“What's wrong, man?” the ex-convict asked.
“Nuthin'. Nuthin' at all. I just seen you. Thought I'd say hey.”
“Hey,” Socrates said.
“Hey.” Lydell smiled and winced at the same time.
The men stood in the street surrounded by children and old men. Standing still, Socrates became momentarily aware of laughter. It struck him as odd but he didn't think any more about it.
“Well,” he said. “I better be goin'. See ya, Lydell.”
“See ya, Socco,” Lydell said but he kept a steady gaze in Socrates' eye.
“Well, okay,” Socrates said. “I better be goin'.”
“You was up in prison, right, Socrates?” Lydell asked.
Socrates gave the carpenter a hard look but it was wasted on the deep sadness of the man.
“Yeah,” Socrates answered. “Yeah I was up there. Way up in there.”
“Me too,” Lydell said. “I killed a man an' they send me up there. Send me up there. Yeah, you know. For manslaughter.”
The street was full of people but there were no witnesses to Lydell's confession. No one but Socrates was listening to the anguished carpenter.
“You wanna go get a drink?” Socrates asked his newfound friend.
Bebe's bar was run by a black Chicano named Paolo Herrera who everybody called Chico. He got that name because of the hat he wore, which was reminiscent of the Marx brother's. Bebe's was one of the few places where the Latino and Negro races mingled around Socrates' neighborhood. That was because of Chico's appearance which he inherited from his mother, a descendent of a Brazilian woman from BahÍa.
Socrates went into Bebe's place now and then because it reminded him of prison. Only men patronized the bar. They played chess but there was no jukebox. They talked in low voices keeping secrets that no one cared about. And everyone was always watching, on the lookout for any trouble. Socrates felt safe among the denizens of Bebe's bar because he could relax a little surrounded, as he was, by sentries who he could trust to sound the alarm.
Socrates knew from the minute they went into Bebe's that Lydell had told the truth when he said that he was an ex-con. The carpenter shot glances in all directions, sizing up men and groups with immediate certainty. He looked around for a table against a wall but they were all taken.
“We could sit at that table over there,” Socrates told his comp
anion. “Bebe's is cool.”
He pointed to a spindly legged wooden table that was almost black from cigarette burns and stains.
“Two beers, Chico,” Socrates said to the owner who stood behind the oak-stained pine bar.
“It's just beer and whiskey,” Socrates said to Lydell. “Scotch and gin. No brand names or special drinks. Chico got soda water but no tonic. And if you wanna sandwich you gotta bring it in yourself.”
The room was well lit. The pale linoleum floor was clean and swept. Lydell swiveled his head from side to side taking in the corners, but there were no hiding places at Bebe's.
“Where'd you do your time?” Socrates asked.
“Soledad. You?”
“Back east.” This wasn't Socrates' confession. He didn't feel the need to unburden himself.
The beers came with Chico, who sat down for a little while to say hello to Socrates and to check out the new man. Lydell passed the test because all he said was “Hello.”
“A man with no questions,” Socrates said to Lydell when Chico went away, “is a man you could almost trust.”
It was the first friendly smile to cross Lydell's lips that Socrates could remember. But the grin was followed by that pained grimace. Socrates could remember when happiness brought him pain. He was considering asking the carpenter what had he done but Lydell beat him to it.
“I killed my friend. My wife's boyfriend. Henry Wentworth.” Lydell looked at Socrates who held up his empty glass for Chico to see. “He was with my wife. In the bed. In my own damn bed. An' I killed him with a knife. Stabbed the motherfucker. Forty-two times they said.”
You got your crazies, your criminals, your slackards and your good men, Cap Richmond, the seventy-year-old lifer, used to say. Good man kill ya 'cause he just couldn't live knowin' you did him like that an' didn't pay for it.
“Henry was always hangin' 'round us. He used to always say how if I didn't marry Geraldine he would have. She liked him and I worked the night shift. Lotta times I'd come home and he'd be there watchin' TV or eatin'. I even liked it that he looked in on her. So you see,” Lydell said like some kind of law student, “it really was my fault in a way. You cain't be havin' no man comin' up in your house lookin' after your woman. Man starts to feel like he own a woman he's protectin'. She cain't help but to take on his scent too.”
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