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 upo
n 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
On 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.
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