Walter Mosley

by Socrates Fortlow 02 - Walkin' the Dog

  It was a copper-toned Jaguar sedan. Socrates and Venus piled in the back. When Alice hit the gas, Socrates laid a heavy hand on her shoulder and said, “Slow it down to a walk, sugar, we ain't outta the bag yet.”

  He left his hand there for twenty blocks or more, until Alice finally moaned, “You're hurting me.”

  Socrates sat back thinking about prison; about how they could have pulled him in for B and E. One small party and the rest of his life could have been spent in stir.

  “Mothahfuckahs,” he whispered.

  Everyone else was silent.

  The rage of the ex-con filled up the car but he was unaware of its effect. All he could think about was how small his cell had been. He couldn't even turn around comfortably. He couldn't play music or go through the bars for a bottle of wine. He couldn't even close his own door or open it for a visitor or friend.

  It was cramped in Alice's car too. He thought about going home but his apartment was also small and cell-like. He was a prisoner-in-waiting on the streets as far as the cops were concerned.

  Those thoughts played through his head again and again. Socrates paid no heed to the car's direction.

  When Lavant sighed and said, “That was a close one,” Socrates didn't hear him.

  “You saved us,” from Venus, could have been the passing blare of a horn.

  The music from the party along with the scramble of feet on the gravel of the alley still filled Socrates' ears. He slipped into a daze that was closer to sleep than it was to consciousness. Sweat beaded up on his forehead and his blood ran cool.

  Alice drove them up into Malibu hills, to her home.

  The living room was sunken below the entrance hall. It was shallow and arching but over fifty feet wide. The walls were all glass. To the left you could see the million winking lights of Los Angeles and to the right there was darkness where Socrates knew the ocean lay.

  “Nice, eh, Socco?” Lavant said at his shoulder.

  “Yeah,” Socrates said. “Yeah, this is more like it.”

  “If you like the view now,” Alice said. “Wait until the sun comes up.”

  She wasn't yet forty, Socrates surmised, thin and plain, but the hunger in her eyes made up for a bad complexion. She wore a green, loose-knit sweater dress that came down to mid-thigh.

  Lavant came up and put his arm around her.

  “I can hardly wait,” Socrates said. “To see the sun come up and not be in jail are the two best things there is.”

  Lavant and Alice went off to her bed. Venus touched Socrates' shoulder but he told her that he was going to stay up for a while.

  Venus was well named but Socrates was too angry to be with a woman. He didn't feel safe in his own skin.

  He opened the sliding glass door and sat out on the terrace that looked over Alice's rock garden, swimming pool and the sea. He couldn't make out the ocean but he could smell it and every once in a while there came the faint sound of breaking waves.

  Two hours later the Pacific shifted into existence and morning gulls cried. Socrates sat completely still, afraid to move a finger lest the spell would break.

  The smell of coffee came with daylight.

  “Good morning, Mr. Fortlow,” Alice said at the door. She came out with a cup of coffee in each hand.

  “Mornin',” Socrates said. “Thank you.”

  His hostess wore a full-length white terry cloth robe. She sat down in the chair beside him.

  “I love this view,” she said. There were dark patches under her eyes and her hair was a mess.

  “It's like we ran through hell and went right up to heaven,” Socrates said. “Damn.”

  Venus and Lavant soon appeared and they went off saying that they would make breakfast. Alice joined them but Socrates stayed outside. He walked down through the rock garden, stuck his toes in the pool. He walked out to the edge of the property which looked down into a sheer gorge that led down to the sea.

  “Where you wanna go, Socco?” Lavant called.

  Socrates was standing near the pool.

  Lavant and Alice and Venus came over to the edge when the big man didn't answer.

  “Did you sleep at all last night?” Venus asked him.

  “I don't think so,” he replied.

  “Why'ont you stay here and take a nap, brother,” Lavant suggested. “Alice gonna take me down to Sam Flax in Westwood to get some razor blades and brushes. That's okay, right, baby?”

  “Well,” the homeowner stalled. “I …”

  “He did save your butt last night, girl.”

  “Okay,” she said after a long hesitation. “We're going for art supplies and maybe some lunch. We'll drop Venus off at work and Lavant promised to help me pick up a chair that I bought.”

  Socrates fell asleep on the sofa in the wide living room and dreamed of being in that house forever with the breeze from the ocean and the sweet sounds of the world.

  He was walking on a large grassy field with Killer running around him on all four legs. There were sheep everywhere bleating and eating grass.

  “Hey, Socco,” someone called.

  He turned and saw Right Burke approaching him wearing his sergeant's uniform from World War II. He was no longer crippled but he was still an old man.

  “Hey, Burke, what's happenin'?” Socrates hailed.

  “You think these sheep think they sheep?” Burke asked.

  Killer howled in reply.

  Socrates woke up half expecting Killer to be there. The house was still empty and he went right out the door. He wandered the narrow and steep pathways of the canyon, walking in the street mainly because there were few sidewalks up there. After some time he made it down to Sunset Boulevard. There he found a bus that got him to work by two fifteen.

  Nobody complained about his absence. Socrates was a hard worker and respected among his peers.

  When he got home that evening, Killer barked and stamped his forepaws to show how hungry he was.

  “I learned a lot from that dog,” he told Iula later that night as they lay together in each other's arms.

  “What could you learn from a dog?” Iula asked playfully.

  “That you can be hungry but you don't have to be mad.” A wave of emotion choked off the end of his sentence. He stayed quiet for a few moments. “That bravery ain't no big thing. Bravery is just doin' what you do wit' what you got an' where you find yourself. But it's, but it's love that gives life. It's that that calls out for you.”

  “You don't need a dog to teach you about love. Everybody knows about love.” Iula sounded angry.

  “Not me,” Socrates replied. “I never bled for nobody didn't bleed for me.”

  “What's blood got to do with it?”

  “I wish I knew. I mean it seem like every time somethin' gets serious or important you got to put up blood and freedom just to stay in the game.”

  “What?” Iula said, exasperation filling her voice, “what are you talking about?”

  “I'ont know what it means, honey. Just know that that's what I know.”

  mookie kid

  The phone rang at 6:25 on Wednesday evening, just as Socrates got to the door. He took his time with the padlock and put the groceries down carefully before going to answer the phone. It was on the eleventh ring that Socrates picked up the receiver. Whoever it was had just lost heart and cut off the connection.

  The big man put away his cans of tuna and bag of white rice. He had stripped down to his boxer shorts and was busy washing himself at the kitchen sink when the phone rang again. It only rang eight times before Socrates answered.

  “Hello.”

  Nothing.

  “Hello. Who is this?”

  No response.

  “Shit,” Socrates said. Just as he took the phone from his ear he thought he heard something: a quick breath or hiss, maybe the beginning of a word, maybe the start of his name. But he was angry and slammed the phone down before he could be sure.

  The ex-convict finished his toilet and then brought a sa
ucepan half full of water to a boil on his butane stove. When the rice was cooked he added a can of tuna with onions, hot sauce, and soy sauce.He let that simmer for a while. He intended to blend in half a can of peas that had been keeping in his large Styrofoam cooler, but the ice had melted and the peas gone sour.

  Lately he'd been thinking about getting another small refrigerator. The last one he had burned out because of a bad electrical connection. He could splice in another outlet off the 220 line and modify it for a 110 appliance. He'd learned how to do that from Michael Porter, an out-of-work electrician who liked to play dominoes in the park.

  Socrates pulled away a section of wall shared with the vacant furniture store next door. With a flashlight he located the box he needed to use. There was one hot box left in the furniture store. Whether it was a mistake or not, Socrates had used the free electricity for nine years. His old landlord, Price Landers, said that the electricity came with the rent. But Landers had died years before and Michael Porter pointed out that the connection Socrates had was illegal.

  Socrates was studying the fuse box, trying to remember what he had to do when the phone rang again. This time it rang over thirty times before the caller gave up.

  Somewhere around midnight Socrates fell asleep speculating on how heavy the refrigerator would be. He also wondered if Stony Wile was still mad at him for going out with his woman-on-the-side, Charlene, for a couple of days. Stony had a pickup truck.

  That was the last thing on Socrates' mind, and then the phone was ringing again. He got up and pulled the plug from the wall. When the ringer cut off midtone Socrates relaxed.

  Bob's Used Appliances was on Grand Street in downtown L.A. The storefront led to a long and slender aisle piled high on each side with irons, radios, waffle presses, percolators, and just about every other electrical countertop appliance that existed.

  Tony LaPort had told Socrates that Bob's was the best place to buy something used.

  “Bob give ya a guarantee,” Tony said. “One year and he'll fix anything go wrong.”

  Tony and Socrates were on friendly terms once more now that Tony had tried to live with Iula again but failed. Tony was happy in his bachelorhood.

  “Five weeks with a woman was just about enough to last me the rest'a my life,” Tony told Socrates.

  Sitting immediately inside the door of Bob's Used Appliances was a surly-looking Mexican man. His gaze locked with Socrates' and there was a moment of recognition. The two men had never met but they had something in common: a toughness, a solitary self reliance. The nod they shared was the consolation of heroes home from a war that was lost.

  Bob himself was a white man in his sixties but he still had a full head of dirty blond hair. He was seated behind a wood desk at the end of the narrow corridor.

  “Tony sent ya, huh?” the white man said. “He got a good place down there.”

  Bob was missing one front tooth and the rest were worn down into nubs. For a moment Socrates imagined that the white man chewed on the metal utilities while fixing them.

  “Refrigerator huh?” Bob said to himself. “Hey, Julio.”

  The man at the front of the store grunted something.

  “I'm goin' out back with Mr. Fortlow here. You take over.”

  Julio raised his left hand in a halfhearted pledge and then let it drop.

  “Come on,” Bob said to Socrates. He pulled on a bookshelf to his left and it swung open like a door.

  Bob led the way through a short hallway that was so cramped that Socrates' shoulders rubbed against the walls as he went. This hallway opened into an extremely large room full of appliances that would have never fit into the slender sales room. Washing machines, generators, TVs, there was even a giant strobe light in a far-off corner.

  The room was organized according to appliance type. There was a whole row of full-sized refrigerators. Beyond that was a little cul-de-sac of small ones.

  “Westinghouse is your best bet,” Bob was saying. He patted the top of a two-foot-square drab green unit. “They built these suckers to last.”

  “How much?” Socrates asked. He felt oppressed in that dank atmosphere. The smell reminded him of his days in prison.

  “Twenty bucks for this one,” Bob said.

  “That's all?”

  “I took this one in for scrap and it worked. I opened her up but there wasn't anything wrong.” Bob squatted down and rubbed his hand over the metal door. “You see they had these deep scratches in the paint. I figure that it was an eyesore and the owners just chucked it. That's America for ya. Nobody believes in utility. One day they'll start scrappin' kids for havin' crossed eyes or fat butts.”

  Bob looked up at Socrates and winked.

  “Most the things I get in here still work,” the fixer continued. “It's just that they went outta style in some way or they got marred.”

  Socrates looked around the vast workroom again. It reminded him more than ever of prison.

  “How much it weigh?” Socrates asked.

  “Twenty-five, thirty. Big fella like you could carry it easy. I got some rope over there. You could make a shoulder hoist and get it to your car.”

  Socrates nodded.

  Bob helped him tie up the ugly green refrigerator. Socrates used the nylon rope to carry it over his right shoulder. It was a tight fit through the hallway to the front but Socrates made it. He paid his twenty dollars and then thought of a question.

  “You got one'a them caller-ID gizmos?”

  “Uhhhh, hm. Yeah I think I got one up on the shelf over there next to Julio.” Bob was frowning. “Why?”

  “You just connect it to your phone?”

  “Naw,” Bob said. “You gotta pay the phone company to let the information in. But there's a better way to do it.”

  “What's that?”

  “Pick up the phone and ask who's there.”

  Socrates spent his Saturday bringing in a double outlet for his refrigerator and caller-ID display. Michael Porter came over on Sunday to check the connections. Porter was a tan-skinned Negro who was small and round. His lips were thin and his nose was turned up like a bulldog's snout.

  “She perfect, Socco,” the little electrician said. “You don't need my help.”

  They played dominoes after that.

  When Porter left it was after nine thirty. Socrates realized that the phone had not rung for three days.

  That Monday he called the phone company and had his caller-ID turned on. When the phone rang that night the name Howard Shakur shimmered in green across the small screen.

  “Darryl?” Socrates said. “Where you been, boy?”

  “How you know it was me?” the startled boy asked.

  “Who else gonna be callin' me this time'a night?” The glee of a secret was in Socrates' tone.

  “I don't know,” the boy answered uncertainly. “But anyway Howard and Corina and them havin' a picnic next weekend and they wanna know if you comin'.”

  “What day?”

  “Uh, hold on.” Darryl put his hand over the receiver and shouted something then he said, “On Sunday afternoon.”

  “I'll be there,” Socrates said. “How you doin', boy?”

  “I got a A on my math test.”

  “You did?”

  “Uh-huh. I like to divide an' stuff.”

  “I always knew you were smart, Darryl.”

  “So how did you know it was me on the phone?”

  “But you not that smart.”

  At about eleven P.M. the small glass screen shimmered, then the phone rang and the name Moorland Kinear appeared with a number beside it. Socrates had a pencil and a pad of paper ready to jot down the information. In case of a blackout he didn't want to lose the memory in his first computer device.

  He didn't answer the phone. Instead he studied the name for clues to the caller's purpose.

  It might have been a white man's name except that Socrates felt something familiar when he mouthed it. And there weren't that many white men who knew his name,
not to mention his number. In his nine years in L.A., from Dumpster-diving for cans and bottles to working at Bounty Supermarket, he couldn't think of anyone named Moorland.

  Thinking back over twenty-seven years in an Indiana prison didn't reveal the name either. But it was there.

  A man in prison wouldn't have used a name like that. Moorland would get some of the uneducated cons, and guards, upset. They'd think that just having a name like that would be putting on airs. He'd have to have a nickname, a handle. But that could be anything. It could be his size or color or the shape of his ears. A nickname could be based on the kind of crimes you committed or the thing you were the most proud of in the outside world. Loverboy, Big Daddy, Longarm and Loose Lips were all handles that might have hidden a name like Poindexter, Archibald or Moorland.

  If he's just a salesman, Socrates thought. Then why didn't he say something when I answered the line last week?

  But maybe this was the first time that Moorland Kinear ever called. Maybe the call last week was somebody else.

  But why is that name so familiar?

  Because they callin' you, fool. It's somebody who knows you and wants to talk.

  If Socrates had had that conversation with another man it might have come to blows. In turns he decided to answer when the phone rang again, to tear the phone out of the wall and discontinue the service, and to get an answering machine and never respond to a call unless the caller stated his business clearly.

  He wished he'd never gotten that phone in the first place. He never had a phone as a child or as a convict. It was just another way that people could reach at you, could cause you trouble.

  The best kind of life to live was with no contacts and no way for people to find you, Socrates believed. At least that's what part of him believed. But ever since he'd met that boy, that Darryl, he'd been pulled out of his shell. Trying to help Darryl out of trouble, he'd got himself all tangled up with people and confused. He'd gotten the phone so that Darryl could call if he had to.

  Socrates lay in his bed thinking that he should disappear, that he should take the money he had buried in a jar in the yard, and leave L.A. He could go to Oakland and start over.

  He went to sleep in turmoil, twisting and grunting to the rhythm of his dreams. He saw himself in prison fights and in the dungeon, the place where they sent you if you had discipline problems. He remembered wardens and assistant wardens, head guards and new recruits. And then suddenly, in the middle of all that dreaming and worry, Socrates woke up and spoke. “Mookie. It's Mookie Kid the first-floor man.”