That’s when Brenda revealed her plan for Socrates to apologize to the court, to Benheim Lunge, and to the community. He’d promise to write a letter to be posted on the bus stop where he’d assaulted Benheim and to go to Benheim and ask his pardon. He’d make himself available to the juvenile court to talk to young black children and tell them how he had gone wrong but that he wouldn’t do it again.
He’d do an extra fifty hours of community service and for that they could suspend his sentence.
“But you free, Socco. Free, man,” said Right, his best friend. “That gal did you a favor. ’Cause you know she musta begged that judge. You know after that big trial they just had the court wanna put ev’ry black man they can in the can. Shit. Guilty? Go straight to jail!”
“But you know it’s just ’cause’a the dog, Right. It’s just ’cause’a the dog I said yeah.”
“How’s that?”
“He needs me out here. Him and Darryl and you too, brother. I ain’t gonna help nobody in that jail cell or on the run. You know I woulda let them take that white girl’s house if it wasn’t that I had obligations.”
The dog barked suddenly and put his nose out to be scratched.
“You just a lucky fool, Socrates Fortlow,” Right said.
“You got that right, man. I’m a fool to be who I am and I’m lucky I made it this far. Me an’ this black dog here. Shit. Me an’ this black dog.”
LAST RITES
{1.}
“I cain’t do that, Right,” Socrates said. “I mean I want to but I just cain’t bring you a pistol in here. Not wit’ you here in Luvia’s house and all.”
“I could come to your place,” Right rasped.
He’d been laid up in bed writhing from painful prostate cancer for six weeks. He was too weak to take the bus down to the clinic anymore and too poor to get any doctor to come to him.
“How’s that gonna work?” Socrates asked. “You come into my house an’ shoot yourself in the head. Then I go to the police an’ say that I thought it was just a toy an’ you was just jokin’?”
“I could take it to the park.” Right Burke winced at a pain somewhere below his stomach. He waved his gnarled and useless hand to shoo the agony from the room.
“Man, you could hardly make it half a block last time we walked.”
“Then I’ll walk down the block, goddammit!” Tears spurted out of Right’s eyes. “I shouldn’t never’a listened to Luvia. I shouldn’ta ever’a give up my piece.”
Socrates grabbed his friend’s paralyzed hand and held tight. He sat there for over an hour, until Right slipped off into a doze. Luvia Prine, tall, brown, and skeletal herself, had looked in now and then. Socrates found her in the hall when he left his sleeping, dying friend.
He reached into his pocket and came out with a thin fold of five bills. “Here’s fi’e hunnert dollars, Vi,” he said. “You get Hiram’s ambulette and go down to that clinic with’im. Get that doctor to do some straight talk. You can keep whatever’s left over for whatever else he need.”
“Where’d this money come from, Socrates Fortlow?” Luvia asked without taking her hands from her apron pocket.
“You would call it honest money, Miss Prine. I got it doin’ the hardest kinda work.”
Socrates didn’t mind Luvia’s hard stares. He knew that he was a bad man and so deserved her distrust.
“And ask’im to give Right somethin’ for the pain. He’d be comfortable if they’d let up on some morphine.”
It was the sadness in his voice, he was sure, that enticed her hand out to take the money.
“I’ll call’em,” she said. “An’ I’ll go down with’im. But you know it wouldn’t be no problem if he’d just go down to the veterans’ hospital.”
“But he don’t wanna go down there, Vi. You wanna die in some strange place far away from where you live?”
“It wouldn’t be strange if we were there with’im.”
“But it would be if it was night and we couldn’t stay with him. Suppose he started dyin’ in the middle’a the night? At least he’d like to know he could call you or me or somebody here.”
“It’s God decides when you die and how, Mr. Fortlow.”
“Then God must’a decided that Right’s gonna die here with you.”
{2.}
Blackbird Wills lived at Hogan’s Snooker Room. He kept a bed in the back and took his meals at the bar. Hogan had disappeared years ago but Blackbird still paid the bills in the name of the corporation. It was said that Blackbird had killed Hogan and buried him in the basement. They had had a disagreement over a woman, Trisha Hinds, now Blackbirds common-law wife, and it had turned violent.
Nobody had loved Hogan and so the police weren’t called. There were rumors, of course, but Blackbird paid his street insurance.
Hogan’s Snooker wasn’t an honest man’s game. Guns moved through there; jewelry, illegal cellular phone numbers, and drugs too. The police got their pockets lined. And so there was never a problem—as long as nobody complained.
At night men would congregate there to meet and plot. Blackbird knew all the robbers and muggers and confidence men. Any professional you wanted was there for the asking.
Socrates had never gone inside the doors. He knew that a man was no better than the company he kept.
But he walked into Hogan’s place that Wednesday. He walked from the blazing sun into the cool blue shadows of the Snooker Room. There were a few men in the corner booth and Trisha was at the bar. Hogan’s Snooker Room wasn’t the kind of place that encouraged a healthy trade.
“Where Blackbird at?” he asked the woman, who had obviously been beautiful at one time.
“Ain’t you that man they call Socrates?” she replied.
“Uh-huh.”
“They talk about you,” she said. Her eyes made a survey of his bulk and size, then her lips twisted as if to say, It’s possible.
“What they say?” Socrates asked, cursing himself for even being drawn into conversation at Hogan’s.
“That you a mothahfuckah, that’s what.” Her sneer was sex; the kind of sex that Socrates had murdered over—once.
“Well,” he said slowly. “Today I’m just lookin’ for Blackbird.”
“What you want him for?”
“Go get him now,” Socrates said. “Go on.”
A look of surprise set itself on Trisha’s face; surprise that she was moving to do what Socrates asked. She wasn’t the kind of woman to obey a man, not straight out. But she moved anyway, leaving Socrates standing at the bar.
He had a .45 in his pocket. It was a gun that he’d taken forcibly off of a boy in the park. It was for Right. The weight of that iron in his pocket made Socrates feel substantial and secure. Three days of a place like Hogan’s and he’d be pulling liquor-store robberies; in three weeks he would use that gun.
“Yeah?” Blackbird said as he came up to Socrates at the front of the bar. “What you want in the middle’a the day cain’t wait?”
He was a tall man, well over six feet, and big-boned with heavy muscles and a long, deeply lined face. Blackbird had a lot of everything except neck. His head was right at the shoulder line and his shoulders were hunched up, making him look like a resting bird.
He looked down on Socrates and asked, “Well?”
“I need sumpin’ an’ so I come here.”
“Who’re you to come in here askin’ for me?”
“I must be somebody,” Socrates said. “’Cause here you is.”
“Don’t fuck wit’ me, niggah.”
“You feel it when I fuck you, brother,” Socrates said. “I bust you open like a goddam watermelon.”
A series of emotions flashed over Blackbird’s face and body. First he moved like he might throw a punch but then he stopped and distaste crossed his mouth. Socrates knew what was happening.
Blackbird was a bad man, and tough—probably even badder and tougher than Socrates himself. But Blackie was in a bind because his success made him vulnerable.
He could fight Socrates, maybe kill him, but if he met with every man like that he’d end up in jail or with the Snooker Room burned down to Hogan’s grave.
Socrates didn’t have anything to lose. He could move on tomorrow and wouldn’t be a cent poorer. All he owned was a few appliances from the Army surplus store and a plastic bag buried in his front yard. The bag was his bank, filled with almost fourteen thousand dollars that he got as a reward for turning in an arsonist.
All of Socrates’ belongings could fit in the trunk of a Volkswagen Bug.
He smiled at Blackbird. “Come on, man,” he said. “Hear me out. That won’t cost you a dime.”
“What?”
“I need a hundred tablets of morphine. The powerful stuff. For pain.”
“You come to me for that? Junkie, get out in the street. Get in the alley out back to score.”
“Don’t do that, Mr. Wills,” Socrates said in even tones.
“Or what?”
“You don’t know me, man. You don’t know who I am. But I am not to be played with. You got a business here and I got a right to come and do business.”
Blackbird laughed. “Call the cops then. If you think I’m bein’ unfair then you go’n call the goddam cops.”
“Oh,” Socrates said. “I’m sure the police will come, brother. I’m sure they’ll come all right. But we both know it’s gonna be too late by then.”
Blackbird looked at Socrates. Maybe he remembered the stories of the man with killing hands who had come out of an Indiana prison. Or maybe he just saw the murder that Socrates could never erase from his eyes.
“Three hundred dollars for a hundred,” Blackbird said.
“I’ll give ya four.”
“Four? Why?”
“’Cause I ain’t askin’ no favors, that’s why. You run a good business and I give ya a good tip.”
“Ha! You think a hundred dollars is money? Man, I could get ten thousand just like that.” Blackbird snapped his fingers loud as a gunshot.
“But right here,” Socrates said, “right now, you gonna get four hundred dollars.”
{3.}
“Oooooo,” Right Burke said at the corner of Hooper and Seventy-fourth. He brought his hand down to his lower abdomen and stopped.
“It hurt, Burke?” Socrates asked, as nonchalant as if he were talking about a bee sting.
“No, no,” the old man said. “It’s kinda like a, like a warm feeling. Damn. Them drugs do work, now don’t they?”
The first three days Right slept like the dead—Blackbird’s drugs allowing him to sleep soundly for the first time in weeks. He only woke up to take his pill and drink some broth.
On the fourth day he sat up and ate turkey and a chocolate bar.
On the fifth day he was walking on air next to his best and last friend—Socrates Fortlow.
“What you wanna do, Right?”
“I wanna go to a bar an’ look at some long legs on a woman.”
Dillys place was on Crenshaw, decked out in red Naugahyde and chrome. The girls who waited there wore hot pants that crawled up their butts and smiled at everybody just as if they were having the time of their lives.
Right took his evening pill with a mouthful of scotch. He smiled and said, “Shit, this whiskey makin’ me see double, Socco. An’ you know that one’a you is plenty ugly enough.”
Socrates laughed. The .45 was still in his pocket. It had been completely rubbed down and wrapped in plastic. It would be his last gift to Right. But he was saving the surprise for later.
“You know why I like you, Socco?”
“No, man. No.”
“’Cause you don’t know no better.” Right laughed. “They done whipped yo’ black ass so bad that it don’t never stop hurtin’ an’ there you are worryin’ ’bout gettin’ a job, ’bout these stray kids out here in the street. Here you come with my medicine when the clinic say they won’t let them kinda drugs out in Watts. Can you believe that? Keepin’ drugs out the ghetto by makin’ sure sick people cain’t get ’em. Damn. It’s just about time t’die.”
Socrates sipped his drink.
“Ouvrez la porte!” Right shouted suddenly and loud. “That’s what we used to say in Paree. Ouvrez la porte! Open up goddammit ’cause Uncle Sam is here! An’ they let us in wit’ wine they done hid five years from the Germans. Opened up they wine cellars, they larder, an’ they dresses too. Damn! That was sumthin’, man. Seven thousand miles away from Arkansas, a gun in my hand, and a sweet woman on my lap. Mm! You know I coulda died right then … I shoulda died.”
“Naw, man,” Socrates said. “We woulda missed you, brother.”
Right looked at his empty glass.
Socrates signaled for another drink.
“I’da missed you, Socrates Fortlow. Yes sir I would too. You always askin’ them questions an’ doin’ all that kinda crazy stuff. You better than the movies; better’n the TV. You know I always felt bad when we’d be talkin’ ’cause it seemed like you always thought’a everything already and was just testin’ the rest’a us. That’s how it seemed to me. I mean, I know you’re my friend. I know you respect me too. But it was always you, always you.”
The waitress, a light brown and freckled girl, placed glasses before both men. Right took a deep drink and put down the squat glass.
They were seated in a posh booth but neither one was dressed for the occasion. Most of the patrons at Dilly’s were young and decked out. Ladies in low-cut blouses and short skirts and their men in shiny grays or slender blacks. The music was modern-day crooning, sex set to song. Red lips wrapping around the words the way men wanted them wrapped. It was sexy and swinging and Right Burke held up his face to the din like a child letting the rain play on his skin.
He put up his good hand and a young woman in hot pants appeared.
“Uh-huh?” She smiled. There was a gap between her front teeth.
Right took two bills from his pocket; a fifty and a twenty. It was money that Socrates had loaned him. The girl looked into his eyes.
“Darlin’, what’s your name?” Right asked.
“Charla,” she said.
“Charla, this here fifty is for all the scotches we want. And the twenty is for you to bring’em here to us on time.” Right held up the bills and smiled.
He wasn’t a handsome man, hadn’t ever been. Stroke had partially paralyzed him. His left hand had been deformed into a useless tangle of twigs and half of his face was a permanent dead man’s leer. Right limped, was missing three teeth up front, and weighed no more than a child. But still there was charm in his eye and flash in the way he cocked his head.
Charla, Socrates thought, was smiling more at his flirting than at her big tip.
“Yeah, Socco,” Right said when Charla went to get more drinks. “I never had anything to say that you didn’t already know. But I do now.”
“Yeah? What’s that?” the big ex-con asked. He was happy to see his friend playing and talking. He was happy that Charla came over every few minutes to smile and show her long legs.
“Death,” Right said. “I could tell you about death.”
In spite of himself Socrates leaned forward.
“Uh-huh.” Right Burke smiled with the knowledge that he had intrigued his hard-bitten friend. “It’s clear as day, brother. Cold and clear. It’s like, it’s like there’s one world here and then there’s another one. But they both in the same place. One of ’em is hot an’ sweaty but the other one is cool an’ smooth.”
“You scared, Right?”
“Scared’a pain. I am scared’a pain all right but not no death, not no more.”
“You mean you put it outta your mind?” Socrates asked.
Right’s eyes were like glassy brown-and-yellow marbles. He showed his few teeth in a smile.
“Naw, man. I know what you mean. You mean like when you in a war an’ people be dyin’ ev’rywhere. The shootin’ an’ the bombin’, an’ the flu too—cuttin’ ’em down like flies. Your best friend dies an’ then yo’
new best friend dies. Happens ev’ry day. It’s like automatic; your worry bone just shut off. You ain’t scared no more. That’s war. I bet it’s life in jail too. But it ain’t what I’m feelin’.”
“Maybe it’s just the dope, Right. Maybe that’s all it is.”
“Uh-uh, Socco. No no. It’s not that. Even before you got me them drugs I could feel it. Late at night laid up in the bed with the ice pack on my belly. If I laid real still the cancer got quiet too. And I could feel it.”
“Feel what?”
“It was like somethin’ was movin’ in my body. Like I was dyin’ and somethin’ else was comin’ t’life. Icy silver snakes movin’ up an’ down my body; singin’ and slidin’ along. If I got real quiet the feelin’ would take over and anything from the real world, from the livin’ world, would shock me like I was in pain. It’s like as if I had gone a long way and then I got dragged back and got bruised an’ scuffed.”
“Is it your birthday?” Charla stood there with a glass of scotch in either hand.
Socrates glared at the girl. He wanted more from Right.
“Naw, honey,” Right said. “It’s a goin’-away party. I’m goin’ home to my fam’ly.”
“Where’s that?” she asked.
“Down south a ways.”
“Oh. That’s nice. When you leavin’?”
“Later on tonight.”
{4.}
They drank their scotches and then Right slammed down his glass. There was dancing music playing now. The young people were up on their feet and in each other’s arms.
“But I, I couldn’t let go until now, Socco.”
“No?”
“Uh-uh. When you die there’s all this stuff gotta get done. Things you gotta say, things you gotta give away. It’s hard work, man, and there you are busy listenin’ t’them snakes.”
“Anything I can do for you, Right?”
“You already done everything you could do for me. I mean you got me morphine tablets, straight scotch, and pretty girls to watch. Shit, that’s all a dyin’ man could ask.” Right retched and turned to his left. He vomited a milky yellow fluid into the corner of the booth.
Always Outnumbered, Always Outgunned Page 19