“I can’t,” said Elmo. “Ma throat’s too dry.”
“I see,” said Leroy. “Willie. Get the man a drink.” Willie T. vanished and returned a minute later with a glass of red wine. Elmo snatched it out of his hands and tossed it off. “Fine,” said Leroy. “Now talk.”
“All right,” said Elmo. “But I wants more outa this than just one lil’ drinkee. Why, in order to tell you what you want to know I gots to betray the secrets of a friend.” Elmo held the empty glass over his breast and looked sorrowful. “That don’t come cheap.”
“Cotton,” Leroy said, “soon as this gentleman betrays this great secret, you tell Nemo to give him wine for a week.”
“Why that’s mighty nice a yeaugh—” said Elmo as Leroy grasped him by his skinny throat and hoisted him high in the air.
“What’s his name?” demanded Leroy, his eyes burning.
“Yeaugh,” said Elmo.
“Talk, damn you!” shouted Leroy.
“He can’t talk,” said Cotton.
“What?” shouted Leroy.
“You’re chokin’ him, Leroy,” said Cotton. “He can’t hardly talk while you’re chokin’ him.”
“Oh,” said Leroy. “Oh.” He looked at Elmo, whose tongue was beginning to hang out, seeming surprised to find him there on the end of his arm. “Oh.” He dropped Elmo. Elmo sagged against the pool table. Cotton held him up. Elmo gulped like a beached catfish.
“What’s his name?” said Cotton.
“Breghn,” said Elmo.
“Whad he say?” said Leroy.
“Beats me,” said Willie T.
“Christ, Leroy,” said Cotton. “You gotta be more careful. You like to killed him.”
“He ain’t gonna die,” said Leroy. “Ain’t no wino gonna be dyin’ when he’s got all that free drinkin’ comin’, soon as he tells me …”
“Bra—Brah, Brahn,” said Elmo, with difficulty.
“Brown,” said Cotton.
“Braghn,” said Elmo.
“Brown?” said Willie T.
“Brown,” said Elmo, swallowing heavily.
“Shit,” said Leroy. “That’s a lot a help.”
“Yeah,” said Cotton disgustedly. “Let’s get him outa here.”
“What about ma wine?” said Elmo, recovering rapidly.
“Cotton,” said Leroy, “tell Nemo this fool can have three drinks. Tonight. That ain’t worth no damn week.”
“That ain’t right,” protested Elmo. “You ain’t keepin’ your word.”
“Nobody ever keeps promises to niggers,” snarled Leroy. “Ain’t you heard? You find out some more an’ we’ll see about the week. Now beat it.”
Willie T. took his cue and propelled a still-protesting Elmo through the door.
“Everybody’s named Brown,” said Cotton. “We sure as hell ain’t gonna be lookin’ him up in no phone book.”
“You ain’t,” said Willie T. “You can’t read.”
“Fuck you,” said Cotton, “an’ fuck the duck that laid you.”
“Least I can get laid,” said Willie T. “You just roll.”
“Shut up,” said Leroy, who was staring at the wall with a look on his face that would have done credit to Genghis Khan. His eyebrows were pulled down low. His mouth was twisted. Little beads of sweat stood out on his forehead. “I wanna know who he is. An’ I wanna know where he is. An’ I wanna know now. You get on it. Take the damn Street apart if you have to.”
“Ah, can’t it wait until mornin’?” Cotton said. “It’s nearly two.”
“What the hell’s that got to do with it?”
“Folks don’t generally hang out in bars after closin’ time. It’s kinda dark.”
Leroy glared at him. “I don’t care about that. I want results.” He stared into space and smiled thinly. “Results. You all get to work. You find me this Brown fucker. Fast.”
PART TWO
Shadow-spoor on a city street
Tells a tale of the aching time
When hate and anger and sorrow meet
Merging in a soundless cry
And I have walked the line.
Brown bloodstain on a peeling wall
Trace of violent proud despair,
Of stumbles with noplace left to fall,
Of an old man’s empty wine-breath sigh,
And I have seen him crawl.
Will You look down from on high
Upon the lives You have forsaken?
And when You come again to find
Your ass is butchered and Your manger’s taken
By some black barking whorebitch’s bastard babe
Squalling and shitting on Your hay
Will You smile, will You sigh,
Or will You loose Your righteous wrath
And call for the Judgment Day?
And I have walked, armed with ear and eye, through the
dark mysterious unmapped streets, stalked the wild wailing
wino in his lair of yesterday’s paper and last week’s puke,
observed the exotic mating dance of that vanishing species,
the two-buck whore, witnessed the march of the great gray rat….
And LIVED! To write the memoirs that the National Geographic
would not buy.
And I have seen an old man die,
Felt his fingers stiffen in my hand
As his spirit returned to the Motherland,
Walking onward without fear,
Knowing that Hell was only here,
That there could be no worse.
Men fight men in a jungle dance with violent steps.
And in the bleachers clapping hands cast the vote of who goes free:
White thumbs turn, white fingers twitch
The strings of lives, and cut the threads.
But white ears seldom hear the cries,
For all the shouts, screams, sobs, and sighs
Are drowned out by the roaring gears
And covered by the rolling years,
As the City passes by.
—Brown
4. Tuesday
“HAW, HAW, HAW,” LAUGHED Big Betsy the whore, “haw, haw, haw. Pour me another one, Leo. Haw, haw, haw.”
Leo glanced up from the sink. “Ain’t you ’bout had enough?”
“Yeah,” said Big Betsy. “Of you.”
“I ain’t got time to be carryin’ you home tonight,” Leo warned.
“I wouldn’t go home with a piece a shit like you. I got standards.”
“Shit,” said Leo, “what you got is a welfare check.”
“Some folks is lucky,” said Big Betsy, “an’ can afford to have standards all the time. I has standards when I can afford to. Now pour me another drink or by God I’ll drink someplace else.”
Leo chuckled to himself and poured Betsy another drink. She fumbled in her purse and fished out a bill, shoving it aimlessly across the bar. Leo saw the hand come out toward him, the fingers fat, sweating, tiny hairs growing out from the knuckles. Round metal bracelets on Betsy’s arms jangled musically for an instant before the sound was smothered in rolls of flesh. Leo closed his eyes. “It’s on the house,” he said.
Betsy shoved her lower lip out, laid her head on her shoulder. “You ain’t tryin’ to—”
“Betsy, c’mon now, you know me bettern that. We been friends a long time.”
“That’s true,” said Big Betsy. “An’ that’s just why I asked. I don’t want you to be gettin’ no wrong ideas. I mean, I like you an’ all, but you just ain’t my type, you know what I mean?”
“Yeah, sure,” said Leo, looking at Big Betsy’s bouncing chins and breathing a sigh of relief.
“You ain’t mad, are you?” said Big Betsy. “I wasn’t tryin’ to hurt your feelin’s.”
“No, sure, I understand,” said Leo. “Drink up, huh? It’s gettin’ late.”
“Sure,” said Big Betsy. As she raised her gin she looked around. “By Jesus, we got the whole
damn place to ourselves.”
“Yeah,” said Leo. “Tuesday night, ain’t never much business.”
“Tuesday’s a real crock a shit,” agreed Big Betsy.
Leo drew himself a glass of beer and downed it in slow, reflective swallows.
“Hey, Leo,” said Big Betsy.
“What?” said Leo absentmindedly.
“We spent a lot a time in here together, you an’ me. Seems like we’re always the last ones here.”
“Yeah,” said Leo.
“You know, Leo, bein’ a hooker is a crock a shit. Can’t hardly make a decent buck no more.”
“It’s rough,” Leo agreed.
“Damn right, it’s rough. An’ you know what’s doin’ it? It’s the goddamn Pill, that’s what. Useta be, a dude wanted a good time an’ no worries, he’d go find hisself a hooker. Now they got these teen-age pieces a ass layin’ for free, ain’t got nothin’ to lose on account a that damn Pill. But that ain’t the worse part of it. You know what the worst part of it is?” She paused to glance at Leo, who was looking at the wall, his eyes flat and abstracted. “The hell of it is,” Big Betsy continued, “you know they ain’t no damn good. You know them little teen-age pieces a shit don’t do nothin’ but wiggle their ass an’ call it a fuck. Ain’t that right? Leo?”
“Yeah, yeah, sure, right.” He looked at her, his eyes focusing slowly. “Yeah.”
“Damn right,” said Big Betsy. She tipped her glass back and drained it. “These girls nowadays ain’t got no notion what a man’s all about. Not like I do. I seen enough to know. You know somethin’, Leo? Men is gettin’ scarce. Somebody must be killin’ ’em off or somethin’. Most a these dudes around here is little pieces a ape shit, two beers an’ they’re under the table, come one time an’ they done shot their wad. Rest of ’em’s fags. A real man, that’s what I want. Like that dude was in here the other night. Or like you,” she said, batting her eyes.
Leo stood holding his empty glass. Betsy’s words went in his ear and banged around for a while before they began to penetrate the fatigue fog over his brain. Awareness stole over him. He looked at Big Betsy. Big Betsy smiled. Reactions chased themselves across Leo’s features: disbelief, amazement, terror. He closed his eyes and blindly drew a beer from the tap and swallowed it in two very rapid gulps. He waited until the beer had descended the full length of his esophagus. Then he opened his eyes. “I think it’s time to close up,” Leo said.
Big Betsy drew back as if she had been slapped. “Yeah, sure.” She removed herself from the stool by leaning over and allowing gravity to clutch at the sagging mountains of her breasts and belly and drag her down. She caught herself with her feet on the floor and one hand on the edge of the bar, the wood creaking as it took her weight. Her purse swung, open, from her free hand. She sighed, squinted, sniffed, giggled a little.
“You need help?” said Leo.
Big Betsy’s head had sunk down onto her chest, her chin resting on her bosom. She turned it slowly, without raising it, and looked at Leo. “Shit,” she said. Slowly she straightened her spine against the pull of gravity. She squared her shoulders. She closed her purse with a snap. “Shit,” she said again. With measured steps she marched toward the door. In the opening she turned and looked at Leo. “You been a bartender too long, Leo,” she said with great dignity. “You done pickled your prick in alcohol.” She turned and advanced on the darkness.
Leo shook his head, bent over, and quickly finished washing the glasses. Then he went to the door and locked it, removed his apron, checked the booths to make sure no butt smoldered in the ashtrays or on the floor. He looked around and decided he would clean up in the morning. He went back behind the bar and took the money out of the register, put it in a zippered pouch. He put on his jacket, checked his gun, and went to the door. Before turning off the last light he paused and looked over the darkened bar, smiling tiredly into the shadows. Then he flipped off the light, checked the street carefully with one hand on his gun, closed and locked the door, and began the walk home.
Speedy came down the street cursing. He passed the State Store with its screened windows and locked doors and his cursing became louder. He reached the entrance to Lightnin’ Ed’s Bar and Grill, paused hopefully to pull on the handle, but the door refused to budge. Sadly he turned and walked on, peering through the windows and trying the doors of every bar he passed. The entire street was empty except for an occasional car and the subtle motion of shadows where, a block ahead of him, someone wandered through the darkness. At the corner of Seventeenth and South Speedy stopped and waited while a red-and-white police cruiser pulled through the intersection. The car slowed while one of the officers took a good long, slow, thorough, look at Speedy. Speedy grinned widely and waved. The car accelerated and turned the corner. “Muthafucka,” Speedy muttered, letting the grin dissolve.
He walked despondently onward, no longer bothering to peer in windows. The Street was shut—tight. Suddenly, at the mouth of an alley, he stopped and sniffed the air. “Naw,” he said softly. “Naw, it couldn’t be.” He sniffed again, shrugged, and ventured cautiously in. His feet moved carefully and slowly, skillfully avoiding the litter and garbage that covered the cobblestones. His breath came in short, quick snorts. His body was a taut bow of expectation. He peered into the gloom.
“Christ, quit breathin’ so goddamn loud,” came a voice from the dark depths. “Jesus, you wanna wake up the world?”
“Jake? That you?”
“Didn’t I tell you to keep it down? Course it’s me. This is ma damn alley, ain’t it? Come on in.”
Speedy moved to the back of the alley and found Jake sitting comfortably propped against two garbage cans. As his eyes adjusted to the darkness Speedy was able to make out the shape of an empty wine bottle beside Jake’s leg. Cradled against Jake’s stomach was a second bottle that Speedy’s intuition told him was not half-empty. Sticking out of Jake’s jacket pocket was something that might have been the neck of a third bottle. Speedy’s mouth watered. “Hiya, Jake,” he said. “How you been?”
“Not too good,” Jake said. “Ma stomach’s been botherin’ me again. All that rotgut I been drinkin’ I figure. So I treated maself to some good stuff.” He nodded at the empty bottle.
Speedy accepted the implied invitation and picked up the empty bottle. “Hell,” he said, as he attempted to read the label, “it’s too dark in here to see shit.”
“Don’t need to see it,” Jake said, “there’s plenty a shit in here.”
“Humph,” Speedy said. His adjusted eyes could make out the label. “Damn!” he exclaimed, “this is good stuff. Musta cost a fortune.”
“Well,” said Jake modestly, “it wasn’t ’zactly cheap.”
“How much?”
“Ah, buck an’ a quarter.”
“A bottle? Jesus!”
Jake shook his head. “I just can’t take too much a that cheap shit no more. I figure, a man oughta treat hisself to some comfort in his last years. I ain’t as young as I useta be.”
“That’s true,” said Speedy, his natural tact dulled by lust.
“What you mean by that?” Jake snapped.
“What, well, I mean, damn, Jake, there ain’t nobody as young as they used to be.”
“Humph,” Jake said, somewhat mollified. “I guess there ain’t. I guess if there was somebody as young as he useta be, I guess that would be pretty goddamn perculiar.”
“You’re right, there,” Speedy said.
“Hell,” Jake snapped, “you don’t need to be tellin’ me that. You youngbloods ain’t as smart as you thinks.”
“Oh, I definitely agree with that,” Speedy said. “Course we does the best we can without havin’ the experience….”
“Have a drink,” Jake said, proffering the bottle. Speedy, touched, reached out and took the bottle, raised it quickly to his lips. Rich aroma filled his nostrils. He took a swallow and managed to get the bottle away from his mouth before Jake’s hand closed around it.
“Thanks,” Speedy said.
“Damn near drank the whole bottle,” grumbled Jake. “You young-bloods don’t know how to ’predate good wine. Y’aint sposed to guzzle it. You—sips it.” He held the bottle up to the sky and peered at it. There were about four ounces remaining. Jake shook his head sadly, tipped the bottle to his mouth, swallowed twice. “Dead,” he pronounced, and interred the carcass reverently beside its brother. He leaned back against the garbage cans and folded his hands over his stomach. “Ahhh,” he said. Speedy ascertained that the object in Jake’s pocket was definitely a third bottle.
“Those goddamn honkies,” Speedy said. “Kept me up there doin’ simple ass shit till after closin’ time. Here I sits, money in ma damn pocket, an’ all the damn bars is closed.”
“Money?” Jake said. “What from?”
“Tips. Helpin’ little old white ladies with their groceries. Shit like that.”
“Humph. What you gonna do with it?”
“Can’t do nothin’ with it if all the bars is closed. What else you gonna do with money, ’sides buy wine?”
“That’s true,” said Jake.
“Shit,” Speedy continued. “Man works all damn day, openin’ the door, closin’ the door—heavy damn door, too—bowin’ an’ scrapin’ to them white folks; after a day a that shit, a man needs his pleasure. Why if somebody was to walk up to me an’ say, ‘Speedy, I know where you can get your ass a nice bottle a wine,’ why I’d wanna kiss that dude an’ call him Jesus for sure.”
“I know what you mean,” Jake said. “I felt that way maself, many a time.”
“Sure,” Speedy said. “Everybody do. Time like this, you don’t care how much you gotta be payin’ for a bottle.”
“Sure you would,” Jake said, peering at Speedy from under half-closed eyelids. “I bet you wouldn’t pay a dollar an’ a half.”
“Bet I would, if it was good wine. If a man wants to drink after the bars is closed, he’s gotta expect to pay for it, an’ he can’t be gettin’ too particular. But for a dollar an’ a half, wine’d have to be pretty good.”
“How ’bout that stuff I had?”
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