“They should throw away the key on that uppity nigger,” he interrupted again. “Best thang you can do is let him burn in hell.”
“What’d he do to make you feel that way?”
T-Bone took a drag, sucking the smoke deep into his lungs. He exhaled and said, “He tole me to stop chasin’ the dragon. Here I been his momma’s neighbor over a year, watchin’ out for her, even cut her fucking grass once or twice but tha’s not good enough.” He shook his head, saying, “Here we all suppose to be brothers in the ’hood. Not him. My man Deuce got plans for a nightclub with a mosh pit where the waitresses are pole dancers dressed in sports uniforms. Tha’s an idea waitin’ to pop, man. He even found a building near the Loop with me as bouncer and he just need the start-up capital, but that little gimp turn him down. My homey Cornelius finna to open a bar once he out of rehab, but will the little big man with all the green help him? Hell, no. He too good now he hit da prime time. Prob’ly spent it all on hos and blow. I’m glad the po-po nabbed his scrawny ass. You want more, talk to the brothers hangin’ at the mini-mart.” He shook his head and added, “Wish I knew where Mooney and the rest are so I could collect the reward. You see that gimpy cocksucker, tell him T-Bone hopes his black ass gettin’ a good workout in there. Get the fuck off my porch.”
Terrell Barnett slid inside and slammed the door.
I was relieved T-Bone slammed the door instead of me. I wondered what Skinny thought of T-Bone.
I doubled back to Hebert and rang the bell next to the splintered green door of old Miss Givens’ narrow brick bungalow. Ty was right; it took time before a frail, elderly black lady pushing a walker opened the door. She smiled warmly and said good morning.
“Good morning, Miss Givens.”
“And how do you know my name, young man?”
“Little Ty down the street suggested I speak with you.” I pointed just as DeAndre lighted and aimed the last bottle rocket at Ty, now running for his life in the vacant lot, giggling all the while.
She shook her gray head but couldn’t prevent a smirk from showing. “Those boys are chock full of life. I wish they could give me some of their energy. Well, why did that little devil direct you to me, sir?”
I handed her my card. “My name is Mitchell Adams and I’m a social worker. I’ve been talking to people in the neighborhood about Lonnie Washington.”
Her kind, owl-shaped eyes beamed under penciled-in eyebrows at the mention of his name. “My name is Coretta Mae Givens and you are most certainly welcome in my home, Mr. Adams. I just put on a pot of water; would you like some tea?”
“If it’s not too much trouble, thank you.”
She led me into a small but clean living room with a cloth sofa and two matching chairs to complete the grouping. The room contained no television, but a small radio on a table played soft classical music next to an open copy of Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle. Also on the round table was a three-tiered aluminum tray of petit fours, M&Ms, and hard candies. A glass of hot tea on a white lace doily next to today’s paper completed her set-up. I sunk into a soft chair holding a faux china teacup adorned with cherry blossoms while the pleasing aromas of orange Pekoe and cinnamon drifted to my nose.
Miss Givens set aside her walker and carefully sat down. On the wall behind her chair was a small, plain cross made of ironwood. “Why you are inquiring about Mr. Washington?”
“I am an advocate for Lonnie; I’m not working for the police. I want to better understand how he is perceived in the community. This is an informal gathering of information and you are under no obligation to speak with me. Nothing you say will be connected to you in any way or revealed to Lonnie.”
T-Bone hadn’t given me the chance to present my dynamite opening spiel, but I’m sure it wouldn’t have mattered.
Miss Givens was so small that when she settled into her chair she nearly disappeared. “If the charges are true, what he has done is illegal, Mr. Adams, and for that society is obliged to punish him. From what I hear on the radio, the great Chief Prosecutor Maynard himself intends to do so with impunity. I choose not to own a television, I find they waste time on trivialities, so I listen to select radio stations and read the classics to keep my mind sharp. I’m aware that Lonnie is becoming quite the center of controversy around the neighborhood, and I fear this contentiousness is merely beginning.”
She spooned sugar in her cup and swirled it once. “Let me tell you a story, if you will indulge a feeble old woman.”
“Please,” I said with a smile. I took a sip and waited.
“There once was an idealistic young girl who devoted her early years to teaching grade school in the inner city. She found love late in life, so she and her husband were never blessed with children. He became sick, she quit her career at fifty to take care of him at home, then eight years later he was called to heaven with the bone cancer. It’s a horrible and painful way to die, Dr. Adams, and I wish it on no one. She spent the next quarter century volunteering at her church, in food kitchens for the homeless, and grade schools. She missed her husband so, and watched helplessly as her final extended family members slowly died, leaving her alone with her memories, which she still has intact, glory be to God. Alone, on a fixed income, she opened her home to the needy, served hot meals and coffee to the homeless in winter and sandwiches and lemonade in the summer. She listened to them and tried to give each a ray of hope, even when there seemed none. Last year she was beset by health problems that consumed every penny of her disposable income.
“Then months ago, she learned her landlord had stopped paying the mortgage on the building even though she always paid her rent on time, but it was she who found herself on the street with no place to stay. She was so downhearted and full of despair she prayed God would take her so she could be reunited with her beloved Ike. The first month, she stayed with various church friends while hopelessness festered inside like that same corrosive bone cancer that killed her husband. Her depression hit bottom when she had to apply for welfare after a lifetime of work. She felt destined to waste away in a nursing home among strangers and die alone of a broken heart in a drab room that smelled of ... fear, but at the end of the next month a miracle occurred.”
Miss Givens slowly reached into the drawer next to her and removed a cardboard box. She removed a fancy red ribbon with a deliberateness and reverence reserved for religious rituals. She picked up the lone item in the box with great care, a neatly folded piece of stationery, before she spoke again.
“A plain manila package with no return address arrived for her via courier at the home of a church friend. Inside it were the keys and title to the home she had been forced to vacate by court order. Big red block letters stamped on the title announced, ‘PAID IN FULL.’ The package included this handwritten letter in the most beautiful, flowing, and elegant script.”
She handed me the letter, which read:
Dearest Mrs. Coretta Mae Givens,
You don’t know me, but I recently learned of you. You have worked hard your entire life and served the homeless for many years and now late in life find yourself in a similar situation through no fault of your own. I know if I was there, you would tell me those less fortunate souls you fed and comforted gave you much more in return than you could ever give them. Years ago, you helped someone very dear to me who was down on her luck. That is why this package has come to you. You will always be a teacher and a mender of damaged hearts. Please start anew by mending yours.
LW
P.S. The title is authentic and advance payments of one thousand dollars each have been placed in your new accounts at Laclede Gas and Ameren Electric. I encourage you to verify the accuracy of this letter by calling City Hall records department at (314) 555-2500. Welcome home!
I handed back the keepsake, and she took it and placed it back in the box like a treasure. Then she continued, “She sat down, tried to compose herself, and said another prayer before she dialed that number. The lady at City Hall promptly confirmed the title’s authenti
city and in the most matter-of-fact voice told her to have a nice day.”
Coretta tried to compose herself, but lost the emotional battle. “I moved back here that same day!” A tear surfaced on her cheek as her voice cracked.
“Did you ever learn who bought the house or sent you the package?”
She sipped her tea. “No, sir. I encountered nothing but dead-ends
every step of the way. If someone at City Hall or the revenue office knew the identity of my anonymous benefactor, they weren’t telling me. There was no paper trail for me to follow. It must be Lonnie Washington. The initials on the letter are LW.”
Coretta silently offered me a hard candy. “I have a sweet tooth. It’s my vice, I must admit.”
The letter she'd shown me was not written by Lonnie. I'd seen samples of his handwriting in his prison file and this was definitely not his. I declined the treat and said, “Thousands of people share the same initials, Miss Givens, his mother being one among many.”
“Yes, but who else could it be?”
“Have you ever met Lonnie?”
“No, but the writer acknowledged that and said I had helped someone dear to him. I helped feed LaKeesha for years before the state finally returned him to her; I drove her to church and taught her basic math skills and how to balance a checkbook. She is a kindhearted and simple soul, though easily influenced by others.”
Coretta unwrapped a hard candy and resumed, “I haven’t lost all my marbles yet, Mr. Adams, though I’m sure that day is fast approaching. The retired teacher in me knows that Paris exists and is in France even though I have never been there. I also know in my soul that the Lord Jesus Christ is my savior even though I have no empirical evidence He ever existed. And I know in my heart that the man named Lonnie Washington who sits in jail accused of counterfeiting, armed robbery, and attempted murder is my angel of mercy even though I have no proof he is nothing more than a common criminal.” She popped the sweet in her mouth and smiled at me, her lined face filled with peaceful certainty.
First came Skinny’s claim that Lonnie devised (and by inference, funded) a structured schedule for his mother to earn her home, provided she take self-responsibility and maintain certain standards, and now this.
I must have paused too long or she read doubt in my face, for she said, “If you’re not convinced, talk to Shondra McKinney.”
Coretta sucked on the candy in her mouth and started to pull herself out of the chair, “It’s closing in on noon. If you will excuse me, I have sandwiches to make for my lunch crowd.”
Before I left, I helped this tiny angel of mercy make twenty ham and turkey sandwiches and lugged in two gallon jugs of sun tea from her rickety back porch. The day she quit volunteering would probably be the day she died. She gave me Shondra’s address, which was several blocks farther north off Grand and a sandwich for the road.
By the time I walked to my neglected but undisturbed Solstice, I was finishing my sandwich. Ty came racing by on a rusty old bike way too big for him and yelled, “What she servin’?”
I told him. He turned and shouted, “Ham and turkey, DeAndre!”
I ran some errands downtown. By the time I backtracked to the mini-mart to talk to the men loitering outside in the shade, it was twilight. Mention of Lonnie’s name started mouths flapping. A young black man who’d requested money from Lonnie to start an escort service said, “He didn’t give me no fuckin’ reason. I don’t do drugs but I don’t want to flip no greasy spoon burgers for a livin’ neither. No minimum wage shit, you hear?” Several other men there who’d asked Lonnie for seed money for their schemes and were rejected either waved me away or spit on the ground. Most wouldn’t mention his name. To them I was a bad memory of their failings.
“How did you learn about him coming into money?” I looked around, wishing someone would answer. The smell of weed appeared in the air as bottles popped and beer cans whooshed open.
The wannabe escort service manager had a voice like he’d swallowed sandpaper. I noticed a healed tracheostomy scar. “The pretty boy got to drinkin' one night and bragged about the four of them printing more money than he’d ever seen in his lifetime. Said they looked jus’ like the real thing, too. Next morning the whole damn neighborhood knew.”
The group around me steadily grew. A short thin black man stepped forward. “I don’t know the man, but from what I hear he didn’t hurt no one. The po-lice always come down hard on black folks.” Another older man nodded and said, “Friend of mine know him, says he ain’t got it in him to hurt anybody. He thinks Maynard and the po-lice wanna make an example of him, crack down hard on the brother, frame him, cuz he gonna run for the Senate.” A group of young white men left the mart with six-packs in hand, walking to their cars, pausing to listen to the discussion. A young white man wearing a cut-off football shirt and his hair in a ponytail stepped forward, raising his voice. “He got caught counterfeiting. He’s guilty. They should throw the book at him.” His large white buddy gripped a brown paper bag in his muscular forearms and nodded, adding, “If he shot that pregnant woman, he should fuckin’ get the death penalty.” The fervor in his eyes dared anyone to challenge him. That touched off a wave of finger pointing and name calling between the factions.
Night had fallen now and my pleas for cooler heads and “innocent until proven guilty” were drowned out by the number of escalating claims of racism from both sides. The bodies went into motion, twisting and revolving like the eye of a hurricane. For every person that left the scene, two more took their place. When the spewed epithets turned personal, men began to posture and jockey for position, pushing back against one another. Darkness now blanketed us in the testosterone-thick scrum, and the wannabe escort king with the coarse voice slammed into me and yelled, “Who the fuck are you, Snowball? You started this; I’m gonna stop it. I'm gettin’ my gun.” The pushing and shoving intensified, a punch was thrown, a man to my right assumed a defensive posture with a jagged stick in hand, and somewhere behind me a bottle broke. The sides divided along racial lines like squares in a Civil War battle.
Hot town, summer on the North Side.
I fought my way out of the swirling pile of bodies and ran to my car. As I drove away, I called 911 and reported the disturbance outside the mini-mart. I kept within sight of the melee and three units with sirens flashing responded in minutes as the wannabe escort king exited his car, holding a piece at his side. Seeing the cruisers, he climbed back inside and drove away. The cops dispersed the mob with a quick show of force, making no arrests. No one left the scene with any apparent injuries.
Good job, guys. I owe you.
Talk of Lonnie and the men in hiding consumed the Metro area this summer. Colleges and universities debated the circumstances of Lonnie’s arrest on the St. Louis community; some blacks speculated he was a victim, he’d never get a fair trial, and that he may have been set up while whites held to their faith in the system. Racial tension broadened the divide between black and white. People began making comparisons to the O.J. case.
The streets weren’t giving up their secrets so easily.
chapter ten
goose that lays the golden eggs
“Your mom is hanging in there, adhering to the routine you arranged.”
Lonnie raised an eyebrow at my last statement but remained silent.
“She asked how you’re holding up. I said you were fine …” I said as I looked at his face. “Was I wrong?”
He sported a fresh strawberry below his left eye, the lid swollen and bruised. “Keep telling her that.”
“How’d you get the shiner?”
Minutes passed. His arm shot up and sketched a picture in his mind’s eye. “They moved me into general population and rescinded my art privileges. My new Samoan cellmate welcomed me with a nice Hawaiian punch.”
“Baker tells me you're suicidal. Is he right?”
“Wouldn't you be in a place like this?”
“I asked you a question.”
“It d
oesn't matter what I think.”
“It matters to your family and friends.”
“That doesn’t change the fact they’ll keep me in gen pop.”
I used all my tricks, but he sidestepped questions related to danger to self and why he'd been relocated.
I told him about Skinny, Tyra, Shirley, and the men outside the mini-mart. “I also met Coretta Mae Givens, a delightful neighbor who lives on your mother’s street. She thinks the world of you even though you’ve never met. She’s convinced you bought her house to repay past kindnesses to LaKeesha.”
He held his deadpan look. “She's confused. How could I afford that on my salary?”
“She showed me a confirmation letter. It said someone bought her home and placed it in her name. Someone with the initials L.W.”
He sat still as stone, eyes fixed on the scarred tabletop.
“I met another neighbor, T-Bone, who said you refused to bankroll a scheme of his buddy’s—some business venture about a mosh pit with pole dancers.”
“He’s a junkie and a dealer. Stay away from him; he’s dangerous.”
“Others said the neighborhood knew about the counterfeiting from—”
Anguish spread across his swollen face as he raised his voice to silence me. “What does it matter? I’m here.”
“A man at the mart said the bills are perfect—”
This time he rattled his chains to quiet me. “People say and do crazy things when it’s hot and they’re drunk and high and angry. You should know that. You shouldn’t be hanging around the neighborhood, especially at night.”
“Lonnie, I’m not saying I want to bail, but I don’t know what good I’m doing. If you’re not suicidal and don’t want help to cope with jail, why should we keep meeting?”
He lowered his head and his breath seemed to leave his frail body. In time he said, “I want you to be there when I meet with my momma before they convict and transfer me to a federal institution. I hope you can help us come to grips with it, especially her.”
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