In a dark place he could see quite clearly. There were hard men, desperate men chained to the walls and naked women enticing them, calling them forth.
He was chained by his wrists and ankles and a woman he had only known in dreams was holding her arms out to him singing like Etta James while she got sultry and rough.
He yanked at his chains and made sounds that were not words. He moaned and grew hard but could not touch himself and she would not reach out far enough to him. A cry tore through his chest and he woke up with Luna on top of him.
“It’s okay, daddy,” she was saying over and over. “It’s okay. You all right.”
Socrates could feel the shuddering aftermath of his orgasm. Sweat covered him and her too. Luna was completely naked and Socrates was uncovered from his diaphragm to his knees. He had gripped Luna by the biceps of both arms and she kept saying, “It’s okay, daddy. You all right.”
He shoved her to the side and tried to stand up but his pants were around his knees and he couldn’t seem to get them up or down.
His helplessness made him laugh. Luna laughed too.
“You want me to help you with your pants, little boy?”
This made them both laugh harder.
The grin still on his lips, Socrates said, “What you think you doin’, girl?”
“Me?” she said. “You the one grab me in the bed. You the one kiss me first.”
“I did?”
“Uh-huh. An’ you know that’s all I needed.”
“But we didn’t use protection. I been in prison, child. No tellin’ what I got up in there.”
“Me too,” she said pressing her naked body up against his side. “I been in the streets. I done fucked a whole lotta men. But I wanted that right there. I wanted you.”
And before he could reply she said, “‘But Luna’ . . . that’s what you always say. But, Luna, I’m too old, I’m too mean, I’m too fat, I didn’t bresh my teefs. Shit. You are my man, Socrates Fortlow. Mine. I could see that when Pete put his arm on my waist. I was hopin’ that you wouldn’t kill the boy.”
“I don’t know what to say,” Socrates said. “I don’t know.”
“What about takin’ off your pants and T-shirt an’ lyin’ up here next to me? Or are you just gonna get some an’ then th’ow a girl out in the street?”
They didn’t sleep. They didn’t make love again but Socrates placed a hand on her thigh and one on her shoulder. “It was the massage,” he said.
“What was?”
“It got to me. I never felt like that before.”
“Me neither.”
Later on Socrates pulled the blanket up to his waist. “I could see it through the blanket you know,” Luna said. “I
know you want me. But I could wait.”
When the sun was rising through the window Socrates took Luna in his arms and kissed her lips.
“I guess I got to accept my luck,” he said.
“Bad luck to be with a poor black girl like me?”
“Bad luck? No, baby, it’s like Billy said.”
“Wha?”
“I done hit the trifecta.”
“How you see that?”
“Jealousy came in first, generosity placed, and then you
showed me a feelin’ I din’t even know people had.”
TRAITOR
1. “What’s in here?” the policeman asked.
“Papers,” Socrates replied. He was thinking about Luna Bar
net and how she had gotten around every attempt he made to
keep her out of his heart.
“The worst man you evah meet got love in his heart somewhere,” his Aunt Bellandra once said, many years before. “But what if he’s a bad man like mama said my daddy was?”
Socrates asked when he was only five.
“Your father made you,” Bellandra replied in her flat, deep, almost emotionless voice. “That’s some good anyway.” “Open it up,” Detective Brand ordered.
“The warrant doesn’t specify this closet,” Cassie Wheaton, the
Big Nickel’s lawyer, said. She had her right hand over her abdomen, maybe shielding the unborn child from the ugliness of
her profession.
“The warrant is for a pistol somewhere on the first floor of
this domicile.”
“Meetin’ house,” Socrates said, correcting the tall white cop
with the gray hair.
“Okay.” Brand said. “This is a meeting house not a domicile
and behind that door is an office not a closet. Open up.” Socrates put a hand in his pocket. The two uniformed police
men, who had done all the actual searching so far, stiffened. Years of experience with the police before he was arrested
and convicted for double homicide and rape and then more
years under the guards in prison had made Socrates a kind of
dancer. He stopped moving when the cops did, anticipating
their violent response to his natural movements.
“It’s locked,” he explained. “I got to get my key to open the
door.”
The policemen gave him their full attention as he retrieved
the keychain.
While sliding the key into the lock he felt a twinge of fear.
“Socrates Fortlow,” the voice had said on the phone that afternoon. The man on the other end was trying to disguise his voice so Socrates pretended not to recognize it.
“Yes.”
“My name isn’t important but believe me when I tell you that there’s a weapon hidden in your first floor office, a pistol used in a murder in Vermont last year.”
“How?”
“I just know.”
“Who are you?” Socrates asked even though he knew, would have known even if he had not recognized the timbre and the way the man spoke.
“That don’t matter,” the man said and then he hung up.
It was a small office with three metal file cabinets and a wooden desk. Socrates had bought the cabinets from a used office supply store. They were red, white and blue but he didn’t care. Mustafa Ali and Cassie Wheaton handled most of his paperwork before the monthly board meeting held on Saturdays. He only started locking the office after Billy Psalms had donated two hundred thousand dollars to the general fund. The officers agreed that the Big Nickel’s windfall should be kept a secret.
Socrates watched as the men went through the few folders in the filing cabinets and looked under and behind the desk.
“Don’t read those files,” Wheaton told one of the cops, “not unless you’re looking for a paper gun.”
The search went on for forty-five minutes. The uniforms, both of whom were black men, pulled out the desk drawers and checked all the contents. One of them crawled underneath to make sure the pistol hadn’t been taped down there somewhere.
Finally they gave up the search and gestured wordlessly to the white detective: there was no gun to be found.
“What you want me to do wit’ this, Socco?” Ronnie Zeal had asked a few hours earlier. Socrates had traveled out to Zeal’s aunt’s house in Compton to drop off the pistol.
“Been used in a murder.”
The young killer nodded.
“I gotta friend with a blowtorch,” he said. “Aftah that I’ll hit the junkyard.”
Detective Brand was grim but Socrates had no desire to gloat. He felt like a journeyman heavyweight who, after a last minute cancellation, found himself in the opposite corner from Sonny Liston. All he’d done so far was to avoid the first jab that the monster had thrown; there were ten rounds left to survive. “This is harassment,” Cassie Wheaton was telling the cop. “We had a valid tip, counselor,” the thin lipped detective uttered. “We’re trying to uphold the law down here.”
“Down?” Socrates said. “Socrates,” Cassie Wheaton warned, hearing the threat in his voice.
“Yeah . . . down,” Brand said.
“If you think this down . . .” Socrates began. He st
opped, realizing that there were no more words but only violence in his breast.
“Are you finished, detective?” Cassie Wheaton asked.
After the policemen were gone Cassie sat with Socrates at the foot of the Big Table. While he ran his hand over the uneven side of the battered plank Cassie stared and waited.
After a long while they both spoke up at once.
“It’s because . . .” she started.
“I expected somethin’,” he managed to say. And then, “You go
on.”
“No, no you,” she said.
“You the counselor,” Socrates said. “You talk.”
“It’s because of the gang meetings,” she said.
“Peace talks.”
“That’s not how the cops see it.”
“Blind men don’t see nuthin’ noway,” Socrates said. “If I could show the police that you’ve stopped the peace talks
this won’t happen again.”
“If I closed the doors and moved back into the alley where I
used to live then I wouldn’t have to worry ’bout nuthin’ either.” “You could still have daycare for the ladies,” Cassie argued.
“You could still have the Thinkers’ meetings.”
“You sure they wouldn’t call me a whorehouse if some of them ladies used to be prostitutes? You sure they wouldn’t call
our meetin’s subversive?”
“They wouldn’t plant a pistol in your office.”
“It’s the drug dealers, killers and whores we got to turn
around, Cassie.”
“If they can’t bring you down they’ll shoot you down,
Socrates.”
2. Three days later, at the Thinkers’ Meeting, nineteen people showed up. Billy Psalms had made his ever popular chili served with basmati rice and fresh wheat flour tortillas made at a Mexican bakery just down the block.
Chaim Zetel arrived with Ron Zeal. Cassie Wheaton was accompanied by her fiancé, Antonio Peron.
Leanne Northford spoke First Words.
“I’m a Christian woman,” she said and then took a deep breath. “I’ve been to church almost ev’ry Sunday of my life. When I was an infant at my mother’s breast she took me to church and I brought her there to set her to rest.
“I’m seventy-two years old and I’ve heard more sermons than most of these kids out here today done heard rap songs.” A few people, including Ron Zeal, chuckled at her innocent competition with the young. “But with all that I never learned forgiveness until I come under this roof.” Socrates saw a few nods among the Thinkers. “I never had to face my hatreds and my pain in the Lord’s house. I was safe in there. In church everybody is so nice and well dressed and smiling and singing. Even death is a party in the church. But out here in life it’s not so easy. Out here is where the Lord’s work needs to be done.
“I want to give thanks for Socrates Fortlow and his big heart for the redemption of a poor Christian like me.”
“I believe that we should form a committee,” Mark Sail said at the top of the meeting. He was a broad faced dark-skinned man whose grandparents had come from Jamaica. “. . . a committee with the idea of gettin’ people together all up and down these streets. Get people talkin’. Get people to feel like we do up in here.”
The proposal was met by a burgeoning bank of silence. People looked around at each other as if the words spoken were in a distant dialect and could have held many meanings.
Socrates was thinking about what Leanne had said. He wondered how she had come so far in such a short time. He was thinking that the Big Nickel and the Big Table had to grow; had to. It didn’t matter if he got shot down or locked up.
Maybe, he thought, different members of the original meeting could sponsor smaller meetings held on different nights of the week. But who could keep the people talking in the right way?
Socrates heard the front door open behind him. Cassie Wheaton stood up; the autumn colored bale of hair on her head made her taller than any man in the room.
When Socrates turned he was not really surprised to see Martin Truman, known to the Thinkers as Maxie Fadiman.
“Maxie.” Mustafa Ali also rose, but he was greeting the man he had brought from his soup kitchen to the Thursday night meeting.
“Hi, everybody,” the undercover cop said sheepishly.
“Hey, Max,” Socrates said. “Billy, will you move down and let Maxie sit here next to me?”
The gambler eyed the ex-con suspiciously. No one but Socrates and Cassie knew about Maxie. People came and went from the meetings freely. Some members showed up only once; a few had never missed a week.
Billy moved down near Chaim Zetel. Maxie/Marty nodded awkwardly and took a seat. The silence from Mark Sail’s suggestion turned into a hush over Maxie’s odd reception by Socrates. He’d never asked Billy to move before. The little gambler had always sat to Socco’s left.
While Maxie’s shy gaze wandered around the room Socrates stared at him.
“What about my idea?” Mark Sail asked.
Socrates raised a silencing hand, still staring at Maxie’s profile.
The quiet became uncomfortable.
In his heart Socrates praised the silence. He remembered moments when he awoke late at night in his cell and there was no sound coming from the cellblock. In those moments he almost felt free.
Maxie looked down the center of the table straight into the eyes of Cassie Wheaton.
“I haven’t been here for a while,” the police spy said. “In a way I guess you could say that I never was really, truly here.”
“What’s that supposed to mean, Maxie?” white bearded Mustafa Ali asked.
“My name ain’t Maxie, Mr. Ali. My mother named me Martin but my police handlers said to use the name Maxie. It starts with the same letter and sounds a little like Marty which is what my friends call me.”
“Police?” Ron Zeal said.
“Yeah,” Maxie replied. “I was a … I am a cop. I came from outta town, up in the Bay Area, and so they made me a spy…”
“A traitor?” Mustafa said, all the friendliness drained from his voice.
“A traitor,” Maxie agreed. “It was my job to join in with people and to report to the police who was the bad apple.”
“Why?” Leanne Northford asked.
“Because he’s a Benedict Arnold,” Mark Sail said.
Socrates wondered then if it was Mark who planted the gun in his accounting office.
“Because I thought it was right,” Maxie said. “I thought the same thing you talk about here. I wanted to stop the gangbangers and drug dealers and thugs from runnin’ the streets. I thought that the police were meant to protect honest people and so I . . . I spied on you.”
“And so then you saw that you were wrong and that’s why you left?” Darryl asked.
Socrates smiled at the son of his heart. It was one of the few times that the boy articulated a full thought that was also a question. It didn’t matter that he was wrong.
“No,” Maxie said. “No. Socco sniffed me out and found where I lived at and came to my house. I quit because I thought that he would betray me. I was afraid of what he’d do so I took my family and left Los Angeles. I went to another city and kept on being a spy.”
Maxie lost steam and brought his hands to the table. Everyone, even Luna Barnet, was staring at him.
“Why did you come back?” Chaim Zetel asked.
“Because . . .”
It was then that Socrates understood the Thinkers’ Meeting had gotten away from him, and not just tonight. He had wanted a place of safety where men and women of all kinds could come and say what was heavy on their hearts. They could complain and plan and see themselves as important. But what he got was the opposite from what he wanted. Leanne was right. The room he created was as dangerous as a prison yard. Every word brought them closer to action. And action in this world went hand in hand with pain.
Socrates hoped that Maxie would maintain his silence, st
op with a confession, but he knew this was not to be.
“Because I remembered somethin’ that Socco said to me before I, before I left.”
“What?” Wan Tai asked.
“I moved to San Diego,” Maxie said. “I told them that I wouldn’t do any more political work and so they put me with drug dealers. One day they said to tell this guy who was about to leave the business and go to Morocco that they had one final buy for him. I did what they asked and then, the night I was supposed to go to the meet, they called me and said that it had been called off.
“Robert, that was the drug dealer’s name, Robert had told me that he was tired of the life in the street. He told me that he was gonna get away from it. He had a girlfriend from Morocco. They were gonna get married and he was gonna have a new life in a new country.
“In the morning the radio said that Robert had been shot down on the corner where the meeting was supposed to take place. There was no mention of the police. The cops that came said it looked like a drug buy gone bad.
“After that I remembered that Socco had said that I should come here and tell you what I was, what I did for a livin’. He said that you’d learn something from my experience. Hey . . . maybe he’s right.”
Socrates had no questions for Maxie, neither did Billy, Ron Zeal, or Cassie Wheaton. But many of the members of the Thinkers’ table had never realized that they lived among people like Maxie. They had questions that went way into the night.
Had he committed crimes in the name of the law? Yes. Had he framed people innocent? ...Yes. Had he tortured men, sold women into prostitution, taken drugs, robbed honest people, lied under oath, lied to criminals, killed men who he might have saved? Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.
He explained each situation, named names and even gave dates and places.
“I thought I was doin’ right,” he said whenever someone would ask why. “I was the law protectin’ my people from themselves.”
Mark Sail’s idea hadn’t made it to discussion that night. Maxie and his confession dominated the talk. Some people shouted at him; others shook their heads. Maxie said that he and his wife were moving again. This time they were leaving the country.
“I cannot atone for my crimes,” he said. “And there is no court for me. Just talkin’ here tonight might get me killed when the word gets back to the others.”
The Right Mistake Page 11