The Right Mistake

by Mosley, Walter

  “Socrates, wake up.”

  “Life,” Judge Arrant had said and life he would spend without complaint or appeal.

  He had killed and that was his punishment.

  Socrates never claimed he was innocent, never bragged about his crimes. He didn’t hate the warden or his own father but he wanted a look out of that open window and hear a car parking and maybe a woman humming some popular song.

  The warden was tall, big boned, and black. He’d been a soldier, a police captain, and now he was boss of seven thousand felons.

  Beyond him was the window. It was open maybe a foot and a half. Outside the sun shone between gray clouds. There was rain falling in the distance.

  A bird called and Socrates had to concentrate in order to stifle his smile. You could never show a man what made you happy because then that man had full power over you.

  Socrates concentrated on his stern expression, exulting on the inside when another jay cried out an answer. He could smell the rain and feel a slight breeze between the various loops of iron and his exposed skin.

  “. . . granted,” was the warden’s last word. It was the only word the convict had heard. He tried to figure out the sentence that it came from but could not and he wasn’t about to ask.

  “Did you hear me?” the warden asked.

  “Socrates, wake up,” Luna said.

  “I said . . . has been granted . . .”

  “. . . it’s Darryl,” Luna said.

  He opened his eyes. The dream had stopped mid-image not

  because of the name but the tone in Luna’s hard young voice. The dream was gone and sleep was too. All that was left was the fear he’d felt when the warden, uncharacteristically, repeated his sentence.

  “Your petition for release has been granted,” he’d said. The birds stopped singing and the rain reached the prison. Sawman closed the window and Socrates stopped breathing for a long span of seconds. It had been the most frightening moment in his life.

  “What about Darryl?”

  “He been shot.”

  2. It was 1:06 a.m. but Leanne Northford was already at the emergency room; she and Cassie Wheaton, Ron Zeal, Billy Psalms, and even Chaim Zetel, the septuagenarian Jew from the west side of town.

  “Socrates!” Myrtle Brown cried. She came running at Socrates, throwing her arms around him, throbbing with hysteria and sobs.

  Myrtle was forty-something, more than twice Darryl’s age, but she was his woman. Socrates had expected the relationship to founder but Darryl kept going back and she did everything in her power to hold onto him.

  “What happened, Myrtle?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I’m the one that called her, man,” Ron Zeal said.

  The powerful young killer stared at his elder with less emotion showing in his face than Socrates had offered up to the warden when he was sent there to be punished.

  “One’a my boys called me when he heard about it. He knew I had put out the word to let Darryl alone.”

  “Who?” Socrates asked.

  “I’ont know yet, man. But I will.”

  A white man with gray hair and a white smock came through the swinging doors behind Zeal. The man walked up to Socrates. “Are you the guardian?” he asked.

  “I have to ask you about the insurance,” the doctor said when they were seated in a tiny, cluttered cubicle away from the bustle of the late night tragedies of the emergency room.

  “Why?”

  “We have to know how this is being paid for.”

  “That gonna change how he get treated in here?” “Doctor,” Chaim Zetel said. He had come up on them silently.

  “I have given my credit card to the admitting nurse. It has a high limit.” “Darryl has been severely wounded,” the doctor said, business behind him. “He’s been shot twice. In the hip and chest.”

  “He gonna make it?”

  “Maybe not.”

  “But you want to make sure I can pay even before you let him die.”

  “Mr. Fortlow,” Chaim said.

  “What?”

  “Will you, will you let me speak to the good doctor alone for a moment please?”

  Billy Psalms had found an all-night coffee shop and bought coffee and plenty enough doughnuts for everyone, even people who had nothing to do with Darryl.

  There were three gunshot wounds brought in that night; batterings and car accidents and people suffering from ailments who didn’t belong there but they had no doctors or insurance and so when symptoms flared they came to see some stranger to give them medicine and advise them to find a physician of their own. Myrtle cried on Socrates’ shoulder and more and more members from the Thinkers’ Meeting showed up. Socrates had other friends but the Thinkers had a call sheet and everyone associated with the Thursday night meetings knew how to get in touch with the others.

  Socrates was like a dusky spider at the center of a web that went all over the city. He sat patiently at that midpoint thinking about Bearclaw’s window and how lovely it was.

  One man had been stabbed but he said that he’d fallen on the knife. A woman who had two swollen eyes swore that she’d tripped because she was drunk.

  A baby died from an inexplicable asthma attack. A twelveyear-old girl gave birth to twins.

  “Socrates?” Myrtle was asleep on his shoulder and his people were all around him. Chaim Zetel had put his small and powerful hand on Socrates’ free arm.

  “Can I speak to you alone?” the old tinkerer asked. When the ex-con moved Myrtle woke up.

  “What is it? What happened?” she cried.

  “Nothing, Miss Brown,” Zetel said. “He’s on life-support.

  Nothing has changed.”

  “Where you goin’ then?” she exclaimed. “I’m comin’ wit’ you.” “Wait here, Myrtle,” Socrates commanded softly. “Just sit here

  an’ I’ll be back in five minutes.”

  “I’ll sit wit’ her,” Luna said as she lowered into the vacated

  chair. She took Myrtle’s hands in hers.

  Outside Chaim took a cigarette from his pocket and lit it. “You smoke?” Socrates asked. “I have one every day,” the small man said, looking up, smiling. “Benson and Hedges. My wife tells me it will kill me and I tell her that she will kill me with her worries.”

  “How is Fanny?”

  “She sends her love for Darryl and you.”

  “What you got to tell me, Chaim?”

  It was nighttime on the street. Few cars passed and there was

  no ambulance coming or going at the moment.

  “There is a doctor named Laird in West Los Angeles,” the old

  man said. “I am told that he is the best for operations like the

  one Darryl needs.”

  “How much?”

  “They are coming for him now. Dr. Laird told me that he has a

  busy week but he could do the operation at five.”

  “How much?” Socrates asked again.

  “I have a grandson who studied under Laird,” Chaim said.

  “The doctor knew your name from the court case in the papers.

  He thinks like us.”

  “You ain’t gonna tell me?”

  “I didn’t ask.”

  Dreaming again. In chains again. Sitting in that chair with no one in the room and the window open wide. Socrates watched a bank of clouds move excruciatingly slowly over the hills, toward the sun. There were a thousand birds singing and Diana Ross too.

  He opened his eyes mid-dream. No one had called his name. This was a tactic he’d developed in prison. He’d wake up now and then—a sneak thief on consciousness.

  Chaim was sitting next to him in the pleasant waiting room. The air-conditioning was on. Classical music was playing. There were tasteful magazines, with smiling white women on the covers, strewn across the coffee table before him.

  “Where’d Ron go?” he asked. “Up to the shop,” Chaim said. “I have some children coming in this afternoon. He’s seeing t
o them.”

  “Ronnie’s workin’ for you now?”

  “Yes.”

  “How did that happen an’ I didn’t even know it?”

  “You are a busy man, Mr. Fortlow. You don’t have time for everything anymore.”

  “Busy man? I used to spend all day walkin’ around collectin’ bottles then spent the night drinkin’ wine an’ playin’ dominoes wit’ my friends. ’Fore that I was up in prison countin’ the days, hours, minutes, and sometimes even the seconds.”

  A door next to the nurse’s window opened and a white man, colored copper by the sun, came out. He wore a white doctor’s jacket and alligator shoes.

  Dr. Laird’s cornflower blue eyes clashed with his tan. His smile was brilliant and his grip strong enough for Socrates to feel.

  “He’s going to live, Mr. Fortlow.”

  He was back in Warden Bearclaw’s office being given his freedom, only this time he felt the joy rise up in his chest like a big red balloon.

  “You know what, Doctor?”

  “What’s that, Mr. Fortlow?”

  “I need to sit down.”

  Chaim Zetel, Dr. Laird, and even the small Asian woman behind the admitting window smiled at his words. Socrates stumbled over to the chair and slumped down. He pressed his left palm hard against his forehead and groaned.

  It was three o’clock in the afternoon and the doctor had been cutting all day.

  “He’s breathing on his own and the bullets are out,” Laird was saying. “His lung should heal up just fine. You’re lucky your friend brought him here to me.”

  Socrates smiled. “You the best, huh, Doc?”

  “I was today.”

  3. “. . . an’ that old white lady come ovah ev’ryday wit’ cakes and’a puddin’ made outta noodles an’ raisins,” Darryl was saying to Socrates from his hospital bed. “She said—”

  “Fanny,” Socrates said.

  “Huh?”

  “That old white lady, her name is Fanny, Mrs. Zetel, Chaim’s

  wife.”

  “Yeah, yeah right. She Jewish huh?”

  Socrates nodded.

  “They got funny names.”

  “More’n we got?”

  “Naw. But different.”

  “Chaim an’ Fanny are good people.”

  “They wanna take me in for a while till I get bettah.” “What you think about that?”

  “That’a be good I think. You know I cain’t even walk yet.” Socrates smiled at the boy’s survival.

  “People been comin’ ovah ev’ryday from the Thursday night

  meetin’. Miss Wheaton an’ Marianne Lodz come. Luna here ev’ry othah day. I like her. She easy to sit wit’ ’cause you don’t have to be talkin’ the whole time.”

  “What about Myrtle?” Socrates asked. Darryl glanced away at an imagined fly buzzing past. “What about her?” the boy asked.

  “She come by?”

  The young man rubbed his nose with the back of his hand.

  Socrates thought that he would have turned his back if it weren’t for the bandages and straps holding him in place.

  “I wish I was like you,” Darryl said.

  “Old and fat with no children and not a nickel to my name?”

  “You got the Big Nickel.”

  “Or it’s got me.”

  Darryl blinked, thinking about his mentor’s comment. He blinked again.

  “When I told her that I was goin’ to stay wit’ Chaim for a while she said that I should come home wit’ her. I told her that she work an’ I couldn’t even get out the bed for at least two weeks.”

  “What she say to that?”

  “That she get friends to stay wit’ me when she weren’t there. I told her that was stupid an’ that Chaim’s wife was already home an’ she had a lady to help her with the housework. But Myr got all mad an’ left an’ haven’t called me since.”

  Socrates’ mind brought him back to the day he crossed the road in front of the prison. He stood there waiting for the bus to come. This was one of those potent moments where he was between one place and the next. Darryl, he thought, was at a moment like that.

  “You makin’ the right choice, D-boy.”

  “How you know?”

  “Somebody shot you three blocks from Myrtle’s house. You don’t know who it was. You cain’t go back there till we get this fixed.”

  A shiver went through Darryl’s fragile frame.

  “I’ll talk to Myrtle,” Socrates said. “I’ll tell her to leave you be till you can carry the weight.”

  “You ain’t gonna tell her I’m scared?” “Naw, man. I’m’a tell her that you smart.”

  “Socrates.” He opened his eyes and was transported from an Egyptian desert to his upstairs bed at the Big Nickel. Luna leaned down over him and handed him the cell phone that Darryl had gotten him months before.

  “Yeah?” Socrates said into the receiver, fear clutching at him. “Come on down an’ meet me at Florence an’ Central,” Ron Zeal said. “I’ll be at Denver’s Diner right near there.” Zeal’s phone disconnected and Socrates folded his shut. “Make love to me, Daddy,” Luna whispered.

  “I got to meet him.”

  The woman-child sneered and sucked her tooth. “He ain’t

  gonna be as much fun as me.” Socrates stood up and lurched toward the chair where his clothes were folded and hung.

  When he was dressed and headed for the door she said, “I’m pregnant, Daddy.”

  He swiveled his head and met her eye.

  “Congratulations,” she said and smiled.

  As Luna rose to her feet Socrates lowered to his knees. He pulled her naked body into a tender hug and breathed in deeply.

  “Ooo,” she moaned, “you bettah no do too much’a that or poor Ronnie gonna have to wait for the twin.”

  “I don’t know what to say,” he whispered through her sex.

  “Talk is cheap,” the young mother-to-be replied. “You already did the important part.”

  “Hey,” Ron Zeal greeted Socrates as came up to the booth.

  He sat across from the young killer and grunted.

  “You see ovah there across the street?” Zeal said.

  A group of young men were standing around smoking and talking loudly, judging by their gestures.

  “What can I get you?” a woman asked.

  “Coffee and some bread.”

  “English muffin, toast, bagel, or cinnamon roll?” she asked with well-worn monotony in her tone.

  “Toast.”

  She was a brown woman with lots of Negro blood in her, Socrates could tell, but she was most probably from one of the Spanish speaking nations.

  “The big one the one shot Darryl,” Ron said when the waitress was gone.

  “The one with the gut?”

  “The tall one with the gold-plated chains. His name is Tim Hollow, the homeys call’im Hollah.”

  “Gang related?”

  “No one’ll get mad if you take him down. Darryl ain’t done nuthin’ to nobody an’ this fool is nobody.”

  “Where he live at?” Socrates asked, his voice working on its own.

  “Two blocks from here.”

  The toast came with a tray of jellies and jams. Socrates sipped his coffee and nibbled at his bread.

  I’m pregnant, Daddy.

  “I got a piece here in a bag on the flo’,” Ron said. “I got a car don’t nobody own up the street. I’ll drive if you want.”

  The laughter that came from Socrates surprised him. It was a happy laugh followed by a satisfied hum.

  “How long you been workin’ for Chaim?” he asked. “What?”

  “How long?”

  “Month.”

  “How come you decided to do that?”

  “Miss Wheaton said it’a be good if I get a job.”

  “I bet you yo’ mother told you that every day from the second you turnt sixteen.”

  “My mother?”

  “I’m just sayin’, Ron, that you didn’t
get no job because a woman told you to.”

  “So?”

  “So why you workin’ for Chaim?”

  “He offered me a job pay twenty bucks a hour. He said that I could help him wit’ the kids come from the street. An’, an’ at the same time I could learn the trade myself.”

  Socrates smiled broadly.

  “What?” Ron asked.

  “You still on trial for murder, Ron. Beat them charges and keep your job. You don’t have to be runnin’ these streets killin’. You got a way out.”

  “But what about D-boy?”

  “You evah go up against a man that was bigger, stronger, an’ meaner than you and you ain’t got no gun or knife?”

  Ron’s lip curled but he didn’t answer.

  “I have,” Socrates said. “And I’m still here to tell ya that I ain’t scared’a no mothahfuckah on God’s green earth. Not a soul. I went up against the LAPD, got in they face an’ spit in their eye.

  “I appreciate the information but don’t evah think that you gotta do my business. I know what to do. Now the only question is do you?”

  Ron Zeal was struck silent by the words that could have come from his own lips. He watched Socrates for a moment, then nodded and rose to leave.

  “I love you, brother,” Socrates said.

  Ron frowned, appeared to be younger for an instant, then walked out of the diner.

  4. Socrates savored his toast and had three refills on his coffee. The waitress was named Lupe and she was born in the Dominican Republic. She’d come to L.A. with her parents when she was seven.

  “You the one got that big metal house, huh?” she asked him as he watched the young man nicknamed after a scream through the window.

  “Yeah,” he said. “We, some of us, were so smart way back when that we changed the world over and over. But now we don’t know it. People come to the Big Nickel so they can see what they are, remembah where they come from.”

  “So it’s like a school?”

  “No, baby. It’s a place where we come together an’ share ideas. It’s a breeding ground and a last chance.”

  Lupe frowned. Socrates could tell that she was groping for the

  right question to ask.

  At that moment Hollah rose to his feet. He started saying

  good-bye, banging fists with and giving faux hugs to his friends. “How much I owe ya, Lupe?”

  “Nuthin’, Mr. Fortlow. It’s on the house.”

  “Why?”