The Right Mistake (9 page)

Luna Barnet was looking at Billy but she wasn’t smiling. Next to her sat a young black man wearing a bright orange wifebeater and black leather pants. He was a good-looking boy who kept a possessive arm around Luna’s shoulders.

Because she wouldn’t look at Socrates he got the rare opportunity to study her. Her wild hair and world-weary expression did nothing to reduce her beauty.

“There’s a thing at the race track,” Psalms continued, “that most of you know. It’s called the trifecta and it’s the Holy Grail of race tracks all over the world and all the way back to before even the Christian church.”

“Aw come on now, Billy,” Mustafa Ali said. “That’s just the white man’s trick to get fools like you to throw yo’ money away.”
“These are first words,” Socrates said, raising his voice more than he intended to. “You cain’t argue when somebody got that flo’.”
Mustafa nodded and sat back in his bamboo chair.
Socrates realized that his heart was beating fast.
Four days ago he’d told Luna that he wanted her to look for some other man. That was during their nightly telephone conversation.
“I tried to see myself wit’ you,” he said in even, unemotional words, “but you just a child and I got evil in my hands.” “All right,” she said simply. “Bye.”
They had not spoken since then and tonight she came rolling in with a greasy-haired boy who had his arm around her shoulders. Socrates couldn’t imagine being jealous but there he was shouting at Mustafa Ali when Billy could have stood up for himself.
“Thank you, Brother Socrates,” Billy said, “but I wanna address what Mr. Ali says. The word trifecta, Brother Ali, comes from the ancient Roman word perfecta. That’s Latin and Latin’s older than the New Testament.”
Billy nodded and twisted his lips, daring anyone to contradict him.
“Anyway,” he continued, “The trifecta is the closest thing to perfect that a gambler can have. The trifecta is why some peoples wake up in the mornin’. Three horses. That’s all you need. Bet on three horses predictin’ which one comes in first, second, and third. You do that and they put it in the papers. You do that and it’s like a poker player hittin’ a royal flush in high stakes poker game when the rent is due an’ the repo man done drove off with yo’ favorite red Cadillac.”
Even the men could smile at that.
For a moment it seemed that Billy had finished. He turned to Socrates, who was looking at Luna with his big fists clenched.
Then Billy returned his attention to the Thinkers at the philosophy table.
“I was thinkin’ ’bout the trifecta and I see that that’s what we about heah,” he said with striking certainty. “We wanna win all across the board. We want money in our pockets, a smile on our faces, and not a cloud of guilt in the sky as far as we can see.
“That’s what we want. That’s what we want. A lot of us come here sayin’, ‘That ain’t nevah gonna work ’cause of so-and-so,’ or ‘the white man will stop us any which way we turn.’ But the gambler’s truth is that you got to keep on tryin’ because you can win. You prob’ly gonna lose but you can win.
“Now I know Mustafa gonna say and Antonio gonna say and Miss Wheaton damn sure gonna say that you just shouldn’t be gamblin’ in the first place, that we the victim of our own vices and greed.”
Socrates took his eye off of Luna and her boyfriend long enough to see Cassie Wheaton nod at Billy’s estimation of her rebuttal. This allowed the ex-con a brief smile.
“That’s a good argument,” Billy said. “But what do I say to peoples who scared to walk the street at night? Don’t go out and you won’t get shot, mugged, arrested, and raped? What do I say to the young boy or girl go to a high school with five thousand other kids treated like they was prisoners with police in the hallways and bars on the windows, with metal detectors at the front door and chains on the back? Do I say don’t go there and don’t think about no perfecta?”
Billy rubbed his hands across his face, waited for a moment and then said, “Thank you for listenin’.”
And for the first time in the short history of the Thinkers’ Meeting there came applause.

If he had been paying attention to the proceedings Socrates would have thought that the night was going well. Cassie Wheaton, self-proclaimed legal defender of the poor, said that life wasn’t a gamble but a well thought out strategy against an enemy.

Leon Burns, a veterinarian’s assistant from Long Beach, said, “That’s like the natural strategy that animals develop to protect themselves from predators, right, counselor?”

Cassie nodded and sneered. She didn’t like Burns and she was in the middle of her second trimester and so was beginning to feel discomfort sitting.

“Well,” Burns continued, “I read in my boss’s textbooks that the defense mechanism of rabbits is multiplication.”
“You mean like in math class?” Ron Zeal asked.
“Kinda,” Leon replied. “They make so many babies that no matter how many get et up there’s some left over to make more . . .”
The talk continued. Now and then Luna would turn to her man friend and whisper something. Socrates didn’t enter into the discussion that evening. Even when people asked him questions he just winced and shook his head.
Billy Psalms’ trifecta metaphor took the evening’s conversation to a higher level. People shouted, some leaped to their feet in order to make a point and all the while Socrates felt murder in his hands. He hated the boy in the orange wife-beater and didn’t even know his name.

People had stuck around to argue points that had not been settled during the meeting proper. It was late at night, almost morning, but two-thirds of the Thinkers were still there arguing over whether or not they had to take chances, and many losses, in order to win.

When Luna and her young man were standing before Socrates his rage leeched away. He no longer wanted to kill the boy. He didn’t hate him. His arms were as weak as the smile he gave the young couple.

“This here’s Peter Ford from Chicago,” Luna said. “He really wanted to meet you.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah, he said he heard about your Big Nickel all the way in

West Hollywood where he live at.”
The entire night Luna had ignored Socrates but now she
stared in his eyes.
“It’s a great honor to meet you, Mr. Fortlow,” the young man
said with real enthusiasm. “This was a wonderful evening. The
people in this room make you feel like there’s a real revolution in
their, in their hearts. I never felt anything like it.”
Peter held out his hand and, reluctantly, Socrates shook it. “You come from Chi lately?” he asked Luna’s new beau. “Yeah. Tryin’ to get into acting. But believe me you moved me
tonight.”
“I didn’t hardly say nuthin’.”
“But you made this space, you brought these people together.
If I didn’t know better I’d think I was transported back to ancient
Greece where the first Socrates had his school.”
“The first Socrates had a place like this?” Fortlow asked. “Yeah,” Ford said. “The ancient Greek philosophers started
schools in olive groves and by the water and other places. That
was the beginning of the first universities in the west.” Despite his jealousy, deflated anger, and sense of loss
Socrates found himself wanting to know more about these ancient colleges.
“Time to go,” Marianne Lodz said, coming up to the three.
“The party started three hours ago and Sergio will be impossible
if I don’t show up.”
Lodz had missed a few meetings because of a brief concert
tour but she came to quite a few of the gatherings. It was because
of her that the L.A.
Times
had done an article about Socrates’
meeting place for gangbangers, prostitutes, and slam poets. They
didn’t talk much about the Thinkers’ meetings or the Big Table. “Okay, honey,” Luna said, taking Peter by the arm. “Let’s go.” Marianne smiled and kissed Socrates on the cheek. She had
once told him in private that she valued their friendship because his strength made her feel weak inside.
“It’s like a ride on a rolly coaster,” she’d confided.
The three went off as Socrates watched. He felt as if he were
standing in a river of molasses that came up to his neck. He
wanted to go after Luna but couldn’t move. Sweat sprouted on
his bald head. With a great effort he took a step. He would have
built up speed but Billy Psalms took his arm just as Luna had
done with Peter Ford.
“Socco.”
Socrates turned to Billy, was about to shake him off but then
another change came over him.
Luna was gone.
That’s what he asked for and that’s what he got.
“Yeah, Billy,” Socrates rasped and then cleared his throat of
the bile and speechlessness. “That was a helluva talk, man.” “I got to talk to you alone,” the gambler said.
What Socrates had always liked best about Billy was that he
was almost always smiling. Billy was once playing dominoes at
Socrates’ home, a few blocks away, laughing and cracking jokes
the entire afternoon. It wasn’t until almost six when he informed
his friends that he’d dropped eighteen thousand dollars at the
racetrack that morning.
“How much did you win?” Comrade Jeremiah had asked. “Seventeen-thousand eight hundred.”
But Billy wasn’t smiling that night at the end of the Thinkers’
Meeting. His eyes were serious and he looked every one of his
forty-six years.
“Can we go in the one-on-one room?” he asked.
Socrates nodded and looked over the heads of the remaining
Thinkers.
“Ron,” the big ex-con called.
“Yeah, Socco?” the next-generation killer replied. “I want you to give Chaim a ride up home.”
The young drug dealer and killer stared a moment at Big
Nickel’s head man. A dozen unexpressed thoughts went behind
his nearly lifeless eyes and then, slowly, he nodded and turned
his head, searching for the elderly Jewish member of the Thursday night meeting.

The one-on-one room was the size of a large closet. It was windowless and hardly had space for the two yellow upholstered chairs that Leanne Northford donated after having buried the hatchet with Ron Zeal. She didn’t forgive the street hood for killing two young men she’d known since boyhood but she gave up the hatred that the murders had raised in her heart.

Billy and Socco sat across from each other. A naked, hundredwatt light bulb blazed above them, the filament sang with the power of electricity.

Socrates sat back and crossed his legs. He had lost the youthful adoration of Luna Barnet but that was outside the small room where gang members, mothers and daughters, fathers and sons, and brothers and sisters talked out their differences.

Billy Psalms sat at the edge of his chair, elbows on his knees, hands clasped as if in prayer.
“We got a problem, Billy?” Socrates asked.
“I do.”
“Wit’ me?”
“You got sumpin’ to do wit’ it but I ain’t got no problem wit’ you per se.”
Socrates raised his hands, palms up, inviting an explanation.
“You know I don’t talk too much in front’a the Thinkers,” Billy said.
Socrates nodded. He was wondering if Luna would stay with Peter Ford that night. Ford was well educated, Socrates could tell that. He wondered how, and how long before, they had met.
“But today I had to talk,” Billy went on. “Sometimes somethin’ come so clear in your mind that either you say it or you know you missed your chance.”
Socrates felt the words but he was sure that Billy wasn’t talking about him and Luna.
“I was at the track the day before yesterday,” the gambler said.
“Yeah,” Socrates agreed, “and I heard it said that the sun was in the sky too.”
“I hit the trifecta on three nags had the odds so high against ’em that a first timer wouldn’ta bet on one of ’em to show. Ten dollar ticket on each one.”
“Oh.”
“Two-hunnert seventeen-thousand three-hunnert forty-two dollahs and ninety-six cent,” Billy quoted. His eyes seemed to be pleading.
“Damn. Billy, you rich, man.”
“Naw, brother, naw. Not me.”
“Don’t tell me you lost it that quick?”
“Well . . .”
“Billy. No.”
“I didn’t bet it or nuthin’, Socco. That was so much money I couldn’t even stay at the track. I went to this park I like to go to, you know, the long skinny one up in Beverly Hills run along Santa Monica Boulevard.”
“Yeah.”
“I went up there ’n set up shop. I had my water and a tuna fish sandwich, three bettin’ papers and a transistor radio.”
“You was ready, huh?” Socrates said.
“Yeah.”
Billy tapped Socrates’ knee with his index finger and sat back in the yellow chair.
“I spent the whole afternoon out there. Read my papers and listened to Diana Ross an’ them on a old station.”
“What’s this all about, Mr. Psalms?”
“I was really thinkin’ out there, man. Here I had a bank check for nearly a quarter million dollahs in my pocket an’, an’ the best win I had evah had on my mind. And that was it. That was all I could think. Here I got all this money and there was no plan in my head. If I had kids I could think about their college. Or if I had a wife I could give it to her to put away for my old age. But all I am is a gambler and all money is is the ticket for the next game. So I just sat and sat tryin’ to make my mind do sumpin’ else.”
“So did you think anything?” Socrates asked. He was smiling now. Luna was almost a memory.
“I wouldn’ta except for this white girl.”
“White girl?”
“Uh-huh, pretty little thing ’bout twenty-fi’e year old. I saw her walk by but I didn’t talk to her or nuthin’. I mean I like my women dark-skinned with a li’l meat on their bones but she stopped and talked to me.”
“What she say?”
“She axed me if there was sumpin’ wrong. I guess I looked kinda miserable sittin’ there and that sweet thing worried. She sat down and I told her that I might was gonna get a inheritance but I nevah had no money and I wasn’t the kinda man to buy property or do investments. And she said was there some charity that I believed in. I told her that I didn’t trust no charity or no church and she said wasn’t there nobody I trusted?” Billy stopped talking for a moment.
“And?” Socrates asked.
“There’s you, Socco,” Billy said with the sound of wonder in his voice. “You the only rock solid man I know. I’d trust you with my money or my life.”
“I don’t need no money, Bill,” Socrates said.
“Too late.”
“What you mean too late?”
“I signed ovah all but ten thousand of my winnin’s to the nonprofit thing Cassie Wheaton put on the Big Nickel. You know I had to buy me a new jacket and there’s this woman I know could use a weekend in Vegas. But I put the rest in the Big Nickel’s five oh one cee three.”
“You did?”
“Uh-huh. Two-hunnert seven-thousand three-hunnert fortytwo dollahs and ninety-six cent. I signed it ovah just this mornin’. Tax free ’cause you non-profit. Safe as it can be ’cause it’s you. And I cain’t ax you for none’a it back ’cause you got to spend it on the services you provide.”
Socrates opened his mouth but words did not come out.
Billy had transferred the weight off of his shoulders and placed it on Socrates. The gambler smiled and took a deep breath. He sighed and shook his head as he laughed.
“That’s all there is to it. You know it come to me awhile ago, right here in this house, that it wasn’t the money I was after, it was the win. I knew that if I could win a big pot an’ then give it away ’fore I lost it, then I’d go out of this life a winner. I learnt that from you.”
Socrates heard the words. He wanted to say that it was a lesson he’d never taught. But he could not speak. He wasn’t thinking about Luna or even the riches that had fallen into his lap. He was stunned by the generosity of his people; not Billy alone, not black people only, but the spirit of his Big Table.
Billy Psalms got to his feet and made his way out of the small room. Socrates sat there. After maybe half an hour he began shaking his head.