Always Outnumbered, Always Outgunned (Socrates Fortlow 1) (3 page)

“At first we was just playin’,” Darryl told Socrates. “You know—pushin’ ’im an’ stuff.”

But when he kept on following them—when he squealed every time they saw somebody—they hit him and pushed him down. Norris even threw a rock at his head. But the retard kept on coming. He was running after them and crying that they had hurt him. He cried louder and louder. And when they hit him, to shut him up, he yelled so loud that it made them scared right inside their chests.

“You know I always practice with my knife,” Darryl said. “You know you got to be able to get it out quick if somebody on you.”

Socrates nodded. He still practiced himself.

“I’ont know how it got in my hand. I swear I didn’t mean t’cut ’im.”

“You kill’im?” Socrates asked.

Darryl couldn’t talk but he opened his mouth and nodded.

They all swore never to tell anybody. They would kill the one who told about it—they swore on blood and went home.

“Anybody find ’im?” Socrates asked.

“I’ont know.”

The red spider danced while the woman in red kept her arms folded and stared her disapproval of all men—especially those two men. Darryl had to go to the bathroom. He had the runs after that big meal—and, Socrates thought, from telling his tale.

When he came out he looked ashy, his lips were ashen.

He slumped back in Socrates’ cheap chair—drowsy but not tired. He was sick and forlorn.

For a long time they just sat there. The minutes went by but there was no clock to measure them. Socrates learned how to do without a timepiece in prison.

He counted the time while Darryl sat hopelessly by.

{5.}

“What you gonna do, li’l brother?”

“What?”

“How you gonna make it right?”

“Make what right? He dead. I cain’t raise him back here.”

When Socrates stared at the boy there was no telling what he thought. But what he was thinking didn’t matter. Darryl looked away and back again. He shifted in his chair. Licked his dry lips.

“What?” he asked at last.

“You murdered a poor boy couldn’t stand up to you. You killed your little brother an’ he wasn’t no threat; an’ he didn’t have no money that you couldn’t take wit’out killin’ ’im. You did wrong, Darryl. You did wrong.”

“How the fuck you know?” Darryl yelled. He would have said more but Socrates raised his hand, not in violence but to point out the truth to his dinner guest.

Darryl went quiet and listened.

“I ain’t your warden, li’l brother. I ain’t gonna show you to no jail. I’m just talkin’ to ya—one black man to another one. If you don’t hear me there ain’t nuthin’ I could do.”

“So I could go now?”

“Yeah, you could go. I ain’t yo’ warden. I just ask you to tell me how you didn’t do wrong. Tell me how a healthy boy ain’t wrong when he kills his black brother who sick.”

Darryl stared at Socrates, at his eyes now—not his hands.

“You ain’t gonna do nuthin’?”

“Boy is dead now. Rooster’s dead too. We cain’t change that. But you got to figure out where you stand.”

“I ain’t goin’ t’no fuckin’ jail if that’s what you mean.”

Socrates smiled. “Shoo’. I don’t blame you for that. Jail ain’t gonna help a damn thing. Better shoot yo’self than go to jail.”

“I ain’t gonna shoot myself neither. Uh-uh.”

“If you learn you wrong then maybe you get to be a man.”

“What’s that s’posed t’mean?”

“Ain’t nobody here, Darryl. Just you’n me. I’m sayin’ that I think you was wrong for killin’ that boy. I know you killed’im. I know you couldn’t help it. But you was wrong anyway. An’ if that’s the truth, an’ if you could say it, then maybe you’ll learn sumpin’. Maybe you’ll laugh in the morning sometimes again.”

Darryl stared at the red spider. She was still now. He didn’t say anything, didn’t move at all.

“We all got to be our own judge, li’l brother. ’Cause if you don’t know when you wrong then yo’ life ain’t worf a damn.”

Darryl waited as long as he could. And then he asked, “I could go?”

“You done et Billy. So I guess that much is through.”

“So it ain’t wrong that I killed’im ’cause I et him?”

“It’s still wrong. It’s always gonna be wrong. But you know more now. You ain’t gonna kill no more chickens,” Socrates said. Then he grunted out a harsh laugh. “At least not around here.”

Darryl stood up. He watched Socrates to see what he’d do.

“Yo’ momma cook at home, Darryl?”

“Sometimes. Not too much.”

“You come over here anytime an’ I teach ya how t’cook. We eat pretty good too.”

“Uh-huh,” Darryl answered. He took a step away from his chair.

Socrates stayed seated on his trash can.

Darryl made it all the way to the door. He grabbed the wire handle that took the place of a long-ago knob.

“What they put you in jail for?” Darryl asked.

“I killed a man an’ raped his woman.”

“White man?”

“No.”

“Well … bye.”

“See ya, li’l brother.”

“I’m sorry … ’bout yo’ chicken.”

“Billy wasn’t none’a mine. He belonged to a old lady ’cross the alley.”

“Well … bye.”

“Darryl.”

“Yeah.”

“If you get inta trouble you could come here. It don’t matter what it is—you could come here to me.”

{6.}

Socrates stared at the door a long time after the boy was gone; for hours. The night came on and the cool desert air of Los Angeles came in under the door and through the cracks in his small shack of an apartment.

A cricket was calling out for love from somewhere in the wall.

Socrates looked at the woman, sun shining on her head. Her red sun hat threw a hot crimson shadow across her face. There was no respite for her but she still stood defiant. He tried to remember what Theresa looked like but it had been too long now. All he had left was the picture of a painting—and that wasn’t even her. All he had left from her were the words she never said.
You are dead to me, Socrates. Dead as that poor boy and that poor girl you killed
.

He wondered if Darryl would ever come back.

He hoped so.

S
ocrates went through the doorless doorway into his other room. He lay down on the couch and just before he was asleep he thought of how he’d wake up alone. The rooster was hoarse in his old age, his crow no more than a whisper.

But at least that motherfucker tried.

M
IDNIGHT
M
EETING

{1.}

“I think we should go over there right now an’ an’ an’ an’ shoot’im in his head,” Right said. He held up his paralyzed left hand and gestured, meaninglessly, with the atrophied knuckle of his point finger.

“We cain’t do that, man,” Markham Peal whined. He grabbed at the collar of his T-shirt and pulled on it until it stretched down far enough to reveal his weak, yellow-hued chest.

Right Burke and Stony Wile were sitting on the floor with their backs against the wall in Socrates Fortlow’s small living room. Howard Shakur and Markham perched themselves on the couch that doubled for Socrates’ bed.

It was a poor man’s room. The wallpaper had been pink at one time but now it was worn down to shopping-bag brown. The wood slats of the floor had buckled in places and separated. A tall man would have brushed the ceiling with the top of his head. On a windy day even the open-faced gas heater couldn’t keep it warm.

There were no windows. Socrates’ only neighbors were two burned-out furniture stores and an almost always empty street.

The first year Socrates lived there he sent the rent to H. Price Landers, Esq., who received his mail at an address on Olympic Boulevard. Somewhere in the second year the money orders started coming back marked: Return to Sender/No Forwarding Address.

H. Price Landers had died, Socrates thought, and all that he owned was, at least for a while, forgotten.

“We ain’t even sure that he did it, Right,” Stony Wile, the squat ship welder from East St. Louis, said. “It’s just hearsay we goin’ on.”

“Noooo, no.” No-neck Howard shook his head. He was both the heaviest and the youngest man in the room. “My li’l girl ain’t lyin’. She seen what I told ya. She saw Petis jump up on LeRoy with a knife. She told me that even ’fore they fount’im. If she saw LeRoy get it then you know she seen who give it to’im.”

“She could be wrong,” Stony replied. “It was nighttime. It was late. Lotsa men the same build as Petis.”

“She knew it were LeRoy. She knew he was dead. How she gonna mark one man an’ then miss the other?”

“It could happen,” Stony said.

“Well if she saw it then let her go tell the cops. Cops the ones should take down a man if he did wrong. Ain’t us who should do it.” Markham was wringing his T-shirt. Sweat formed on his forehead but it wasn’t hot in the room.

“I ain’t sendin’ my baby down to no cops. Uh-uh,” Howard said. He swiveled his big head around on his shoulders and opened his eyes wide.

From somewhere blocks away four shots were fired in quick succession. The men all looked at the pinkish-brown wallpaper for a moment and then turned their attention back to the room.

“What you say, Socco?” Stony asked.

Their host was standing in the doorless doorway that led from the living room to the kitchen. He was listening to his friends and neighbors but somehow felt removed. Their talk about Petis and his crime had brought back memories of another man back in an Indiana jail.

“Socrates.”

“Yeah?”

“What you think about this shit here?”

Socrates squinted, then he rubbed his eyes with his big hands. He looked at Howard. Howard didn’t have much of a neck but he was so fat that he had three chins to make up for it.

Howard didn’t like the attention. He glared back at Socrates.

“What else Winnie see?” Socrates asked at last.

“What you mean?” Howard asked.

“I mean, did they fight? Did LeRoy say sumpin’ to Petis? Why he gonna stab a man fo’ nuthin’?”

“He robbin’ ’im, Socco. You know that.”

“No I don’t. I don’t know it unless that’s what you tellin’ me. Did Winnie say Petis was robbin’ ’im?”

“Yeah.” Howard moved his big shoulders around and shifted on the couch. “He pult out the knife an’ grabbed LeRoy by his shirt an’ told him t’give up his money. When LeRoy said no, Petis stabbed him in the neck an’ then tore out his pants pockets t’get what he had.”

“That’s what Winnie said? You sure she didn’t hear you an’ Corina talkin’ ’bout it after you read it?”

“Yeah. I’m sure. I told you that Winnie come to me first.”

The loud noise of a police helicopter sounded overhead. Socrates could feel the breeze from the rotors come in through the poorly insulated roof and walls. The helicopter hovered over the building for a minute or two before moving off.

“C-c-cops always be flyin’,” Right said. “Shit. If they come down here to earth sometimes maybe Petis wouldn’t be goin’ all over killin’ folks for laundry money.”

Socrates was still staring at Howard.

“What?” Howard wanted to know. “What you lookin’ at?”

“What you want us to do, Howard?” Socrates asked.

“I got to go soon, boys,” Markham said. His collar was destroyed.

No one heeded him though. They were all looking at Howard.

“I don’t know. Winnie come in an’ told me what she seen. She was scared an’ I thought I should do sumpin’. You know Petis prob’ly the one kilt all them people ’round here. Least all them’s been stabbed. At least I wanted t’tell somebody.”

“Tell the cops,” Markham said.

“I got a pistol in my night table drawer got his name on the barrel.” Right Burke was the oldest among them—in his seventies. He’d been a combat soldier in World War Two. The left side of his body had been paralyzed by a stroke in ’84. Since then he lived at Luvia’s—she ran a kind of private retirement home in the neighborhood.

“Maybe we should just tell ev’rybody about it,” Stony said. “Maybe then it’ll just take care of itself.”

“Even I know that ain’t gonna help,” cowardly Markham said.

The other men grumbled their agreement.

“What you think we should do?” Right asked Socrates. “You the one know about people like Petis. You think if we told ev’rybody that that would stop him?”

“Dopehead?” Socrates sneered. “No.”

“You think Howard should take Winnie an’ go to the police?”

Socrates shook his head. “Uh-uh. All Petis need is a first-year lawyer to have that baby girl’s testimony th’owed out. He wouldn’t even get to trial ’less they got hard evidence. He be on the street in less than a week.”

“An’ be knockin’ on my do’,” Howard added.

“Maybe not, Howard,” Socrates said. “Dopehead don’t usually carry a grudge. He too busy lookin’ fo’ his fix.”