The Right Mistake (19 page)
The discussion went on until the next morning. At 5:00 a.m. not one person had left the Big Nickel. The argument went round and round and no one claimed to have an answer.
Darryl was asleep in his chair and Antonio Peron had called Cassie Wheaton twice to make sure she and their six-month-old daughter, Remi, were okay.
Luna pulled her chair up next to Socrates and rested her head on his shoulder.
By six everyone had departed except Socrates, Billy, and Luna. She had gone up to bed.
“So Socco it’s the next mornin’,” Billy said, “an’ everyone is tired and none of ’em is black. You either a genius or the devil.”
“Shit,” Socrates said. “Why cain’t I be both?”
In the weeks that followed many of those who attended the unorthodox Friday Night Meeting approached Socrates at odd hours. Samson Fell thanked him.
“For what?” Socrates asked.
“I look like my mother,” he said simply. “I been lookin’ in the glass for my whole life an’ ev’ry time I seen my mother in there but I nevah paid attention. I loved my mother, man, and she loved me sumpin’ fierce. And now I know when someone wanna make fun of how I look I know it’s just them makin’ a mistake.”
Whenever someone wanted to talk to Socrates about the meeting on race he took the time. Some were angry, others relieved. But no matter the reaction they all acted differently in the Thursday night meeting. It wasn’t that they gave up the terms of their race but, Socrates could see, that there was a struggle not to use their color as a reason or an excuse, a sword or a shield.
For three weeks Deacon Saunders did not attend the Thursday night session. Socrates noticed his nemesis’ absence and so one Sunday he headed over to Third Baptist at 2:00 p.m. when the services ended.
He stood out in front of the big double doors of the stone and plaster building at the bottom of the stairs.
There he waited as the members of the congregation passed by eyeing him with both trepidation and curiosity. It was a sunny blue day and hot. Socrates was dressed only in a T-shirt and khaki pants. The fancy clothes of the men and women made him stand out like an escaped convict at a garden party.
“Can I help you?” a young man wearing a lavender jacket and black trousers asked. He was backed up by two other young men in similar uniforms.
The words
Christian soldiers
came into Socrates’ mind.
“No, sir,” the ex-convict said.
“Then move on,” the young man of medium height said.
“I’m on the sidewalk, corporal,” Socrates said. “It’s a free country and I’m a free man.”
“You disturbin’ the congregation,” the young man told him.
“I’m just standin’ here waitin’ on a friend.”
“What friend?”
“Not you, Brother.”
“Hiram,” Deacon Saunders said from the top of the stairs.
The young man turned as the church officer approached. Saunders was wearing a white jacket and black trousers, a higher rank among the Baptists.
“This is Socrates Fortlow,” Saunders said as he neared. “He’s an acquaintance of mine.”
The young men moved, almost in unison, shaking off the violence that had been building in their shoulders and arms.
“Brother Fortlow,” Saunders said, moving into the space between the men at arms and the felon. “What can I do for you?”
“I was thinkin’ that maybe we could grab some coffee.”
“Come on up to my office,” the deacon offered.
“I had another place in mind.”
There was a restaurant six blocks from Third Baptist. It had been a house but now it was a breakfast café for people in the neighborhood. It was populated by Spanish-speaking brown people and blacks of various hues. The furniture was catch-ascatch-can and there was no name anywhere to be seen.
“Mr. Fortlow,” a dark skinned woman with straight black hair hailed as he and Deacon Saunders entered. All the tables that could be seen were occupied by families or couples.
“Hey, Zelda,” Socrates said. “You got room for two hungry men?”
“I always got your table, Mr. Fortlow.”
The hefty woman led the convicted felon and the officer of the church through the kitchen to a hall that came to a small room with a table that could easily seat six.
“The usual?” she asked Socrates, who nodded. “And what can I get for you, sir?”
“You got waffles?”
“You want fried chicken with that?”
“Um, okay.”
After Zelda had gone to get their food Socrates and Deacon Saunders sat with one chair separating them.
“I never knew this place was here,” the deacon said.
“Yeah. Zelda told me that she got about two three hundred people know about the place. ’Bout sixty or so come each day. Breakfast is cheap and it’s home cookin’.”
Saunders nodded with little concern about the words.
“What can I do for you, Socco?”
“Why you stopped comin’ to the meetin’s?”
“After that last travesty I couldn’t see where it would do anybody any good.”
“Travesty?”
“Either that or a sham,” Saunders said. “Here you are tryin’ to tear apart what little community we have and nobody there will listen to reason as long as you’re at the head of the table.”
“And that reason is you?”
“I’m an educated man, Socco. You can’t become a deacon at Third Baptist without at least a BA. I have a Master’s Degree in psychology and social work. So when I see an uneducated excon pulling the wool over my people’s eyes I try to talk reason. But at your house there’s no one who will hear me.”
“Okay, but where’s the travesty, Deacon?”
“You don’t really want to know.”
“Oh yes I do.”
“Two waffles and fried chicken for the man in the suit,” Zelda said, coming into the room with two plates in one hand and a platter on the other, “and a glass of grapefruit juice and a hardboiled egg for Mr. Socrates. A pitcher of water and syrup on the table. Call me if you need anything else.”
She moved out of the room before either man could thank her.
“You are tryin’ to tear us apart with your unconsidered crackpot ideas,” Saunders said.
“What ideas?”
“All that nonsense about us not being black.”
“Nonsense? Do you look down on your kids and say to yourself, ‘look at that little black boy and girl’?”
“Of course not. But that’s not the point. We have to work together to get out of where we are. And if people like you tear down the one thing we got then we won’t have a thing.”
“Except ourselves, Brother.”
“The white man will squash us one by one.”
“He already been doin’ that, man. Look at the high schools, gangs, police, and army recruitment offices. We killin’ each other, robbin’ each other, passin’ ’round disease like it was Christmas candy and here you say
he
will squash us.”
“I think that your way is worse,” Saunders said.
“No you don’t. What you think is that you can protect your li’l congregation from people like me. Your wives and your kids and your friends with their degrees. And you know damn well that people comin’ to the Nickel lookin’ for pride and a way to make their lives bettah.”
“They would be better off at our church.”
“How they gonna get in? You got yo thugs standin’ at the back door keepin’ people like me off the street.”
“You have your beliefs and I have mine,” Saunders said.
Socrates waited a few moments for the churchman to eat a little.
“Why do you care if I don’t come to your meetings anyway?” the deacon asked after biting into a chicken thigh.
“You never understood us, Brother,” Socrates said in way of answer. “We not like you people settin’ rules for everyone in the room. We just askin’ questions. We just wonderin’ why.” “You don’t need me for that.”
“’Course we do. I ain’t looking for everybody to agree with me or to go out and do as I say. I like you there because you make sure I don’t get lazy. And you should want to be there ’cause you think I’m wrong.”
“You think I’m wrong,” Saunders replied.
“So what if I do? You the man with the degree and the church title.”
“But everybody follows you.”
“But, Deacon, what if your long ago Christians felt like that about the Romans? What if they were afraid that a little ole lion would get in the way of the Lord?”
“You got a tongue like the Devil, Socrates Fortlow.”
“And the Devil, Deacon, is in the details. That’s what I’m talkin’ ’bout on Thursday nights. Every man, woman, and child in that room has a different part to play. But they all think they the same, at least they talk like that. You might wanna think I’m the devil, Mr. Saunders, you might wanna run from me. But the details, the words we speak, will go on with or without you. You could sit up in that church with your degrees and fancy clothes but the world still goin’ on out here, brother. The guns and heroin and prostitutes and all the hatred we can muster.”
Socrates drained his glass and put the uncracked egg in his shirt pocket. Then he stood up.
“I expect you to come back an’ keep us straight, Deacco. ’Cause you know you cain’t save a soul and run away from it at the same time.”
1.
Cassie’s and Antonio’s daughter, Remi Raphaelita WheatonPeron, was born seven months before her parents’ wedding at the Big Nickel. She was carried down the aisle by Luna Barnet; the baby alternately crying and cooing while waving her arms. Socrates was the best man and Deacon Saunders presided. There were more than a hundred people in the Thinkers’ room. The Big Table had been moved into the backyard. Cassie was smiling while Antonio grinned broadly. There was a room full of presents locked away and a feast made by Billy Psalms was served in the backyard on the odd-shaped table that had been resurrected for the purposes of ghetto philosophy.
The service was short and only a reflection of the civil ceremony held the day before. After that the partiers ate and drank and danced to the music of Marianne Lodz and her small band of musicians.
“What we have here is the first child and the first union born of the Big Nickel,” Billy Psalms said in his toast. “We have a beautiful baby girl and she has a real family and a place that has a history even though it’s only about a year old.”
“We have innocence and forgiveness under one sky,” Chaim Zetel said when he lifted his glass. “All of us have been on both sides of the scales. We have done wrong and tried to make things better. And today we have a child and she has parents who love her and they have a community that loves them. I drink to life.”
Dozens of toasts were made and congratulations heaped upon the couple. Some wondered quietly at the union of a Mexican carpenter and a black woman lawyer, some worried about the child of such a marriage. But on the whole people were happy and they celebrated into the night as police officers, parked in unmarked cars on the street outside, sat watching and waiting for some opportunity to take action.
But there was no violence, nor were there any complaints about the noise. The police were brought out food and water. The area councilwoman came by to make sure her constituency was well treated.
“We just want to stay home with our baby, Mr. Fortlow. Tony finished building our house in Silverlake and we just want to spend a few weeks alone with our child.” She took his left hand and brought it to her lips.
“Thank you,” she said.
“For what?”
“I wouldn’t have any of this without you. I’ve been working to
create a place like this for years and one day you just wake up, put on those old shoes, and go out and make it. You made this life for me, for all of us, and even if it all falls apart tomorrow at least we’ve seen that it’s possible.”
Socrates watched them leave the party in Antonio’s old Dodge station wagon. He didn’t feel happy like the others. There was something eating at him about the celebration. It made him think about prison; feeling once again what it was like to wake up every day knowing that he didn’t have the freedom just to go out and walk, or fall, under his own power.
“That was so nice,” Luna said to him late in the night. They were in bed in his garden house about half a mile from the Big Nickel.
“Did you like it?”
“Uh-huh.”
“I knew Cassie and Tony would get together from the first
night,” Socrates said, rubbing her tight belly. “She need a quiet man who’s strong too.”
“What about us?” Luna said, laying her hand on top of his.
The question brought about a hollowness in Socrates’ head and chest. He felt as if there were no inside to him at all. He couldn’t even think about thinking about an answer to her simple question.
“Um,” he said after a long span of seconds.
Luna sat up and leaned over to kiss his lips.
“You don’t have to answer right off, baby,” she said. “Just think about it, okay?”
“O-okay,” he stuttered, feeling so light that he had to wonder what was holding him down.
At noon the next day Socrates Fortlow walked into the Black Bear Bar, a small, rough place off of Crenshaw. The walls were painted black and the dark brown ceiling was low. Socrates went to a stool at the bar and ordered bourbon with soda—something he hadn’t done in years.
The bartender was a youngish black woman with a broad face and wide shoulders. One of her eyes was dead and the other burned brightly as if from fever.
“You that man ain’t ya?” she asked when serving his order. “I’m
a
man.”
“No, uh-uh, you that dude with the house where ev’rybody go
Socrates downed his drink and said, “One more.”
“Hey, sailor,” a woman said when Socrates was on his seventh drink.
She was young and light-skinned. Maybe he wouldn’t have thought she was pretty if there was less alcohol and more sense in his blood.
“Hey.”
“You wanna buy me a drink or sumpin’?”
“Sumpin’? Like a sandwich?”
She wore a short dress of shiny golden material, gold rings on
at least eight fingers, and three golden necklaces. There were many hoops in her ears and she had on glasses that were tinted a rose color.
When she smiled at his joke he noticed that none of her teeth were edged in gold.
“What?” she asked, seeing something in his gaze.
“You have a nice smile.”
“What can I get for you?” the bartender asked.
“She wants a pastrami on rye,” Socrates said.
“Sangria please, Dorothy,” the girl said.
“What’s your name?” Socrates asked.
“Lana.”
“Lana what?”
“Just Lana.”
Socrates nodded and lifted his drink.
Dorothy brought a tumbler full of red liquid and set it in front of Lana.
“What’s your name?” Lana asked after Dorothy left.
“Go away, girl,” Socrates said.
“What?”
“Take your party wine and find somebody else to talk to. I’m here to drink.”
With that Socrates held up his glass for the bartender and then put his big hands on the oak bar.
He thought about the year since he started the Big Nickel, about Luna and Billy and the others: prostitutes and gangbangers, church women and the homeless. He was still under the spell of weightlessness. It felt that he was being dragged along like a plastic float marking the place where a fish was fighting somewhere far below. That fish, he thought, was what he was trying to get at, something he needed. But he knew that he would never get down that far.
It seemed as if he’d been dragged along his entire life by one force or another—hunger or incarceration, rage and sometimes despair.
With a gesture he ordered another drink.
In prison they told him when to wake up and when to go to sleep, when to wash his body and what and how much to eat. They would have read his mail if he ever got any. They were his tailor and shoemaker and even told him if he was sick or not.
They could have held him forever but instead they let him go—like a child who tires of a blue balloon and releases it to see how far it rises before the pressure of the atmosphere causes it to explode.
“Marron.”
Socrates glanced to his left and saw that the young woman was still there. Or maybe she’d gone away and returned.
“Excuse me?” he asked.
“My last name is Marron. Lana Marron. I’m from Kansas City, Kansas.”
Even on that barstool Socrates could see that Lana had curves, nice ones. He felt the breath coming out from his nostrils. It was hot and he was much younger. There was no Big Nickel or Luna or even Darryl. It was many years before and he was that bull in the china shop everyone was always talking about.
“Ain’t you gonna say nuthin’?” Lana asked.
Socrates scanned the room then. There were maybe twelve men and women here and there at tables and the bar. They were talking and smiling if they were together. The solitary ones were more somber.
“Somebody after you?” Lana wondered.
“How old are you, Lana Marron?”
“Twenty-seven.”
“And what are you doin’ here?”
“You know what I’m doin’.”
“And why you come back to me after I was so rude?”
“I’ont know. Maybe I felt bad that I didn’t say my name.”
“It’s a nice name,” he said. “Sounds like it comes from a good family with a high white porch and lemonade in the summer when the weather get hot.”
Something shifted in the young woman’s eyes. Socrates noticed this and wondered who he was in those eyes.
“I got a room down the street,” she suggested.
“How much?”
“Depends on what you want.” She turned so that he could see her legs and body in the sheer garment. When he was silent she said, “I could suck your dick or you could fuck me on my knees.”
“That’s not what I want.”
“I could do anything,” she offered.
“What I need is for somebody to hold me down so that I don’t just drift off and disappear.”
“Huh?”
“Dorothy,” Socrates called to the bartender, “could you bring me a pencil and a piece of paper.”
She came over with what he had asked for.
He took the scrap and pencil and wrote something and then signed the bottom. This he handed to Lana. She took the paper and read it.
“I don’t get it,” she said.
“What’s it say?”
“IOU two hunnert an’ fifty dollahs an’ it’s signed Soshsumpin’ Fortlow.”
Socrates nodded. He felt his head bobble as if he had just awakened or maybe was about to fall asleep.
“So if I give you this you gonna pay me?”
“Yes.”
She offered him the paper and he exchanged it for a roll of bills from his pocket.
“You wanna come wit’ me now?”
“No, baby. You go on without me. I’ma sit here and drink.”
“You could come wit’ me,” she said, trying, and almost managing, to sound friendly. “You could spend the night if you ain’t got no place to go.”
“I thank you for that, Lana. But I don’t need company.”
“But you need somebody to hold you down.”
“Yeah. Yeah I do.”
