Always Outnumbered, Always Outgunned (Socrates Fortlow 1) (5 page)

Petis had begun to shake. Socrates stood there a good long while staring. He hated Petis. Hated him.

After a while he turned and said, “Com’on. Let’s go.”

T
hey waited on the street opposite the courts, next to Howard’s Buick. When Petis came out and saw them he ran back into his apartment.

At sunset Socrates sent his friends home.

“What you gonna do, Socco?” Right asked.

“Go on home to Luvia, Right. All’a you go on.”

J
ust before seven he saw Petis’s fleet shadow go toward the back of the courts. Before Socrates could react, the crackhead disappeared.

T
he apartment was empty. Socrates couldn’t tell if Petis had gone for good or not because there was no telling what he might have taken or left behind.

So Socrates waited the night. He sat in the dark and thought about poor Clyde. The warden had Clyde transferred to a hospital for the criminally insane. He was still there even while Socrates sat in the dark, the knife haft in his grip.

P
etis didn’t show up. Nobody heard about him for over a month. And when there was news it was about his death.

Petis had drifted downtown after that day. He didn’t have any place to live and he was afraid to come back.

He begged and lived in alleys downtown. He robbed other street people and tried his hand at drug dealing—but failed.

Finally he got into a fight with a man he thought he could rob. Petis hadn’t realized how weak he’d become. He never recovered from the beating.

Socrates watched his mother crying at the service.

{4.}

“Maybe we should have us a regular group meetin’ ’bout problems like Petis,” Stony said to Socrates one day as they were playing chess in South Park. “It worked out good the first time.”

“I’ont think so, Stony. No I don’t.”

“Why not?”

“We ain’t some kinda gangbangers, man. We cain’t live like that. We did what we had to do. But you know, I don’t know if I’d have the heart ever to do it again.”

T
HE
T
HIEF

{1.}

Iula’s grill sat on aluminum stilts above an open-air, fenced-in auto garage on Slauson. Socrates liked to go to the diner at least once a month on a Tuesday because they served meat loaf and mustard greens on Tuesdays at Iula’s. The garage was run by Tony LaPort, who had rented the diner out to Iula since before their marriage; it was a good arrangement for Tony so he still leased to her eight years after their divorce.

Tony had constructed the restaurant when he was in love and so it was well built. The diner was made from two large yellow school buses that Tony had welded together—side by side. One bus held the counter where the customers sat, while the other one held the kitchen and storage areas. The banistered stairway that led up to the door was aluminum also. When Iula closed for the night she used a motor-driven hoist to lift the staircase far up off the street. Then she’d go through the trapdoor down a wooden ladder to Tony’s work space, let herself out through the wire gate, and set the heavy padlocks that Tony used to keep thieves out.

If the locks failed to deter an enterprising crook there was still Tina to contend with. Tina was a hundred-pound mastiff who hated everybody in the world except Iula and Tony. Tina sat right by the gate all night long, paws crossed in a holy prayer that some fool might want to test her teeth.

She was waiting that afternoon as Socrates approached the aluminum stairs. She growled in a low tone and Socrates found himself wondering if he would have a chance to crush the big dog’s windpipe before she could tear out his throat. It was an idle thought; the kind of question that men discussed when they were in prison. In prison, studying for survival was the only real pastime.

How many ways were there to kill a man? What was more dangerous in a close fight—a gun or a knife? How long could you hold your breath underwater if there were policemen looking for you on the shore? Will God really forgive any sin?

Thinking about killing that dog was just habit for Socrates. The habit of twenty-seven years behind bars out of fifty-eight.

As he climbed the aluminum staircase he thought again about how well built it was. He liked the solid feeling that the light metal gave. He was happy because he could smell the mustard greens.

He could almost taste that meat loaf.

{2.}

“Shet that do’!” Iula shouted, her back turned to Socrates. “Damn flies like t’eat me up in here.”

“Shouldn’t cook so damn good you don’t want no notice, I.” Socrates slammed shut the makeshift screen door and walked up the step well into the bus.

The diner was still empty at four-thirty. Socrates came early because he liked eating alone. He went to the stool nearest Iula and sat down. The musical jangle of coins came from the pockets of his army jacket.

“You been collectin’ cans again?” Iula had turned around to admire her customer. Her face was a deep amber color splattered with dark freckles, especially around her nose. She was wide-hipped and large-breasted. Three gold teeth decorated her smile. And she was smiling at Socrates. She put a fist on one hip and pushed her apron out, making an arc that brushed her side of the counter.

Socrates was looking at her breasts. Tony had once told him that the first time he saw those titties they were standing straight up, nipples pointing left and right.

“Yeah, I,” he said, in answer to her question. “I got me a route now. Got three barmen keep the bottles an’ cans on the side for me. All I gotta do is clean up outside for them twice a week. I made seventeen dollars just today.”

“Ain’t none these young boys out here try an’ take them bottles from you, Mr. Fortlow?”

“Naw. Gangbanger be ashamed t’take bottles in a sto’. An’ you know as long as I got my black jeans and khaki I don’t got no color t’get them young bulls mad. If you know how t’handle them they leave you alone.”

“I’ont care what you say,” Iula said. “Them boys make me sick wit’ all that rap shit they playin’ an’ them guns an’ drugs.”

“I seen worse,” Socrates said. “You know these three men live in a alley off’a Crenshaw jump me today right after I got my can money.”

“They did?”

“Uh-huh. Fools thought they could take me.” Socrates held out his big black hand. The thick fingers were the size of large cigars. When he made a fist the knuckles rode high like four deadly fins.

Iula was impressed.

“They hurt you?” she asked.

Socrates looked down at his left forearm. There, near the wrist, was a sewn-up tear and a dark stain.

“What’s that?” Iula cried.

“One fool had a bottle edge. Huh! He won’t try an’ cut me soon again.”

“Did he break the skin?”

“Not too much.”

“You been to a doctor, Mr. Fortlow?”

“Naw. I went home an’ cleaned it out. Then I sewed up my damn coat. I cracked that boy’s arm ’cause he done ripped my damn coat.”

“You better get down to the emergency room,” Iula said. “That could get infected.”

“I cleaned it good.”

“But you could get lockjaw.”

“Not me. In the penitentiary they gave you a tetanus booster every year. You might get a broke jaw in jail but you ain’t never gonna get no lockjaw.”

Socrates laughed and set his elbows on the counter. He cleared his throat and looked at Iula watching him. Behind her was the kitchen and a long frying grill. There were big pots of beef and tomato soup, mashed potatoes, braised short ribs, stewed chicken, and mustard greens simmering on the stove. The meat loaves, Socrates knew from experience, were in bread pans in the heating pantry above the ovens.

It was hot in Iula’s diner.

Hotter under her stare.

She put her hand on Socrates’ arm.

“You shouldn’t be out there hustlin’ bottles, Mr. Fortlow,” she said. Her voice was like the rustling of coarse blankets.

“I got t’eat. An’ you know jobs don’t grow on trees, I. Anyway, I got a bad temper. I might turn around one day and break a boss man’s nose.”

Iula laid her finger across his knucklebones.

“You could work here,” she said. “There’s room enough for two behind this here counter.”

Iula turned her head to indicate what she meant. In doing so she revealed her amber throat. It was a lighter shade than her face.

He remembered another woman, just a girl really, and her delicate neck. That woman died by the same hand Iula stroked. She died and hadn’t done a thing to deserve even a bruise. He had killed her and was a little sorrier every day; every day for thirty-five years. He got sadder but she was still dead. She was dead and he was still asking himself why.

“I don’t know,” he said.

“What?”

“I don’t know what to say, I.”

“What is there to say?” she demanded. “All you could say is yeah. You ain’t got hardly a dime. You need a job. And the Lord knows I could use you too.”

“I got to think about it,” he said.

“Think about it?” Just that fast Iula was enraged. “Think about it? Here I am offerin’ you a way outta that hole you in. Here I am offerin’ you a life. An’ you got to think about it? Look out here in the streets around you, Mr. Fortlow. Ain’t no choice out there. Ain’t nuthin’ t’think about out there.”

Socrates didn’t have to look around to see the boarded-up businesses and stores; the poor black faces and brown faces of the men and women who didn’t have a thing. Iulas diner and Tony’s garage were the only working businesses on that block.

And he hated bringing bottles and cans to the Ralph’s supermarket on Crenshaw. To get there he had to walk for miles pulling as many as three grocery carts linked by twisted wire coat hangers. And when he got there they always made him wait; made him stand outside while they told jokes and had coffee breaks. And then they checked every can. They didn’t have to do that. He knew what they took and what they didn’t. He came in twice a week with his cans and bottles and nobody ever found one Kessler’s Root Beer or Bubble-Up in the lot. But they checked every one just the same. And they never bothered to learn his name. They called him “Pop” or “old man.” They made him wait and checked after him like he was some kind of stupid animal.

But he took it. He took it because of that young girl’s neck; because of her boyfriend’s dead eyes. Those young people in Ralph’s were stupid and arrogant and mean—but he was evil. That’s what Socrates thought.

That’s what he believed.

“Well?” Iula asked.

“I’d … I’d like some meat loaf, Iula. Some meat loaf with mashed potatoes and greens.”

From the back of her throat Iula hissed, “Damn you!”

{3.}

Socrates felt low but that didn’t affect his appetite. He’d learned when he was a boy that the next meal was never a promise; only a fool didn’t eat when he could.

He laced his mashed potatoes and meat loaf with pepper sauce and downed the mustard greens in big noisy mouthfuls. When he was finished he looked behind the counter hoping to catch Iula’s eye. Iula would usually give Socrates seconds while smiling and complimenting him on the good appetite he had.

“You eat good but you don’t let it turn to fat,” she’d say, admiring his big muscles.

But now she was mad at him for insulting her offer. Why should she feed the kitty when there wasn’t a chance to win the pot?

“I,” Socrates said.

“What you want?” It was more a dare than a question.

“Just some coffee, babe,” he said.

Iula slammed the mug down and flung the Pyrex coffeepot so recklessly that she spilled half of what she poured. But Socrates didn’t mind. He was still hungry and so finished filling the mug with milk from two small serving pitchers on the counter.

He had eleven quarters in his right-hand jacket pocket. Two dollars and fifty cents for the dinner and twenty-five cents more for Iula’s tip. That was a lot of money when all you had to your name was sixty-eight quarters, four dimes, three nickels, and eight pennies. It was a lot of money but Socrates was still hungry—and that meat loaf smelled better than ever.

Iula used sage in her meat loaf. He couldn’t make it himself because all he had at home was a hot plate and you can’t make meat loaf on a hot plate.

“
I
ula!”

Socrates turned to see the slim young man come up into the bus. He was wearing an electric-blue exercise suit, zipped up to the neck, and a bright yellow headband.

“Wilfred.” There were still no seconds in Iula’s voice.

“How things goin’?” the young man asked.

“Pretty good if you don’t count for half of it.”

“Uh-huh,” he answered, not having heard. “An’ where’s Tony today?”

“It’s Tuesday, ain’t it?”

“Yeah.”

“Then Tony’s down at Christ Congregational settin’ up for bingo.”

Wilfred sat himself at the end of the counter, five stools away from Socrates. He caught the older man’s eye and nodded—as black men do.