The Right Mistake (22 page)

“I ain’t had nuthin’ to do with that man,” Luna said in the visitors’ room a while later. It was the first time he’d had visiting hours since Quest had suggested her infidelity.

“I know that, Baby.”
“I had lunch wit’ him two times and drinks once but I nevah even kissed his cheek. He said that he wanted to get together and talk. I didn’t know that he was some kinda spy.”
“I know that, Luna.”
“But she made it sound like she had pictures of me up in the bed wit’ him. He was nice but you my man.”
“And you my woman right, Luna?”
“Yes.”
“Ain’t no white woman in a burgundy suit gonna change that.”
Upon hearing these words Luna started to cry. Tears flowed from both her eyes and she buried her face in his big, manacled hands. She was a child for a moment. Socrates wondered what the tears between his fingers had to do with freedom. He had the urge to be at the Thursday night Thinkers’ Meeting to ask just that question.

The next day the jury filed in. Judge Tanaka sent them off to meet and twelve minutes later they sent word that they had come to a verdict.

A middle-aged white woman named Calla Adams rose and was asked for the verdict.
“Not guilty,” Calla said, but the words weren’t said with finality alone, it almost sounded to Socrates like she was going to add, “of course.”
Cassie kissed Socrates cheek while Mason Tinheart slapped his arm and shook his hand. His friends, at least eighteen strong, rose to their feet and cheered. Judge Tanaka didn’t ask for order. She announced that justice had been done and ordered that the prisoner be freed.

That night Luna made Socrates hamburgers and a salad. “I had Billy show me how to cook you sumpin’, Daddy. I
wanna be a good wife to you and I know that a good wife got to
cook sometimes.”
“Wife?”
“Yes. Wife. We gonna get married at the Big Nickel just like
Cassie an’ them. I’m gonna change my name and learn to cook
and go to school and have at least two more’a your chirren.” “All I gotta do is go on on trial for murder an’ you do all’a that?” “All you got to do is believe me an’ I don’t have to prove myself,” she said. “That’s why I come knockin’ at your do’ in the first
place.”
“Then why you say we have to wait a year?”
“Forgive me?”

Six weeks later life had returned to normal at the Big Nickel and at Socrates and Luna’s house. The wedding was being planned and the Thursday night Thinkers’ Meeting had settled down from the upset of almost losing their founder.

On his first Monday out of prison Socrates drove from the new house up to Lorenzo Drive in Cheviot Hills and picked up Darryl. Together they went down to fish off a pier about thirtyfive miles south of Santa Monica. They went so far away because Socrates had become a celebrity after his acquittal in the highly publicized trial.

“So what you gonna do now?” the boy asked him after an hour or so.
“You wanna take a walk?” the philosopher replied.

Barefoot they walked down by the ocean along the sparsely populated beach. The waves were loud and the sun beat down on them.

Darryl had come down to visit Socrates once a week while he was in jail but they never discussed the trial. They talked about Darryl’s school and life at the Zetel’s. They talked about Luna and baby Bellandra or sometimes about fishing.

“I’m gonna keep on doin’ what I been doin’,” Socrates said after they’d walked a quarter mile.
“But they wanna kill you or throw you back in prison,” Darryl said.
Socrates noticed that Darryl’s voice had gotten more certain in his days as a West L.A. college student.
“Yeah,” the boy’s mentor said, “they sure do.”
“You’n me an’ Luna could move up to Oakland or maybe even Portland,” he said. “I could finish school up there.”
“What you know about them places?”
“That they’re safe. I don’t want you to get killed.”
Socrates stooped and touched the young man’s arm. They lowered down to sit in the cool sand, laying their rods and buckets by their right sides.
“I need the Big Nickel more than I need to know I’m gonna be free,” Socrates said. “It’s not that they need me. It’s not that they couldn’t make it without me. It’s Billy’s chili and the look on people’s faces when they tryin’ to say sumpin’ an’ they don’t know what it is.
“I don’t wanna go back to prison. I don’t want no lethal injection. But you know we all gotta go sometimes, D-boy.”
“But you could start a new place.”
“Then the cops be aftah me there too.”
“Maybe they’d let you teach someplace.”
“And they tie my hands and gag my mouth. Ain’t no school wanna hear what I got to say.”
“Luna said that you got a extra room in your house,” Darryl said then.
“Uh-huh.”
“So can I come stay wit’ you while I’m still in school?”
“Sure you can. Yes, sir. That would be the icing on the cake, Little Brother.”
“I could get a job an’ pay rent. Luna said it was okay.”
“I already said yeah. You don’t have to convince me.”
“Okay,” Darryl said as he stood and picked up his rod.
“Okay,” Socrates echoed, standing as his friend did. “I guess we bettah be gettin’ back to the war.”