“Easy,” he said with a wisdom I hope never to attain, “I ain’t even int’rested in po’k chops. Food don’t even mean nuthin’ to me no more.”
After that he got up to play a long sad number called “Alabama Midnight.” He blew one sad song after another for the rest of a long set. I listened to as much as I could take and then wandered out to the torch.
I stood at the end of the field looking down over the dark trees and shrubs that gathered on the edges of L.A.
I used to live on the edge. I used to move in darkness.
I was excited about Hannah coming out and taking me to her late-night haunt. She liked my jokes and my promise of wealth. I wondered why I had ever left such a simple and honest life.
Behind me people were leaving the club. I heard them laughing and joking, kissing and slamming car doors. A young couple were making love in the backseat of an old Buick. Her sighs pierced the night like the cries of a dying bird.
I wondered if there was a place for me that could be like this and still allow me to hear children’s laughter in the morning.
The crunch of gravel seemed closer than other footsteps leading toward the lot.
Hannah, I thought, and then a heavy weight came down on the back of my head. The moon broke into several sections and my mind tried to go sideways, looking for a way to keep conscious.
26
“Wake up,” my mother said. It was Sunday morning and she wanted me to get ready for church. She shook my shoulder and I knew that she was smiling even though my eyes were closed. She had grits with redeye gravy on the table — I could smell it.
“Wake up!” She slapped me hard across the face and I cried out because she was so unfair to hit me in my sleep.
Rupert was standing there with Li’l Joe.
“He’s comin’ to, Mr. Beam,” Rupert said to someone behind him.
Out from between the two ugly wrestlers came a middle-sized white man. He had a large pitted nose and eyes that only laughed at pain.
“Who are you?” he asked me.
I felt a slight swoon and decided to go with it. I let my head fall forward and Rupert slapped me again. The blow jerked my head up. My eyes opened for a moment but then I played back into the swoon.
Rupert hit me again — this time a little harder.
“Don’t knock him out, Rupe,” Beam said. “I need him to talk. Hold him for me.”
Rupert tried to grab me by the hair but it was too short. So then he pushed his hands against my forehead. I let my eyes loll open but didn’t focus them.
“Who are you?” Beam asked. He was wearing a yellow suit. The brightness of the fabric hurt my eyes. “Who are you?”
“Arlen,” I said. “Arlen Coleman.” I let my head fall again. I almost slipped down to the floor but Rupert grabbed me and set me straight.
At least I knew that I wasn’t tied up. I was free. Free to die any way I pleased.
“Why were you asking about Roman and Holland Gasteau in my club, Mr. Coleman?”
I let my eyes settle on Beam for just one moment. I wasn’t looking at him though. I wanted to see where I was.
It was a toolshed. Hoes, shovels, and spades lay up against the walls. A bare bulb hung down on a cord from the ceiling. My nostrils opened up to take in the scents of earth and fertilizer.
There was a better than even chance that I’d die in that hut.
“Roman told me he had a job for me.”
“What kind of job?”
“He didn’t say. Just that it might get a li’l rough. But I told him I like it like that.”
“Rough how?” Beam asked.
“He didn’t say.” I feigned another swoon.
Beam slapped me that time. “Wake up!”
I shook my head and brought my hands to my eyes.
“Where are you from, Mr. Coleman?” Beam said loudly.
“San Diego, San Diego.”
“And what did you do down there?”
“Boostin’ mainly.” I let my head sag down to my knees. I moaned with pain that I actually felt.
“You should have stayed down south, Mr. Coleman,” Beam said. It was a final sentence. He was through asking questions.
I should have been thinking of a way to talk myself out of there. I should have told my true story, all of it. About Sojourner Truth and Mrs. Turner and Sergeant Sanchez. But I was silent — dumb. All I could think about was Mouse.
Mouse who saw everything and anything as the means to his survival. The dirt on the ground, his bodily functions. Thinking about Mouse and his drive to survive flowed through me like molten steel. I stood straight up and yelled, “What the fuck’s goin’ on here!” I reached for Beam, not expecting to grab him. I wilted before Rupert’s fist reached me, throwing myself backwards as the punch connected. I had hoped to hit the plank wall hard enough to go through it but when that didn’t happen I fell, seemingly senseless, to the ground.
Rupert kicked me once in the back but stopped after that.
“Go get the car,” Beam said.
It would have been grand if I could have waited for Beam to say, “Okay, kill him now,” as my cue to move. But that only happens on the TV, where they also play a musical warning before you die.
There was no time for me to get to my feet. I grabbed a straight-bladed spade by the metal end and swung it around without looking. The groan I heard satisfied me more than I can say. I rose quickly to my knees and threw the spade, handle first, like a spear at Beam’s head. Li’l Joe was coming at me with one hand down at his crotch. Rising on my left foot, I drove the best right uppercut of my life under his chin.
Beam was half the way down to the floor but he was reaching for something in his pocket. Behind him was my freedom. I ran right into the yellow-clad gangster, knocking him on his back and stomping over his body as I made it to the door.
I came outside near the White Chantilly Club. Running past the young valets, I made it through the front gate. I went down the first driveway across the street and started my evasive maneuvers. I climbed over one fence after another. I landed in a swimming pool. I ran into a guard dog in one yard. He was going to do me some serious harm, or so he thought. But I tore out a dwarf palm frond and whipped it through the air yelling, “Lunatic!” as I ran at him. He tucked his tail and wailed back to whatever kennel he could find.
Lights came on in the houses I left behind but I kept moving through the dark wet leaves and silent yards ahead.
By the time I was back in civilization I was wet, with torn clothes and torn skin. I was breathing hard and the cold of evening went all the way through to my bones.
The streets were empty but I hurried along just the same. Any policeman would arrest a man like me on the street. I went down Whitley, past Los Feliz, and on to Hollywood. There I found a discreet phone booth at the side of a newspaper and magazine stand.
The number was stored in my finger, I guess, I hadn’t called it in over two years.
“Hello?” He didn’t sound as if he’d been asleep.
“John?”
“Easy? What’s wrong?”
“You got to come get me, man,” I said.
“Where are you?”
27
Half an hour later John drove by with the door already open. I ducked in and he handed me a half pint of bourbon. I took a hit of it before I remembered that I’d quit drinking. I held the bottle away from my face and thought about tossing it out of the window.
Instead I took another long draft.
Then I threw it.
“What you do that for?” John asked.
“Taste too good to me, man. Too good.” I felt the heat of the whiskey doing its work on my body. So many things I had missed.
While John drove I couldn’t bring myself to talk. He didn’t press me.