Junior had a cigarette between his lips. He smoked the cheapest, foulest brand that they made in Mexico—Zapatas. I guess that he was finished smoking it because he let it fall to the floor. It just lay on the oak floor, smoldering and burning a black patch in the wood. The floor around Junior's chair had dozens of burns in it. He was a filthy man who didn't give a damn about anything.
"Ain't seen ya 'round much, Ease. Where ya been?"
"Workin', workin', day and night for Champion, and then they let me go."
"Fired?" There was a hint of a smile on his lips.
"On my ass."
"Shit. Sorry t'hear it. They got layoffs?"
"Naw, man. It's just that the boss ain't happy if you just do your job. He need a big smack on his butt too."
"I hear ya."
"Just this past Monday I finished a shift and I was so tired I couldn't even walk straight…"
"Uh-huh," Junior chimed in to keep the story going.
"… and the boss come up and say that he need me for an extra hour. Well I told him that I was sorry but I had a date. And I did too, with my bed."
Junior got a kick out of that.
"And he got the nerve to tell me that my people have to learn to give a little extra if we wanna advance."
"He said that?"
"Yeah." I felt the heat of my anger returning.
"And what is he?"
"Italian boy, I think his parents the ones come over."
"Man! So what you say?"
"I told him that my people been givin' a little extra since before Italy was even a country. 'Cause you know Italy ain't even been around that long."
"Yeah," Junior said. But I could see that he didn't know what I was talking about. "So what happened then?"
"He just told me to go on home and not to bother coming back. He said that he needed people who were willing to work. So I left."
"Man!" Junior shook his head. "They do it to ya every time."
"That's right. You want a beer, Junior?"
"Yeah." He frowned. "But can you buy it with no job and all?"
"I can always buy a couple'a beers."
"Well then, I can always drink'em."
I went over to the bar and ordered two ales. It looked like half of Houston was there. Most tables had five or six people. People were shouting and talking, kissing and laughing. John's place felt good after a hard day's work. It wasn't quite legal but there was nothing wrong with it either. Big names in Negro music came there because they knew John in the old days when he gave them work and didn't skimp on the paycheck. There must've been over two hundred regulars that frequented John's and we all knew each other, so it made a good place for business as well as a good time.
Alphonso Jenkins was there in his black silk shirt and his foot-high pompadour hairdo. Jockamo Johanas was there too. He was wearing a wooly brown suit and bright blue shoes. Skinny Rita Cook was there with five men hanging around her table. I never did understand how an ugly, skinny woman like that attracted so many men. I once asked her how she did it and she said, in her high whiny voice, "Well, ya know, Easy, it's only half the mens is int'rested in how a girl look. Most'a your colored mens is lookin' for a woman love'em so hard that they fo'gets how hard it is t'make it through the day."
I noticed Frank Green at the bar. We called him Knifehand because he was so fast to pull a knife that it seemed he always had one in his hand. I stayed away from Frank because he was a gangster. He hijacked liquor trucks and cigarette shipments all over California, and Nevada too. He was serious about everything and just about ready to cut any man he met.
I noted that Frank was wearing all dark clothes. In Frank's line of business that meant he was about to go out to work—hijacking or worse.
The room was so crowded that there was barely any space to dance, but there were a dozen or so couples wrestling out there between the tables.
I carried the two mugs of ale back to the entrance and handed Junior his. One of the few ways I know to make a foul-tempered field hand happy is to feed him some ale and let him tell a few tall tales. So I sat back and sipped while Junior told me about the goings-on at John's for the previous week or so. He told me the story about Howard Green again. When he told it he added that Green had been doing some illegal work for his employers and, Junior thought, "It's them white men kilt'im."
Junior liked to make up any old wild story, I knew that, but there were too many white people turning up for me to feel at ease.
"Who was he workin' for?" I asked.
"You know that dude dropped outta the mayor's race?"
"Matthew Teran?"
Teran had a good chance at winning the mayor's race in L.A. but he'd just withdrawn his name a few weeks before. Nobody knew why.
"Yeah, that's him. You know all them politicians is just robbers. Why I remember when they first elected Huey Long, down in Louisiana—"
"How long Lips gonna be here?" I asked, to cut him off.
"Week or so." Junior didn't care what he talked about. "They bring back some mem'ries, don't they. Shit, they was playin' that night Mouse pulled me off your ass."
"Thas right," I said. I can still feel Junior's foot in my kidney when I turn the wrong way.
"I should'a thanked'im for that. You know I was so drunk an' so mad that I might'a kilt you, Easy. And then I'd still be on the chain gang."
That was the first real smile he showed since I'd been with him. Junior was missing two teeth from the lower row and one upper.
"What ever happened to Mouse?" he asked, almost wistfully.
"I don't know. Today's the first time I even thought about him in years."
"He still down there in Houston?"
"Last I heard. He married to EttaMae."
"What's he doin' when you seen'im last?"
"Been so long I don't even remember," I lied.
Junior grinned. "I remember when he killed Joe T., you know the pimp? I mean Joe had blood comin' from everywhere an' Mouse had on this light blue suit. Not a spot on it! You know that's why the cops didn't take Mouse in, they didn't even think he could'a done it 'cause he was too clean."
I was remembering the last time I had seen Raymond Alexander, and it wasn't something to make me laugh.
I hadn't seen Mouse in four years when we ran into each other one night, outside of Myrtle's saloon, in Houston's Fifth Ward. He was wearing a plum-colored suit and a felt brown derby. I was still wearing army green.
"'S'appenin', Easy?" he asked, looking up at me. Mouse was a small, rodent-faced man.
"Not much," I answered. "You look jus' 'bout the same." Mouse flashed his gold-rimmed teeth at me. "Ain't so bad. I got the streets tame by now."
We smiled at each other and slapped backs. Mouse bought me a drink in Myrtle's and I bought him another. We traded back and forth like that until Myrtle locked us in and went up to bed. She said, "Leave the money fo' what you'all drink under the counter. Do' lock itself on the way out."
"'Member that shit wit' my stepdaddy, Ease?" Mouse asked when we were alone.
"Yeah," I said softly. It was early morning and empty in the bar but I still looked around the room; murder should never be discussed out loud, but Mouse didn't know it. He had killed his stepfather five years earlier and blamed it on another man. But if the law ever found out the true circumstances he'd have been hanging in a week.
"His real son, Navrochet, come lookin' fo' me last year. He din't think that boy Clifton done it even though the law said he did." Mouse poured a drink and knocked it back. Then he poured another one. "You get any white pussy in the war?" he asked.
"All they got is white girls. What you think?"
Mouse grinned and sat back, rubbing his crotch. "Shit!" he said, "that might be worf a couple'a potshots, huh?" And he slapped my knee like in the old days when we were partners, before the war.
We were drinking for an hour before he got back to Navrochet. Mouse said, "Man come down here, right in this saloon, and come up on me wit' his high boots on. You know I had t'look straight up t'see that boy. He had on a nice suit wit' them boots, so I jus' slipped down my zipper when he walk in. He say he wanna talk. He say les step outside. And I go. You might call me a fool but I go. And the minute I get out there and turn around he got a pistol pointed at my fo'head. Can you imagine that? So I play like I'm scared. Then ole Navro wanna know where he could fine you …"