“Back off, Easy,” John warned. “You got them pamphlets. We told you where he’s been hangin’ out.”
“Suppose he ain’t there? Suppose I cain’t get in there? Suppose he stayin’ wit’ this cousin an’ sumpin’s wrong? You cain’t ask me to do this an’ not tell me nuthin’.”
Alva walked out again. She might have been angry but I didn’t care.
“Easy, you don’t know everything,” John said. “Alva’s had a hard time, and this thing with Brawly really hurts her. It’s only been the last few years that they been close again.”
“I can’t help if you wanna tie me up from the git-go, man.”
“Maybe I shouldn’ta called you then.” It was a dismissal.
Alva had returned, again.
“John,” she said. “He’s right. If I want his help, I have to give him what he needs.”
Saying that, she handed me a scrap of torn paper and an old photograph of a six- or seven-year-old child. The boy’s hair was cut close to the scalp. He was burly and had heavy features, which made him seem pensive in spite of his smile.
“What’s this?”
“It’s a picture of Brawly and Isolda Moore’s phone number and address.”
“This Isolda’s your cousin?”
The thought was so distasteful to Alva that she could only nod.
“I thought you said that she lived in Riverside?”
“She moved to L.A. a few years ago. She sent Brawly a card with her number, but he never called it.”
“Now what about this picture?”
“What about it?” she asked.
“You said that Brawly’s twenty-three.”
“That’s the only picture I have. But it’s him. You’ll see.”
“She’s right about that, Easy,” John said. “Brawly looks exactly the same today. Only he’s bigger.”
“You know any place that he might hang out just for fun?” I asked.
“Brawly like to eat,” John said. “All you got to do is look for the biggest feed bag. He likes Hambones quite a bit. That’s right down the block from them thugs he’s wit’.”
“Find him for me, Mr. Rawlins,” Alva said. “I know I haven’t been kind to you and that you don’t have any reason to want to help me. I’m sorry that I didn’t treat you right before, but from now on my door will always be open to you.”
That open door meant more than any money John could offer me. In country terms it was worth the host’s weight in gold. If she was willing to pay such a high price, I wondered what the cost might be.
— 5 —
Not ten words passed between John and me on the ride back to the site. He was naturally a quiet man, but this silence was sullen and heavy. There was something else on his mind. But whatever it was, he wasn’t sharing it with me.
When I was driving off I could hear him shouting orders at the ex-burglars.
The fever was still burning in me. For the first time I thought that I might have had some kind of flu. I went down three blocks of dirt road to the first paved street. There I pulled over to the curb to catch my breath. The February air was chilly and the sky was still blue. I was like a child, so excited that it was hard to concentrate on anything but sensations.
I knew that I had to calm down. I had to think. John called on me because he knew that I had been among desperate men my whole life. I could see when the blow was coming. But I couldn’t see anything if I didn’t relax.
I lit up a cigarette and took a deep draw. The smoke coiling around my dashboard brought on the cool resolve of the snake it resembled.
The pamphlet was mimeographed on newsprint, folded and stapled by hand. The Urban Revolutionary Party was a cultural group, it said, that sought the restitution and recognition of the builders of our world — African men and women. They didn’t believe in slave laws, that is to say, any laws imposed on black men by whites, just as they didn’t accept forced military service or white political leadership. They rejected the white man’s notion of history, even the history of Europe. But mostly they seemed perturbed about taxes as they applied to social needs and services; the distribution of wealth, the blurred purple words explained, as it applies to our labor, and the dreams that we hardly dare to imagine, is woefully inadequate.
I’d read similar ideas before. I had read a lot in my time. Most of it white man’s fictions and his histories, too. I was a sucker for history.
A car drove up and parked while I was remembering what I’d read about the plebes of ancient Rome. Two car doors slammed one after the other, but I was busy wondering whether that ancient oppressed people had some kind of pamphlets, or was it all word of mouth?
But when I heard “Step out of the car,” I was dragged back to the present.
The policemen had flanked my Pontiac. One of them had his hand on his holster and the other actually had his pistol drawn. My hands rose quickly like the wings of a flightless bird when frightened by a sudden sound.
“No problem, Officers,” I said.
“Use your left hand to open the door,” the closer cop commanded. He was young — they both were, pale boys with guns among men who had been living on a diet of pamphlets and poverty.
I did what I was told, then stepped out of the car cautiously and slow. My hands stayed at shoulder level.
The difference between the cops was that one was a dark brunet and the other was black-haired. They were both about my height, just over six feet. The black-haired one looked into my open door as the other one tried to spin me around and push me up against the car. I say tried because even though I had reached my forty-fourth year, I was still sturdy.
But I turned anyway and put my hands on the roof. He holstered his gun and moved up close behind me, sliding his hands in my front pockets. After feeling around my thighs for a moment, he slapped my back pockets. I felt like a woman being groped. It wasn’t pleasant. But the worst thing about it was his breath. It was so rank that I became nauseous. I tried to breathe through my mouth but even then I could taste the disease blowing out of his lungs.
When he stepped back I almost thanked him.
“Open the trunk,” he said.
“Why?”
“What?”
“Listen, man.” The fever had gripped me again. “I was just sittin’ there, readin’ my paper. I’m parked legally. Why you wanna roust me?”
His reply was to pull out his billy club.
A voice in my head said, “Kill ’im,” and I went cold inside.
“The key is in the ignition,” I explained.
The brown-haired cop slid in and took the key. It was awkward for him because he had his club out, too.
They made me watch while they opened up the trunk. All they found was a flat spare tire that I had been meaning to fix and a tool-box full of tools.
The black-haired cop slammed the trunk shut.
Then his partner said, “There’s been some theft and vandalism around the construction out here. We’re just keeping an eye on things.”
I made a mental note to ask Jewelle what was really going on.
When i got to Isolda Moore’s house, I parked way down the block because of those cops. I was upset with myself for not paying attention. If I was going to be in the streets again, I had to be better prepared than that.
Alva’s cousin lived on Harcourt Avenue, near Rimpau. It was one of those working-class L.A. fantasy homes. Powder blue, small and rounded. There was hardly a straight line to the place. The eaves of the roof were cut in the form of waves. Even the window frames were irregular and absent of straight lines. The front door was surrounded by a waist-high turret of white stucco.
As I pushed the whitewashed gate open I wondered if Isolda would be as beautiful as her cousin. Maybe Brawly would be sitting at her kitchen table, eating ribs and blowing off steam about some argument that he’d had with Alva or John.