"You stink," West said to him under her breath as she smiled at their visitor.
"It's not me," Brazil said.
"Yes it is." To their visitor, she added, "What you doing out here?"
He gestured, getting more excited as he told the nice police lady everything he'd been up to, while she smiled and clearly enjoyed hearing about it. Her partner needed to lighten up a little.
Boy, as he had always been called, knew when cops were brand new. Boy could tell by how tense they got, by the look on their faces, and this always invited Boy to have a little fun with them. He stared at Brazil, and gave him his gummy, gaping grin, as if he were some exotic creature new to the planet. When Boy poked the rookie, the rookie flinched. This excited Boy more than ever, and he got louder, dancing around, poking the rookie again. West laughed, winking at her ride-along.
"Uh oh," she said.
"I think he's sweet on you."
She finally rolled up the window, and by now Brazil felt completely soiled. He had beer on his uniform and had been mauled by someone with no teeth who spent his life inside Dumpsters. Brazil thought he might throw up. He was indignant and hurt as West laughed and drove off, lighting a cigarette. Not only had she not prevented his degradation, she had made it happen and was savoring it. He fumed in silence as West headed out on West Boulevard, toward the airport.
She cut over on the Billy Graham Parkway, wondering what it would be like to have a major highway named after her. She wasn't sure she would appreciate cars and trucks rolling over her day and night, leaving ratty recaps and skid marks, while drivers made obscene comments to other drivers, and gave them the finger, and pulled out guns. There was nothing Christian about a road, the more West thought about it, unless it was used in Biblical analogies, such as the road to hell and what it was paved with. The more she contemplated all this as she drove, the sorrier she felt for the Reverend Billy Graham, who had been born in Charlotte, in a house that against his will had been appropriated by a nearby religious theme park.
Brazil had no idea where they were going, except it was not where the action was, and it was apparent West had no intention of taking him someplace where he could clean up. He was riveted to the scanner, and things were popping in Charlie Two on Central Avenue. So why were they heading in the opposite direction on this parkway? He remembered his mother watching Billy Graham on TV all the time, no matter what else was on or what Brazil might want to see. He wondered how hard it might be to get a quote from the famous evangelist, maybe inquire about the Reverend Graham's views on crime, one of these days.
"Where are we going?" Brazil asked as they turned off on Boyer toward Wilkinson Boulevard again.
This was definitely the sinful strip, but West did not stay on it long. She sped past Greenbriar Industrial Park and turned left on Alleghany Street, heading into Westerly Hills, a nothing neighborhood near Harding High School. Brazil's mood got worse. He suspected West was up to her old tricks, and it not only reminded him that she really did not want to be out here with him, but hinted rather strongly that he had no business on police calls and would not be on many, if she had her way about it.
"Any unit in the area of the twenty-five hundred block of Westerly Hills Drive," the scanner shattered West's peace of mind.
"Suspicious subjects in the church parking lot."
"Shit," West said, speeding up.
What lousy luck. They were in Westerly Hills on Westerly Hills Drive, The Jesus Christ Is Lord Glorious United Church of the Living God right in front of them. The small white frame church was Pentecostal, and deserted this night, not one car in the parking lot when West turned in. But there definitely were subjects loitering, half a dozen young males with their mother, who was full of herself and feisty in a wheelchair. All stared hatefully at the cop car. Not real sure what to make of the situation, West ordered Brazil to stay put, as both their doors opened and both climbed out.
"We got a call of…" West started to say to Mama.
"Just passing through," her oldest son, Rudof, volunteered.
Mama gave Rudof a killing look, holding his eyes.
"You don't got to answer to no one!" she snapped at him.
"You hear me? Not to no one!"
Rudof looked down, his pants about to fall off, and red boxer shorts showing. He was tired of being dissed by his mama and hassled by the police. What had he done? Nothing. Just walking home from the E-Z mart because she needed cigarettes, all of them going with her, taking a nice walk and cutting through the church parking lot. What was so wrong with that?
"We didn't do nothing," Rudof folded his arms and said to the cops.
Brazil knew a fight was coming, just like he could smell a storm before the front moved in. His body tensed as he scanned the small, violent crowd standing restlessly in the dark. Mama wheeled closer to West. Mama had something on her mind she'd been wanting to deliver for a long time, and now was as good an opportunity as any. All her children would hear, and these two police didn't look like they would hurt anybody unnecessarily.
"We just got here," Mama said to West.
"We were just coming home, walking like anybody else. I'm tired of you people prosecuting us."
"Nobody is…" West tried again.
"Oh yes. Oh yes, uh huh, you are." Mama got louder and angrier.
"This is a free country! We was white, you think anybody would've called the police?"
"You have a good point," West reasonably replied.
Mama was amazed. Her children were baffled. For a white lady cop to admit such a thing was unheard of and miraculous.
"So you're agreeing that you were called because we're black," Mama wanted to make sure.
"That would be my guess, and it absolutely isn't fair. But I didn't know you were black when the call came over the radio," West went on in the same calm but sure tone.
"We didn't respond because we thought you were black, white, Asian, or anything. We responded because it's our job, and we wanted to make sure everything was all right."
Mama tried to be hateful as she wheeled on her way, her brood in her wake. But she was wavering. She felt like she might cry and didn't know why. The police got back in their shiny new car and drove away.
"Rudof, pull up your pants, son," Mama complained.
"You gonna trip and break your neck. Same with you, Joshua. I swear." She wheeled ahead in the night, in the direction of their poor apartment.
Brazil and West were quiet as they got back on Wilkinson Boulevard. He was thinking about what she'd said to that family. West had said we several times, when most people would have said /, as if Brazil wasn't there. It felt really good when she included him, and he was touched by her gentleness with that wounded, hateful family. Brazil wanted to say something to West, to let her know, to somehow show his appreciation. But he was oddly tongue-tied again, just as he had been with Hammer.
West headed back into the city, thinking, and wondering why her ride-along was so quiet. Maybe he was angry with her for avoiding calls, or trying to avoid them, at any rate. She felt bad. How would she like it were the roles reversed? It wasn't very kind, and he had every right to resent her for it. West was totally ashamed of herself.
She turned up the scanner, and picked up the mike.
'700," she said.
'700," the dispatcher came back.
"I'm ten-eight."
Brazil couldn't believe it. West had just told the radio that she was in service, meaning she wanted to take calls like everyone else on the street. The two of them would actually be assigned situations. They were available for trouble. This wasn't long in coming. Their first call was to Our Lady of Consolation Catholic Church.
"Check for loud music coming from the club in the shopping center across the street," came the instruction over the air.