He walked up to Raymond and said, “This what you wanted?”
Mouse turned to me and asked, “This the car you lookin’ for, Easy?”
“Is it the one stolen from a white man bein’ beat on the second day of the riots?”
Mouse looked at the ugly man.
“Yeah,” the man said.
“Then that’s the car.”
“You got the papers, Nate?” Raymond asked Loverboy.
“Glove compartment.”
“Did you see what happened that night?” I asked then.
“Who you, mothahfuckah?” Nate replied.
“All you need to do is answer him,” Raymond said. “You see him standin’ here with me, don’t you?”
“Crazy motherfuckin’ white man drivin’ around lookin’ out the window with people burnin’ and breakin’ and throwin’ rocks,” Nate said. “They grabbed and beat him good. Tore his clothes all up. He ran away screamin’ like a baby. Shit.”
“You see where he went to?” I asked.
“Naw, man. I just wanted the car. You lucky I still got it. We so backed up right now that we couldn’t chop it till Monday.”
Mouse flashed his eyes at me and I shrugged.
“Thanks, Nate,” Mouse said in dismissal.
“What about my money?” the car thief asked.
“You do want trouble, don’t you, son?” Mouse said.
While Loverboy was screwing up the courage to die I opened the car door and took whatever papers there were in the glove compartment. I made a quick search under the front and back seats but found nothing.
I took the keys from the ignition and opened the trunk. That was empty too.
“You can keep the car, man,” I said. “All I need is this here.”
I returned the keys to Loverboy. He took them from me and then turned to Mouse.
“Is that all?”
“Okay,” my friend, the self-appointed sovereign of Watts, said.
We all stood there for a moment, wondering what the exact etiquette was in a situation like that. Was somebody supposed to say thank you or even good-bye?
Nate made a quick move for the car.
When he drove off, Mouse asked me, “Even, Easy?”
“Maybe right now but I believe I’ll be in your debt before it’s all through.”
RAYMOND DROVE ME home. We had a good time on the way, chatting about people we knew. It wasn’t until he stopped at the curb in front of my house that I remembered my message.
“I ran into Benita Flag at Cox Bar,” I said.
“You did?”
“Yeah. Didn’t Ginny tell you?”
“Ginny don’t talk to me about women too much.”
“Benita was worried about you.”
“I bet she was.”
It was almost three and I wasn’t Benita’s lawyer, so I opened my door.
“What you do about your girlfriends, Ease?”
“Say what?”
“Your girlfriends,” he repeated. “When they get all cow-eyed and hungry for you.”
Juanda popped into my mind but I pushed her away.
“I don’t have any girlfriends, Ray. It’s just me and Bonnie, that’s all.”
“You don’t get you no pussy on the side?”
“Not lately.”
“I cain’t live without it. I gots to have me a little taste every now and then. But you know some’a these girls don’t hear it when you tell ’em you married and shit. I mean they say okay but then they wanna know how you could love ’em like that and then not move in.”
I didn’t even smile. This was a true moral conflict for my friend. His understanding of anyone outside of himself was severely limited. He didn’t know why Benita didn’t understand him, so he cut her off. And the mere fact that she would mention him to me set him on a dark path.
“I’ll talk to her, Ray,” I said.
“You will?”
“Oh yeah. I’ll explain your predicament. She’ll understand.”
“You know, you all right, Easy,” he said. “You all right.”
He left me standing in the warm night air appreciating the silence. There I was, a middle-aged city employee. The only thing I should have had on my mind was my bed and my children, my mortgage, and the woman I loved. All of that was waiting for me in the house.
But instead of heeding that domestic call I went to my car, turned over the engine, and drove off.
18
There was a chain drawn to block the driveway to the Miller Neurological Sanatorium. I had to park my car on the street and walk to the door. I was looking for the night bell when a flashlight shone on the side of my head.
“Hold it,” a voice said.
It was a man’s voice, a white man, probably over sixty, who was not born in the South. There was confidence in the tone but not the threatening kind of self-assurance that comes with holding a gun. This voice expressed the expectation of being obeyed because that was his place in life.
I turned toward the dazzling light and said, “Yes?”
“Clinic’s closed.”
“My name’s Easy Rawlins. I’m on a special visitors list.”
“Prove it.”
“Prove what? That I’m on the list or that I’m Easy Rawlins?”
The question flummoxed the late-night security guard. He sputtered and then used a key on the door to reception.
“Go on,” he told me.
I went in and he came after, flipping the light switch as he did.
I was halfway to the swinging door when he said “Hold it” again.
I swiveled on my heel, seeing the man for the first time, at least with my eyes. He was short and white-haired, in his sixties and unarmed except for that large flashlight. I chided myself for believing in my own deductions. Seeing that I was right about that guard might lull me into thinking that I could see in the dark. And all that meant was that one day I’d make a mistake, fall into a pit, and die.
“What?” I asked the security guard.
“I need to see some identification.”
I took out my wallet and produced my driver’s license. He scrutinized the document as if looking for counterfeits.
“What’s your business here?” he asked.
I snatched my license from his hands and turned away. As I went through the swinging door he cried, “Hey you,” but I kept on going.
There was no evidence that he was treating me like that because of my race. He was just a guard taking his job a little too seriously. But I had been asked those questions too many times in my life to shrug off the anger they raised in my heart. If I found myself in a situation where I could ignore a white man in authority I would, even though I might have been wrong.
As I quick-marched down the hall I could hear the guard’s slower steps behind me. He wasn’t about to let me get away with disregarding his authority.
I got to H-12 and opened the door without knocking. Geneva Landry was sitting up in her bed and a young black woman sat in the chair. A lamp glowed on a table in the corner, giving the white hospital room the feeling of home.
“Tommy, what’s going on?” a woman’s voice asked from down the hall behind me.
“An intruder, Nurse Brown,” the security guard said from the opposite end.
“Are you Tina Monroe?” I asked the young black woman sitting in the chair.
“Yes I am. And who are you?”
“I’m Easy Rawlins. I think Marianne Plump gave you my number.”
At that moment a huge white woman in a nurse’s uniform entered the room.
“If you are not off of these premises in one minute I will call the police.” There was a ragged timbre to her voice.
The little speech seemed rehearsed. I supposed that she’d sat around for many nights wondering what she could say to convince a trespasser to leave.
“Hello, Mr. Rawlins,” Geneva Landry said. She had bags under her eyes and her words were a little slurred.