“What’s that?”
“Boy name’a Harold. He cranky and mean and been livin’ in the street since he lost his job in nineteen fifty-six.”
“Where?”
“He been stayin’ at a mission over on Imperial Highway. They serve two meals a day there and let people stay as long as they don’t cause no trouble.”
“Did you get Harold’s last name?”
“Brown,” Jackson said. “Harold Brown.”
I held my breath. My luck was incredible. All I had to do was sit at my desk and whatever I wanted—sex or love or information—just poured in over my phone and through the door.
“I don’t get it, Jackson. Where’d you find all’a this?”
“Axed around, man. Axed around. You know, Easy, you takin’ care’a me. I sure in hell better make sure that you doin’ fine.”
“Who did you ask?”
“I got to keep my secrets now, Ease.”
“This is no time to play with me, Jackson.”
“There’s a sister work for the Congress of Negro Baptist Churches used to like me some,” he said. “I called and asked her if she knew how I could get a line on a man that’s homeless. I told her that his son just died. You know when you tell a woman about the death of a man’s son she’s all upset. Anyway, she give me a list of missions and I just called until I found the man meet your needs.”
“They just told you who he was?”
“I reeled out a story, Easy. You not the only one can do that. I told ’em that a man from their place, a big boy named Harold, had found my wallet and give it back to me wit’ all the money in it. I said that I wanted to reward him. You know wit’ a success story like that they was ready to let me spend a night with one’a their sisters.”
I could almost hear his grin.
“You a good man, Jackson,” I said. “You’re a dog but you’re a good man.”
36
If the Watts Community Men’s Shelter was on public school grounds it would have been called a gymnasium. It was a large empty space like an airplane hangar with pitted pine floors. The walls were thirty feet high and the only windows lined the ceiling. On one side there were rows of canvas cots and on the other, rows of tables with benches along them. There must have been five dozen men in the room. The smell of mayonnaise and body odor was overwhelming.
“Can I help you?” a young man asked.
He was black but his hair was straight, not straightened. His words were clear and well articulated but there was a whisper of Spanish somewhere.
“I’m lookin’ for Harold Brown,” I said.
The young man, who was slender and well groomed, hesitated. I knew then that I was going to have trouble finding my quarry.
“This isn’t a hotel, sir,” he said. “People come here for food and shelter. There’s no entertaining here.”
“It’s very important that I see Harold Brown,” I said. “Extremely important.”
“A lacerated foot or a chest infection,” he said. “Those are the things important around here. A good night’s sleep is what we strive for.”
I looked out over the crowd of brown and black men. Some of them were probably made homeless by the riots but the majority were permanent inhabitants of the streets of L.A., San Diego, San Francisco, and every other stop along the rails. Their clothes, no matter the original color, mostly tended toward gray and their shoulders stooped under the almost metaphorical weight of poverty.
“So you not gonna help me?” I asked the prissy gatekeeper.
“If you needed a place to stay I would,” he said.
But it was too late for that.
I took two steps past his desk.
“Sir,” he said, rising to his feet.
I ignored him, walking further toward the gang of lost souls.
“Bernard, Teddy,” the young man said.
To my left I saw two brawny black men straighten up. They wore makeshift uniforms of yellow T-shirts and black slacks.
They were large and young but still I contemplated going up against them. Maybe if they were closer I would have thrown myself into it. But they were ten paces away. By the time they’d taken six steps my common sense kicked in.
“All right,” I said to one. “I’m goin’.”
I walked out of the front door onto Imperial Highway. I was mad at myself. If somebody told Harold I was looking for him he’d run and I might never find him again.
There was a phone booth across the street. I decided to call Suggs and wait at the entrance hoping that there wasn’t a back exit that Harold would decide to use. For a moment I thought about calling Raymond, to get him to guard the back door. But I knew better than to get the cops and Mouse working on the same job. If he decided to kill Harold he might take a few policemen along with him.
“Hey, mister,” someone said. “Mister.”
He was a small man. Smaller than Jackson Blue and lighter skinned than Mouse. He was young and hunched over. He wore stained blue coveralls and yellow rubber flip-flops on bare feet that a man of sixty could have called his own.
“What?”
“You lookin’ for Harold Brown?”
“Uh-huh. You know him?”
“Yes sir. I sure do.”
“I need to talk to Harold. Could you get me to him?” I asked. I wanted Harold on my own. I wanted to mess him up before giving him to the cops. I wanted to kick him when he was down.
“I could tell him that I had some wine and that he should meet me in the alley over on that side of the mission,” the little man suggested.
He pointed and I took out a five-dollar bill. I folded the note and then tore it in half along the crease.
“Here’s half’a what it’s worth to me,” I said. “Bring Harold over there and I’ll give you the rest.”
The creepy little man took the scrap of money and scuttled away, his heels slapping against yellow rubber. As he slipped into the front door of the mission I moved toward the entrance of the alley on the left side of the building.
I lit up a cigarette and stared at the city from that particular point of view.
Los Angeles ghettos were different from any other poor black neighborhood I had ever seen. The avenues and boulevards were wide and well paved. Even the poorest streets had houses with lawns and running water to keep the grass green. There were palm trees on almost every block and the residential sidewalks were lined with private cars. Every house had electricity to see by and natural gas to cook with. There were televisions, radios, washing machines, and dryers in houses up and down the street.
Poverty took on a new class in L.A. Anyone looking in from the outside might think that this was a vibrant economic community. But the people there were still penned in, excluded, underrepresented in everything from Congress to the movie screens, from country clubs to colleges.
But there was something else different. The riots were beginning to wear off. Life was becoming what was to become normal after all of the stores had been burned down. People were going to work. The police and National Guard were less present.
The black revolutionary scattershot aimed at overthrowing the oppression of white America was over, or at least it seemed to be. People were talking and laughing on street corners. White businessmen, at least a few, were returning to their stores.
“Hey you!” someone called.
I turned and saw the scrawny man who had promised to bring Harold. He was far down in the alley next to a big green Dumpster.
I walked toward him, unafraid. I was sure that he’d have cooked up some lie about how he tried to find Harold but could not. He knew that the good Mr. Brown would be back later, though, and if I’d just give him the other half of that five-spot he’d be happy to arrange a meeting.
I had been in the street longer than I’d lived in any house. I knew how it worked. There was a natural order to the way things happened. I didn’t mind playing along.
But as I approached my informant he was casting glances to his left into a recess between buildings. My pace slowed slightly. The crafty little man might have seen me as a mark, someone who could be mugged. The smart thing to do would have been to turn around. But I was too angry for that. Bums didn’t roll citizens, I told myself. They begged maybe or cajoled but they didn’t mug everyday people.