Right as Rain

Tonio watched the brother cross the room, mumbling to himself, sloshing through the deep puddles without bothering to pick up his feet, heading for the stairs. He wasn't no cop. No cop would come in this motherfucker right here alone. The man wanted somethin', thought Tonio. Had to want it bad to come into a place like this, too.

'Kent State,' said Strange, 'Jackson State…'

Strange neared a young man at the bottom of the stairs who was holding an automatic pistol at his side. The young man looked him over as he passed, and Strange slowly went up the exposed steps. He mumbled the spoken verse to 'H2Ogate Blues' under his breath; he knew the entire piece by heart, and reciting it allowed him to ramble on without having to think about what he would say, and it calmed his nerves.

'The chaining and gagging of Bobby Seale,' said Strange. 'Someone tell these Maryland governors to be for real!'

He was upstairs in a hall and followed the sounds of muted chatter and activity to a bathroom facility with open stalls. A man yelled something in his direction, and he kept walking, taking measured breaths through his mouth, steeling himself against the stench. Candles illuminated the stalls. The floor was slick with excrement and vomit. He came to the last stall, which was occupied by a man in a sweater, the cuffs of which completely covered his hands. The man, a skeleton covered in skin, was smiling at Strange, and Strange turned around and headed back the way he'd come. There was nothing here, no one to talk to or see, nothing at all.

The brother was back in the main room, heading toward the hole he'd come through, pigeons fluttering above his head. Walking slow but not as slow as before, Tonio Morris thinking, he didn't find nothin', and now he's fixin' to get out quick.

'Psst,' said Tonio, his face half out of the shadows of his room. 'Got what you're lookin' for, brother.'

The man slowed his pace but he didn't stop or turn his head.

'Got information for you, man.' Tonio wiggled his index finger, keeping his voice low. 'Come on over here and get it, brother. Ain't gonna hurt you none to find out. Come on.'

Strange turned and regarded a sick little man standing in the open doorway of a black room. The man wore a filthy gray sweatshirt, and his trousers were held up loosely with a length of rope. His shoes were split completely, separated from the uppers at the soles.

Strange walked toward the man, stopping beside a large puddle by an I beam six feet from the doorway. The I beam blocked the sight line of the young man standing by the stairs. Strange stared at the skinny man's face; his eyes were milky and glaucomic. Over the years he'd seen this death mask many times on the faces of those who were ready to pass, when he visited his mother at the home.

'What do you want?' said Strange, keeping his voice low.

'What I want? To get high. Higher than a motherfucker, man, but I need money for that. You got any money?'

Strange didn't answer.

'Suck your dick for ten dollars,' said Morris. 'Shit, I'll suck that motherfucker good for five.'

Strange turned his head and looked back toward the hole in the wall.

'Hold up, man,' said Morris. 'The name is Tonio.'

'I ask you your name?'

'You lookin' for somethin', right? Something or someone, ain't that right. Any fool can see you ain't one of us. You tryin', but you ain't. You can dirty yourself all you want, but you still got your body and you still got your eyes. So what you lookin' for, brother. Huh?'

Strange shifted his posture. Water dripped from an opening in the ceiling and dimpled the puddle pooled beside his right foot.

'White boy come in here yesterday afternoon,' said Strange. 'Don't imagine you get too many of those.'

'Not too many.'

'Skinny white boy with a knit cap, tryin' to be down.'

'I know him. I seen him, man; I see everything. You got money for Tonio, man?'

'This white boy, what's he doin' in here? Is he slammin' it upstairs?'

'The white boy ain't no fiend.'

'What, then? What kind of business he got with Coleman?'

'Do I look crazy to you? I ain't know a motherfuckin' thing about no Coleman, and if I did, I still don't know a thing.'

Strange pulled folded twenties from his wallet. He peeled one off, crumpled it in a ball, and tossed it to the floor at Morris's feet. Morris picked the bill up quickly and jammed it in the pocket of his trousers.

'What was the white boy doin' in here?' said Strange.

'Lookin' for a girl,' said Morris. 'A friend of mine. Old friend to him, too.'

Strange's blood ticked. 'A girl?'

'Girl named Sondra,' said Morris.

'This girl got a last name?' said Strange, his voice hoarse and odd to his own ears.

'She got one. I don't know it.'

'This her right here?'

Strange pulled the photograph of Sondra Wilson from his corduroy jacket, held it up for Morris to see. Morris nodded, his mouth twitching involuntarily. Strange slipped the picture back into his pocket.

'He find her?' asked Strange.

'Huh?'

'Is she here?'

Morris licked his dry lips and pointed his chin at the bankroll in Strange's hand. Strange crumpled another twenty and dropped it on the floor.

Morris smiled. His teeth were black stubs, raisins stuck loosely in rotted gums. 'What'sa matter, brother? You don't want to touch my hands?'

'Where is she?'

'Sondra gone, man.'

'Where is she?' repeated Strange.

'Two white men took her out of here, not too long ago. Little crosseyed motherfucker and an old man. I don't know 'em. I don't know their names. And I don't know where they went.'

Strange didn't speak. He balled and unballed one fist.

'They're comin' back,' said Morris playfully.

'How you know that?'

'Word gets out in here… The ones across the street, that one by the stairs… they know when we be gettin' too hungry. They tell us when we're about to be fed. And we are about to be fed. Those white men are bringin' it in.'

'When?'

'Tomorrow. Leastways, that's what I hear.'

Strange reached into his breast pocket and withdrew one more folded twenty. Morris held his hand out, but Strange did not fill it.

'What do you know about the girl?'

'The white boy, he used to bring her with him when he made his visits. He'd take her with him to that place across the street. One day he left her in there. She was across the street for a few weeks, comin' and goin' in those pretty-ass cars. A month, maybe, like that. Then she made her way over here. She kept her own stall up there on the second floor. But she never did make it back across the street.'

'You know what time those two white men are coming back tomorrow?'

'No,' said Morris, looking sadly at the twenty, still in Strange's possession.

Strange placed the bill in Morris's outstretched hand. 'You see me around here again, you don't know me, 'less I tell you that you know me. Understand?'

'Know who?'

Strange nodded. Most likely he'd just given that junkie more money than he'd seen at one time in the last few years.

Strange turned and shuffled off toward the hole from which he'd entered. There was a racing in his veins, and he could feel the beat of his own heart. It was difficult for him to move so slowly. But he managed, and soon he was out in the light.

25

Strange woke from a nap in the early evening. His bedroom was dark, and he flicked on a light. Greco, lying on a throw-rug at the foot of the bed, lifted his head from his paws and slowly wagged his tail.

'Hungry, buddy?' said Strange. 'All right, then. Let this old man get on up out of this bed.'