nah’s niece, a blond girl with tan skin. She was from a local 12
family and therefore accepted me as part of the commu-13
nity. Being a Negro, I was different. We would never be real 14
friends. But neither of us really wanted that, nor did we feel 15
left out of something. And so it was pleasant when we did 16
cross paths. Good morning meant just that.
17
“Hey, Tina. Could I get some coffee and cake?”
18
“You look like you could use it,” she said, managing to 19
smile and look concerned at the same time.
20
“Thursday night is blackjack night at my house.”
21
“Hope you won.”
22
“Big.”
23
24
25
After my coffee I drove down to the old highway, a graded 26
dirt road that led to Canyon’s Field. It was the shortcut 27 S
that would take me most of the way to Wilson Ryder’s 28 R
16
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The Man in My Basement
construction site. The Ryder family had lived in the Har-1
bor for more than 150 years, a long time but not nearly as 2
long as my folks had been around. But you couldn’t tell 3
them that. Wilson liked to tell people that his family helped 4
to settle the east end of the island.
5
Both sides of my family had lived in that area as early as 6
1742. The Blakeys were indentured servants who earned 7
their freedom. The Dodds were free from the beginning.
8
It was even hinted that they, the Dodds, came straight 9
from Africa at the beginning of the eighteenth century.
10
My parents were both very proud that their ancestors 11
were never slaves. The only time I had ever seen my father 12
get angry was when Clarance’s father once asked him, 13
“How can you be sure that one’a them Blakeys you so 14
proud of wasn’t a slave at one time or other?”
15
It was a lovely ride. The woods were deep and green 16
down that way. There were three or four ponds in walking 17
distance from the side of the road. I decided that I’d go 18
fishing after asking Wilson for a job. I planned to tell him 19
that I could begin working that next Monday. That way I 20
could have a long weekend before going back to a job.
21
A group of eight or nine deer was crossing the road a 22
ways up from me. I came to a stop and so did they. The big 23
female looked at me with hard eyes, trying to glean my in-24
tentions. A sigh escaped my throat. I loved to watch deer 25
watching me. They were so timid and ignorant of every-26
thing but the possible threat. People think that they’re cow-S 27
R 28
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1
ardly, but I’ve been charged by a male or two. I respected 2
them, because with no defense except for their quick feet, 3
they lived out in the wild with no law or protection.
4
I once saw a group of fifteen or more of them swim-5
ming out to Shelter Island. Their heads just above the 6
water, they looked frightened and desperate out there.
7
Cowards don’t face terror. Cowards live on back roads, 8
behind closed doors, with the TVs blasting out anything 9
to keep the silence and the darkness from intruding.
10
The deer’s caution made them move slower than they 11
would have without my presence. I enjoyed the show.
12
When the final white tail bobbed off into the wood, I was 13
thoroughly satisfied.
14
My uncle Brent had been a hunter before he got sick.
15
He killed hundreds of deer down in South Carolina, 16
where he’d lived with his third wife.
17
“Hunt for the weekend hunters,” he’d tell me in one of his 18
few friendly moods. “Kill six bucks and make two forty.”
19
When I was a child I imagined that the deer used to sur-20
round our house in the evening, hoping that Brent would 21
come outside for a walk. Then they could stomp him to 22
death for the crimes he’d committed against their race.
23
24
25
“Chuck,” Wilson Ryder said. The tone of his voice mim-26
icked surprise, but it was also leveled at me offensively.
27 S
“Mr. Ryder,” I said in greeting. I hated the name Chuck.
28 R
And he knew it because I had asked him not to call me by 18
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that name eighteen years before when I had my first sum-1
mer job working for his family’s construction company.
2
Wilson Ryder was an older white man with yellowish 3
white hair and a big gut. His family had been in con-4
struction for three generations. Young men in my family 5
had worked for his family almost the whole time. He had 6
gray eyes, and fingers covered with yellow-and-black cal-7
luses from hard work and cigarettes.
8
We were standing in a wide circle of yellow soil that had 9
been cleared out of a scrub-pine stand. The trees stood in 10
an angry arc three hundred yards from the center of the 11
circle. There were the beginnings of excavation here and 12
there. Enough to give you the idea of the cul-de-sac of 13
mansions that the Ryder family intended to build. They 14
would level the whole island and sell it off stone by stone 15
if they could.
16
“What can I do for you?” Ryder asked me.
17
“I’d like a job, Mr. Ryder.”
18
His gray eyes squinted a hundredth of an inch, maybe 19
less, but it was enough to say that he wasn’t going to hire 20
me. Even more than that, the pained wince said that he 21
wouldn’t hire me, not because there was no job but be-22
cause there was something wrong somewhere — some-23
thing wrong with me.
24
“You would?” He smiled. There was a yellowy tint to Ry-25
der’s teeth too. All that yellow made me feel a little nauseous.
26
“Yes, sir,” I said, hating myself for it.
S 27
The squint again. This time a little more pronounced.
R 28
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Walter Mosley
1
There were men working on one of the excavations be-2
hind the builder, to his right. One man had stopped dig-3
ging and was looking at me. He was black, I could tell 4
that, but I couldn’t make out his features in the distance.
5
“You worked at that bank, didn’t you, Chuck?”
6
“Charles,” I said. “My name is Charles. And yeah, I 7
worked at Harbor Savings.”
8
“Why’d you leave there?”
9
“Let me go. I don’t know. Downsizing, I guess.”
10
Ryder’s eyes were very expressive. He was the man in 11
charge and not used to lying. I could see that he was won-12
dering if I believed my own words. That, of course, made 13
me question myself.
14
“No jobs,” he said with a one-shoulder shrug.
15
I could tell that Ryder wanted me to disappear, just as I 16
had felt about the white man at my door the day before.
17
But I wasn’t going to go away that easily. My family had 18
given Wilson’s grandfather one of his first jobs. My grand-19
mother delivered Wilson’s brother and sister. He couldn’t 20