Walkin The Dog sf-2 Page 16

  “I gotta go, Mook,” Socrates said.

  “Why? You just called.”

  “I'll talk to you later, man.” Socrates hung up the phone and pushed it away. He unplugged it from the wall and set it in a drawer next to the sink. Then he went to the door to check that the latch was secure and the bolt was thrown.

  The next day he would call the phone company to change his number for a new, unlisted one. He thought about moving again, about changing his name.

  His hands were shaking.

  “Twenty-seven years in the Indiana prison and I wasn't never as scared as I was after talkin' to that Mookie,” Socrates told Darryl a few weeks later.

  “You scared that he was gonna try an' get you in trouble so you'd have to go back to jail?” Darryl asked.

  “No, boy,” the big ex-con said. “I'm scared'a livin' in my own skin, I'm scared of all the evil and sad I know.”

  “What you mean?”

  “Mookie don't know shit,” Socrates explained. “If a man put a gun to his own head an' pull the trigger Mookie'd a tell ya that the man just died. That's all. He don't see what's happenin'. That's what scares me.”

  “How come?” Darryl asked. “It ain't you. If you know then that's all that matters.”

  “Yeah. But suppose I don't know? Suppose I'm just as blind and stupid as Mookie Kid? Maybe if I'd just stop and look and listen I'd see that what I'm doin' is fulla shit. That's what scares me. Just like when I didn't know that the phone company list your name if you don't tell 'em not to. Just like when I woke up after killin' my friends and I didn't even know. I mean just 'cause they let you outta prison that don't mean you're free. And if you in jail that don't mean you're guilty or bad.”

  Socrates did know that the frown furrowed in the skinny boy's face reflected his own.

  “It's okay, Darryl.”

  “It is?”

  “Yeah. I think so. You see, since then I realized that it's okay to be scared and unsure. Scared teach you sumpin'. Uh-huh. Yeah. Scared make you ask the question. Sometimes it's only a scared man can do what's right.”

  Darryl nodded, not quite so sure that he understood what Socrates was saying.

  Socrates laughed because he wasn't too sure himself.

  moving on

  A

  s Socrates came home from work that afternoon he was almost completely satisfied with life. He had a good job and friends who he could talk to when he was lonely and a door that he could unlock any time he wanted. He had a girlfriend and a telephone and new shoes that didn't hurt his feet. He was a free man, just as long as the police didn't know about his hidden handgun and no one found out about a fight or two he had had in the streets. There was a young boy who looked up to him and even though they lived under different roofs everyone who knew them thought of Socrates and Darryl as father and son.

  But on the way home from the bus stop a dark cloud passed over Socrates' heart. He remembered the deepest lesson a convict ever learns: you never trusted in your own good fortune.

  “Anything good they could always take away from you,” old man Cap Richmond used to say in the Indiana slam. “And what's already bad they could always make worse.”

  Even at the corner of the alley he knew something was wrong. Killer, his two-legged dog, was barking wildly from the small garden plot in front of Socrates' door. When he got to the gate he found that the padlock had been cut and half of his belongings were strewn in the yard. Two large men were carrying his sofa bed into the alley. They dropped it like it was some kind of garbage and not a man furniture at all. He saw his old radio crushed on the ground next to the sofa.

  “Hold up!” Socrates cried running toward the men. “What the fuck you think you doin' here?”

  The men were large and black. They had done hard labor for their entire lives but they weren't old like Socrates. Neither one of them had seen his thirtieth birthday.

  “What the fuck you think, old man?” one destroyer said. He had close-cropped hair and wore overalls with no shirt underneath. The sweat on his dark brown skin made him glisten with the promise of violence.

  His friend wore no shirt at all and had long dreadlocks cascading down on his corded shoulders. The men stood together against the foul-mouthed intruder, as if daring him to speak again.

  “I think,” Socrates said slowly. “That you lookin' to be two dead men.”

  In his younger days Socrates would have already crushed these men. They might have already been dead, but Socrates was a changed man. He gave his enemies a warning, a five-second window in which to drop what they were doing and run. The man in the overalls had enough sense to put up a protective arm before Socrates hit him. The arm padded the blow enough to save him from a broken jaw or a trip to the morgue. His friend tried to do what was right. He threw some kind of karate chop at Socrates' head. He even connected while grunting loudly to increase the force of his blow. Socrates grabbed the man by his long hair and sent him sliding across the dirt and broken glass of the asphalt alley.

  Then Socrates picked up one of the steel pipes that he always left lying around his yard in case he needed a weapon quickly in the middle of the night. The man in the overalls was semiconscious but his friend was aware and on his feet.

  “You get the fuck away from here, man,” Socrates warned. “Or the next time I touch you will be last thing you ever feel.”

  Dreadlocks knew what Socrates said was true. He wouldn't even cross the alley to help his downed companion.

  “It's you in trouble, man,” he yelled at Socrates. “That ain't your place. You in there illegal and they hired us to move your stuff. The cops gonna come after this. The law gonna come down on you now.”

  The man in the overalls was trying to rise. Socrates pulled him up by his straps and pushed him toward his friend. Together the house wreckers stumbled away from Socrates' home, down the alley to report their failure. Socrates watched them, willing himself to stay where he was and not go after his hidden handgun.

  “You showed 'em, Mr. Fortlow,” Irene Melendez shouted from her own backyard across the alley. “I told 'em they didn't want to mess with the master of that house but they didn't listen. They didn't listen and now they got to go to the clinic an' get all sewed up.”

  The small Louisianan woman was so happy that Socrates smiled again.

  “Where they say they was from?” he asked his neighbor of nine years.

  “First they told me it wasn't none of my business. Told me to go back in my house and shut up. But when I said I was callin' the cops they said it was Mr. Lomax from Cherry Hill Developers. They said that Mr. Lomax owns these here stores and that he wanna sell 'em so you had to go.”

  Socrates nodded and gave her an evil grin. “We'll see about all that,” he said.

  The police showed up within two hours of the fight but Brenda Marsh had already made it to Socrates' back alley home. The slender, mocha-colored woman had hair that she'd dyed blond and wore a rose-colored two-piece suit with a bright yellow blouse underneath. She had represented Socrates once before when he had been arrested for assault. And even though he didn't like her hairstyle or way of talking Socrates kept her number because a poor man didn't necessarily have to like his friends.

  She met the three officers at the door.

  “My client is not here at the moment, officers,” the young lawyer said. “He had to go out but I am aware of the events that took place this afternoon.”

  “Leon Burris and Almond Trapps have sworn out a complaint against Mr. Fortlow,” Officer Wayne Leontine said. “Where is he?”

  “Mr. Fortlow was protecting his property from those men, Officer Leontine. They broke into his home unlawfully and threw his property into the street.”

  “That's not for me to judge, Ms. Marsh,” Officer Leontine said. He had come with two other uniforms. Socrates watched them from Mrs. Melendez's house across the alley. He smiled when he saw three cops.

  They always send three,

  he thought to himself.

  That's 'cause they scared'a what they might get.


  “I have a witness,” Brenda Marsh was saying, “who can tell you that these men broke into Mr. Fortlow's domicile.”

  “They were working for the owner, Ms. Marsh,” Leontine said impatiently. “Your Mr. Fortlow was trespassing.”

  A brilliant smile came across the lawyer's face. It was fierce and triumphant. “That's not true. Mr. Fortlow is the rightful tenant of Price Landers, the original owner of this property. I have the rent agreement and the receipt for the first and last months rent that Mr. Fortlow paid over nine years ago. I also have the canceled stubs of twelve money orders that Mr. Fortlow sent to Mr. Landers in 1990. These money orders were returned with no forwarding address being given. The stubs show that Mr. Fortlow intended to pay his rent but could not locate the landlord.”

  Leontine stumbled then.

  “I don't know anything about that—”

  “No, officer,” Brenda Marsh interrupted. “And neither do you know that my client's actions were unprovoked. I have proof that this apartment is my client's legal domicile. I also have a witness saying that she saw your Mr. Burris and Mr. Trapps illegally break into Mr. Fortlow's home. I am willing to make an appointment with your desk sergeant for Mr. Fortlow to come in and face his accusers but first I have to get an injunction against the men who sent Burris and Trapps to vandalize my client's home.”

  “Do you know where Mr. Fortlow is?” Leontine asked in a last-ditch attempt to take control.

  “Not at this time. But we have an appointment to speak by phone tomorrow morning at ten o'clock. I will contact your desk sergeant after that. But first I am telling you that this property is legally in the possession of my client at this moment in time and that if it is in any way molested by Trapps, Burris or some other agent of their employer it will be a crime. And because you have been informed of this situation and because you have spoken to the vandals and they have admitted their illegal activity, although presenting it as their legal right, I hold you responsible for the protection of Mr. Fortlow's property.”

  “I'm just trying to uphold the law, lady,” Officer Leontine said.

  “The law,” she replied, “works for the poor man as well as the rich.”

  “I didn't say it didn't,” Leontine answered. After that he left with his friends.

  At seven that evening four men arrived at the gate of Socrates' apartment. The man in the overalls, Leon Burris, was armed with a baseball bat. Killer was the first to see them but soon Stony Wile, Howard Shakur, and Chip Lowe with four members of his neighborhood watch appeared out of Socrates' home.

  “What you want here?” Howard said boldly to the intruders.

  “What business it to you, Negro?” Burris growled.

  “I could see by that swolled-up jaw that you done got yo' ass whipped once already,” Howard said. “This time we might just have to break it up permanent.”

  Socrates watched the demolition thugs back off and retreat. A feeling of power thrummed in his heart. He felt like a Cadillac cruising on a full tank of gas.

  The next morning Socrates Fortlow and his lawyer, Brenda Marsh, stood before desk sergeant Tremont LaMett. Sergeant LaMett had to decide whether or not to allow Officer Leontine to execute a warrant issued for the arrest of Socrates.

  “Did you hit him?” LaMett asked the burly ex-con.

  “My client was protecting his property,” Ms. Marsh responded. She and Socrates had agreed that he would stay silent during the interview with the police.

  “Silent is my best thing,” he had told his blond Negro lawyer.

  “I was asking him,” LaMett said to Ms. Marsh.

  “I am representing Mr. Fortlow, sergeant. I have here an affidavit from Mrs. Irene Melendez who says that she had warned the accusers that they were trespassing and that when Mr. Fortlow confronted them that they approached him in a threatening manner. I also have photocopies of Mr. Fortlow's lease with Price Landers and his canceled money order stubs. I have been granted an injunction against the Cherry Hill Development Company and Mr. Ira Lomax preventing them from taking any further action against Mr. Fortlow or his property until this matter can be settled in front of a judge.”

  Socrates knew that all Brenda Marsh was going to do was get him arrested. He knew how to talk to the cops better than she did. She

  knew

  the law but LaMett and Leontine

  were

  the law. Their blood and bones and fists were the letter and the last word.

  “Did your client strike Mr. Burris?” LaMett asked patiently.

  “In defense of his property.”

  “Then I'm going to put him in a cell.”

  “You can't do that,” Brenda Marsh said registering deep shock.

  “You know what to do, Wayne,” LaMett said to Leontine.

  Socrates laughed again. This time it wasn't the good life that made him smile but the presence of an old enemy; somebody he had fought against for so long that he was almost like a friend.

  He didn't fight against the handcuffs. And he wasn't angry at Brenda Marsh. She'd tried.

  They took him to a room behind the sergeant's desk and chained him to a long line of other prisoners. All of them black or brown. All young too. The chain of men were led from the back door of the police station to a waiting drab green bus. The men were taken to their seats and their chains were threaded through steel eyes in the floor. The windows were laced with metal grating and the way to the exit was obstructed by a door of metal bars.

  Two guards and a driver took their posts up front and the bus drove off. The boys and young men began talking in the back. It was the beginning of the pecking order. Socrates had taken that ride before.

  “Hey, old man, what they got you for? Stealin' wine?” It was a young Mexican kid. He wore a sleeveless shirt that revealed green and red tattoos from his wrists to his shoulders. The designs spoke of love, gang affiliations, his mother, his nation and a few aesthetics about death and pride.

  “Youngsters tried to empty out my house,” Socrates said. “But I guess I was a little too rough. Little bit.”

  “Hey, pops can hit,” another young man said. “You mean the cops had to pull you off 'em?”

  “They was workin' boys,” Socrates said in a remote tone. “They went to the cops and then the cops come to me.”

  “Man that's some chickenshit,” a tubby boy said. He was a Negro with scared green eyes. “You know they shouldn'ta called cop.”

  “Shut up, faggot,” a well-built young man said. Socrates sized him up as the would-be leader. “Nobody wanna hear from your fat ass.”

  The tubby boy shook, trying to hide his fear.

  The well-built young man was seated two rows in front of Socrates. He had hair only on the top of his head. The rest had disappeared in a severe fade. The name Lex was tattooed on the right side of his head. Socrates couldn't see the other side.

  “What you lookin' at, mothahfuckah?” Lex dared Socrates.

  “When we stop, dog,” Socrates said. “When we stop and you come a little closer I will show you a lesson that your daddy forgot to tell ya. I'ma show you how to roll over an' beg.”

  Lex didn't say anything to that. The rest of the prisoners stayed quiet for a second too. The fat boy studied the situation with desperate green eyes.

  The bus drove for over two hours to a detention facility in the foothills. It looked like an old abandoned school. A dozen or so reinforced salmon bungalows with bars in the windows and a razor wire fence over eighteen feet high around the perimeter.

  The men and boys were hustled into a large room with long tables and made to sit for lunch while still in their manacles.

  Lex started giving the fat boy, James, a hard time but he stopped when Socrates said, “Eat your slop and shut up.”

  Lex was the oldest of the bunch, except for Socrates. He was maybe twenty-seven and dull eyed. He was big and strong. That counted for something in the street but you needed more than bulk against the desperation of incarceration. In the lockup you needed courage and concentration, you needed friendship and you could never back down even wh
en going ahead meant for sure that you were dead.

  Before Socrates finished his meal he palmed a small glass salt-shaker.

  “What you in for, James?” Socrates asked the scared fat boy. In two days James had been beaten up twice. The other young men sensed his weakness and ganged up on him. Lex left him alone, however, because Socrates made it clear that he didn't want Lex to mess around.

  “Stealin',” James said. “I broke into a Stop n' Save market but they caught me.”

  “You don't look like you been starvin', man. Why you stealin'?”

  “I'ont know. I wanted some money.”

  “What kinda money you gonna get outta some little store?” Socrates asked. “If you get a hundred dollars that would be a lot.”

  James pouted and looked away. He tried to hang around Socrates because the other young men left him alone under the older man's gaze.

  “You been busted before?”

  “Once.”

  “Stealin'?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “How old are you?”

  “Seventeen. I look younger but I'm seventeen.”

  Socrates watched the baby-faced green-eyed boy.

  “You got to learn how to fight if they put you in jail, James,” he said finally. “ 'Cause they gonna tear you down in here. Tear you up.”

  “I know.”

  “Uh-uh, boy. You don't know. I know. I been there and there ain't no nothin' like it that you could think of. This here is just a lark compared to what you got in store.”

  For two days Socrates and his chain mates had been quartered in a barracks. They had a small recreation yard that was blocked off from other similar barracks and yards. Each compound contained about eighteen prisoners that were being held for trial or something else. Some of the barracks held very tough men who made kissing noises through the razor wire at the young men who were held with Socrates.

  “If you was in one'a them other cages, James, they would eat you up.”

  James' fearful eyes flashed for a moment and then he clamped down his jaw to crush the fear.

  “Get you somethin' sharp, James,” Socrates said. “Some kinda knife or edge. And you stand up. You fight, son. 'Cause you already here an' ain't nobody gonna help you when I'm gone.”