Always Outnumbered, Always Outgunned Page 4

  Iula laid her finger across his knucklebones.

  “You could work here,” she said. “There’s room enough for two behind this here counter.”

  Iula turned her head to indicate what she meant. In doing so she revealed her amber throat. It was a lighter shade than her face.

  He remembered another woman, just a girl really, and her delicate neck. That woman died by the same hand Iula stroked. She died and hadn’t done a thing to deserve even a bruise. He had killed her and was a little sorrier every day; every day for thirty-five years. He got sadder but she was still dead. She was dead and he was still asking himself why.

  “I don’t know,” he said.

  “What?”

  “I don’t know what to say, I.”

  “What is there to say?” she demanded. “All you could say is yeah. You ain’t got hardly a dime. You need a job. And the Lord knows I could use you too.”

  “I got to think about it,” he said.

  “Think about it?” Just that fast Iula was enraged. “Think about it? Here I am offerin’ you a way outta that hole you in. Here I am offerin’ you a life. An’ you got to think about it? Look out here in the streets around you, Mr. Fortlow. Ain’t no choice out there. Ain’t nuthin’ t’think about out there.”

  Socrates didn’t have to look around to see the boarded-up businesses and stores; the poor black faces and brown faces of the men and women who didn’t have a thing. Iulas diner and Tony’s garage were the only working businesses on that block.

  And he hated bringing bottles and cans to the Ralph’s supermarket on Crenshaw. To get there he had to walk for miles pulling as many as three grocery carts linked by twisted wire coat hangers. And when he got there they always made him wait; made him stand outside while they told jokes and had coffee breaks. And then they checked every can. They didn’t have to do that. He knew what they took and what they didn’t. He came in twice a week with his cans and bottles and nobody ever found one Kessler’s Root Beer or Bubble-Up in the lot. But they checked every one just the same. And they never bothered to learn his name. They called him “Pop” or “old man.” They made him wait and checked after him like he was some kind of stupid animal.

  But he took it. He took it because of that young girl’s neck; because of her boyfriend’s dead eyes. Those young people in Ralph’s were stupid and arrogant and mean—but he was evil. That’s what Socrates thought.

  That’s what he believed.

  “Well?” Iula asked.

  “I’d … I’d like some meat loaf, Iula. Some meat loaf with mashed potatoes and greens.”

  From the back of her throat Iula hissed, “Damn you!”

  {3.}

  Socrates felt low but that didn’t affect his appetite. He’d learned when he was a boy that the next meal was never a promise; only a fool didn’t eat when he could.

  He laced his mashed potatoes and meat loaf with pepper sauce and downed the mustard greens in big noisy mouthfuls. When he was finished he looked behind the counter hoping to catch Iula’s eye. Iula would usually give Socrates seconds while smiling and complimenting him on the good appetite he had.

  “You eat good but you don’t let it turn to fat,” she’d say, admiring his big muscles.

  But now she was mad at him for insulting her offer. Why should she feed the kitty when there wasn’t a chance to win the pot?

  “I,” Socrates said.

  “What you want?” It was more a dare than a question.

  “Just some coffee, babe,” he said.

  Iula slammed the mug down and flung the Pyrex coffeepot so recklessly that she spilled half of what she poured. But Socrates didn’t mind. He was still hungry and so finished filling the mug with milk from two small serving pitchers on the counter.

  He had eleven quarters in his right-hand jacket pocket. Two dollars and fifty cents for the dinner and twenty-five cents more for Iula’s tip. That was a lot of money when all you had to your name was sixty-eight quarters, four dimes, three nickels, and eight pennies. It was a lot of money but Socrates was still hungry—and that meat loaf smelled better than ever.

  Iula used sage in her meat loaf. He couldn’t make it himself because all he had at home was a hot plate and you can’t make meat loaf on a hot plate.

  “Iula!”

  Socrates turned to see the slim young man come up into the bus. He was wearing an electric-blue exercise suit, zipped up to the neck, and a bright yellow headband.

  “Wilfred.” There were still no seconds in Iula’s voice.

  “How things goin’?” the young man asked.

  “Pretty good if you don’t count for half of it.”

  “Uh-huh,” he answered, not having heard. “An’ where’s Tony today?”

  “It’s Tuesday, ain’t it?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Then Tony’s down at Christ Congregational settin’ up for bingo.”

  Wilfred sat himself at the end of the counter, five stools away from Socrates. He caught the older man’s eye and nodded—as black men do.

  Then he said, “I done built me up a powerful hunger today, Iula. I got two hollow legs to fill.”

  “What you want?” she asked, not at all interested in the story he was obviously wanting to tell.

  “You got a steak back there in the box?”

  “Shit.” She would have spit on the floor if she wasn’t in her own restaurant.

  “Okay. Okay. I tell you what. I want some stewed chicken, some braised ribs, an’ two thick slabs’a meat loaf on one big plate.”

  “That ain’t on the menu.”

  “Charge me a dinner for each one then.”

  Iula’s angry look changed to wonder. “You only get one slice of meat loaf with a dinner.”

  “Then ring it up twice, honey. I got mad money for this here meal.”

  Iula stared until Wilfred pulled out a fan of twenty-dollar bills from his pocket. He waved the fan at her and said, “Don’t put no vegetables on that shit. You know I’m a workin’ man—I needs my strength. I need meat.”

  Iula moved back into the kitchen to fill Wilfred’s order.

  Socrates sipped his coffee.

  “Hey, brother,” Wilfred said.

  Socrates looked up at him.

  “How you doin’?” the young man offered.

  “Okay, I guess.”

  “You guess?”

  “It depends.”

  “Depends on what?”

  “On what comes next.”

  When Wilfred smiled, Socrates could see that he was missing one of his front teeth.

  “You jus’ livin’ minute t’minute, huh?” the young man said.

  “That’s about it.”

  “I used to be like that. Used to be. That is till I fount me a good job.” Wilfred sat back as well as he could on the stool and stared at Socrates as if expecting to be asked a question.

  Socrates took another sip of coffee. He was thinking about another helping of meat loaf and his quarters, about Iula’s nipples, and that long-ago dead girl. He didn’t have any room for what was on the young man’s mind.

  Iula came out then with a platter loaded down with meats. It was a steaming plate looking like something out of the dreams Socrates had had when he was deep inside of his jail sentence.

  “Put it over there, Iula.” Wilfred was pointing to the place next to Socrates. He got up from his stool and went to sit behind the platter.

  He was a tall man, in his twenties. He’d shaved that morning and had razor bumps along his jaw and throat. His clothes were bulky and Socrates wondered why. He was thin and well built. Obviously from the hood—Socrates could tell that from the hunger he brought to his meal.

  “What’s your name, man?” Wilfred asked.

  “Socrates.”

  “Socrates? Where’d you get a name like that?”

  “We was poor and country. My mother couldn’t afford school so she figured that if she named me after somebody smart then maybe I’d get smart.”

  “I
knew it was somebody famous. You see?” Wilfred said, full of pride. “I ain’t no fool. I know shit too. I got it up here. My name is Wilfred.”

  Socrates breathed in deeply the smells from Wilfred s plate. He was still hungry—having walked a mile for every two dollars he’d made that day.

  His stomach growled like an angry dog.

  “What you eatin’, Socco?” Wilfred asked. Before giving him a chance to answer he called out to Iula, “What’s my brother eatin’, Iula? Bring whatever it is out to ’im. I pay for that too.”

  While Iula put together Socrates’s second plate, Wilfred picked up a rib and sucked the meat from the bone.

  He grinned and said, “Only a black woman could cook like this.”

  Socrates didn’t know about that but he was happy to see the plate Iula put before him.

  {4.}

  Socrates didn’t pick up his fork right away. Instead he regarded his young benefactor and said, “Thank you.”

  “That’s okay, brother. Eat up.”

  Halfway through his second meal Socrates’ hunger eased a bit. Wilfred had demolished his four dinners and pushed his plate away.

  “You got some yams back there?” he called out to Iula.

  “Yeah,” she answered. She had gone to a chair in her kitchen to rest and smoke a cigarette before more customers came.

  “Bring out a big plate for me an’ my friend here.”

  Iula brought out the food without saying a word to Socrates. But he wasn’t worried about her silence.

  He came around on Tuesdays, when Tony was gone, because he wanted Iula for something; a girlfriend, a few nights in bed, maybe more, maybe. He hadn’t touched a woman since before prison.

  And now he was afraid of what his hands could do.

  Iula was petulant but she didn’t understand how scared he was even to want her.

  She wanted a man up there on stilts with her to lift tubs of shortening that she couldn’t budge. She wanted a man to sit down next to her in the heat that those stoves threw off.

  If he came up there he’d probably get fat.

  “What you thinkin’ about, brother?” Wilfred asked.

  “That they ain’t nuthin’ for free.”

  “Well … maybe sometime they is.”

  “Maybe,” Socrates said. “But I don’t think so.”

  Wilfred grinned.

  Socrates asked, “What kinda work you do, Wilfred?”

  “I’m self-employed. I’m a businessman.”

  “Oh yeah? What kinda business?”

  Wilfred smiled and tried to look coy. “What you think?”

  “I’d say a thief,” Socrates answered. He speared a hot yam and pushed it in his mouth.

  Wilfred’s smile widened but his eyes went cold.

  “You got sumpin’ against a man makin’ a livin’?” he asked.

  “Depends.”

  “’Pends on what?”

  “On if it’s wrong or not.”

  “Stealin’s stealin’, man. It’s all the same thing. You got it—I take it.”

  “If you say so.”

  “That’s what I do say,” Wilfred said. “Stealin’s right for the man takin’ an’ wrong fo’ the man bein’ took. That’s all they is to it.”

  Socrates decided that he didn’t like Wilfred. But his stomach was full and he’d become playful. “But if a man take some bread an’ he’s hungry, starvin’,” he said. “That’s not wrong to nobody. That’s good sense.”

  “Yeah. You right,” Wilfred conceded. “But s’pose you hungry for a good life. For a nice house with a bathtub an’ not just some shower. S’pose you want some nice shoes an’ socks don’t bust out through the toe the first time you wear’em?”

  “That depends too.”

  “’Pends on what? What I want don’t depend on a damn thing.” Wilfred’s smile was gone now.

  “Maybe not. I mean maybe the wantin’ don’t depend on nuthin’ but how you get it does, though.”

  “Like what you mean?”

  “Well let’s say that there’s a store sellin’ this good life you so hungry for. They got it in a box somewhere. Now you go an’ steal it. Well, I guess that’s okay. That means the man got the good life give it up to you. That’s cool.”

  “Shit,” Wilfred said. “If they had a good life in a box you know I steal me hunnert’a them things. I be right down here on Adams sellin’ ’em for half price.”

  “Uh-huh. But they don’t have it in a box now do they?”

  “What you tryin’ t’say, man?” Wilfred was losing patience. He was, Socrates thought, a kind benefactor as long as he didn’t have to see a man eye to eye.

  “I’m sayin’ that this good life you talkin’ ’bout stealin’ comes outta your own brother’s house. Either you gonna steal from a man like me or you gonna steal from a shop where I do my business. An’ ev’ry time I go in there I be payin’ for security cameras an’ security guards an’ up-to-the-roof insurance that they got t’pay off what people been stealin’. An’ they gonna raise the prices higher’n a motherfucker to pay the bills, wit’ a little extra t’pay us back for you stealin’.”

  Socrates thought that Wilfred might get mad. He half expected the youth to pull out a gun. But Socrates wasn’t worried about a gun in those quarters. He was stronger than Wilfred, and, as he had learned in prison, a strong arm can beat a gun up close.

  But Wilfred wasn’t mad. He laughed happily. He patted Socrates on the shoulder, feeling his hard muscle, and said, “You got a good tongue there, brother. You good as a preacher, or a cop, when it comes to talkin’ that talk.”

  Wilfred stood up and Socrates swiveled around on his seat, ready for the fight.

  Iula sensed the tension and came out with a cigarette dangling from her lips.

  Wilfred stripped off his exercise jacket and stepped out of the gaudy nylon pants. Underneath he was wearing a two-piece tweed suit with a brown suede vest. His silk tie showed golden-and-green clouds with little flecks of red floating here and there. His shirt was white as Sunday’s clothesline.

  “What you think?” Wilfred asked his audience.

  Iula grunted and turned back to her kitchen. He was too skinny for her no matter what he had on.

  “Come here,” Wilfred said to Socrates. “Look out here in the street.”

  Socrates went to the bus window and crouched down to look outside. There was a new tan car, a foreign job, parked out there. Socrates didn’t know the model but it looked like a nice little car.

  “That’s my ride,” Wilfred said.

  “Where it take you?” Socrates asked.

  “Wherever I wanna go,” Wilfred answered. “But mostly I hit the big malls an’ shoppin’ centers up in West Hollywood, Beverly Hills, Santa Monica, and what-have-you.

  “I get one’a my girlfriends to rent me a car. Then I get all dressed up like this an’ put on a runnin’ suit, or maybe some funky clothes like you got on, over that. An’ I always got me a hat or a headband or somethin’. You know they could hardly ever pick you out of a lineup if you had sumpin’ on yo’ head.”

  Socrates had learned that in jail too.

  “I grab ’em in the parkin’ lot.” Wilfred sneered with violent pleasure. “I put my knife up hard against they necks an’ tell’em they dead. You know I don’t care if I cut ’em up a li’l bit. Shit. I had one young Jap girl peed on herself.”

  Wilfred waited for a laugh or something. When it didn’t come the jaunty young man went back to his seat.

  “You don’t like it,” Wilfred said. “Too bad.”

  “I don’t give a damn what you do, boy,” Socrates answered. He sat back down and scooped up the last bit of gravy in his spoon. “I cain’t keep a fool from messin’ up.”

  “I ain’t no fool, old man. I don’t mess up neither. I get they money an’ cut ’em up some so they call a doctor fo’ they call the cops. Then I run an’ th’ow off my niggah clothes. When the cops come I’m in my suit, in my car comin’ home. An’ if they stop
me I look up all innocent an’ lie an’ tell’em that I work for A&M Records. I tell’em that I’m a manager in the mailroom over there. No sir, I don’t fuck up at all.”

  “Uh-huh,” Socrates said. He put a yam in his mouth after dipping it in the honey butter sauce at the bottom of the dish; it was just about the best thing he had ever tasted.

  “Mothahfuckah, you gonna sit there an’ dis me with yo’ mouth fulla the food I’m buyin’?” Wilfred was amazed.

  “You asked me an’ I told ya,” Socrates said. “I don’t care what you do, boy. But that don’t mean I got to call it right.”

  “What you talkin’ ’bout, man? I ain’t stealin’ from no brother. I ain’t stealin’ where no po’ brother live. I’m takin’ the good life from people who got it—just like you said.”

  “You call my clothes funky, din’t ya, boy?”

  “Hey, man. I din’t mean nuthin’.”

  “Yes you did,” Socrates said. “You think I’m funky an’ smelly an’ I ain’t got no feelin’s. That’s what you think. You don’t see that I keep my socks darned an’ my clothes clean. You don’t see that you walkin’ all over me like I was some piece’a dog shit. An’ you don’t care. You just put on a monkey suit an’ steal a few pennies from some po’ woman’s purse. You come down here slummin’, flashin’ your twenty-dollar bills, talkin’ all big. But when you all through people gonna look at me like I’m shit. They scared’a me ’cause you out there pretendin’ that you’re me robbin’ them.”

  Wilfred held up his hands in a false gesture of surrender and laughed. “You too deep for me, brother,” he said. He was smiling but alert to the violence in the older man’s words. “Way too deep.”

  “You the one shovelin’ it, man. You the one out there stealin’ from the white man an’ blamin’ me. You the one wanna be like them in their clothes. You hatin’ them an’ dressed like the ones you hate. You don’t even know who the hell you is!”

  Socrates had to stop himself from striking Wilfred. He was shaking, scared of his own hands again.

  “I know who I am all right, brother,” Wilfred said. “And I’m a damn sight better’n you.”