Always Outnumbered, Always Outgunned Read online

  “What kinda pie?”

  “Do it matter?”

  “I’ont eat no mincemeat pie. That shit is nasty.”

  “It’s peach. I got it at the sto’.”

  “Yeah, I want some.”

  Socrates brought down the pie. Only half of it was left. He cut it into two equal pieces and served it up on aluminum mess plates. When he ate the anger subsided a little. It was a good pie that they were going to throw away at Bounty. He took a bag of leftovers home at the end of every week from the store.

  “You ever dream about somethin’ you don’t want?” Darryl asked.

  “Well. Sometimes I don’t think I want sumpin’ when really I do.”

  “But I mean somethin’ that you really hate. Somethin’ make you wake up scared and wanna run.” Darryl’s eyes were looking back into the dream.

  “You dreamin’ ’bout that boy?” Socrates asked.

  Darryl swallowed, but he didn’t say a thing.

  “What you dream?” Socrates put his hands in his pockets and leaned back on his trash can.

  “We was in a big room, with all the lights out but you could still see. He was cut on his neck but he was walkin’. He didn’t have no clothes on an’ he was walkin’ after me. He was screamin’ an’ I was runnin’. The room was really big but you couldn’t see nuthin’ ’cept for him …” Darryl shivered again.

  Socrates wanted to hug the boy but he knew better. “He catch you?”

  “Naw, uh-uh. I always wake up ’fore he can. But he be there ev’ry night. I cain’t hardly even take no nap but he there. I get ascared even to go in my bed.”

  “What you think he gonna do if he catch you?”

  “Pull me down an’ make me dead like him. Burn the skin offa my bones like in that movie I saw.”

  “Why he wanna do that, Darryl?”

  “’Cause I kilt’im. ’Cause he mad at me. ’Cause me an’ Jamal an’ them lef’ him up there an’ didn’t even tell his momma that he dead. An’ now he ain’t even buried right. That’s why.” Darryl started tapping his spoon against the metal plate.

  “You wanna do somethin’ ’bout that?” Socrates asked.

  “Ain’t nuthin’ to do. Maybe I could take sumpin’ make me sleep some.”

  “That’s why you come here? You think I got some sleepin’ pills?”

  “Naw. I could get them at school.” Darryl beat out a steady beat on his plate.

  “Stop that bangin’, little brother,” Socrates said. “An’ pay attention. As long as you alive you could do somethin’. That’s what bein’ alive is all about. When you dead then your doin’ days is over. It’s over for that boy. He’s dead. He’s dead an’ you killed him an’ now you feel bad. So you got to do sumpin’. An’ since you did wrong now you got to do a good thing. Try an’ balance it out.”

  “An’ then I could sleep?”

  “I bet you could. Shoot. Why’ont you go on in the other room right now an’ stretch out on my sofa. I’ll make sure nobody come get you. An’ then when you get up we’ll talk about what you could do.”

  Darryl had come over at about nine in the morning. He was asleep by ten. The rainclouds passed over at noon and Socrates went out in his small garden to turn the soil for the rose bushes he hoped to buy.

  He was daydreaming about golden roses late in the day when Darryl came outside. His eyes were bleary but at least there wasn’t a frown on his face.

  “How’d you sleep?”

  “Fine,” the boy said. “How long was it?”

  “’Bout five hours. Maybe more.”

  “Damn.”

  “You go on home, Darryl. Come back tomorrow and we try’n figure out what you could do.” Socrates made a play of swinging his big fist at Darryl.

  That was the first time he’d seen the boy smile.

  “Bye,” Darryl said, and he waved to show that he meant it.

  {2.}

  The next day was Sunday. Socrates didn’t work on the weekends because the high school kids all wanted those hours.

  Darryl came by but they didn’t talk about what he could do to make up for murder. They had Kentucky Fried Chicken and Darryl took another nap.

  Socrates gave Darryl the keys to his apartment and every day for a week he’d come home to find the boy sprawled out on his sleeping couch.

  It wasn’t until the following Saturday that Socrates had his lesson planned.

  “You ever been down on Marvane Street?” Socrates asked Darryl after they’d finished a breakfast of pork sausage with scrambled eggs and green onions.

  “Uh, well, Jamal been down there.”

  “T’get his dick suck?”

  “I’ont know. I guess.”

  “You better tell yo’ friend that he might lose his dick down there. Shit! I wouldn’t wanna shake hands wit’ none’a them crack-heads.”

  “Uh-huh.” Darryl picked up his spoon.

  Before he could start his drumming Socrates said, “We gonna go on down there today.”

  “Where at?”

  “Marvane Street.”

  “What for?”

  “’Fore you could do sumpin’ you gotta know what the problem is. The problem you got is down on Marvane,” Socrates said.

  They walked, down the wide alley that went past Socrates’ door, onto the main street and east—toward Marvane. The streets were full of people. Children and their mothers, older men propped up against abandoned storefronts or seated on some box or discarded chair. There were gangs of children, gangs of teenagers, gangs of young men and women; passing in cars blaring loud hip-hop music, walking down the street laughing and dancing, making jokes that sounded like threats.

  “You in a gang, Darryl?” Socrates asked.

  “Not yet.”

  “You gonna be?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Maybe?”

  “It ain’t up t’me,” Darryl said. “Sometimes you gotta get in wit’ them—for p’otection. Right now ain’t nobody fightin’ on my street. But if they do then I gotta be wit’ somebody. You cain’t make it by yo’self in no war.”

  “Hm!” Socrates wanted to say something but he didn’t know what. Darryl knew a child’s street better than he did. In those streets children died every day.

  “That’s yo’ problem right there, Darryl.”

  “What?” The boy looked around but he didn’t see anything.

  “To try’n think of a way that children don’t get killed. Try’n make it better for whoever you can.”

  It took about an hour to get to Marvane. It was a wide street with big houses that had been subdivided into apartments many years before. A few of the homes had burned down, leaving empty lots between the overpopulated buildings. The lots were full of garbage and refuse, temporary sleeping places, and small children at play.

  At the back of one empty lot was a large single-story house. The windows had been boarded over and the only way in or out was a metal door. In the lot a dozen or so people stumbled around. Some of them were talking, some just listening to the music in their blood. Every now and then a solitary figure would come out of the fire door, or go in.

  “That where Jamal go t’get his dick suck?” Socrates asked.

  “I guess. I ain’t never been.”

  “Why not?”

  “Sound nasty.” Darryl frowned and shook his head.

  “That house is part of the problem,” Socrates said. He talked as they walked by, across the street.

  “Yeah? What I’m s’posed t’do about that?”

  “I don’t know. All I do know is that it’s part of it. Drugs killin’ people faster’n heart attacks down here.”

  “What’s the other part?” Darryl asked.

  They were already past the drug house and coming close to another place. There was a sign over the front door that read THE YOUNG AFRICANS. It was a rooming house that had been converted to offices. Young men and women, many in African-like clothing, could be seen through the windows and in the yard. There was a guard at the
door. This man wore a black suit and a coal-gray T-shirt, sunglasses, and a short-brimmed hat.

  “You been up there?” Socrates asked.

  “Naw, man,” Darryl said, sounding like he was mimicking somebody he’d heard. “Them niggahs don’t make no sense.”

  Suddenly Socrates broke out into laughter. There was a childish glee in his high-pitched wheezing. He slapped Darryl on the back, nearly knocking the boy down.

  “You sure ain’t no fool, Darryl.” Socrates laughed no more. “No, you sure ain’t.”

  They kept moving. Three houses down, across the street from them and the Young Africans—on the same side of the street as the crack house—was a smaller dark house. There was a new chain-link fence around it. A fat man with a big black cigar between his lips was watering the lawn.

  “Let’s go up here, boy.” Socrates led the way up to the high front porch of a rooming house directly across the street from the dark house. They went up to the top of the stairs and sat down.

  “What we doin’ here?” Darryl asked.

  “What you see?” Socrates asked, motioning his head toward the house across the street.

  “A house.”

  “What else?”

  “I’ont know. It’s a house wit’ a fat man waterin’ wit’ a hose.”

  “What else?”

  “I’ont know. Uh, it got, uh, let’s see, um, it got three flo’s. And, uh …” Darryl counted on his fingers while peering at the house. “An’ eleven windahs. It’s dark. It got a new fence, an’ uh, an’ uh … That’s it.”

  “Uh-huh.” Socrates nodded. “You want some Kool-Aid?” The ex-con pulled a flask out of the inside of his army jacket. He passed it over to his pupil.

  The boy downed it all in one swallow.

  “What now?” Darryl asked.

  “Keep lookin’. Maybe you see a li’l sumpin’ else.”

  “Hey, Socco,” a voice said from inside the rooming house. Darryl and Socrates were watching the dark house. The fat man had gone inside.

  “Hey, Right.” Socrates turned. With an aging man’s groan he rose to shake hands with his friend.

  Right Burke was old even to Socrates. A commando veteran of WWII, he had a withered left hand and he wasn’t much taller, or sturdier, than Darryl. But his walnut eyes had all the strength a man could need. The first day Socrates saw those eyes he knew that they were the eyes of a friend you could trust.

  “I’m here wit’ my friend Darryl, watchin’ our house.”

  “Pleased t’meet’cha.” Right held out his hand to Darryl. The boy stood up and took the man’s hand. Holding on, Right asked, “You seen anything yet?” Then he winked and let go.

  “Eleven windows,” Darryl said.

  Right laughed and sat down with his guests.

  “Where Luvia at?” Socrates asked.

  “Down at church,” Right said. “They makin’ sweet potato pies for a street fair tomorrah. Shoot. You know if she was here she’da kick yo’ ass offa these stairs by now.”

  “Luvia run this house,” Socrates explained to Darryl. “It’s kinda like a private retirement home.”

  “Uh-huh,” Darryl said, but his attention was on the house across the street. “I don’t see nuthin’. All I see is eleven windahs wit’ the shades down.”

  “Now you got sumpin’,” Socrates said.

  Darryl looked harder but the shades didn’t seem like anything to him.

  “It’s a bright sunny day,” Socrates said.

  “Yeah?”

  “Then why they gonna have their shades down if it’s so nice outside?”

  “Uh, ’cause they sleep?”

  Right laughed and said, “That’s a good one.”

  “Ain’t nobody in the yard,” Socrates said. “Ain’t nobody comin’ over on a Saturday. Garage all closed up. You ain’t seen it but there’s a Ford van come in an’ outta the garage late at night. An’ you see that shade up on the third flo’? The one on the far right side.”

  “Yeah,” said Darryl.

  “Do it look different?”

  “Kinda.”

  “Kinda how?”

  “Like it’s shiny. I’ont know.”

  “Yes you do too know. It is shiny. That’s ’cause it ain’t made’a cloth like the other shades. That one there is plastic. An’you know why?”

  “Uhhh, uhhh, uhhh ‒ ’cause they do sumpin’ different in there?”

  Both men laughed. Darryl frowned and looked down between his knees.

  “We ain’t makin’ fun’a you, Darryl. Don’t go poutin’ on me now. It’s just what you said is funny. You see, that there is a house fulla cops. They doin’what they call surveillance. Watchin’. Watchin’ the Young Africans. An’ you know why?”

  Darryl was in too deep and he knew it. He hunched his shoulders and let his head loll to the side.

  “They worried ’bout them young college Negroes. Maybe they makin’ bombs down there. Even worse: maybe they gonna get all the other Negroes to vote. An’ it’s black cops too. Me an’ Right seen’em. Black cops spyin’ on black college kids while Jamal right down the street gettin’ his dick suck. Do that sound like the law to you, Darryl?”

  The boy shook his head with a confused look in his eye.

  “Three cops on ev’ry shift. Three shifts,” Right said. “You know we figger that, with benefits an’ expenses, they payin’ at least twenty-five hunnert dollars a day just to look at them kids. Here you got twenty old people right here could hardly pay for food. It’s a damn shame.”

  “An’ if that ain’t bad enough there’s a crack house runnin’ almost next do’,” Socrates said. “Two houses down an’ them cops been there … how long is it now, Burke?”

  “Four weeks.”

  “Four weeks,” Socrates continued. “Four weeks. An’ you know there’s been half a dozen people shot or stabbed on this here block in the last four weeks. It takes the cops quarter of a hour at least to answer nine-one-one an’ them cops in that house don’t make a peep. Not a goddam peep.”

  “Mm!” Right Burke grunted. “Damn shame.”

  “Socrates Fortlow!” a woman’s voice declared. “What the hell you doin’ on my front steps?”

  “Uh-oh,” Right said.

  “Hey, Luvia,” Socrates greeted the gaunt-faced woman. She was coming up the stairs quickly. Socrates rose to meet her. “This here is Darryl. Stand up, Darryl, an’ meet Right’s landlady.”

  Darryl did what he was told. He stood up straight and put his hand out at the sapling-thin woman.

  “Who’s this, Socrates?” she asked.

  “My friend. Ex-chicken thief. He’s a boy lookin’ for a good deed to commit.”

  “Well let me tell you, boy,” she said. “You wanna do somethin’ good then you should get away from this man here. He anything but good.”

  “That’s okay, Luvia. You don’t have to like me. But Darryl here might be comin’ ’round sometimes. Just ’cause you hate all men I hope you still got a little heart for a man-child.”

  Right Burke laughed and Luvia slapped his shoulder.

  “Get offa my property, Socrates Fortlow! Git!” she yelled.

  “See ya later, Right,” Socrates said. He and Darryl went down the stairs and back the way they had come.

  {3.}

  “Why she hate you?” Darryl asked when they were down the block.

  Socrates grinned and said, “That’s a good woman, boy. Good woman. She run that house for poor black folks when half the time she broke at the end of the month. If it wasn’t for donations from her church you know the county marshal woulda repossessed by now.”

  “But why do she hate you?” Darryl asked again.

  “’Cause she’s a good woman.” There was a wistful note in Socrates’ voice. “And I’m anything but good. Luvia could smell the bad on me. All she had to do was to see me once an’ she knew what I was. An’ you know she’s a Christian woman too.”

  “But if she religious don’t that mean she should forgive you?”<
br />
  “Christians believe in redemption, that’s true. But usually you have to die in order t’get it. I guess Luvia would say a few nice words if I died. But it would take somethin’ like that. It sure would.”

  They stopped for popsicles at a little store on Central and then went on toward Socrates’ home.

  “You have a good time, Darryl?” Socrates asked the boy. It was getting late in the afternoon. The sky toward the ocean was changing from dusty blue to a light coral color.

  “Yeah,” the boy said tentatively. “But I still don’t know what I have to do. I cain’t see nuthin’ ’bout that crack house and the Africans. An’ you know I ain’t gonna get close to them cops. I’m just little. I need sumpin’ little t’do.”

  Socrates smiled. His legs were beginning to ache from the walk. “What you think about them Young Africans? I mean, how come you don’t like ’em?”

  “You know. They always talkin’ like they know shit an’ we stupid ’cause of our music or whatever, you know. I mean they up in their house tryin’ t’tell us how t’live an’ they ain’t no better. They ain’t got no money or no nice car.”

  “So? At least they’re trying to make somethin’ better. Right?”

  “Maybe so. But I still don’t have to like’em.”

  “Let’s stop a minute, little brother. My legs ain’t young like yours is.” Socrates halted and leaned up against the wall of a boarded-over hardware store. He took a deep breath and smiled at the multicolored sky. “I don’t like’em neither,” he said. “I mean I like what they say but words ain’t deeds. They don’t know how to deal wit’ people.”

  “What you mean?” Darryl asked.

  Socrates saw in the boy an honest question. He saw that Darryl really respected him, really wanted to know what he thought. The idea that Darryl wanted to hear what he had to say scared Socrates.

  “You don’t teach people, you love’em. You don’t get a house and a printin’ press and put up a fence. You do like Luvia. You open up your arms and your pocketbook. You don’t have to worry ’bout no cops. Cops don’t mean shit. But you don’t let no crack house be on your street neither. Uh-uh.

  “You got to love your brother. An’ if you love’im then you wanna make sure he’s safe.”