“What’s that, Raymond?”
“You know I got me a big dick,” Mouse answered. “That’s a fact. I don’t know what the girls think about it but you know I like it just fine.”
I was impatient but with Raymond you had to let the story unwind. He couldn’t be rushed, so I concentrated on the white line.
“I mean, sometime it might be saggin’ a little but I could always get the mothahfuckah hard.” He slapped his steely finger against the dashboard. “You know Tisha?”
“Lawrence?”
“Naw, Burnett. Live over in the Russell projects.”
“I don’t think so.”
“She work for John, waitress over there. Sour-faced bitch, but she fine, an’ she know it too.”
“What about her?”
“I’ont know, Easy. I’ont know what happened. We was drinkin’ red wine. Maybe that’s it. But my dick was hangin’ down just like a goddam water hose. An’ you know Tisha didn’t like that at all. She say I’m a faggot and a punk. She said to get outta her house ’cause she need a man who could get hard for her.”
“An’ what you do?” I asked. I asked because he was my friend — but I really didn’t want to know.
“I went down to my house and started drinkin’. I was mad. Mad at my own goddam dick. When I got up it was early in the mornin’, ’bout four. I don’t know what got into me, Easy. I started talkin’ to myself like I was crazy. Talkin’ ’bout Tisha. And the more I talk the madder I get. Before you know it I’m out in my car headed for the projects.”
We were driving down Hauser. It was a sunny day, I remember. But the shadows seemed darker than usual. The people, out in front of their houses, looked grim.
“I pult up in front’a the projects; I was gonna get that bitch out the bed. You cain’t talk to me like that an’ get away wit’ it. Shit. For all I knew she got on the phone after I was gone an’ told ev’rybody.” Mouse stopped and stared angrily out at the street.
When we pulled up to a red light I turned and asked, “What did you do?”
“William was comin’ outta the courtyard when I drove up. He was walkin’ across the street to his car but when he see me he smile an’ grab on his thing. ‘Hey, Raymond,’ he say. ‘You sure right, man. That Tisha’s like satin.’ Like satin.”
The car behind us honked and I looked up to see that the light was green. I drove across the street and parked at the curb. I couldn’t stand the tension of driving and listening to that story at the same time.
“I didn’t mean to hit him,” Raymond said. “You know that woman didn’t mean a damn thing t’me. When William hit the ground I knew I was wrong. I was gonna say I was sorry. I was gonna buy him a drink — but he went for his gun, Easy. I swear he did.”
No more had to be said. I knew that Sweet William Dokes’s corpse was laid out on a slab somewhere.
“Cops picked me up at the house an’ took me down to jail this mornin’, but they didn’t give a fuck. They knew we’d been runnin’ together. One of ’em hit me a couple’a times an’ when I didn’t break down they let me go.”
Raymond was crying. Not blubbering or shaking, but there were real tears in his eyes. I had never seen him even sad over anything he’d done. Seeing him cry brought tears uncontrollably to my own eyes.
I didn’t know what to say.
Maybe just sitting there is what changed him. Maybe being in my company, coming from my house, he got the idea to go straight.
We sat there at the curb until sunset. The skies turned a black-tinged orange. We sat silently. I was thinking that my new life as a workingman was a good idea.
As it turned out Mouse was thinking the same thing.
When the streetlamps came on I drove us back to my house. Mouse didn’t come in. He got in his car and drove out to EttaMae, his ex-wife and soon-to-be-wife-again.
Etta called me the next day. She wanted jobs for both her and Raymond at the Board of Education. It was easy to get her in. She was a hard worker and had a clean work record.
The only job Raymond had ever held was making license plates at the state prison at Chino while doing five years for manslaughter.
But I was good at making things happen. I got Raymond a job as janitor under my supervision. And, so far, he did it just fine.
Southeast L.A. was palm trees and poverty; neat little lawns tended by the descendants of ex-slaves and massacred Indians. It was beautiful and wild; a place that was almost a nation, populated by lost peoples that were never talked about in the newspapers or seen on the TV. You might have read about freedom marchers; you might have heard about a botched liquor store robbery (if a white man was injured) — but you never heard about Tommy Jones growing the biggest roses in the world or how Fiona Roberts saved her neighbor by facing off three armed men with only the spirit of her God to guide her.
Etta lived in a small house that was by itself on a large lot. She had fruit trees and a large garden. There was a tan Ford parked on the lawn.
Raymond Alexander, wearing a soft gray work shirt and matching pants, was looking under the hood. He didn’t get down in it but merely looked from a safe distance. Mouse might have changed but he wasn’t ever going to get dirty if he didn’t have to.
“Mouse,” I said from my open window.
“I think it’s the generator, man. Battery spark just fine,” he said, not even looking in my direction.
“Jump in,” I told him. “I’ll take you to work.”
We took the long way back. I stopped by my Magnolia Street apartment building, and a smaller place I owned on Denker. I was still in the real estate business in a small way. But I no longer dreamed of making a fortune on speculation.
We didn’t even get out of the car. I just wanted to see the places.
Raymond sat next to me, quiet and thoughtful. He drew his right knee up to his chin and smoked a Chesterfield. He reminded me of a man sitting in a solitary cell. There was nothing to complain about because there was no one who could hear him.
“You ever go to church, Easy?” Mouse asked when we were about a mile from Sojourner Truth.
“I been in one or two, even on a Sunday sometimes, but I don’t think you could say that I ever properly went to church, not since I’ve been a man.”
“Oh. Uh-huh.”
“You thinkin’a goin’ to church, Ray?”
“I don’t know.”
That was a long talk for us at the time.
5
There were at least sixteen police cars parked around the entrance gate of the new school yard. As I approached the external parking lot a uniformed cop stepped out and put up his hand to stop me.
“You’ll have to turn around,” the young white cop told me.
“What happened here?”
“You’ll have to turn around now.” There was no give in his voice.
“I’m the head custodian at the school, officer,” I said. “Mr. Rawlins.”
“You have keys to the buildings in the garden?”
“Yes I do.”
“Then pull around here. Go up to the garden gate and ask for Sergeant Sanchez.”
I turned to Raymond and said, “You better head over to the main office.”
“Huh?” Mouse seemed unaware of the police activity around us.
“Go on and get ready to start your shift.” I didn’t want Raymond to be anywhere around the cops if a serious crime had been committed. Ex-convicts make the best suspects.
“Okay, man,” Raymond said. He got out of the car and made his way slowly across the asphalt yard. Mouse might have changed, but he certainly wasn’t what anybody would call normal. I don’t think you would have gotten a rise out of him if the Russians dropped the bomb on New York City.