I turned and grinned at him. “I’ve got a better chance than you, old man.”
He took off his hat, spit on his palm, rubbed his hand across the shiny pate of his head as he whistled out of the side of his mouth. “Don’t bet against me.”
“Victor Carl,” I said, reaching out my hand.
“I know who you are, boy,” he said as he slapped my hand away. “You think I just insult any damn fool who steps in my way?”
“Why, yes,” I said. “I do.”
“The name is Horace T. Grant. My friends call me Pork Chop. You can call me sir.”
“You were in the army, I suppose.”
“Hell yes, but I wasn’t a commissioned officer, if that’s what you’re thinking. I speak out from my mouth and fart out my asshole. With those mixed-up bastards, it was the other way around.”
“So what can I do for you, sir?”
“You can buy me a cup of coffee,” he said.
And so I did.
7
Now, this is strange, but absolutely true. I looked up irascible in the dictionary and found a picture of Horace T. Grant in his porkpie hat.
“You call this coffee? This isn’t coffee. I’ve had ground donkey bladder tasted better than this.”
“Maybe you need a little more sugar.”
“Sugar’s not going to help this, fool. You ever put sugar on a load of crap?”
“No.”
“Well, let me tell you, it doesn’t turn it into cake. That’s experience, boy, hard won. Now, you might get me one of those muffins if the thought strikes, though I bet it’s a rare occasion when a thought strikes your sad excuse for a brain. I bet there’s celebrating in the streets, banner headlines, dancing girls up and down Broad Street.”
“Do you want the donkey-bladder muffin or the horse-shit muffin?”
“Blueberry. And if they don’t got blueberry, cranberry. And if they don’t got cranberry, then the hell with them, they don’t deserve my business.”
“Your business?”
“Get a move on, boy. I don’t got all day.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And another cup of coffee while you’re at it.”
Why was I subjecting myself to Horace T. Grant when I could find pleasanter ways to bide my time, like wrestling porcupines or pouring hot coffee down my pants? Because I had screwed up. The judge was right to lash my scrawny back with her fierce words. Even if I had never met him, even if he was too young to know who I was or what role I was supposed to play in his life, even if I had never wanted his case in the first place, Daniel Rose was my client and I owed him more than a cursory phone call the day before a hearing. Yes, I had relied on the mother, but if the mother was reliable, I wouldn’t be needed in the first place, would I? So I escorted Horace T. Grant to a quaint little storefront in the charming residential area behind the courthouse, I treated him to a coffee, and I now jumped up with alacrity when he asked, in his own sweet way, for a muffin. Partly it was a form of penance, suffering Horace’s slings and arrows was surely a penance, but partly it was something else, too. Because Horace had known my name.
“What kind of muffin you say this was?” said Horace T. Grant.
“Cranberry.”
“I don’t see no berries. Where are the berries? All I see is little red spots. This might as well be a chickenpox muffin. I’m not eating no chickenpox muffin,” he said as he took a bite off the muffin top. “Next time you take me someplace right.”
“Next time?” I said.
“Oh, yes. You got to make it up to me, taking me here to this hole. I got standards.”
“I bet you do. Why don’t we talk about what you wanted to talk to me about?”
He looked up at me as he took a sip from his coffee mug. “I got nothing to say to you.”
“Then why am I treating you to coffee?”
“Don’t ask me. You the one can’t wait to flash your wallet, show everyone how fat it is. ‘Look at me, look at my wad, see how much I got.’ ”
I took out my wallet, as thin as a slice of bologna. “That look fat to you?”
“Now you’re blaming me for your struggles? It’s not my doing you can’t make enough money to buy yourself a decent suit. And look at that tie.”
“What’s wrong with my tie?”
“It’s an embarrassment. There’s a word you might not be familiar with. Style. It means not that tie.”
“Here’s a word for you, sir: Daniel Rose.”
For the first time in our short acquaintance, Horace T. Grant was close to speechless. But only close. He looked at me, he looked away, he took a swig of coffee and winced at the taste. And then he said, “We talking flowers?”
“No, little boys. Daniel Rose is my client, as you very well know. An anonymous report was made to child welfare about him. I figure it was you who did the reporting. You might pretend to be a hard act, but you cared enough to make the report, and you cared enough to keep up with the proceedings. That’s why you were there in the courthouse, that’s how you knew my name. You saw me searching for his mother in the waiting room.”
“Looking every inch the fool, you were.”
“So I’d appreciate your telling me what you can about the boy’s situation.”
“See, here’s the thing about anonymous reports that might have escaped your sterling perspicacity, Mr. Carl. They’re anonymous. That’s another word, like style, that you must have no idea the meaning of.”
“So why would the person who made the report want to remain anonymous?”
“Where’d you grow up, boy?”
“Philadelphia.”
“Now you’re lying to me. Dumb and dishonest, no wonder you’re a lawyer.”
“Well, to be honest-”
“Don’t strain yourself on my behalf.”
“I grew up just north of the city, in a little place called Hollywood.”
“The suburbs.” He exhaled dismissively. “A wasteland for the congenitally unfit. I could tell just by looking at you that you was dumber than an ear of corn. They grow them stupid out there, don’t they? Boys from the suburbs can’t understand what it’s like in the city, how close we all live, one next to the other. How delicate are the relationships between neighbors.”
“So you’re scared.”
“Don’t be a pinhead. You seen what I seen in this world, it’s not scared you get. But maybe Mr. Anonymous is simply cautious.”
“All right. And maybe who he’s cautious about is Daniel’s mother’s boyfriend.”
“Listen, fool. Whoever made that report might not know for sure what is going on, might not have any proof of anything. There might simply be concern, a cautious concern.”
“Based on what?”
“Neighborhood history. The dramatis personae. You know what that means, or is them words too big for you, too? Well, I’ll help you out. Dramatis personae. It means if you’re so damn interested, you ought to go visit the boy for yourself.”
“I intend to,” I said. “But that won’t be so easily accomplished. Apparently every time an appointment is set up, the mother isn’t home.”
“Well, that pretty social worker, each time she shows up, might be going to the wrong house.”
“The mother takes the son somewhere and hides to avoid the visit, is that it?”
“Don’t be getting any thoughts that you are suddenly some genius, now. Remember your limitations.”
“And you might know where she goes to hide?”
“I know a lot more than you’ll ever fit in that cement head of yours.”
“That I believe,” I said, smiling into his scowl. “Can I get you something else, sir?”
“Yes, you can. It’s the least you can do, an ungrateful suburban pinhead like yourself. But no more pastry like childhood diseases for me, no chickenpox muffin or measles muffin for me. And no mumps muffin neither, you understand. Next thing you know, my cheeks will be swelled and my thing will fall off, and then I’d be no better off than you.”
I bought him another muffin, bran because I thought he could use the fiber, and then I sat and listened to his insults until he decided it was time to give me an address.