Walter Mosley

by Socrates Fortlow 02 - Walkin' the Dog

  “I don't know 'bout all that,” Socrates said.

  “All what?”

  “How you know that somebody's a white man? I mean Augustine was a African. Socrates come up around the Mediterranean, you know that's spittin' distance from the Arab world. Maybe your name is really a black man's name too.”

  “Will you please keep it down,” Luvia said. “This is Sunday.”

  “Sorry, Miss Prine,” Milton said. But he was thinking about Socrates then, casting sidelong glances at the man.

  By then they were headed north on Highland up toward Barhum. The car did feel like a boat to Socrates. It almost floated on the streets of L.A., banking instead of turning, never jolting at a stop.

  “Where'd you hear that about Saint Augustine?” Luvia Prine asked. Socrates was expecting the question but not from her.

  “I got that at the Capricorn Bookstore. I used to go there before it got burnt down in the riots.”

  “You knew the Minettes?” Luvia asked.

  “Enough to eat at their apartment over here offa Forty-seventh Street.”

  In the rearview mirror Socrates could see his words register on Luvia. He felt a childish glee that she had something close to respect for him if only just for a moment or two.

  “I never heard'a that place,” Milton said.

  “It was a black bookstore where anybody could go an' read and talk,” Socrates said. “They had art shows and poetry readin's but I didn't go in too much for that. I liked to read about all the history that we got an' we don't even know about. About alla the lies we tell each other but here we go thinkin' we tellin' the truth.”

  “What's that supposed to mean?” Milton wanted to know.

  “Like Luvia.”

  “What you mean like me?” the landlady said angrily.

  “You didn't know that Augustine was African and you in church every minute you can find. Maybe your minister don't know it. All kinda stuff they teach us and then we go passin' it around like it was gospel. All up and down the street you got people believin' lies about each other and tellin' them lies like they was the Lord themselves.”

  “I didn't tell you that I didn't know Augustine was an African,” Luvia said. “And why should I believe you anyway?”

  “Oscar Minette was the one told me, Miss Prine. But that's okay. I didn't mean to insult you. I was just sayin'.”

  The car went quiet after that. The gold Lincoln climbed up Forest Lawn Drive toward the cemetery.

  They had to walk up a hill to get to the grave site. Luvia found it hard going. Socrates put his hand under her elbow for support. She almost balked but then she relaxed into the strength of his hand.

  It was just a plaque of granite lying flat in the grass. EUGENE BURKE, 1923-1997. No poetry or catchy remembrances.

  “Looks like a dinner plate,” Socrates said. “Seems like Right deserved something better.”

  “He left all his wealth behind him,” Luvia said. “A bronze coffin and a fancy headstone won't get you into the Kingdom.”

  “You sure cain't take it with ya,” Socrates agreed.

  Luvia put down her injured flowers. Socrates took a crystal teardrop, the kind used in chandeliers, from his pocket and placed it next to the poor bouquet.

  “What's that piece of glass supposed to be?” Luvia asked.

  “Darryl give it to me to leave. It's his favorite thing. When I told him that I was gonna try an' find Right's grave he gimme that to leave.”

  At first Socrates thought that Luvia was nodding, somehow agreeing that leaving the crystal was the right thing to do. And maybe that's how it began. But somewhere along the way the nod became crying. The quiet, tearless crying of a woman who had given up everything and never looked back.

  Socrates watched her clutching her gloved hands and shaking like someone suffering from palsy. He reached out but she put up a tremulous hand.

  “I don't need your help,” she said. “Just let me have my cry alone.”

  Socrates walked down to the car where Milton waited leaning up against the hood. He was smoking a cigarette and staring peacefully at the wispy clouds snaking their way through the blues skies.

  “Hey,” Milton said.

  Socrates nodded.

  “She usually spends a while up there. And when she comes down she's all quiet and smaller, you know? Like she got the weight of the whole world on'er.”

  Socrates nodded again.

  “I think she was in love with him. That's what Dottie Monroe told me. Dottie said that when Luvia talks about Right she just loses it. Even now he been dead almost a year all you got to do is ask her about him and she can't get out but a few sentences 'fore she choke up.”

  “Yeah, well,” Socrates said. “Right was a good man. He never let the world break him down. He was old and crippled but he'd still stand up to anyone'a these young cowards you got runnin' around out here. I'm just surprised that he made it as long as he did.”

  “You gonna pay half?” Milton asked.

  “Halfa what?”

  “I charge fifteen dollars for the ride up here an' back to ten o'clock service. I figure wit' you here she could save a little.”

  Luvia's church was on Sixty-third Place near Hooper. It was a large salmon pink building with a white cross, almost three stories high, rising from its roof.

  The congregation was coming from all over the street into the three double doors that stood atop the building's wide stone staircase. There was the flowery smell of women's perfume in the air. Socrates and Milton both got out of the car to help Luvia but she pushed them away.

  Many well-dressed parishioners took a second look at the big ex-convict in his army fatigue pants and tight black T-shirt. His big hands and stern features marked him out from that God-fearing crowd.

  “See ya in a few weeks, Miss Prine,” Milton said. He gestured as if he were doffing his hat but he did not do so.

  “You're welcome to come into church, Milton Langonier,” Luvia said.

  “I got to get another fare, Miss Prine. Maybe next week.”

  Luvia turned quickly toward Socrates, almost, he thought, like a frightened leaf eater who suspected a predator stalking from behind.

  “You could come to church too, Mr. Fortlow. They made church for sinners. And it's only God can tell them no.” Her left eye shut for a moment and her gloved hands made themselves into fists.

  “Thank you, Miss Prine, but not today. I appreciate it though.”

  Luvia actually sighed in relief. For the first time Socrates saw gratefulness in her eyes.

  “Wanna go down to MacArthur Park?” Milton asked when they were driving again.

  “How much that gonna cost me?”

  “I'm off duty now, boy. You know I only do one ride on a Sunday and the rest I take off.”

  They sat together on an iron bench that was painted pink. Milton brought out a pint bottle of peach-flavored schnapps and they passed it back and forth taking small swigs and gasping from the alcohol burn.

  “She used to sit right over there on that bench,” Milton said, pointing to a tall pine tree.

  “What bench?” asked Socrates.

  “It ain't there no more. That was thirty-five years ago when I was a mail carrier and I used to come here on Fridays with my boss Moses Goldstein. Jewish man.”

  Socrates took another drink and remembered that he hadn't eaten that morning. A warm fuzzy feeling nuzzled in around his ears.

  “But who was sitting on the bench?” he asked.

  “Cherry Winters,” Milton said. He took a drink and then lit a cigarette.

  It was a sunny day and there were more than a few people out strolling in the downtown park. Pedal-boats were gliding across the man-made pond. Two young men were throwing each other long passes with a football. Socrates thought that they were imagining playing in the big game on TV, dreaming that they were sports stars running and passing to the shouts of a whole stadium full of fans. He could almost hear the cheers himself.

  “Yep,�
� Milton said. “She used to sit right under that pine tree. It was smaller back then.”

  “Who was she?”

  “Black girl. Real real black and ugly from the way I looked at things. She used to sit right over there every Friday and me and Moses used to sit down at a redwood bench near the pond.” Milton smiled at the memory. “Yeah, yeah. We'd sit down on the bench and he'd bring peach schnapps and we'd pour it in these little Dixie cups. I was just a kid really. Moses was more than fifty. It took me a long time realize it but he had a reason to come down here with me. It was that Cherry.”

  “What about her?”

  “Moses was married. Had three kids and one grandchild. And here that fool falls in love with the ugliest black girl I could imagine. You know the kinda girl don't even style her hair but just comb it straight back and tie it up with a rubber band. Skinny and big lipped.You know back then I thought beauty was Sarah Vaughan or Dorothy Dandridge. That child just wore a one-piece dress and brown shoes that laced up like a man's shoes.”

  “An' she would eat here on Fridays while you an' Moses was drinkin'?” Socrates asked. He was enjoying the way that Milton's story unfolded.

  “Yeah. One day I figured out that it was because'a that girl that Moses brought me out here,” Milton said with wonder in his voice. “You see I was one of the few blacks they had workin' in his area. He'd been comin' down here for over a year already, watchin' that child.”

  Socrates felt his mouth come open the way that it did when he was on the way to drunk. He smiled and looked up at the false horizon line of the trees, that jagged line of pines underscoring blue.

  “He was in love,” Milton said.

  “Love?”

  “Crazy. That's what I said. Crazy. Here you got a old big-bellied Jewish man in his fifties actin' like a school kid over a black girl he ain't ever even been within arm's distance of. But that's what he said. After we been comin' to the park about two months. I guess he had a little too much peach schnapps that Friday an' he told me how much in love he was. I said, ‘Moses, why'ont you go ovah there an' say hey.’ You know I wasn't a day over twenty-five and arrogant the way young men can be. Moses just shook his head and blushed. Blushed!”

  It was that last word that made Socrates understand that this long-ago talk had stayed with him, like that Lincoln Continental.

  “I yelled over to the girl. Moses said not to but he really wanted me to call her. Why else did he bring me here? I yelled over for the girl to come to our bench. She was a little shy but I guess she figured what could we do in broad daylight in the park?”

  Socrates was watching two young lovers, a dark-skinned Hispanic man and his fair Asian girlfriend. He didn't want to hear any sad story right then. The schnapps working its way through his brain only wanted candy colors and a pleasant nap.

  “I told her that my friend liked her and she said go on but she sat down anyway. When I left Moses was still on the bench with that girl. I had to lie back at work and say that he ate something bad and went home.” Milton stopped there to take the final drink from the bottle. He lost the thread of his story with that last smacking swallow and sat still staring at the boats gliding across the lake.

  “Right Burke was my best friend,” Socrates said. “It feels good to say that. You know? That somebody is your friend. Your best friend. Even though he's dead it's like he was here.”

  Milton nodded.

  A pair of policemen wandered by on horseback.

  “It's nice here in the park, man,” Socrates said.

  For a long while after that the two men sat in silence.

  “So what happened?” Socrates asked.

  “What?”

  “With your boss and that girl?”

  “Oh. Moses and his girl on the side.” Milton squinted his eyes, trying to remember. “Yeah. He set her up. Got her a little place down offa Adams. Went to see'er every day almost. She had a baby. Named him Moses. And you know I had it made after alla that. I mean Moses loved me almost as much as he did Cherry. After all it was me broke the ice. Every time a promotion was due I got it. I was his second in command after only three years. That way I could cover for him when he was spendin' the afternoon over with her.

  “Oh yeah that was real love there. Even before she proved it I knew that Cherry loved that man. You know he couldn't leave his wife. All them kids and the grandkids kept comin'. Nobody would'a had no sympathy for him so they kept it quiet. Cherry didn't care though. She used to make his lunches and send 'em through me.She knit him sweaters, never complained as far as I knew. And when he got sick with the heart disease and he couldn't even get up outta the bed Cherry used to bring me little notes that I'd take up to his house on Fridays an' show'im. And every time he'd tell me to tell her that he loved her and that when he was better that he'd leave Sophie and come be her husband.”

  Socrates noted the heaviness in Milton's voice.

  “You know I don't think that they never knew each other at all,” Milton said. “I mean they was in love but the worlds they lived in was so different. It was just somethin' about the way she ate her lunch and the way that man loved her even though he had a whole world someplace else.”

  “Did they ever get married?” Socrates asked.

  “Naw,” Milton replied. “He got weaker an' weaker. Finally he just died. I took Cherry to the funeral actin' like she was my girlfriend. But I think Sophie musta known sumpin' wit' the way that Cherry carried on. You know I don't think that there was a black woman ever lived would cry so hard for me as Cherry did for that fat old Jewish man.”

  Milton bit his lip and shook his head. He took the schnapps bottle out of his pocket but it was empty.

  Socrates got down on the grass and stretched out. He put his hands behind his head and let his eyes wander with the big white clouds.

  “They all gone,” said the man who was named after a poet.

  “Who?”

  “Yo' friend. My friend. Cherry's alive but she ain't here no more. It's just all like a dream.”

  “What happened to Moses Junior?”

  “I got him a job as a mail carrier. You know I tried to help Cherry out after Mo was gone. But I wasn't in on all that love.”

  Those were the last words Socrates heard for a while. He fell asleep with blades of grass waving in the breeze, tickling his bare arms.

  An hour or so later he woke up. Milton was still sitting on the bench, watching the boats.

  They rode home in amiable silence. When Milton let Socrates off at his alley door he said, “See you in a month, Mr. Fortlow?”

  “I hope so,” Socrates said.

  “Did you go to Mr. Burke's grave?” Darryl asked Socrates early the next morning at Bounty.

  “Uh-huh.” He was using the big floor buffer to strip the wax from aisle seven two hours before the doors to Bounty were due to open. Darryl had been given extra hours to help Socrates. He did that often so he could talk to the older man.

  “Was you sad?”

  “Sad?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  Socrates lost himself for a few minutes in the pivot from right to left as he let the big, rotating, steel wool brush grind away the yellowing wax. Darryl followed with his squeegee pushing the extra water along behind the big chromium machine.

  About half the way through Socrates stopped and pushed the red button between the handlebars. The motor died and the brush slowed, making the sound of a snake through the dead grasses of summer.

  “No, I wasn't sad,” Socrates said. “Uh-uh. I mean it was sad to see that nameplate on the ground. But you know Right made up his own mind. He took them pills.”

  They were the only people in the store. Both man and boy liked the solitude and freedom of their early morning jobs.

  “I put your crystal down there. Luvia thought it was real nice'a you. But I wasn't sad,” Socrates said again. “No, uh-uh. I went to the park with this man name'a Milton. We went to MacArthur Park downtown and he said about a man he knew that died. They was frien
ds kinda like me an' Burke.”

  “Did you have some wine?” Darryl asked.

  “He had somethin',” Socrates said. “But I didn't. You know you don't always have to be high to have a good time.”

  “Uh-huh, I know. I just asked is all.”

  “It was real pretty yesterday,” Socrates said. “And it was strange too.”

  “What you mean?”

  “You ever see one'a them big mural paintin's that they put up on the wall? The kinds about a whole big place with lots and lotsa people? The kind where nobody is special but they just doin' what they do? Sittin' on a park bench or throwin' a Frisbee.”

  “Yeah I seen 'em.”

  “And the pictures of the people ain't real good like no photograph. You know. Maybe somebody's head is just a circle or sumpin' but you know what it means, you know that it's a man or woman.”

  “Yeah.”

  “When I closed my eyes I could see all the people in the park just like in one'a them murals. I mean they were still in my mind. But it was like Right was there too and also this Jewish man that Milton was talkin' 'bout. There was some girl he mentioned too. You know what I mean?”

  “Uh-uh,” Darryl uttered, shaking his head to accent his confusion.

  “It's like you take somebody with you even if they ain't there, even if they dead. It's like Martin Luther King. I can see him in my mind but I ain't never met him. Or like when I saw the boats they had on the pond there. I thought about you and how you'd like to get in one'a them and row around.”

  “So? That just mean you thinkin' 'bout somebody.”

  “Yeah. I was thinkin' an' I wasn't sad or mad. I was just thinkin' and everything was fine. Even though there was all this bad stuff and sad stuff in my mind everything was still fine. Yeah.”

  the mugger

  Hey you! Yeah you, mothahfuckah!” The man was young, not more than twenty, but built for power. He swaggered as he walked and his eyes had as much murder in them as Socrates had ever seen.

  It was just sunset and Socrates had taken a shortcut down one alley that led to the alley that he lived on. He had just come from Tri-X Check Cashing on Central and had his full week's salary in an envelope in his pocket.