Johnny B. Goode leapt from some secret hiding place growling and barking and wagging his tail. Killer lunged forward to nuzzle his old friend.
“Dang,” Darryl said, frightened by the sudden attack.
The music cut off.
“Who's out there?” someone shouted from behind the partially open yellow door.
“Socrates, Lavant. Me and a friend come by to see where you live at.”
The door swung open and Lavant Hall came out holding a claw hammer in his left hand. He was wearing the same purple clothes with what looked like the same sweat stains. His eyes registered fear and distrust.
“You remember my dog don't you, Lavant?” Socrates found himself trying to put the man at ease again. “We met at the park last month. You remember.”
“What you want?” the purple man asked.
“Just wanted to say hey, brother.” Socrates hoped that his words didn't sound as unnatural as they felt in his mouth. “And to ask you somethin'.”
“Ask me what?”
“ 'Bout the raggedy flags of America, man. About them yellow posters you been puttin' up from here to the sea.”
“Who told you that?”
“You did.”
“Me?”
“I remembered you talkin' 'bout raggedy flags but even before that—I don't know, it was like that poster reminded me'a you. Neat but all handmade.”
The wary look on Lavant Hall's face slowly turned into a smile. He lowered his hammer and called Johnny B. Goode. Then he threw the door to the garage open and waved an inviting hand at his uninvited guests.
The garage had a high unfinished ceiling. The rafters were piled with junk, but it was neat. There was a platform loft halfway up the far end where Socrates spied a bed. The main room was dominated by a huge worktable supported by boxes and sawhorses. On the table was a big rectangular tub full of a pasty yellow fluid. There were coffee cans that held artist's brushes. A yellow poster page was spread out in front of a high swivel chair that had been set up for Lavant to write out one of his political manifestos.
“This is it,” he said proudly, holding up his skinny arms.
“Dog,” Darryl said, looking around the darkly cavernous room. The only lights were one overhead lamp that shone down on the yellow sheet and another, smaller bulb that lighted the loft space above.
“It's sumpin',” Socrates agreed. “But what is it?”
“This is where the revolution's gonna come from,” Lavant said. “Here and everywhere where people work for ideas instead'a for money.”
“You mean these here papers you writin'?” Darryl asked.
“It's thinkin' that makes a man, son,” Lavant lectured. “Ideas make us responsible for each other. Most people got money-colored glasses on. They think that they can put life in a wallet. They think they buy their souls when really all they do is sell 'em and then die and go to hell.”
Darryl looked down to avoid the zealot's eyes. He nodded and mumbled something.
“I thought it was you,” Socrates said. “I thought it was you and so I come by to see.”
“That's what we need,” Lavant said. “People who think about somethin' that ain't in your pocket, your stomach, or your crotch.”
Darryl giggled at the last word and Socrates smiled.
“So you a revolutionary, huh,” the ex-con said.
“Rebel,” Lavant said in way of correction. “I don't have a revolutionary ideology. I fight anything that wants to keep a human being from being free.”
“An' you think puttin' up these posters do all that?” Socrates' words were a challenge but Lavant could tell that his visitor wanted to believe.
“The truth will set you free, brother,” the purple-clad fanatic replied. “Did you know that there were three black African popes that sat in the Vatican? Yeah. Saint Gelasius, Saint Miltades an' an' an' um, Saint Victor.”
Socrates stalled for a moment, impressed by this impossible knowledge.
“You see?” Lavant said. “We could tear the walls down with that kinda truth.”
Socrates wondered. He rarely spoke to anyone who told him anything new or hopeful. His Wednesday evening discussion group talked about all kinds of issues but Socrates hadn't learned much for all that talk.
“And that's not all I do,” the younger man continued. “You know I help old folks fill out insurance and government forms and I taught two people how to read. I always bear witness when the cops make an arrest. And I preach to the young people in the streets.”
“You crazy,” Darryl said. “That's what crazy people do.”
“Just remember what I say, boy,” Lavant said with his eyes alight. “I might be crazy but you mark my words.”
Lavant showed Socrates how he made the poster board from rags and permanent dyes. He read to them from past broadsides and showed them a wall map dotted with red pins that indicated where he'd placed his posters.
After that they drank Coca-Colas while Lavant questioned and corrected Darryl's history lessons from school. When the boy started fidgeting, Socrates stood up.
“Well.” Socrates put a hand on Darryl's shoulder. “I got to see Darryl off to a bus so he can get home and get to bed in time to go to school tomorrow.”
Outside the garage, under a strong-smelling bay laurel, Lavant asked Socrates, “You know where the Pink Lady is over on Jeff?”
“Yeah?”
“Two blocks south on the cross side'a the street is a boarded-up hardware store with a picture of a clown on the door.” Lavant smiled. “Around the back, between the buildin's is a door. Come on round after ten and you see what a rebel can do when he's on the job.”
Socrates put Darryl on a crosstown bus and went back to his place. On his butane camp stove he made scrambled eggs with chorizo sausage, garlic and onion. Alongside the eggs he had canned asparagus topped with lemon juice and mayonnaise. The smell of the sausages filled the house for hours. Socrates was reading about poisonous sea snakes in the South Seas in an old National Geographic he'd taken from the trash somewhere. He fell asleep reading and came awake a few hours later because of the smell. Not the sharp scent of spiced meat but a sweet odor.
It was Lavant Hill's cologne in the fabric of his clothes. Socrates smelled the hand that Lavant clasped while saying good-bye.
There was a car service garage not far from Socrates' alley. Cigar-smoking Pete Roman ran the graveyard shift. Roman had Lamont Taylor drive Socrates to out near the Pink Lady for four thirty-five plus a one-dollar tip.
There was the sound of drums and strings coming out from the space between the condemned building, with the clown face on the door, and its neighbor. The passageway between the buildings was so narrow that Socrates had to hold his shoulders at an angle to make it down to the source of the music—a tin-plated door.
The man who answered Socrates' knock was six six at least. He wore black pants and a red vest with no shirt. His head was woolly and his hands were large. His arms were thin bands of steel.
“Who the hell you think you is?” the man demanded.
“Lavant invited me,” Socrates said. He didn't want to hurt a man just because he didn't know how to talk.
“Lavant who?”
“Hall,” Socrates said. “He said that he work here. He said I should come by.”
“He went out,” the man said searching Socrates face for signs. “But, uh, I guess you could come in if he invited ya. I mean, most of the people is regular but you don't look like no cop.”
“Cop,” Socrates sputtered and then he laughed.
The giant got the joke and backed away to let the new man in.
It was a big room filled with music and people. All kinds of people. Mexicans and blacks, whites and Asians. Men and women, young and old. There was a bar run out of a black trunk that stood on two tripods. There was also a white banner, with the bright red words CLICK'S CLUB printed across it, hanging down from the rafters.
The music was fiddle, clarinet, guitar and drums accompanie
d by three singers. It was rock and roll, kind of, and soul and blues for sure; improvisation from musicians who knew each other well.
It was truly a condemned building. Linoleum was ripped up to reveal the unfinished wood of the floor. Walls were broken out so that there was just one big room between rotted timbers. It had been dusty but someone had gone through the place with a heavy-duty vacuum and a broom. In some places Socrates thought he could see where water had been sprayed to keep the dust down. There were jury-rigged overhead lamps like the one Lavant had used to illuminate the yellow broadside on his desk.
Many of the people were dancing wildly. Two women had taken off their blouses and were dancing, bare breasted, close to one another. There were lovers in the corners and lively conversations going on at makeshift tables and chairs.
“Drink?” asked a blond-haired black woman with three silver studs in her left nostril. She was standing next to the elevated trunk that was filled with bottles of liquor and wine.
“How much for a shot'a JD?” Socrates said, looking over the labels displayed.
The woman's wide face became a question. “You somebody's guest?”
“Lavant Hall invited me.”
“Oh,” she said, happy again. “This is Click's Club. All drinks one dollar. Everything else is free once you walk in the door.”
The woman poured Socrates' drink in a paper cup and he handed her his dollar. She was young looking but in her forties, Socrates could tell by the lines near her eyes. She was heavy but shapely, responsible at her job but ready to laugh.
“How long you been here?” he asked the woman.
“My name is Venus,” she replied.
“Socrates. How long this place been here, Venus?”
“Just tonight,” she said.
“This your first night?”
“Naw, not like that. I mean it's our first night here. Saturday we be someplace else.”
“You mean you move every night?”
“Every night that we convene. This place is click,” Venus said snapping her fingers and tossing her hair. “We all put up the labor and then we party and congregate all over town.”
“Hey, Venus,” a woman said coming up to the bar.
“Hey, Shy. This is Socrates.”
The woman named for bashfulness was wearing a see-through red wraparound with yellow lipstick. She had bleached white hair. She was a young woman and black too. Socrates had never seen anyone like her.
“Hi,” Shy said with a friendly smile. “Venus, you got some rubbers?”
“How many you need?”
“Um,” Shy mused, “three.”
The bartender smiled knowingly and produced three square green packets from somewhere behind the trunk.
“You're the best,” Shy said kissing the dark woman with her bright yellow lips.
“A lotta that go on around here?” Socrates asked after Shy had gone.
“Everything go on when the Click flag flies,” Venus said. “Everything but drugs and violence, but we don't put them down neither.”
“Yeah, I could see that,” Socrates said. He was looking at an elderly couple, even older than him, sitting next to each other on cinder blocks near the door.
“You do, huh?” Venus asked.
“Sure. People who wanna be free cain't have all that disruption. Fightin' an' drugs kill a good time faster'n the law.”
Venus' laugh was friendly and inviting. She pressed her hand against Socrates' arm and smiled. “How do you know Lavant?” she asked.
“Our dogs are friends,” Socrates replied.
“Oh,” she said making eyes that spoke about something else altogether.
“Can we get some red wine, Veen,” someone asked from behind. Socrates turned to see that it was a white man with a small Asian woman at his side.
Other men and women had come up to ask for drinks. Socrates allowed himself to be pushed away.
“Socrates,” a high voice cried.
“Hey, Lavant. Where you been?”
The skinny man wore a purple dress jacket with camel-colored pants and white patent leather shoes. He was carrying two shopping bags.
“Out shoppin' for food at the twenty-four-hour Bounty over on Exposition. You know we ran outta cold cuts and dancin' makes you hungry.”
Socrates took the two heavy bags and followed his host to a long table set up in what once was the storeroom of the hardware store. Helping hands were there to meet them taking bread and meat, catsup and mayonnaise from the bags and placing them around the table.
The music was playing loudly throughout the empty structure. Socrates looked around at the crowd.
“Somethin' else, huh,” Lavant asked.
“You people ever get caught?”
“Sometimes. Especially when we hit some rich neighborhood. But all we do is walk away. Maybe a night in jail for one or two but you know this is two hundred people here. Nobody owns Click's.” The tone of Lavant's voice changed and Socrates could tell that he was getting excited about his politics again. “The police can't stop a good time and they know it. Look at it, man. Every color and creed. One day all of America will get here.”
“If nobody owns it how does it happen?” Socrates wanted to know. “I mean who sets up where you meet? Where does the money go?”
“There's a board like …” just then Lavant gestured at a skinny white woman who was kissing a heavyset man.
“Hey, Alice!” Lavant cried. “Save some'a that for me, baby.” He laughed and turned back to Socrates. “We used t'be all political and had meetings about the world and how we was gonna change it. You know what it's like. Bunch'a men and women talkin' so hard that they sweat, thinkin' so hard that they get nosebleed.”
Socrates felt the Jack Daniel's then. His smile turned into a chuckle and the music entered his bones.
“That's right,” Lavant continued. “All we did was talk and grunt. One day we was all gonna live together an' have a dozen kids between us. The children would be an army that we'd lead into war. Next mont' we was all gonna go to Cuba and work for the revolution amongst the Afro-Cubanos down there.”
Socrates had enough talk for right then. He wandered off for another whiskey and a few words with Venus. He didn't dance but stood near a mob of men and women shaking to the music.
Socrates nodded to people here and there but he didn't enter into any conversations. Lavant was talking to everybody and Venus was busy with her bottles and paper cups. So Socrates wandered the perimeter of the first floor, locating boarded-up windows and doors.
Once he ran into Shy, who was coming out of the shadows with a young white man. They were both smiling broadly.
“Hi, Socrates.” The yellow lips wrapped themselves around his name.
“Tell me sumpin',” Socrates requested.
“What?”
“Do they like rent this place or what?”
Her smile was anything but shy.
“We know a lotta construction workers and supply people and just plain old folks in the neighborhoods. So when one'a them sees that a place is empty we check it out and make our plans. Sometimes we up in a nice area and somebody let us use their home.”
“But this here is trespassin'?” Socrates asked.
“Only if we get caught.” Shy puckered up her bright lips and kissed the air between her and Socrates.
For all his experience the ex-convict knew little about women. He had lived among men for most of his adult years. He nodded and backed away from her like a barefoot traveler who had come upon a snake.
“I'll prove it,” someone said from behind a walled-off corner.
Socrates peered around the edge and saw a young black woman and a white man standing about three feet apart and staring hard into each other's eyes. She wore a black leather micromini with a tight-fitting elastic halter top. He held a large hunting knife in his left hand. Her eyes seemed to be pleading for this proof and so Socrates held back to see what would happen.
The white man, wh
o was dark haired and half bald, raised his right hand and slashed the wrist. He dropped the knife holding the bleeding hand high. A look of deep satisfaction and grief worked its way into the young woman's features. She took a step forward and touched his bloody fingers. For long seconds she gazed into his unseen face.
Socrates was breathing hard. He'd never witnessed anything like this, not even in prison where suicide was commonplace.
The woman's mouth opened but no words came out. She pulled off the halter. If there wasn't so much blood being let Socrates might have been impressed by her nakedness. She used the halter as a bandage, wrapping it tightly around the wound. She gazed deeply into the white man's face with a need deeper than any love Socrates had known.
The blood was still dripping down between them but slower with the dressing. Socrates watched the lovers as long as they gazed at each other. But when they moved into an embrace he turned away.
A few minutes past three A.M., Socrates was talking to Lavant and the white woman, Alice, asking if there would be someone to give him a ride home, when someone yelled, “Police!”
“Com'on,” Socrates ordered his friend. Then he went toward the back of the building as the tin-plated entrance filled with cops in full riot gear.
Socrates made it to a window that had been blocked with thin plywood. Two well-placed kicks and Socrates, along with Venus, Alice and Lavant, was outside in a concrete yard.
With a nudge of Socrates' shoulder the padlocked fence opened up. Then they were running down the alley, heavy footsteps not far behind.
Socrates allowed Lavant and the women to go before him while he caught a glance of the people behind. They were other refugees from the rave, stumbling along in their awkward party shoes.
From somewhere behind them came the command, “Halt! Police!”
“Keep on goin'!” Socrates told his friends. And then he ran hard with his head down. He knew that the cops would have their hands full with the other escapees. The only thing to worry about was a shot that might go wild.
But no shots were fired.
When the four reached the alley, Alice shouted, “My car's at the end of the block!”
Walter Mosley Page 13
