Walter Mosley

by Socrates Fortlow 02 - Walkin' the Dog

  Mookie, sometimes known as Mookie Kid and sometimes as the first-floor man, that was Moorland Kinear. He bunked down the row from Socrates for five years. Mookie was a burly man, not very strong but imposing. He liked to find businesses that kept their money and valuables in locked rooms instead of a safe.

  “You could always cut through the flo' on a locked room,” Mookie would say. He was christened the first-floor man because, unlike the cat burglar, the second-story man, Mookie usually cut a hole up from the cellar to the first floor.

  Mookie was a career criminal. He had never held a job that didn't lead to a crime. Most of his life had been spent eating off tin plates at long tables alongside of rough men.

  Socrates issued a harsh syllable that stood for a laugh and then went back to sleep.

  It was a sound sleep. No rolling around or dreams that had words or faces or names.

  He went to work the next day without fear of being seen or sought out. He got a citrus delivery from Florida Inc. and a shipment of berries from the Central California Farmer's Union. Socrates handled much of the purchasing for his store even though the purchasing office for Bounty would have been glad to handle it for him. Socrates liked his job.

  It wasn't until that afternoon that Mookie Kid came back into his thoughts.

  Should he call Mookie and see what the ex-con wanted? He already knew what Mookie was up to. Why ask? It was some grocery store or five-and-dime that kept their receipts in a storage room over a poorly guarded basement. Maybe it was some upscale place that wasn't used to criminals with pickaxes and sledgehammers.

  Whatever it was Mookie was up to, it had to do with getting caught. Mookie's lifetime of prison food attested to that. Socrates decided not to call. He wouldn't answer any calls from Mookie either.

  But why should he hide from Mookie Kid, Moorland Kinear? He wasn't afraid. Nobody could tell him what to say or who to talk to. He could talk to Mookie on the phone if he wanted to. His parole had been up for four years. No one could tell him what to do.

  Socrates decided that when he got home he'd call Mookie and say hey. But then, on the bus, on the way home he reconsidered. Why did Mookie Kid want to call him anyway? How did he even get his number? How did he know that Socrates was in L.A? The more he thought about it the more suspicious he became. Better to stay away from someone who was so sneaky as to come up on somebody when he wasn't expecting it. And why didn't he say anything when Socrates answered the phone the first time?

  The phone was ringing when Socrates got to his door. He took his time again but the phone kept ringing. The green screen again read MOORLAND KINEAR. Socrates' heart was thumping, even his fingers were sweating. Here he was a man who could face death feeling little more than surprise, even at this late age, and a ringing phone terrorized his soul.

  Fury replaced fear and Socrates grabbed the phone. He intended to throw it but then there it was in his hand. A tiny voice said, “Hello?”

  Socrates put the phone to his ear.

  “Hello?” the voice asked again.

  “Mookie, is that you?”

  “You remember my voice after all these years?” the first-floor man asked. “And over the phone too?”

  “Man, why you callin' me? Where'd you get my number?”

  “I looked it up in the phone book,” the voice said. “Really, I called information an' they give it to me. Lionel Heath said that he saw you somewheres down Watts a few years ago …”

  “Lionel?” Socrates said. He remembered seeing a man, an old man, who reminded him of someone. The man said something but Socrates was collecting bottles back then and had few words for anyone. It could have been Lionel Heath, or maybe his father.

  “Yeah. You know that drug life caught up with him somethin' bad. He said you didn't even recognize him.”

  “I'idn't ask the phone company to list my name,” Socrates said.

  “They do it automatic,” Mookie said. “You got to pay to be unlisted.”

  “Shit.”

  The expletive led into a span of silence. Socrates for his part was trying to deal with all the new information he had just received. Lionel Heath's reconnaissance, the phone company's deceit.

  “When did you talk to Lionel?” Socrates wanted to know.

  “I don't remember, man. He been dead three years. I didn't see him for a while before that. You know they had me in jail up north for eighteen months.”

  “He died?” Socrates felt a momentary sense of loss. Lionel Heath knew how to tell a joke. He would have been a comedian if it wasn't for heroin.

  “Yeah,” Mookie said. “It was Slim, you know, AIDS. He took it in with the drug an' it ate him alive.”

  Socrates pulled up a chair and sat down heavily.

  “Damn,” Socrates said. “So what you want, Mookie?”

  “I don't want nuthin', Socco. I remembered the other day that Lionel seen you an' I thought I might try you on the phone. So I did. You know. You was straight up in the joint, man. I thought maybe we could grab a drink or sumpin'. You know.”

  “I'm pretty busy,” Socrates said. “I been workin'.”

  “Where you work at?”

  “Post office.”

  “Mail carrier?”

  “Naw. I'm a sorter. Work all kinda hours.”

  “That pay good?”

  “Good enough.”

  “How they hire you with a record like you got?”

  “I cain't let up on all my secrets now, Mookie.”

  “So,” Mookie Kid the first-floor man hesitated, “you wanna get together?”

  “Lemme call ya back later this week,” Socrates offered. “I got a tight schedule but I'll see.”

  “You want my number?”

  “Yeah. Shoot.”

  Moorland recited his number and Socrates repeated it pretending he was writing it down.

  “I'll call the end'a this week, Mookie. You take care.”

  After that Socrates put Mookie Kid out of his mind. He worked the rest of the week managing the produce section at Bounty. The purchasing office sent him two double orders of highly perishable fruits and greens. The head dispatcher was a man named Wexler who would never admit to having made a mistake and so Socrates had to find three other stores that would be willing to share the order. That took most of his week.

  On Saturday he painted the walls of his sleeping room white. It took the whole day and he was light-headed at the end because there was no cross ventilation in his house and the fumes were powerful.

  He was still light-headed when he walked Iula home at midnight. While they were making love he passed out.

  As with many of his dreams Socrates found himself in prison. This time his cell was a cave. He had a cellmate but the man died somehow and the guards had not yet removed the body. The corpse had been covered with a blanket but it was rotting and the odor was almost unbearable.

  Socrates went to the bars at the entrance of his cell and looked out into a long dark tunnel that was lit by weak blue electric bulbs. There were no other cells that he could see and no one coming.

  A fly buzzed in past his ear and Socrates knew that soon the corpse would be alive with maggots. No sooner had this thought entered his mind than a loud buzzing started behind him. Socrates turned and saw waves of small flies rise out of the blanket. It was like the mist in the morning rising off the pond near his aunt Bellandra's home.

  “He's free,” escaped Socrates' lips in Iula's high feather bed.

  “What, baby?” she asked.

  “Free,” Socrates repeated and then, unaware, he turned away from his girlfriend to burrow deeper into the cell of his imagination.

  The haze of flies washed over Socrates on their way toward freedom. He felt them as a cool breeze in early autum. He closed his eyes and there was a surge in his chest. The flies were gone when he opened his eyes again.

  “A million eyes came forth,” a voice in the dream said. “And now he's free to see everywhere.”

  Socrates did not remember the
dream in the morning. He was still dizzy from the paint fumes and the failure of his passion.

  “You okay?” Iula asked. She was already dressed and ready to leave for her diner.

  “What time is it?” Socrates asked.

  “It's eight fifteen. I wanna get in early 'cause I'ma make a pork roast for the special this afternoon. But you sleep, baby. Come on down later if you want somethin' t'eat.” Iula kissed Socrates on his forehead and patted his hand.

  “Sorry 'bout last night,” the big man said.

  “You ain't got a thing to be sorry for, Socrates Fortlow.” Iula looked hard at him. He could see small knots of imperfection in the whites of her eyes; scars that made her all the stronger.

  When she was gone Socrates pulled himself up and got dressed. He was still dizzy but there was the Shakurs' picnic that he had to go to. And there was something else, a dream that he couldn't remember. He didn't want to remember it but still it was on his mind.

  “Hi, Mr. Fortlow.” Corina Shakur came up to him near the fence at the front of their small yard. Howard, Corina's fat husband, was still cooking ribs on the barbecue grill. Loud R&B; music issued from the boom box near to his feet.

  “Hey, Corina,” Socrates said. “You got some nice friends.”

  Eight or nine guests had come for the Sunday afternoon picnic in the Shakurs' front yard. It was just a patch of grass that stood a foot or so above the sidewalk. The ocean was just a block and a half down the street.

  “Howard got some nice friends down from work,” Corina said, leveling her gaze at the ex-convict's chest. “Wayne's funny.”

  Wayne Yashimura was the shift supervisor from Silicon Solution's computer operations center. He was tall and handsome, with funny jokes and a pocket full of joints that he shared with Corina's girlfriends up from Watts. They had smoked the drug in the backyard, over the canal, while Socrates talked to Darryl out front.

  Now everyone was together in the front yard laughing and drinking beers.

  “How you doin', Corina?” Socrates asked the young woman that he coveted on dark lonely nights.

  “Fine,” she said. “I mean Howard's doin' good. He make good money now and I ain't got to worry.”

  “You happy?”

  “I'ont know,” the young woman answered. “White lady across the street got kids too. We get together sometimes, you know? An' it's nice but you know we never laugh real hard like I do with my friends.” Corina gestured with her head toward the young black women who mingled with the men around the barbecue grill.

  “A real friend is somebody know your heart,” Socrates said and instantly he was sorry. He didn't want to let his feelings out about Corina. She was Howard's wife. She stood in for being a mother to Darryl.

  “Yeah,” Corina said. “It's like you an' Darryl.”

  “What you mean?”

  “Howard try an' be like a father around Darryl. He tell him what to do and how to make it in the world. And Darryl listen, but not like when you talk.” Corina took a deep breath and seemed to swell with pride. “When you talk, Darryl's eyes light up an' he's open like. That's how I feel around DeeDee. She just makes me happy. I guess I miss her. You know everybody always sayin' that they wanna good job so that they can move away from South Central, but I miss it. I miss my people, you know?”

  On the bus back home Socrates thought of Corina and what she'd said about Darryl. He allowed himself a rare sigh of pleasure.

  “That was nice, huh?” Monica Nealy, one of Corina's friends, asked. Socrates had agreed to ride with her, to see her home. The rest of the young women had gone to hear music on the beach with Howard's friends.

  “Yeah,” Socrates replied. “Howard can burn some meat.”

  The young woman turned away to look out at the dark street. She was big boned and husky but not overweight. And she had hungry eyes. The kind of eyes that drove young men wild with the promise of her kisses.

  “Mr. Fortlow?”

  “Yeah, Monica?”

  “Nuthin'.”

  Socrates didn't mind her sudden indecision. By then he was deep in the memory of the dream about a dead man's soul becoming a haze of flies that could go where the man could not.

  “Mr. Fortlow?”

  “Uh-huh?”

  “Did you talk to Wayne?”

  “Li'l bit,” Socrates said. “He's a nice guy.”

  “It's funny how Howard got friends who's white an' Mexican an' Japanese.”

  It was true. Howard had only one Negro friend from work. All of Corina's friends were black women.

  “Yeah,” Socrates said. “When you start workin' serious, you get to know all kinds.”

  “You think that's okay?” Monica asked, but there was another question that lay behind.

  “They was nice. I don't care what color you are if you treat me okay.”

  “Uh-huh,” Monica agreed. She lowered her head and stuck out her lips. Even though she was in no way pretty, Monica, Socrates realized, was close to beautiful.

  “What's wrong, girl?” Socrates asked. “Why you poutin'?”

  “I ain't poutin'. I'm thinkin'.”

  “Thinkin' about what?”

  “Wayne said he goes to Las Vegas almost once a mont',” Monica said. She looked over her shoulder to make sure that there was no one listening from behind.

  “Uh-huh,” Socrates grunted to prompt the reluctant woman.

  “An' when he said that, I said that I heard it was nice but that I ain't never been. And he said that he was gonna go soon and if I give him my number he'd tell me when, and if I could go he'd drive us out there in his Trans Am.” The words came out clearly and quickly as if she'd been going over them again and again.

  “Uh-huh,” Socrates said again.

  “What you mean uh-huh?”

  “Well, it ain't a surprise that a young man wanna drive you somewhere. Men musta been askin' you t'get in their cars since you was a child.”

  The look on Monica's face was an acknowledgment of the truth.

  “So,” Socrates continued, “why you surprised that this Wayne wanna take you away?”

  “He Japanese.” Monica said the words as if she was explaining to an inexperienced driver that he needed gasoline to run his car.

  “Monica, look,” Socrates said. “You like that boy?”

  “He nice.”

  “You like how he looks, the kinda car he drive. He got a job. And he think you cute enough to see again.” Socrates itemized these facts on four muscular fingers.

  “Yeah but—” Monica began.

  “Monica.” Socrates held his hands up for her silence. “You spend eight hours a day sleepin', two hours in the bathroom, and at least a hour and a half at the table eatin'. You spend fifty hours every week gettin' to work, comin' home or workin'. Either that or you got kids and that's every hour of every day. You got to wash dishes, get dressed, get mad, go to the store, go to school, go to the doctor. An' every day you on your feet walkin', walkin', walkin'. Except sometimes you're sick an' then you cain't even get up.”

  “Word.” Monica smiled and then grinned. She put up a hand to testify to the truth of Socrates' claims.

  “Now how many minutes do you think a man spends givin' you what you want? A lotta men spend a whole lotta time tryin' to get what they want from you. But how many'a them gonna get off the dime and do for you?” Socrates found himself reaching out to hold Monica by her elbow. “If that man got yellah skin it don't seem so bad, not if you like that skin. And if he work hard to buy a nice car and then he wanna drive you somewhere, well then maybe you should tell 'im you wanna go some place close by first—-just to see if he's nice.”

  Monica ducked her head and smiled. She also leaned into Socrates' hand.

  “But suppose somebody see?” she asked.

  “Ain't nobody gonna care, honey. And if they do it's only 'cause they jealous or stupid.”

  Monica frowned and reared back like a wary kitten.

  Socrates imagined her sensual lips kissing
the handsome Asian's face.

  “Hello,” a woman's voice said.

  “Can I speak to Mookie?”

  “I think you must have the wrong number,” she replied.

  “Hold on,” Socrates said quickly to stop her from hanging up. “Mookie is my nickname for Moorland Kinear.”

  There was silence from the other end of the phone. For a moment Socrates wondered if the woman had hung up, leaving the phone line caught in a few seconds of silence before the harsh buzz.

  “Who is this?” Her voice had turned cold.

  “Tell 'im it's Socrates.”

  “I'll go see if he can come to the phone right now.”

  There came a hard knock of the phone being put down and then loud voices speaking unintelligible words. One voice, a man's, became louder and louder until Socrates could make out, “… he's just a friend, Delice. Aw come on, honey, don't be like that…”

  “Socco,” was the next word that the man's voice said, this time into the receiver, “is that you?”

  “Hey, Mookie. Sorry if it's a bad time.”

  It was seven fifteen on the Tuesday after Howard and Corina's barbecue. After talking to Monica Socrates decided that he didn't have to be afraid of talking to Mookie. He could make his own decisions and nobody could talk him into going bad. But still he hesitated until Tuesday evening.

  “Naw, man. I ain't busy. Delice just get like that sometime. How you doin'? You know I didn't think you was gonna call me. I thought that you had broke it off with the life. You married?”

  “Uh-uh.”

  “But you gotta good job,” Mookie said. “Good job and your own phone. Hey, who woulda believed it back in the day?”

  “Half of 'em still there,” Socrates said.

  “Yeah.” Mookie's tone turned somber. “I heard that Joe Benz passed two years ago. He was still locked down. You know it's a shame.”

  Socrates felt something snap then. It was in his mind but he felt just the same as when the assistant warden, Blake Riordan, broke his nose while three guards held him down. The break itself was just a snick in his sinuses—the pain came later. And when it came it spread over his whole head.