They sat and the quiet bartender brought beers. Socrates downed his with one swallow.
“What’s your name?”
“Socrates Fortlow.” The ex-convict’s jaw clamped shut after his name. He wanted to start talking but he found that he couldn’t.
“Well?” Shreve asked. “What’s Shorty want?”
“Excuse me?”
“Shorty. That’s what we called Folger.”
“Oh.”
Socrates looked up into the crowded, smoky den. Shreve anticipated him and waved for another beer.
“I got things to do, man. So if you got somethin’ for me from Shorty lets hear it.”
Socrates looked at Shreve until the beer came. The big cop wanted to move but he didn’t. Socrates thought that the policeman knew somehow that the most important thing in that room was what Socrates had to say.
“I been up in prison,” Socrates said after downing the second brew.
“What for?” the sergeant asked. His face had gone blank. His eyes were all over Socrates.
“Homicide.”
Shreve gave a slight nod to show that he’d already known the answer.
“What you got to do wit’ Folger?”
“I’ont even hardly know the man. I know his cousin.”
“And what you want with me?”
“I don’t want ya,” Socrates said. “Shit, man. I’m a jailbird. You know I was made in a prison cell. I don’t talk to cops.”
An evil grin formed on Shreve’s face. He was a dark brown man with little scars and nicks on his forehead, neck, and jaw. “Don’t fuck with me, Negro,” he said.
“I’m just sayin’ that I’m not used to talkin’ to cops. It’s not easy bein’ in this here room.”
“This is the only place you’re gonna see me,” Shreve said. “Unless you wanna go back down to a jail cell.”
“That don’t scare me,” Socrates said. “Ain’t nuthin’ could happen to me that ain’t already happened. Nuthin’.”
“What do you want, man?”
“Back in the joint, man didn’t talk to no screw. They find you doin’ that and there was a knife for you.”
“You want to tell me something, but you’re scared?” Shreve asked.
“I’m way past scared,” Socrates said. “Way past that. I’m the one enforce the rules, an’ I ain’t never broke it.”
“But you gonna break it now?” Shreve waved for two beers this time.
“Sometimes,” Socrates said, “you might get to know a guard an’ he ain’t so bad. I mean, he could be there for you, you know what I mean?”
The beers came and Shreve pushed them both in front of the ex-con. Socrates emptied both of them in less than a minute.
“You want something?” Shreve asked.
“Yeah.” There was a pleasant blank feeling at the back of Socrates’ head. It really wasn’t enough beer to get him high but he’d forgotten to eat that day.
“I don’t want your money, man,” Socrates said. “I don’t want that. What I want is you.”
“Say what?”
{5.}
“A man is innocent until he’s proven guilty,” Socrates quoted. “Do you believe that?”
“If a man did a crime then he’s guilty,” Shreve said. He took a deep breath and looked over each shoulder. “If he didn’t he’s innocent. That’s what I believe.”
“But the law says that a man is innocent unless he is judged otherwise by a panel of his peers. I learnt that up in jail.
“Everybody was guilty up there; didn’t matter if they’d done the crime or not. They were guilty because they were found guilty by a panel of their peers.”
“Hey, Kenny.” A drunken black man had staggered up to the booth. He was supported by a young woman under each arm. One of them had a blouse cut so low that Socrates could make out the tops of her nipples. When she saw Socrates looking she smiled and angled her body for him to see better.
“Kenny,” the drunken man said again. “Let’s go on upstairs.” The man cocked the top of his head toward the back door and winked.
Shreve glanced at the door and then at the low-cut girl.
“You go on,” he said. “I’ll be up in a little while.”
“Ooooh,” the women complained in unison.
As they were leaving Shreve said, “You better cut out this shit and tell me what you got to say, brother.”
“I was just sayin’ did you believe that a man is innocent …”
“What man?” Shreve asked. “What man? What the fuck are you talking about?”
Socrates’ jaw snapped shut. His teeth ached from the pressure.
“Come on, Fortlow. Talk to me.”
“Fire,” Socrates whispered.
“Say what?”
“Fires. Fires.”
Shreve froze like a stalking cat.
“Them fires,” Socrates said and then the bottom fell out of his diaphragm sucking all his words back down with it.
“The fires in Watts?”
He could still nod.
“You know who’s doin’ ’em?”
“I don’t know nuthin’ for sure. Man’s innocent, innocent.”
Shreve sat back and rubbed his scarred face.
“It’s the reward, right?”
“What reward?”
“Come on, brother. You cain’t pull that shit on me. They announced it this morning; fifteen thousand dollars for information leading to the arrest of …”
Socrates was up and out of his chair before Shreve could finish his sentence. He was moving fast toward the door; no excuse mes, no being careful as he pushed people out of the way.
Outside he walked quickly down the street.
“Uh-uh,” Socrates Fortlow kept saying to himself. “No, no. They not gonna catch me with that.”
“Fortlow!”
“Uh-uh. Uh-uh, no.”
“Fortlow! Halt!”
The command took over the convict side of Socrates’ brain, bringing his legs to a full stop.
“What’s wrong with you, man?” Sergeant Shreve said as he caught up with Socrates. He was breathing heavily. “I’ve been calling you for three blocks.”
Socrates just shook his head in stubborn denial.
“What’s wrong?” Shreve asked again.
“No,” said Socrates as if that answered any question Shreve could ask.
The street downtown was empty, except for a line of homeless men and women reclining against a wall across the street. The traffic lights kept changing color but there was no traffic to heed them.
“No what? Do you know who the South Central firebug is?”
“You cain’t buy me, man,” Socrates said. “I ain’t your slave.”
“I don’t want the money, Fortlow. You could have it. All I want is the man. He’s out there killing people. That’s why you came here, right? You don’t want to turn in a man ’cause you’re an ex-con but you still don’t want people to die.”
The flames in Socrates’ mind seemed to flare on that dark street. Ira Giles swinging his homemade knife while his flames were crawling right up his back. Screamin’ devil right outta hell, somebody had said. They all laughed and spat and said that the guards should have known better than to give Ira biscuits and water for an extra day. It was their own fault. You can push a man only so far and then you’ve got to let up—or kill him.
“Let’s go down to the station, Fortlow. Let’s make a report.”
“Wait up,” Socrates said. “Wait up.”
“What?”
“He’s innocent right?”
“If he is then why are you talking to me?”
“I want him treated like a man, officer. I want you,” Socrates jabbed his finger into Shreve’s chest, “to tell me that you gonna go down there and make sure that he’s treated like a man. I don’t want him beat, or cursed, or cheated. Folger told me that you do a fair deal with Negroes and whites too. I want a fair deal for the man I give you or so help me God I’ll be out t
here in the streets burnin’ just like he done.”
Shreve put a hand on his bruised chest.
“I’ll be there, you can bet on that. And he’ll get as fair a deal as I can give.”
{6.}
Socrates told Sergeant Shreve his story at the downtown police station after signing a document that stated he was giving evidence about the South Central firebug.
There wasn’t much to say.
Socrates had seen Ira Giles through his cell grate after Ira had stabbed those men. He’d been beaten and stomped. His right arm was raw from fire. But Ira was grinning. His face was slick with sweat and his eyes were big enough to scare a wild animal from its den. He was gibbering and laughing; he would have danced if the guards hadn’t kept punching him and making him walk straight ahead.
Socrates had been out walking on the night of the last fire, the fatal one. He heard the fire engines and smelled the smoke. The overweight Negro who capered toward Socrates didn’t even see the ex-con. He was at his own little party. His chunky legs switched in their work pants.
“It was the smell at first,” Socrates told Shreve. “Then it was the way he was sayin’ words that didn’t make no sense. He was sweatin’ heavy too but it was the dancin’, it was the dancin’ made me follow him home.”
“That’s all?” said Andrew Collins, Shreve’s patrol partner. “That’s what you got us down here for?”
Socrates told them how he waited for Ponzelle Richmond to leave his house again.
“I looked in the windah an’ seen gasoline cans with a lotta bottles an’ rags around,” he said.
He didn’t tell them how he pried the lock off the back door. He didn’t tell them about the diary.
“Let’s check it out, Andy,” Shreve said to his shaggy white partner. “We’ll get back to you, Mr. Fortlow.”
{7.}
“I tried to talk to’ em,” Socrates was telling Stony Wile after it was all over. “I thought that maybe I could make a difference. You know if I said I wouldn’t cooperate unless they promised to play fair?”
“They played it fair, Socco,” Stony said. They were sitting in Socrates’ house on a Monday afternoon, each drinking from his own bottle of Cold Duck. Stony had been laid off from Avon Imports. “How could they help it if the man sees ’em comin’ an’ shoots hisself? You cain’t blame the cops for ev’rything.”
Socrates took another drink from his bottle. He wanted to hit Stony but held back.
They drank for a long time after that.
And then they drank some more.
“Socco?”
“Yeah, Stony?”
“What about that money?”
“What money?”
“The reward. I know they keep them Crime Watchers names quiet but if you turnt Ponzelle in then you musta got somethin’.”
“Cops kept the reward ’cept for a few hunnert dollars,” Socrates said. “I spent the first hunnert on the liquor you helpin’ me drink.”
Socrates lit a match and took a hundred dollar bill from his pocket. He set fire to the corner of the bill.
“Want it?” he asked Stony.
Stony grabbed for the bill from Socrates’ hand and snubbed out the flame with his thick workman’s fingers.
“What’s wrong wit’ you? This here’s a hundred dollars.”
“And it’s yours, Stony. That’s your share for helpin’ t’kill Ponzelle. All you had to do was grab for it.”
{8.}
Socrates awoke in the night thinking about the hundred and forty-seven hundred dollar bills that were buried in his meager yard. Three feet down they rested in their plastic bag. And with them the diary of the firebug.
The cops had found maps, clippings, notes, and paraphernalia enough to convince them that Ponzelle was their man. But Socrates had the diary.
He remembered one part by heart:
… if I could just get them to see that we got to burn down all this mess we done stacked up and hacked up and shacked up all around us. If they could see the torch of change, the burning of flames all around their eyes. We could come together in fire and steel and blood and love and make ourselves a home. Not this shit, not this TV and church world. Not this jungle of dirty clothes and Christmas seals. Not ham on Sunday and grandma’s dead already and can’t even eat her piece….
BLACK DOG
{1.}
“How does your client plead, Ms. Marsh?” the pencil-faced judge asked. He was wearing a dark sports jacket that was a size or two too big for his bony frame.
“Not guilty, your honor,” the young black lawyer said, gesturing with her fingers pressed tightly together and using equally her lips, tongue, and teeth.
“Fine.” The judge had been distracted by something on his desk. “Bail will be …”
“Your honor,” spoke up the prosecutor, a chubby man who was the color of a cup of coffee with too much milk mixed in. “Before you decide on bail the people would like to have it pointed out that Mr. Fortlow is a convicted felon. He was found guilty of a double homicide in Indiana in nineteen sixty and was sentenced to life in that state; he spent almost thirty years in prison.”
“Twenty-seven years, your honor,” Brenda Marsh articulated.
So much respect, so much honor, Socrates Fortlow thought. A harsh laugh escaped his lips.
“And,” Brenda Marsh continued. “He’s been leading a respectable life here in Los Angeles for the past eight years. He’s employed full-time by Bounty Supermarket and he hasn’t had any other negative involvement with the law.”
“Still, your honor,” the bulbous Negro said, “Mr. Fortlow is being tried for a violent crime—”
“But he hasn’t been convicted,” said Ms. Marsh.
“Regardless,” said the nameless prosecutor.
“Your honor …”
The Honorable Felix Fisk tore his eyes away from whatever had been distracting him. Socrates thought it was probably a picture magazine; probably about yachting, Socrates thought. He knew, from his days in prison, that many judges got rich off of the blood of felons.
“All right,” Judge Fisk said. “All right. Let’s see.”
He fumbled around with some papers and produced a pair of glasses from the top of his head. He peered closely at whatever was written and then regarded the bulky ex-con.
“My, my,” the judge muttered.
Socrates felt hair growing in his windpipe.
“The people would like to see Mr. Fortlow held without bail, your honor,” chubby said.
“Your honor.” Ms. Marsh’s pleading didn’t seem to fit with her overly precise enunciation. “Eight years and there was no serious injury.”
“Intent,” the prosecutor said, “informs the law.”
“Twenty-five thousand dollars bail,” the judge intoned.
A short brown guard next to Socrates grabbed the prisoners beefy biceps and said, “Come on.”
Socrates turned around and saw Dolly Straight at the back of the small courtroom. She had red hair and freckles, and a look of shock on her face. When her eyes caught Socrates’ gaze she smiled and waved.
Then she ran out of the courtroom while still holding her hand high in greeting.
{2.}
The night before there had been no room in the West L.A. jail so they put Socrates in a secured office for lockup. But now he was at the main courthouse. They took him to a cellblock in the basement crammed with more than a dozen prisoners. Most of them were tattooed; one had scars so violent that he could have been arrested and jailed simply because of how terrible he appeared.
Mostly young men; mostly black and Latino. There were a couple of whites by themselves in a corner at the back of the cell. Socrates wondered what those white men had done to be put in jeopardy like that.
“Hey, brother,” a bearded man with an empty eye socket said to Socrates.
Socrates nodded.
“Hey, niggah,” said a big, black, baby-faced man who stood next to the bearded one. “Cain’t you talk?”
Socrates didn’t say anything. He went past the men toward an empty spot on a bench next to a stone-faced Mexican.
“Niggah!” the baby face said again.
He laid a hand, not gently, on Socrates’ shoulder. But Babyface hesitated. He felt, Socrates knew, the strength in that old shoulder. And in that brief moment Socrates shot out his left hand to grab the young man’s throat. The man threw a fist but Socrates caught that with his right hand while increasing the pressure in his left.
The boy’s eyes bulged and he went down on his knees as Socrates stood up. First Babyface tried to dislodge the big fist from his throat, then he tried slugging Socrates’ arm and side.
While he was dying the men stood around.
Sounds like the snapping of brittle twigs came from the boy’s throat.
His dying eyes flitted from one prisoner to another but no one moved to help him.
A few seconds before the boy would have lost consciousness, no more than fifteen seconds before he’d’ve died, Socrates let go.
The boy sucked in a breath of life so deep and so hoarse that a guard came down to see what was happening.
Some of the men were laughing.
“What’s goin’ on?” the guard asked.
“I was just showin’ the boy a trick,” the big bearded Negro with one eye said.
The guard regarded the boy.
“You okay, Peters?”
There was no voice in Peters’s throat but he nodded.
“Okay,” the guard said. “Now cut it out down here.”
Socrates took his place on the bench. The fight was just an initiation. Now everyone in the cell knew: Socrates was not a man to be taken lightly.
“Fortlow?” the same guard called out forty-five minutes later.
“Yo.”
“Socrates Fortlow?”
“That’s right.” It hadn’t been long but the feeling of freedom had already drained from Socrates’ bones and flesh.
He’d checked out every man in the holding cell; witnessed one of the white men get beaten while his buddy backed away. He’d made up his mind to go against the bearded Negro, Benny Hite, if they remained in the cell together.
Always Outnumbered, Always Outgunned Page 17
