Bad Boy Brawly Brown

by Walter Mosley

  “I’m sorry,” I said, wanting to somehow make up for the boy.

  “It’s okay. Brawly don’t mean it. It’s just that he get so mad sometimes. It ain’t his fault.”

  “I told Alva that I’d make sure that he was okay. I guess he is. I mean, you say this is normal for him, right?”

  I was at a loss with Clarissa. She didn’t have anything to do with my job but there I was, intruding on her private life in the middle of the night. I took a step toward the door.

  “Is that stuff about Brawly’s father true?” she asked me.

  “Yeah. Somebody killed him right there in Isolda’s house. She thinks it must have been Brawly.”

  “Is that what she told the police?”

  “I don’t think she’s seen the cops yet. She was out of town when he was killed, at least that’s what she said. She never went back to her house.”

  “Damn,” Clarissa said. “Brawly got the worst luck in blood. If they alive or dead, with him or not with him, they still bring him grief.”

  “His mother, too, you think?” I asked.

  “She love him and all, but she don’t understand him. She wanna be tellin’ him what to do and don’t wanna hear ’bout the ideas he got for himself.”

  “Like what?” I asked.

  “Like what he believe in,” she said. “Like what he think people oughtta be doin’.”

  “Like with the Urban Revolutionary Party?”

  “Maybe.”

  Clarissa was a slight girl with knotty features. Her hair was frosted gold. Her eyes were so light a brown that you might have called them gold, too. She was at an age when the clothes accented rather than covered her figure, and her skin seemed to glow. I felt a flush of embarrassment just looking at her.

  “John and Alva think that the First Men is just a gang,” I said. “That’s why they got me lookin’ for Brawly.”

  “Older black folks is just scared’a what groups like the First Men stand for. They’re scared to stand up and demand what the white man owes them. They just don’t understand that the only way to get somethin’ is to fight for it.”

  “They plannin’ a war?” I asked.

  “Only if there’s no other way. What they want is better schools and jobs, history books that tell the truth, and people who look like us in government.”

  “Sounds like a tall order.”

  “It’s only fair. And Xavier knows that we got to take it slow. He wanted us to turn that storefront into a place where the community could come and talk about our problems. But now the cops busted in, the people will be too scared to trust in it.”

  “So now what?” I really wanted to know.

  “We got to find another way. That’s all.”

  There was something that she wasn’t saying, something that lurked behind her resolute words.

  “So they’re into the revolution and not protection?” I asked.

  “Protection from what?” she replied.

  I laughed then. Maybe I was getting old.

  “You got a pencil, Clarissa?”

  “Uh-huh, why?”

  “Because I’m going to write down my phone numbers — day and night. I don’t wanna mess with Brawly. If he’s happy with what he’s doin’, then that’s okay with me. But if he gets in trouble or if you see that the Party’s not what they say — then you call on me. All right?”

  She didn’t answer the question but she did give me pencil and paper. I put down my numbers at work and at home.

  Before I left I asked her, “Why do you sound so mad at Isolda? Do you know her?”

  “I know what she did to Brawly,” Clarissa said with a sneer.

  “What?”

  “That ain’t for me to say.”

  IT WAS AFTER one in the morning. If I were living the life that I had promised myself, I would have gone home and tucked the kids into their beds. But the fever was still in me and there was someone I needed to talk to who I knew never went to sleep before sunrise.

  He lived in a rented house on a street called Ozone Court, only half a block from the beach. It was just a tiny tar-roofed structure, but he was the only black man I knew who had managed to get a place in that neighborhood. While pressing the buzzer I planned to ask him how he got away with living in an exclusively white neighborhood. But the way he answered the door threw that question right out of my head.

  “Who’s there?” he asked in a gruff voice that he tried to make sound deep. “What the fuck you want this time’a night?”

  Instead of answering, I pressed the buzzer again.

  “What?” he said, giving up the deep voice. If that tone were in his hands, they would have been up over his head.

  “Jackson Blue?” I said in a commanding voice that was not exactly my own.

  “Who is it?”

  I laughed then. Cowardly Jackson Blue certainly deserved a prank or two. Ever since he’d stolen Jesus’s money I figured that I had the right to needle him.

  He flung the door open and glared at me.

  I laughed even harder. Jackson was short and slight, almost as dark as the sky above our heads, with eyes that were both bright and brilliant. Those shining, perpetually bloodshot orbs glared at me.

  “What the fuck you think is so funny, niggah?”

  “Lemme in, Jackson,” I said. “It’s cold out here.”

  He looked around to see if I had anyone with me and then leaned away from the door, allowing me to enter.

  Jackson’s house was wedged in between two larger but equally nondescript homes. From the outside his place looked small but it was much more spacious on the inside. That was because the single room that made it up was half a flight of stairs below the front door. The ceiling was at least twenty feet high.

  Jackson had a big bed, a table that doubled as a hot-plate kitchen, a table desk like high school kids use, and three walls of bookshelves that ran the full height of the wall. Every inch of shelf space was packed with books. The room smelled of moldering paper. There was a wooden painter’s ladder set up so that little Jackson could reach the higher shelves.

  The back door was a sliding glass window that looked out on a vegetable garden.

  “Where’d you get all those books, Jackson?”

  “Bought ’em, mostly. A lot of ’em I been havin’ for years stored in different people’s garages. When I got this place I brought ’em here.”

  I sat at the table. Jackson snaked into his schoolboy’s desk.

  “You got what I wanted?” I asked him.

  “That depends.”

  “On what?”

  “You know the rent ovah here in the white world ain’t cheap.”

  “Listen here, Jackson. I ain’t playin’ wit’ you. You try’n get over on me an’ you will end up bein’ the one payin’.”

  Jackson wasn’t worried. He’d known me for more than twenty years. I’d never laid a hand on him in that time and wasn’t likely to start.

  “I need to know a few things before I tell you what’s what,” he said.

  “Yeah, all right. What is it?”

  “First, how did you find where I live at? I thought about what you told me on the phone and I just don’t believe John would’a had my address.”

  “Charlene Lorraine told me.”

  “How much you have to give her for that?”

  “Twenty dollars.”

  “That’s all?”

  “Yeah. I gave her twenty and asked her had she seen you, and she said not much lately but the last she knew you were livin’ down on Ozone.”

  “Prob’ly just jealous ’cause I let her ride,” Jackson said, trying to shore up his pride.

  “What else?” I asked.

  “How much you gettin’ paid to get what I know?”

  “A family dinner for me and Bonnie and the kids.”

  “You cain’t kid a kidder, man,” Jackson whined. “Naw, brother. You cain’t fool me.”

  “Jackson, why would I lie to you?”

  “To keep all
the loot for yourself, that’s why.”

  “What loot?”

  “You askin’ ’bout the First Men, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  Jackson was a man in his forties but he had the body of a boy. He shifted sideways in the constrictive desk and pulled his right knee up to his chin and smiled. He was the Cheshire Cat.

  “They plannin’ a revolution,” Jackson said.

  “So? What else is new? Must be half a dozen groups talkin’ that shit. But even if it was real, guns and bullets not your kinda loot.”

  “But the money to buy ’em is,” Jackson said with a grin.

  All the information I’d brought together since meeting with John floated through my head: the dead man, his girlfriend, Brawly and Alva and Clarissa, even the police breaking down the walls.

  “What you talkin’ ’bout, Jackson?”

  “Bread and bullets, baby. Bread and bullets.”

  Jackson was a great intellect but he had a petty soul. Bread and bullets, blood and bravery — it was all just money to him.

  “What are you talkin’ about?” I asked.

  “I don’t know,” Jackson said. “But I hear that them boys is plan-nin’ somethin’ big, really big. In order to do somethin’ on a grand scale, they got to have some money comin’ in from somewhere. That’s what my information tells me.”

  “Who you been talkin’ to?”

  “Why you wanna know about these men?”

  I told Jackson about John and Alva asking me to find Brawly.

  “That’s it?” he asked when I had finished.

  “That’s all, baby,” I said.

  “So you ain’t have nuthin’ to do with the money?”

  “In the first place, this money is just you supposin’,” I said. “And even if you were right, you know me, Blue. I’m not a robber or a thief.”

  “But you an’ Mouse was friends,” he said in way of argument.

  “What the hell does Mouse have to do with anything?” It made me angry just to hear his name.

  “Mouse did some robbin’ in his time,” Jackson said. “One time they say he took off on a Sunday, drove all the way to Kansas City, Missouri, robbed a bank, and was back down Watts by Friday night.”

  “Ain’t you scared to be talkin’ about Raymond’s business like that?” I asked.

  “Why should I be scared? He’s dead.”

  “You know anybody went to the funeral?” I asked.

  Jackson’s smooth brow crinkled. “No.”

  “So why do you think he’s dead?”

  “You said you saw him laid out.” Jackson began stuttering, “And… and… and Martha Rimes said that he was dead in the hospital bed before… before…”

  “She said that he didn’t have a pulse. You know she was feeling with her fingers. Sometimes a pulse is so weak that a finger cain’t feel it.”

  It was a pleasure to see Jackson’s eyes widen in fear. He knew better than to air a man’s business the way he was talking about Mouse.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “Don’t tell nobody, okay, Ease?”

  “You the one need to learn to keep his mouth shut,” I said.

  We had a moment of silence. Jackson was staring at our reflection in the glass door, looking for vengeful ghosts beyond the pane.

  “You hear anything useful about Brawly?” I asked then.

  “He got a girlfriend live on Grand.”

  “Byron, you mean.”

  “No,” Jackson said. “I know what I mean, and I mean Grand Avenue up near Sunset.”

  “You got a number?”

  “You sure you not after some fortune, Easy?”

  “What got that bug up your butt?”

  “Aldridge A. Brown,” Jackson said. “That’s what.”

  “What about him?”

  “They say that thirteen years ago Aldridge and a partner robbed a bank downtown. The partner got killed but Aldridge got away.”

  My mind froze up but I kept talking to keep Jackson from getting too inquisitive.

  “Aldridge is dead, man. And if he was a bank robber, he wouldn’t have anything to do with some political group. People like that rob banks for profit, not democracy.”

  “People change.”

  “Not you,” I said. “Now, you got a number on this girlfriend?”

  He gave me the address. But he didn’t have a name or an apartment number.

  “I was lucky to get that,” he said when I complained.

  Instead of going directly to my car, I walked the short block down to the beach. Santa Monica still had the feel of a small town in ’64. Wooden buildings painted in primary colors, small storefronts that specialized in trinkets made from seashells.

  The moon was hidden from sight by a large cloud, but its light still fell on waters many miles from the shore. That far-off light was like a marooned sailor’s hopes — faraway and nearly impossible.

  15

  I DIDN’T GET TO SLEEP until five. I dreamt of a dead man who took turns being Mouse and Aldridge, Brawly Brown and his inhuman strength, and a revolution in the streets of Los Angeles.

  I woke up at seven-thirty and called in sick to work.

  “Tell Newgate that I got that bug,” I said to Priscilla Howe, his sixth secretary in two and a half years.

  “You bet, Mr. Rawlins,” she said. “I hope you feel better.”

  After that I got the kids out of bed. Jesus helped Feather dress for school and I made breakfast. It was lonely without Bonnie, but the children and I had a rhythm of life that worked perfectly.

  “Where’d you go last night, Daddy?” Feather asked me.

  “To see Jackson Blue,” I said.

  “Did he give you my money?” Jesus asked.

  “He said that he’d have it in a few days.”

  “Jackson Blue is funny,” Feather exclaimed, and then she started giggling.

  Before she was finished we were all laughing and spilling our juice.

  Jesus walked Feather to school and I went back to bed.

  In the dream I was sitting in a bar when Raymond walked in.

  “What’s wrong, Easy?” he asked me.

  “It’s John,” I said. “He wants me to save his girlfriend’s boy, but the kid’s in too deep.”

  “Kill him,” Mouse said.

  “Kill who?”

  “The boy. Shoot him. Tell John you don’t know what happened. Get it over quick, so him and his woman can start to heal.”

  Raymond turned to walk away.

  “Ray.”

  “Yeah?”

  “I’m sorry, man. Sorry I let you down.”

  “You let me die,” he said, correcting me. “You let me die.”

  The anguish I felt was like a grease burn; it started out painful enough but then it dug deep.

  THE DOORBELL was a relief, a lifeline thrown out to me from some unknowing stranger. I climbed out of bed and stumbled to the door in only my boxer shorts.

  The white man standing there wore a suit that could have been handed out at the Salvation Army. He was on the short side with light green eyes and curly hair that defied my color sense. It could have been red or gold or brown, depending on how you looked at it.

  “Mr. Rawlins?”

  “Yeah?”

  He produced a ratty, worn-out wallet displaying an identity card and a badge.

  “Detective Knorr,” he said. “Can I come in?”

  There were many things wrong with Knorr showing up on my doorstep. Not only was he shabby beyond anything I’d ever seen on Chief Parker’s police force, but he was also alone. The L.A. police didn’t travel solo. Or if they did, it was because they were on some clandestine assignment. And even if that made sense, what could he possibly have wanted with me? I was a senior custodian at a public junior high school. I was a homeowner, a taxpayer. I had just been sleeping in my bed, innocent of any crime.

  Any of these reasons would have been enough for me to have sent Officer Knorr away. But he saved me from the total despair of m
y dream and I was grateful for that.

  “Do I have to get dressed?” I asked him.

  “Not for me.”

  I swung the door wide and stepped back for the policeman to enter.

  “Excuse me,” I said. “I just got up. I got to hit the head.”

  I came back wearing a bathrobe and house slippers. Knorr was sitting in my reclining chair.

  “Feel better?” he asked.

  “What can I do for you, Officer?”

  Knorr sat at the edge of the comfortable chair. He had a medium build with small hands and thick eyebrows. The eyebrows were the same color as the hair on his head, only darker.

  “The police department and the city of Los Angeles need your help, Mr. Rawlins.”

  “You want some coffee?” I replied.

  Knorr was not easily disturbed. “Sure,” he said. “Two teaspoons of milk and one sugar.”

  I went to the kitchen and he followed me.

  “Why aren’t you at work today if you don’t mind me asking?” he asked.

  “Hard weekend,” I said while filling the kettle from the faucet.

  “Parties?” His smile had no warmth or humor to it.

  “It’s just instant,” I said. “That and Cremora.”

  “Perfect.”

  “So what do want from me?” I asked.

  Knorr’s green eyes settled on the lawn outside my back window. He was beaming that cold smile.

  “There’s blood boiling under the surface of Watts,” he said.

  The subtle hiss of the gas jets accented his words with a sinister edge.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “The Negroes are getting anxious for some changes,” he said. “They want to end de facto segregation. They want better jobs. They want to be treated like war heroes after coming home from World War Two and Korea. Some even question going into the army and fighting for their country.”

  I couldn’t tell if there was sarcasm or concern in his voice. Like his smile, his tone was enigmatic.

  “That’s outside my field of expertise, Officer Knorr. I’m a janitor. I wax floors and empty trash bins. Boiling blood is some other department. And I already did my stint in the army.”

  Knorr smiled.

  The kettle whistled. It began with a weak chirp that quickly became a scream, like the emergency that Knorr feared.