thin rubber hose off his arm and tossed it aside, started rubbing his arm. The boy appeared confused but pleasant, as if awakening from a long, relaxed sleep.
One of the black men, a tall, muscular guy in T-shirt and slacks with a wedge of hair cut like a thin Mohawk and a hypodermic needle in his hand, said to the boy, “More candy where that come from, you got the price.”
The boy went down the steps, between me and Leonard and out into the street. Mohawk dropped the needle onto the porch. There were a couple other needles there, along with the rubber hose.
The other black guy was wearing a light blue shower cap an orange T-shirt and jeans, and was about the size of a Rose Parade float. He looked down from the porch at us like it tired him out. He said to Leonard, “Shit, if you ain’t the fucking bird of paradise.”
“And propped on a stick,” said Mohawk. “Who dresses you, brother? And you, white boy. You preachin’ somewhere?”
“I’m selling insurance,” I said. “You want some? Got a feeling you might need a little, come a few minutes.”
Mohawk smiled at me like I was one funny guy.
“What are you doing here?” Leonard asked.
“We’re standing on the motherfucking porch,” Parade Float said. “Whatchoo doin’ here?”
“I own the place.”
“Ah,” said Mohawk. “You must be that nutty Uncle Tom’s boy?”
“I’m Chester Pine’s nephew, that’s what you mean.”
“Well, hey, we was just doing a little business,” said Mohawk. “Don’t let your balls swell up.”
“This ain’t your office,” Leonard said.
Mohawk smiled. “You know, you’re right, but we was thinking of making it kind of an extension.” He came out to the edge of the porch and pointed next door. “We live over there. That’s our main office, Captain Sunshine.”
I looked. It was a large run-down house on the lot next to Chester’s place. A number of young black men came out on the long porch, stood and stared.
“That wasn’t any measles vaccination you gave that kid,” Leonard said. “How old was he? Twelve?”
“Don’t know,” said Parade Float. “We don’t send him no birthday presents. Shit, all you know, we’re free- lance doctors.”
“I think you’re free-lance assholes,” Leonard said.
“Fuck you,” Parade Float said.
“Do-gooders,” Mohawk said. “Like in the movies. That’s what you fucks are. Right?”
Leonard gave Mohawk a studied look. “Get off my property. Now. Otherwise, your friends next door’ll be wiping you out of your big friend’s ass here. Provided they can get what’s left of him out of that shower cap.”
“Fuck you,” Parade Float said.
“I was wondering about that cap,” I said. “You leave the water running? Go looking for a towel?”
“Fuck you,” Parade Float said again.
“You run out of your daily word allotment,” I said, “how you gonna beg us for mercy?”
“Wooo,” Mohawk said. “This little talk could lead to something.”
“Don’t make me happy prematurely,” Leonard said.
And then Leonard moved. His cane went out between Mohawk’s legs, and he popped it forward, locking one of Mohawk’s knees, and the move tossed Mohawk face-forward off the porch.
Leonard stepped aside and Mohawk hit the ground on his head. Sounded like it hurt.
That was my cue. As Parade Float stepped off the porch to get involved, I shot out a side kick and hit him on his stepping leg, square on the kneecap. He came down on his head too. He got both hands under him, started to rise, and I kicked him in the throat with about a third of what I had.
He rolled over on his back holding his throat, gurgling. The shower cap stayed in place. I never realized how tight those little buddies fit. Maybe it was just the light blue ones.
Leonard had Mohawk up now and had dropped his cane and was working Mohawk with a series of lefts and rights and knee lifts, and he wouldn’t let him fall. Mohawk’s body was jumping all over the yard, like he had a pogo stick up his ass.
“That’s enough, Leonard,” I said. “Your knuckles will swell.”
Leonard hit Mohawk a couple more under the short ribs and didn’t move in close enough to support him this time. Mohawk crumpled on the grass, made a noise like gas escaping.
Parade Float had gotten to his knees. He was still holding his throat, sputtering. I checked out the folks on the porch next door. They were just standing there. In tough postures, of course.
Leonard yelled at them. “You retards want some, come on over.”
Nobody wanted any. Which made me happy. I didn’t want to tear up my brand new J. C. Penney’s suit.
Leonard picked up his cane and looked at Parade Float, said, “I see you or your buddy here again, even see someone reminds me of you two, we’re gonna kill you.”
“Couldn’t we just mess up their hair instead?” I said.
“No,” Leonard said. “I want to kill them.”
“There you are, guys,” I said. “Death or nothing.”
Mohawk had casually crawled to the edge of the yard near the bottle tree and was trying to get up. Parade Float had it together enough now that he could get up and go over and help Mohawk to his feet. They limped and wheezed toward the house next door.
A tall black man on the porch over there yelled, “Your times are comin’, you two. It’s comin’.”
“Nice meeting you, neighbors,” Leonard said, and he got out his key and we went inside.
4.
The house was hot and filthy, the fireplace was full of trash, and there were great skeins of cobwebs all about. As we moved, dust puffed and floated in the sunlight that bled through thickly curtained windows and the place smelled sour and the smell came from a variety of things. One of them I felt certain was Uncle Chester himself. You die in a house and lay there for two days in the heat, you get a little ripe, and so do your surroundings.
I left the front door open. Not that it helped much. There wasn’t any wind stirring.
“Damn,” Leonard said. “It’s like he didn’t live here.”
Considering the aroma he’d left behind, I felt that was debatable, but I said, “He was old, Leonard. Maybe he didn’t move around much.”
“He wasn’t that old.”
“You hadn’t seen or heard from him in years. He could have been in a bad way.”
“Maybe him giving me this place was some kind of final jab in the heart. I loved this house when I was a kid. He knew that. Shit, look at it now.”
“Final days he maybe got his shit together. Decided to let bygones be bygones. Ms. Grange said he left you some money too.”
“Confederate, most likely.”
We moved on through the house. The kitchen was squalid with dirty dishes stacked in the sink and paper plates and TV dinner receptacles stuffed in the trash can. There was a pile of debris around the can, as if Chester had finally given up taking out the garbage and had started merely throwing stuff in that general direction.
Flies buzzed on patrol. On the counter, in a TV dinner tray, squirming in something green and fuzzy that might have been a partial enchilada, were maggots.
“Well,” I said. “He damn sure lived in here.”
“Shit,” Leonard said. “This ain’t no recent mess.”
“No. He worked on this one.”
Off the kitchen was a bedroom. We went in there. It was relatively neat. On the nightstand by the bed was a worn hardback copy of Thoreau’s Walden. That was Leonard’s favorite book, especially the chapter titled “Self Reliance.”
