other reason than their lack of taste.
“I don’t like being called a nigger even when a nigger calls me that,” Leonard said.
“That some kind of joke too?”
“You see me laughin’?” Leonard said.
Another man, a lanky but muscled white guy with a close-shaved scalp, appeared at the Afro guy’s shoulder, looked out, said, “You want I should take care of them?”
“I ask you shit?” the Afro man said. “You hear me ask some shit from you? Go on in there and sit your white ass down. Pet the fuckin’ dog or pat my old lady’s ass, but don’t be gettin’ in my game unless I call on you.”
“Have it your fuckin’ way,” the white guy said, and disappeared back inside the trailer.
“I’m pettin’ your gal’s ass,” the white guy called from somewhere inside.
“That was like just a fuckin’ thing to say. Don’t you do it, asshole,” the Afro guy said, glancing inside the trailer. Then he looked back at us.
I said, “Could you ask him to turn down the music? I think I saw a bird fall out of a tree.”
He ignored me. “You cops?”
“We look like cops?” Leonard said.
“He does,” he said, pointing a finger at me.
“He’s white,” Leonard said. “All white guys look like cops.”
“I resent that,” I said.
“We ain’t cops,” Leonard said. “Now, get your hand off your bulbs, we maybe can do a little business. But you and me. No matter what the business. We ain’t shakin’ hands.”
The Afro guy didn’t pull his hand out of his shorts. His eyes narrowed. “All right, you buyin’ somethin’ or not?”
Leonard said, “You’re right. I fess up. We don’t want to buy anything. To be precise, we’re here to take somethin’. It’s Gadget we want.”
“Gadget?”
“Yep,” I said.
“You guys are nuts. Ain’t nobody around but you two, and there’s four of us and a badass dog, and you’re tellin’ me you’re takin’ my woman?”
“If you had two dogs,” Leonard said, “now that would be different.”
“There’s a dog?” I said.
The guy in the doorway shifted his nuts to the other side of his shorts and looked exasperated. “Gadget ain’t goin’ nowhere, man. She’s my hole.”
“Damn, that’s a romantic reference,” I said. “You say you got a dog in there?”
“She ain’t goin’,” the man said.
“Only if she wants to go,” I said. “And maybe even if she doesn’t want to. We’re kind of up in the air on that part… What kind of dog is it?”
“Ah,” he said, “I get it. You two from that old nigger. Her granddaddy That fuckin’ cripple.”
“Whipped your ass with a cane, didn’t he?” Leonard said. “That was some lively old cripple, wouldn’t you say? Your legs look like a fuckin’ zebra with them bruises.”
“He caught me off guard.”
“He hit you with that stick like he was dustin’ a rug, Tanedrue,” the white guy said from somewhere inside.
“You shut the fuck up,” Tanedrue said.
He turned back to us.
Leonard laughed a little. “Tanedrue? That’s your name? Your mama made that name up, didn’t she?”
“It’s African.”
“Naw it ain’t,” Leonard said. “If that don’t scream ignorant backwoods nigger, I don’t know what does. That was my name, I’d stick a sharp stick up my ass and impale myself.”
“That’s it,” Tanedrue said, and reached back into the trailer with his right hand. For a slight moment he was distracted, which of course was what we were waiting for.
Leonard moved quickly, caught Tanedrue by the feet, jerked them up and out. Tanedrue’s head smacked on the bottom of the trailer doorway and then Leonard dragged him down the metal stairs so that his head bounced on each and every one of them. I saw a bit of blood fly out from Tanedrue’s skull, then he went limp and tumbled off the stairs, his hand still in his shorts. No doubt about it, he was one tenacious ball handler.
We kept moving, straight into the trailer.
6
The white guy with the shaved head was the first one at the door. Leonard hit him between the eyes with a swinging elbow so hard I’m sure a distant relative in bad health in the old country crossed his eyes and died. The blow made the goon spin around and away from us. He went down on one knee and held his head, just to make
