“You don’t have to flinch from me, boy,” he said. “I love you. Do you know that?”
Thomas stared at his father, trying to understand.
“I know you mad that I took you outta that white family’s house. I know you want me to walk you to school. But you have to understand that everything I’m doin,’ I’m doin’ for you. You need to be with your own blood. You got to learn to stand up for yo’self. Do you understand that?”
“I don’t know,” Thomas said. “I’m scared.”
“I’m scared too,” Elton replied.
“You?”
“Scared to death every day I climb out the bed,” he said.
“You know, a black man out here in these streets got a thousand enemies. Men want his money, his woman, his life, and he don’t even know who they are. That’s why I took you, Tommy. I want you to learn what I know. Do you understand what I’m sayin’ to you?”
9 4
F o r t u n a t e S o n
“If a rabbit sees a lion he gets scared and runs,” Thomas said, remembering a story that Ahn had told him.
“What’s that?”
“If a rabbit sees a lion he gets scared and runs,” the boy said again. “But then if a lion sees a elephant he runs ’cause the elephant could step on him an’ break his back.”
“The lion is the king of the jungle,” Elton said, his tone angry and not angry at the same time.
“I know. But he’s still afraid of the elephant.”
Father and son stared into each other’s eyes for a moment.
Elton had the feeling that he’d missed something, but he had no idea what that something was.
“Go on to school now, boy,” he said at last.
O n th e f ront step of the shabby box-shaped house, Thomas looked both ways, watching for the big boys that he’d run into the day before. He didn’t see anyone except an old woman across the street sweeping the sidewalk in front of her house. Thomas hurried down the pavement, almost running on his way to school.
Three houses down a hidden dog jumped out, lunging at him. The dog growled and snapped, but the chain around its neck stopped him from getting at the boy.
Thomas froze, thinking that the dog would get away somehow and chase him down. But the restraint held.
Thomas sighed. He took three steps toward school.
“Hey you, mothahfuckah,” a familiar voice called from behind.
They surrounded him quickly. Three of them were dressed in signature white T-shirt and jeans. One boy wore a jean jacket and black pants. All of their tennis shoes were white.
9 5
Wa l t e r M o s l e y
Thomas noticed these things, categorizing, listing, and hoping somehow the knowledge would save him from another beating, still knowing that nothing would save him.
Nothing ever would.
“You got money in yo’ pocket, suckah?” the tall eight-year-old leader asked.
Thomas breathed in through his mouth and shook his head — no.
The backhand stung his left cheek. He felt a trickle of blood come out of his left nostril.
“Empty yo’ pockets, man,” another boy said.
Thomas looked at all eight eyes staring angrily at him. Years later he would wake up from a nightmare about those eyes, not in fear of violence but from the sad memory of their hatred.
“Kick his ass!” a boy shouted.
Thomas rolled up like the gray-shelled pill bugs he would watch in the garden. He closed his eyes and made ready to count the blows, but instead he heard a girl shouting. He wondered if the boys had attacked somebody else, somebody behind him.
He opened his eyes and raised his head.
A very large black girl (who looked somehow familiar) was punching the ringleader of the gang in the face. The other boys rushed at her, but she slapped one, punched another, and kicked the third, one, two, three times. The first boy she hit was crying. Thomas hadn’t believed that those mean boys
9 6
F o r t u n a t e S o n
“Git!” the big girl yelled, and stamped her foot on the concrete.
The crying boy let out howling.
“You show’em, girl,” the old woman from across the street called. “Show them li’l niggahs a thing or two.”
