wit' my full weight an' you feel your breast bone crack open. When I put that knife to your throat an' you feel it tearin' through your flesh and the blood goin' all down your chest. What would you do then??
?Say what, man?? Willie managed to keep his shaking down to a fidget.
?If you could go back an' fix it. If you could go back an' when that woman smiled at you you just smiled back an' walked away. What if you could go back before I ripped your flesh open like that? What would you do then? That's what I'm askin' you, Willie.?
?You cain't go back, man,? Lydell said. ?That shit is over. Nuthin' you could do.?
Brad Godine sat back and shook his head. ?We gonna play dominoes or what??
?It ain't ovah till it's ovah, man,? Socrates said. He was looking at Willie but talking to Lydell.
He knew what he was saying, he was sure of his words, more sure,maybe,than he had ever been. But still Socrates was confused. It was as if he had just come alive when Willie started joking about getting away with his little crimes against his best friends and brothers. He could feel his heart beating and his breath coming in and out. But he wasn't breathing hard. He felt the breeze over his bald head and an ache on the inner side of his right knee.
Socrates felt big and angry. He was like an animal who just caught a whiff of something. Like Killer, his two- legged dog, who for no reason sometimes in the middle of the night sat back on his legless haunches and cried for all he was worth.
All of that was clear to the ex-con. But what he wondered was where was he before Willie called him to life? What was he thinking? Was he just like a dog? Waiting for food or foe or sex to wake him from slumber?
He wanted to say something about all that but didn't know how.
?Socco,? Young Tito Young said. Maybe he'd said it more than once.
?What??
?You okay, man??
?I gotta go, Young T,? Socrates said. He fished three dollars out of his jeans pocket and handed them to the potbellied man. ?Pay me up at the end an' gimme my change next week.?
Socrates left the unfinished game asking himself the same questions, questions that he could ask only himself.
Three days later Socrates had forgotten the game, the arguments, and the questions he had about himself. If anyone was privy to his inner thoughts and questioned why he had forgotten, he would have answered, ?Man, I got a job, a dog who needs care, a boy I look after, and streets where you got to watch where you're steppin' elsewise you might just walk off a cliff.?
Socrates had learned how to survive in prison and you couldn't make many missteps among the convict population. He carried prison around in his pockets like a passport or a small Bible. Sometimes at night he'd wake realizing that even in his sleep he'd been listening to the noises, and silences, on the street just beyond the thin plasterboard wall.
His days were spent watching out of the corner of his eye while working or having conversation. He didn't remember faces so much as hand movements and body size. If two or more big men were walking down the street behind him, even a block away, he'd turn off into an alley or store and watch to see what they did when they passed by.
Socrates didn't have time to think about how his mind worked or how lonely his thoughts were for company. He didn't have much time to think at all.
?It's like in a fight,? Peter David, a heist man serving five years, once said to Socrates in the Indiana state penitentiary. ?If you hesitate you're dead. If you think or wonder or ask why you might as well just put the gun to your head. Because there's no time for thinking on the job and a poor man is on the job twenty-four hours a day.?
Socrates was coming home from Bounty Supermarket. He'd been staring out of the bus window only barely aware of how the sights slowly changed from the west side to Watts, from lush green streets that sometimes seemed more like botanical gardens than neighborhoods, to hard cracked sidewalks where a choked palm tree could be found every quarter mile or so. From bustling shops, catering to women who had worked on their outfits and makeup for hours before leaving the house, to burnt out and abandoned businesses standing like barricades against gangs of laughing children watched over by tired mothers, sisters and friends.
Socrates got off the bus twelve blocks from his house. There was a closer stop but he wanted to walk down the street he'd been observing.
?Hey, Socco,? a man called.
