The beers came with Chico, who sat down for a little while to say hello to Socrates and to check out the new man. Lydell passed the test because all he said was ?Hello.?
?A man with no questions,? Socrates said to Lydell when Chico went away, ?is a man you could almost trust.?
It was the first friendly smile to cross Lydell's lips that Socrates could remember. But the grin was followed by that pained grimace. Socrates could remember when happiness brought him pain. He was considering asking the carpenter what had he done but Lydell beat him to it.
?I killed my friend. My wife's boyfriend. Henry Wentworth.? Lydell looked at Socrates who held up his empty glass for Chico to see. ?He was with my wife. In the bed. In my own damn bed. An' I killed him with a knife. Stabbed the motherfucker. Forty-two times they said.?
Cap Richmond, the seventy-year-old lifer, used to say.
?Henry was always hangin' 'round us. He used to always say how if I didn't marry Geraldine he would have. She liked him and I worked the night shift. Lotta times I'd come home and he'd be there watchin' TV or eatin'. I even liked it that he looked in on her. So you see,? Lydell said like some kind of law student, ?it really was my fault in a way. You cain't be havin' no man comin' up in your house lookin' after your woman. Man starts to feel like he own a woman he's protectin'. She cain't help but to take on his scent too.?
?How many years?? Socrates asked when he realized that there was nothing he could tell Lydell.
?Sentenced to twelve but I got out in eight.?
Socrates figured that his drinking partner was mid-thirties, not much more. ?How long you been out??
?Six years, seven months, five days,? Lydell answered. ?I went in when I was nineteen. My mother died the next year.?
?You done did all right, man,? Socrates said. ?I mean you run that carpentry business, right??
?What you mean when you say it ain't over till it's over?? Lydell asked.
?Huh??
?That's what you said in the park this weekend.?
?I'idn't mean nuthin'.? Socrates was trying to remember exactly what he had said and why. ?That was just some talk.?
?You said what would you do if you could go back. That's what you said to Willie Ryan. You said it like you was givin' him a chance, like there was somethin' he could do right now.?
Chico came with more beer. Socrates nodded and made a sign to keep them coming.
?What you askin' me, Lydell?? Socrates asked. ?What you really wanna know??
?They told me about you bein' in prison, man.? The carpenter rubbed his face pushing his jaw impossibly far to the right. ?They said that you was all hard and mean when you got out but then you started doin' stuff. You know. How you help people and talk about what's right an' what's wrong. They said it was like you learned some-thin'. Like, like you ? I don't know. Like you know you wrong and you figured out how to be right anyway.?
?That's just some talk, man. I ain't got nuthin' on nobody. You know. Shoot. I got a job as a boxboy an' my head don't feel right less I'm sleepin' or drunk.? The words came easily. They were all true but he was barely aware of a truth that lay just under their meaning.
Lydell felt that truth too.
?I don't sleep at all. Not really.? The thin black man started rocking gently in the chair. ?I close my eyes. But you know you cain't block out that shit. It get worser every day. Every day that I'm up here an' Henry's in the ground. I try not to think about how it was my fault. And then I try an' do what you said to Willie. I try an' go back. In my mind I go back there tellin' myself that I set Henry up for that shit. I tell myself that he didn't deserve to die.? Lydell looked at Socrates with those ruined, heartbroken eyes.
Chico came around with two more beers. The ex-cons waited for the bartender to leave.
?? but when I get there,? Lydell continued, ?an' I hear that noise she makes. I tell myself, ?You could just hit him,? but then the knife is in my hand again. Here I am tryin' to make it better in my mind but I just kill'im again. Kill'im again.?
