His right biceps bulged as the hot sun came down on his bald black head but Socrates didn't acknowledge the strain of his labors. Killer was the first pet that he'd ever owned. Other men in the penitentiary kept garden snakes, rats and pigeons for pets. Some of them swore that they had favorite cockroaches who returned each night for special crumbs they'd hoarded. But Socrates didn't love in prison. Love was weakness and Socrates' armor had nary a chink.
He never had a pet as a child. His father was a drunk and his mother worked too hard even to love Socrates most of the time. His aunt Bellandra loved him but she was crazy; she was too worried about her visions to have some furry creature mewling around begging for food.
?The white Christians call Him the Shepherd,? Bellandra would tell Socrates, who was old enough to remember but not of an age to comprehend. ?That makes them sheep. They made us pray like that, like we was sheep too. And you know what happens to sheep, don't ya? They cut off their woolly hair to humiliate 'em. They put the dogs on 'em. They slaughter 'em too. Now why would God want man to be lined up with sheep??
Children were playing softball in the alley four blocks down. Socrates noticed that there were little Mexican children sprinkled in among the blacks. Too young to hate yet. Too young to separate and draw lines; to play a different game with guns and knives.
The children stopped and gawked at the big man and his deformed dog.
?Hey, mister,? one black child shouted. ?What happent to his legs??
?Front part run so fast,? Socrates responded, ?that he left the back part behind.?
?Huh?? the boy grunted, his friends mouthing the same wordless question.
But before they could say more Socrates was moving away, Killer barking joyously at the boys and their big white softball.
Socrates made a left on the next block. It was a street full of music and barbecue smoke, makeshift lawn chairs and people wandering back and forth. Down the middle of the street a gang of boys rode their bicycles in a swarm. Two or three old women sat on painted concrete porches fanning themselves and watching.
A few people motioned toward the dog, pointing out his deformity. If Socrates noticed them the gesture turned into a wave.
Killer tried hard to pull his master toward the smell of burnt flesh, but even if he had four legs he couldn't have budged the muscle built by so many years of prison life.
There wasn't a day that Socrates forgot the single cell, the smell of rust and sweat, the sounds of metal on stone that surrounded and imprisoned him. He was like a guerrilla soldier back then, secreted underground, waiting for the moment to rise and strike; waiting for freedom that he knew would probably come only in the form of a coffin.
But now, after twenty-seven years in storage and after nine years out, Socrates walked his crippled dog in the bright sun, unarmed and at an uneasy truce with his enemies.
The policeman, the salesman in the store, the newspaperman or TV anchor, Socrates didn't trust any one of them. He knew that their jobs were to hold him down and rob him, and then afterward to tell him lies about what had really gone down. It was a crazy thought, he told himself, but then he'd say, ?But not as crazy as this world,? and then he'd laugh.
He was laughing right then on the way to the park.
From behind a sickly pine bush sprang a feathery red-haired dog. The animal, one-sixth the size of Killer, bared its sharp teeth and snarled. Killer saw no harm in the dog and danced on his front paws begging for a smell.
?Johnny, where are you?? a man called in a clear soprano. He appeared from behind the shedding, dying pine. He was tall and thin with a processed hairdo wrapped up in a nylon do-rag. He also wore a long-sleeved purple shirt, with fresh sweat stains in the armpits, and matching purple pants.
Even from a distance of a few feet Socrates was assailed by the thick sweet scent of the man's cologne.
?Oh my,? the younger man said. He held his hands in front of him in a cautious, almost feminine gesture.
?Yo' dog wanna fight and mine wanna make friends,? Socrates said to help the purple man settle down.
?Johnny B. Goode, sit!? the younger man ordered.
The fluffy red dog obeyed instantly.
His master had a pencil-thin mustache and was older than Socrates had at first thought. Forty, maybe even forty-five. He had a slender scar down his left cheek and one eye was a light walnut, the other a deep mahogany brown.
