He'd told her that he'd come visit some time soon at any rate. Inger moved up to Oakland to live with her brother.
?She left all her furniture and belongings. Hardly even packed a suitcase.? That's what Iula, who gave Inger airfare, had said.
Socrates was mad even then. But one woman raped and a boy being beaten wasn't much in the eyes of a man who had done worse in his own life.
Socrates began to hear other tales about the rogue cop. Beatings, molestations, and humiliations. Even the pimps started talking about how their jewelry always disappeared after a bust. And if anybody complained they received a visit, if not from Cardwell then from one of his friends.
Socrates had heard the stories but they didn't stick. He'd learned to live next to suffering in prison. He awoke in his cell many nights to the sound of some young man being raped for the first time. Once he saw a man hit so hard by a guard that his eye came out of his head. With that kind of pain in his mind there was little that some cop could do to displace it.
But then Cardwell killed Torrence Johnson. It was in the
on page three. A three-quarters profile of a smiling young boy with the words
and
in the headline. He was only fourteen, just two years older than Darryl. Shot down running from the police, from Matthew G. Cardwell Jr. Socrates read the news report. It was intimated that Johnson was involved with gang activity. There was a turf war or something like that. Torrence was involved. He ran.
From that point on it was a straight line for Socrates. He went to the Johnson home even though he didn't know them. He brought white flowers that he took from the Saint-Paul Mortuary. He stayed on the front porch to give his condolences but even from there things didn't seem like what the police had said.
Mr. Johnson was a short man and broad. He didn't like the idea of Socrates at his door.
?Did you know Torrie?? Mr. Johnson asked.
?No sir,? Socrates said. ?I just read about him. I just read it and wanted to come and say I was sorry.?
?Sorry about what? Were you there?? There was a hysterical note in the fat man's voice.
?No sir. I just felt for you and I wanted to say that a lotta people feel it's wrong to have happen what happened to your son.?
The Johnsons lived in what some people called
below View Park and above Crenshaw. Socrates found a mother and a father and a well-kept house. The other children weren't gang members. Socrates took the bus home wondering why the article got him so upset.
the article had said.
He was involved in gang activity.
Socrates thought to himself,
He didn't sleep that night and the next day he called in sick to work. He was sick too. The words fleeing and gang activity wore on his nerves like some kind of virus that eats away the senses.
His lips were numb. Colors hurt his eyes.
Fleeing. Gang activity. Shot down. Tragedy.
All the suffering he'd witnessed in prison came back and added itself to Torrence Johnson's father's pain. Socrates thought about Inger fleeing to Oakland, about Reggie scared into school.
