mind.
I stopped at a closed gas station past La Cienega and busted out the passenger’s window. There was a large trash bin, almost filled with refuse, near the toilets. I tore up her driver’s license and Board of Ed ID and sprinkled the confetti around. I rubbed off the purse as well as I could, leaving three hundred and some odd dollars. I figured that even if anyone found the purse they’d think twice before turning it in with no ID and a three-hundred-dollar windfall.
I buried the purse and tattered IDs as far as I could.
It was when I was getting back into the car that I noticed the croquet set was missing from the backseat.
I parked in front of my house and let Pharaoh out of his cage. He sniffed and sniffed at Idabell’s seat, whining and begging to be reunited with her. After a few minutes I picked him up and carried him into the house.
It was the only time we didn’t express hatred or disdain for each other.
That’s because we were both in mourning and on the verge of seeking our own separate brands of revenge.
CHAPTER 19
DADDY, Frenchie’s sick.”
She was standing there in her orange dress, the one that had four big white buttons down the front. Bleary light reflected on the mirror of my dresser. That meant it was late in the morning.
“Feather, what are you doing here? Why aren’t you at school?”
“Frenchie’s sick,” she said patiently. “I stayed home to take care of him.”
“Where’s Juice?”
“He gone to school. He said that I was gonna be in trouble.” She looked at me with slightly enlarged eyes. “But I told him that Frenchie was sick an’ he needed me to pat him and take his tempachur.”
I was seeing the woman in the child just beginning to flex her muscles. I was sick at heart but I could still smile at the beauty of Feather and her power to love.
“I’ll take care’a the dog, honey,” I said. “You go put together your lunch and I’ll take you to school.”
Pharaoh was moping by the front door. His tiny rat chin rested on slender yellow paws. He looked up at me and tried to growl but the snarl turned into a whimper and he put his head back down.
I had on my painter’s pants, a cross-hatched-red-and-blue flannel shirt, and thick work shoes. I would be unshaven and unbathed that day. I was coming back to the old ways and feeling mean.
It wasn’t far to Burnside Elementary School.
“What happened to the window, Daddy?”
I walked Feather into school and explained, vaguely, that I’d had to keep her home that morning. Nobody seemed to mind.
I WENT BACK HOME and called Trudy Van Dial at Sojourner Truth. She rang for Garland Burns. When he got on I told him that I was working out of the area office for Mr. Stowe for the day.
“You tell Newgate about it,” I said. “He can call up Stowe if he has any problems with it. And make sure that Archie is getting to his assignments.”
“Sure thing, Mr. Rawlins,” Burns said.
“Anything else, Garland?”
“That policeman, Sergeant Sanchez, talked to me and Mrs. Plates yesterday,” the clean-shaven young Christian Scientist said in his schoolboy way.
“Yeah?”
“What he mostly asked about was you.”
“Really?” I said in my most perplexed tone. “Oh, well. See you tomorrow, Mr. Burns.”
“Okay. Bye now, Mr. Rawlins.”
I drove the long ride out to Watts but I wasn’t going to work that day. I went all the way down to 116th Street and the first home I ever owned.
Primo was sitting on the front porch of my house, protected by the overhang from the light drizzle. When I got out of the car he stood up and waved. He yelled something in Spanish into the front door and then limped his way out toward me.
It was in the past couple of years that Primo developed his limp. I didn’t know what had happened and I never asked.
The fence around the yard had been torn down and there were three cars parked on the lawn. One hulk had the engine next to it while another jalopy was up on boxes instead of wheels. The house could have used a touch-up but I knew that it would have been an insult for me to offer to have it painted so I let it ride.
“Easy,” Primo hailed. “How are you, my friend?”
“Well …”
“You don’t have to say it.” Primo smiled, showing me a pitted silver tooth. “I can see that you’re in bad trouble.”
“How can you see that?”
“Because when you’re okay, or maybe just a little bad, you always got a present for us and the kids. You feel
