I loved going home. Maybe it was that I was raised on a sharecropper's farm or that I never owned anything until I bought that house, but I loved my little home. There was an apple tree and an avocado in the front yard, surrounded by thick St. Augustine grass. At the side of the house I had a pomegranate tree that bore more than thirty fruit every season and a banana tree that never produced a thing. There were dahlias and wild roses in beds around the fence and African violets that I kept in a big jar on the front porch.
The house itself was small. Just a living room, a bedroom, and a kitchen. The bathroom didn't even have a shower and the back yard was no larger than a child's rubber pool. But that house meant more to me than any woman I ever knew. I loved her and I was jealous of her and if the bank sent the county marshal to take her from me I might have come at him with a rifle rather than to give her up.
Working for Joppy's friend was the only way I saw to keep my house. But there was something wrong, I could feel it in my fingertips. DeWitt Albright made me uneasy; Joppy's tough words, though they were true, made me uneasy. I kept telling myself to go to bed and forget it.
'Easy,' I said, 'get a good night's sleep and go out looking for a job tomorrow.'
'But this is June twenty-five,' a voice said. 'Where is the sixty-four dollars coming from on July one?'
'I'll get it,' I answered.
'How?'
We went on like that but it was useless from the start. I knew I was going to take Albright's money and do whatever he wanted me to, providing it was legal, because that little house of mine needed me and I wasn't about to let her down.
And there was another thing.
DeWitt Albright made me a little nervous. He was a big man, and powerful by the look of him. You could tell by the way he held his shoulders that he was full of violence. But I was a big man too. And, like most young men, I never liked to admit that I could be dissuaded by fear.
Whether he knew it or not, DeWitt Albright had me caught by my own pride. The more I was afraid of him, I was that much more certain to take the job he offered.
The address Albright had given me was a small, buff-colored building on Alvarado. The buildings around it were taller but not as old or as distinguished. I walked through the black wrought-iron gates into the hall of the Spanish- styled entrance. There was nobody around, not even a directory, just a wall of cream-colored doors with no names on them.
'Excuse me.'
The voice made me jump.
'What?' My voice strained and cracked as I turned to see the small man.
'Who are you looking for?'
He was a little white man wearing a suit that was also a uniform.
'I'm looking for, um … ah …,' I stuttered. I forgot the name. I had to squint so that the room wouldn't start spinning.
It was a habit I developed in Texas when I was a boy. Sometimes, when a white man of authority would catch me off guard, I'd empty my head of everything so I was unable to say anything. 'The less you know, the less trouble you find,' they used to say. I hated myself for it but I also hated white people, and colored people too, for making me that way.
'Can I help you?' the white man asked. He had curly red hair and a pointed nose. When I still couldn't answer he said, 'We only take deliveries between nine and six.'
'No, no,' I said, trying to remember.
'Yes we do! Now you better leave.'
'No, I mean I…'
The little man started backing toward a small podium that stood against the wall. I figured that he had a nightstick back there.
'Albright!' I yelled.
'What?' he yelled back.
'Albright! I'm here to see Albright!'
'Albright who?' There was suspicion in his eye, and his hand was behind the podium.
'Mr. Albright. Mr. DeWitt Albright.'
'Mr. Albright?'
'Yes, that's him.'
'Are you delivering something?' he asked, holding out his scrawny hand.
'No. I have an appointment. I mean, I'm supposed to meet him.' I hated that little man.
'You're supposed to meet him? You can't even remember his name.'
I took a deep breath and said, very softly, 'I am supposed to meet Mr. DeWitt Albright tonight, any time after seven.'
'You're supposed to meet him at seven? It's eight-thirty now. He's probably gone.'
'He told me
He held out his hand to me again. 'Did he give you a note saying you're to come in here after hours?'
