“Naw, man. I just wanted the car. You lucky I still got it. We so backed up right now that we couldn’t chop it till Monday.”
Mouse flashed his eyes at me and I shrugged.
“Thanks, Nate,” Mouse said in dismissal.
“What about my money?” the car thief asked.
“You
While Loverboy was screwing up the courage to die I opened the car door and took whatever papers there were in the glove compartment. I made a quick search under the front and back seats but found nothing.
I took the keys from the ignition and opened the trunk. That was empty too.
“You can keep the car, man,” I said. “All I need is this here.”
I returned the keys to Loverboy. He took them from me and then turned to Mouse.
“Is that all?”
“Okay,” my friend, the self-appointed sovereign of Watts, said.
We all stood there for a moment, wondering what the exact etiquette was in a situation like that. Was somebody supposed to say thank you or even good-bye?
Nate made a quick move for the car.
When he drove off, Mouse asked me, “Even, Easy?”
“Maybe right now but I believe I’ll be in your debt before it’s all through.”
RAYMOND DROVE ME home. We had a good time on the way, chatting about people we knew. It wasn’t until he stopped at the curb in front of my house that I remembered my message.
“I ran into Benita Flag at Cox Bar,” I said.
“You did?”
“Yeah. Didn’t Ginny tell you?”
“Ginny don’t talk to me about women too much.”
“Benita was worried about you.”
“I bet she was.”
It was almost three and I wasn’t Benita’s lawyer, so I opened my door.
“What you do about your girlfriends, Ease?”
“Say what?”
“Your girlfriends,” he repeated. “When they get all cow-eyed and hungry for you.”
Juanda popped into my mind but I pushed her away.
“I don’t have any girlfriends, Ray. It’s just me and Bonnie, that’s all.”
“You don’t get you no pussy on the side?”
“Not lately.”
“I cain’t live without it. I gots to have me a little taste every now and then. But you know some’a these girls don’t hear it when you tell ’em you married and shit. I mean they say okay but then they wanna know how you could love ’em like that and then not move in.”
I didn’t even smile. This was a true moral conflict for my friend. His understanding of anyone outside of himself was severely limited. He didn’t know why Benita didn’t understand him, so he cut her off. And the mere fact that she would mention him to me set him on a dark path.
“I’ll talk to her, Ray,” I said.
“You will?”
“Oh yeah. I’ll explain your predicament. She’ll understand.”
“You know, you all right, Easy,” he said. “You all right.”
He left me standing in the warm night air appreciating the silence. There I was, a middle-aged city employee. The only thing I should have had on my mind was my bed and my children, my mortgage, and the woman I loved. All of that was waiting for me in the house.
But instead of heeding that domestic call I went to my car, turned over the engine, and drove off.
18
There was a chain drawn to block the driveway to the Miller Neurological Sanatorium. I had to park my car on the street and walk to the door. I was looking for the night bell when a flashlight shone on the side of my head.
“Hold it,” a voice said.
It was a man’s voice, a white man, probably over sixty, who was not born in the South. There was confidence in the tone but not the threatening kind of self-assurance that comes with holding a gun. This voice expressed the expectation of being obeyed because that was his place in life.
I turned toward the dazzling light and said, “Yes?”
