Fearless stretched out his right hand while keeping his left on the wheel. I clasped it.
“You my friend, Paris. An’ this mess ain’t so bad. I was in a war eight thousand miles from home with white men talkin’ German in front’a me an’ white men talkin’ English at my back. They was all callin’ me nigger. They all wanted me dead. You know I wasn’t scared then, baby. This ain’t no more bad than a night with a girlfriend like to bite.”
THE CHARLES DINER was a night haunt. They didn’t have live music, but they had waitresses and drinks. The Charles was the place you went if you didn’t have the cover charge in your pocket. Fearless and I double-parked out front, and he ran in.
While waiting I tried to screw up the courage to do what I knew had to come next. I knew from experience that Fearless could be gone for a few days once he was off with a woman. He’d lose track of time, and how could I blame him? Ninety days was a long time to go without love, even for me.
I watched the blinking neon sign that lit up the old-time diner. The facade of the restaurant was made to look like a train car detailed in chrome. Now it was a place for the end of the night, when jukebox tunes would do. Thousands of people passed through those doors every week. Working people and gangsters, women looking for love or money and men looking to throw love or money away. You didn’t go to the Charles to see old friends; no, the Charles was where you went to seek out somebody who wanted to help you with your problem, somebody who wanted to give you something or take what you had to give.
“Hey, Paris.” Fearless opened the driver’s side and leaned in. “Dorthea got her own car an’ she don’t mind drivin’ it. So you take Layla’s, and I’ll see you tomorrow afternoon at Fanny’s.”
“You know Dorthea ain’t gonna let you go that quick.”
“Cross my heart, Paris. This is just for the night, baby. Tomorrow we got ground to cover.”
“Okay,” I said. “But take this dog anyway. Just in case you get stuck, I don’t want to have to take care’a no dog too.”
I eased in behind the wheel and we shook hands.
“You better take this,” I said, handing him four five-dollar bills and five ones. “Just in case you need somethin’.”
“Hey, Paris. Thanks, man.”
Fearless went around to the passenger door, opened it, and said, “Come on, boy.”
Blood jumped out with a quick bark.
I sat behind the wheel a few minutes after Fearless and his dog were gone, wondering if I would make it through the night without getting killed. A car behind me honked its horn, and I slid away from the curb, prodded by that unknown driver, into the night.
13
I DROVE UP and down Alameda Boulevard until about twelve-thirty, finally finding the storefront by intuition instead of a sign. I’d seen the darkened windows twice on my evening reconnaissance, but both times they didn’t make enough of an impression for me to look closer.
On the third pass I stopped and got out. Up close the drapes were a deep red. As soon as I saw the color I knew that it was the Messenger of the Divine. The curtains were drawn completely across the windows, but looking down past the sill I could see a thin band of light. Pressing my ear against the crack between the double doors, I could hear men talking; talking, not proselytizing, praying, or preaching.
I went around the side of the block. There was no alley behind the row of stores. That meant that whoever was in there had to come out on Alameda. I moved Layla’s car down the block and sat low in the seat, not wanting some cop to nab me for loitering.
It was a long wait. There was a chill in the air, and my shirt provided little to no warmth. Whenever I got cold up north I remembered New Iberia, my home. We didn’t live in the town. My mother and I were country. Our road was a dirt path only fit for feet or horses’ hooves. We lived in a shack made from tin and wood, cardboard, mortar, and tar paper. There was a brick oven that burned anything and a floor paved with small stones. There were three rooms, and we fit that place like a hand in a glove. In the summertime it was as hot as you could take it. It did get cold in December, but I still remember Louisiana for the heat. I loved it. As far as I could walk in any direction there were colored people, colored people and no one else. When I was a child I knew that the white people lived somewhere, but I rarely saw one in my daily routine. Our store owners and undertakers and carpenters were all black. So were our tailors and dressmakers, our butchers, bakers, and milkmen.
Everybody was poor, but nobody starved. We partied on Saturday nights and praised the Lord for our babies on
