And even if I did, Fearless is workin’.”
“Where is Fearless?” Rawlway asked again.
“I told you,” I said. “I don’t know. He was up on that farm. He haven’t called me. I guess he’s still there.”
I was wily but numb. That was my defense against the law. I didn’t have the slightest antagonism toward those peace officers. That might come as a surprise to anyone who hasn’t had the experience of being a black man in America. I wasn’t angry, because we were just actors playing parts written down before any one of us was born. Later on, at the barbershop, I’d laugh about my answers with other black men who had grown up playing dumb under the scrutiny of some other man’s law.
“He was seen in the past few days by various witnesses not a mile from your door,” hairy Rawlway reported.
“Witnesses?”
“Where is he, Mr. Minton?”
“I’m tellin’ you the truth, man. I ain’t seen Fearless. I don’t know anything about what he’s been doin’ or about any witnesses either.”
“What about Bartholomew Perry?” Rawlway asked.
“I know him to say hi to,” I said. “I mean, we ain’t friends or nuthin’ and I don’t even remember the last time I saw him.”
“Are he and Fearless friends?”
“Not that I know of.”
“I could take you down to the station, Paris,” Rawlway said.
“You could, sergeant, but that wouldn’t change what I said. I don’t know where Fearless is. I don’t know Bartholomew Perry more than to tell you his name. I’m in this buildin’ here all day sellin’ books. That’s all.”
“And you expect us to believe that you sell books for a living?”
“Why not?”
Morrain stepped back into one of the aisles.
“Who wrote . . . um . . . ,” he said, holding a book at arm’s length so that he could make out the spine. “Let’s see here, oh yeah. Who wrote
“Gustave Flaubert.”
He picked out another book.
“How about the,
“Mark Twain.”
“You think you’re smart, nigger?”
“I’m just trying to make a living, officer. Fearless is my friend but I haven’t seen him. That’s all I know.”
It was always a tough part to play. They saw themselves as the foremen of the neighborhood. I was a lazy worker, a liar looking to cheat them out of what was their superior’s proper due. My job was to make them believe in their picture of me while at the same time showing that today I wasn’t shirking or lying or lining my pockets with their boss man’s money.
“You remember our names?” Rawlway asked.
“Sergeant Rawlway and Officer Morrain,” I said.
“If you hear from this Fearless, call us. Because if we find out you didn’t, there’s nothing in any of these books that will save your ass from me. You understand?”
“Yes sir.”
12
THE EMERALD LOUNGE WAS AN OASIS of sorts in the Negro community. It was run by a Jamaican named Orrin Nye. He had an American wife and three little kids. Orrin only allowed classical music on the record player. Because of this aesthetic only a certain kind of customer frequented the place. Members of the church, especially the choir, older ladies who were scandalized by boogie- woogie and rhythm and blues, pretentious white-collar professionals, and world-weary lovers, muggers, and thieves were the regulars—them and Fearless Jones when he was in love.
Fearless was a killer of men but that didn’t keep him from being sappy sometimes. Love made him think about church and church for him was somehow represented by the German masters, especially their arias. And so in those rare moments that he fell for some girl, he would bring her to the lounge. I think it was because he wanted the woman he was with to see, or maybe hear, the contents of his heart.
The last woman he fell for was Brenda Hollings. She was an overweight, nearsighted girl who had come from Tennessee with her parents at the tender age of seventeen. Her parents came out to live with an uncle who owned a Laundromat and needed workers he could trust.
Fearless met Brenda when she was nineteen.
“Paris,” he told me, “that there’s the woman I want to bear my sons and daughters.”
I didn’t say anything. She was awkward and not friendly, plain-looking by the best light and sharp-tongued to boot. Add those drawbacks to the fact that Fearless had never lived in the same place for more than three months during his entire adult life and one could see why I didn’t hold out much hope for his dreams of domestic tranquillity.
