enough.”
“So what fool we gonna get next?” said Dennis. “Nixon?”
“That won’t happen,” said Darius. “I got to believe, you get down to it, the people in this country are better than that. They get in the voting booth, they’re not gonna pull the lever for that man.”
“Unless they’re scared,” said Dennis.
“Scared of what?” said Darius.
“Everything,” said Dennis. “Us.”
Derek rubbed at his face. “Bobby Kennedy gonna step in now. You watch.”
“That would work,” said Darius. “He’s a politician like the rest of them. But his heart seems right.”
Alethea nodded. “Least there’d be hope.”
They sat there in the glow of the television screen, listening to their president. But soon their thoughts returned to the smaller, more manageable conflicts in their own lives. Derek thinking of his job. Dennis concentrating on his wrong companions and their plans, and, at the same time, his next high. Alethea worrying about her elder son’s future. Darius wincing at the sudden, sharp pain low in his spine.
He’d been getting these jolts lately, sometimes on his feet, sometimes while simply relaxing in his chair. A few days earlier, he’d noticed blood in his morning movement as well. There was something wrong with him, for sure. But what could he do? He still had to provide. His wife, God love her, couldn’t work any harder than she already did. They were in debt, as they had always been. He couldn’t afford to be sick, so there wasn’t any use in worrying about it either way.
“I’m going out,” said Dennis, getting up out of his seat.
“Where you off to?” said Darius.
“Out,” said Dennis, walking toward the bedroom he and Derek had once shared. “Twenty-seven years old, and you still quizzin’ me.”
“You stop acting like seven instead of twenty-seven,” said Darius, “I’ll stop quizzin’.”
“Darius,” said Alethea.
“Boy ain’t gone no further than a child.”
Dennis entered his bedroom and found a vial he kept underneath his socks in the top drawer of his dresser, beside a scarred-up baseball he’d had since he was eight. He and his father had played catch with that ball on summer evenings in the alley behind the house, as far back as ’48. He stared at the ball for a moment, then closed the drawer.
Dennis shook a red out of the vial, raised spit, and swallowed the pill. He left the apartment without a word to any of them, slipping out quietly, looking to pay his man for the reefer he’d sold, looking for the comfort he found on the street.
In the kitchen, Alethea washed the dinner dishes and passed them to Derek, who dried them off with a towel. Alethea hummed a gospel tune he recognized as she handed him a wet plate. He wiped it hastily and slipped it, still damp, into a sun-faded rubber rack.
“You in a hurry?” said Alethea.
“I’m meeting someone,” said Derek.
“That little girl from Northeast, works in the beauty shop?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Whatever happened to Carmen?”
“She’s around. Finishin’ up over at Howard.”
“You ever see her?”
“Not lately.”
“Shame. Always liked Carmen. Good family, and a neighborhood girl, too.”
“Yeah, she’s good.”
“Nice girl like that, growing up right beside you. Sometimes you can’t see the good things ’cause they’re too close to your face. Like the story about that man, went all over the world looking for treasure, only to come back home and find -”
“Diamonds in his backyard,” said Derek. “I know.”
“Guess I’ve told you that one before.”
“You might have,” said Derek, smiling at his mother as his hip brushed against hers.
“Well, I hope you’ve been hearing me all these years.”
“It’s that brother of his who’s deaf,” said Darius, coming into the kitchen. He went to the old Frigidaire and grabbed a bottle of beer from the bottom shelf.
“He’ll find his way,” said Derek.
“He better start. ’Cause he sure ain’t found it yet.”
Darius got an opener out of a drawer and uncapped his beer. He had a pull from the bottle and drank off its neck. Derek put the last plate in the rack as Alethea dried her hands. The three of them stood in the closeness of the galley kitchen, a space that was tight and badly lit but was as comfortable to them as a warm glove.
“You doin’ all right?” said Darius.
“Fine,” said Derek in an unconvincing way.
“Rough, isn’t it?”
“It can be.”
“I suppose you’re not gettin’ the love you thought you would.”
“I’m not winnin’ any popularity contests.”
“Remember, the good folks, they got no problem with seein’ you coming down the street. It’s the criminals and the no-accounts gonna look at you and hate. This city is finally getting a police force that looks like its people, so you’re doin’ something that’s necessary and right. You ought to be proud of that.”
“It’s just hard.”
“If it’s important,” said Darius, “it usually is. You’ll be fine, long as you don’t get off the path. Get caught up in that power thing, the way some of these police do. Forget why they took the job to begin with.”
“I’m straight,” said Derek.
“I know you are, son,” said Darius.
“You just watch yourself, hear?” said Alethea.
“Yes, ma’am.”
Darius looked his son over with admiration. He didn’t have to say what he was feeling. Derek knew. He was getting, in a silent way, what every son craved from his father and what few ever got: validation and respect. It was all in his eyes.
“We get your big brother straightened around, too,” said Darius, “we gonna be all right.”
“BUY ME ANOTHER beer,” said Walter Hess.
“They already turned the lights on,” said Buzz Stewart.
“That’s good,” said Hess. “Now I can see what I’m drinkin’.”
“He means it’s closing time,” said Dominic Martini.
“I know what he means, you dumb fuckin’ guinea,” said Hess. He turned to Stewart with unfocused eyes. “Buy me another beer, dad.”
They were in a white bar in a black neighborhood on 14th. The men wore leathers, Macs, and motorcycle boots. The women wore Peters jackets and Ban-Lon shirts. Mitch Ryder was playing on the radio. The crowd was sweaty and drunk-ugly in the bright lights of last call. A fog of cigarette smoke hung in the air.
“C’mon, Shorty,” said Stewart, grabbing a sleeve of Hess’s jacket and pulling him toward the door.
