L. Towne, — 0-M. Pride, 1,300
W. Fitzpatrick, 1,300
J. Orr, 1,300
S.A., 3,600
There was money changing hands. And in Jackie’s case the money turned into clothes. I didn’t know who S.A. was but I had it in mind to find out.
I left the money but I took the list with me. Sometimes words are worth more than money, especially if your ass is on the line.
30
John’s place was empty except for Odell sitting in his corner, eating a sandwich. He wouldn’t even return my nod. It was hard to lose a friend like that, but things were so twisted that I couldn’t really feel it, except as a pang in my lower gut.
As John served me whiskey I asked him, “You seen Jackson t’day?”
“No,” John answered. “But he be here. Jackson need to be in a bar where they don’t allow no fightin’.”
“You gotta save his butt a lot?”
John shrugged. “Lotta people cain’t stand the man. He smart but he stupid too.”
I took the drink to the far end of his bar and waited.
John always had his share of drunks and a few businessmen plying their various trades. Every once in a while there’d be a woman doing business, but that was rare, as John didn’t want trouble with the police.
Jackson Blue came through the door at about four-thirty.
“Hey, Easy,” he squealed in his high, crackly voice.
“Jackson. Come on over here and have a seat.”
He was wearing a loose and silvery sharkskin suit. His coal-black skin against the light but shadowy fabric made him look like the negative of a photograph of a white man.
“S’appenin’, Ease?” Jackson greeted me like I was his best friend.
Once, five years earlier, I came close to being murdered by a hijacker named Frank Green. I was never sure if Jackson was the one who told Frank Green, now deceased, that I was on his trail. All I know is that one day I was talking to Jackson about it and that night Frank had a knife to my throat. It really didn’t matter if it was Jackson, because he didn’t have anything against me personally. He was just trading in the only real business he knew- information.
“It’s bad, Jack, bad as it could be. You wanna drink?”
“Yeah.”
“Bring Jackson his milk, John.”
While John served the triple shot of scotch, Jackson smiled and said, “Whas the problem?”
“You know what happened at First African, right?”
“Yeah, yeah, sure. You know Rita dragged me there Sunday ’fore last. Said she’d keep me company on Saturday if I took her t’church.”
This satisfied look came over Jackson’s face and I knew that he was about to start bragging on the acts of love Rita had performed. I interrupted his reverie, saying, “You hear anything ’bout them killin’s?”
“How come?”
“Poinsettia got herself hung a while back and I found the body.”
“Yeah, I heard,” he said. Then a light went on in his yellowy eyes. “An’ you fount the minister too. They think it was you?”
“Yeah, and the cops don’t even know who the girl was. They’d like to say it was me.”
“Shit,” Jackson snorted. “Mothahfuckahs couldn’t fines no clue if it was nailed to they ass.”
“You know sumpin’ ’bout it, Jackson?”
Jackson looked over his shoulder, at the door. That meant he knew something and he was wondering if he should tell it. He rubbed his chin and acted cagey for a half a minute or so.
Finally he said, “What you doin’ at City College, man?”
“What?”
“You go there, right?”
“Yeah.”
“So what you takin’?”
“Basic like, remedial courses. Gettin’ some basic history an’ English I missed in night school. I got a couple’a advanced classes too.”
“Yeah? What kinda history?”
“European. From the Magna Carta on.”
“War,” he stated simply.
“What’s that you say?”
“Whatever it is I read about Europe is war. Them white men is always fightin’. War’a the Roses, the Crew- sades, the Revolution, the Kaiser, Hitler, the com’unists. Shit! All they care ’bout, war an’ money, money an’ land.”
He was right, of course. Jackson Blue was always right.
“You wanna go to school there?”
“Maybe you wanna take me t’class one night. Maybe I see.”
“What about the church, Jackson?”
“You say the cops don’t even know who that girl is?”
“Nope.”
“Maybe I go t’school an’ be a cop.”
“You gotta be five-eight at least to be a cop, Jack.”
“Shit, man. If I ain’t a niggah I’m a midget. Shit. You wanna get me another one, Ease?”
He pointed a long ebony finger at his empty glass.
I signaled for John to bring another. After he’d moved away Jackson said, “Tania’s her name. Tania Lee.”
“Where she live?”
“I’ont know. I just got it from one’a the young deacon boys-Robert Williams.”
“He didn’t know where she from?”
“Uh-uh. She just always tellin’ him t’be proud’a his skin and to worship Africa.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.” Jackson grinned. “You know I ’preciate a girl like a dark-skinned man but you ain’t gonna find me in no Africa.”
“Why not, Jackson? You ’fraid’a the jungle?”
“Hell no, man. Africa ain’t got no mo’ wild than America gots. But you know I cain’t see how them Africans could take kindly t’no American Negro. We been away too long, man.” Jackson shook his head. He almost looked sorry. “Too long.”
Jackson could have lectured me on the cultural rift between the continents all night, but an idea came to me.
“You ever hear of a group called the African Migration, Blue?”
“Sure, ain’t you ever seen it? Down on Avalon, near White Horse Bar and Grill.”
I had seen the place. It used to be a hardware store, but the owner died and the heirs sold it to a real estate broker who rented it out to storefront churches.
“I thought that was just another church.”
“Naw, Easy. These is Marcus Garvey people. Back to Africa. You know, like W.E.B. Du Bois.”
“Who?”
“Du Bois. He’s a famous Negro, Easy. Almost a hundred years old. He always writin’ ’bout gettin’ back
