A Blind Goddess by James R. Benn

When I told him I’d gotten you this summer job, he didn’t seem thrilled. Probably worried you wouldn’t work out and he’d be stuck with you. Hard to fire the son of a detective.”
    “Yeah,” I said. I got it that my father didn’t know about Tree, or at least that Mr. Jackson had hoped for him to have the job. I didn’t say anything. I told myself I didn’t want Dad to feel bad. I had a selfish motive too. If he knew, he might make me quit, and at the age of sixteen nothing was more important to me than getting that Indian Scout. Today, I feel ashamed to say it, but back then I couldn’t see beyond my own desires, which now seem pretty foolish and shallow.
    I also didn’t tell my dad about the taunts that began the next day. It seemed a lot of guys didn’t want a white boy taking orders from a Negro, even if the kid was only sixteen and the Negro was a combat veteran of the Great War.
    It began with Basher McGee. If Basher ever had a real first name, no one remembered it, or how he got his nickname. That it was deserved was not in doubt.
    “That’s a nigger mop, ain’t it?” Basher said that morning, twirling his nightstick as he stood in front of me, grinning. I’d just finished the entryway to the Berkeley Street headquarters, and was wringing out the mop between the rollers on the bucket.
    “It’s a City of Boston mop,” I said, avoiding the yes or no question, not to mention his eyes.
    “Then use it,” Basher said, and gave the bucket a swift kick, sending dirty water cascading over the tiles. He gave one sharp laugh and sauntered off. It was as if Basher sent a message that I was fair game. The story about young Billy and his nigger mop made the rounds, and plenty of guys found it hilarious. Some lectured me on how to deal with coloreds, and that it was wrong to take orders from them. Others spilled full cups of coffee on floors I’d just cleaned, and then complained to Mr. Jackson. Garbage cans in the rear of the building were overturned each night and ugly wads of chewing tobacco stained the hallway in front of the chief’s office. They wanted me gone, and it was getting to me.
    “You fixing on doing what they want?” Mr. Jackson said at the end of the fourth day.
    “Might be easier,” I said. “For all of us.”
    “Running is the easy part,” he said. “I learned that over in France. Living with yourself afterwards, that’s the hard part. I ran once, fast as my legs would carry me. Still bothers me. But if you want to go, go.”
    “Could your son take over? If I quit?” I wasn’t trying to do the right thing or anything like that, I just wanted a good story to tell my father if I did quit. Things weren’t working out like I’d planned, and for the first time I began to think I could do without that motorcycle.
    “I had a chat with your daddy this morning. You talk with him tonight, then you decide. It’s up to you, Billy. You ain’t a bad kid, you’re just in the middle, that’s all. Whatever you want to do, it’ll be fine with me.”
    I didn’t like what I heard. All week, Mr. Jackson had ridden me hard, snapping orders and checking my work. Now he seemed weary. I didn’t know what was wrong. I didn’t know a lot of things.
    Dad had to work late that night. There was a murder out on Revere Beach, and it was past ten by the time he got home. He draped his suit jacket on the back of a kitchen chair, poured himself a whiskey, and motioned for me to sit down.
    “I talked with Mr. Jackson today,” he said, and then took a good belt. “He told me what’s been going on.”
    “It’s not my fault, Dad, honest.”
    “I know, Billy. Basher’s always had it in for me, and he doesn’t like colored folk. This is his doing. I tried to stay out of it, but things have gone too far.”
    “You knew they were giving me the treatment?”
    “I expected something, but not this. Good-natured ribbing is one thing, but disrespect and threats are another.”
    “What are we going to