weapons or pictures of him in evidence or secreted away in any drawer or the closet. The war hero I had seen had nothing in common with this mess. Mentally I crossed him off my list, then went through the front door and out to my car.
I WANTED MY QUARRY to be Glen Thorn because Tomas Hight lived all the way out in Bellflower; that was a long drive through enemy territory.
It was very, very white out in Bellflower. Many of the people around those parts had southern accents, and even though I knew racists came in all dialects, I had experienced my worst bigotry accompanied by sneers and southern drawls.
But I was an American citizen and I had a right to drive into danger if I wanted to.
TOMAS HIGHT LIVED in a six-story lavender apartment building on Northern Boulevard, a kind of main drag. There were a lot of people out on his block and almost all of them were very interested in me: white women pushing baby carriages and white men having loud arguments on the corner, white teenagers who when they saw me saw glimmers of something that their parents could never comprehend, and of course the police — the white police.
A cruiser slowed down a little to study my profile but then moved on.
Being alone in the late-morning sun was the only thing that saved me from an immediate rousting. More than one Negro at a time in a white neighborhood in 1967 was an invitation to a rumble or a roust.
I came to the front door of the apartment building, wondering if the series of lies I’d constructed would get me over the hump I’d been riding since the age of eight.
I’d tell Hight that I noticed his medals and looked them up, finding his address. I’d tell him that I’d found Christmas but that the man nearly killed me. I was afraid to go to my office and so I didn’t know how to get in touch with his captain. I’d lull the former MP and then, when he began to trust me, I’d pistol-whip him and get the lowdown on what he was doing.
It wasn’t a perfect plan, but it fit my state of mind and my need for an outlet for all that anger.
A big, powerful-looking white man with long, long dirty blond hair flowing from his head and jaw stood up from the stairs to bar my way into the building.
There were crumbs and naps in his beard. He smelled of sweat and incense oils. The mild vapors of alcohol wafted around him and so did a big, lazy fly.
“Can I help you?” he asked in a Texas drawl that I felt all the way down to the soles of my feet. Then my right testicle began aching, and I knew that the dark side of my mind was preparing to go to war.
“Looking for Tomas,” I said, as if I weren’t preparing to kill this big aberration of the hippie movement.
“And who the fuck are you?”
“Why don’t we ask Tomas?” I said airily.
“You messin’ with me, nigger?”
“If I was to mess with you, brother,” I said in the same light tone, “you would never even know it.”
“Say what?”
I put my right hand in my pocket, trying to imagine that I was Mouse, and said, “Stand the fuck outta my way or I’ll kill you where you stand.”
Somewhere inside the machinery of my mind I found the will and the recklessness to kill the man who had commandeered my people’s reformation of his language to threaten me.
His china blue eyes faltered. He was used to being the top dog, but he also knew what I had in my pocket. He knew it and I knew it, and so he moved to the side and went past me down the stairs.
After that performance I knew that I didn’t have much time. I went to the bank of mailboxes, homed in on T HIGHT, and ran up the three flights of stairs to apartment 4C.
The door was an impossible combination of pink and lime, with a lacquered but rusty-looking doorknob. I imagined the long-haired sentry gathering his tribe to teach all my people a lesson through me.
I knocked and, before there was time to answer, knocked again.
There came a sound from down the stairs. I knocked one more time.
Men’s
I WANTED MY QUARRY to be Glen Thorn because Tomas Hight lived all the way out in Bellflower; that was a long drive through enemy territory.
It was very, very white out in Bellflower. Many of the people around those parts had southern accents, and even though I knew racists came in all dialects, I had experienced my worst bigotry accompanied by sneers and southern drawls.
But I was an American citizen and I had a right to drive into danger if I wanted to.
TOMAS HIGHT LIVED in a six-story lavender apartment building on Northern Boulevard, a kind of main drag. There were a lot of people out on his block and almost all of them were very interested in me: white women pushing baby carriages and white men having loud arguments on the corner, white teenagers who when they saw me saw glimmers of something that their parents could never comprehend, and of course the police — the white police.
A cruiser slowed down a little to study my profile but then moved on.
Being alone in the late-morning sun was the only thing that saved me from an immediate rousting. More than one Negro at a time in a white neighborhood in 1967 was an invitation to a rumble or a roust.
I came to the front door of the apartment building, wondering if the series of lies I’d constructed would get me over the hump I’d been riding since the age of eight.
I’d tell Hight that I noticed his medals and looked them up, finding his address. I’d tell him that I’d found Christmas but that the man nearly killed me. I was afraid to go to my office and so I didn’t know how to get in touch with his captain. I’d lull the former MP and then, when he began to trust me, I’d pistol-whip him and get the lowdown on what he was doing.
It wasn’t a perfect plan, but it fit my state of mind and my need for an outlet for all that anger.
A big, powerful-looking white man with long, long dirty blond hair flowing from his head and jaw stood up from the stairs to bar my way into the building.
There were crumbs and naps in his beard. He smelled of sweat and incense oils. The mild vapors of alcohol wafted around him and so did a big, lazy fly.
“Can I help you?” he asked in a Texas drawl that I felt all the way down to the soles of my feet. Then my right testicle began aching, and I knew that the dark side of my mind was preparing to go to war.
“Looking for Tomas,” I said, as if I weren’t preparing to kill this big aberration of the hippie movement.
“And who the fuck are you?”
“Why don’t we ask Tomas?” I said airily.
“You messin’ with me, nigger?”
“If I was to mess with you, brother,” I said in the same light tone, “you would never even know it.”
“Say what?”
I put my right hand in my pocket, trying to imagine that I was Mouse, and said, “Stand the fuck outta my way or I’ll kill you where you stand.”
Somewhere inside the machinery of my mind I found the will and the recklessness to kill the man who had commandeered my people’s reformation of his language to threaten me.
His china blue eyes faltered. He was used to being the top dog, but he also knew what I had in my pocket. He knew it and I knew it, and so he moved to the side and went past me down the stairs.
After that performance I knew that I didn’t have much time. I went to the bank of mailboxes, homed in on T HIGHT, and ran up the three flights of stairs to apartment 4C.
The door was an impossible combination of pink and lime, with a lacquered but rusty-looking doorknob. I imagined the long-haired sentry gathering his tribe to teach all my people a lesson through me.
I knocked and, before there was time to answer, knocked again.
There came a sound from down the stairs. I knocked one more time.
Men’s
Similar Books
