Little Scarlet by Walter Mosley Page A

have me a little taste every now and then. But you know some’a these girls don’t hear it when you tell ’em you married and shit. I mean they say okay but then they wanna know how you could love ’em like that and then not move in.”
    I didn’t even smile. This was a true moral conflict for my friend. His understanding of anyone outside of himself was severely limited. He didn’t know why Benita didn’t understand him, so he cut her off. And the mere fact that she would mention him to me set him on a dark path.
    “I’ll talk to her, Ray,” I said.
    “You will?”
    “Oh yeah. I’ll explain your predicament. She’ll understand.”
    “You know, you all right, Easy,” he said. “You all right.”
    He left me standing in the warm night air appreciating the silence. There I was, a middle-aged city employee. The only thing I should have had on my mind was my bed and my children, my mortgage, and the woman I loved. All of that was waiting for me in the house.
    But instead of heeding that domestic call I went to my car, turned over the engine, and drove off.
     
18
     
    There was a chain drawn to block the driveway to the Miller Neurological Sanatorium. I had to park my car on the street and walk to the door. I was looking for the night bell when a flashlight shone on the side of my head.
    “Hold it,” a voice said.
    It was a man’s voice, a white man, probably over sixty, who was not born in the South. There was confidence in the tone but not the threatening kind of self-assurance that comes with holding a gun. This voice expressed the expectation of being obeyed because that was his place in life.
    I turned toward the dazzling light and said, “Yes?”
    “Clinic’s closed.”
    “My name’s Easy Rawlins. I’m on a special visitors list.”
    “Prove it.”
    “Prove what? That I’m on the list or that I’m Easy Rawlins?”
    The question flummoxed the late-night security guard. He sputtered and then used a key on the door to reception.
    “Go on,” he told me.
    I went in and he came after, flipping the light switch as he did.
    I was halfway to the swinging door when he said “Hold it” again.
    I swiveled on my heel, seeing the man for the first time, at least with my eyes. He was short and white-haired, in his sixties and unarmed except for that large flashlight. I chided myself for believing in my own deductions. Seeing that I was right about that guard might lull me into thinking that I could see in the dark. And all that meant was that one day I’d make a mistake, fall into a pit, and die.
    “What?” I asked the security guard.
    “I need to see some identification.”
    I took out my wallet and produced my driver’s license. He scrutinized the document as if looking for counterfeits.
    “What’s your business here?” he asked.
    I snatched my license from his hands and turned away. As I went through the swinging door he cried, “Hey you,” but I kept on going.
    There was no evidence that he was treating me like that because of my race. He was just a guard taking his job a little too seriously. But I had been asked those questions too many times in my life to shrug off the anger they raised in my heart. If I found myself in a situation where I could ignore a white man in authority I would, even though I might have been wrong.
    As I quick-marched down the hall I could hear the guard’s slower steps behind me. He wasn’t about to let me get away with disregarding his authority.
    I got to H-12 and opened the door without knocking. Geneva Landry was sitting up in her bed and a young black woman sat in the chair. A lamp glowed on a table in the corner, giving the white hospital room the feeling of home.
    “Tommy, what’s going on?” a woman’s voice asked from down the hall behind me.
    “An intruder, Nurse Brown,” the security guard said from the opposite end.
    “Are you Tina Monroe?” I asked the young black woman sitting in the chair.
    “Yes I am. And who are you?”
    “I’m Easy