Bad Boy Brawly Brown (11 page)

7

That reminded me of something.

8

“Kicked outta where?” I asked. “You couldn’t squeeze three 9

people in that place they live in.”

10

“They paid the rent on a studio in that buildin’ they lived in.

11

Brawly stayed down there,” Mercury said, “on the first floor.”

12

“Studio?” I said. “What in the hell is it that John got?”

13

“That’s a one-bedroom,” Chapman said. “A deluxe one-bedroom, 14

if you believe what the manager say.”

15

Chapman and Mercury laughed. I joined in with them. It was 16

only the tip of the iceberg of what was to come in L.A., but right then 17

it was rare enough to be funny.

18

“What did Brawly say about that political group?”

19

“Not much,” Mercury mused. “Not too much. He liked it that 20

they were so mad and that they wanted to do somethin’. You know 21

that’s just youth, Mr. Rawlins.”

22

“He ever talk about his father?” I asked.

23

“Now and then,” Chapman said. “Not too much.”

24

“Yeah,” Mercury said while staring down at his work boots. “He 25

only said that him and his old man had a, whatyoumacallit, a dis-26

agreement. But that was a long time ago.”

27

“They have a fight?” I asked.

28

“Somethin’ like that,” Mercury said. “The boy said somethin’

29

that they had a fight over his mother or somethin’ like that a long 30 S

time ago and his old man hit him so hard that he knocked out one’a 31 R

7 4

REAL PAGES

12374_i-vi_1-314_r4sw.qxd 4/18/2002 2:00 PM Page 75

B A D B O Y B R AW LY B R O W N

his teeth. That was when he was still a teenager. Then he tramped 1

on down to his cousin Issy. Now her I done seen. You know that 2

there’s the kinda cousin your orphan boys dream about.”

3

Chapman let out one of his big laughs. I didn’t find it funny, but 4

I knew what he was saying.

5

“Where’d you see Isolda?” I asked.

6

“She drop by now and then to pick up Brawly,” Mercury said.

7

“You know, family stuff, I guess. She’d take him for burgers. It was al-8

ways on the sly, like. I don’t think her and Alva got along too well.”

9

Chapman looked at me then. He held out his hands halfheart-10

edly asking,
Is that it?

11

“Well,” I said. “I guess you boys better be gettin’ back to work.”

12

“I guess so,” Chapman said.

13

14

15

O
N THE RIDE HOME
I wondered about the complex weave of 16

John’s problem. His wife, her murdered ex-husband and brother, 17

her son living with her cousin while she was suffering from a nervous 18

breakdown, and the black revolutionaries with their hopeful anger, 19

and the cops breathing down their necks.

20

By the time I got home I was ready to talk to my son.

21

He was in the backyard setting up three sawhorses, each one 22

spaced about four feet from the next. He also had out a few planks of 23

wood about ten feet long and four feet wide. They were between one 24

and a half and two inches thick.

25

“What you doin’?” I asked him.

26

“I’m gonna build a boat,” he said.

27

“Where’d you get the wood?”

28

“Bought it from Mr. Galway at the lumberyard.”

29

“He deliver it?”

S 30

R 31

7 5

REAL PAGES

12374_i-vi_1-314_r4sw.qxd 4/18/2002 2:00 PM Page 76

Wa l t e r M o s l e y

1

Jesus nodded.

2

This was a new phase in his life. Jesus had never before spent 3

money on himself. Ever since he was quite young he saved his 4

money, for fear that I’d lose my job or be put in jail. He worked four 5

afternoons a week at a local market, bagging groceries and making 6

deliveries for old women. Every cent went into a coffee can in his 7

closet. In his mind everything would always be fine because if I fell 8

down, he would be there to take up the slack.

9

I tried to convince him that he didn’t have to worry, that he 10

could buy himself toys or clothes or anything he wanted. But Jesus 11

had spent his younger years with my friend Primo. In Primo’s world 12

a boy was just a smaller version of a man; he might not have been 13

able to do as much as his larger counterpart but he was expected to 14

do all that he could manage.

15

“What kinda boat?” I asked.

16

“Sail,” Jesus said.

17

“You know how to build a sailboat?”

18

“There’s a book.” Jesus pointed at a large paperback that he’d 19

gotten from the library. It was lying on the back porch, open to a 20

page that showed three sawhorses spaced four feet apart. “It says that 21

there’s one hundred and sixty-one steps to build a sailboat.”

22

“Come here and sit down with me,” I said.

23

We sat together on the concrete porch. I was looking at Jesus as 24

he stared at the grass beneath his bare feet.

25

“What’s this about droppin’ out of school?”

26

“I don’t like it there,” he said.

27

“Why not?”

28

“I don’t like the kids or the teachers,” he said.

29

“You got to say more if you want me to understand you, Juice. I 30 S

mean, did somebody do something to make you mad?”

31 R

“Uh-uh. They’re just stupid.”

7 6

REAL PAGES

12374_i-vi_1-314_r4sw.qxd 4/18/2002 2:00 PM Page 77

B A D B O Y B R AW LY B R O W N

“Stupid how?”

1

“I don’t know.”

2

“You must have some kind of example. Did somebody do some-3

thing stupid last week?”

4

Jesus nodded. “Mr. Andrews.”

5

“What did he do?” I was used to asking Jesus questions. Though 6

he had been speaking since he was twelve, words were still a rare 7

commodity for him.

8

“Felicity Dorn was crying. She was sad because her cat died. Mr.

9

Andrews told her that she had to be quiet or he was going to send her 10

to the vice principal’s office and she would miss a big test. And if she 11

didn’t take the test, she’d probably fail out.”

12

“He was just trying to keep her from distracting the class.”

13

“But her mother died just last year,” Jesus said, looking up at me.

14

“She couldn’t help how bad she felt.”

15

“I’m sure he didn’t know that.”

16

“But he should know. He’s the teacher. All he knows is the states 17

and their capitals and what year the presidents died.”

18

“Are you gonna let somebody like that keep you from going to 19

college and bein’ something?”

20

“He went to college,” Jesus said, “and it didn’t help him.”

21

I managed to keep the smile off my face. Inside I was proud of 22

the man my son was becoming.

23

“You can’t decide to leave school because one teacher’s a fool,” I 24

said.

25

“That’s not all. They think I’m stupid.”

26

“No.”

27

“Yes, they do. They don’t wanna teach me. They give me home-28

work but they don’t care if I turn it in. They like it that I run fast but 29

they don’t care.”

S 30

“What do you mean?” I asked.

R 31

7 7

REAL PAGES

12374_i-vi_1-314_r4sw.qxd 4/18/2002 2:00 PM Page 78

Wa l t e r M o s l e y

1

“I don’t know.”

2

Jesus got up and moved toward his sawhorses. I touched his el-3

bow and he stopped.

4

“We need to talk about this more, Juice. We need to talk about it 5

until we can both decide. You hear me?”

6

“Uh-huh.”

7

“What?”

8

“Yes, sir.”

9

“All right. Go work on your boat.”

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

29

30 S

31 R

7 8

REAL PAGES

12374_i-vi_1-314_r4sw.qxd 4/18/2002 2:00 PM Page 79

12
/ I PULLED UP
in front of the restaurant at about 1

nine.

2

Hambones didn’t have an exit to speak of. They had a back door 3

leading into a crevice that Sam called the alley. But that was just for 4

the fire code, nobody could really get out that way. So I sat in my 5

green Pontiac, which rattled whenever I pushed it over fifty miles per 6

hour, and waited.

7

Hambones was a dive by 1964, but in the old days only the flashi-8

est men and women went in there at night. That was the way it was 9

for blacks. We couldn’t frequent the fancy clubs in Hollywood and 10

Beverly Hills. And we didn’t have that class of joint in our working-11

class neighborhoods. So men would put on their glad rags and 12

women would don their costume jewelry and furs and go down to 13

some local hangout where there was a jukebox and the pretense of S 14

luxury. After a few months of notoriety musicians would begin to freR 15

7 9

REAL PAGES

12374_i-vi_1-314_r4sw.qxd 4/18/2002 2:00 PM Page 80

Wa l t e r M o s l e y

1

quent the place. Sam Houston had Jelly Roll Morton and Lips 2

McGee as regulars in his joint in the fifties. Louis Armstrong even 3

made an appearance once.

4

Of course, musicians bring their own crowd: men who want to 5

play like them and women who want to be played. These men and 6

women come in all colors. And once you have a few whites down 7

there, they start coming down in droves. Because as fancy as the 8

Brown Derby might have been, it wasn’t going to give you the kind 9

of freedom that a black club offered. Black people know how to be 10

free. People who had been denied for as many centuries as we 11

had knew how to let their hair down and dance like there was no to-12

morrow.

13

14

15

16

M
OUSE WAS THE FIRST PERSON
to take me to Hambones. He hadn’t been in L.A. three months when he nosed it out.

17

“Yeah, Ease,” he said to me. “The women down there make you 18

cry, they so fine. They don’t have no liquor but you know it’s cheaper 19

in a paper bag anyways.”

20

It was the early fifties and I was unattached. One thing good 21

about Mouse being so dangerous was that women just loved being 22

around him. You knew that if you were around Raymond, something 23

unexpected was bound to happen.

24

We went down there looking for a woman named Millie. Millie 25

Perette from East St. Louis. She always wore a string of real pink 26

pearls and carried a nacre-handled pistol in a handbag hardly big 27

enough for a cigarette case.

28

“Millie do you so bad that you wanna cry when you wake up in 29

the mornin’,” Mouse told me. “Because the next night is so far away.”

30 S

We got there at about midnight. When all the white clubs were 31 R

8 0

REAL PAGES

12374_i-vi_1-314_r4sw.qxd 4/18/2002 2:00 PM Page 81

B A D B O Y B R AW LY B R O W N

winding down, Sam’s place was just getting a second wind. I re-1

member a trumpet player blowing at his table, surrounded by 2

women. People were dancing to the music, drinking and kissing to it, 3

too. When we walked in everybody greeted Mouse as if he were the 4

mayor of Watts rather than a recent transplant from the Fifth Ward, 5

Houston, Texas.

6

He had a fifth of rye whiskey in his left hand and a terrible .41-7

caliber pistol under his zoot suit jacket. Mouse loved that pistol 8

more than any woman. He once told me that the barrel could be un-9

screwed from the chamber and that he had twelve barrels so that if 10

he killed somebody, he could switch. That way they couldn’t ever 11

prove that it was his gun used in the crime.

12

13

14

M
ILLIE WAS AT THE BAR
with a big bruiser, a dusky bronze-15

colored man with gold-capped teeth, a diamond ring, and a 16

pistol tucked in the belt of his woolen suit pants. His hand was half 17

the way down Millie’s blouse and she was laughing happily, drinking 18

from a hammered silver shot glass.

19

When Raymond and I walked up to the pair, I was less than 20

pleased. The most you could hope for in Mouse’s company was a 21

bloodless evening — and you could never bank on that if there was 22

love or money involved. The people sitting near the couple moved 23

away as we approached. The conversation died down but the bruiser 24

might not have noticed, because the horn still blew.

25

“Millie,” Raymond said.

26

She opened up her lips in a loose fashion, showing her teeth and 27