Bad Boy Brawly Brown (19 page)

for some political big shot, but not for some man he didn’t know and 27

not for a fly in his soup like Brawly.

28

It wasn’t yet five, so the skies were still dark. We pulled up in 29

front of a house that was almost completed. When Strong turned off S 30

R 31

1 3 3

REAL PAGES

12374_i-vi_1-314_r4sw.qxd 4/18/2002 2:00 PM Page 134

Wa l t e r M o s l e y

1

the engine my heart was already pumping. I was excited, at the end 2

of my search, but I was also leery.

3

“Let’s go,” Strong said.

4

“Go where?”

5

“In the house.”

6

“Excuse me for doubting you, Mr. Strong, but this isn’t exactly 7

what I had in mind. I mean, why is the house so dark?”

8

“It’s dark because they’re not expecting us,” he said in a sensible, 9

matter-of-fact tone.

10

“They who?” I asked just as reasonably, if a little more strained.

11

That’s when Strong produced a pistol.

12

“We have just a couple of questions, Mr. Rawlins.”

13

I held myself back from attacking the First Man. He was big, like 14

I said. I didn’t even know if I could have taken him if he was un-15

armed.

16

“Get out,” he ordered.

17

I opened my door with him close behind, giving me no chance 18

to slam the door on him or run.

19

We walked down what would one day be a concrete path to the 20

house’s front door.

21

“Don’t get all worried, Mr. Rawlins,” Strong said as we walked.

22

“We just want to make sure that you are what you say you are.”

23

I wanted to believe him, but the fact that there was no light on in 24

the house made me doubt his intentions.

25

When we were halfway down that path the front door swung in-26

ward. I couldn’t see into the house but I did hear a sound: a snick 27

and crack. Then the self-professed race man yelled, “No!”

28

Six months of battle on the front lines under Omar Bradley and 29

Patton are what saved my life. I hit the ground, rolled over twice, was 30 S

up on my feet running a zigzag pattern down the length of the neigh-31 R

boring house-to-be. Strong was right behind me, wasting strength by
1 3 4

REAL PAGES

12374_i-vi_1-314_r4sw.qxd 4/18/2002 2:00 PM Page 135

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

yelling for his life. All this while shots were being fired. Bullets 1

whizzed past my head. Strong’s yell cut off on a sudden high note. I 2

zigged to the right, heading for the cover of a house. I looked over 3

where Strong had been. His body was on the ground and inert. A 4

man was standing over him, shooting point-blank at his head. I took 5

in that image in just a fraction of a second. Then I dove past the side 6

of the house, jumped over a pile of rolled tar paper, and kept run-7

ning hard. I heard at least two men yelling, and three shots were fired 8

in my direction. But I kept running.

9

After two blocks I started wheezing. Maybe thirty feet after that I 10

felt a terrible pain in my chest. I veered to the right and fell on the 11

ground next to an unfinished porch. I laid flat in the shadows thrown 12

by a security night-light, my ragged breath sounding like two vinyl 13

records being rubbed together vigorously.

14

I almost lost consciousness.

15

After a few minutes a car drove by slowly. There was no flashing 16

red, so I was pretty sure that it wasn’t the cops. It took at least fifteen 17

seconds for them to roll past.

18

After they were gone, and I had caught my breath, I walked six 19

blocks to the main street. By then it was a little after five and the 20

buses were beginning their routes. The bus I boarded hadn’t gone 21

more than four blocks when six county sheriff cars, sirens wailing 22

and red lights flashing, sped in the opposite direction, toward the 23

place where I’d almost died.

24

25

26

27

28

29

S 30

R 31

1 3 5

REAL PAGES

12374_i-vi_1-314_r4sw.qxd 4/18/2002 2:00 PM Page 136

1

2

20
/ I GOT MY CAR
from Mariah’s parking lot and drove down to Sojourner Truth. After parking in

3

the lower lot, I held my hands in front of my eyes. They weren’t 4

shaking.

5

Then I made my way to the maintenance bungalow. We called 6

it the main building as a kind of abbreviation and, maybe, as a com-7

ment on who really kept the school running. It wasn’t even six 8

o’clock. Nobody would bother me for over an hour and a half.

9

The custodians’ bungalow was a storehouse of cleaning materi-10

als, locks and keys, paper items, and tools. Twelve day janitors and a 11

night crew of five were needed to maintain the 132 classrooms, two 12

locker rooms and showers, the gym, the garden, the auditorium, and 13

seventeen office spaces that constituted the school. We had fourteen 14 S

buildings, upper and lower asphalt recreation yards, and eighteen 15 R

1 3 6

REAL PAGES

12374_i-vi_1-314_r4sw.qxd 4/18/2002 2:00 PM Page 137

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

gates that had to be locked and unlocked every day to keep students 1

in, and to keep them out, too.

2

My office nook was made up of a battered ash desk, a padded 3

green swivel chair, two filing cabinets, and five key rings, with just 4

under three hundred keys, hanging from a peg on the wall.

5

I brewed coffee in the twelve-cup percolator and set fire to a 6

Chesterfield that I promptly snubbed out because when I was run-7

ning from those gunmen I realized that smoking could kill me with-8

out the heart disease and cancer they were talking about in the papers.

9

A man as short on breath as I was would surely die if he couldn’t 10

keep ahead in the rat race.

11

The coffee was great. Not too strong but full of the flavor of life.

12

It contained the taste of my survival. There I was, alive and safely 13

hidden in the bosom of Sojourner Truth.

14

I wondered who had killed Strong and why. Were they the con-15

federates he had expected to question me? Did his friends lay a trap 16

for him, too? Or were our attackers another group who were set 17

against Strong and his First Men?

18

When I heard that bullet snap into the chamber, all my senses 19

fled, bidding my body to follow. I didn’t see the man who shot Strong 20

long enough to have noted even the most general description. Height, 21

weight, even his color were unknown to me. What I mostly saw was 22

the flash of his pistol.

23

One thing I was sure of was that Strong was dead. I didn’t feel 24

bad about not going back. There was no saving him. And even if I 25

could have helped, he had been holding me at gunpoint. My only 26

worry was if someone had put me on their hit list, if I had somehow 27

made someone scared enough to need me dead.

28

The men who fired at us had certainly meant to kill us both. It 29

was also almost certain that they were the ones cruising around in S 30

R 31

1 3 7

REAL PAGES

12374_i-vi_1-314_r4sw.qxd 4/18/2002 2:00 PM Page 138

Wa l t e r M o s l e y

1

their car looking for me. Maybe they thought Strong had told me 2

something.

3

A normal working-class man would have been petrified in my 4

position. But I had been through worse.

5

My childhood had been just as rough. Many a time I was sure 6

that someone was going to kill me. But the threat of tomorrow was 7

never as urgent as making it through today. So I was able to put the 8

killers temporarily out of my mind while making the rounds of the 9

school.

10

11

12

13

E
VERY GATE
that was meant to be locked was locked. Every can had been emptied of trash. No papers littered the yards, no 14

lights were left on in the classrooms. My staff was a hardworking 15

bunch of people. That was the early sixties, a time when men and 16

women still knew that they had to work hard if they wanted to pay 17

the rent and feed their hungering brood.

18

The only thing out of place was the metal shop in the shop 19

building complex. All the chairs and even the large metal tables had 20

been pulled out into the hall and stacked as if it were summer and 21

we were preparing to strip and wax the floors.

22

I stood in the wide hallway wondering what flood or electrical 23

failure might have caused my janitors to resort to this major job.

24

“Mr. Rawlins.” The voice came from behind me.

25

I jumped a good yard, wrenching my shoulder as I turned to see 26

my early-morning janitor, Archie “Ace” Muldoon. Short and bald-27

ing, the little white man nearly glowed in the dark hallway. He had 28

doffed his White Sox baseball cap in deference to his boss — me.

29

“Ace, you like to scare me to death.”

30 S

“Sorry, Mr. Rawlins. I was just comin’ down here to see if Ter-31 R

rance brought down the stripper.”

1 3 8

REAL PAGES

12374_i-vi_1-314_r4sw.qxd 4/18/2002 2:00 PM Page 139

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

“Stripper? Who told you to strip these floors?”

1

“Newgate.” Ace said the name as if it was a whole sentence, a 2

sentence used to explain 90 percent of the problems we had at Truth.

3

“What’s wrong with him?”

4

“He came to me and asked where you were,” Ace said. “When I 5

told him that you were sick he nearly turned purple. I tell you, I’ve 6

never seen a man get so apoplectic over the littlest thing.”

7

“What does me being sick have to do with the metal-shop floor?”

8

“He told me to take him to all the rooms that were mine to 9

clean. I walked him around the shops ’cause I figured he’d get tired’a 10

lookin’ behind all the heavy machines. I didn’t mean to cause no 11

problem.”

12

Ace was from poor white farming stock in the Midwest. At one 13

time I’d thought that he was after my job. It took me a while to un-14

derstand that he respected me as his boss.

15

“I don’t have a problem, Ace. But what bugged him?”

16

“He started looking behind the heavy machines and saw where 17

there was a little wax buildup along the edges. I told him that it 18

would take special equipment to move the heavy machinery, but he 19

just kept shaking his head, saying that it wasn’t my fault, that it was 20

the supervisor who was responsible for this filth.” Ace said the last 21

word with real vituperation. I think that he disliked Newgate even 22

more than I did. “Then he told us to prepare the classroom to be 23

stripped and waxed.”

24

“Don’t worry about it, Ace. When Burns and Peña come in, tell 25

them that I said to help you move this furniture back in the room be-26

fore classes start.”

27

“Okay, boss,” Ace said. He went away happy that he was going to 28

frustrate the arrogant principal.

29

S 30

R 31

1 3 9

REAL PAGES

12374_i-vi_1-314_r4sw.qxd 4/18/2002 2:00 PM Page 140

Wa l t e r M o s l e y

1

2

I
T WAS JUST
after seven. I knew that Newgate would be stalking the office building, looking for kids smoking cigarettes or making 3

out on some bench. Hiram Newgate loved to catch you doing some-4

thing wrong. You could be a saint and he’d never notice it, but leave 5

one spot on a leopard-skin coat and he’d be on you in a second.

6

7

8

9

R
AWLINS, I WANT
to talk to you,” he called out three seconds after I’d sauntered into the eastern doorway.

10

He was half the length of the long hall away.

11

“What about, Hiram?” I called back.

12

Principal Hiram Newgate didn’t like being addressed as
mister.

13

He certainly didn’t like being called by his first name.

14

The tall and gaunt man strode the distance between us looking 15

as if he were ready to throw down and fight. I smiled and let my eye-16

brows rise in innocent anticipation.

17

He wore a dark blue Brooks Brothers suit with a shirt that had 18

the mildest blush of pink under mostly white. His dark tie had a 19

white diamond off center, and his shoes were either new or the per-20

fect example of a high shine.

21

Principal Newgate was a clotheshorse of the first order, but I 22

can’t fault him for that. I liked the tailor myself. Many a day I came 23

in better dressed than he was. Those days he’d ask me about showing 24

my custodians by example how to hose down the dusty yard or how 25