Walkin' the Dog

Back Bay Books

Chapter One

blue lightening

At first he thought the trill and bleating note was part of a dream. A sweet note sohigh it had to be the angel that Aunt Bellandra said the blue god sent, "to save theblack mens from fallin' out the world complete. He got a real high voice like atrumpet an' he always come at the last second, after a fool done lost his job, hismoney, his wife, his self-respect and just about everything else he got. Just aboutdead," Bellandra proclaimed, clapping her hands together loudly, "an' that's when theangel sing."

Back when he was a little boy, Socrates feared his tall and severe auntie. But he wasalso enthralled by her stories about the black race in a white world under a blue godwho barely noticed man.

"When he almost gone that angel just might make his move," she'd say. "And when ablack man hear that honied voice all the terrible loss an' pain fall right away an'the man look up an' see that he always knew the right road but he never made themove."

Again the high note. This time strained a bit. This time a little warble in Socrates'sleep.

"But not everybody could hear it. Some dope fiends too high an' some mens hatin' toohard. Sometimes the angel is that much too late and his song becomes a funeral hymn."

Socrates jerked himself upright in the bed, opening his eyes as wide as he could. Hewas afraid that the music he heard in his dream was really the dirge of that tardyangel?that he'd died in the night and it was too late for him to make up for all thesuffering he'd caused in his evil years.

He sat up on his fold-out sofa bed. There was a slight whistle in his throat at thetail end of each breath, a whistle that blended into the high notes of the trumpetplaying somewhere outside. The music was like crying. A long sigh breaking down intoa cascade of tears and then gasping, pleading notes that seemed to be begging fordeath.

The luminescent hands on the alarm clock told the ex-convict that it was threethirty-four. In less than an hour and a half he had to get up and get ready to go towork.

He listened for the song in the notes but the horn went silent. Socrates let his eyesclose for a moment, then opened them briefly only to let them close for a few secondsmore. He was considering putting his head back down on the couch cushion when thehorn sounded again. This time it was playing a slow blues; a train coming into thestation or maybe just leaving.

Socrates' sleepy nod turned into appreciation for the music. He swung his feet overto the edge of the bed, stepped into the overalls that were on the floor and stoodup, pulling the straps over his shoulders. He slid his feet into the large leathersandals he'd found in a trash can on one of his delivery runs for Bounty.

Leather slapping against his heels, Socrates walked out of his apartment door andinto the small vegetable garden that led to the alley. The black dog raised up on histwo legs and dragged himself to his master's feet.

The horn song was coming from the left, from the lot where a warehouse once stood.The warehouse had once supplied the two furniture stores, now abandoned, that flankedSocrates' sliver of a home?a corridor between the two stores that had been walledoff.

Outside, the trumpet notes were loud and clear. The music took on an angry tone inthe open air.

The night stars seemed to accompany the song. Socrates wondered why he didn't get upbefore dawn more often. The night sky was beautiful. There wasn't anyone out and itwas peaceful and he was free to go anywhere with no metal bars or prison guards tostop him.

The burned-out lot was vacant but it wasn't empty. Two rusted-out cars, several largeappliance boxes, various metal barrels and cans, piles of trash and even a rough andready structure stood here and there designed by the temporary traveler, the homelessor the mad.

Socrates couldn't see the musician but that blues train continued rolling. His auntBellandra's words were still cold in his mind. Leaving the black dog behind the gate,Socrates walked toward the lot, leather heels slapping and gravel crackling in hiswake. Everything seemed to have reason and deep purpose?the yellow light in Mrs.Melendez's window, the cold from the night breeze on his shoulders that he feltwithout shivering.

He stopped at the edge of the lot and watched the half moon just above the horizon.

Baby bought a new hat, Socrates imagined the notes were saying. She bought a yellowdress. They were the words to a song the barber used to play on the phonograph onSaturdays when his half brother Garwood would take him for his biweekly buzz cut.

She's gonna ride that Greyhound bus and take away my best.

"Hey!" Socrates shouted and the music stopped. "Hey!"

The answering silence was like a pressure on Socrates' eardrums.

He didn't know why he'd come out into the dark night unarmed, out in the dangerousstreets of his neighborhood. Three weeks earlier a woman had been shot to death,execution style, and dropped in the alley. The neighbors said that all she wore was asilver miniskirt and one red shoe. He'd forgotten the name but she wasn't eventwenty, brown and slender except that she had large breasts. When he heard of herdeath, Socrates' first thought was that when she was born he had already been fifteenyears in an Indiana prison cell.

Something hard and metal fell. Socrates moved quickly in his awkward shoes.

"Stay 'way!" A small man leapt over a toppled water heater and ran the length of thelot through to another alley. By the time Socrates reached the end of the lot, thelittle man was gone.

"Looks like your watch must be a little slow today, Mr. Fortlow," Jason Fulbrightsaid in way of greeting. It was seven fifty-seven a.m.

"Say what?" Socrates answered, none too friendly. Fulbright was a tan-colored blackman with thick lips that he compressed into the thinnest disapproving frown that hecould muster. He showed Socrates his own wristwatch, tapping the crystal.

"It's almost eight," he said, his high voice like an accusing cat-bird. "You're onthe seven forty-five shift aren't you?"

"My bus driver must'a got it mixed up today," Socrates said in a bit milder tone. Heliked his job. He felt good coming in to work every day. He needed that paycheck too.

"Your bus gets you in too late. You should take an earlier one," the young man said."Even if you get in a little early at least you'll be on time. Yes sir, if you wantto make it in this business you got to take the early bus."

Fulbright clapped Socrates on the shoulder. Maybe when he felt the rock-hard muscleof that upper arm he began to realize that he was in over his head.

"Don't put your hands on me, man," Socrates uttered on a slight breath.

"What did you say?"

"I said, keep your hands to yourself if you wanna keep 'em at all." All the reservehe had built up, all the times he told himself that men like Jason Fulbright werejust fools and not to be listened to?all of that was gone. Just a few hours ofmissing sleep and a strong dream? a fool playing his trumpet in the middle of thenight?that's all it took, one bad morning, and Socrates was ready to throw everythingaway.

Unconsciously Fulbright took half a step back, but Socrates could see in the man'sface that he still intended to say something else. And no matter what he said it wasgoing to cause a fight. Not a fight but a slaughter. Fulbright was tall and strongfrom playing sport, but he didn't know the meaning of the kind of violence he calledup in the ex-con. Socrates couldn't shake the fists out of his hands.

"Good...