Walter Mosley - A Little Yellow Dog

I could hear the skin of my own ear ripping as Pharaoh lent his jaws to Sallie’s cause.

Hatred surged in my blood. I boxed Sallie’s right ear and then his left; I did it again and kneed him. Then I grabbed his neck like it was a fat eggplant and dug my fingers in and twisted with a frenzy that no sexual act has ever equaled in my life.

I watched Sallie’s eyes go from life to death. And then I was up trying to stomp the life out of Pharaoh. But the dog was too quick and made it under the car.

“Easy.” It was Mouse. He’d made it halfway to his feet and was leaning up against the wall. He had both hands over his chest. “Get the gun, man,” he rasped. “Get the knife.”

I got Sallie’s gun, which was lying at his side, and the meat cleaver that had come from my own kitchen drawer. I took them to the car and helped Mouse into the seat.

Once behind the wheel I was flying backwards.

“Take me home, Easy.”

“We better get you to a hospital, Ray.”

“Naw, man. I’m okay. We don’t wanna get tied up in no killin’s.” He was smiling. Smiling.

“How bad you hit?”

“Shoulder,” he whispered. “Just in the arm.”

“Man, I thought you said you were unarmed!” I shouted. I didn’t know why. I wanted to say that I was sorry, I guess.

“I just said that I didn’t have no gun, Easy. I got the knife at your house. You know a knife don’t hardly even count.” He laughed weakly and coughed hard.

I drove Surface streets down to Compton, mainly to keep away from red lights. I wanted to keep moving. With the window busted out I didn’t want people looking to see what we were up to.

When we were about half the way there I said, “Ray. Ray?” But he didn’t answer. I looked over and saw him slumped almost exactly the way Idabell had been.

I wanted to go to the hospital, and I didn’t want to. Raymond had told me that it was an arm shot. He wasn’t bleeding that badly that I could see.

Maybe he’d just passed out.

I drove on.

Etta was there when I drove up on the lawn. She’d heard the car coming and came out to the door. She saw something in the way that I was driving and started to run.

“LaMarque, stay in the house!” she shouted.

I was letting Raymond out onto the lawn by the time she reached us.

His left eye was half open. The right one was closed. The shots were to his chest. Two wicked holes in his right breast.

“Lord, no,” was the only wasted breath that Etta had. “LaMarque! Call the emergency number. Tell’em a white man’s been shot here at the house.”

She bent down to Raymond and lifted his head. With her ear to his mouth she checked his breathing. Then she stared hard into his face as if she were willing her life into his.

She turned to me and said, “You better git, Easy.”

“Etta, let me explain.”

“Go on, Easy.”

It was a hard dismissal. I wanted her to forgive me, to tell me that it was okay. But she had turned her attentions to her man’s deep wounds.

“Daddy!” LaMarque screamed as he came running up to the scene.

When he yelled again Etta stood up and pointed her finger in his face. “Hush!” she commanded. He wilted and she asked, “Did you call emergency?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“They sendin’ a ambulance?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Good. Now run get me the first-aid box.”

LaMarque took off, avoiding looking at his father’s still body.

“Etta,” I said.

“Go on from me now, Easy,” she warned.

“Etta, let me take him to the hospital.”

“You done taken him enough now, Easy. Ain’t today bad enough wit’out you killin’ my husband too?”

“What do you mean?”

“Get away from me, Easy Rawlins. Get outta here.”

I left in Mouse’s car. I had to leave, to hide the weapons.

Along the streets the traffic was light, but there were lots of folks out in front of their houses and stores. People were talking to each other with rapt attention on every corner. I saw more than one woman crying. Children walked listlessly, on the whole, not playing or laughing out loud.

The world was in sorrow, it seemed. Was Mouse’s death so powerful? Did everybody feel it when a brave gangster died?

Maybe it was that I hadn’t looked around me lately. Maybe a deep sadness had entered my community but I had been too busy being a workingman; a company man.

On the corner of Pico and Genesee there were three white men and one white woman standing at the bus stop, listening to a transistor radio that one of them held up.

I took the heroin from the glove compartment and went up to my house.

The front door to my house was open.

Inside, Feather was crying in Bonnie’s arms. Jesus stood next to them holding one of Feather’s favorite dolls.

“Easy.” Bonnie had looked up. There was no smile on her face for me.

“Daddy, Daddy,” Feather cried. She limped over to me and I lifted her into my arms.

“Jackson here?” I asked my son.

He shook his head to say no. His voice lost again. Lost again. Everything was lost.

“What’s wrong?” I asked out loud.

“Haven’t you heard?” Bonnie asked me.

I was as mute as my son.

“Kennedy. He’s been shot. He’s dead.”

“What?”

I staggered across the floor with Feather and slumped down on the couch. I buried my head in Feather’s chest too sad even to cry. Bonnie came to hold us and so did my son. My lungs were burning and my throat was sore from choked tears.

I lifted my head and noticed that there was blood on my little daughter’s dress.

“What’s this?” I said. “What’s wrong with you, baby?” My voice was high from the strain.

“It’s from your ear, Daddy,” she said. “Wha’ happened?”

As if on cue Pharaoh yelped down at our feet.

“Frenchie!” Feather cried. “Frenchie.” She pulled away from my arms and hugged the dog on the floor.

I was too sad to be angry at the damn dog. I sat there thinking that he must have jumped into the car while I was helping Mouse. He’d probably hidden under the seat where I had put the gun and knife.

Gun and knife.

“Bonnie?”

“Yes, Easy?”

“Can you drive?”

“Yes.”

I gave her the keys and Primo’s address. I told her about the gun and knife under the seat.

“Take the kids out to his house. He’ll know what to do.”

“What about you, Easy?”

“I’m tired,” I said. I still had unfinished business with Philly Stetz. I didn’t know if he had sent Beam to kill me or not. I didn’t know if he wanted the heroin or if he knew my address. I did know that I didn’t want my children in the crossfire and so I sent them to Primo.

“Daddy.” Feather had tears in her eyes. “Can’t you come with us?”

“Later, honey.”

“Can’t I keep Frenchie, though?”

Being so weak themselves I think that children understand weakness better than adults. I couldn’t say no to her then.

“Okay. Yeah, okay.”

At the door Jesus was the last to leave.

“Did you take the money out of my closet, Dad?”

“No.”

“It’s gone.” He looked at me with his solemn eyes.

Jackson Blue.

I turned on the radio and the TV. Both of them droned on and on about the assassination. I didn’t understand a word of it but the sad sounds of grief resonated in my heart. My best friend was wounded somewhere, maybe he was dead. It was my fault and I couldn’t even go to him and tell him that I was sorry.

I don’t know how much later it was when the doorbell rang. I took the pistol from my pocket and went to the moth hole in the drapes next to the window. Then I went to the door and flung it open quickly. I jammed my cocked .38 into Rupert’s nose and said, “You get killed comin’ around here, fool.”