George Higgins - A change of gravity

"Nah, bigger'n that," Merrion said, purposefully ignoring her tone.

"Ottawa, he be small, but much bigger'n dat, and naturally not quite so well-dressed. He maybe would've qualified on size for a jockey job, but he looked really sloppy. Black sweatshirt with a hood, just the ticket for a seventy-six-degree night, seventy-percent humidity, after an eighty-four-degree day. That's the uniform shirt now. Teamed up with your truly-huge, baggy black sweatpants, and naturally your two-hundred-buck, National-Basketball-Association, stick-out-player-approved sneakers. Excuse me: shoes.

"These are his work-clothes; what the well-dressed young crack gourment with serious fashion jones wears to go out after dark breakin' and enterin' people's homes. The cops have suspicious minds. They see him scuttlin' 'round the back of the house, they're pretty confident the people who live there didn't invite him, tell him to drop by for a drink at any time, even if they didn't happen to be home. And when the cops find him actually inside the house, they believe he got into it this may shock you with intent to commit a felony therein. To wit, larceny of more than two hundred and fifty dollars, and he isn't picky; anything portable he can lift and carry by himself, and sell without too I much trouble to a fence for about a hundred bucks, maybe a third " what it's worth.

"Or maybe direct to upstanding, law-abiding folks like you and me, no more honest'n we should be. He runs into us in a bar where it's known you can often get a bargain and finds out wed like to have an eight-hundred-dollar video-cam, but don't have quite that much cash on hand. Slightly-used'd be okay, if it was cheaper. Just by coincidence an hour later he's back with one a friend asked him to sell; he can let go for much less. This way we get a twelve-hundred dollar video-cam for the low-low price of two hundred bucks, and Ottawa gets himself enough money to score some dope and feel real nice for a couple of days. Everybody's happy.

"Except there is some risk involved, and this time, as will happen, he got caught goin' in for the merchandise. So now he hasn't got any laces in these state-of-the-art sneaks. For wear in the lock-up, the dress code that cops enforce is the floppy look. Take their laces away from them when they're checkin' 'em in at the desk, so they can't get really nasty and vindictive, make a noose and hang themselves in the cell. Everyone gets all bent outta shape at the cops when prisoners do that. Next thing you know, you got one of those pain-in-the-ass civil-rights cases on your hands; poverty-pimp lawyers on television every couple nights for the next four years, beatin' their chests and hollering how this's typical; the cops so down on po' niggers that the first thing they do when they lock them up is torture their black asses. Made this poor boy feel so depressed, locked up in Whitey's jail with no crack to be had, he took the laces off his shoes and hanged himself, an' went home to be with Jesus."

Diane sighed and fidgeted ostentatiously in the passenger seat; Merrion elaborately failed to notice. "Uh uh," he said, 'cops want none of that shit at all. And they're heavy enough to make sure they don't get it they take the laces away. Of course you wont be surprised to learn that this humiliates the prisoners, and therefore also is a violation of their many civil rights, of which they have got hundreds, it seems like: another cruel and unusual punishment inflicted only on black guys, because of their race. By other black guys like Frank Thompson."

"Amby," she said, and then let her voice trail off.

"What?" he said.

"Oh," she said, exhaling loudly again, 'never mind, go ahead. I was going to say I wish you wouldn't talk like this, but it wouldn't do any good. Go ahead, get it out of your system."

"The reason I think the way I do," he said, 'is because I see the people up close that you're always feeling sorry for, but only see from a safe distance. So you assume they're the same kind of troubled kids you see up close every day, who're screwed up and have problems. But very few of the kids you see have criminal records, and there's a world of difference, Diane. The troubled kids the cops and therefore I have to deal with're not the same class of trade. Maybe they used to be once, and nobody helped them, and that's why they're the way they are now, but the reason doesn't matter. By the time I first see them, they've made the transition; they're criminal types. I know them better'n you, and it irritates me that even though we've been together a while, and you should know me pretty well, you still think on this point you know more than I do, and you don't."1 She frowned but said nothing.

"This fine young gentleman's print-out said his name was Ottawa Johnson. Now I didn't have any trouble with that; the name, I mean. I got over being surprised with the mo nickers these guys come up with a long time ago, back when I first found out one of them was actually the kid's real name, given to him by his momma "I um-no, how come she done it; guess she jcs' like the sound' of it." Alceedee Lincoln. I didn't believe him, but I was busy and didn't pursue it. Even though that was taking a chance, because if I don't get the kid's real name when they bring him in, and then he jumps bail, how the hell're we going to find him? We don't know who he is.

"Anyway, while after that I got another one. Adidas Busby. It was a slow night, or maybe I was just fed up with these people always giving me a lot of jive all the time, figure they can and why not. I went right to town on the little turd. "You listen to me, you little creep.

You cut that crap out here right now. You clear on that? I'm not down here on my night off to take shit from you, tellin' me you're named after a fuckin' sneaker. The way you behavin' ain't cool."

"But he had been; he finally convinced me his real name was Adidas.

Cops told me it wasn't even that unusual; I just hadn't happened to run into it before. Those people really do that. There're kids named "Reebok" and "Nike" around, too,

"Lawyer" "Colonel" and "Duke." Those're their actual names. I just wasn't aware of the style. Hell, I didn't know anna thing instead of ranting and raving at a kid named after a sneaker, I should've been getting ready for prisoners named after nothing I ever heard of:

Rajahlakah Muhammad and Buforce Elijah. I get a guy named after a city these days, and I recognize it, I can actually spell it, I tell you, I'm almost grateful.

"So I wrote it down on the form and gave Ottawa Johnson the once-over.

He didn't look dangerous to me. So that's one thing out of the way, before I decide on his bail. I held my usual chat with him while I was fillin' out the papers; I'm telling him as he doesn't know that he's charged with B and E in the night-time and he has to show up in court tomorrow morning early if not bright and tell the judge whether he plans to get his own attorney or wants one appointed for him.

'"One appointed," says Ottawa right off, very sure of himself. He knows the drill pretty good, as you would expect from glancing at his papers. Six-page print-out suggests to the casual eye he's not a newcomer to the criminal justice system. They get that rap-sheet now at the station the minute the guy comes in. If it's not waiting for him when he gets there, logged-in by the arresting cop in the prowl car at the crime-scene. Name, date of birth, Social Security; in six or eight minutes his whole history prints out nice and neat any time of day or night. Prior offenses; outstanding warrants; bingety-bangety-boom.

'"You still gotta come to court and tell the judge that," I say.

'"I know dat," Ottawa says, very matter-of-fact. I'm sure he does.

Ottawa turned eighteen on June fourth, and here we are now, less'n three months later, writing up his third adult encounter with the law.