Brad Parks - Eyes of the Innocent

The only things I guessed were not purchased by the original Maury himself were the NO WEAPONS ALLOWED, EXCEPT FOR SALE sign and the two-inch-thick bulletproof glass that now covered the space between the countertop and the ceiling. The glass apparently worked, because I counted six bullet-sized pockmarks peppered across the front.

Behind the glass, a pudgy, indolent-looking Hispanic guy was engrossed in a Mexican soap opera, the kind whose plotline seemed to consist almost entirely of buxom women showing their cleavage to swarthy men with well-groomed mustaches.

“Excuse me,” Mrs. Jamison said, and not timidly. Still, the man didn’t budge. His full attention was fixed on a woman wearing a red dress that showed off approximately seventy-five percent of the total surface area of her breasts.

“ExCUSE me,” Mrs. Jamison said again, this time loud enough to penetrate the bulletproof glass. The man tore his eyes away from the screen and turned toward us. A small piece of Plexiglas covered a circular cluster of airholes that served as the only means of communicating with the outside world. He slid it open to better hear us-not that Mrs. Jamison had trouble projecting.

“Hi, sugar, what’s your name?” Mrs. Jamison said.

The man looked alarmed-this was not how his interactions with customers typically began-but he answered, “Pedro.”

“Pedro, I’m here to see Maury,” Mrs. Jamison informed him.

“Who are you?”

“You tell him Mrs. Jamison is here to see him.”

She said it so matter-of-factly-as if Maury would know exactly why she had come calling-that Pedro got off his chair and went into the back room. Mrs. Jamison rested her elbow on a small ledge in front of the bulletproof glass, quite secure in her ownership of the space around her.

I scanned the store a little more. The glass was divided into four cubbyholes-two for clerks and two to display some of the wares for sale-a mix of guns, electronics, and some serious bling.

Tee once explained to me that bling served a dual role in the hood. It was a status symbol, of course. But it was also a form of insurance, a means to sock away money during the good times so you were never flat busted when things went bad. Example: a guy flush from some gainful venture lays out $9,000 for a secondhand diamond necklace. He does this so he can enjoy and display the fruits of his success. But he also acquires it in case his next venture goes bad-that way he’s got seed money to start all over again. Sure, Maury or his numerous competitors might only give the guy a $7,000 return on his “investment.” But that’s a worthwhile deal for our urban entrepreneur. And, best of all, his safety net is never farther away than his neck.

Tee, who seemed to be reading my mind, muttered, “Man, some nice insurance policies here.”

“Reginald!” Mrs. Jamison said sharply. “We didn’t come here to shop.”

“I was just lookin’,” Tee said, chastened.

Pedro returned and mumbled, “He’s no here.”

I was about to call balderdash on Pedro-how could you say he’s not here when you spent three minutes talking to him? — but as soon as I drew the breath to speak, Mrs. Jamison put her hand on my arm. She was in control of this situation.

“Pedro, you and I have just met, but I fear we’re off to a bad start,” she said in a voice that perfectly straddled the line between calm and scary. “Surely, a man of your intelligence understands all men must build relationships based on mutual trust. When you betray that trust so early in a relationship, it really makes me question your decency as a man. Is that really how you want to be known, Pedro? Is that what you want put out into the universe?”

Pedro’s eyes were starting to grow wide. I wasn’t sure how much of the actual language he was absorbing. But, as linguists have repeatedly proven, nonverbal cues are every bit as important as verbal ones in conveying meaning. And Mrs. Jamison’s nonverbals were nearly as loud as her verbals.

“Now,” she continued, “you have a mama, don’t you, Pedro?”

Pedro nodded.

“Did your mama raise you to lie to another woman like that?”

Pedro shook his head.

“Okay, Pedro, then let’s try this again. I’m here to see Maury, and I ain’t going nowhere until I do. So why don’t you run back to that little room and tell him that.”

She made a shooing motion with her hand. Pedro’s feet stayed rooted, but the uncertainty was all over his face. Did he defy his boss? Or piss off this crazy lady who was babbling in that scary voice about who-the-hell-knows-what?

Mrs. Jamison gave him some gentle nudging.

“Pedro, I don’t want to have to raise my voice. Believe me, you do not want me to raise my voice,” she said. “So let me make this clear to you: you’re in that little box right now. But you’re going to have to come out eventually. And when you do, I’m going to rip you in half with my bare hands.”

Without pausing, Pedro slid off his chair and walked quickly toward the back room.

* * *

The man who emerged from the office moments later was not Pedro. It had to be Maury. He was a tall, gangly middle-aged black man who appeared to have stepped straight out of 1981, with a head full of Jheri curls-in all their greasy, ringletted glory-and a smile that included at least three gold-capped teeth. I wondered, amid all this pawned merchandise, if the caps were previously owned, too. I also wondered where he kept his Rick James albums.

He opened the Plexiglas.

“I’m told by my assistant there are some unruly customers out front?” he said, but he had a fairly prominent lisp, so it came out as, “I’m told by my athithtant there are thome unruly cuthtomerth out front.”

“You must be Maury,” Mrs. Jamison said.

“That’th what people call me.”

“I’m Mrs. Jamison.”

“Yeah? Tho?”

Maury peered at us over the top of his dark glasses, Jheri curls just barely brushing against the jacket of his purple-yes, purple-three-piece suit. Underneath was a pressed white shirt with a banded collar, a perfect accent for an outfit that might be described as priest-meets-pimp. I couldn’t see what he was wearing on his feet, but I was guessing there were some two-toned shoes down there. Maury was clearly a man with that kind of style.

“You have a piece of jewelry that belongs to this gentleman’s fiancee,” Mrs. Jamison said. So now Sweet Thang was my fiancee? Tina was going to love that.

“Who thaid that?”

“I’m saying that.”

“And who are you again?”

“I’m Mrs. Jamison.”

Maury pondered that for a moment, pointed at me, and asked, “Who’th he?”

“This is Mr. Carter Ross. And his fiancee is very unhappy her jewelry was stolen from her.”

“Thtolen!” Maury said, as if the mere concept repulsed him.

“Allegedly stolen,” Tee interjected.

Mrs. Jamison glared daggers at him.

“What?” he said. “Until something is proven in a court of law, it’s just an allegation.”

Mrs. Jamison’s glare had upgraded to machetes.

“A’ight,” Tee said. “I’ll shut up now.”

Maury wasn’t focusing on either of them but rather on the oddity in the room. The white man.

“You a cop or thomething?” he asked.

The question, while clearly tossed in my direction, was handled by my self-appointed spokeswoman, Mrs. Jamison. “He’s a newspaper journalist,” she said. “He is a top, top editor at the Eagle-Examiner .”

Sure I was. Why not? If I was engaged to Sweet Thang, I might as well be a top, top editor. Whatever that was.

“Yeah?” Maury said, sounding impressed.

“Yes and, sugar, believe me, if he don’t like you, he’ll write an expose blowing your whole operation out of the water,” Mrs. Jamison said. “They’d put your picture in the paper and everything.”