George Pelecanos - Hard Revolution

“Mind what you get yourself into.”

“I know what I’m doin’.”

“You think you do,” said Darius Strange. “But y’all start rising up too hard, they gonna start doing you like they did that boy in that Mississippi jail.”

“I ain’t worried.”

“Course not. Like I said, you’re young.”

In the kitchen, Derek Strange put the bottle of milk in the Frigidaire and went to the sink, where his mother stood washing dishes. There was a window over the sink, but at present it did not let in much light, as Alethea Strange had taped cardboard to the bottom panes. She did this so the humans in the kitchen would not scare the birds that had built a nest in the window frame outside.

“Hey, Mama,” said Derek, touching his mother on her hip.

“Derek,” she said, looking him in the eye. Sometime in the past year, her youngest had reached her height. “Anything special happen today?”

“Nothing special,” he said, thinking of the incident at Ida’s, wondering if he had just told his mother a lie. “How about you?”

“Oh, you know, just work.” Alethea moved a bottle of Kretol roach killer that sat on the sill and peeled back a corner of the cardboard on the window before her. “Look here, son.”

Derek leaned forward on the counter. A mother robin was feeding her babies in her nest. Three featherless heads were going after one half of a worm.

“Where the father at?” said Derek.

“He’s still around, I expect. He built the nest and now the mother is taking care of the kids. How we do around here.”

Derek nodded. His mother had told him this many times before. He watched her tape the cardboard back in place and leaned his back to the counter.

“Lydell came by,” said Alethea.

“Yeah?”

“Was looking to see if you wanted to go fishing up at the Home. Said he’d come back to pick you up in a little while.”

“Can I go?”

“Yes, but not for long. Sun’s gonna be going down soon anyway, and your father and me were thinking we’d go to a movie tonight. Want you back in the house before we go.”

“What movie?”

“I wanted to see that one, Imitation of Life, ’cause everyone’s been talkin’ about it. But you know your father; he said he wasn’t gonna pay to see no ‘weepie.’ He was pushing for some western, but I am not getting dressed to go out and see some show with men got dust on their clothes. So we made a compromise. We’re gonna go see that new picture I Want to Live! down at the Lincoln.”

“The one where they put that woman in the gas chamber, right?”

“Well, yes.”

“Dag, I’d like to see that, too.”

“You’re not ready to see it. Now listen, your brother will be going out. You can stay here a couple of hours by yourself, can’t you?”

“Sure.”

“We won’t be late. We’ve got church tomorrow.”

“Yes, ma’am,” said Derek Strange.

ALVIN JONES AND Kenneth Willis sat in a car in the alley behind Jones’s grandmother’s place, sharing a ninety-seven-cent bottle of imported sherry. Willis, in the passenger seat, was thumbing the wheel of the radio dial, trying to find a song that Jones could get behind. He stopped searching as a DJ introduced a record. The tuned kicked in, followed by a woman’s vocals.

“Who is that bitch?” said Jones.

“Man said Connie Francis,” said Willis.

“She can’t sing a note. But I would fuck her to death if I ever got close to it.”

“She’s too old. Anyway, I seen her picture in a magazine, and she ain’t all that great.”

“I don’t care what she looks like. I would fuck the life out of that white girl anyway.”

“She’s Spanish.”

“So?”

“I’m just sayin’.”

“What’s the name of that song she’s singin’? ‘My Hot Penis’?”

“‘My Hap piness.’”

“What I said.”

They were in Jones’s Cadillac, a ’53 sedan, a basic radio-and-heater model that was no Coupe DeVille or Eldorado. It had the Caddy symbol on it, though, and that is what Jones cared about most. It was a start. He had bought it on time from Royal Chrysler on Rhode Island Avenue for eight hundred and ninety-five. He had lied about his job status to get the credit. He’d owned it for three months and had made one payment so far. They could go ahead and repossess it, they wanted to. He wasn’t gonna pay on it anymore.

“Where we goin’ when we done with this bottle?” said Jones.

“Told my boy Dennis we’d swing by and pick him up, ride around some. Boy’s a grasshopper, man. Figure he might have somethin’ we can burn.”

“That tall boy lives over on Princeton?”

“Yeah.”

“He ain’t no more than a kid.”

“He’s my age.”

“That’s what I’m sayin’.”

Alvin Jones was twenty-two. His cousin Kenneth Willis had just turned eighteen. Jones was feral, thin, light-skinned, and small of stature. Willis was dark, medium height, bucktoothed, and skinny, with thick wrists that said his frame would fill out soon.

“How you know this Dennis from?” said Jones.

“We both in the navy reserve.”

“Huh,” said Jones, and then laughed.

“What’s so funny?”

“Picturin’ you in one of the sailor suits. You know, that uniform looks like a dress to some of them navy boys. Heard them ships be crawlin’ with faggots.”

“I ain’t no punk.”

“You better not be one. If you was, it would be my blood duty to put a size ten up your motherfuckin’ ass.”

Willis grabbed the crotch of his slacks. “This here is for bitches only, Alvin.”

“So is this,” said Jones, raising his fist. “You got a point?”

“Don’t be callin’ me no punk,” said Willis.

“Shit, just find some got-damn music on that box.”

Kenneth Willis turned the radio dial and got a Fats Domino tune, “I Want to Walk You Home,” on WUST. Now, that was how a song should be sung. Willis looked across the bench at his older cousin, who knew so much.

“ Alvin?”

“Huh.”

“What it felt like when you killed that boy?”

Jones hit the bottle of sherry and used his sleeve to wipe his mouth. “I ain’t planned to kill him.”

“ Planned to got nothin’ to do with it. He dead whether you meant him to be or not.”

Two nights earlier, Jones had called a liquor store he knew delivered and asked for a messenger boy to bring out a bottle of Cuban rum, a fifth of French cognac, and a bottle of Spanish sherry. He had taken the selection right out of an ad the shop had run in the Evening Star. When the boy, young buck wearing a hat, had arrived at the address, a deserted row house in east Shaw, Jones had come out of the shadows and put the muzzle of a hot.22 to his temple. The boy gave up the money he had on him without any kind of fight. Jones shot him anyway, and watched the boy’s last moments with fascination as he shivered and bled out on the street. He had always known he would kill a man someday and had decided just then that it was time to get it done.

“It felt like nothin’,” said Jones. “Boy was breathin’ and then he wasn’t.”

“You cold, man.”

Jones shrugged. “We all headed to a bed of maggots. I was just helpin’ the boy along.”

The response chilled Willis. In some way it excited him, too. He reached for the bottle and took a long pull.

“You ain’t said nothin’ to no one, right?” said Jones.

“No one,” said Willis.

“Don’t even be talkin’ about it with your friend.”

“You know I won’t.”

Jones took the bottle, put it to his lips, and drank off the base. “That’s the end of the evidence right there. I already done drank the rum and the cognac up.”