George Pelecanos - Hard Revolution

“He’s gonna sing now?” said Derek.

“Gotta do somethin’,” said Dennis. “’Cause you know he can’t fight.”

“He decisioned Floyd Patterson,” said Darius.

“An old Floyd,” said Dennis.

“Government gives Ali his gloves back,” said Derek, “he gonna take that man apart.”

As the heavyweight and his sibling attempted a rock-and-roll duet, Darius Strange read from the newspaper. “Elgin Baylor had thirty-seven for the Lakers, can you believe it? Now L.A. gonna go on in the west. Man eliminated the Bulls all by hisself.”

“Baylor?” said Derek, grinning at his brother. “Who’s that?”

“Local boy, right?” said Dennis, winking at Derek.

“Came out of Spingarn,” said Derek.

“You lyin’?” said Dennis. “Thought it was Dunbar.”

Dennis and Derek reached behind their father, chuckled, and touched hands.

“Quit playin’,” said Darius, stifling a grin, not looking up from his newspaper.

Alethea came into the room rubbing her hands dry on a dish towel. She wore a flower-patterned housedress with a cloth rose, similar to those that were printed on the dress, pinned in her graying hair. Except for the gray, the bursts of lines around her eyes, and her wrinkled hands, which had been damaged by the cleaning fluid she’d used through the years, she was a fit fifty-one. Her legs and back gave her problems from time to time, the cost of her domestic work, which she had recently cut to five days a week. But aside from those minor pains, she felt fine.

“Satisfaction?” she said, looking with affection at her men grouped around the Sylvania in the living room.

“Yes, ma’am,” said Derek. “That chicken was right. Greens weren’t too shabby, either.”

“Glad you enjoyed it.”

“Could’ve used a nice bottle of wine with it, somethin’,” said Dennis, smiling at his mother, not meaning anything by the remark.

“You want us to buy that for you, too?” said Darius.

“Darius,” said Alethea.

“We pay his way for everything else around here, don’t we?”

“He’s just havin’ a little fun with me,” said Alethea.

“I can move out, Pop,” said Dennis, “you want me to.”

“What I want is for you to work,” said Darius. “That’s what a man does. Your brother’s out there breaking a sweat. He’s got a car, his own apartment. That’s what you need to be moving toward, too.”

Derek couldn’t look at Dennis. He had ridden him hard outside the house because he believed in him and thought he could improve his life. But he never came down on Dennis in front of their parents. He wished he wasn’t here to witness this now.

The silence that had fallen on the room ended as an announcer broke into the show to inform viewers that the president was about to speak. Derek got up and let his mother take his seat. He found another chair and dragged it close to the set.

“Man looks like one of his beagles,” said Dennis.

“Hush,” said Darius.

President Johnson began by talking about the war in Southeast Asia. He said that he would immediately order a cessation of air and naval attacks on North Vietnam, except in the area north of the twentieth parallel. He went into an explanation of what this meant in terms of the conflict’s history and its progression. Then he indicated that he wanted to speak on something else. His face was somber but somewhat more relaxed than most Americans had seen it for some time.

“I will not seek, and I will not accept, the nomination of my party…”

“Damn,” said Dennis.

“Can’t believe it,” said Alethea.

“Man’s giving up,” said Derek. “You can see it on his face, though. He’s had enough.”

“So what fool we gonna get next?” said Dennis. “Nixon?”

“That won’t happen,” said Darius. “I got to believe, you get down to it, the people in this country are better than that. They get in the voting booth, they’re not gonna pull the lever for that man.”

“Unless they’re scared,” said Dennis.

“Scared of what?” said Darius.

“Everything,” said Dennis. “Us.”

Derek rubbed at his face. “Bobby Kennedy gonna step in now. You watch.”

“That would work,” said Darius. “He’s a politician like the rest of them. But his heart seems right.”

Alethea nodded. “Least there’d be hope.”

They sat there in the glow of the television screen, listening to their president. But soon their thoughts returned to the smaller, more manageable conflicts in their own lives. Derek thinking of his job. Dennis concentrating on his wrong companions and their plans, and, at the same time, his next high. Alethea worrying about her elder son’s future. Darius wincing at the sudden, sharp pain low in his spine.

He’d been getting these jolts lately, sometimes on his feet, sometimes while simply relaxing in his chair. A few days earlier, he’d noticed blood in his morning movement as well. There was something wrong with him, for sure. But what could he do? He still had to provide. His wife, God love her, couldn’t work any harder than she already did. They were in debt, as they had always been. He couldn’t afford to be sick, so there wasn’t any use in worrying about it either way.

“I’m going out,” said Dennis, getting up out of his seat.

“Where you off to?” said Darius.

“Out,” said Dennis, walking toward the bedroom he and Derek had once shared. “Twenty-seven years old, and you still quizzin’ me.”

“You stop acting like seven instead of twenty-seven,” said Darius, “I’ll stop quizzin’.”

“Darius,” said Alethea.

“Boy ain’t gone no further than a child.”

Dennis entered his bedroom and found a vial he kept underneath his socks in the top drawer of his dresser, beside a scarred-up baseball he’d had since he was eight. He and his father had played catch with that ball on summer evenings in the alley behind the house, as far back as ’48. He stared at the ball for a moment, then closed the drawer.

Dennis shook a red out of the vial, raised spit, and swallowed the pill. He left the apartment without a word to any of them, slipping out quietly, looking to pay his man for the reefer he’d sold, looking for the comfort he found on the street.

In the kitchen, Alethea washed the dinner dishes and passed them to Derek, who dried them off with a towel. Alethea hummed a gospel tune he recognized as she handed him a wet plate. He wiped it hastily and slipped it, still damp, into a sun-faded rubber rack.

“You in a hurry?” said Alethea.

“I’m meeting someone,” said Derek.

“That little girl from Northeast, works in the beauty shop?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Whatever happened to Carmen?”

“She’s around. Finishin’ up over at Howard.”

“You ever see her?”

“Not lately.”

“Shame. Always liked Carmen. Good family, and a neighborhood girl, too.”

“Yeah, she’s good.”

“Nice girl like that, growing up right beside you. Sometimes you can’t see the good things ’cause they’re too close to your face. Like the story about that man, went all over the world looking for treasure, only to come back home and find -”

“Diamonds in his backyard,” said Derek. “I know.”

“Guess I’ve told you that one before.”

“You might have,” said Derek, smiling at his mother as his hip brushed against hers.

“Well, I hope you’ve been hearing me all these years.”

“It’s that brother of his who’s deaf,” said Darius, coming into the kitchen. He went to the old Frigidaire and grabbed a bottle of beer from the bottom shelf.

“He’ll find his way,” said Derek.

“He better start. ’Cause he sure ain’t found it yet.”