Kim Hunter - The Official Report on Human Activity

LJ looked at the Woman who sat between the Author and the Scientist. “Nat said I should talk to you.”

It was so dark in the pool hall that the sunlit scene outside framed by the open door seemed like a movie of the sidewalk, the strip of grass and the traffic rather than the real thing. Rick moved in what he hoped was a casual manner toward the exit because his cousin Andre had missed in his previous two turns and was now calling for a bank shot of such exquisite difficulty that you could almost hear eyes rolling in folks’ heads. Rick, on the other hand, knew the shot was a cinch for Andre, and his fear of the reaction once the ball sank into the pocket gave the already 90-degree air more charge as well as a tightness. He hoped his legs would not betray all that he was feeling as he inched toward the door.

Andre’s right hand held the thick end of the cue. As he slid it back and forth, preparing the shot, it came tantalizingly close to a wad of rubber-banded bills that sat on the thick polished wooden edge of the pool table. The money was the wager Andre was about to snap up, a big sucker bet that contained the better part of some poor sap’s weekly check.

Said sap sat smiling, sipping suds under one of the many plastic cone-shaped lamps that hung from the ceiling. Andre, in his twenties, was in pretty good shape, but he still wondered if he could make the shot, pick up the money, and move to the door before things got ugly, prohibitively ugly.

It had been easier than he thought to recruit his younger cousin Rick to the scam. Rick had always come across to him as a bookworm and a do-gooder. He’d introduced Andre to movies you had to read because the actors didn’t speak English. Even if they had, things they did made no sense and couldn’t hold Andre’s attention for very long.

“Why would anyone want to go to a movie where you watch somebody read?” he’d asked Rick in an almost too loud voice during a Godard film. “We took two buses to watch a movie where people went on vacation and read books.”

On the way back from the film it was late and the bus was nearly empty. They commandeered the back bench seats and propped up their feet.

“You know you owe me,” Andre chided Rick, “for forcing me to see that shitty movie, no action, no sex, no nothing.”

“What do you mean no action? What about how they treated one another; doesn’t that count?”

Andre looked skyward, palmed the top of Rick’s head, raised his other hand and pleaded, “God, help this boy see the light. Let him understand the difference between talk and action.” They both laughed.

“If you want action, come with me to the demonstration against the war,” Rick retorted.

“You know JB was on Ed Sullivan tonight,” Andre said before breaking into song. “I got the feeling!”

“So you don’t want to go to the march?”

“That’s just a bunch of white folks making noise,” Andre said dismissively and turned toward the back window.

But, even as he spoke, Andre thought of how he dreaded seeing the mail truck parked on his street. He tried not to think about the draft, fearing he would jinx the whole deal. Somehow, at least so far, he’d escaped. No Army notice had appeared in his mailbox calling him to a jungle battlefield in a country he’d never heard of before the war. Others he knew had not been so lucky.

He recalled Wilson’s homecoming party. Wilson was a guy who had terrorized Andre and many others well into high school. Wilson made sure everyone knew he carried a knife. Those who had seen him use it talked about it, but never on the witness stand.

Wilson’s welcome-back party had featured the typical loud music that greeted you at the doorstep. Streamers and balloons were taped to the porch. Andre knew something was up when he opened the door and saw no one dancing. There was a knot of people around the bathroom, which wouldn’t have been unusual except that, even over the music, he could hear what he thought was the guest of honor cursing on the other side of the door. “It’s that bag they attached to him,” complained a girl he didn’t recognize. “It doesn’t work sometimes. It’s that damn bag.”

“I’ll go to the demonstration if you come with me to the pool hall and keep an eye out,” Andre had offered.

“An eye out for what?”

“Better yet, shoot a game with me.”

“You’ve got to be joking.”

“You will win, guaranteed,” Andre smiled.

That’s what Rick had been afraid of, but something in Andre’s easy manner enticed him to be part of the plan, to stay connected. He also didn’t want to imagine Andre in the pool hall without backup, trying to work a hustle. Though his experience with such things was limited, Rick had tried to push his fear down somewhere he couldn’t feel it. It made his throat tight and dry.

Minutes before they had entered the pool hall, Andre had dropped more details about the escape plan they might need after the trap had been sprung. Rick was now in the early phase of that loose plan, close to the door, making sure, as much as anyone could, that no one blocked it. He didn’t understand how he was supposed to do that and remain inconspicuous.

As Rick had feared, the man sitting under the cone lamp had become a bit upset after Andre made the nearly impossible bank shot and summarily stuffed the wad of cash into his pocket. The man rose from his seat slowly, his jaw tighter than a submarine hatch. Worse yet, he was looking back and forth between Rick and Andre. During one of his glances over at Andre, Rick took the opportunity to bolt. When the man turned to see Rick fleeing into the sunlight, Andre jumped over the bar and shot out the back.

Rounding the corner to meet Rick, Andre smiled as they trotted until they heard footsteps and saw not one, but three men racing toward them. One of them had what looked like a metal pipe.

“You take the alley. I’ll take the street,” Andre panted.

This was a change in the plan that left Rick cold. Andre was supposed to run down the alley if they had to split up. Rick was from Detroit and didn’t know DC well enough not to get lost once he left familiar streets. But the men chasing them were closer, and even though there was a rock in one of his shoes that were not made for running (why hadn’t he worn his sneakers?), this was no time for questions. He did not even look back to see the source of the pounding feet and curses that followed him to the alley.

He managed to put distance between him and his pursuers, turn left back on the sidewalk, and duck into a street level apartment with an unlocked screen door. There was a closet in the room to his right. He jumped in and shut the door seconds after he heard someone else open the screen door.

Rick was trying so hard to quiet his breathing he thought he’d pass out. Someone came down a flight of stairs, close to the closet. A woman spoke nervously to the man who’d just chased Rick to the apartment.

“Wow, you just walked into my pad?” she said, sounding white to Rick’s ears.

“I’m looking for somebody,” the man panted, “just robbed me.”

“What are you talking about?”

Another set of footsteps fast and heavy could be heard on the stairs.

“At the pool hall, guy just cheated me out of—”

“Whoever it is ain’t here, so just split,” a man’s voice interrupted him.

There was silence, then footsteps going away.

“What the hell was that about?”

“Some crap at the pool hall. I’m glad you woke up.”

“I’m glad it wasn’t serious. Things are just beginning to—”

The sudden silence took Rick’s breath away. Oddly, he noticed that he’d been smelling expensive marijuana and cheap incense. Before he could notice anything else, the closet doorknob rattled and the door swung open.