William Kennedy - Chango's Beads and Two-Tone Shoes

“Roy,” Zuki said, “I finally got you.”

“Got me?”

“You’re hard to find. Just want to talk, pick your brain. I see you’re reading Black John.”

“You know John, do you?”

“No, but he’s funny.”

“Funny like cancer of the balls. He’s out to make trouble.”

“Who do you think he is? You think he’s black?”

“He’s black, but he’s carryin’ water for people who want to see us go down shooting one another. What’s on your mind, Zuki?”

“This book I’m doing, I want to get at what’s goin’ on right this minute in Albany. History is happening here. And face it, man, the Brothers is where it’s at and you’re out front, you’re a mover and shaker. I want to see you in action, listen in for as long as you can stand it, hang out for a week, a few days.”

“A week?”

“Three days? Start with a couple of hours when something’s taking shape, like tonight.”

“You want to follow me around and take notes?”

“That’s it.”

“The Albany cops already do that,” Ben said. “Probably tappin’ this phone I’m talkin’ on. They take pictures, too.”

“I could talk myself back into jail,” Roy said.

“Nobody will see my notes and I’ll show you what I write before it’s published.”

“This is a book?”

“It’s a long term paper, but I got somebody who’ll publish it.”

“What are you looking for?”

“See how a guy like you — guy looks ordinary but isn’t — how people pay attention to you — your picket line against the Laborers Union, going to jail for poll watching, doing what you believe in, this is some new kind of gutsy behavior and young blacks look up to you. All the stuff the Brothers are doing — taking on the five-dollar vote, running for office, fighting landlords and police brutality, it’s bigger than life, and kids find it heroic.”

“Heroic my ass.”

“I’m telling you what I hear.”

“We been doing it for two years,” Roy said. “They been doing it in the South a whole lot longer. You heard about Selma?”

“I know Selma. But the Panthers come to visit you, don’t they? Eldridge Cleaver, Bobby Seale? And didn’t Stokely come by, and Dick Gregory, and Ralph Abernathy? Not to mention Ramsey Clark and William Kunstler. Hey, Roy. You guys are a magnet.”

“You’re keeping track. I didn’t like Cleaver. He was too tough on Baldwin. We liked Bobby Seale.”

“See what I mean? You don’t give a damn, you just do it and people know it.”

“Gordon here, and Ben and Clarence, all the Brothers do it.”

“Sure, but you did time.”

“Ben did time, for nothin’. They busted fifteen Brothers in two years, a damn fortune just in bail money. They don’t let up.”

“I’ll write about all the Brothers, write about tonight even if nothing happens. But heavy stuff could happen I hear.”

“What do you hear?”

“Cops are out for blood, if there’s a riot.”

“Cops are always out for blood, our blood. That’s no news.”

“Cops are revved. Mayor told ’em don’t take no shit tonight. Keep this town quiet.”

“Who you talking to knows what the Mayor’s saying?”

“It’s all over town. Places closing, boarding up their windows.”

“The Brothers been trying all day to put a lid on any riot.”

“I wanna look over your shoulder.”

“What about Baron Roland, what’s he up to?”

“Teaching at City College, same as always, and still doing his thing at Holy Cross.”

“Where is he tonight?”

“He’ll be at the protest. He set it up.”

“Are you working with him or what?”

“Part-time for the summer. I’ll be full-time at the university in the fall. I was doing a couple of courses at Columbia till I come back up here.”

“Back?”

“I lived in Troy as a kid. House where I roomed in Harlem got torched in the King riots so I come here.”

Roy tried to figure out Zuki’s face. Some white in him. Latin, maybe, but he’s got no accent. Smart eyes, slick and savvy line. Students behave like this? Students got muscles like this? Follow you around like it’s a documentary? Hey, Roy, don’t trust anybody who parachutes in from outer space peddling hero shit. Lose this bird, take him outside. Why did Quinn ask about Zuki — a link to Tremont? Gotta see Tremont. Get outa this.

“Let’s go outside,” Roy said and he stepped up onto the sidewalk and Zuki stood with him. “I got some business, Zuki. I’ll be at the Four Spot later. I’ll think about what you said, see what it’s like out there tonight.”

“It’s five-thirty now. When’ll you get to the Four Spot?”

“Get there when I get there.”

Tremont woke up groggy, fuzzy, but with a lot less pain, and still on a stretcher after two hours of waiting to be admitted. Through the window beside him he saw Zuki and Roy coming out of the Brothers’ headquarters across the street. They stood there and talked, the front window gone, boarded up. He saw them look toward the hospital as they talked and he decided they were talking about him. He moved one leg off the stretcher, felt pain, not that much.

An intern had examined him when he arrived, taken blood and medicated him; and from this, plus being horizontal, he sank into a fadeaway. Matt asked nurses twice about admitting him and was told we need a doctor’s approval; we’ll treat him here for now. So Tremont’s a transient, a short-timer.

Matt pulled up a chair and watched Tremont sleep, he dozed a little himself. Then he went for coffee in the cafeteria and read the Knickerbocker News with the latest on riot potential in the city, and the protest against the silencing of himself by the bishop. The protest was set for seven-thirty in the basement of the First Church, Albany’s old Dutch church, and a crowd of irate Catholics, students, and inner-city protesters was expected. It would also be a candlelight vigil for Bobby Kennedy, whose condition remained dire, but no one had yet said he would die. The assassin’s weapon was an eight-shot.22 caliber revolver.

“Hey, Bish,” Tremont said after he woke up, “I saw Zuki across the street. Talkin’ to Roy.”

Matt looked out the window. “Nobody there now.”

“I think he’s comin’ in here to see me.”

“How would he know you’re here?”

“Zuki knows things.”

“We’ll have a little chat if he shows up,” Matt said. And he saw George Quinn coming into the emergency room with a woman and an Albany detective Matt knew by sight, not by name. The detective delivered George to a nurse and left. When the nurse led George to a stretcher behind the screen next to Tremont, Matt went to him. “It’s Father Matt, George, Martin Daugherty’s son. I thought we dropped you at the Elks Club this afternoon.”

George looked at Matt, he looks a little like Martin, and said he never got to the Elks. Vivian told Matt how George got his head wound and what she knew about his Elks detour. She recognized Matt from the news coverage and said that Father was courageous for speaking about the poor and politics, that she never heard a priest talk politics except Father Coughlin back in the ‘30s, a good speaker, but with a nasty tongue and I never liked him. Her brothers wouldn’t even whisper against a politician or they’d lose their city jobs. I like your perspective, Vivian, Matt said, and he offered to call Dan Quinn and let him know his father was in the hospital. Vivian said Detective Fahey already did that and Matt went back to Tremont, who was awake.

“That guy over there, his name George?” Tremont asked.