Walter Mosley - Fearless Jones

“Dorothy,” Milo said in greeting.

“What is your business?” the woman asked, as if she’d never laid eyes on the ex-lawyer.

“Fine for 63J-819-PL48C.” Milo handed over my money, and Dorothy counted it.

Without jotting down a note or looking up a file she said, “Have a seat. Someone will be with you in a while.”

At the far left end of the huge plaster wall there was a small bench, just large enough for one big man or two smaller ones. Milo and I sat side by side. I could still see the window from where I sat. Dorothy sat there placidly staring out on the empty floor.

It was a surreal experience: the bench made to fit Milo and me, the empty room, the robot bureaucrat, and a big clock the size of a cargo plane’s tire above us on the wall. Eighteen minutes after we sat down a man appeared from across the hall. He must have come out of a door, but I didn’t see it open or close.

He was a white man in an all-purpose suit made from a rugged material. He wore a white shirt but no tie and carried a worn leather satchel. There was a large bunch of keys hanging from his belt.

“Mr. Sweet,” the man hailed when he came within five feet of us.

“Warden Kavenaugh.”

“Follow me.” Mr. Kavenaugh turned and marched across the empty space.

There was a door there. I hadn’t seen it because it was painted the same light green color as the wall. Even the door knob was painted. We went into a hallway with a low ceiling and walls that felt like they were closing in. The hall went for quite a long way. There were no more doors or decorations. These walls were a darker green. The floor was green too.

Finally we came to a dead end. There was a door there. This door opened onto another hallway. This underground lane had many twists and turns, but it too was doorless and without marking. At some point the hallway widened and we found ourselves in a largish room with a door on the opposite side. Warden Kavenaugh, a ruddy and unpleasant-looking man, knocked on this door. When no one answered the knock, Kavenaugh muttered something sour and then began trying the hundred keys on the lock. After about twenty, finally one fit.

We came into a hall that was all metal, like a chamber in a battleship or a submarine. It too was painted green. I felt as if we were far below ground even though we’d only gone one floor below the surface of the court building. There was another door. Kavenaugh knocked on this one, and someone did answer.

“Captain?” the unseen sentry said.

“Kavenaugh,” Kavenaugh replied.

The door came open and we were in a large, sun-filled room, not in the bowels of the Earth. I was disoriented by the sunlight and high ceilings. The man who opened the door wore a dark blue uniform complete with a pistol in a leather holster. He was white, hatless, twenty, and pitifully acned. His only duty seemed to be waiting at that door. It was all very odd.

Kavenaugh pointed across the room and said, “There you are.” He took a sheaf of papers from his leather satchel and handed it to Milo.

“Good luck,” Kavenaugh said. And with that he turned to go back the way we had come.

On the other side of this room was a long wooden table behind which sat two uniformed men. Behind the guards was a cage that contained about a dozen men of all races and ages. Some smoked, a few hunkered down on their haunches, resting against the flat and black iron bars. There wasn’t much fraternizing among these men. They were a footstep away from freedom and had no time for small talk.

“Paris!” someone shouted. I saw him then, Fearless Jones, his hands reaching out to me, his smile cut in half by a metal slat. The guard said something to him, but that didn’t stop him from reaching and smiling.

When we arrived at the table Milo produced a long sheet of paper from the sheaf Kavenaugh had given him. It was covered on both sides in tiny print. There were red and black seals on the document, making it look official. He placed the paper down between the guards and said, “Tristan Jones.”

One of the guards, a man with a red and chapped face, picked up the sheet and pretended to read. His partner, a handsome rake with black hair and a pencil-thin mustache, stared hard at me.

“We had to chain him hand and foot just to get him down here,” the red-faced man said.

Milo did not reply.

“Waste’a money to pay his fine,” Red Face continued. “He’ll just be back in a week.”

Milo lifted his chin an inch but gave no more recognition to the man’s advice.

“Niggers always come back,” the guard said in one final attempt to get a rise out of us.

Milo was quiet and so was I. For some reason these men didn’t want to let Fearless go. He’d done something. Not something bad enough to be held over for, but something. If they could get Milo to blow his cool or Fearless to start ranting in his cage, then they could make a case to refuse release.

Seeing Fearless reminded me of a dozen times I’d seen him hard pressed and unbowed. In a Filmore District flophouse, bleeding and in terrible pain from the cop-inflicted knife wound, he said, “It’s okay, man. Just gimme a few hours to sleep and I’ll be fine.”

I saw him face down three men who had gotten it into their heads to disfigure a pretty boy who had taken away a girl they all wanted. The men threatened to cut Fearless too. “Maybe you will,” he said to them, “and then again, maybe you won’t.”

Fearless was more free in that iron cage than I was, or would ever be, on the outside.

I met Fearless in San Francisco after the war. His dress uniform was covered with medals. Around him were three young ladies, each one hoping to be his friend that night. I bought him a drink, saying that it was because I respected a soldier when really I just wanted to sit down at the table with those girls. But Fearless didn’t care. He appreciated my generosity and gave me a lifetime of friendship for a single shot of scotch.

“Fuckin’ four-F flat-footed fools,” a snaggletoothed white man was saying to me through the bars. “They get mad when a black man’s a hero ’cause they ain’t shit.”

The rake gave the white prisoner a stare, which was answered by a clown’s grimace. When I nodded to the white con, he smiled in answer, Nuthin’ to it.

Fearless was released from the cage. His irons were taken off. From under the table the rake brought out a gray cardboard box and handed it to Fearless.

When the guard pointed at a pen and a stack of forms, Milo spoke up.

“You should check your property before signing the release, Fearless.”

“Aw, that’s all right, Milo,” Fearless said in that careless friendly voice of his. “Why they wanna steal my paper wallet? Wasn’t no money in it in the first place.”

“Check anyway, son.”

6

MILO LEFT US in front of the municipal building. I was wearing the same black slacks and loose yellow shirt I had on when Elana Love dropped in on me — the only clothes to my name since the fire. Fearless wore gray pants and a black silk shirt with two lines of blue and yellow diamonds down either side of the chest. As I said before, I’m a small man, five eight and slim. Fearless is tall, over six feet, and though he’s slender, his shoulders warn you about his strength. He’s also a good-looking man. A group of passing black women attested to that with their eyes. Even a couple of white women glanced more than once.

But it wasn’t just a case of simple good looks. Fearless has a friendly face, a pleasant openness that makes you feel good. If you look at him, he’ll nod and say good day no matter who you are.

“Fearless,” I said.

“Before you say anything, Paris, I have to have me a cheddar cheese omelet, pork patty sausages, and about a gallon’a fresh orange juice. I got to have it after three months under that jail.”