Read Bad Boy Brawly Brown Online
Authors: Walter Mosley
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I slapped his gun hand with my left and socked him at half 2
strength with my right. I grabbed his wrist, twisted, and pulled the 3
gun away from his loosened fingers.
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“Stop!” Tina shouted.
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I turned toward her with my hands in the air.
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“I’m just goin’ to the toilet,” I said. “Fuck a niggah keep me from 7
my bodily functions. Where is it?”
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Tina’s eyes darted at a door that stood perpendicular to the win-9
dow. I went into it and relieved myself without closing the door be-10
hind me.
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When I came out Tina had propped Xavier up to a sitting posi-12
tion on the floor, but he was still too stunned to rise.
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“I’m sorry I had to hit you, man,” I said. “But you don’t treat 14
somebody like that. You don’t push a gun in his face when he ain’t 15
done nuthin’ to you.”
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Tina was too scared to talk and Xavier was still seeing double, 17
wondering which image of me was the one talking to him.
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“Can I take another cigarette?” I asked Tina.
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She nodded and I picked up her purse from where she’d dropped 20
it on the floor.
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“Gimme one, too, will ya?” she asked.
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I lit two at once and handed her one.
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Xavier groaned and put his hand to his head.
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“You didn’t have to hit him,” Tina said.
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“No. Instead I could have peed in my pants. But let me tell you, 26
it take a badder motherfuckah than your boy here to make me do 27
that.”
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“What do you want?” Xavier managed to get out before he gri-29
maced in pain.
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“I been tellin’ you the whole time, man,” I said. “I been asked by 31 R
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Brawly’s mother to make sure he was okay. If he isn’t in too deep, 1
I’m gonna try and rectify the situation. The only thing I care about 2
the First Men is that Brawly is a part member.”
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“I don’t know where Brawly is,” Xavier said.
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He held out his arm and Tina helped him to his feet. I doubt if 5
he weighed more than she did.
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“I know that. I know that. But maybe you could help me any-7
way.”
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“What?” Xavier wasn’t afraid even though I had his pistol and 9
proved my superior strength.
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I really liked the kid.
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“First,” I said. “What are you guys doin’ with them guns?”
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“What guns?”
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“The guns at Brawly’s girlfriend’s place. Guns like this one here.”
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I took out the .45-caliber pistol I’d taken from underneath Bobbi-15
Anne’s bed.
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Both kids were impressed by the size and heft of the gun.
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“You got that from Clarissa’s place?” Xavier asked me.
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“No, from BobbiAnne’s.”
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“Who’s BobbiAnne?”
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I went through the same talk with Xavier that I’d had with Tina.
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Both of them claimed that they didn’t know of any white girl that 22
Brawly ran with.
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“We don’t make people do anything, but it’s frowned upon when 24
one of the Party takes a white woman over one of our black sisters,”
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Xavier said. “We wouldn’t say he couldn’t be with her but we would 26
damn sure know if he was.”
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“And what about Henry Strong?” I asked.
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Tina stiffened and Xavier asked, “What about him?”
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“How long has he been down here?” I asked. “The other night it S 30
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sounded like he was just down from Oakland to give a talk to your or-2
ganization. But from what I’ve heard since then, it seems like he’s 3
been here for a few weeks at least.”
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“Why?”
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“Because somebody murdered him,” I said. “They murdered 6
him not five blocks away from where Brawly worked up until a few 7
weeks ago. That ties in Brawly, so I’d like to know how.”
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“Mr. Strong is connected with various political organizations in 9
the Bay Area,” Xavier said. “He’d been watchin’ us for a while and 10
wanted to bring some money down our way. You see, they had some 11
supporters in Berkeley that liked what we were doing. The special 12
thing we wanted to do was to start a school for kids from the first 13
grade to the eighth. We were going to buy the old Kleggman Bakery 14
on Alameda but we needed more money.”
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“And Henry was going to get you that?”
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“He’s been coming down for the past few months, havin’ meet-17
ings with some of the officers of the First Men,” Xavier said.
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“Then why would he ever know Brawly?” I asked.
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“Brawly said that he knew builders and contractors that were 20
black,” Tina offered. “When he first came to us and he heard that we 21
wanted to make the bakery into a school, he started talking to us about 22
his mother’s boyfriend and the project he had down Compton.”
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“He said that John could help with your school?”
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“At first he was just bragging,” Tina said. “You know, how he was 25
a contractor and he could get together a good black crew. We didn’t 26
listen until he said that there was a woman, a black woman who 27
helped finance his mother’s friend’s project. When Henry heard about 28
that, he began talking to Brawly.”
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“You don’t say,” I mused.
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“How did you find out where we lived?” Xavier asked.
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“Lakeland,” I said. “He got your picture, your history, your num-1 9 4
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bers, and all the gold fillin’s in your teeth noted down on paper in a 1
file cabinet.”
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The lovers clasped hands.
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“Tell me about this school,” I said. “From everything I’ve heard 4
and read so far, I thought you guys were trying to bring down the sys-5
tem, not educate children.”
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“That’s just your fear talking,” Xavier, the flyweight, said. “If you 7
really listened, if you really read our manifesto, you’d know that the 8
school is our first priority. We want to start a school, a publishing 9
house, a community center, and a lunch program for our children 10
and our elderly.”
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Tina’s eyes were fastened on her skinny boyfriend’s profile. I 12
wondered at her — in love with two powerful men. She was at the 13
center of everything she loved and held dear.
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After a while she got into the conversation. She said that black 15
women had to learn to love their own beauty and their men.
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“We can’t let them dictate how we live and love and learn,” she 17
said. “That’s our responsibility and if we don’t take the reins, we’ll 18
never be truly free.”
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I wondered who she included with
them.
Was I one of the ones 20
holding back the black race?
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/ WE TALKED FOR QUITE A WHILE.
Xavier was a dreamer, that much was sure. He lived in the pos-3
sibilities scrawled down by idealistic philosophers far from the front 4
lines and battlefields. He wanted free hospitals and schools and no 5
war whatsoever. The Urban Revolutionary Party was the first step in 6
his broad global plan. People like Handsome Conrad and idealistic 7
Brawly were a part of that plan, though they may not have com-8
pletely understood the goals.
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Xavier was the mouthpiece and the visionary, but Tina was defi-10
nitely the smarter of the two.
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“If we don’t do anything,” she said, “then the world will pass 12
black people by. We’ll still be takin’ the bus while other people will 13
be takin’ rockets to the moon.”
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Her argument reminded me of Sam Houston telling me about 15 R
my rattling automobile.
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“This BobbiAnne told me that Conrad and Brawly had brought 1
the guns to her place,” I said. “You think that they would be so differ-2
ent from you that they’d plan to do it with guns rather than schools?”
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“There you go with that BobbiAnne shit again,” Xavier said.
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“Brawly don’t know no girl but Clarissa.”
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“He wouldn’t even let me kiss him good-bye,” Tina added.
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“There’s no girl on his mind but her.”
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“Big girl,” I said. “Red-blond hair and freckles comin’ down off 8
her nose . . .”
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Xavier shook his head but Tina said, “That could be the girl 10
that’s been hangin’ around Conrad. What was her name?”
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“Yeah. Conrad’s friend,” Xavier said. “She’s been coming around 12
for a couple’a months now. Mostly she’d just be sitting in the car, 13
waiting for him. I don’t know if he ever even said her name.”
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“I know where she lives,” I said.
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It was closing in on four in the morning.
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HE FRONT DOOR
of the building was locked late at night. We 19
rang the bell, figuring that Conrad or BobbiAnne would open 20
up for the secretary of the Party. But there was no answer.
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I did my card trick on the door and once again winded myself on 22
the stairs. I tried to hide my weakness from Xavier, but I didn’t need 23
to worry about him. He was concentrating so much on the acrobat-24
ics of his mind that I doubt he would have noticed if I stopped and 25
put my hands on my knees.
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There was no answer to our knock on BobbiAnne’s door.
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HE GUNS WERE GONE
and the closets were empty, but she didn’t S 30
take the photograph of her and Brawly when they were teenagers.
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“Is this the girl?” I asked the revolutionaries.
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“Yeah. Yeah, that’s her,” Xavier said. “But this is an old picture.”
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“You think it’s a coincidence that this woman is Conrad’s girl 4
now and that I saw a box of weapons under her bed?”
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“No guns there now,” Tina said.
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“So if you can’t see ’em, then they don’t matter?” I asked.
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From the corner of my eye I thought I saw the doorknob jiggle.
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Then the door flew open.
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When I saw the doorknob turn, a dozen thoughts went through 10
my mind. The first was that it was Anton/Conrad with BobbiAnne 11
and Brawly, all of them armed to the teeth and prepared to end our 12
lives. That’s when I thought of going for my pistol, but there wasn’t 13
enough time. By then the first uniformed cop was in the room and I 14
was glad I hadn’t tried to shoot him through the door. I was even glad 15
that I wasn’t with Mouse, who would certainly have killed the man 16
and, probably, his partners. Then I remembered that Mouse was dead 17
and that I was carrying a concealed weapon. These last thoughts 18
drained all of my will to resist.
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“Police!” the second cop shouted.
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“Hands in the air,” the fourth one said.
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We were shoved against the wall, disarmed, handcuffed, and 22
dragged down the stairs.
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“What is the meaning of this?” Xavier asked, trying to stand still.
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“You have no right —” he commanded before he was struck in the 25
head with a truncheon.
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Christina Montes cursed those officers with language I couldn’t 27
imagine coming from her mouth. I was forced to my knees. I stayed 28
there, knowing when to pick my battles.
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After Xavier was propped up between two cops, we continued 30 S
our downward journey.
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Tina was dragged from the building and put in the back of a
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cruiser. Xavier and I were also put in a backseat. He, knocked sense-1
less for the second time in one evening, and I trying to understand 2
the forces at work.
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The policemen didn’t talk to us much. Xavier was completely 4