Authors: David Putnam
I knocked on the solid oak door. Mr. Howard Marks, a wrinkled, white-haired old gentleman, who should've been long dead from old age, opened the door. The skin under his watery blue eyes sagged, displaying little pink half moons. His entire body shook from the effort to stay on his feet. He smiled, knew the reason for the preplanned visit, put a hand on my arm, and ushered us in. He closed the door. I took Tommy right through the house and out the back door into a huge one-acre lot overgrown with what had once been a world-class garden. I picked up Tommy because his skates wouldn't roll on the dirt path with all the vines and overgrowth. We went right out into an alley where a car was parked. We got in and started up. Mr. Howard Marks was a friend of Marie's. He agreed a long time ago to help out.
I drove down the alley, made a right, did a couple more counter moves, checked the mirrors for a tail. We were in the clear. I headed for Dad's. I was late for the meeting with Robby. No way was I going to see him now. Fate had interceded and saved my ass.
This time Junior caught our scent and came up, his hind end waggled with his tail. Tommy clung to me tighter when he saw the dog and buried his head in my chest. “It's okay, little guy, this is a nice dog. Here, look.”
Tommy would have none of it. He started to whimper.
It was still early. The interior lights lit up the house. The door was locked this time, like it was supposed to be. I knocked quietly. Nothing. On the other side came the noise from the Game Boy, a trade-off to keep the kids quiet inside the house where no one could see them. I knocked again, a little louder, and looked back over my shoulder. The backyard was long and deep with overgrown shrubs. No one could see. Dad opened the door with a big smile. I handed him the ice cream and chocolate syrup. I left the black gym bag with the money on the porch. The bag represented something corrupt and filthy, the idea of bringing it inside where the kids played would pollute their innocence.
Dad didn't falter at the sight of another child, this one not in the plan. He smiled and rubbed Tommy's head, didn't ask any questions. His eyes smiled at me.
“I couldn't walk away and leave him, notâ”
“I didn't say a word. Come on, let's get some of this ice cream dished up, whatta ya say? “ With his free hand, he pried Tommy off my chest and took him over to the kitchen table
and sat down. He was going to talk to Tommy a good long time, like he did with the others. When he finished talking, Tommy would call him Grandpa and feel like he'd known Dad all his life.
The house was too hot. I took off the army coat and put the ice cream in the freezer. Then I peeked around the corner into the living room where the make-believe battle raged on the television screen. Four boys, Ricky, Toby, Randy, and Wally with controllers in hand juked and ducked, playing the game. Alonzo was too young. He marveled at the action. Two others, Sonny and Marvin, lay on the floor playing the board game Chutes and Ladders.
Alonzo's eyes were bright, his smile heartwarming. He reminded me of my daughter who reminded me of my dear wife, God rest their souls. Alonzo sensed a change in the environment and looked up. When he saw me, he leapt up, came right off the floor as if propelled out of a cannon. “Daddy.”
I wasn't his daddy. He'd taken to calling me that. And who was I to correct him? The other boys hesitated, looked up, only the game was too enticing, and they went back to their controllers.
Alonzo all but bowled me over. I backed up several steps, regained my balance, scooped him up, and swung him in the air, hugging him so hard I caught myself, the little voice inside my head reminding me he was only three and terribly fragile. He'd put on even more weight. He'd been skin and bone two years ago, now Dad had gone the other way feeding him. I'd have to have a talk with him about feeding the kids too much. What was I thinking? We were done, officially on the lam. Tomorrow we'd all be in Costa Rica, or at least too far into the journey for anyone to pull us back.
Costa Rica.
Alonzo giggled and hugged my neck with his little pudgy
arms. The thought of leaving elated me and at the same time scared the hell out of me. I looked over at Dad who sat at the table talking quietly to Tommy, the new family addition. Dad looked up, our eyes met. He read me like a book, saw it was all over for him. He was going to have to give up his kids and never see them again. I felt as if someone had socked me in the stomach. I closed my eyes and hugged Alonzo, kissed the top of his head. Dad continued on in a low murmur to Tommy, the kids always came first.
I took out eight bowls, used up the whole half gallon of chocolate ice cream and most of the bottle of syrup. I knew it probably wasn't the healthiest diet and recognized that it was the guilt making me do it. I set Alonzo down and carried three bowls into the living room, then another three. The dessert was enough motivation. They put the games on hold and dug in. Spoons clanged on glass bowls. I went back in the kitchen, gave Tommy his bowl while Dad continued to talk to him. He spooned chocolate ice cream into the boy's mouth as the child nodded. I took the last bowl into the living room with Alonzo, sat in Dad's chair and watched my grandson eat. A great weight lifted off me. Even though it was earlier than we planned, the idea of leaving, escaping before getting caught let me breathe in a full lung of air for the first time in months. I sat with Alonzo a long time, rocking, and stroking his hair. Dad came in with Tommy asleep in his arms and carried him down the hall to a bedroom. When he returned empty handed, he said to the boys in a quiet voice, “Time for bed.”
They didn't argue, they turned off the TV, put up the controllers, came over and carefully gave me a kiss on the cheek without disturbing Alonzo, and went off to bed.
I started to get up. Dad waved me back down. He sat on the couch, one too low and difficult for him to extricate himself with his bad knees. He stared at me. I didn't want to look at
him. There was no alternative. Finally, I said, “Tomorrow, five o'clock. Marie will be here at three to help get things ready.”
Saying the words made it real.
My mind spun out far ahead, categorizing and prioritizing all the things that had to be done. I had to go back to the house on Alabama and 117th to dig up the money. Track down Jumbo for the balance. The latter might take more time than I had available. We would need the money. How could we house and clothe and feed eight kids without it? Marie knew nothing about the money and planned on living by both of us getting jobs. But then who would watch the kids? No, I wouldn't leave without the money.
Dad's eyes welled with tears, a sight that kick-started my waterworks as well. We'd talked and talked about it before. I wanted him to follow along in a year or so when the heat died down. But he was the one against it. He said it was too dangerous, and if the Feds ever discovered where we were, the kids would be in jeopardy of going back to where they'd come from, an absolutely untenable environment. “Besides,” he'd said, “I'll be dead and gone long before all the hubbub dies down.” Something I didn't want to believe. Dad had always been there for me, to imagine him gone, well, it just wouldn't be the same world.
At the same time, I knew these kids had been keeping him going, keeping him alive. Take them away and he'd wither like a flower without water.
I got up, went over, and offered him my hand. He took it. I pulled him up and hugged him with Alonzo between us. After a long time I stepped back and handed him Alonzo, kissed them both, turned, and left.
I'd made one pass on Alabama to check for problems, like extra eyes that didn't belong. The red light from a patrol car came on in the rearview at Mona Boulevard and Imperial Highway. For a brief second I thought, no, that can't be for me, that if I just gingerly pull over, they'd go on by. It can't be for me. Not now. It would ruin every damn thing. The next thought was to run. Push the accelerator to the floor. Hit it. Drive it like I'd stolen it. I'd been there before on the other side, and knew that I might be able to outrun the cop car. But not their radio, not their helicopter. I pulled over and hoped I could bullshit my way out of it. Time rolled by in long successive increments as I waited for the cops to approach. They were running a make on the car that was cold. I'd paid cash for it and made sure everything on it was in good working order before I'd laid it off in the back of the manse. The only thing they could've pulled me over for was DWB, driving while black. They say it didn't ever happen. I knew better and had done it myself while on the prowl for crooks.
Finally, the strong spotlight beam broke, it shadowed as the cops approached, one on each side, standard procedure. The one on the passenger side knocked on the window. I leaned over and rolled it down. “License and registration.”
I opened the glove box and took out the registration. “Officer
, I think I left my wallet at home. The car's registered to me though.”
He looked at the registration with his powerful flashlight. “Mr. Norbert, could you please step out of your car?”
“Sure”.
I started to get out on the driver's side.
“Hold it, get out on this side. Slide over.”
I did as I was told. When I got out, my eyes adjusted. They were blue bellies, LAPD, and not Sheriff's deputies. I had a chance. He put me against the car and patted me down.
The officer had his notebook out, “What's your full name and date of birth and if you know your driver's license number?”
“Jonathon Delbert Norbert.” It was the name on the registration when I bought it and it sounded made up. “DOB is 10-15-60, and I'm sorry I don't remember my driver's license number.”
He left, went back to his car to run the information. By the time he came back, sweat beaded on my forehead in the cold night air.
“Couldn't find you in the computer.”
“Yeah, that's happened before. Sometimes it hits on my mom's maiden name.”
“That right? What's your mama's name?”
“Aretha Jackson.”
“Jackson? That's the same as Smith. There'll be a thousand hits on it.”
I shrugged, too scared to smile.
“You got anything illegal in the car?”
“No, not at all. I was just going out to get some milk for my babies.”
“Then you don't mind if we search?”
“No, not at all. Go ahead.”
The one cop nodded to his partner, who immediately went
over to the car and opened the door. The inside of the car was, “clean as a Safeway chicken,” as Robby would've said. The searching cop worked over the inside for about ten minutes then came out with the ignition keys in his hand, headed for the trunk. The trunk contained the black bag with Q-Ball's money, 45K, and the gun. It wasn't against the law, under normal circumstances, to have that kind of money, but a black man at night in the ghetto was a sure call for the narcs to respond. If they put a narc dog on it, he'd sure as hell key on that dope money. After that, they'd eventually find out my real name. Game over.
The cop tinkered with the keys trying to find the right one. “Come on, show me which key opens the trunk.”
The car was an early model Plymouth, root beer-brown with a black stripe. As a precaution, I'd taken the trunk key off and put it in my shoe. “Oh, I lost that key a long time ago. But you can pull the backseat off, and if you're real small, you can crawl into the trunk.”
The one cop looked at his partner, as if asking what they should do next. Time hung in the misty night air.
“Screw it. Let's go.” He turned to me, “I'm going to let you off with a warning this time. Get a driver's license. I stop you again, I'm going to run you in.”
“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”
The night was suddenly lit up with a bright spotlight from a slow-moving sheriff's patrol car eastbound on Imperial Highway. I brought my arm up to shield my eyes, my face from recognition.
“Hey, look what we have here.” Said a voice from the slow moving car. The car squeaked against the curb. “It's Bad Boy Bruno Johnson.”
The two blue bellies jumped me, took me to the ground hard. One gave me a cheap shot, a fist to the back of the head. The other hit me with a flashlight across the back of my legs. I roared and came up with them on my back, in a push-up position. There was nothing else to lose. They had me. The blue bellies quickly figured they'd grabbed a tiger by the tail.
I would have taken them and gotten away if the two sheriff's deputies hadn't joined in.
Dog pile on the black man.
The deputy who'd identified me, Good Johnson, no relation, laughed his coffee-sour breath right in my face as they got the handcuffs on. He'd been at Lynwood Station for at least fifteen years. The kind of deputy too cynical and callous, a violent-tempered ghetto deputy no other station or division would have. He was stuck, destined to do his entire career at the same place, festering, getting meaner and meaner until he'd eventually implode; take a lead pellet in the mouth to end his, sad, pitiful life.
The tag “Good” wasn't earned out of job performance. It came up out of necessity when I first arrived at the station, a boot deputy. Two Johnsons became a problem. A white Johnson and a black Johnson like in the westerns with the cowboy hats. They called him the Good Johnson and me the Bad.
Good added the “Boy” to mine, a derogatory reference to race and it stuck. Bruno The Bad Boy Johnson.
One blue belly stayed with his knees on my back, making it difficult to breathe, pinning me to the dirt. The others stood and brushed off their uniforms.
Good said to his trainee, “Get on the radio, advise 60L8 we have his package.” He turned to the blue bellies. “Nice stop. This guy's wanted. There's a BOLO out for him from our homicide division.” He kicked my hip. “He's a real piece of shit. Used to be one of us, believe it or not. You guys can clear. We'll handle it from here.”