Hard Revolution

Shorty, hell, sometimes he just went too far. Wasn’t any good reason to run down that colored boy, but it was done. Get the car fixed up and put it behind you, that was the thing to do. Dominic Martini, with all that Catholic guilt he had, was the weak link. Way he was acting after it happened, it was like he wanted to confess. Stewart had to make Martini understand, you could confess all you wanted to, wasn’t nobody, priest or God almighty himself, could bring that colored boy back. But Stewart didn’t think Martini would be a problem. He just needed to be told. Martini was a follower and always would be.

They found Pat Millikin’s garage. Hess drove into the open bay, where Millikin had left a spot for the Ford, and cut the engine. Stewart parked outside, behind a plum-colored Dart GT. He got out and locked down the Belvedere.

A hard-looking, big-limbed colored guy was sitting on a folding chair outside the garage, having a smoke. He studied the Belvedere and as he did a small smile came to his face. Stewart figured he was admiring it, so he nodded at him, expecting something back. But he got nothing in return. Stewart thinking, Every place you go now, it’s the same way.

He walked into the garage, where a radio was playing “Cherish.” Millikin, pale and freckled, with horseman arms, walked around the Ford, giving it the eyeball, assessing the damage. He wore coveralls with the sleeves cut off. A cigarette dangled from his lips. Where he walked, Hess followed.

“Well,” said Millikin, “you didn’t lie.”

“I did it,” said Hess. “I fucked it up royal.”

“What’d you hit, a moose?”

“A monkey,” said Hess, glancing at Stewart, giving him a grin.

“We just had an accident,” said Stewart, warning Hess with his eyes. “Too much drinkin’, is all. But you know, we didn’t exactly leave a note on the guy’s windshield with our, uh, insurance information.”

“Say no more,” said Millikin.

Right about then, Hess noticed that the colored guy, the one who was sitting outside when they’d rolled up, had followed Stewart into the bay. Hess wondered if he’d heard the monkey comment. And then he wondered why he was sweating over it. He didn’t care.

“Lawrence, come here,” said Millikin.

Hess and Stewart watched the hard colored guy cross the concrete floor and inspect the Ford. He looked at it carefully. He said “yeah” and “uh-huh” and looked at it some more. He put his hands in his pockets and looked at Millikin.

“Well?” said Millikin.

“Go

“No shit,” said Hess. He turned to Millikin. “The question is, when and how much?”

“Got to check down in Brandywine,” said Lawrence, still talking to Millikin like Hess was not there. “See if I can’t raise the parts at the junkyard. Otherwise I gotta order them from the factory. ’Nother words, I’m go

“You heard him, Shorty,” said Millikin. “I can’t give you a price just yet. Timewise, we’ll just have to see how it goes.”

“Yeah, okay.”

“Pat,” said Stewart. “We get a minute here?”

“He’s all right,” said Millikin, meaning Lawrence.

“A minute,” said Stewart.

Lawrence walked out of the garage without a word.

“I’m go

“When?”

“Soon.”

“I’ll find you somethin’,” said Millikin.

“You used to work alone around here,” said Hess.

“I needed more help. I got another place where I work on projects like this one. This here location is too visible, if you know what I mean. So I have to have another man.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t know Lawrence from Kingfish. He don’t make me too comfortable.”

“Lawrence did time, just like you. He doesn’t talk to the law, just like you.” Millikin’s eyes caught mischief. “Matter of fact, now that I think of it, he ain’t all that much different than you.”

“That’s a laugh,” said Hess.

Millikin flicked his butt out the open bay door. “I’ll let you know when you can pick up your car.”

Hess and Stewart walked from the garage. Lawrence Houston was back in his seat, staring ahead, working on another cigarette.

In the Belvedere, up the road, Hess shook his head.

“Ever notice how they always have these real high-class names?” said Hess. “Couldn’t be plain old Larry. Had to be Lawrence.”

“Your mother named you Walter, didn’t she?” said Stewart, looking at Hess out the side of his eyes. “No one ever called you Wally, right?”

“It ain’t the same thing.”

“I guess it’s like Pat said. That coon back there, he ain’t all that different from you.”

“Aw, shut up, Buzz.”

Stewart smiled, reaching for the radio on the dash.

KENNETH WILLIS TOOK the last of the garbage cans from the cafeteria to the Dumpsters behind the school. Willis carried the can up on his shoulder, the way some men carried a sport jacket, casual like. He was strong enough to do it, too. Unlike his supervisor, an old man with the name of Samuel, who Willis called Sambo to hisself. Always yessirin’ everybody, keeping his eyes downcast, and scratching at his head.

Carrying a full trash can that way, it showed off the muscles in his arms. At work, he rolled the sleeves of his shirt high so that the ladies could see what he had. Wore his pants tight for the same reason. He could feel the eyes of a couple of the female teachers they had at the school studying him as he walked the halls. Some of the little girls who went to the school there, sometimes they’d be noticing him, too. Even if they were too young to know what was making them feel warm inside.

Coming out the back door, he dumped the garbage into this big old green container and put the can down on the asphalt. He reached into his breast pocket, withdrew a Kool, and lit himself a smoke. He dragged on his cigarette and watched the kids the way he liked to do. They had finished their lunch and were out there on the edge of the playground, kicking a red rubber ball around on a weedy field.

There was this one girl Willis had been keeping his eye on. Did her hair in braids and always came to school in some kind of skirt. Wore little white socks on her feet. Girl was only ten, but she already had an ass on her like a girl of thirteen. Willis had checked out the mother when she came to pick the girl up around dismissal time. If the mother was any kind of road map to where the girl was headed, well, this girl was going to a real good place.

Not that he was into little girls or nothin’ like that. He did have a few things with some young ones now and again, and that last thing with that fourteen-year-old, the one who’d put him in jail. Fourteen? Shit, the way that girl moved her hips? Only a full-grown woman knew how to gyrate like that. But that was behind him, anyhow. He had to be careful now who he put his eyes on. He’d gotten this job, even with his priors, because someone had been lazy in looking into his past. He didn’t want to lose this position, not yet.

Wouldn’t be long, though, before he was out. This market thing, and then a couple of hotel jobs that Alvin had been talking about. Willis would throw away this piece he was wearing, had his name stitched across the front. Like they thought he couldn’t remember it, had to write it on his shirt. And these dirty pants, always smelled like food the kids had thrown away no matter how hard he scrubbed them in the sink. This was not a job for a man like him. He needed to start living right. These mothers that came to get their kids, and these teachers, and some of these kids, all of them who looked away when he smiled, had to be because he was a janitor. After those jobs with Alvin, he’d come back in his street threads, driving a new car, maybe a Lincoln, and see how they looked at him then.

Willis dropped the cigarette to the asphalt and crushed it. He had one more look at that girl out there. He wondered what color panties she had on underneath that skirt.