Always Outnumbered, Always Outgunned (Socrates Fortlow 1) by Walter Mosley Page B

Ralphie’s voice that stopped Socrates cold. He thought about those imaginary workers in the bakery that might have stood there. He thought about thinking about what he’d do if they ever let him out of jail. He thought about the cold in his chest and the fact that the wiring in his apartment couldn’t take the strain of an extra electric space heater.
    A hundred needs went through Socrates’ mind but nowhere could he find Ralphie. Maybe Linda. Maybe her bare brown legs wrapped around his waist. Maybe her.
    “Yeah?” Ralphie demanded. “You just gonna stand there an’ look at the rain?”
    Socrates considered the young man again. He wore black pants with a white shirt that had an off-white T-shirt showing at the open collar. His trench coat was drab green, darkened by the rain.
    The shirt meant that he had a job in some store or office.
    A workingman.
    “Well?” Ralphie asked.
    Socrates thought about a promise he’d made. A murky pledge. He swore to himself that he’d never hurt another person—except if he had to for self-preservation. He swore to try and do good if the chance came before him. That way he could ease the evil deeds that he had perpetrated in the long evil life that he’d lived.
    The sound of the rain filled the air and he got the urge to tear off his own ears.
    “I’m sorry,” Socrates said.
    “What?”
    “I’m sorry,” he said again. He tried to remember the last time he’d apologized. He’d regretted the crimes of his youth; blubbered like a child over the couple he’d slaughtered. But they were dead. He had never, in his memory, apologized to a living soul.
    “What the fuck is that s’posed t’mean? You sorry?”
    “I was just mad, that’s all,” Socrates said. “Mad that you an’ yo’ girlfriend din’t even see me. Yeah, yeah. That’s it.”
    Ralphie was lost. He tried to stay angry but all that showed on his face was confusion. He didn’t know whether to speak or to stand back.
    Socrates saw a bus coming from many blocks away.
    “You see,” Socrates said, “I was talkin’ about Angel and Warren. About how you was hurtin’ them. But really it wasn’t that. At least not just that.”
    “How the fuck you know ’bout what I’m doin’ t’my wife and son?” Ralphie said.
    Socrates watched the bus coming over Ralphie’s shoulder. He could make out the bright lights of the big windows up front. It was like a chariot burning in the rain.
    “I don’t mean to disrespect you, son,” Socrates said in a mild tone. “It’s just that you’re only a little ways up the road from your own house. People who know you go up and down this street. If they see you an’ that girl it’s gonna hurt Angel an’ you know they ain’t no reason for that. Is there?”
    The bus behind Ralphie stopped at a red light.
    “She cain’t be tellin’ me what I could do an’ what I cain’t,” he said at last.
    “Me neither, Ralphie. Me neither. You do what you got to, son. I just mean …” Socrates paused for a moment and wondered what it was exactly that he did mean. “I’m just sayin’ that we got to know what we doin’. Linda got sumpin’ you need? Okay. But you don’t have to rub Angel’s nose in that. It’s just like you did to me….”
    “What I did to you?”
    “You looked right through me, brother.” Socrates felt tears in his eyes. “You across the street gettin’ your nut offa that girl right in front’a me like I was some kinda animal, like I didn’t even matter at all. An’ then you couldn’t even nod to me….”
    The bus rolled up to the shelter.
    It was their bus.
    The brake sighed and the door levered open.
    Ralphie moved toward the door.
    Socrates fought the urge to grab the man’s arm, to keep him there listening to his apologies.
    But he didn’t reach out. Ralphie got on the bus. The doors slammed shut. And the bus glided away on a film of water that shimmered with street light.
    {5.}
    “That’s how I got sick,” Socrates told Right Burke