Fear of the Dark (24 page)

BOOK: Fear of the Dark

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“Let it go, Brother Mayes,” Gunner said, wearily.

The sawed-off Remington lay on the floor not far from the head Brother’s right hand, and despite the pair of leaking holes in his chest, Mayes was trying to find the strength to reclaim it. Outside, the police siren had stopped, and now the two men could hear the sounds of frantic activity in the street, doors slamming closed and radios sizzling with static.

Mayes’s hand moved closer to the gun, his eyes on the cooler atop the coffee table.

“You blow that ice chest now, and you’ll make history, all right,” Gunner said, pulling the bolt back on the automatic rifle he was holding for emphasis. “They’ll call you the biggest black American
fuck-up
ever born.”

Gunner said nothing more. He just let Mayes make up his own mind.

Because that was the least he could do, for a brother.

t turned out that Roland Mayes was unwilling to settle for infamy over fame. For all his altruism, he still had a certain fondness for himself and his place in history.

The great war between the races he had originally hoped to lead never took place. His well-publicized arrest and subsequent imprisonment were catalysts to a number of minor, unrelated incidents of protest nationwide, inevitably, but millions of heads did not roll and blood did not flow freely in the streets. White America, it seemed, had survived yet another threat to its stranglehold on the destiny of Black America, and Black America, at least until the next Roland Mayes came along, had resigned itself once again to wait, to persevere, to keep the dream alive that the system that continued to work against it would someday heal itself.

But the Brothers of Volition episode did not come and go without making some valuable impact, however minor, on the lives of several principals involved. If nothing else more substantial had been accomplished, Lilly Tennell had slowly learned to own and operate the Acey Deuce without her husband’s assistance; Mean Sheila Pulliam had discovered the hard way that you don’t make a racket when ambushing a man from behind; Terry Allison was shown that a dinner date with a given black man could be as thought-provoking and stimulating as one with a given man of any other race, color, or creed.

And Aaron Gunner finally figured out what it was he wanted to be for the rest of his wretched life.

Which is why he went out of his way one Tuesday afternoon in late November to catch up with an old friend, a man with a motor-mouth and a heart of tarnished gold. His search started and ended in Will Rogers park in Watts, on a hard wooden bench near the basketball courts and a drinking fountain that didn’t work. The friend was sitting there in ragged clothes, his skin as dark as the leather of his shoes, an old fishing cap atop his gray head. There was a bottle in a paper sack in his left hand.

“What’s happening, Too Sweet?” Gunner asked, sitting down beside him.

Too Sweet Penny grinned a toothless grin. “How you. been, Gunner, my man? I seen you on TV, you know that? On the six o’clock news, I think it was.”

“Yeah. That was me.”

“They talkin’ ‘bout giviri’ you your license back, huh?”

Gunner shrugged. “They’re talking, yeah.”

“Shit, they got to give it back! You a goddamn hero, you know that? I was tellin’ a boy over here just the other day, I know that boy, Aaron Gunner. Best goddamn private investigator you can buy, I said! I tell everybody that, man.”

“I know, Sweet. That’s why I’m here.”

Gunner pulled a fifty-dollar bill out of his wallet and stuffed it in the old man’s right hand.

“Keep up the good work,” he said.

For the next twenty minutes, Too Sweet thanked him profusely, even though Gunner had only stuck around for the first five.

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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

This edition published in 2012 by
MysteriousPress.com
/Open Road Integrated Media

180 Varick Street

New York, NY 10014

www.openroadmedia.com