The Long Fall

It was a pretty empty block in a part of town that might once have had an identity, expressed by old-fashioned dark-brownstone architecture. But now the neighborhood had gotten old and forgetful. Many of the buildings were abandoned. The only life was in the broad and gaudy bar-restaurant. It took up almost half the block, and the whole front was glass so you could see in at the tables filled with people from every race and element of society. There was a long bar at the back of Tinker’s and a stage on the north side of the big room.

A group of young black men dressed in bulky suits loitered around the entrance. One of them was making rhymes extolling his fearlessness and sexual prowess. He kicked that bitch and flipped that shit, sent out a something, and then broke it down. His fellows seemed to approve of the words and their brooding execution.

As I approached the front door the largest of these men stood up to block my way. He was wearing a double-breasted cream-colored cashmere suit with a hot-pink dress shirt and at least the chain of a pocket watch. His coloring was a greenish medium brown and he had a round scar on his right cheekbone that might have been made by a small-caliber bullet. There was something wrong with one of his eyes but I tried not to stare.

“How you doin’?” the gangster-child said to me.

As he spoke, his friends moved toward him as if in the pull of a certain kind of magnetism, the kind that draws gawkers to the site of a bloody demise.

I couldn’t have fought my way past them. Even if I had a gun, they were probably all armed, too.

“Here to see Big Mouth,” I said, smiling falsely.

“So what?” the one-eyed man-child replied.

“Is he here?”

“Are you?” the kid answered, making me wonder if he was an existentialist or a rapping fool.

I’m told that hard exercise keeps up the testosterone levels in men my age. I could feel it right then. The rage growing in my shoulder“€in my shs was in response to this kid’s belief that he might be my better. I took a deep breath in through my nostrils.

“My friend Seraphina told me to drop by if I wanted to talk to Jones.”

One of the posse, a youngster in a loose-fitting iridescent green suit, broke off from the group and wandered into the restaurant.

“How you know Seraphine?” the kid asked.

“Does it matter?”

“You got a smart mouf, you know that, man?”

“Yeah. That’s what they tell me.”

“I could stomp yo’ ass right here in the street,” he promised.

“If I had six dudes backin’ me up I wouldn’t be scared neither,” I responded.

“Say what?”

“You heard me.”

“Leave him alone, John-John,” a familiar female voice said.

Seraphina, wearing a pink slip, walked into the group of Scar-face pretenders.

She came to my side and even took my hand.

“Come on wit’ me, Mr. Carter,” my slender and dark-skinned savior said.

“YOU SURE DO KNOW how to get in trouble, don’t you, Mr. Carter?” Seraphina chided as we came into the bustling establishment.

“I just wanted to see Big Mouth.”

“You got to be polite to people like John-John,” she said as if she were the elder and I the child.

“I like you, girl.”

“You a fool.”

“You know many men who aren’t?”

The hardest thing I might have done that month was getting Seraphina to grin.

“Why did they give me trouble?” I asked. “I mean, there’s all kindsa people here.”

“John-John an’ them out there to make sure it’s safe for the people,” she said.

“I’m a people.”

“Maybe so,” she said. “But you look like trouble. When you meet Big Mouth, don’t call him Big Mouth. He don’t like that name. His real nam“€. His ree is Eddie Jones, but he don’t like people callin’ him that neither.”

“What do you call him?”

“Eddie.”

“I see.”

She brought me to a table fit for six behind a half-wall to the left of the crowded bar. There were eight or nine men gathered there but the only one I was interested in was the dolphin-faced black man sitting against the back wall. That, I was sure, was Big Mouth Jones.

“Hi, Eddie,” Seraphina said to Jones. “This here is Mr. Carter. He said he wanted to aks you sumpin’.”

“He your friend or customer?” Big Mouth Jones asked, ignoring me.

“Friend.”

I wondered if it was the tip or the fact that I didn’t want sex that made Seraphina like me. Maybe it was just because I made her almost laugh. My father, for all his left-wing idealism, had often told me, Leonid, you’ll find as you get older that some women are attracted to trouble. Whatever it was, Jones rapped his knuckles against the shoulder of a skinny walnut-colored man next to him. This fellow, who looked to be about half my age, stood up without a word and moved off. I pressed my way toward the back of the table, taking the vacant position.

“You heavy?” Jones asked when I was seated.

“No.” I looked around to see Seraphina walking away.

“How you know Seraphine?”

“We talk from time to time.”