"The one where they put that woman in the gas chamber, right?"

"Well, yes."

"Dag, I'd like to see that, too."

"You're not ready to see it. Now listen, your brother will be going out. You can stay here a couple of hours by yourself, can't you?"

"Sure."

"We won't be late. We've got church tomorrow."

"Yes, ma'am," said Derek Strange.

ALVIN JONES AND Kenneth Willis sat in a car in the alley behind Jones's grandmother's place, sharing a ninety-seven-cent bottle of imported sherry. Willis, in the pa.s.senger seat, was thumbing the wheel of the radio dial, trying to find a song that Jones could get behind. He stopped searching as a DJ introduced a record. The tuned kicked in, followed by a woman's vocals. Kenneth Willis sat in a car in the alley behind Jones's grandmother's place, sharing a ninety-seven-cent bottle of imported sherry. Willis, in the pa.s.senger seat, was thumbing the wheel of the radio dial, trying to find a song that Jones could get behind. He stopped searching as a DJ introduced a record. The tuned kicked in, followed by a woman's vocals.

"Who is that b.i.t.c.h?" said Jones.

"Man said Connie Francis," said Willis.

"She can't sing a note. But I would f.u.c.k her to death if I ever got close to it."

"She's too old. Anyway, I seen her picture in a magazine, and she ain't all that great."

"I don't care what what she looks like. I would f.u.c.k the life out of that white girl anyway." she looks like. I would f.u.c.k the life out of that white girl anyway."

"She's Spanish."

"So?"

"I'm just sayin'."

"What's the name of that song she's singin'? 'My Hot p.e.n.i.s'?"

"'My Hap Happiness.'"

"What I said."

They were in Jones's Cadillac, a '53 sedan, a basic radio-and-heater model that was no Coupe DeVille or Eldorado. It had the Caddy symbol on it, though, and that is what Jones cared about most. It was a start. He had bought it on time from Royal Chrysler on Rhode Island Avenue for eight hundred and ninety-five. He had lied about his job status to get the credit. He'd owned it for three months and had made one payment so far. They could go ahead and repossess it, they wanted to. He wasn't gonna pay on it anymore.

"Where we goin' when we done with this bottle?" said Jones.

"Told my boy Dennis we'd swing by and pick him up, ride around some. Boy's a gra.s.shopper, man. Figure he might have somethin' we can burn."

"That tall boy lives over on Princeton?"

"Yeah."

"He ain't no more than a kid."

"He's my age."

"That's what I'm sayin'."

Alvin Jones was twenty-two. His cousin Kenneth Willis had just turned eighteen. Jones was feral, thin, light-skinned, and small of stature. Willis was dark, medium height, bucktoothed, and skinny, with thick wrists that said his frame would fill out soon.

"How you know this Dennis from?" said Jones.

"We both in the navy reserve."

"Huh," said Jones, and then laughed.

"What's so funny?"

"Picturin' you in one of the sailor suits. You know, that uniform looks like a dress to some of them navy boys. Heard them ships be crawlin' with f.a.ggots."

"I ain't no punk."

"You better not be one. If you was, it would be my blood duty to put a size ten up your motherf.u.c.kin' a.s.s."

Willis grabbed the crotch of his slacks. "This here is for b.i.t.c.hes only, Alvin."

"So is this," said Jones, raising his fist. "You got a point?"

"Don't be callin' me no punk," said Willis.

"s.h.i.t, just find some got-d.a.m.n music on that box."

Kenneth Willis turned the radio dial and got a Fats Domino tune, "I Want to Walk You Home," on WUST. Now, that was how a song should be sung. Willis looked across the bench at his older cousin, who knew so much.

"Alvin?"

"Huh."

"What it felt like when you killed that boy?"

Jones. .h.i.t the bottle of sherry and used his sleeve to wipe his mouth. "I ain't planned to kill him."

"Planned to got nothin' to do with it. He dead whether you meant him to be or not." got nothin' to do with it. He dead whether you meant him to be or not."

Two nights earlier, Jones had called a liquor store he knew delivered and asked for a messenger boy to bring out a bottle of Cuban rum, a fifth of French cognac, and a bottle of Spanish sherry. He had taken the selection right out of an ad the shop had run in the Evening Star. Evening Star. When the boy, young buck wearing a hat, had arrived at the address, a deserted row house in east Shaw, Jones had come out of the shadows and put the muzzle of a hot .22 to his temple. The boy gave up the money he had on him without any kind of fight. Jones shot him anyway, and watched the boy's last moments with fascination as he shivered and bled out on the street. He had always known he would kill a man someday and had decided just then that it was time to get it done. When the boy, young buck wearing a hat, had arrived at the address, a deserted row house in east Shaw, Jones had come out of the shadows and put the muzzle of a hot .22 to his temple. The boy gave up the money he had on him without any kind of fight. Jones shot him anyway, and watched the boy's last moments with fascination as he shivered and bled out on the street. He had always known he would kill a man someday and had decided just then that it was time to get it done.

"It felt like nothin'," said Jones. "Boy was breathin' and then he wasn't."

"You cold, man."

Jones shrugged. "We all headed to a bed of maggots. I was just helpin' the boy along."

The response chilled Willis. In some way it excited him, too. He reached for the bottle and took a long pull.

"You ain't said nothin' to no one, right?" said Jones.

"No one," said Willis.

"Don't even even be talkin' about it with your friend." be talkin' about it with your friend."

"You know know I won't." I won't."

Jones took the bottle, put it to his lips, and drank off the base. "That's the end of the evidence right there. I already done drank the rum and the cognac up."

Willis wiped at his forehead. "I am high."

"I am, too," said Jones.

They drove out of the alley and stopped on the adjoining street, where Willis got out and rolled the empty bottle down a sewer. He and Jones then headed for Princeton Place to pick up Dennis Strange.

SEVEN.

DENNIS?"

"What?"

"I was looking at this police officer today, studyin' on him, like."

"So?"

"I was thinkin' I'd like to be one my own self someday."

"A police?"

"Yeah."

"You gonna keep all us Negroes in line down here, huh?"

"What you talkin' about?"

"Never mind."

Dennis and Derek Strange sat on the front steps of their row house in the last hour of daylight. On the sidewalk, three girls were playing jump rope, and on the north side of Princeton a woman pushed a baby carriage down toward Georgia. The light from the dying sun was like honey dripping on the street. Derek thought of it as "golden time."

"What about you?" said Derek. "What you gonna do?"

Dennis fingered the marijuana cigarette he had slipped into his pocket before leaving the house as he thought about the question. He didn't mind answering, as long as it was Derek and not his parents who were asking. Not that he was thinking on his future all that much. Lately, all he looked forward to was getting high. This older cat on the next street over had introduced him to reefer a few months back, and Dennis had taken to it from the start.

"I don't know. Continue on with the navy, I expect, when I get out of Roosevelt. Learn some kinda trade. Let the government put me through college, maybe. Knowledge is power, little brother, that's what they say."

"The navy. That means you got to go away?"

"What you think, man?"

"I don't want you to," said Derek, trying to keep the desperation that he felt out of his voice.

"It's just natural that things gonna change around here, D. You'll be missin' me at first, but soon you'll be lookin' to get out yourself. Like them baby birds Mama's always goin' on about. They ain't gonna be stayin' in that nest forever, right?"

"I guess."

"Go on, young man," said Dennis, pushing on his kid brother's head, hoping to lighten the sadness that had come into his eyes. "It's gonna be all right."

A Cadillac came up Princeton and pulled up behind Darius Strange's Mercury. Though there was s.p.a.ce behind him, the driver of the Caddy touched his b.u.mper to the rear b.u.mper of Darius's car.

A man and a young man got out of the car and walked up the sidewalk. Derek had met the younger one, Kenneth, a friend of his brother's from the reserves, and didn't like him. He bragged on himself too much and talked all the time about what he had done or was going to do to girls. Kenneth Willis didn't look like he was headed anyplace good.

The other man, the older, smaller one with the light skin, didn't seem like someone Derek would care to hang with, either. He was dressed in black slacks and a thin purple shirt, looked like silk. He was what Derek's father called a no-account, or a hustler, or sometimes just a pimp. You could tell by the way his father's lip curled when he said it that he had no use for this kind of man.

Dennis rose from the steps as the two from the Cadillac came up the walk. Derek got up and stood beside his brother.

"d.a.m.n, Alvin," said Dennis, "ya'll ain't had to hit my father's car." He said it with a smile, to let them know that he was not angry. It made Derek ashamed.

"That your old man's Merc?" said the one called Alvin, who was the driver of the Cadillac. "Thought he had had a job." a job."

"He does."

"Car look like a repop to me."

So what if it is? thought Derek. Don't mean you had to b.u.mp it.

Alvin Jones lit a cigarette from a pack he produced from a pocket in his slacks. He carelessly tossed the spent match on the weedy front yard as smoke dribbled from his mouth and nose.

These men, with their bloodshot, heavy eyes, looked like they were on something. Derek had heard about things some people used to make themselves crazy in the head. But as they stepped closer, he could smell the alcohol coming off them. He recognized that stench from a wino he often came in contact with in the neighborhood. These two were drunk.

"That your brother?" said Alvin, looking Derek over.

"His name's Derek," said Dennis.

"Where you hidin' Dumbo at?" said Alvin Jones.

"What, all a y'all got names start with D? D?" said Kenneth Willis.

"My father's idea," said Dennis, looking at his feet.

Don't apologize to them for our father, thought Derek. Don't you ever do that.

"Musta got little man all angry, talkin' about his family," said Willis. "Lookit, Alvin, he got his fists balled up."