so I just look out of the window at the green stucco of my building, still luminous in the night, like the aftermath of a lab experiment gone awry.
âLook, young blood, this type of aggravation is bullshit. Cops and queer bosses.
Iâll
give you the money.â
âCount, thatâs very generous of you, but I canât.â
âGenerous, my dick. You
will
pay me back. With interest. Fifteen points,â he says.
âFifteen points?â
âI know thatâs strong medicine, but itâll go down easier than you think. We could learn a lot from each other. Iâm looking for associates that are more . . .â
âStimulating,â I offer.
âRight. Stimulating. Donât get me wrongâCandyâs no knucklehead, but she ainât exactly gonna cure cancer. Claudel and Otis have to take turns breathing, so that the other can chew gum.â
âClaudel and Otis?â
âThe gentlemen that roughed your ass up.â
So those are their names. I wonder which one is which.
âItâs not every day that I get to rub shoulders with an honest-to-God white-collar professional. Now, your collar ainât so white, but itâll do. Iâll even let you work some of that money off by doing me some favors.â He beams a wild grin at me that sends a chill down my back.
I think Count is finished, so I make an ill-considered move to get out of the car.
âIâm not done with you yet,â he says looking at his jeweled pinky, gleaming even in the darkness of the front seat. âThereâs something I want to show you.â
We drive for a while. Eventually, we come to a neighborhood that looks as if it were designed by one of those Xerography machines. All the houses appear to be the same single-story structure, a hodgepodge ofbrick and aluminum siding.
âCount, what are we doing in Bozley Park?â
âI know what youâre thinkingâtwo spooks at night in Bozley Park, that definitely means trouble. But donât get nervous. We wonât be long. I just brought you here to paint the picture. Look out the window. Look around you. What do you see?â
Bozley Park consists of ten or fifteen houses. None of these people are wealthy by any means. Blue-collar workers live here: plumbers, welders, janitors who call themselves maintenance managers, and the likeânot upper-crust professionals. I see two posts, black and white, sunken into the earth, and fortified with cement. A clear symbol of the barrier between the races. Just one block overâjust past those postsâis Bozley
Place.
Thatâs where the Negroes live.
âNow imagine black families living in these houses, with their black children playing in the yard.â
âThatâs ridiculous,â I say. âItâs still too segregated.â
He smiles at that, âWhoever heard of one of Dr. Kingâs men not having any faith? I know all about Bozley Park, and I think itâs time they came face to face with integrationâand youâre gonna help me do it.â
Favors
, he says. Do I deserve such generosity?
Within a few days, Count makes good on his offer. Thanks to him, Iâve returned the money and kept the Caddy. Now that Iâm indebted to him, I can empathize with Candyâs situation. Heâs not shy about giving you exactly what you ask for and being perceived as your savior. It gives the illusion that he is protective of you, that there is something in you worth saving. When his true nature appears, brutal and mercenary, youâll be blinded by the memory of him coming to your rescue.
However, for now, Iâll embrace the relief. I enter Gantâs office with an unusual jauntiness, as if Iâve pulled off a job well done.
âMr. Gant, those funds are now available.â I give him a slight deferential bow of the head.
âGood, Estem, good. Forgive me for saying so, but I was beginning to get worried.