Bad Break: A Novel

Chapter Nineteen

I want a drink now, but I need a reality check even more. And for those, I often connect with Freeman.

I haven't seen him since our last nightclub outing with Eddy Octavius. And if habits are real, he's likely to be planted at a table in the lakeside Envira Coffee House.

In spite of his solid yuppie credentials —medical doctor, deep pockets, German luxury car owner— Freeman, unlike others of my friends, has no pretenses. What he does for a living is a means to an end that happens to coincide with his sincere passion for life versus death, he says. And the money and nice things he has are to that end — simple fruits of labor, nothing more, nothing less.

So, when I need someone to tell me I'm either full of crap or confirm my theories make sense, I turn to Freeman, someone who pulls no punches in the name of friendship. He's not a muse, like Ray the bartender. But Freeman won't lie to me. Ray might.

Sure enough, he's sitting in a window booth at Envira, medical textbooks spread out on the table in front of him, empty coffee cups stacked neatly to one side.

"What up Leatherman?"

Freeman looks up at me with a smirk, grunts, and kicks back the chair directly opposite him.

"What's up Clark Kent?"

Turner, my frenemy at the Midway, tries to get under my skin, saying Freeman and I have pet names for each other. But it doesn't work. Straight, gay, whatever. I could do worse than a near debt-free doctor.

I order an iced grandé white chocolate mocha, with an extra shot of espresso, making sure to maintain eye contact with the waitress, in spite of her voluptuousness. I already feel guilty enough. I don't want to risk being labeled a letch today too.

Three big sips and I'm feeling a slight charge of energy.

"So, I made an ass of myself earlier," I say.

Freeman's eyes light up and he opens his mouth. Based on past experience I know he wants to ask "What's new?" But the good doctor diagnoses my condition as serious and bites his tongue.

"How often do we sit around cracking private jokes about presumptive white people and how annoying their assumptions about black folks are?"

Freeman sits back and purses his lips.

"Who did you assume something bad about," he asks, sort of ignoring and answering my question simultaneously.

I tell him about my visit to Bessie Stone's house and how fearful I was walking the gauntlet.

Freeman lets out one of those snorting, scoffing laughs. "I wouldn't feel bad about that. Some of those thug-assed cats are crazy as hell and will shoot you just as soon as look at you. And then there's always that quiet one who might be more dangerous because he tries to look the part like he has something to prove. I mean, I won't win any awards for sensitivity, but you know I'm right. So, from my vantage point, I'd say you were smart to be cautious going in there."

It makes me feel a little better.

Freeman is confirming my theory that our snap judgments are often about a type and a look, as opposed to skin color.

But he hasn't heard the rest.

I draw a verbal picture of Stone's living room and deliver the rest from her perspective:

"When my Tonya turned twenty-one, she was just starting her final semester at City College. She was on target to graduate in four-and-half months, chemistry. She wasn't at the very top of her class, but she had a solid three-point-oh grade point average, good enough to land her a job at the police department evidence laboratory nights when she wasn't in class. Might not seem much more than average, but she was raising Tasha at the same time. Should she have had a baby at seventeen? No. Did she know better? I think so. I, sure enough, taught her better. And so did her father. That's right. Her father and I were together. He didn't leave me or abandon his chil'ren. We were happily married. He died younger'n he should have, 'cause of high blood pressure and diabetes. I hear lots o' black men go through the same. You better get yo'self checked out, Mr.Wilson! Anyway, Tonya got caught up in some young man out there. She would never tell me who he was, but she was convinced that when the time came he would ride up on a white horse like Prince Charming. Well, that horse never came. The next January, just a couple weeks after that final semester started, she stayed after class to talk with a professor. The way the police reports have it, they got caught up in their Xs and Os and formulas, and before she knew it Tonya had just ten minutes to get to work, and that building on campus was a good thirty minutes from the police lab. Police never told me whether or not she was speeding. Guess it don't matter, 'cause, ironically – that is the word you types use in this kind of sitchiation, right? – ironically, the accident that killed her was the fault of the other driver, a white man from the suburbs who drove drunk and hit Tonya's little car broadside. That's it, Mr. Reporter. What do you think of my irresponsible daughter and her illegitimate offspring now?"

Freeman lets out a deep breath. He might have been holding it the whole story.

He shakes his head and then speaks cautiously. "I ain't saying you did anything wrong. But stereotypes are tough, bro. And I ain't gonna tell you I wouldn't have assumed the same things. It's true. I would have. But you won't believe that. So think about all the stuff we see about the poor, and the black and brown, and the poor black and brown in the news. Look at the papers. It's depressing."

He catches himself too late to stop the last words from coming out, but I offer a weak, wry grin and wave it off.

"I'm just sayin' we gotta remember not to buy into all the hype about us."

He's right. And there's nothing more to say. I rise, pat the good doctor on the back and walk out.

###

Five minutes and eight blocks after I leave Freeman at the coffee shop, I notice the large SUV behind me.

It is in design no different than any number of rugged passenger vehicles on the road. But there is something about the way it moves, its speed and tempo. For several blocks after I notice the truck, when I accelerate quickly it does too. When I slow down, it does too. And it always remains exactly half a city block behind me.

On a whim, I take a sharp turn and slow down. The SUV follows. I accelerate and turn sharply again, this time darting across heavy traffic to the sounds of screeching brakes and angry shouts.

The SUV follows, but this time it cuts the traffic like butter by turning on sirens and illuminating police lights hidden in the grill. I've gotten them to blow their cover, and I'm on a busy street, so they aren't likely to violently arrest me or kill me in broad daylight. No reason to keep running. Still, my heart and mind race, and my imagination runs wild. I'm wondering if Allah's been busted for leaking to me, and I'm being caught up in the sweep.

I pull into a supermarket parking lot and wait. The black SUV parks behind me a moment later, and the rear passenger door opens.

Before I could make out the passenger, other than to note that he is most likely he, given his height and the width of his shoulders, the passenger takes eight quick strides and is standing next to my truck. Without asking or so much as saying a word, the person climbs into the front passenger seat, tells me to drive, and then removes his baseball cap. Next to me sits Capt. Brian Dillard, the man who replaced Sheriff Sharpe as head of the Chicago Police Department's Intelligence Division. If Rogers, the data mining whiz I met in Dante's Inferno, is Chief Watson's conscience, Dillard is the top cop's attack dog and personal enforcer.

Before I can object, Dillard, still looking straight ahead, says, "I hate your guts, Wilson, along with everything you and your kind stand for. But I need your help."

Dillard is a black man too, though fair-skinned enough to have been a subject in that discussion Bessie and I'd had earlier. So, I assume that by my "kind," he means journalists.

"Man, imagine if you had decided to be rude before asking me a favor!"

He gets my point because no retort is forthcoming. Instead, he nods slowly, removes his sunglasses and asks, "Do you really know what's going on with that woman's granddaughter?"

I stare back, a feeling welling in my gut akin to fear. "You all found her or found her body?"

He doesn't answer, defiantly meeting my gaze and repeating his question.

What choice do I have? I tell him no, relax and listen.