NINETEEN
A minor earthquake rocked the neighborhood the morning after Slatts robbed the pot store. The temblor broke the outdoor clock on the furniture mart building at Ninth and Market, leaving its hands paralyzed at quarter to nine. The night’s heat and fogginess had eloped into buttery smog. The street was a nest of shadows in the wicked sunshine.
Robert hightailed it to the welfare office on Harrison to put in an application for food stamps. On the walk there he stewed about how things were going at home. The truth was, shit was weird. He wasn’t having sex with Harriet or Slatts. Not since he got out of the joint. Was his battery unplugged? It was hard to say with Harriet. Eight years was a long time to be married to someone when you were twenty-four.
Apart from Slatts, he’d been true to her. It didn’t amount to a hill of beans. His marriage needed a psalm to heal it. And what about his relationship with Slatts? It had been smooth sailing in the penitentiary. Here in the city, it was on the skids.
In San Quentin he got three square meals a day—nothing to sneer at. Poaching game in San Francisco was getting old real fast. So was associating with Harriet and Slatts. Harriet had been disrespecting his ass, telling him how hard everything had been for her while he was in the joint. As if he didn’t know that.
Inside the food stamp office a pair of security guards—two Samoan men, one tall and the other short, both in gray Pinkerton company uniforms—blocked his passage. Neither of them had guns. Didn’t need them. They had muscles coming out of their ears. The first one said, “What do you want, dude?”
Robert was agitated. “What do you mean? This is the food stamp joint, ain’t it?”
“Yeah, so? You just can’t come through here, all unorganized. You’ve got to have an appointment and stuff.”
“But it’s an emergency.”
“Says who? Your mama?”
“No, man, I’ve got a wife and kid to feed.”
“Too fucking bad.”
The other guard gave Robert advice. “We ain’t running a nightclub. You want food stamps? You call up and talk to somebody.”
“Come on, you guys, gimme a break.”
The taller Samoan had shoulder-length jheri curls and gave Robert the once-over. His hard brown face softened. “You’ll be cool if we let you in?”
Robert’s shiner was a magnificent lemon yellow. He said fervently, “I’ll be cool.”
The first rule in the welfare office was to say nothing that could be used against you. Robert’s eligibility worker was a lady by the name of Ruth Landau, a recent graduate from the sociology department at Stanford. She was red haired and buxom, done up in a leather maxi skirt, lightweight goose-down parka, waist-long rayon scarf, and hiking boots. Had nice laugh lines around her mouth. Her cubbyhole was swamped with papers. She got Robert a chair and drilled him. “How old is your daughter?”
He was poker-faced. “Seven. I think.”
“Is she in school?”
“Never misses a day.”
“And you’re her biological father?”
“Uh huh.”
“Where is she now?”
“With her mother.”
“Do you live at home?”
“Yeah.”
“And what about nutrition in your family? What’s your diet like?”
The topic was more to his liking. Robert warmed up to her. “It’s great. I’m a hunter.”
“You hunt? That’s odd.”
“I hunt game all the time.”
“In San Francisco?”
“Yes.”
“That isn’t possible.”
Robert cross-examined her. “Maybe for you. Not for me. I’m a genius. I can do it anywhere.”
“So you eat a lot of meat?”
“At every meal.”
“What kind?”
“You name it. Rabbit, deer, squirrel, duck, and possum.”
“Nothing from the supermarket?”
“Never.” Robert was condescending. “I’m particular about my meat.”
“What do you do for a living?”
“I do a lot of things.”
She did a root canal on his biography. “What sort of things?”
“To be honest, employment has been slow.”
“How come?”
“I had a little spate of trouble with the police. No big deal.”
“Were you arrested for a crime?”
“Yes.”
“Have you ever been convicted?”
“Yup.”
“For a misdemeanor?”
“Nope.”
“A felony?”
“Once.”
Her eyes went dead. “You’re not eligible for food stamps.”
Robert looked at the floor and didn’t say anything. What was there to say? He had no cash. He was a felon. His wife thought he was a schmuck. He got up from the chair and shambled out of the cubicle. Then he retraced his steps through the waiting room and trudged from the building into the sun-drenched street. On the way out, one of the Samoan guards hooted at him. “Dumb ass white boy.”
Breaking into a client’s residence wasn’t a parole officer’s usual modus operandi. Athena Diggs was willing to make an exception for Robert Grogan. She picked the lock to his door with an implement from her tool kit and stepped inside the apartment.
All the windows in the living room were closed. The curtains were drawn. The wallpaper was perspiring from the heat. The coffee table was burdened with beer cans and three overpopulated ashtrays. The rug was slathered with dog biscuit crumbs.
She ventured into the kitchen. A mound of dirty dishes was stacked head-high on the counter. Self-satisfied flies dive-bombed the pots and pans on the stove. A box of cookies was on the table. A dried-out orange and a bowl of cold cereal kept it company. There was no sign of Christmas anywhere.
Sneaking into the bathroom, she had a collision with the deerskin. It was stretched over the curtain rod in the bathtub. Then she heard a muffled sound from the bedroom. Bingo. That was it. The white boys were hiding in the closet. Thought they were cunning. Thought they were tricky. It was all over for their shit. Robert Grogan and Slatts Calhoun had fucked up. Athena reached in her purse for the stun gun and the handcuffs.
In the hall, she met the dog. There was an immediate standoff. An electric current washed against the black woman’s skin. Was the mutt going to bite her? She had visions of rabies. Her fears multiplied when the shepherd hippety-hopped over to her and rammed his snout in her crotch. She warned him. “Get the fuck away from me.”
The dog’s hypnotic amber eyes drank her in. Flies caroused over the shepherd’s tormented head. Drool hung in stalactites from its muzzle. A red-tipped erection nestled between its furry legs. Athena gave the pooch a shove with her hand. “Move off.” Fleas settled on her arm. Gripping the handcuffs, she said, “Stop it.”
Nobody was at the pad except the dog. The parole officer withdrew to the front door. The shepherd pursued her. His stiffened penis trailed across the shag carpeting, attracting lint. As she left the crib, he bayed with sorrow.
At the corner of Eighth and Market, near the Ramada Inn, outlined by the hotel’s Christmas lights, a cavalcade of green-headed parrots skirted the power lines. They dipped through a parking lot and disappeared into the fog. Holiday lighting sparkled deliriously in the Walgreens drugstore. It was hotter than it had been all week.