Tuff (29 page)

T
en minutes before his arraignment hearing, Winston was in a small holding cell behind the upstairs courtroom. Across from him sat his legal aid lawyer, Ms. Rachel Fisher. Rachel had the sniffles. As she leafed through the stack of Winston’s files, hawking and wiping her runny nose with the back of her hand, errant droplets of snot fell on his docket. “Mr. Foshay?” Winston grunted, offended and pleased she didn’t offer to shake his hand. “You got some record here. Because of your propensity to skip bail and miss court appearances the Criminal Justice Agency has decided your bail should be set at three thousand dollars. Since there’s no way you can afford that amount, I’ll try to get it reduced.”

“I can afford it.”

Rachel looked up with a snort. “You can? We’ll make a plea, then they’ll send you home,” she said with a lawyerly finality.

“Yeah, but I ain’t paying it. I need that money for other things.”

“Well, then no matter how you plead, there’s a chance you’ll be remanded to Rikers if you don’t post bail. I think if we plead guilty now to the cruelty charge the district attorney will drop the other counts without much of a fight. Possession of firearm—there’s no evidence of a firearm. The rest of these are bullshit. I think you’ll get four months max, maybe a fine. Maybe nothing.”

“I ain’t pleading guilty to shit. I ain’t done shit but get arrested.”

“But Mr. Foshay, you’re charged with a weapons violation and cruelty to an animal. Specifically the shooting of a pit bull”—the lawyer lifted a sheet of paper—“named Der Kommissar in the head, so they arrested you for something.”

“Nobody arrested me. I made a citizen’s arrest on myself because I needed to go to jail to take care of some business, but I ain’t done nothing.”

“You were arrested, but no crime was committed, per se?”

“No, I didn’t commit no crime, per se.”

“Per se.” Winston allowed the phrase to dangle on the tip of his tongue, enjoying its foreign tang. “ ‘Per se’? What language is that?”

“It’s Latin.”

Fighting to breathe through her clogged sinuses, Rachel tilted her
head back. For the next five minutes she counseled Winston on the efficacy of making a guilty plea with her nose pointed to the ceiling. “Any questions, Mr. Foshay?”

“What’s the judge’s name?”

“Judge Weinstein.”

“He Jewish?”

“Yes, I believe he is.”

“Then I might got a chance. Maybe I’ll represent myself.”

“You want to make a fool out of yourself, too cheap to hire a lawyer or post bail, you go
pro se
, be my guest.”

“I don’t know about no
pro se
, but I arrested myself, and I’m going to represent myself. Shouldn’t be a problem. If I start losing I’ll just go Al Pacino in
And Justice for All
on them. Start screaming, ‘No,
you’re
out of order. In fact the whole system is out of order!’ ” The lawyer cleared her nasal passages with a loud sniffle, pinched her red-rimmed nostrils closed, and gathered her papers. “Fine, whatever,” she said. “Have you ever seen
To Kill a Mockingbird
?”

“Of course.”

“Then I suggest you do a Gregory Peck and charm the judge.”

Before she stood to leave, Winston grabbed her wrist. “Can you do like Gregory Peck and get an innocent nigger like me out the door?”

Rachel affected a southern drawl and asked Winston, “You ain’t raped any white women, have you, boy?”

Winston played along. “No, ma’am. Least not nones that’s lived to tell the tale.”

“Winston, did you shoot the dog?”

“Yes, but he tried to bite my son.”

“I’ll talk to the DA.”

As they entered the chambers Winston had a small panic attack when he remembered that in
To Kill a Mockingbird
, Gregory Peck lost the case.

J
udge Weinstein was presiding, barricaded against the hordes of miscreants seated in front of him by a nameplate and a tall mahogany bench. The cases heard before Winston’s moved like clockwork. Lasting no longer than forty-five seconds, each arraignment moved efficiently down the assembly line. The conveyor belt of justice moved its
manufactured goods, the defendants, from their courtroom seats to the front of the judge’s bench. The assistant district attorney looked at a sheet of paper, recited the charges, and recommended that bail be set at
x
amount. The defense lawyer cited a mitigating circumstance, such as the defendant’s being the sole provider for a destitute family, and requested the bail be reduced by a third. The prosecution would say the substantial bond was more than fair, since the defendant was a previous offender, a danger not only to law-abiding citizens of the community but to his own physical well-being. The judge would agree; the defendant would be stamped “Made in the USA” and shipped out on a bus to Rikers Island. During the paper shuffling between hearings, Judge Weinstein stuffed a transistor-radio earplug into one fleshy ear. He was listening to the Mets’ game.

The bailiff called Winston’s docket number and motioned for Winston to approach the bench. As he walked through the swinging gate, the balding magistrate pulled the earplug from his ear and said, “The Mets are up five to three in the bottom of the seventh. Jenkins just hit a two-run homer.” There was scattered applause from the pews. Winston could see Weinstein was pleased with the progress of the baseball game and took it as a good sign. The bailiff called Winston’s name. He and Rachel approached the bench. The district attorney read the long list of charges. Judge Weinstein paused and put the earplug in his ear for about ten seconds. “Two strikes to Henderson. Mr. Foshay, do you understand these charges against you.”

“Yes.”

“Then how do you plead?”

Winston looked at Rachel. Rachel looked at her watch. “Guilty.”

“My client means guilty to the animal cruelty charge, Your Honor.”

The DA announced that the people of New York would drop the remaining charges. Before he could be sentenced Winston blurted out, “The dog was attacking my son, Your Honor, he’s a baby.”

Weinstein lifted his glasses to get a better look at Winston. Somewhere in Queens a Met hit a line drive that caromed off the shortstop’s mitt and into center field.
This one looks like Mookie Wilson
, the judge thought.
God, I loved Mookie
.

“Mr. Foshay, what breed was the dog you shot?”

“That would be a dog of the pit bull variety, Your Honor.”

Judge Weinstein nodded his head. “Good, I hate those dogs. But Mr. Foshay, I’m concerned about the possession of an unregistered firearm.”

“That charge has been dropped, Your Honor,” Rachel said, forcing a phony smile.

“I know that, Counsel. But I’m more concerned with the gun than the dead dog.”

“No smoking gun, Your Honor,” Winston said.

“And if there
had
been a smoking gun?”

“I took the gun from a little girl so she wouldn’t hurt herself or nobody else with it.”

“Did
you
hurt anybody else with it?”

“No, Your Honor. Just the dog. I ain’t never used a gun to do nothing.”

Judge Weinstein asked the bailiff to bring up Winston’s criminal record. He looked down the list for gun violations.

“Where’s the gun now?” the judge asked.

“In the East River, Your Honor,” Winston lied.

“Mr. Foshay, anyone ever tell you you look like Mookie Wilson?”

“No, Your Honor.”

“The people of the state of New York hereby sentence you to ninety hours’ community service.”

To the consternation of the drug-sweep detainees and the prosecutors, Winston pounded his breastbone. He thanked Rachel, then strode out of the courtroom, not quite a free man, but more an indentured servant. Close enough. As he exited, a court officer, his hands clasped in front of him, whispered, “You know who Mookie Wilson is?”

“No fucking idea.”

Winston shadowboxed his way out of the courthouse. Haymakers landed on the chins of Judge Weinstein, Rachel Fisher, and the assistant district attorney. With each punch he grunted and spat out a phrase of legalese.
“Pro se”
—jab. “Defendant”—jab, jab, right hook. “Penal code”—body blow. “The state sentences you to—” Winston fired an uppercut at the state, wondering exactly what the state looked like.

W
hen he got back home he found the lock on his front door had been changed. After a few desperate knocks, he walked down the block, stopped outside Fariq’s building, and whistled the shrill bar that
for over ten summers had called his best friend to the window. He whistled again. One more time.

Armello’s lockless front door opened with a haunted-house creak. The apartment was empty. He took a half-eaten Jamaican beef patty from the Salcedos’ refrigerator and washed it down with two gulps of ginger ale. Then it was on to Whitey’s.
“Hey, Ms. O’Koren, is Whitey home?… Where he at?… Come on, they ain’t going rob no bank. Plus, they need a white lady to go in with them.… Well, as long as you only thinking about it.… Do mind if I use the phone?”

Winston couldn’t remember the last time he’d had one of these lonesome summer weekdays. He felt betrayed. How dare his friends live the portions of their lives that didn’t include him? On days like this, he used to shovel breakfast cereal into his mouth, then bolt outside to play, only to discover nine-tenths of his world missing. Downcast, he’d return home and skim his sole Hardy Boys mystery,
The Missing Chums
, blind to the title’s irony. After a few boring pages, he’d behead a few of his sister’s dolls, then fight her off with the knife. Then they’d share a cantaloupe half, arguing about whether it tasted better with or without salt.

Thinking of Brenda, Winston rubbed the two one-hundred-dollar bills in his pocket, went back to Armello’s apartment, and made a phone call.

T
op down, the faded pink Mustang convertible chugged up 106th Street, serenading the block with a selection from
America’s Greatest Hits
. Before Spencer could bring the car to a stop, Winston leapt into the passenger seat secret-agent style. He slunk low into the tattered leather. “Man, this ride is a piece of shit.”

“Big and Little Brother out for an afternoon jaunt. How quaint.”

“Don’t push it. But thanks for coming, yo.” Winston paused, his attention on the airy-voiced singer. “ ‘Muskrat Suzy, Muskrat Sam do the jitterbug out in Muskrat Land’? What the fuck you listening to, yo? A song about animals fuckin’?”

Spencer turned up the volume even louder and asked where to.

“The Ville,” Winston said. “The Ville.”

S
ome niggers like hanging out in the East Village, finding its effete bohemian sensibilities, if not exciting, at least freakish. Tuffy wasn’t one of them. He hated the place. It used to be a good spot to pass off bags of oregano as weed, and glassines of toasted bread crumbs as crack, on stupid white kids from the hinterlands, but that was about it. To
him the neighborhood, with its hodgepodge architecture and populace, looked like the bottom of somebody’s shoe.

He and Spencer strode across St. Mark’s Place until Winston found what he was looking for, a sidewalk vendor selling glossy eight-by-ten black-and-white head shots of entertainers and sports figures.

“How much this one?” Winston asked, holding up a photo of Michael Jackson.

“Seven dollar.”

“You got any of him when he was dark-skinned and had a nose and ’fro?”

“Yes, only four dollar.”

“Prince?”

“Five dollar.”

“Todd Bridges?”

“Fifty cent. I give you Gary Coleman also. Free, no charge. You want MC Hammer? Arsenio Hall?”

He purchased twenty dollars’ worth of photos, mostly of has-been television actors and rhythm-and-blues one-hit wonders from the eighties and nineties. However, he did spend three dollars on a Denzel Washington. He also bought a roll of tape at a magazine stand, then asked Spencer to drive him to New Jersey.

“What’s in Jersey?”

“My sister.”

“I didn’t know you had a sister.”

“I do and I don’t.”

They drove to the Evergreen Cemetery listening to
America’s Greatest Hits
, Winston unconsciously bobbing his head and tapping his fingers to the chorus of “Horse with No Name.”

A
wrought-iron fence separated the cemetery from the Weequihac Golf Course. Brenda was buried in the northwest corner of the grounds. Errant approach shots had nicked the tombstone. Tuffy knelt beside the grave, scraping the bird droppings from the headstone with a piece of bark. Taking out the stack of photographs and his marker, he began scribbling inscriptions and forging signatures on the faces of the washed-up heroes of his sister’s youth. Sometimes, to heighten the effect, he signed with his left hand.

After taping the signed publicity photos to the headstone, Tuffy bored a small cavity in the burial mound with his index finger. He rolled a hundred-dollar bill into a tube, placed the money in the hole, then covered it with mulch. “One for me and one for you,” he said, kissing the marker. As he stood to leave, a black foursome of golfers ambled up to the tee box on the other side of the wrought-iron gate, chattering loudly as they smacked their balls onto the fairway.
Who are these niggers?
Winston thought, as another foursome of black men tromped up the hill searching for golf balls in the rough. As he read the inscription on the headstone, he had a sobering thought. He wanted Jordy to grow up to be like the golfers: successful, carefree, suburban, independent—the kind of nigger he couldn’t stand. Carefully, as if he were peeling away a Band-Aid covering a tender blister, Winston removed the snapshot of Denzel Washington from Brenda’s marker, then tore the photo to pieces.