My hand went straight for the pistol in the night-table drawer again. Bruno was in his grave almost five years now, while Mouse languished in the state prison at Chino for manslaughter. A better day might have been coming, for some people - but not for everyone. I wanted to feel better but all I had was the certainty that the world had passed me by - leaving me and my kind dead or making death in dark causeways.Ī strip of dawn light showed above the houses across the street. It just got hotter and hotter while my temper wore thin. I knew that I had to go see him, to say goodbye, but I kept putting it off.Īnd through it all blew that hot September wind. He'd been the closest thing to a teacher that I ever had.

But that same world was being rocked almost daily by underground nuclear explosions and the threat of war.Īcross town an old friend of mine, Martin Smith, lay dying. About our new young Irish president and Martin Luther King about how the world was changing and a black man in America had the chance to be a man for the first time in hundreds of years. I'll never forget him being nailed to the wall by my best friend's gun. It had been almost five years, but Bruno died in my dreams at least once a month - more often recently. I sat up trying to throw off the nightmare. after waking up to find myself sweating in the bed. I'd come outside to the screened-in porch at two A.M.

The kids, Jesus and Feather, had taken the only working fan to blow air from the window into Jesus's room. Then I remembered how hot it was in the house. I almost fell off the lawn chair onto the porch. I reached over to get my watch but the night table wasn't there. I awoke with a start in almost complete darkness.

Black Betty by Walter Mosley