"We goan make the shit happen right here right now" - Lyrics Born, Callin' Out Remix (featuring E-40 and Casual)
Six Easy Pieces by Walter Mosley (Washington Square Press).
Walter's Mosley's Fiction:
She made a pot of tea from her leaves and twigs. She served mine in a wooden mug.
The table was clear except for a worn black velvet bag.
"That's my chicken bones," she said. "That's how I divine the future."
From the first sip I was a little light-headed.
"Really?" I said.
"Uh huh. You want me to read your future?"
"No thanks." I took a second sip and settled back into the chair [...]
"I know what you mean, honey," Jo said. "Men like you is better off not knowin'. Otherwise you might second-guess waht you doin' and get all worried when they ain't nuthin you could do."
My Life (Non-fiction):
We took it as fate. After drinks and laughs and two different kinds of tuna at dinner, after we had ditched our original plan for the rest of the evening and found ourselves driving around Hollywood searching for trouble or adventure and hopefully both, it had to be divine planning for this parking space to be open right next to the Psychic Palm Reader on this busy part of Santa Monica Boulevard.
We were wrong.
The neon signs read open but the MVP rang the doorbell several times with no response. L-Boogie lit another cigarette as I peered through the windows. To me, it looked like the fortune teller was with a client in the back room and they were finishing up so we waited.
The MVP rang the doorbell again. No response. We discussed scrabble and impotence and just wanting to be loved.
A family came through the entranceway we stood in carrying party supplies. The psychic opened her door and they quickly rushed in.
"Are we crashing their party?" I said.
"I hope they have diet," L-Boogie said.
"I only saw sprite and strawberry Welch's."
The door remained ajar so we decided to make our way inside. Not two steps into the door, a man's voice bellowed through the foyer, "We're closed. Sorry!"
For men like me, the future remains untold.
I read Walter Mosley because his words feel like home. I don't carry a gun. My seedy apartment isn't a haven for children who ain't got nobody else. My life isn't built around secrets and favors. Still, I see Easy Rawlins in me. I see Socrates Fortlow in me. I see Paris Minton in me. Even though Easy lives in a Los Angeles I don't live in, it is familiar. 40 years have passed since the fictional Easy was the man you went to with a problem in Black LA but those characters, those mannerisms, that language, that standard of manhood is imprinted on this city and on its' black folk like genetic code.
Six Easy Pieces is really seven short stories that deal with the year after the death of Raymond Alexander. Mouse. The most dangerous man you could ever meet and Easy's best friend. Easy's guilt, his heart, and his desire to see things set right guide his quest for answers. Where ever he goes there is trouble or adventure and probably both. He might try to convince himself otherwise but he likes it that way.
I like it that way, too.