Mucho Mojo Read Free Page A

LaBorde called the black section of town by some, nigger town by others, and the East Side by all the rest.
    It was a run-down section that ten years ago had been in pretty good shape because it was on the edge of the white community before the white community moved farther west and the streets were abandoned here in favor of putting maintenance where the real money and power were, amongst the fat-cat honkies.
    We drove down Comanche Street and bounced in some potholes deep enough a parachute would have been appropriate, and Leonard pulled up in a driveway spotted with pea gravel and several days’ worth of newspapers.
    The house in front of the drive was one story, but large and formerly fine, gone to seed with peeling paint and a roof that had been cheaply repaired with tin and tar. The tin patches caught the sunlight and played hot beams over it and reflected them back against the crumbly bricks of a chimney and the limbs of a great oak that hung over one side of the roof and scratched it and gave the yard below an umbrella of dark shade. There was more tin around the bottom of the house, concealing a crawlspace.
    A ten-foot, wisteria-covered post was driven in the ground on the other side of the house, and sticking out from the post were long nails, and the mouths of beer and soft drink bottles engulfed the nails, and many of the bottles looked to have been shot apart or banged apart by rocks and clubs. Glass was heaped at the bottom of the pole like discarded costume jewelry.
    I’d seen a rig like that years ago in the yard of an old black carpenter. I didn’t know what it was then, and I didn’t know what it was now. All I could think to call it was a bottle tree.
    Front of the long porch some hedges grew wild and ungroomed, like old-fashioned, Afro-style haircuts, and between the hedges some slanting stone steps met the graying boards of the porch, and standing on the boards were two black men and a young black boy.
    Before we got out of the car, I said, “Relatives of yours?”
    “Not that I recognize,” Leonard said.
    We got out and walked up to the porch. The boy looked at us, but the men hardly noticed. The kid popped a thin rubber hose off his arm and tossed it aside, started rubbing his arm. The boy appeared confused but pleasant, as if awakening from a long, relaxed sleep.
    One of the black men, a tall, muscular guy in T-shirt and slacks with a wedge of hair cut like a thin Mohawk and a hypodermic needle in his hand, said to the boy, “More candy where that come from, you got the price.”
    The boy went down the steps, between me and Leonard and out into the street. Mohawk dropped the needle onto the porch. There were a couple other needles there, along with the rubber hose.
    The other black guy was wearing a light blue shower cap an orange T-shirt and jeans, and was about the size of a Rose Parade float. He looked down from the porch at us like it tired him out. He said to Leonard, “Shit, if you ain’t the fucking bird of paradise.”
    “And propped on a stick,” said Mohawk. “Who dresses you, brother? And you, white boy. You preachin’ somewhere?”
    “I’m selling insurance,” I said. “You want some? Got a feeling you might need a little, come a few minutes.”
    Mohawk smiled at me like I was one funny guy.
    “What are you doing here?” Leonard asked.
    “We’re standing on the motherfucking porch,” Parade Float said. “Whatchoo doin’ here?”
    “I own the place.”
    “Ah,” said Mohawk. “You must be that nutty Uncle Tom’s boy?”
    “I’m Chester Pine’s nephew, that’s what you mean.”
    “Well, hey, we was just doing a little business,” said Mohawk. “Don’t let your balls swell up.”
    “This ain’t your office,” Leonard said.
    Mohawk smiled. “You know, you’re right, but we was thinking of making it kind of an extension.” He came out to the edge of the porch and pointed next door. “We live over there. That’s our main office, Captain Sunshine.”
    I