Read Online Driving the King by Ravi Howard - Free Book Online Page B

ass,” he said, low enough for me to hear. “This here is usury. The Lord only takes ten percent.”
    He smiled then, and passed a lit cigarette through the wire.
    â€œYou didn’t ask how much money you’ll be making, Weary.”
    â€œSeems I didn’t.”
    â€œThree hundred dollars a week. Once the TV money comes in probably more. It won’t give years back to you,but it’s something. Put some miles between you and Alabama. See a little piece of the world.”
    The tobacco was sweet and strong. I was used to smoking what came from the prison farm at Limestone. No sooner than that good tobacco went through me, I could feel the possibilities. An old part of my mind had opened once again. Skip spoke of life in Los Angeles. While he talked my mind went there. I saw myself on unknown streets, better than that yard dust I walked across every day.
    The guard had lit his cigarette, and no sooner than he’d filled his lungs, he emptied them, coughing behind us. I was facing him, and knew better than to look his way. Skip smiled.
    â€œCuban squares. Stronger than most. Smoke got the drop on him.”
    I didn’t nod or smile. I just let it be one of those agreed-upon things without a word or gesture. Shaming a guard came at a cost, and my time was too short for such.
    â€œJust so you know, Weary. This wasn’t automatic. I told Nat I’d take a look. Told him maybe Kilby got the best of you. But I can see that ain’t the case.”
    Truth be told, I had damn near lost my mind more than once. It was so easy for my mind to find better places, but coming back to this world was harder each time.
    â€œI don’t know a thing about Los Angeles.”
    â€œYou didn’t know anything about killing Nazis, and that worked out all right.”
    He had offered a job with the most famous Negro in America. Jackie Robinson had retired, and every team had at least one of us. The television networks had none. Being famous had a cost for Nat Cole. A bullet through a window. The IRS trying to take his house. All manner of things in the mailbox. Skip had begun to walk the Coles’ property at night, and he needed a day man to take on the driving.
    He talked with his hands and needed more room than he had. He drove home each point with his finger into the plywood tabletop. Though his voice barely moved above a whisper, his hands made up for it. Every so often, he made fists. Always the left hand first and then the right.
    â€œI imagine the world’s going to be strange to you anyhow. Might as well let it be strange somewhere new. You got a friend in Los Angeles looking out for you. And in a few months you’ll be looking out for him in return. Think it over.”
    â€œNo,” I told him. “I did all my thinking just now. Tell him I said thank you and yes.”
    That was the first time I had said such—thank you and yes—and meant it in all those years. I said as much to the guards all the time. Yes, sir. Thank you, sir. But it was nodifferent than the knife I kept hidden sideways beneath my belt. A tool to keep living, even if life in there wasn’t about much.
    â€œJust got one more question. Like I said, everybody heard about the fellow who whipped the man who tried to whip Nat Cole. But, you know people tell a good story and sometimes they add their own gravy. So you never know how it happened. What kind of horn did you beat that man with? Some said a trumpet, and some say a trombone.”
    â€œI used a microphone.”
    â€œI asked Nat, and he wouldn’t say. Said you never correct somebody’s legend.”
    Skip rose to leave. He was a good six inches taller than me. Splinters of plywood had caught in his gabardine, and he brushed them to the floor with the ash and dust.
    â€œWhat’s Nat riding in?” I asked.
    â€œCadillac limousine. Until they come up with something better.”
    As Skip fell in with the line of leaving