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Taylor rolled down his window. “Damn, Wayne,” he said, “roll your window down! You’re as ripe as a dead chicken lying in the sun.”
“You don’t think I’ve overdone it, do you?”
“No, I have no doubt that anyone you run into will believe you’re homeless, especially if they’re standing downwind.”
Fifteen minutes later, Taylor pulled to the curb on South Parkway. “Here’s where you get off.”
Wayne opened the door and stepped out. He closed the door and reached his hand back in through the still-open window. “Got any spare change, mister?”
Taylor laughed. “Get the fuck away from my car before I run over your foot.” Taylor pulled away and shouted out his window. “Good luck!”
Taylor stopped by the South – or 2nd – Precinct, where he gave Sgt. Haggerty a picture of Wayne and asked him to keep an eye on him. Then he drove back to the A.P.S. compound, thinking that they needed to come up with a name for their outfit.
Wayne had watched Taylor’s car until it was out of sight and he was truly alone. He didn’t really have a plan other than checking out the places where the murders had been committed, but he was a long walk away from any of them. He was a long walk away from anywhere, he thought.
Chandler Park was the closest, so he headed in that direction. He had some days of walking to do, and he had to start someplace. After 30 minutes, he spotted a neighborhood store. It was in a small brick building whose peeling paint signaled that it had seen better days. Many of the homes that the store had probably served in the past had been torn down or were now vacant.
Wayne was standing at the entrance counting the loose change from his pocket when he heard someone say, “There better be enough money there for the three of us.”
Wayne turned to face two homeless white men who had come up behind him. “This is all the money I got,” Wayne said, trying to sound uneducated, “and I ain’t ate since yesterday.”
“Nigger, you think I give a shit when you ate last? Give me that money or we’ll stomp the shit out of you!”
Wayne held out his hand with maybe a dollar in change in the palm. “I don’t want no trouble.”
The taller of the two took the money, while the other stepped in close with a knife. “I’ll take that coat and those shoes also.”
Acting instinctively, without thinking, Wayne pulled the knife hand across his body, spinning the man around. He pinned the guy’s head against his shoulder and drew the hand holding the knife to the man’s throat. Forgetting his uneducated persona, he said to the man holding his coins, “Unless you want to see your friend bleed out in front of you, you’ll lay my money on the sidewalk and start running.”
The man with the coins started to open his fist.
“Don’t just drop it!” Wayne warned. “Place it in a nice neat pile.”
The man stooped down and placed the money in front of his friend.
“Now run, you son of a bitch!”
Wayne jerked the knife out of the remaining man’s hand and pushed him away.
The man stood glaring at Wayne. “You haven’t heard the last of us, nigger.”
“I better have, ’cause next time I see you, I’m going to kill both your asses. Now run after your friend or die where you’re standing.”
Wayne was watching the man catch up to his friend when a voice from inside the store door said, “You got some skills. Must be a vet, huh?”
Wayne turned with the knife still in his hand, causing the store owner to take a step back. Wayne closed the knife and put it in his pocket. “Sorry about the knife.” He bent over and picked up his change. “I have a dollar. Can I get something to eat?”
“Give me the money. I’ll get you something, but you can’t come inside.”
Wayne handed him the money and leaned against the outside wall until the man returned.
The plastic bag Wayne was handed contained a can of Coke, a medium-size bag of chips, and two pre-packaged sandwiches. “I can’t pay for all this.”
“You already have, soldier.” The man closed the door and disappeared back inside.
In truth, Wayne hadn’t been in the Army, but he had been through Taylor Manning’s hand-to-hand combat class – two times, in fact. Wayne spotted an empty lot with a big oak tree a block up the street. It looked like a good spot to eat his lunch.
He drank all of the Coke but saved one of the sandwiches and part of the bag of chips. He folded the plastic bag around his remaining food and put it in his coat pocket. It was close to 80 degrees, but the nights were getting cooler, so he would need the coat. But he had no place to put it during the day, so he needed to wear it.
Later that morning, Wayne caught sight of the two white men who had accosted him, but they headed in the opposite direction, and he forgot about them as he turned off College Street onto Walker Avenue and walked the block to Chandler Park. At some time in history, it must have been a beautiful park, but now, like the neighborhood it was situated in, it was careworn and seedy.
Wayne walked out into the tall grass, coming shortly upon a sandy area that looked like it might once have had a couple of sets of swings, but now had nothing.
He lowered himself into a sitting position on the sand and noticed that he couldn’t see the street anymore – the tall grass blocked the view. And he realized that it also blocked the view from the street. It ran through his mind that maybe that was why the killer had picked this spot.
As Wayne sat huddled on the sand in the field of grass, it hit him how much danger he was in. He was no longer free to walk the streets without fear – everybody was his enemy. The white man, the black man, even the cops. It was just as likely he would get shot by some hotshot cop as it was he would be stabbed by a fellow bum. The sooner he found himself a safe spot to call his own, the better off he would be.
He left the park and began to walk, for now not thinking about the killer but about himself and how he was going to survive on the streets of Memphis for maybe weeks.
| Copyright © 2019, 2020 by Ed Rogers |
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