Fortunate Son: A Novel by Walter Mosley

Author:Walter Mosley [MOSLEY, WALTER]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Literary
ISBN: 9780759515482
Google: wlR8zkIA9koC
Amazon: B000GCFC96
Publisher: Hachette Digital, Inc.
Published: 2006-04-10T00:00:00+00:00

THREE DAYS LATER, Thomas was driven to the Rickerts’ house by the social worker. Thomas’s limp had become permanent by then, but he didn’t mind. He was much more worried about the family he had come to live with.

Robert Rickert was thin as a rail and the color of a green olive that’s turning brown. Melba, his wife, was deep brown and as broad as the doorway. The husband was silent and sour, but his wife was mean.

Thomas’s foster brothers had names, but he never learned them. They were all about the same age, and the first night they told him about the gang they were in at school.

“Nobody messes with us,” the biggest boy with the silver tooth said. “’Cause they know that it’s all’a us then.”

“You wit’ us?” the smaller, darker boy asked. “’Cause if you ain’t, we gonna mess you up bad.”

The first night at the Rickert house, Thomas was sent to bed without dessert because he didn’t answer half of the questions Melba asked. He didn’t want the sherbet anyway, but he knew that she wanted to hurt his feelings by depriving him.

The George Washington Carver School classroom for slow third-graders was loud, and the teacher (whose name Thomas also forgot) didn’t teach very much. Thomas got into two fights the first day. Instead of going home he wandered away; then, after asking directions, he headed toward Central. When he got to his old block, he climbed under the fence and into his blessed valley.

Skully was gone. Thomas hoped that the puppy had found a home with children that loved him.

No Man was still there. He had taken a mate to live with, another green parrot, and together they built a nest in the top branches of the oak tree.

After two days, Thomas went to the alley where Pedro had sold drugs. The older boy had told him that little kids like Thomas could make good money delivering for the drug dealers there.

“Li’l kids can’t get into trouble if they get busted by the cops,” Pedro had told him. “So they pay you good money just to walk down the street.”

In the alley Thomas met a boy named Chilly. Chilly was even smaller than Thomas, and he had an oval-shaped head and freckles on his nose. He wore a gray hat with a brim and green sunglasses. Chilly told him about the main man—Tremont. Tremont was a tall man with wide shoulders, big muscles, and a scar that started at the left side of his forehead and went in an arc down the center of his face all the way to the chin.

“You wanna run fo’ me, li’l man?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Where’s your mama?”

“Dead.”

“Where’s yo’ daddy?”

“In jail.”

“Where you livin’?”

“With my friend Bruno sometime, an’ with May,” he lied.

Tremont squatted down so that he could look Thomas in the eye.

“How old are you, li’l man?”

“Nine and a half.”

“Who told you about this place?”

“Pedro. He used to work here.”

“If I give you work an’ you tell I will kill you. Do you understand that?”

“I won’t tell.

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