Thursday, January 22, 1998
Ex-con Socrates ponders life in new Mosley novel
BOOK: Poignant series of vignettes bare insight to truths of
urban living
By Cheryl Klein
Daily Bruin Senior Staff
It’s hard to imagine spending 27 years in prison, then being
released onto the streets of Watts to make a living foraging for
aluminum cans. But Walter Mosley does just that – imagine, that is
– and he shares it with an undoubtedly large readership in his new
novel, "Always Outnumbered, Always Outgunned."
Mosley’s Easy Rawlins, a sometime-landlord and amateur detective
in 1960s Los Angeles, gained him fame in the detective genre while
proving that he could create complex, sympathetic characters.
Socrates Fortlow, the ex-con star of "Always Outnumbered," is a far
cry from the slick, cynical Rawlins but is easily deep enough, if
not downright lovable, to grace the pages of an entire series of
his own.
The novel is, in many ways, a series of vignettes. Some chapters
have, in fact, been printed in various magazines, and one made the
prestigious "Best Short Stories of 1997" runner-up list. Though
it’s awkward to see characters reintroduced in every chapter, the
format works overall. On their own, the stories are insightful and
vivid, coloring the urban landscape with rough hues and painful
truths while presenting a uniquely layered protagonist.
Mosley clearly doesn’t need the crutch that is the mystery-novel
story board. Yet in spite of the book’s episodic nature, a thematic
thorough line as strong as Socrates’ "rock-crushing hands" emerges.
Socrates squats in an abandoned building and does his best to
control the temper that landed him a murder rap decades before. He
is the type of person most people overlook; he blends into brick
walls and trods stoically for blocks to salvage items that others
have thrown out.
Few people think about the messy aftermath of re-entering
society. But Mosley does. And no one is going to get away from it
without being touched. Socrates’ personality and background give
him a world view like no other.
In the midst of a burned-out ghetto, Socrates finds insights
worthy of his namesake while reveling in the simplest pleasures:
sinking his toes into the Malibu sands after hours on the bus,
admiring the smooth curves of a woman he is too achingly shy to
approach. Mosley’s description of the bookstore that provided
Socrates’ first post-prison haven, only to become a charcoal
skeleton in the 1992 riots, is heartbreaking.
Socrates befriends the owners who, unable to have children,
nurture the small store for decades. Its regulars gather to read up
and good-naturedly bag on each other’s ideas. Socrates marvels at
their honest passion in his observation.
"No prison-yard lawyers or bullshitters. These people studied
the history of black folk because they loved to learn."
There is no bull in Mosley’s style. It is simultaneously simple
and rich, making for a quick but satisfying read. The meals that
Socrates whips up with no more than a hot plate and an old dead
rooster are downright mouthwatering, but then, he is a character
well-versed in making something out of nothing. Though nearly every
social institution betrays him in one way or another, he doesn’t
let past racism and abuse prevent him from befriending a young,
white veterinarian who loves him because he loves a stray dog.
They are all strays in their own way, Mosley seems to say,
grasping for decency in a world that follows through just often
enough to keep the carrot dangling.
Socrates’ age (50-something) and jail term make him both jaded
and mature. He is the voice of reason when his neighbors want to
throttle a local drug dealer. He’s seen and participated in so much
violence that he’s not afraid to look it square in the eye and then
turn the other cheek.
Socrates’ constant struggle against his own rages pepper the
book and frequently get him in trouble. As the reader agonizes at
the injustice he faces and his occasionally poor decisions, his
mini-triumphs become stronger. Despite the defeatist title,
Socrates retains dignity – if not in the eyes of his peers, at
least in the hearts of readers. In controlling what few things he
can (his persistent job hunt finally snags him a job as the oldest
box boy in a Santa Monica grocery store), there is no doubt that he
is ultimately an independent soul.
The ending is surprising and somewhat ambiguous. After spending
the evening with a friend dying of cancer – watching as he vomits
in the vinyl booth of a seedy bar – Socrates debates over whether
to help him end his life. The corollary to this is that Socrates
also has the power to end his own life. It is not so much the final
decision that sheds light on the ex-con’s life as much as the fact
that it will be his. And that is the ultimate freedom.