Always Outnumbered, Always Outgunned (Socrates Fortlow Series #1)

by Walter Mosley

Overview

New York Times bestselling author Walter Mosley introduces an "astonishing character" (Los Angeles Times Book Review) in this acclaimed collection of entwined tales. Meet Socrates Fortlow, a tough ex-con seeking truth and redemption in South Central Los Angeles -- and finding the miracle of survival.

"I either committed a crime or had a crime done to me every day I was in jail. Once you go to prison you belong there." Socrates Fortlow has done his time: twenty-seven years for murder and rape, acts forged by his huge, rock-breaking hands. Now, he has come home to a new kind of prison: two battered rooms in an abandoned building in Watts. Working for the Bounty supermarket, and moving perilously close to invisibility, it is Socrates who throws a lifeline to a drowning man: young Darryl, whose shaky path is already bloodstained and fearsome. In a place of violence and hopelessness, Socrates offers up his own battle-scarred wisdom that can turn the world around.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781451612462
Publisher:	Washington Square Press
Publication date:	06/22/2010
Series:	Socrates Fortlow Series , #1
Sold by:	SIMON & SCHUSTER
Format:	eBook
Pages:	208
Sales rank:	118,934
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Walter Mosley is the author of five Easy Rawlins mysteries: Devil in A Blue Dress, A Red Death, White Butterfly, Black Betty and A Little Yellow Dog; three non-mystery novels, Blue Light, Gone Fishin', and R. L.'s Dream; two collections of stories featuring Socrates Fortlow, Always Outnumbered, Always Outgunned, for which he received the Anisfield Wolf Award, and which was an HBO movie, and a nonfiction book, Workin' On The Chain Gang. He is a former president of the Mystery Writers of America, a founder of the PEN American Center Open Book Committee, and is on the board of directors of the National Book Awards. A native of Los Angeles, he now lives in New York City.

Hometown:

New York, New York

Date of Birth:

January 12, 1952

Place of Birth:

Los Angeles, California

Education:

B.A., Johnson State College

Website:

http://www.waltermosley.com

Read an Excerpt

Crimson Shadow: Section One

"What you doin' there, boy?"

It was six a.m. Socrates Fortlow had come out to the alley, to see what was wrong with Billy. He hadn't heard him crow that morning and was worried about his old friend.

The sun was just coming up. The alley was almost pretty with the trash and broken asphalt covered in half-light. Discarded wine bottles shone like murky emeralds in the sludge. In the dawn shadows Socrates didn't even notice the boy until he moved. He was standing in front of a small cardboard box, across the alley -- next to Billy's wire fence.

"What bidness is it to you, old man?" the boy answered. He couldn't have been more than twelve but he had that hard convict stare.

Socrates knew convicts, knew them inside and out.

"I asked you a question, boy. Ain't yo' momma told you t'be civil?"

"Shit!" The boy turned away, ready to leave. He wore baggy jeans with a blooming blue T-shirt over his bony arms and chest. His hair was cut close to the scalp.

The boy bent down to pick up the box.

"What they call you?" Socrates asked the skinny butt stuck up in the air.

"What's it to you?"

Socrates pushed open the wooden fence and leapt. If the boy hadn't had his back turned he would have been able to dodge the stiff lunge. As it was he heard something and moved quickly to the side.

Quickly. But not quickly enough.

Socrates grabbed the skinny arms with his big hands -- the rock breakers, as Joe Benz used to call them.

"Ow! Shit!"

Socrates shook the boy until the serrated steak knife, which had appeared from nowhere, fell from his hand.

The old brown rooster was dead in the box. His head slashed so badly that half of the beak was gone.

"Let me loose, man." The boy kicked, but Socrates held him at arm's length.

"Don't make me hurt you, boy," he warned. He let go of one arm and said, "Pick up that box. Pick it up!" When the boy obeyed, Socrates pulled him by the arm -- dragged him through the gate, past the tomato plants and string bean vines, into the two rooms where he'd stayed since they'd let him out of prison.

The kitchen was only big enough for a man and a half. The floor was pitted linoleum; maroon where it had kept its color, gray where it had worn through. There was a card table for dining and a fold-up plastic chair for a seat. There was a sink with a hot plate on the drainboard and shelves that were once cabinets -- before the doors were torn off.

The light fixture above the sink had a sixty-watt bulb burning in it. The room smelled of coffee. A newspaper was spread across the table.

Socrates shoved the boy into the chair, not gently.

"Sit'own!"

There was a mass of webbing next to the weak lightbulb. A red spider picked its way slowly through the strands.

"What's your name, boy?" Socrates asked again.

"Darryl."

There was a photograph of a painting tacked underneath the light. It was the image of a black woman in the doorway of a house. She wore a red dress and a red hat to protect her eyes from the sun. She had her arms crossed under her breasts and looked angry. Darryl stared at the painting while the spider danced above.

"Why you kill my friend, asshole?"

"What?" Darryl asked. There was fear in his voice.

"You heard me."

"I-I-I din't kill nobody." Darryl gulped and opened his eyes wider than seemed possible. "Who told you that?"

When Socrates didn't say anything, Darryl jumped up to run, but the man socked him in the chest, knocking the wind out of him, pushing him back down in the chair.

Socrates squatted down and scooped the rooster up out of the box. He held the limp old bird up in front of Darryl's face.

"Why you kill Billy, boy?"

"That's a bird." Darryl pointed. There was relief mixed with panic in his eyes.

"That's my friend."

"You crazy, old man. That's a bird. Bird cain't be nobody's friend." Darryl's words were still wild. Socrates knew the guilty look on his face.

He wondered at the boy and at the rooster that had gotten him out of his bed every day for the past eight years. A rage went through him and he crushed the rooster's neck in his fist.

"You crazy," Darryl said.

A large truck made its way down the alley just then. The heavy vibrations went through the small kitchen, making plates and tinware rattle loudly.

Socrates shoved the corpse into the boy's lap. "Get ovah there to the sink an' pluck it."

"Shit!"

"You don't have to do it..."

"You better believe I ain't gonna..."

"...but I will kick holy shit outta you if you don't."

"Pluck what? What you mean, pluck it?"

"I mean go ovah t'that sink an' pull out the feathers. What you kill it for if you ain't gonna pluck it?"

"I'as gonna sell it."

"Sell it?"

"Yeah," Darryl said. "Sell it to some old lady wanna make some chicken."

Copyright © 1998 by Walter Mosley

Table of Contents

Interviews

Before the live bn.com chat, Walter Mosley agreed to answer some of our questions:

Q: What writing method do you use?

A: Just start writing.

Q: Which of your books did you enjoy writing the most, and why?

A: Wow! Well, the answer is this: I just finished a novel -- a very difficult novel -- two months ago, and it is in the genre of my first love in fiction, science fiction writing. This book freed up my use of language and my imagination so much that it made me very happy and at the same time a little scared.

Q: Have you ever thought about a female sleuth?

A: I think about them all the time. But I think that the mysteries of contemporary women are as a rule best handled by contemporary female writers.

Q: What contemporary mystery writers of either gender do you enjoy reading, and why?

A: I don't read a lot of mystery nowadays because mysteries are mainly plot, and when I get caught up in writing my own plot, I find myself easily confused by other people's plots. That being said, a contemporary writer, recently deceased -- Charles Willeford -- is a wonderful, hard-boiled writer. I'll also say that Valerie Wilson Wesley is a wonderful writer, too.

Q: I know you are pretty outspoken about racism in the publishing industry. What do you think can be done to alleviate that?

A: It's going to take a lot of work. One of the things that I've done is given the seed money and some legwork to start a publishing institute at the City College of New York in Harlem. I think that we all need to do whatever we can to make sure that our cultural backbone -- the publishing industry -- represents the full spectrum of our cultural experience.

Q: Why do you think there is such a lack of black male mainstream writers of your generation?

A: That's a very difficult question. There are quite a few black male writers, but I agree there could be more. Part of the problem comes from the publishing industry, which has historically had some problem believing in black male novelists as a viable commodity. But also it has been the job of black writers throughout the '20s, '30s, '40s, and even the '50s to use the novel as a political tool to defend and explain the race. Today the entertainment value of novels is very much a new phenomenon in the black male writing community.

Editorial Reviews

Mosley introduces an unlikely hero in Socrates Fortlow, a rough-hewn yet thoughtful ex-con who, like his Greek namesake, is prone to asking big moral questions. Having spent 27 years in an Indiana prison and now living in Watts (in Los Angeles), Socrates is trying to redeem a misspent life while avoiding his own worst tendencies. He risks his safety to help a young boy struggling with his own conscience and tries to show mercy to an old friend dying of cancer. When he attempts to help a dog run over by a callous motorist, Socrates gives in to his anger and suddenly finds himself on the verge of returning to jail. While the novel can be a bit contrived or didactic in places, readers will find Socrates an intriguing enough character to overlook these flaws. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 7/97.]Lawrence Rungren, Merrimack Valley Lib. Consortium, Andover, Mass.

Library Journal

Mournful, insightful, and mystical. . .Mosley's best work of fiction.

Elle