For the next three years, Lewis made quite a few trips back and forth to that same gray building, and then spent eighteen months in a much bigger place. But he wasn’t a good criminal, because, number one, he always got caught; and, number two, he only stole shit nobody needed: rusty lawnmowers, shovels and rakes, dead batteries, bald tires, saddles, and so on and so forth. Every time he got caught, all I did was try to figure out how could somebody with an IQ of 146 be so stupid? His teachers said he was a genius. Especially when it came to math. His brain was like a calculator. But what good did it do? I’m still waiting for the day to come when all them numbers add up to something.

Something musta happened to him behind them bars, ’cause ever since then—and we talking twelve, thirteen years ago—Lewis ain’t been right. In the head. He can’t finish nothing he start. Sometime he don’t even start. Fortunately, he ain’t been back to jail except for a couple of DUIs, and he did have sense enough to stop fooling around with that dope after so many of his friends OD’d. Now all he do is smoke reefa, sit in that dreary one-bedroom apartment drinking a million ounces of Old English, and play chess with the Mexicans. When ain’t nobody there but him (which ain’t often ’cause he can’t stand being by hisself more than a few hours), he do crossword puzzles. Hard ones. And he good at it. These he do finish. And from what I gather, he done let hundreds of women walk through his revolving door for a day or two but then all he do is complain about Donnetta, his ex-wife, who he ain’t been married to now going on six years, so most of ’em don’t come back.

And don’t let him get a buzz going. Every other word outta his mouth is Donnetta. He talk about her like they just got divorced yesterday. “She wanted a perfect man,” he claimed, or, “I almost killed myself trying to please that woman.” But even though Donnetta was a little slow, she was nice, decent. After I’d left Cecil for the third time, I stayed with ’em for close to a month. By the second week, I was almost ready for the loony bin. First off, Donnetta couldn’t cook nothing worth eating; she wasn’t exactly Oprah when it came to having a two-way conversation; cleaning house was at the bottom of her things-to-do list; and that boy needed his ass beat at least twice a day but she only believed in that white folks’ “time-out” mess. She didn’t have as much sense as a Christmas turkey, and how you supposed to lead a child down a path when you lost your damnself? I understood completely when that chile turned to God, got saved, and finally stopped giving Lewis dessert at night. A few months ago she sent me a pink postcard from some motel in San Diego saying she got married, is seven months pregnant and they already know it’s a girl, and her new husband’s name is Todd and he wants to adopt Jamil, and what do I think about all this? And then: P.S. Not that it should matter, but Todd is white. First of all, who she marry is her business, even though Lewis’ll probably have a stroke when he find out. But one thing I do know: kids love whoever take care of ’em.