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spoiled, and pampered her. She was his princess, his world.
    Hold on, I thought. Wait a minute. Don't get hung up on the avuncular sentiments he wanted us to see him lavishing on her. What if he had some covert grievance? The ruthless bastard didn't hesitate to rub out his foes from as far back as the rich socialite I'd killed in New Yvor City for him on my debut hit.
    Now he'd picked me for his patsy after he riddled Gwen's brains with two bullets. That part of his scheme fit. Who else did he keep around to throw to the wolves? Say law enforcement got in an anonymous tip, Homicide investigated it, and I moved to top their suspects list. That put me in peril. Pent up fury flamed through me, burning on a half-dozen levels.
    For one thing, my "career" only defined a minor part of me. I strove hard to craft Tommy Mack Zane into a well-rounded gentleman who was more complex and sophisticated than just some jackal's button man. I devoured books (I owned dog-eared copies of Iceberg Slim, Donald Goines, and Henry Dumas gunned down at 33 by a white NYC cop mistaking him for a criminal). The hard bop jazz played from the grooves on vinyl LPs pleasured my ears. I sat in the theater's front row seats watching plays (the last stage production I attended was an all-black cast in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof ). I read and wrote modern poetry, or I used to enjoy doing it.
    Why had my poetry composition gone on hiatus? Apathy, I guessed. So much of my joy depended on tapping into the romantic vein rooted deep in my lyrical nature, and poetry provided my best taproot. Matter of fact, this felt like the right juncture to resurrect some poetry. The sun visor flipped down where I unclipped a sheaf of hotel stationery. My eyes darted between looking out the windshield at the street and at the page—the pencil erasures had worn the threadbare spots—brandished in my hand.
     
               Another Song for Clarissa
     
    Come, Clarissa, come down,
    sister to the funky dragonfly,
    your yoni pot brewing a vex,
    a hoodoo in hot, hot Selma .
    Snakebitten hips, pepper lips;
    the Real Thing from Motown.
    I kiss you sweeping the dusty
    yard, dangling out poppy red
    shirts to flap in the gaudy sun,
    bid the weathervane's squeak:
    he's-tha-one-yesh-he's-tha-one.
     
    I let out a wistful sigh before I finished reading the verse.
     
    A mockingbird atop the mimosa
    trills: "Don't ever forget why
    you turn his heart valentine red."
    Inhale the corn tassel's pollen
    urging a plain-speak between us.
    Call me the grandson of a gandy
    dancer, the steel rhythms surging
    to my fingers greasy on a gold
    car horn by the gate of a chicken
    packing plant to woo-woo you.
    Catch me, Clarissa, fetch my
    song from a Zulu blue Pontiac
    blown glorious as Mr. Coltrane:
    I dig U-I dig U-I dig U-I so do-o-o.
     
    Ah yes, Clarissa. Oh yes, what memories. You sweet baby of mine. We'd mapped out a future, one made all roses and mimosas by your mere presence in it. She blew up on a languid summer breeze from down South, and love graced me at first sight. I knew I'd found my soulmate for life. This shy boy steeled his nerves and introduced himself to her.
    She smiled, coy and coquettish. I was hers, she was mine, and that was that. Some August afternoons all we did was cuddle under the shade of the ancient chinaberry tree. We entered each other's souls through our rapt eyes. The only hang up with my Clarissa was she existed only within the realm of my fertile imagination.
    All red-blooded boys cultivate them, and Clarissa was my "it" girl, my dream girl. I'd written this poem to give voice to my romantic ideal of her. I relished how the lyrics rolled off my tongue— “to woo-woo you” —as I reread them. Someday in the near future I vowed to find my actual Clarissa. Or else I'd settle for as close as I could get to her. My poems returned to their rightful place on the coupé's sun visor.
    Sometimes, like now for instance, my dangerous job felt as if I was playing hacky sack with