Knucklehead, page 15
Heading out to buy unhealthy food, I slipped on some wet paint in the hallway of my apartment building and plopped down right on my ass. I wasn’t hurt, but my jeans were done. Equal parts anger and amusement left me fairly neutral as I went back inside and changed. Later I called Fred, my landlord, and told him what had happened. He was really apologetic—I mean, who paints the floor?—and offered to pay for my jeans without me even having to ask. As landlords go, Fred was a good guy.
Destiny.
Friday, February 10, 1995
“Today we honor our ancestors!” the poet declared into his megaphone. “Our brave African forefathers. We are the descendants of kings! Fierce warriors and wise scholars. I dedicate tonight’s reading to those brave Nubian warriors who chose to die rather than be enslaved! Thousands . . . millions of Africans jumped from the slavers’s ships, babies in their arms, to die before living one day of bondage on American soil! To those immortal, courageous souls—my ancestors—I say . . .” He rattled off a long sentence in another language. Probably Swahili. Homeboy was fired up. His impeccable dreads danced.
“The first piece I will be reading for you today is—”
I raised my hand. “I have a question.”
The young griot cocked his megaphone to the side so that he could see. “Yes?” I don’t know why he was using a megaphone. We were in a bookstore; he could hear me just fine.
“You said you want to honor your ancestors.”
“Yes! And the first piece I will read will be—”
“The ones who jumped off the slave ships.”
“Yes!” I think he tried to raise his fist in defiance, but he had his megaphone in one hand and his self-published pamphlet in the other, and he couldn’t seem to decide which one he could do without.
“Well . . . you know those aren’t your ancestors, right?”
He stared at me. A real bright bulb, this one.
“Because . . . your ancestors are the people who had the people who had you, right? Your grandparents and their grandparents and so on?”
He didn’t seem so fired up anymore. With his hair in his eyes like that, Shaka Zulu had taken on a decidedly sheepdog-like appearance. It was pissing me off.
“Right. People live, and breed, and become your ancestors. You see that, right? If they didn’t live, if they never made it here, because they were too proud or whatever, and they took their babies with them, well, then they can’t be your ancestors, right? Because they died. They’re nobody’s ancestors. It ended with them. That was their whole point. You see that, don’t you?”
Now both his megaphone and his booklet—which inexplicably had a picture of Che Guevara on the cover—were down at his sides. He looked deflated. I stopped talking.
“Yes. Yes, of course. And I dedicate this reading to those brave Africans who chose freedom over life.” He was working himself up again. “Who shed the devil’s shackles and had the courage of their convictions! And chose death! And dignity!” Back on track now. “This first piece is entitled, ‘Cubicle Plantation.’
“Our crop is paper, but we—”
I raised my hand again, but also just started talking. “So, basically, your actual ancestors—the ones who didn’t jump off the ship, who came here and dealt with the whole Silence of the Lambs thing for the next few centuries—basically, you just called them pussies. Didn’t you.”
People gasped. One corner of the shaman warrior poet’s mouth twitched. He lowered the book and the megaphone again and stared at nothing through glazed eyes. I’m guessing the room had taken on that spinning funhouse/kaleidoscope look. I know it well.
“Yeah,” I continued, “I guess they were Toms or sellouts or something. Because they survived and lived and had kids who had kids who had kids who had you, so that you could stand there and be better than them.”
My eyes felt hot. “But,” I went on, “I mean, they’re not sellouts, are they? Because sellouts get paid, right? That’s the ‘selling’ part. And those people didn’t get paid shit!” I was starting to foam up a little; I stopped to take a breath. “So, not sellouts. What, then. Weak? Were they weak, MC Knowledge?” I didn’t remember his real name, but MC Knowledge was close enough. “Living in the fifties and the forties and the seventeen fucking hundreds.” I couldn’t stop.
“They were weak, huh? They were weak. Not you. Them. Those men and women, you know, they ate a lot of shit. A lot. Of shit.” I leaned forward in my seat and MC Knowledge took a full step back. “What’s the worst thing ever happened to you, man? A canceled hair appointment? These people—your ancestors, your real ancestors, my ancestors—they lived through hell. Hell. For you. So that you could stand there and shake your little fist and diss them. You think that’s what they did it for? You think the thought of this is what kept them going?”
I stood, and everybody cringed. “You wouldn’t have lasted a week. Neither would I. Those people were better than us. You don’t know that?”
I walked fast out of that airless little back room and through the main room of Garvey Books and out onto Fillmore. It had been raining. As mad as I was, I had to smile. I probably didn’t change MC Knowledge’s life or even his mind, but his gig was ruined. Almost certainly, getting back to his mislabeled little book of suburban angst was now officially the most difficult thing he’d ever done.
Outside Garvey Books, I stood in the cool evening and tried to breathe. I’d gone to the reading to try to feel connected, but I couldn’t have felt any less connected if I blew my brains out. I just stood there and breathed and at some point I realized that someone was standing next to me.
The instant I became aware of her, before I’d even had time to turn my head, she started talking. She kept staring straight ahead. So did I.
“I’ve got an uncle that lives in Israel now. He has to take a rifle with him when he goes out to buy toilet paper. He moved his whole family there. From Brooklyn.” It was clear that she was talking to me only because there was no one else around. “They call themselves ‘Israelis’ now. They’re from Brooklyn.
“My grandparents—the three I knew—were so angry. And so sad. And so racist!” She laughed. “So angry. Survivors, all of them. They never talked about it. The people you see, on TV, everywhere, calling everybody they don’t like ‘Hitler,’ they weren’t there. The ones who were there don’t do that. They’re all dead. Even the survivors. Especially the survivors. Dead. They don’t talk about it, and nobody talks about them.”
We were quiet awhile.
“So much shame. And not just survivor guilt. They don’t know why they put up with it. None of us do. Some of those camps, we outnumbered the guards twenty to one. We let them march us around, beat us, starve us. Why? Even if we didn’t have guns. Why didn’t we try? Why didn’t we storm the guards, overwhelm them? Or die trying? We were starving. Everybody—all of my people—we live with this shame. We’re like the woman who sleeps every night with her window open, gets raped, and then goes to Model Mugging and buys a Doberman and a gun and waits for it to happen again. So she can do it differently. But it’s already done. And you’ve got my brothers and everybody talking tough, being tough, getting ready, shooting kids for throwing rocks . . . they’re all ashamed, is all. But it’s just like you said, in there. We all come from them. We come from the ones who survived. We should be proud of them. We don’t have anything to be ashamed of. They should be ashamed.”
Finally I turned and looked at her. It was the tiny hippie from the bus. The one who had terrorized the monster.
“Would you like to—”
“Yes.”
* * *
The hostess seated us at a good table, by the window. I figure they seat people at the window who they think won’t look too disgusting when they eat. Maybe we make a cute couple.
“You’re not from here.” She had long hair, the thick, black, curly stuff. Some white girls get that beautiful curly hair straightened. Sarah didn’t have that problem. I wanted to feel that hair on my face.
She waited. You’re staring. “Oh. No. New York. You?”
“I figured New York, or Philly,” she said. “I’m from here. A local.”
“That’s unusual, isn’t it? A native San Franciscan?” She couldn’t weigh 100 pounds. I’d never been with a tiny woman before.
“I guess. And what brought you way out here?” she asked. I was sure she could read my thoughts, or at least my face.
“A job,” I replied. I had been going for the short answer but that seemed a little curt. “A good job.”
“They don’t have good jobs in New York?”
“You’d think. I tried. But I couldn’t get arrested in Manhattan.”
“Well . . . maybe arrested.” She smiled at me. Oh, shit—dimples. She was definitely being flirty. But she’d flirted with that nazi too, so I had no idea what it meant. “I’m not surprised. They say New York is about five years ahead of San Francisco, right? Sounds about right.” She winked. She had nice lips—not the meager portion most white girls are stuck with. Maybe it was a Jewish thing.
“Something’s coming,” Sarah said. “Something big. Something bad.”
I nodded and stared at her mouth.
“It’s so obvious. Everywhere you look. Militias taking over little towns out west. The feds won’t touch ’em since Waco. And the militias know it. Then you’ve got this Republican takeover. This Contract on America. Everybody’s pretending like they don’t know what that is.”
“Uh huh.” Man, this chick can make anything sexy.
We finally picked up our menus. She leaned closer. “Hey, Marcus, look—I know this is a date and all. But I really want a spinach salad.”
“I want the spinach salad too!” I laughed.
“OK! So we get what we want, and after, I’ll check your teeth and you check mine? Then back to the date?”
“Deal.” Now I was laughing because she had called it a date. Twice.
We gabbed and ate our salads, and then we stopped the date for a minute and checked each other’s teeth. We were fine.
* * *
“Things are getting wild,” she said, chowing down on her turkey burger. “Especially in the States. These last few years . . .”
“I know.” What amazed me was that she knew.
“Guys on cable TV and on the World Wide Web are promising a race war, or some sort of civil war. So what are you gonna do? When a bully wants to fight you, you know what? You’re fighting.
“Nazis are getting busted buying anthrax,” she went on. “Black churches are burning. And the Y2K crash will be here before you know it. A lot of people think that’s when it will go down. Whatever ‘it’ is. I think about that. I think about it a lot. The people who don’t are insane. And I know that’s a lot of people, most people. They’re the majority, but they’re still crazy. They’re like sheep.” She polished off her burger.
What I wanted to say, I couldn’t say.
“Let’s get out of here.”
* * *
We wandered a bit and found ourselves in Japantown. I couldn’t help but think about Amalia and the time she backed me up in Oakland’s Chinatown when we were courting. Didn’t know how I felt about that.
We explored the shops that were still open, walking the wet streets, holding hands (no idea who started that), almost oblivious to the funny vibe a black/white couple gets.
One spot was about three times as large as the others and had an incredible selection of martial arts gear at beyond-reasonable prices. It appeared that we had accidentally found maybe the place to go for MA gear in SF. We examined everything in the well-lit store, up one side and down the other, all the while thoughtfully followed by at least two salespeople who, although they stared unblinkingly into our faces, considerately never spoke to us, even in response to a greeting or question.
Our inspection ended at a floor-to-ceiling knife display by the door. It was a wondrous thing. There were katanas and sais next to mil-spec Ka-Bar knives. There were disguised knives of all kinds—not just the usual pen knives but all manner of working office supply that also contained a sharp blade should you decide to cut someone at work.
And there were the most punching daggers I had ever seen. Illegal in California but here they were, compact and capable, under glass and about 500 watts of light. Punching daggers have a thick rubber handle, almost like a pistol grip. From the center of the handle, at a right angle, juts a thick stainless point about three inches long. You grab the grip and the blade pokes out from between the two middle fingers of your fist.
“I’d like to get you something,” I said.
I bought her one. I did not get one for myself. Lord knows, given how much I love punching, a device that turns a punch into a stab is possibly my favorite thing ever. But maybe that’s just it—I wanted her to have my favorite thing. When the watchful little lady behind the counter handed Sarah the knife, she squealed like it was a ring.
“Let’s go to my place,” she said, smiling slightly. “We can have dessert.” I tried not to look surprised. It wasn’t that I thought I was fixing to get laid. It was beyond that. She said it like I’d been to her place before.
“Sure.”
Sarah lived in Berkeley. Our cars were still over near the bookstore. We would backtrack, then caravan across the bay. We didn’t bother discussing the sleeping arrangements.
“This is me,” she said, back in the Fillmore. We were standing in front of a cherry-red monster truck. I smiled at her sight gag. “Really,” she added.
I laughed. I couldn’t help it. It wasn’t a true monster truck, but it was a massive Dodge Ram pickup with one of those shells enclosing the open back. Sarah may or may not have been five feet tall.
“What?” she laughed. Then she opened the door and climbed inside the truck. Literally climbed, from one foothold to the next. She did this with great authority. Once in, she smiled down at me from the driver’s seat and started to close the door.
“Can I ask you something?”
“Of course.”
“Can you reach the pedals?”
“See for yourself.”
I peered into the cab. Yup, she reached. Just barely, but not dangerously so. Her shoes were already kicked off and lying on the floor. She had cute feet.
She gave me her address. I knew how to get there. Claire, my new (to me) 1989 Pontiac Sunbird, was only half a block away, so Sarah waited until I got there and followed me to the Bay Bridge.
It was Friday night and traffic was dense but moving. Once we crossed the bridge, the partygoers headed to downtown Oakland and the poor bastards who’d just left their law firm jobs headed for the hills. The traffic that remained on 80 East went a little bit over the speed limit in large packs of about 20 cars each, half a mile of open road between them. I don’t know why drivers don’t spread out and give each other more room; it would be safer. But they don’t. They move in herds.
I was mid-pack, going maybe 70, Sarah right behind me. And I thought to myself, You know what would be funny? If I lost her. We would still meet up at her place, and we’d have a good laugh.
I sped up and changed lanes and put a few cars between us. There was a big bend ahead. I took the turn at a sober speed and as soon as I was out of Sarah’s sight I gunned it. After a half-second of hesitation, Claire (the car) leaped and galloped forward, balls out, through our pack of cars and toward the next pack. Good girl.
I glanced in my rearview; Sarah’s giant lumbering red bear of a truck was still a couple cars deep inside the old pack. I slowed us down as I approached the next pack and picked my way through, lane by lane, trying not to cut anybody off.
I glanced in the mirror again. Sarah was right behind me.
OK. I should have figured that would happen. I need to get an insurmountable lead and then maintain it. Once we were at the front edge of the new pack I charged out and tore up the highway for the mile or so to the next pack, quickly picked my way through that one, and ripped through the open space again.
A honk. Sarah was next to me. She smiled and waved.
God dammit! I gunned it.
We went on like that awhile—having a high-speed car chase in traffic for no reason. At one point, while I was hauling ass through a crowd of moving cars, I glanced at my speedometer. I was going a little over 90. And when I peeked back up into my mirror she was still behind me. I never lost her. I could have blown past our exit, but I knew she would follow me.
It reminded me of something. Amalia and I went to a lesbian wedding shortly after we moved to SF. I was the only guy there. During the exchange of vows, the bride—one of them—read from the Book of Ruth:
Entreat me not to leave you
Or to turn back from following you;
For where you go, I will go,
And where you lodge, I will lodge.
Your people shall be my people,
And your God, my God.
Where you die, I will die,
And there will I be buried.
The Lord do so to me, and more also,
If anything but death parts you and me.
At the time, that was what it felt like. It was comforting. This extremely capable woman was with me. She refused to not be with me. It was like our own little 90-mph lesbian wedding.
Her street was empty. I parked right out front; she pulled into the driveway. She opened the door of her little house and four dogs came charging at me and I think it wasn’t so much that I froze with fear as it was that, if I was about to be mauled to death, I wasn’t going to make it worse by going out like a punk. But her dogs loved me. I was already in the pack somehow. I didn’t even like dogs back then.
She played her guitar for me and we talked and snuggled and even watched TV on the couch like an old married couple. We went to bed around 2:00 a.m. We didn’t talk about it. We just went to bed. Fell asleep with her head on my chest.
* * *
I woke up. It was still dark. It must have been the disorientation of a strange bed, and I guess I was still half asleep, but for a moment it was 100 years ago and we were in Missouri. I didn’t think it; it was. I was a farmer. Sarah had been my wife for decades. It was pitch black and dead quiet and there wasn’t another human being for miles. And we were content.
