OAKLAND

Previous Next TABLE OF CONTENTS

The green road signs came out of the night faster than my half-closed eyes could read them. I didn't know where we were going and I didn't really care. I let Rallio lead the van down the road while consciousness and sleep fought to a draw behind my brows. Rallio stopped once at a pay phone while I dozed. He flipped on the dome light and checked a small paper as we sat at a light. We pulled into a drive, rolled out of the bus and shuffled to the front door.

Rallio rapped lightly on the screen door. I stood next to him facing the house ready for the occupant to inspect his supplicants. A face drew up from behind a curtain and I jumped like I'd been frightened out of my wits.

He was a spook. A big, black as aces, spook. He scared the living shit out of me.

He must have seen the terror in my eyes because he fixed his big yellow and brown eyes on me and laughed, a deep resonating roar that made me feel ashamed of my fear.

"Rallio, you rednecked peckerwood, you." He had Rallio dwarfed by a big warm embrace and it looked like he practically carried him inside.

I drifted in behind them.

"How's your raggedy-ass blackness been?"

"Dark as ever."

"You working?"

"You wanting to marry me or something asking me that shit. See my paycheck and settle in."

Rallio introduced me. "By some perverse Army quirk, Noah and I were the only two from California in our company."

"Yeh, most of them were from Cousinfuck Alabama or somes place the same."

"And so it fell upon me to protect him from all that Southern and Eastern trash."

"You protect me? I seem to remember you hiding behind me like I was wearing your mamma's skirts. You were the one caught the enmity of those New York boys. What was it you kept calling them, New York faggots? No, Times Square fairies. You were lucky there was a war going on or they would have sliced you and diced you." It was a big infectious voice.

"Noah had two great things that endeared him to me, a complete and utter fearlessness of authority and a complete and utter fear of V.C. I kept close by him in the field because of the second and because he was such a big goddamn target he'd take the first hit. And I kept by him in camp because of the first. I remember this one captain around the time of King's death and things were real tense and this guy was going to ease the tension. He was a white Texan and he picked Noah out and he starts lecturing Noah on civil rights and how it was Johnson and other like-minded visionaries that was giving all blacks a chance and that the U.S. Army was an example of the big generous American spirit. Noah looks down and without a trace of irony in his voice he says, 'I'm just thinkin' of how lucky I is. I thank Mass' Johnson for voting rights. I'm free 'cause of him. Free at last to be drafted and sent to Asia. God bless you whities and 'specially Massa Johnson for integratin' this here army just in time for me and my colored friends to be sent here.' And the stupid fuck pats him on the helmet and actually says, 'atta boy.'"

They traded old times and exaggerations with each other and even though I caught only half of what they were throwing out, their good times were so contagious I was cracking up as loud as they. It was early in the morning and eventually weariness sat in the chair I was occupying and I closed my eyes. I felt safe with them. Safe, the way a young boy feels late at night asleep in the backseat of a car driven by his parents.

"Rallio, you ain't talking so I'm asking. How is it you're out early?"

"I don't have any reason to go back. I did my time. I'm through now. I'm not reporting for anything anymore."

"Don't tell me you can't take easy duty after all that shit we went through, all that terrible shit."

"It was bad stuff," Rallio agreed.

"Their voices were choked. I didn't think much about it at first because it's the voice of a dope smoker. Hold your breath and talk, it's a thing we do when we smoke. We don't have to talk with a lungful of smoke but we do because it's part of the social aspects of the activity. But they weren't smoking. There are fears and ghastly things that doors and parents can't contain. I was safe with them but not safe from the horrible things outside. They could hold them back only for a limited amount of time. The safety stemmed from the fact that I knew they would present themselves as that barrier.

"Go back Rallio and finish it. What you got left? A month? Two months?"

"It doesn't matter because I ain't going back. I'm not going back to train some dumb kid because I'd train him alright. The first thing I'd tell him is 'throw down your rifle and take off that silly looking uniform and get the fuck out of here'."

"You wouldn't necessarily have to be an instructor. You could do another job."

"I'm not doing a job here at home so that someone else gets sent over there. I don't report back and someone has to take my place here at home and do the job I was suppose to do which means someone down the line doesn't go overseas. I was scared every day. I learned I could live with that, didn't do me any good but I could live with it. What set my belly churning was that I had given up my choices. I had climbed into a box and I was being rattled around and every so often someone would raise the lid and throw shit on me and I was powerless to stop the rattling or the shit. All I heard was that it was my fault for being too much of a dumbshit not to figure a way to climb out of that rattling box. I'm simmering, Noah, deep down but I'm out of that fucking box."

I slept soundly in their company.

The next morning I was the last to wake. I stretched and spied Rallio looking out the window. I padded over to where he was to see what was holding his attention. "What's going on? Why are they rousting him?"

Noah was on the sidewalk with two bags of groceries in his big arms. A patrol car was parked pointed in the wrong direction and two cops wore a confrontational attitude. One held back towards the rear of the vehicle while the other was trying to get in Noah's face.

"We're in Oakland and those are Oakland cops and according to Noah Oakland cops are holding the line, holding the great black perimeter for the rest of us. And Noah has got to make them pucker just by his presence."

Rallio exhaled, "Oh, shit. He's getting ready to do something stupid. I can see it. Grab your knapsack." He didn't have to command twice. I was sweeping everything I could into my backpack and trying to leave nothing behind that looked like it didn't belong.

"Get the baggie."

"It's not ours."

"Take it. If the cops break in here, they'll find it. Besides they've probably got their own dope to plant, they don't need ours."

Rallio moved to the phone on the wall in the kitchen and I followed then ran back to watch at the window then ran back to Rallio again. Rallio was busy dialing the phone and fumbling with the piece of paper he had consulted for directions on our way to Noah's house, "Operator, there's an officer down on the corner of 5th and 'C' street. ... That's right, 5th and 'C'. I saw a big white guy running down the street. ... That's all I can say. I'm afraid to hang around here and say anything more. I just thought I better tell someone...." He hung up the phone and we both scooted into the next room to peer out the window.

The groceries were scattered on the sidewalk. The fall from Noah's big arms we hadn't seen. Noah was looming above the cops. Their hands were on their holsters. They hadn't drawn on him yet but things were escalating. Evidently the cops heard the call come over their radio. The one towards the rear of the vehicle walked over to the drivers side never taking his eyes off of Noah. He talked to the dispatcher and then both of them got in their car after giving Noah some words to live by. Noah flipped their taillights the bird as they scrambled to the scene of the officer in trouble.

We hustled out of the house. "Let's pick things up before they come back."

"They won't be back today. They know I ain't going nowhere."

After a quick breakfast Rallio and I set out again. Noah followed us to our van. The two of them exchanged quips and then Noah said, "Ralls, you have nothing to be ashamed of. You only did what you had to do, man."

Rallio sat silent.

"And one thing they can't say about either of us." Rallio looked up in askance. "No one can accuse us of being good soldiers."

Rallio cracked up and Noah cracked up so that they could wipe their eyes from laughing. Noah closed the door. "You take care of yourself, Ralls."

"And you Noah, stay high and dry."

And we were down the drive and gone.

We pulled out of Berkeley. At the intersection I asked, "Which way?"

"I've already made my decision."

I paused before I answered, "I'll go as far as I can."

"That's fine by me."

Language is filled with nuance and subtleties, most we choose to ignore for our own sanity. I heard Rallio's words as a declaration and not a question.

Previous Next TABLE OF CONTENTS