There’s not a man today
Who could take me away from my guy
(whatchu say?)
—Mary Wells
To make a long story short, that’s why Brother Akagi’s bonafide.
“How come nobody knows that story?”
“We keep our network confidential.”
“That’s not it. It’s because the yellow brother’s invisible.”
Panther shrugs. Could be good. Kung fu invisible. Could be bad. Fuk fu invisible. “Days I wish I was invisible.”
Goes into his suitcase, pulls out his tape recorder. Pries open the battery door and pulls out an alternative battery. He’s been saving this, but now’s the time for some relaxation. This shit’s cultivated by farmers with turbans on rocky mountainsides and transported along a Mediterranean trade route, the old spice road, know what I mean? Exile in Algiers has to come with appropriate medication.
Panther continues the storytelling. “If I recall, you never read Mao before the Panthers turned you on.”
RG grins. “We were just street gangsters. Yellow kids with no math genes.”
“How did you hook up with the Panthers anyway?”
Now that’s another story.
Black-yellow connections go back. Deeper than Mao. Some Asians got a little red book; others got Little Red Riding Hood. Now she’s been serving the people for some time.
“Hmmm.” Panther takes a Swiss knife and commences to extract some shavings.
How many Chinatown girlfriends got themselves Panther dates? Whole group of them: Leway Girls. Legitimate Way. Girls cross the bridge to Oakland, and the brothers reciprocate and go Leway. Hang out on Jackson under the shadow of the I-Hotel at their Chinatown pool hall, swapping looks over the soda fountain of long life and trying to beat the odds at pinball. It’s about broadening horizons, taking the Third World to heart. International understanding while they get some sweet satisfaction from those black boys in their black turtlenecks and black jackets. Got to push the fingers through those spongy naturals. Pull away the heavy leather with those Free Huey fist buttons and set aside the weapons. Sweet satisfaction from those radical sisters who set you straight about the Suzie Wong stereotype. Oh yeah, set you real straight. Are you ready to mess with such sweetness? Gingerly. Don’t you know? You dancing slow to “My Guy,” but turns out she’s packing.
Takes you to a basement trapdoor in the linoleum floor, leads to the Chinatown underground. You thought it was a myth, but Leway’s taken the myth down to a new level. Cold shock of turned earth and rat piss and something acrid, like it’s smoldering. It’s deep enough you can stand upright. She pulls the string on a measly lightbulb. You in a long tunnel grave that stretches into a shooting range. You see the shovels discarded on one end. Beer bottles and cigarette butts, discarded bits of joints, moldy cartons emptied of their chop suey contents, chopsticks and shit. Who’d come down here to eat? Then you see the arsenal that’s lined up against the wall. Pistols and rifles of every carbine and caliber. Bolt-action, high-power, semiautomatic, automatic, ultra-automatic, rapid-fire, military.
She picks up a shotgun, cocks the goddamn thing, points down the long corridor, and bam! You look down to the dim end and see Emory’s cartoon rendition of a pig blown up to full size, now full of holes. Pick up your own choice of weapon and swap shots with woman warrior. Bam! Bam! Bam! Bam! Upstairs the pinballs and pool balls clacking, but floor’s so thick, nobody can hear your action below. You raise some smoke and as it settles, she pushes you up to the wall, hikes up her skirt, and you jimmy into her. She rides. Oh, oh. Bam! Bam! You say, baby one more time, and she says, no no, got to pick my kid up from the sitter’s. Your hand passes her breasts, and you lick sweet fingers that come away wet. Mama’s milk. Gun-toting mama with a babe at her breast.
Woman warrior comes to West Oakland and takes up residence some evenings on Shattuck and Alcatraz with the Panther collective. Nights she’s there, she’s got to do security—night watch—like everyone else. Put her on the schedule from midnight to four a.m., when nothing’s happening. You catch some winks and leave her at the door toting her rifle and doing the rounds every half hour. You sleep pretty because you know this sister’s reliable.
Then, it’s the day before Thanksgiving in 1968. Pine Street house is a holdout. Entire San Francisco Police Department plus California Highway Patrol stationed outside. Word is, the minister of information is holed up inside. He’s not returning to San Quentin. It’s not an option. Woman warrior’s next to the sisters in the second tier of defense. It’s a twenty-four-hour vigil. Guns pointed out at the guns pointed in.
Is America going to have a Class War or a Race War? The fascists have already declared war upon the people. Will the people as a whole rise up to meet this challenge with a righteous People’s War against those fascist pigs, or will Black people have to go it alone, thus transforming a dream of interracial solidarity into the nightmare of a Race War?
—Eldridge Cleaver
International Section, B.P.P.
Algiers, Algeria
March 2, 1970