We are that invading army and our duty is to kill off this impure seed and create chaos and destruction among this forsaken tribe.
–The Christian Soldiers
Today was Family Day for Star. She was looking forward to seeing Aunt Marie Ann and talking to her attorney about her case. Then it would be off to see Grandma and help her tend to her vegetable garden—ending the day with dinner with her parents. But first, there was breakfast for Cleo.
“Today we’re bringing you a special report. The Race Riot Rampage—Madness Grips Los Angeles. Let’s go to Cristal Carmichael in South Central.” The morning news anchor was scrubbed, pressed, and coiffed for the occasion. Hoshiko sat in her small Manhattan Beach sublet, drinking green tea and wondering when the traffic reports would come on in spite of the civil unrest. She fed her ruddy Abyssinian her gourmet chicken livers and hearts while Cristal reported.
“Since the Christian Soldiers’ attempted assassination of Minister Kublai Khan of the House of Jeremiah and the discovery of the White Man’s Manifesto, a spree of racist graffiti, assaults, and outbreaks of looting and rioting has led to a dusk-to-dawn curfew and the involvement of the National Guard.”
Star rubbed the velvety spot between Cleo’s ears as the reporter droned on.
“Mayor Timmons has been criticized for setting a ten-mile perimeter around the heart of the Black community, where most of the destruction has been contained. Some feel the boundary serves to let South Los Angeles burn while the rest of the city goes unscathed,” Carmichael said.
Star scoffed under her breath, picked up the remote, and thumbed the TV off. As the picture blinked out, her cell rang.
“I wondered if you were going today,” Ty said. “I have something for Marie.” “That’s not going to happen. You know how she feels,” Star advised. She stood up and walked to her kitchen sink to fill Cleo’s water bowl.
“I don’t know what else to do,” Ty whined. “She returns my letters. Tell her—” He sighed. “No, don’t.”
Star ignored the invitation to drama. “Got to go,” she said brusquely. “Remember, I’ll pick the girls up, same time at Grandma’s. Same as always.”
“I know the drill. Thanks for nothing.” His voice was sour.
“It’s the very least I can do, you piece of shit,” Star said, and pressed the red icon on her cell and dropped it into her purse.
When Star was led to the visiting room, she was seated in a booth against the pale-green wall and stared through the cloudy Plexiglas partition at the empty gray steel chair. After a moment, a door opened and Marie Ann walked in and sat down. She was dressed in a bright-orange jumpsuit with her thin black hair braided in cornrows. She forced a smile when her eyes met her niece’s. As one, they both picked up the black phone receivers and spoke into them.
“How are my girls?”
“Did you get the pictures?” Star asked.
“Yeah. I really like the one on their bikes,” Marie Ann said, pushing back the long braids that flowed against her drawn face and tired eyes.
“You eating right?” Star asked.
“Sometimes. How’s Grandma?”
“Everyone’s good. Ty called. Said he had a gift for you?” Star said.
“Fuck him. Oops—you’ve already done that.”
The women laughed wickedly until a guard gave them a stern look.
“You think we should forgive him?” Marie Ann asked.
“I will if you will.”
“I got time.” Marie Ann sat back in her chair. “You seeing anyone?”
“Nobody special. Just kissing a lot of frogs.” Star kept one eye on the clock on the wall.
“What’s with the mixed-race riot talk?”
“I stay out of LA. My dad says folks have lost their minds,” she said, and pushed back in her chair back against the rear wall in a feeble attempt to stretch her legs. The taut telephone cord restrained her movement.
“You’re closer to Los Angeles than you think,” Marie Ann replied.
“So who did your hair?” Star asked, pushing her feet against the barrier.
“Just a girl on the block. We call her Mick,” Marie Ann said. She fingered her braids, row by row.
“That’s a strange name,” Star remarked, leaning forward on her elbows.
“Think about it,” Marie Ann said, and then pushed out her tongue until it touched her chin.
Again the ladies laughed in spite of the guard’s stern look.
“You seem to have the right attitude,” Star said. “I don’t know how do you do it.”
“Buddha says focus the mind on the present moment,” Marie Ann said. “And let your love flow outward.” She beamed.
“I got it.” Star cocked an eyebrow. “When did you become Buddhist?”
“I’m not. Jesus said some cool shit too.” The woman in the jumpsuit flipped her braids back over her shoulders.
“You seem at peace or something.”
“I forgave myself and the madness lifted,” she answered.
The blare of a buzzer signaled the end of the visiting session.
“The craziness is out there,” Marie Ann warned. “Don’t give away your power.” She took the receiver off her right ear, signaling her impending compliance to the guard, but left it close enough for her to hear her niece.
“I will,” Star promised and then continued, “Do you need anything?”
“More books.”
“I know what you like. Drama. Thrillers. Anything else?”
“Just the will that says to them: Hold On.”
“Kipling? More poetry. Got it,” Star said, stood up, and reached out to spread her hand against the glass. Marie Ann mirrored the gesture, and they touched without touching.
“Love you.” Marie Ann said as tears moistened her shallow cheeks.
“Love you more,” Star said. She stayed where she was as her aunt hung up, and watched the guard escort the prisoner through the interior door and back to her cell.
The ratty-headed Rastafarian wore a green, red, and black knit cap with his dreads piled high inside. He peddled scented oils and incense to the concerned citizens looking for a solution to the presence of federal troops in their community. Jeremy Talbert sat at the back of the stage, watching the brother hawk his wares through the crowd and listening to Reverend Harper as he addressed the rally.
“We will meet with the Mayor and tell him we need protection and not occupation,” Harper said while the press corps in the front row snapped away and held their recorders as far as their arms could reach. The concerned women assembled near them nodded their agreement. A rail-thin old gentleman standing in the middle of the crowd stroked his brow with his thumb and index finger and listened in disbelief.
Jeremy studied them all from his seat. He had lost interest in being stood up like an off-white mannequin. No longer was he asked to speak about injustice; all he did was sit next to Harper and bear witness to his ramblings. He said nothing until a reporter from The Sentinel ascended to the platform after the speeches were done. She wanted answers.
“What’s next for you?” the petite woman asked, holding out a low-end digital recorder.
“Nothing,” Jeremy said softly. “Some school and maybe lacrosse.”
“But what about the investigation?” the reporter asked.
“None of this will bring Sidney back,” Jeremy replied. He glanced over at Harper, waiting for the bigger man to swoop in to take over, but there were half a dozen microphones in front of the reverend’s face and there would be no competing with that.
The newswoman seized the initiative.
“Can racism be stopped?” she asked.
Jeremy stood up, not looking at her. “Can you stop the rain?” he replied. Then he stepped off the platform and headed out of the park.
Jeremy wandered down Vernon, thinking about Sidney. As he walked, his thoughts became words and escaped his full lips.
“You were one crazy nigger,” he murmured. “Always down on yourself. Looking for trouble. I guess you found it.” As he crossed Arlington, his phone buzzed. He looked down to see his mother’s picture and a text notification.
“Where are you?”
He thumbed a response as he hopped up on the curb. “Just left Rally. Going to Jamie’s house.”
“When are you coming home?”
“Uncle Rod drive me home later.”
“Call me when you get there.”
“K.”
He put the phone in his pocket as a black Monte Carlo low rider pulled to the curb and two bangers in hoodies stepped out, moving toward him.
“Get that White boy!” the heavyset one screamed as the two caught Jeremy on the run and tussled him to the curb.
“Hey!” Jeremy struggled against their grip, trying to twist free. “Wait—I’m a brother!”
“Like hell you are! What you doing this side of the freeway?” said the other thug as he kicked Jeremy repeatedly in the stomach. The fat one took to Jeremy’s back with his worn-out Timberlands.
“Ohh! Stop! Okay! I’m White and my daddy’s a cop,” Jeremy pleaded.
The smaller hoodlum picked up a pipe from a mound of trash and swung it at Jeremy’s head.
They kept up their assault until Jeremy’s blood dripped into the street. Winded from the onslaught, the men jumped into the standing getaway car and peeled out, headed deep into the neighborhood with only the stench of burning rubber left to mark their passing.
Jeremy heaved himself to his feet and staggered off the sidewalk, using the pipe as a crutch. He was trying to rise up to walk when a muscular arm reached out to him.
“Steady, man,” said a gentle voice.
Jeremy’s eyes were just beginning to open and focus when he saw that the voice belonged to a young Black man in a barber’s white smock. The man could have been his brother—green eyes, ivory skin, and brown curly hair to go with his broad nose and full lips.
“What was that about?” the man asked.
“They thought I was White.”
“No shit,” the man snorted. “They call me JR. I should take you to a clinic.”
“No, just my cousin’s,” Jeremy said as he steadied his arm and pointed east. “He’s close.”
“Let’s get you there. The night brings out a lot worse than those punks.”
“Th—thanks, brother,” Jeremy mumbled.
“Any time. Brother.”
Looking through the rearview mirror at the concrete and glass edifice of the jail, Star couldn’t help but sense how precious freedom was. She couldn’t imagine living contained, retained, and sustained by strangers who had dominion over her every move. A call to Marie’s attorney was the least she could do given auntie took the murder rap for her.
“Jerry, she’s rotting in there,” she said as the wind across her convertible whipped through her raven hair.
“She’s serving eight years. And that’s a gift,” Jerry said from his cluttered office in South Pasadena.
“Now what?”
“A writ of appeal, like I said. And remember what I told you?”
“Time is money. That’s cool. I’ll get it.”
“I’ll need it up front. Sorry,” Jerry said.
“We’re good for it. How much?”
“Let’s do two thou. Need it before the clock starts again, little lady,” he warned.
Star thought again. She mouthed her aunt’s words to herself.
Don’t give away your power.
“Jerry,” she said. “We’re going to go in a different direction. You’re fired. Have a nice life.” She ended the call with a tap on her earpiece.
Star pressed a button to raise the roof of her convertible as she pulled onto the freeway. The wind noise reduced, she tapped again and then spoke.
“Call Attorney Rowan,” she commanded her Bluetooth device as she slipped into the fast lane at eighty miles per hour.
Every BMW loves 91 Octane. Anything less makes them ping like a pinball machine, so Star found the most expensive gas she could find in Gardena. Next stop was Grandma’s house. She placed the gasoline muzzle tip gently into the gas spout as if her car really had feelings. In the brisk late-afternoon air, she pressed the assorted buttons and waited for the sweet smell of dead dinosaurs as she wrapped herself in her thin cotton sweater.
Five dollars clicked into eight as the pump turned slowly. Behind her, she heard another car pull up, with the stereo blaring loud-head banging music. She turned toward the newcomers as her pulse quickened and adrenaline flooded her veins.
“Look at that!” A longhaired Asian man with a thick Fu Manchu mustache and a soul patch stuck his head out the window. “A half-breed soul sister. Bet her daddy’s a Jagger.”
From the passenger seat, a shaven-headed man hooted with delight.
Star pulled her brown sweater tight against her stomach and held one hand inside. Then she took two steps toward the car and stopped.
“Yeah, you right,” she said coolly. “And he gave me this piece to deal with assholes like you.”
The men froze.
Star turned on her heel and flung herself into the driver’s seat of her car before they could take time to think. In two short seconds, she whipped her sportster from zero to sixty, pointed toward Grandma’s house. She heard the snarl of their engine fade away as she blasted down the highway again, and she smiled tightly. The punks’ hooptie was no match for her beautiful bumwa.
With a grin on her face, Star imagined the boys giving up the chase and the broken hose of the pump pouring gallons of expensive petro onto the gas station’s pavement.
The road to Van Nuys was littered with fast-food drive-throughs, but the boys had to have a Pickaninny Burger before going to their late-night booty call. The ebb and flow of traffic in the drive-through moved like a hamster hump in a python.
Fitzroy sputtered and coughed as he paid homage to the pipe of hashish in his hand.
“This is some good shit.”
His chest puffed like a blowfish from the contents of the glowing amber bowl, but the hacking continued.
“Have a sip,” Porper said as he handed his buddy a pocket-sized bottle of VSOP cognac.
“Thanks, bro,” Fitzroy said as he pulled his white Peugeot forward a few feet and stopped before the order speaker, modeled to look like a toothy grinning Negro man in blackface, red and white lips and top hat.
“Welcome to Pickaninny’s. How’s your mammy? Can I take your order?” said the speaker.
“Two spear-chucker burgers and a couple of coon fries, please,” Porper shouted from the shotgun seat into the face of the minstrel.
“Lots of napkins,” Fitzroy added. “Love that chili sauce.” He pulled forward.
They fed on the best that Pickaninny’s had to offer from the parking lot of the near-famous establishment where the shit-kicking grins of jiggaboos illuminated the outdoor countertops.
The White boys got comfortable in their car, listened to the frenzied electronic strains of Muse, and carefully unwrapped their burgers. They methodically rearranged the pickles and lettuce so the sandwiches looked the way they did on television ads. Fitzroy and Porper peeled back the cheese paper carefully. They gorged on the massive double patties and steel-cut french fries as they watched a group of teenage girls prancing about a nearby table.
“Can’t beat Valley girls,” Porper remarked around a mouthful of beef.
“Too tame. I like West Side ladies,” Fitzroy said with a piece of dill pickle stuck between his teeth.
“Too close to the riot shit going down,” Porper replied. “Plus the place is flush with Persians. They’re rich sand niggers. It’s safer in the Valley,” he added.
“Word. Just hit it and quit it, I say,” Porper said, taking a sip of beer from the tall can in the cup holder.
ZZooft.
ZZooft.
ZZooft.
ZZooft.
Four silenced gunshots shattered the car windows. Red holes appeared in the temple and chest of each man. They slumped in their seats, their meals still warm on their laps as their bodies began to cool.
Two shadowy assassins walked casually out of the twilight, smoking cigarillos with their heads in hoods and their Glocks concealed underneath their baggy black jackets. The younger man spoke.
“Yo tengo hambre,” he said, eyeing a red neon sign that shouted Emilio’s.
With a nod, Hermando and his security chief pulled off their hoodies and gloves, rolled the guns inside the bundles, and dumped them into a nearby trashcan. They pulled out the tails of their collared shirts, combed their hair, and casually walked inside the tiny pizza joint.
