Oakland Noir

by Jerry Thompson

  Hill, shockingly, let forth a noise so desperate and clipped I wasn’t sure what it was—a choke, a gasp for air, a cry for peace. I didn’t even react to it until after he had regained his voice. “My own family, my brother. Some thug put a bullet in him out of mistaken identity. For no damn reason, just a gun and a mistake.

  “In college, I never went to no black-issues rallies, didn’t take no African American studies. I didn’t go see no ghetto violence movies like Boyz n the Hood when they came out. I had seen the caskets closed for real, why I wanna go see Hollywood tell that story all over again? I wasn’t really tryin’ to change the world or know it three times as deep. You understand me?”

  “I’m sorry,” I said, not in sympathy, but because I didn’t understand. I was a wannabe reporter, diving after my idea of the truth, as unconcerned with the feelings of others as Hill was with his students’ feelings when it came to standardized testing.

  “After my brother, it was different. So I done did my speech at the little school, and in the Q&A this light-skinned shorty in the front row with cornrows and amberish eyes asks me, Do you ever wish you could trade places with your brother? That’s why I’m on fire like this. That’s why I came home.

  “That the story you were searching for?” Hill questioned. “My side of the story, my blood.”

  “And as for Shaun Sobrante?” I pressed—not because I thought it right or appropriate to do so, but because I was young and lost in complexity and bloodshed, and I didn’t know what else to say. “You’re willing to let me publish that he is your political expedient?”

  Hill took a moment to consider that. I could tell by the way he held himself that he was walking out of his history and back into the present. He shrugged. “Maybe Oakland will understand.”

  * * *

  Oakland did understand. But it also didn’t.

  There was a second press conference, this one downtown, led by not a spokesperson but the chief of police. “We have no suspects and have made no arrests in the Sobrante murder investigation,” he said. “It’s our determination that the integrity of the crime scene was jeopardized by the amount of time and foot traffic that probably went by between when the crime was committed and when law enforcement arrived on the scene. Forensics are minimal and would likely be inadmissible in court. No witnesses have as of yet come forward, either. It’s a tough case . . . Sobrante Prep? Look, it isn’t for me to comment on the ethicality of naming a high school after a dead child, who was not allowed to enroll at that very school due to a criminal charge. It should be noted that charges are not indictments, and indictments are not convictions. I think Principal Hill’s published comments on the matter speak for themselves: unfounded insinuations about police involvement in the death. He was our expedient. The police department deals in people, not expedients.”

  Oakland PD was steadfastly unwilling to do interviews with me, or any other journalist about the matter. FYI: the strictest no-snitching policy of all is the one amongst law enforcement itself. But retaliatory information leaks, they’ll give you those in a heartbeat: Cash Hill’s serial harassment of underachieving students and his flirtations with grade fraud quickly came to light. The Chronicle, the Trib, the Merc—everybody ran the story. Federal funding for the school was jeopardized.

  East Oakland rallied to the black man’s defense, reminding law enforcement that there was no love lost, ever. Despite the dunce caps and other creative cruelties, parents started to send their children to the besieged savior in droves—just to spite the police.

  The Sobrante case went cold, and justice was of another world.

  Meanwhile, Cash Hill’s days were numbered. Heightened demand to attend his school only increased the cost pressures, until it was him or Sobrante itself—one or the other had to go.

  * * *

  I’ve heard tales about Cash Hill’s whereabouts since—that his ghost walks the halls of Sobrante Prep; that he went back to Wall Street; that he was sent to Havana to kick up dust and overthrow the communists; that he fell in with an evangelical venture capitalist and created a for-profit online education business bearing his brother’s name. If he had told me his brother’s name that afternoon, I could at least go searching and find out if the school—or even the brother—was real, rumors, or lies.

  But Hill had never spoken his name when he and I were down in that dark chamber, high in the hills. Around here, cases go cold as corpses, and mysteries stay mysteries.

  DIVINE SINGULARITY

  by Keri Miki-Lani Schroeder

  Piedmont Avenue

  I should have known that bitch was lying. All the “Sorry, Maggie, I’m working late” and “last-minute business trips.” What utter bullshit. I followed her last night, waited outside her office in Jack London Square and watched her walk to her car. I parked closer to the train tracks, out of sight, safely hidden by bustling tourists crowding the streets doing God-knows-what in this part of town. It must be the only place in Oakland that gets visited solely on its name alone. Jack-fucking-London. The place appeals to people whose tastes never made it past their high school reading list, if you ask me. Anyway, I watched that snake as she crossed 2nd Street and climbed into her fire-red Wrangler. She was wearing her slightly out-of-fashion teal power suit. I’ll admit, I once thought it was quirky and cute, but now it just screams LESBIAN. I mean, she already drives a Jeep, isn’t that enough? And how was I ever attracted to a woman who wears that much product in her hair? I used to joke that she looked like Molly Ringwald OD’d on gel. As I watched her sitting in the Jeep, messing with her phone, I received a text: Sorry Maggie, gonna be late tonight. Finishing up a contract with an old client and then for some new place called Divine Singularity, LOL, so lame <3.

  Sure, Sarah. We’ll see.

  I started up my car (not a Jeep, thank you very much) and followed her from a distance. It was probably the only time I was thankful for Bay Area traffic, as it’s great coverage when stalking your lying-piece-of-shit partner. She drove through Lake Merritt to those ranchero-style homes near Piedmont. Oh, so you got yourself a fancy bitch now, huh? I could see through her rear window that Sarah was on the phone with someone. Her gestures were exaggerated, almost comical, like how she gets all flustered when we’re arguing. Or how she gets sometimes when we’re fucking. I could feel my ears burning as the blood pulsated in my head and my belly dropped.

  Sure enough, she turned into a fancy brick home in Piedmont, complete with an obnoxious yellow fence around a blossoming garden, and no . . . a wishing well in the yard? How tacky. I drove past the house as Sarah turned into their half-circle driveway. She was so preoccupied on the phone that she didn’t pay any attention to me. A part of me wishes I had kept driving, just so I could maintain a snippet of blissful doubt. But instead, I turned around.

  * * *

  The typical cheating signs began a few weeks ago: she’d become more secretive, almost defensive, with her phone calls and texts, spending unexplainably longer hours in the office. But what finally made me follow her were the texts I’d read the night before last. I had never looked through Sarah’s phone before. I really don’t condone this type of behavior, but she’d been acting so strange lately and was in the shower when it buzzed, so I picked it up. I told myself I was only checking quickly to see if it was important, if it was an emergency that I needed to notify her about.

  Three unread texts from a number not yet added as a contact, a number without a name. How convenient.

  536-7856: You cannot do this to me Sarah. [Sent 6:58 p.m.]

  536-7856: I will convince you to change your mind. [Sent 6:58 p.m.]

  536-7856: Meet me tomorrow evening. I will make it worth your while. [Sent 6:59 p.m.]

  Which brings me to now—sipping on too-strong rum drinks decorated with tiny umbrellas in the Kona Club after she didn’t come home last night. The bar smells a bit like wet towels, but the room is dark, and I need some alone time. That lying, sniveling piece of shit.

  I flag down the b
artender. I’m making it a goal to try every tiki drink in the joint before sundown.

  “This one,” I point to the menu, “the . . . Macadamia Nut . . . Chi-Chi? The fuck is a Chi-Chi?”

  The bartender is one big man-bun in an aloha shirt; a beach bum surfer who probably hasn’t been to the ocean in twenty years. He nods at me while he wipes down a glass. “Sure,” he smiles. “But maybe you should take it easy after this one.”

  “That’s not what I asked you, Endless Summer.”

  “I love that movie, but that doesn’t even make sense. Are you calling me Endless Summer? My name is Big Mike.”

  “Pleased to meet you. I’m Maggie. Now Chi-Chi! With extra umbrellas!”

  He serves me my drink, albeit reluctantly, and I replay once again the events of last night. Seeing Sarah’s face in the window and the hulking silhouette of whoever was in the room with her. What a beast. I always knew she liked them more butch, the lying dyke . . . I watched from the window of my car for a few minutes, contemplating whether or not to confront them. Whether or not to knock on the front door and spit in Sarah’s stupid face when she and her new lover answered.

  I could have said something clever, like in the movies when couples break up. Something like, Ha! You can have her! Psssh . . . good luck! Or even better, Good riddance! Or maybe I would joke about how she dresses terribly, or is lazy in bed, or always lies about being a gold star . . . I should have told them I hoped they would be happy together and then told Sarah to pick up all her shit from the house. I should have told her I never even loved her . . . Fuck.

  But the truth is that seeing them together made me feel like something was breaking inside me. The truth is that I sat in disbelief in my car for several minutes, as I watched them through the window. The truth is that when I saw the other woman embrace Sarah, pushing her up against the wall like that, I had to turn away because I thought I was going to be sick.

  Aloha Shirt hands me my Macadamia Nut Chi-Chi, a cheerful little drink to offset my sour mood.

  I can’t take it any longer. I pull out my phone and text her: I saw you last night. Why did you do it? [Sent 7:22 p.m.]

  I put the phone down on the bar and close my eyes. The syrupy sweetness of the drinks is starting to give me a headache without a buzz. Okay, maybe a little buzz, but it’s the warm, sugary, tipsy precursor-to-a-hangover—not worth the high. I keep thinking of all the fun Sarah and I used to have, all the good times: the late-night cuddles and movies; the uncontrollable laughing at the stupidest shit; or when she would squeeze my hand sometimes suddenly, as if to make sure I was still there and still real; or, oh God, the sex . . .

  I snap out of it and look at my phone. A note appears under my sent text: Message Read 7:24 p.m. It is now 7:49 p.m. with no response. I rationalize this in several ways: Maybe she can’t text because she is hurriedly driving home, eager to apologize in person. Maybe her phone died as she was texting back—she was always forgetting to charge it overnight. Fuck. She stayed out overnight.

  My throat tightens as I begin to accept that: Sarah read my text and chose not to respond. She has not contacted me in nearly twenty-four hours. On purpose. I gulp down the rest of my sickeningly decadent drink.

  I cannot believe she didn’t come home, that she didn’t call or send a message. I had to remove the battery from my own phone to prevent myself from contacting her first. I don’t even remember driving home. I was just suddenly there, chainsmoking cigarettes despite having quit over a year ago, sipping the cognac we kept in the cupboard for special occasions. This was a “special occasion” all right, over four and a half years of a relationship abandoned. I didn’t even cry. I just sat there dumbfounded until the night melted away into dawn and I woke up sweating in an empty bed a few hours later.

  My phone starts buzzing before I can start to tear up again. One new unread text message.

  Sarah: Where are you? [Sent 8:36 p.m.]

  Where am I? That’s all she has to say for herself? She wants to know where I am? Where are you, bitch?

  Me: I’m at the Kona Club getting wasted. What the fuck do you care? [Sent 8:42 p.m.]

  I sit there stewing for a moment before I realize that the sneaky bitch is asking where I am so she can sneak in the house when I’m not there. I pay my tab and leave in a rush to confront her. I walk briskly down the road toward our home. We (or soon to be just I) live in one of those little duplexes off of Piedmont Avenue. To be clear, not Piedmont—the ritzy-town-inside-a-town where that whore lives—but just the street in North Oakland. It’s a deceiving area: in the daytime it can be almost bourgie, with little shops selling useless—but organic!—items lining the street, but nighttime is when it gets interesting. Yoga moms and young radicals teach their children about gentrification by giving them books on the subject, while making sure to shield them from the unsightly homeless living in the alleys.

  As I pass Sandro’s Healthy Lifestyle Boutique, the overwhelming smell of spicy herbs and essential oils wafting from within makes me turn my head. There’s a sign showing hands photoshopped over a lavender om symbol attached to the side of the building: Soon to be the new home of Divine Singularity Yoga Studios. Well, I’ll be damned. I peer inside. Colorful glass bottles of assorted tinctures and vitamin supplements line the shelves. So this is the place Sarah was working on? I make a mental note and keep walking, eager to get to the house before she does.

  Our apartment is a fraction of a building that used to be a single home, with one and a half bedrooms and a “balcony” not large enough for a step stool, let alone the both of us. As an amateur interior designer, I try to make the place feel homey by using light colors and as many collapsible, compact fixtures as we can find to open up the space. Sarah’s work is a bit more practical, building DIY websites and writing “personal” blogs for people who can’t be bothered to do it themselves. She blogs for several businesses on Piedmont Avenue, including Sandro’s, which was always a hoot because we have never followed any hip, healthy lifestyle plan. In fact, we used to joke about the regression of health fads like the Paleo diet. I mean, didn’t cavemen have a life expectancy of something like thirty-five years?

  Sarah snuck in “health facts” borrowed from ancient cultures, because that’s what nouveau-hippies are into these days—as if somehow appropriating the cultural traditions of others will bring them longevity and happiness. Sarah once wrote a blog for a boutique chocolate company whose pitch was that “the ancient Mayans ate cocoa for centuries.” I’m sure they did, but they also cut the still-beating hearts from virgin sacrifices and wore animal heads as hats. Sure, chocolate is fabulous, but that really seems beside the point. As nonwhite, nonhippie nonconformists ourselves, we found it both flattering and confusing to see advertisements selling different ethnicities to others—as if we have our shit figured out any more than anyone else. However, Sarah and I were perfectly willing to sell white folks permission to use our cultural identities, since it helped us start a little nest egg that might one day get us a “real” home to call our own.

  These rambling thoughts end abruptly as I approach our apartment. Sarah’s Jeep is not in the driveway. Walking in, I realize no one has been here since I left a few hours earlier. My dirty glass and empty bottle of celebration cognac sit where I left them, and Sarah’s collection of boots and shoes, always an unsightly tripping hazard, still clutters the hallway.

  I shake my head to clear the sugary alcohol clouds and reach for my phone. Shit. I check my purse and coat, but it isn’t there. I suddenly feel agitated and annoyed that I came back. Do I really want to be here waiting when she gets home, like I have nothing better to do than sit around feeling sorry for myself? It’s true, of course, but I don’t want her to see it. I put my coat back on and return to the bar to retrieve my phone and some dignity.

  Aloha Shirt Big Mike greets me as I walk back in. “Hey, Maggie, some lady came by looking for you a few minutes ago.”

  “Who? What did she say?” I’m a little dumbfounded, a litt
le angry.

  “She asked if Maggie was here, and I said you just left.”

  Sarah came here? Does that mean she came to explain? Have I been overreacting? Thoughts flood my already cluttered mind.

  “Did I leave my phone here?”

  Big Mike thinks for a moment. “Oh, yeah. I did find a phone.” He opens a drawer by the register. “Here you go.”

  “Thank you. Can I have one more Chi-Chi, please?”

  “Extra umbrellas?”

  “No, it’s okay. I’m cutting down.”

  He laughs and starts mixing and shaking. I open my phone to three unread messages.

  Sarah: I thought you were at Kona Club? [Sent 10:16 p.m.]

  Sarah: Where are you now? [Sent 10:32 p.m.]

  Sarah: You fucking cunt. I’m coming to get you. [Sent 10:47 p.m.]

  “The fuck?” I say aloud. Even at our worst, Sarah has never spoken to me like that. It would have been a deal breaker for either of us.

  “Everything okay?” Big Mike asks, sliding over a bulbous glass of fluorescent liquid.

  “I don’t know.” My phone’s screen saver pops up, a picture of Sarah and me arm in arm at Stinson Beach, smiling.

  “She’s cute,” he says.

  “I know,” I sigh. “So is that all she said when she came in? Did she seem . . . okay?”

  “Who? Her?”

  We share a puzzled look. “This isn’t who was asking for me? Are you sure?” I hold the phone closer and point at the picture of us: the wind had been blowing Sarah’s red ringlets into my face and we were both laughing as I tried to spit out the strands.

  “Nope.” He wipes down a glass. “I’d remember her. This one was . . . you know.” He shrugs.

  “You know, what?”

  “She was . . .” He stands straight and puffs out his arms and chest. “A big ol’ gal.”

  I stare at him blankly. The woman from last night. The one I’d seen with Sarah. She had come to see me? Where was Sarah?

  I quickly google Oakland news. A few shootings here and there, a vegan bake sale to end gentrification, a youth center displaced by a tech start-up. I scroll on, numbly. Then I see it: Unidentified woman found dead in Piedmont Friday morning. Foul play suspected.