Dominion

by Randy Alcorn

  Clarence sobbed. Ollie wasn’t sure what to do. He sat quietly. Finally Clarence spoke again.

  “Daddy was firm when we were growin’ up. He disciplined us when we deserved it. But he was the kindest man. He never so much as raised his voice to us. I know what he went through that night. And I guess I’ve never trusted a white policeman since.”

  “Your daddy’s a fine man … fine a man as I ever … “Ollie’s chin trembled, and he cleared his throat and wiped his eyes. “I’m sorry for what they did to him. I wish we could go back there right now, you and me. I wish we could get our hands on that shenff, on those dirty cops.”

  “If we could,” Clarence said, “when I was done you’d have to arrest me. I wouldn’t stop until I killed them. I know. In my mind I’ve done it a thousand times.”

  “I’m glad you came by, Mr. Abernathy” Andrea Taylor said, her eyes hanging as if heavy weights were attached. “The last years have been hard. Wouldn’t have made it without Ebenezer Church, that’s for sure. I’m glad you’ve been comin’ there. And I’m sorry about … how my son influenced your nephew.”

  “It’s all right, Andrea. It wasn’t your fault. I know that.”

  “The hardest part,” she said, “is always wondering if there wasn’t something else I should have done. Anyway, I’ve been thinking there’s something I should tell you.” She looked away and took a deep breath. “One night Raymond was on the angel dust. Devil dust they should call it, that’s what it is. But he was hallucinating, and I didn’t know whether to hold him or slap him. But I held him in my arms, and my baby said to me somethin’ real strange. I asked him about it later. He said I imagined it, but I know I didn’t. He kept saying, ‘It wasn’t her; they got it wrong; that’s not what I told ’em.’”

  Clarence tried not to appear as anxious as he felt. “So … what does that mean?”

  “Well, at first I didn’t connect it with anyone. But then when my baby shot himself,” she choked up, “he whispered somethin’ to me just before he died. He said, Tell Li’l GC I’m sorry about his mama.’ It didn’t seem like he was just saying he felt bad for Tyrone. It seemed more like a … deathbed confession. It’s been on my mind ever since. I don’t know what it means, but I started thinking maybe it related to what he said before. I can’t believe my boy would have hurt your sister and your niece, Mr. Abernathy. But I don’t know. I just don’t know. He hurt a lot of other people. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry about my boy.”

  “I know.” Clarence came over to the couch, sat down, and put his arms around her. At first she backed away from his touch, but then she surrendered to it, leaning into Clarence and sobbing.

  Clarence could blame a lot of people for a lot of things, but not this woman. After they sat for a while, she began reminiscing about Raymond.

  “He kept a scrapbook, with newspaper clippings. I always wished it was a scrapbook about honor roll and sports, but it wasn’t. He saved things about gang crimes and bad things. I’ve been thinking about burning it, once I get up the strength. I don’t want it around.”

  “Can I see it?” Clarence asked.

  She nodded. “It’s in his bedroom.” She got up slowly, negotiating the floor as if it were the deck of a sailboat in high winds. “You can come in if you want.” Clarence followed her into the neat and clean bedroom, bed made nicely, covers undisturbed.

  While she searched for the scrapbook, Clarence looked at some clippings on the wall. Most of them were from the Tribune. There was a story on Dani’s shooting, and a later clipping of Felicia’s death notice. He looked at a picture of a gang summit where gang leaders met a year before with the City Council on how to reduce violence on the streets. GC’s face was prominent among the gang leaders. Clarence looked at another picture, a large one adjoining a feature story on Reggie Norcoast and his team. The picture featured Norcoast, Carson Gray, secretary Sheila, and the administrator, Jean.

  Clarence sat down on Raymond’s bed to read through the scrapbook. Some of the clippings contained his name, Raymond Taylor, others the names of the Rollin’ 60s Crips, either in Los Angeles or Portland. Clarence read twenty clippings about various crimes. He speculated Raymond had been involved in them, most unsolved as of the dates of the articles. He flipped the page, when something dropped to the floor. It was a loose, letter-sized envelope with “GC” penciled on the front. He looked inside. Empty. There were no more clippings. The book came to an abrupt end. GC had written the final clipping by playing that stupid game, flirting with death, then being seduced by it.

  Raymond clearly had a reason for saving everything in the scrapbook and on the wall. For most of the items the reason was obvious. But … Clarence looked back up on the wall, seeing the four smiling faces in Norcoast’s office.

  Why did Gangster Cool care about this picture? Why had he posted it on his wall?

  “We got a hit,” Ollie told Clarence. “They read my description of the Lexus at a precinct roll call in southern Oregon. A Medford cop picked up on it. He called me at home, 4:30 this morning. Disturbed my beauty sleep.”

  “That explains it,” Clarence said, looking at Ollie’s unshaven mug and disheveled hair.

  “Explains what?”

  “Never mind. What’d he tell you?”

  Ollie looked at his notes. “Officer Jim Seymour says that on September 3 at 5:27 A.M. he pulled over a Lexus that fits my description to a T. Said the wheels looked like they belonged in a display case. Driver and passenger, both young black males. He filled out a FIR on them.”

  “Fir?”

  “Field interview report. Everything matches. Height, body build, everything.”

  “Why’d he pull them over?”

  “Doin’ eighty-eight miles an hour. Said as soon as they pulled over, their hands went straight up.”

  “What?”

  “Yeah, said it looked really weird. It was just a speeding violation. He couldn’t understand it.”

  “I can’t either. Why would they do that?”

  “Because, in my humble opinion, they’re from L.A.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “LAPD has ’em trained. In some parts of town, if you’re pulled over it’s assumed you’re armed and ready to shoot unless you put your hands in the air. If you do, you’ll be treated okay If you don’t, expect to be approached by officers with their guns drawn. You’ve got so many armed drivers it’s a precautionary thing. I don’t know anywhere else where hands in the air is routine on a pullover. Put it together with the HK53 from L.A. and heading south on 1-5—I’d put big money on L.A.”

  “So the officer just got them for speeding? No other charges?”

  “He saw a doobie pipe on the floor. Had some seed in it. Cited them for possession of less than an ounce of marijuana.”

  “He arrested them?”

  “No. That’s only a violation in Oregon. Can’t arrest unless it’s over an ounce. He just cited them. But he checked both their IDs.”

  “You mean … we’ve actually got their names?”

  Ollie looked down at his notes. “Driver Robert Rose, passenger Jerome Rice. Officer Seymour ran checks on them. Just a few traffic tickets, but no criminal history.”

  “None?”

  “Odd, huh? Anyway, we’ve got both their names, addresses, and the real license plate of the car. If they’re connected to the shooting, we’ve got a good shot at finding out. We’ll have to play our cards right because nobody actually saw them at the crime scene. We know they had a gun, according to Mr. Kim’s testimony. But their car being a mile from your sister’s at Taco Bell isn’t enough for a conviction, unless you get a judge who really hates fast food. Speaking of tacos, I guess you’ve figured out we need to talk to our boy Mookie again.”

  “Because he fingered two Hispanics?”

  “Yeah, not to mention the slight difference between a 1996 Lexus and a late seventies Impala—not that I’m a stickler for details. I mean, one wheel on the Lexus is worth more than the whole car Mookie describe
d.”

  “He could still be telling the truth, though. Two Latinos could still have done the shooting or driven by just after it.”

  “Or maybe Mookie just saw the chance for a hundred dollars. These two new guys, Rose and Rice, they’re bugging me though. No police record? Come on. I figured Officer Seymour must have missed something when he ran their names for warrants. But I double-checked and it’s true. No outstanding warrants, no warrants ever. No felonies, no misdemeanors except those speeding violations a few years ago. It doesn’t fit. These aren’t peewees. If they’re major bangers, users, dealers, who knows what else, they have to have a record. If they’ve got a big enough rep to pull off a hit job like that, they’d have a resume for sure.”

  “So how can you explain the fact that they don’t?”

  “Not sure. Maybe somehow they’ve had their records wiped clean—friends in high places or something, like maybe some mover and shaker in Sacramento? Anyway, I’ve got cop buddies in L.A., a couple with gang enforcement. Already called a few and asked if they recognized the names. They didn’t, but there’s more bangers in L.A. than there are parking spaces and usually they know them by their gang monikers, not their real names. One of my buddies is going to check out both addresses. When he finds the guys, I’m flyin’ down there to chat.”

  “I’m impressed, Ollie. Good work.”

  “Hey. Even a blind hog finds an acorn once in a while.”

  “Clarence, what’s wrong?” Geneva asked this dreary drizzly Saturday morning. Clarence was taking a break from cleaning the garage.

  “What’s wrong? What’s right? That’s a better question.”

  “You’re so angry.”

  Clarence slammed his fist to the table. “Quit saying I’m angry. I’m not angry!”

  “So what would you do to the table if you were angry?” She shook her head like someone tired of trying. “I’m going to spend the day over at Mama’s with my sisters.”

  “Great,” Clarence said. “You can join them in bad-mouthing black men. Maybe take some shots at me while you’re at it.”

  “Don’t try to take my family from me,” Geneva said. “With Dani gone, they’re all I’ve got besides you and the kids. They support me and love me. That’s more than you’ve been doing lately.”

  “Right, so now I’m one of the no-goods too? Well, I’m doing everything I can. Sorry if it’s not enough.”

  “You’re doing everything you can to find Dani’s killer and hang him from a tree, and who knows where you’re going to end up? What good will that do your family? You’re obsessed with this thing. Isn’t it enough that one family got torn apart? Does ours have to go down too?”

  Geneva left the room and got on the phone with her mother and two sisters, asking if she could take them to lunch. Over the years, her whole family had migrated to this area. Black women had learned to stick together. They had a closer network than white women, Geneva had always thought.

  Geneva heard Clarence go back to work in the garage. She sat alone in the bedroom, wishing he’d come talk to her, say he was sorry. She thought about the family she’d grown up in. Her father had been a hard worker but was passive in the home. Her mama and older sisters and she ran the household, while two of her brothers spent a lot of time on the streets. One had come out of it and was doing well. One had gone to jail and was a lifelong addict. Daddy had passed away six years ago. The problems of their men had drawn the womenfolk closer together. It hurt Geneva that Clarence felt black women being so strong made the men feel unwanted and unnecessary. She could see his point sometimes, but given their history, black women had no choice but to be strong. It was the only way to survive.

  With everything happening inside Clarence and the wall building between them, Geneva needed someone she could talk to, someone who could understand. She needed her mama and sisters—her girlfriends.

  “Clarence, this is Jake. I stumbled onto something. Could be important. I called Ollie and he said we could meet at his place. Even though it’s Saturday, I thought it shouldn’t wait.”

  “What is it?”

  “It’s about the investigation. My friend Sue Keels will be there. It’s something she knows. Can you meet us at Ollie’s in an hour?”

  “Yeah.” Clarence got directions to Ollie’s house. He hurried back to the garage to finish his cleanup project. He pulled out an old piece of canvas tucked under a storage shelf. As he pulled, one can of spray paint rolled out, then another and another. Six cans. There were several colors, mostly shades of blue. He put his finger on the tip of a shiny spray nozzle. It was still wet. He looked at the two cans that weren’t blue tones. One was flat white, the other metallic green.

  Dani watched as a man named Calvin Fairbank, engaged to be married, risked his life rescuing a black family from slavery. Then she watched as Fairbank served five long hard years in prison for doing the rescue. Not as much misery as most of the slaves, but then, they had no choice, Dani reminded herself. This man didn’t have to do this. He could have been content to go with the flow of the times, to profit from slavery or at least to ignore it. Even if he opposed it, he could have just made speeches about slavery being wrong. There was no risk but criticism, and one could sleep better at night just mouthing the right moral position. As Dani watched, she couldn’t help but feel after five years of prison, Fairbank would marry the woman who faithfully waited for his release and be content to make occasional abolitionist speeches.

  Dani was shocked to watch Fairbank, after he gained release, immediately help a female slave escape from Kentucky. He was arrested again and put back in prison for fifteen years. Dani saw the young woman, Fairbank’s fiancée, weeping. Years of tears. Dani felt her burden as she faithfully waited another fifteen years, twenty in all, to marry Calvin. She knew his cause was just. Dani pondered her sacrifice—waiting twenty years while her beloved languished in prison, all because he’d been compelled to help the needy in the name of Christ.

  Dani watched another young man, an Englishman named William, come to faith in Christ in 1784. Immediately thereafter young William Wilberforce began his battle for the black man’s freedom. She watched him as a British parliamentarian. Relentlessly, he introduced and reintroduced to Parliament motions to abolish slavery. He did so in the face of deep-seated apathy, scorn, and all the opposition the powerful slave industry could muster.

  “We are all guilty for tolerating the evil of slavery,” she heard Wilberforce say to Parliament. “Never, never will we desist until we extinguish every trace of this bloody traffic, of which our posterity, looking back to the history of these enlightened times will scarce believe that it has been suffered to exist so long a disgrace and dishonor to this country.”

  She watched as year after year Wilberforce endured sleepless nights, plagued by dreams of suffering slaves. Decade after decade his colleagues refused to pay attention to his words about the injustices of slavery. She watched in awe as in the middle of Parliament sessions Wilberforce reached under his chair and pulled out slave chains, draping them over himself as he spoke to his peers, dramatizing the inhumanity of slavery. She watched the distinguished parliamentarians roll their eyes, snicker, mock him, and call him a fool. But Wilberforce, she realized, was performing for a different audience, the audience of One. She wondered where the mockers were now. No, she knew where they were and shuddered at the thought.

  Dani continued to watch the years go by. In 1807 Wilberforce finally wore down the opposition by refusing to be silent. Parliament voted to outlaw the buying and selling of new slaves. Wilberforce had overcome incredible odds. But the old slaves were not yet emancipated, and William could not rest. Dani saw him fight twenty more years, laboring to free existing slaves. She watched him in 1833, lying sick and exhausted in his bed. Then it happened—the Bill for the Abolition of Slavery passed its second reading in the House of Commons, bringing all slavery in England to its final end. Dani wept as three days later, his life’s mission finally accomplished, Wilberforce died
.

  Dani, stirred deeply by this life of which she’d known nothing on earth, thought about many things. She pondered how one man, born in privilege, could devote fifty years of labor to being mocked and vilified in the pursuit of God’s justice. She thought further, wondering what would happen if but one Wilberforce rose up in American politics today. What would happen if one representative or one senator would introduce over and over again measures and reminders of the reality that unborn babies were being killed by the millions? What if only one man or woman would pull out pictures of the unborn from under his congressional chair, would endure the ridicule and opposition, would tirelessly stand for justice, would speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, refusing to be silent? What if just one person, relentless, would live out his convictions not for the applause of his colleagues nor the approval of his generation, but for the audience of One?

  Suddenly she heard, of all things, a harmonica. She turned to see Zeke playing “Steal Away, Jesus.” The clapping and singing began. Someone was strumming a Jew’s harp, twanging a steady beat. It was party time. Reunion time. Laughter time. Her great-grandfather started dancing with his friend Finney. Zeke whispered something to him, and they both laughed so hard that tears flowed.

  The history lesson was over, yet Dani knew it had changed her. She had labeled white people as selfish and uncaring. Yet now she had witnessed many white people who had given up their convenience and wealth and reputations and freedom, and in some cases their lives, to help suffering black people. She wondered if she would have had the courage to do the same for others, whether black or white. Suddenly she looked up and saw a man talking with Lewis and Torel. She stared at him in a moment of disbelief. William Wilberforce. She ran to him like an unpretentious child.

  “It’s a great honor to meet you, sir.”

  “Do not call me sir, please, my lady. I am merely Elyon’s errand boy. It is I who am honored to meet you.”