by James Ellroy
Nobody mentioned God as the convoy of armored half tracks and personnel carriers rolled out of Glendale toward the Golden State Freeway southbound. The main topics of conversation were guns, sex, and Negroes, until P.F.C. Lloyd Hopkins, sweltering in the canvas covered halftrack, took off his fatigue jacket and introduced fear and immortality:
“First of all, you have to say it to yourselves, get it out in the air, say it–‘I’m afraid. I don’t wanna die!’ You got that? No, don’t say it out loud, that takes the power out of it. Say it to yourselves. There. Two, say this, too–I’m a nice white boy going to college who joined the fucking National Guard to get out of two years active duty, right?”
The civilian soldiers, whose average age was twenty, started to drift in to Lloyd’s drift, and a few of them muttered, “Right.”
“I can’t hear you!” Lloyd bellowed, imitating Sergeant Beller.
“Right!” the guardsmen yelled in unison.
Lloyd laughed, and the others, relieved at the break in the tension, followed suit. Lloyd breathed out, letting his big frame go slack in an imitation of a Negro’s shuffle.”And you all be afraid of de colored man?” he said in broad dialect.
Silence greeted the question, followed by a general breakout of hushed conversations. This angered Lloyd; he felt his momentum was drifting away, destroying this transcendent moment of his life.
He banged the butt end of his M-14 into the metal floorboard of the half-track. “Right!” he screamed. “Right, you dumb-fuck, pussy-whipped, nigger-scared, chicken-shit motherfuckers! Right?” He banged his rifle again. “Right? Right? Right? Right?”
“Right!!!” The half-track exploded with the word, the feeling, the new pride in candor, and the laughter that followed grew deafening in its freedom and bravado.
Lloyd slammed his rifle butt one last time, to call the group to order. “Then they can’t hurt us. Do you know that?” He waited until he was rewarded by a nod of the head from every man present, then pulled his bayonet from its scabbard and cut a large hole in the canvas top of the half-track. Being tall, he was able to peer out the top with ease. In the distance he could see the flatlands of his beloved L.A. Basin awash in smog. Spirals of flame and smoke covered its southern perimeter. Lloyd thought it was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.
The division bivouacked at McCallum Park on Florence and 90th Street, a mile from the heart of the firestorm. Trees were downed to provide space for the hundred-odd military vehicles that would cruise the streets of Watts that night, filled with men armed to the teeth, and C-rations were distributed from the back of a five ton truck while platoon leaders briefed their men on their assignments.
Rumors abounded, fed by a cadre of L.A.P.D. and Sheriff’s liaison officers: The Black Muslims were coming out in force, in whiteface, bent on hitting the profusion of discount appliance stores near Vermont and Slauson; scores of Negro youth gangs on pep pills were stealing cars and forming “kamikaze” squads and heading for Beverly Hills and Bel-Air; Rob “Magawambi” Jones and his Afro-Americans for Goldwater had taken a distinct left turn and were demanding that Mayor Yorty grant them eight commercial blocks on Wilshire Boulevard as reparation for “L.A.P.D. Crimes Against Humanity.” If their terms were not met within twenty-four hours, those eight blocks would be incinerated by firebombs hidden deep within the bowels of the LaBrea Tar Pits.
Lloyd Hopkins didn’t believe a word of it. He understood the hyperbole of fear and understood further that his fellow civilian soldiers and cops were hyping themselves up to kill and that a lot of poor black bastards out to grab themselves a color TV and a case of booze were going to die.
Lloyd gobbled his C-rations and listened to his platoon leader, Lt. Campion, the night manager of a Bob’s Big Boy Restaurant, explain orders that had come down to him from several other higher echelon civilian soldiers: “Being infantry, we will provide foot patrol, walking point for the armored guys–checking out doorways, alleys, letting our presence be known; bayonets fixed, combat stance, that kind of shit. Look tough. The armored platoon we trained with last summer at camp will be the platoon we hang with tonight. Questions? Everyone know who their squad leader is? Any new men with questions?”
Sergeant Beller, stretched out on the grass at the back of the platoon, raised his hand and said: “Loot, you know that the platoon is hanging in at four men over strength? Fifty-four men?”
Campion cleared his throat. “Yes…uh…yes, Sergeant, I do.”
“Sir, do you also know that we got three men who got special M.O.S.s? Three men who ain’t regular grunts?”
“You mean…”
“I mean, sir, that myself, Hopkins, and Jensen are infantry scouts, and I’m sure you’ll agree we could be of more value to this operation by running far point ahead of the armor. Right, sir?”
Lloyd saw the Lieutenant start to waver, and suddenly realized that he wanted it as bad as Beller did. Raising his hand, he said, “Sir, Sergeant Beller is right; we can walk far point and protect the platoon better and make it more autonomous. The platoon is over strength, and…”
The Lieutenant capitulated. “All right then,” he said, “Beller, Hopkins and Jensen, you walk point two hundred yards ahead of the convoy. Be careful–stay sharp. No more questions? Platoon dismissed.”
Lloyd and Beller found each other just as the tanks and half-tracks were starting their engines, flooding the twilight air with the sound of volatile combustion. Beller smiled; Lloyd smiled back in silent complicity.
“Far point, Sergeant?”
“Far, far point, Hoppy.”
“What about Jensen?”
“He’s just a kid. I’ll tell him to hang back with the armor. We’re covered. We’ve got carte blanche; that’s the important thing.”
“Opposite sides of the street?”
“Sounds right to me. Whistle twice if it gets hairy. Why do they call you ‘The Brain’?”
“Because I’m very intelligent.”
“Intelligent enough to know that the niggers are destroying the whole fucking country?”
“No, too intelligent for that shit. Anyone with half a brain knows that this is just a temporary blow-out and that when it’s over it’ll be business as usual. I’m here to see about saving innocent lives.”
Beller said scornfully, “That’s a crock. It just proves brains are over-rated. Guts are what counts.”
“Brains rule the world.”
“But the world’s all fucked up.”
“I don’t know. Let’s see what it’s like out there.”
“Yeah, let’s do that.” Beller began to worry about his ass. Hoppy was starting to sound like a nigger lover.
They ditched the division completely, walking south towards where the flames rose the highest and the gunfire sounded its loudest echoes.
Lloyd took the north side of 93rd Street and Beller the south, rifles at high port with bayonets fixed and sharpened, eyes scanning row after row of cheap white clapboard houses where Negro families peered from lighted windows and sat on porches, drinking, smoking, chattering and waiting for something to happen.
They hit Central. Lloyd gulped and felt a trickle of sweat run down into his skivvies, which hung below his hipbones, weighted down by the two specially constructed automatics jammed into his waistband.
Beller whistled from across the street and pointed forward. Lloyd nodded as he felt a whiff of smoke hit his nostrils. They walked south, and it took long moments for Lloyd’s head to click into place and assimilate the epiphanies, the perfect logic of the self-destruction he was viewing:
Liquor stores, night clubs, process parlors and storefront churches interspersed with vacant lots covered with abandoned cars burned out from the inside. Gutted storefront after gutted storefront spilling profusions of broken liquor bottles; broken glass everywhere; the gutters filled with cheap electric ware–non-hockable items obviously looted in haste and discarded when the looters realized they were valueless.
Lloyd poked his
M-14 into smashed-in windows, squinting into the darkness, cocking his ears the way he had seen dogs do it, listening for the slightest sound or presence of movement. There was nothing–only the wail of sirens and the crack of gunshots in the distance.
Beller trotted across the street just as an L.A.P.D. black-and-white turned onto Central from 94th. Two flak-coated officers jumped out, the driver running up to Lloyd and demanding: “What the fuck are you doing here?”
Beller answered, startling the cops, who swiveled to face him, reaching for their .38s. “Far point, officer! My buddy and I been assigned to run ahead of our company and search out snipers. We’re infantry scouts.”
Lloyd knew that the cops didn’t buy it and that he had to pursue the violent wonder of Watts without his low-life partner. He sent a sharp look Beller’s way and said, “I think we’re lost. We were only supposed to go out three blocks ahead, but we took a wrong turn somewhere. All the houses on these numbered streets look alike.” He hesitated, trying to look bewildered.
Beller caught the drift and said, “Yeah. All these houses look alike. All these niggers on their steps sloppin’ up juice look alike, too.”
The older of the two cops nodded, then pointed south and said, “You guys with that artillery down near 102nd? The heavy-duty coon hunting?”
Lloyd and Beller looked at each other. Beller licked his lips to try to keep from laughing. “Yes,” they said in unison.
“Then get in the car. You ain’t lost no more.”
As they highballed it southbound without lights or siren, Lloyd told the cops he was flagged for the October class at the academy and that he wanted the riot to be his solo training ground. The younger cop whooped and said, “Then this riot is a preordained training ground for you. How tall are you, six-four? Six-five? With your size, you’re gonna get sent straight to 77th Street Division, Watts, these self-same fucking streets we’re cruising right now. After the smoke clears and the fucking liberals run off at the mouth about the niggers being victims of poverty, there’s gonna be the job of maintaining order over some very agitated bad-ass niggers who’ve had a distinct taste of blood. What’s your name, kid?”
“Hopkins.”
“You ever kill anyone, Hopkins?”
“No, sir.”
“Don’t call me ‘sir.’ You ain’t a cop yet, and I’m a plain old patrolman. Well, I killed lots of guys in Korea. Lots and lots, and it changed me. Things look different now. Real different. I’ve talked about it to other guys who’ve lost their cherry, and we all agree: You appreciate different things. You see innocent people, like little kids, and you want them to stay that way because you got no innocence yourself. Little things like little kids and their toys and pets get to you, ’cause you know they’re heading straight into this big fucking shitstorm and you don’t want them to. Then you see people who got no regard for gentle things, for decent things, and you gotta come down hard on them. You gotta protect what two cents worth of innocence there is in the world. That’s why I’m a cop. You look cherry to me, Hopkins. You look eager, too. You understand what I’m saying?”
Lloyd nodded, tingling with a pins and needles sensation. He smelled smoke through the open patrol car window, and the feeling began to numb as he realized the cop was talking instinctively about Lloyd’s Irish Protestant ethos. “I understand exactly what you’re saying,” he said.
“Good, kid. Then it starts tonight. Pull over, partner.”
The older cop braked and drew up to the curb.
“It’s all yours, kid,” the younger cop said, reaching over and banging Lloyd’s helmet. “We’ll take your buddy back to your outfit. You see if you can stir up anything on your own.”
Lloyd tumbled out of the patrol car so fast that he never got to thank his mentor. They hit the siren by way of farewell.
102nd and Central was a chaos of smoldering ruins, the hiss of fire hoses, the squeal of tires on the now wet pavement, all modulated by police helicopters that hovered overhead, casting broad searchlights into storefronts to give the firemen light to work by.
Lloyd walked into the maelstrom, grinning broadly, still suffused with the eloquent recapitulation of his philosophy. He watched an armored half-track move slowly down the street, a fifty caliber machine gun mounted in its bed. A guardsman in the cab barked into a powerful bullhorn: “Curfew in five minutes! This area is under martial law! Anyone found on the streets after nine o’clock will be arrested. Anyone attempting to cross official police barriers will be shot. Repeat, curfew in five minutes!”
The words, clearly enunciated with force and malice, echoed loudly down the street, resulting in a flurry of activity. Within seconds Lloyd saw dozens of young men dart from burnt-out buildings, running full speed in any direction not caught by the searchlights. He rubbed his eyes and squinted to see if the men were carrying pilfered merchandise, only to discover they had disappeared before he could yell out or train his M-14 on them.
Lloyd shook his head and walked past a group of firemen milling around in front of a ravaged liquor store. They all noticed him, but no one seemed puzzled by the anomaly of a lone guardsman on foot patrol. Emboldened, Lloyd decided to check out life indoors.
He liked it. The darkness inside the burned-out store was soothing and Lloyd sensed that the shadow-shrouded silence was there to inform him with essential knowledge. He stopped and took a roll of friction tape from his fatigue jacket pocket and fixed his flashlight to the bottom edge of his bayonet. He swung his rifle in a figure eight arc and admired the results: wherever the M-14 pointed, there would be light.
Mounds of charred wood; piles of insulation stuffing; crushed booze bottles. Used condoms everywhere. Lloyd chuckled at the thought of subterranean liquor store coupling, then felt himself go dead cold as his chuckle was returned, followed by a hideous low moan.
He moved his M-14 around in a three hundred sixty degree arc, the muzzle at waist level. Once, then twice. On the third time around he was rewarded: an old man lay crumpled atop a mound of wadded up insulation fiber. Lloyd’s heart melted. The old bastard was withered to prune dimensions and was obviously a threat to no one. He walked to the old man and handed him his canteen. The old man grasped it with shaking hands, raised it to his lips, then threw it to the ground, screeching:
“That not be what I need! I needs my Lucy! I gots to have my Lucy!”
Lloyd was befuddled. Was the old geezer crying out for his wife or some long lost love?
He removed the flashlight from his bayonet housing and shined it in the old man’s face, then winced; the mouth and chin of that face were covered with congealed blood, from which glass shards stuck out like crystalline porcupine quills. Lloyd recoiled, then pointed his light into the old man’s lap and recoiled further: the withered hands were cut to the bone, and three fingers of the right hand had been ground down to bloody stubs. The gnarled left hand held the shattered remnants of a bottle of Thunderbird wine.
“My Lucy! Gimme my Lucy!” the old man wailed, spitting globules of blood out with each word.
Lloyd took his flashlight and went crashing through the glass strewn ruins, brushing tears from his eyes, searching for an intact bottle of liquid salvation. Finally he found one, partially hidden by an overturned ceiling beam–a pint of six-year-old Seagram’s 7.
Lloyd carried the bottle over and fed the old man, holding his head by the short nap of his grey hair, keeping the bottle a few inches from his bloody lips lest he try to ingest the entire thing. Thoughts of going for medical attention crossed his mind, but he pushed them away. He knew that the old man wanted to die, that he deserved to die drunk and that this service he was performing was the wartime equivalent of the many hours he had spent talking to his mute, brain-damaged mother.
The old man made slurping sounds, sucking convulsively at the bottle each time it touched his lips. After a few minutes had passed and half the pint was consumed, his tremors subsided and he pushed Lloyd’s hand away.
“Dis be de start of World Wa
r Three,” he said.
Lloyd ignored the comment and said, “I’m P.F.C. Hopkins, California National Guard. Do you want medical attention?”
The old man laughed, coughing up huge wads of blood-streaked sputum.
“I think you’re bleeding internally,” Lloyd said. “I can get you to an ambulance. Do you think you can walk?”
“I can do anything I wants to,” the old man shrieked, “but I wants to die! Ain’t no place for me in this war–I gots to make the scene on de other side!”
The bloodshot, filmy old brown eyes importuned Lloyd as if he were an idiot child. He fed the old man again, watching some kind of liquid acceptance course through the ancient body. When the bottle was finished the old man said, “You gots to do me a favor, white boy.”
“Name it,” Lloyd said.
“I’m gonna die. You gots to go over to my room and get my books and maps and things out and sell dem so I can have a decent burial. Christian like, you dig?”
“Where’s your room?”
“It in Long Beach.”
“I can go there when the riot is over. Not until then.”
The old man shook his head furiously, until his body shook with it, rag-doll like, all the way down to his toes. “You gots to! They gonna lock me out tomorrow ’cause I behind on the rent! Then de po-lice gonna throw me in de sewer with the rats! You gots to!”
