by F. X. Toole
Mac waited three minutes before he holstered the Glock. When there was no movement in the doorway, he and Puddin both went to the Señora.
She was trembling, but her slanted Indian eyes flashed fury. “Bastard sons-of-shit whores,” she said in Spanish. “I shit in their shameless mothers’ milk.”
“Did they hurt you?” asked Mac.
“No yet.”
“Did they rob you?”
“No yet.”
“They have a gun?”
“I don’t see one. But the ugly one he say he got sonthing for me inside he cane.”
“Did they say they would hurt you?”
“No quite. The young one come in my kitchen and rattle my knives. The redhead ugly say there is bad people have started hurting stores and I hab to pay him to protect me. He say they hab they four dinners free tonight for down payment of what I owe.”
“What did you say?”
“I say I no espeak no Ingli. They say they don’t believe.”
Mac turned to Puddin. “You know them?”
“I know ‘em.”
With Puddin able to I.D. the punks, Mac knew that he could trace them, but aside from walking out on their tab, which would be hard to prove, no crime as such had yet been committed. Besides, as a cop he’d been called in to similar extortion situations, but there was nothing cops could do until the perps actually collected money or beat on people, and by then the victims were so scared they wouldn’t testify. There was Puddin to protect as well, because if Mac called in cop friends to roust these small-time hoods, they would know that Puddin had identified them. Mac had wanted to shoot Ruby, but he wanted to vaporize the four punks who’d leaned on the Señora. He told her to cancel his and Puddin’s food order and to go ahead and close up, that he’d help. She insisted on serving them. Mac turned to Puddin.
“Who are these pukes?”
“Couple still in school, but all are runnin wit the 43 Stokkers, that a feeder gang for the Five Tray Gangsta Crips. “Air Jordan” what they call the ugly nigga.”
“Call him air-what?”
“Air Jordan. You know, he try you for you new jacket and shoes you alone on the street, or you look easy. Stealin new Nike shoes what give him his name. Hit you upside you head and while you down, he use scissors to cut off the laces. You fight back, Air Jordan stab you dead and steal you stuff right off you bones.”
“They ever mess with you?”
“They know they try me, I won’t be the only nigga get stretched on satin. They mess wit Señora Cabrera, I stretch all they raggedy ass.”
“You let me handle this, okay?”
Puddin shrugged, nodded, knew Mac was right.
Señora Cabrera served them steaming shrimp in a spicy tomato sauce with peppers, onions, and cilantro. She served the shrimp with rice and beans and corn tortillas. The remaining guests paid and left. Mac drank down a cold, dark Negra Modelo before he began to eat and ordered a second. The Señora sat at their table while they ate.
“I work so har’,” she said. “My girls work here before they go to nurse school, speak two language. No one neber rob my food.”
“These guys been here before?” asked Mac.
“Firs’ tine.”
“Best be they last,” said Puddin, finishing his meal. He thanked Señora Cabrera and said, “Want me a walk on home or stay wit you and help close up?”
“I’ll help her, but I don’t want you out there alone tonight,” said Mac. He turned to the Señora. “I’ll drive him home. It’s two minutes. I’ll be back to help you close.”
“No, I’n okay.”
“I know you are, but I want to.”
Mac and Puddin hadn’t been gone a minute when Air Jordan and the others pushed past the Señora as she tried to lock her door.
“We back for forty-two takeout tacos a go.”
“I’m close.”
“You open now,” said Air Jordan. He threw a chair across the room and flicked off some of the lights. “Cook, bitch, make the shit to go.”
“Cook what?”
“Somethin good for twenty people, what you think chili peppah?”
“What you wan’?”
“I don’t give a fuck what!” shouted Air Jordan. “Make sure we like it, that all!”
Señora Cabrera went to the kitchen wanting to kill and wishing to God she had her .44. She went straight to her storeroom for rat poison instead. She’d dump it into these rateros’ fish tacos. Mac came in before she could use it.
He didn’t waste time. He crossed directly to Air Jordan, pulled a chair over from another table, and sat down at the gang’s table. He looked Air Jordan dead in the eye and smiled a little smile that had no humor in it.
“Am I glad to see you, bro. You won’t believe this shit, but there are some white boys coming into the neighborhood, ugly like rotten meat. They go around to small stores and threaten to fuck over the people, you know I’m sayin?, small store people like the Señora here got to come up with their money, or else, you dig?, like these cockroaches want folks to turn over their hard-earned bread, hear I’m sayin’? I mean, how low-down can white trash be?, understan I mean?”
Air Jordan glared at Mac. He wanted to wipe the floor with this snotty-ass old white man talking his bullshit brother talk, but he didn’t know what might be waiting outside, didn’t know what the fuck this crazy old man might be packing. It was exactly what Mac wanted, wanted Air Jordan to focus on him and to forget Señora Cabrera. The other three looked to Air Jordan for the go-ahead to scatter this white man’s ass. Air Jordan was tempted.
Instead, he said, “Man, I don’t know what the fuck you talkin about.”
“What I’m sayin,” Mac said, “is if you four fine, upstanding brothers ever see these no-account white pieces a bat shit come in here, know I’m sayin?, I want you to jump on their asses, dig what I mean?, like waste them for me, understand? I’m here all the time, so I’ll probably shoot the muhfuhs myself, but if you’re here, you do it for me, hear I’m sayin? Now, if you’re afraid a white boys, that’s cool, just have the Señora call me at Not Long Gym. I’ll bring my fighters over and we’ll hang these punks by the balls from meat hooks under a bridge, know I’m sayin? ‘By any means necessary,’ like Malcolm said, right? Hey!, Malcolm had red hair, too, just like you, baby, right on!, my brother.”
Mac could see Air Jordan was ready to snap, saw the others with their hands inside their jackets. Mac’s hand was near the Glock.
Air Jordan said, “What you doin this part of town, old man?, you don’t know no better?”
“People call me Mac, retired LAPD. But since I train fighters around here, I figure it’s my part of town, too.”
“I fucked a fighter in the ass in jail one time,” said Air Jordan.
“I been in the fight game most of my life, but nobody ever fucked me in the ass,” said Mac. “Say, you ever thought of being a fighter instead of a butt fucker?”
“Too smart for that.”
“I’m surprised, you looking so tough like you do, or whatever it is you do look like,” said Mac, still smiling, his eyes hard as spider’s.
Air Jordan sat back. At that point he knew what Mac wanted him to know, that the Señora had told Mac about him; that Mac was the heat, since once a cop always a cop, and that meant he had friends who carried guns; that Mac wasn’t afraid of him; that Mac knew how to track him. Air Jordan wasn’t happy. This old man was costing him money, and worse, his partners might lose respect for him if he let the old honky give him chump change. Killing the old man, for now anyway, wasn’t the answer, because he’d have to kill the Señora, too. And kill that uppity-ass Puddin, who could be serious trouble. Now wasn’t the time, anyway. His fingerprints were all the fuck over the place. But fire would solve that problem.
“You a funny old white mein, you know that?”
“Hey, we both know how great it is being white, ain’t that right?” said Mac. “ Whaddaya say, we got a deal? You help me out on this, I’ll buy yo
u guys dinner. Hey! I’ll feed the four of you right now just to show my word’s good.” Mac called to the Señora. When she got to the table, Mac said, “These boys are hungry. Spare no expense. Why don’t you bring them out a nice big platter a squid?”
“What squid?” said Air Jordan.
“It’s good for you, man, make you strong,” said Mac. “You know, baby squid, sort of purpley-colored with ten little legs, know I’m sayin?, something like a octopus. Some squid can grow to sixty or eighty feet, but they’re a lot harder to get in the pan.”
“Aw, man!” said Air Jordan, standing straight up. Now he knew Mac was crazy. “You talkin that shit!”
Mac said, “Naw! She’s got some live snake in the back, too. You like snake? Be careful, a couple of them got loose on the floor the other day. Hey, there’s one behind you! “
“Where?” said Air Jordan. He and the others looked fearfully around their feet, began stepping high, like chickens in a barnyard.
“Over there,” said Mac, pointing to the cactus, the eagle, and the snake on a small Mexican flag on the counter. “You boys like snake? Tastes like chicken, they say; you guys like fried chicken, right? Fry some snake right up for you. You like your snake in one long piece with the head and rattlers still on, or you like it in chunks, pull the scaly skin off like cracklins?”
All four were knocking over chairs on their way out the door.
“What’s wrong, you ain’t hungry sifter all?” Mac called after them. “Hey! We still got a deal about those white boys, don’t we? What’s your phone number? I’ll call you! “
Mac winked at Señora Cabrera. Mad as she was, she was laughing. But she hadn’t forgotten about her pistola. From now on she’d carry it under her apron until the day she died.
~ * ~
Two days later, on Wednesday, April 29, at eleven-thirty in the morning, Mac began working with his pros at Hymn Gym, at 108th and Broadway. Hymn was at the southern end of South Central, west of Watts and 70 percent black, the rest Latino. Mac was still hurting, but the cuts were healing quickly and there was no infection. He closely watched after his fighters but only had them spar or work the big bag. It would be a while before he caught serious punches with the focus gloves. He was due to pick up Puddin at four o’clock, then head back to Not Long, where Puddin would work with Malik.
Clogging the entranceway to Hymn Gym were boxers, trainers, and locals who stood watching TV for news of the cop verdict in the Rodney King beating. The station kept running the clip of the edited tape, which had some of the viewers yelling at the screen. Some were drinking from half-pint bottles in brown paper bags. No one gave Mac any trouble, and he wondered if word was out on what had happened with Ruby. On the previous Thursday, the jury had begun seven days of deliberations after seven weeks of trial.
Mac passed through the group watching TV to refill a water bottle. It was one o’clock, and the TV reporter at the courthouse announced that the verdicts had been reached. They would be read in open court at three o’clock that afternoon. Mac finished with his last fighter at 2:35. By the time he got his gear together and washed up, it was 2:50. He waited with everyone else for the verdict, but when it hadn’t come in by 3:05, he left the gym. He drove north on Broadway for the Century Boulevard on-ramp to the northbound Harbor Freeway. Unless there was a traffic jam, he’d be early to pick up Puddin, so he took his time. His was the only car moving on the street.
Because of the imminent verdicts, and the potential violence they represented, Mac had thought about canceling the workouts. But his fighters depended on him, Puddin in particular, now that he had to be in shape to leave for training camp. One of his pros, a Liberian flyweight, was to fight the main event at the Forum in Inglewood. Mac’s Mexican featherweight, also a pro, was due for a fight in Vegas a week or so following that. Time was critical. Since it might be another week before the verdicts came in, Mac decided to go ahead and work rather them lose two, maybe three critical days out of fear.
Like most, Mac believed that guilty verdicts were sure to come down against the four accused cops. Like many, he also believed there would be trouble in the black community regardless of a conviction, which was one of the reasons he thought about canceling the workouts. The one o’clock announcement that the verdicts would be read at three concerned him, but he believed that he’d be finished at Not Long before any real violence could erupt. He also believed, mistakenly as it would turn out, that there would be a massive show of force by the police to quell any violence, which was what happened when he’d worked the Watts riots of 1965. Many blacks believed the same, and feared it, which is why some black politicians lobbied against a police presence in South Central. Other blacks wanted the police there because they knew that gangsters and mob rule would fill the void if they weren’t.
As he headed for the freeway on-ramp, which was still several blocks away, his car clock showed 3:18. What Mac didn’t know was that four not-guilty verdicts had been read at 3:15, and that the astonishing verdicts were based primarily on Mac’s understanding of the tape—that King’s attack on the police had resulted in his own private Hiroshima. Mac was nearing Century Boulevard and was about to turn on his radio when the first of two calls came in on his cellular phone.
The first was from Cannonball. “They not guilty.”
“Holy shit.”
“Where you at?” said Cannonball.
“On Broadway near Century.”
“Damn!” said Cannonball. “You git you white ass gone all the fuck outta where you at. Go where it white and stay where it white. Brothuhs talkin shit so cold I’ma close down and git up on the roof wit Lena.”
“My kid comes in, you take care of him, right?”
“Don’t worry, that boy too smart a come here, you worry ‘bout you,” said Cannonball. “Sorry this shit come down, Mac.”
“I’m with you,” said Mac. “I’ll be in touch soon’s this mess is over, okay? And listen, thanks for thinking of me.”
“Why wouldn’t I?”
“I got to ask you,” said Mac.
“Yeah.”
“You think we’ll ever get along?”
“Truth to tell, I don’t see it,” said Cannonball.
“Me neither.”
“Mac?”
‘Yeah.”
“I ain’t just talkin about colored and white,” said Cannonball.
“I know what you’re saying, my friend, I do.”
Mac turned back, heavy in the chest. He took Grand Avenue heading south and picked up the freeway at Imperial. Along the way, black teenagers on a school bus began screaming at him.
Willa called next. “We just heard the news. You stay away, Mist Mac, you hyuh? Puddin ‘n’ me be fine. This over, then we go head on back and do like we always do.”
~ * ~
The riots officially began at 4:17 p.m. on April 29, 1992. Not with Damian Football Williams and Reginald Denny at Florence and Normandie, but with five young black males who stole several bottles of “8-Ball,” Olde English 800 malt liquor, from a liquor store at Florence and Dalton. When the Asian owner tried to stop them, one of the blacks smashed him in the head with one of the bottles.
“This for Rodney King!” he said.
The attack on Reginald Denny at 6:46 P.M. was what first shocked the world. But several others, male and female, were also beaten at Florence and Normandie—Latinos, Asians, and Caucasians. One Latino was beaten and had a car driven across his legs. The perpetrators, though committing their crimes on live TV provided by hovering news helicopters, would subsequently receive minor sentences, including the dancing and prancing Football Williams.
The riots ended on the evening of May 4, 1992, but only after the National Guard was finally mobilized. Over five days, fifty-four people would die. Twenty-six were black. Fourteen were Latinos. Nine were Caucasian. Two were Asian. Three who died in fires were so disfigured that their race could not be determined. Emergency rooms treated 2,328 injured people. Eight hundred sixty-two s
tructures were burned. Ruby Thigpen was torched when a Molotov cocktail she was throwing slipped from her hand, broke on the sidewalk at her feet, and lit her up. Property losses were in excess of $900 million. More Latinos than blacks were involved in the looting, but there were white looters as well. Señora Cabrera’s Acapulco was vandalized by blacks and Latinos. Someone defecated on the rug, and feces was smeared across the photographs of the Señora’s grandfather and Puddin.
