by Guy Johnson
Deleon did not hesitate after he slit Martinez’s throat, nor did he hurry. He continued walking right past Martinez toward the door, where Diaz stood. The smile was still on his face. He even waved to Diaz as Diaz stood watching him with a questioning look. It wasn’t until Martinez fell to the floor that Diaz became alarmed. He just barely had time to raise his arm to defend himself from Deleon’s attack. Unfortunately for him, he never had time to raise his other arm. Deleon sprang forward with such speed and force that he had driven his knife up to the hilt into Diaz’s heart before Diaz could mount a defense. Diaz was dead before he hit the floor.
Deleon never stopped moving. He wiped his knife on the paper towels and threw them in a nearby trash bin. He checked his clothes for stains and allowed himself to smile. The art of using a knife was not only in killing your foe, but in not getting any blood on your clothes.
He walked outside the bus station and hailed a taxi. He gave the driver directions and sat back to think. There was no distress or regret for the lives he had just taken. Instead he was thinking of his future life, a life that was so close he could almost taste it. It was a world far different from the one he had known, a world filled with vibrant colors and blank canvases. He wanted to try his hand at pastels, oils, and acrylics, and he thought that he would spend a couple of years studying composition in Haiti, Jamaica, Trinidad, or Martinique. Deleon thought about the first picture he would paint. He had not formulated its subject or shape yet, but he particularly liked the thought of a canvas covered with a bright, transcendent color. Perhaps it would be a fitting memorial to the end of a way of life, a painting dominated with the color of fresh blood.
Saturday, June 26, 1982
Presenio Cordero was extremely angry as he walked down the corridor of KFRE Public Radio to the employees’ lounge. The lounge consisted of a long, narrow, unpainted room with a dingy, broken-down couch, a candy machine and a drink machine, a tired little refrigerator which was barely able to maintain fifty degrees, and two Formica dining room tables accompanied by an assortment of uncomfortable folding chairs.
Pres looked around the room and thought, I’m giving up my middle age for this? I could be making money and driving a new car! Instead I work for peanuts, watch executive directors mismanage the funds that I raised, and endure tedious board meetings in which the board members don’t even read their agendas or program packets, and for what? Why am I sacrificing?”
He knew the answer by heart and it was a good answer: to bring more people of color and women into the radio broadcasting environment, to provide the trainees in his program with the necessary technical training to enable them to compete for jobs in the production and broadcasting ends of radio operations. He had committed himself to giving back to the community in an attempt to atone for the lives he had taken and the harm he had caused during his military service in Vietnam. If he hadn’t had to deal with the financial mismanagement of the station’s director, the job would have been a dream; as it was, it was a nightmare.
He put two quarters in the drink machine and pressed a button. Nothing happened. He flicked the coin-return lever and nothing happened. In a fit of pique, Pres hit the machine with his fist and a can of soda rolled down the chute.
“We have to pay for any damage to lounge dispensers,” a prim voice chided him. It belonged to Gwen Hewlitt, the executive director of KFRE, a trim, brown-skinned woman in her mid-thirties. She wore her short, black hair in a strange perm that had her hair standing straight up on her head.
“Give me a break!” Pres said, still angry from her presentation to the board. “If you used the employee lounge, you’d know these machines don’t work half the time!”
“The board has finished their executive session. They’re ready for you to come back in,” Gwen informed him with a steady look. “Your threat to get a lawyer and challenge the manner in which I’ve dispersed funds did not go over well. If you don’t tone down your approach, your continued employment here could come into question.”
“The board can do what it wants,” Pres said with resignation as he opened his soda. “I can take this trainee project anywhere.”
There was a moment of stunned silence, then Gwen sputtered, “You can’t do that. You raised money under the auspices of KFRE!”
“As a matter of fact, I never mentioned KFRE in any of my written proposals or grant requests. I even mentioned KQET in San Francisco and KPSM in San Mateo as possible alternative sites in all the grants.”
“Your position is paid for by KFRE. So, in effect, we’re partially funding this program.”
“I am not paid to be the director of the training program. I started that on my own. I’m paid to produce twenty-five hours of programming a week, ten hours more than anyone else who’s making my salary. In addition, through this training program, I provide support for another thirty additional hours of programming. This training program is an asset to this radio station. And I won’t have the salaries of my trainees cut to pay the costs of overruns elsewhere in station operations!”
“That means someone else won’t get paid,” Gwen concluded.
“Oh, please, don’t give me that crap! It was poor planning like that that causes you to be over budget every year. I can’t let the trainee program suffer because of your incompetence.”
“Well!” Gwen said haughtily. “I came in here to work something out with you and what do I get? More accusations!”
Pres took a sip of his soda then said, “I have worked here for over ten years. Eight years before you came here! The only reason that I stayed here was this trainee program. And I won’t stand by and see it destroyed by mismanagement and illegal acts. You have my resignation, effective immediately!”
Pres turned to walk out the door of the lounge and said to Gwen, “You better get someone to staff the ten hours of radio production assignments that the trainees are scheduled to provide tomorrow.”
He walked out the door and down the hall. He entered his crowded office, which he shared with two other people, and began to clean out his old wooden desk. He had three boxes of trainee files, which he set on his desk. In a fourth box he put tapes of the best shows he had produced and all the grant and fund-raising paperwork.
With two boxes of files and papers in his arms Pres descended the stairs slowly, wondering whether he had allowed his ego to interfere with finding a reasonable solution. After a few moments’ thought, he discarded that as a possibility; the only solution was that the trainees should continue getting paid as they were promised at the outset of the program.
KFRE was located above a good but inexpensive Cambodian restaurant. The restaurant had long served as a meeting place for KFRE staff and people associated with Public Radio. Tonight the trainees had taken over the lower floor of the restaurant next to the entrance and were awaiting Pres’s arrival.
Pres heard someone tapping on the restaurant window as he walked out the door of KFRE. Since his car was parked right in front of the restaurant, he just nodded. His burden seemed to increase in weight with each step. He fumbled for his keys and had just opened the car door when two men came up on either side of him.
One man was of medium height and muscular with sandy blond hair, and the other was short and fat with a receding hairline, which he sought to cover by combing his hair from one side of his head to the other. They were both wearing dark suits. Pres gave them an angry, questioning look. He was in no mood for any shit.
“Just put your stuff in the car and come with us,” the blond man hissed.
Pres noticed that the man’s face was terribly pockmarked and he had a chipped tooth. “Why should I go anywhere with you?” he demanded.
“Because of this, asshole.” The fat man showed Pres a gun in his holster.
“Piss off!” Pres said. “You’ve got the wrong person. And I’ve had a terrible day!” Before he could react the fat man clipped him with the butt of his gun. Pres staggered and fell against his car. Blood dripped down his face.
&nbs
p; “What’s going on here?” a woman’s voice shouted. “Pres, are you all right?”
“Mind your own business!” the blond man commanded as he unlocked the door of a black sedan parked directly in front of Pres’s car.
The woman, wearing her hair in long dreads, was short and dark-skinned. She retorted hostilely, “He is my business, you big shithead!” She then opened the door of the restaurant and shouted, “Hey, two guys are out here beating up Pres!” She turned and held the door open defiantly.
In moments the sidewalk was filled with twenty people. Jamal Henderson and Tito Camacho stepped forward.
“You guys came here to start trouble with Pres?” Jamal asked with a smile. “In front of KFRE? You have got to be stupid!”
Tito threatened, “We might have to tear you a new asshole for this mistake.”
The fat man pulled his gun from the holster and let his arm hang at his side. “I wouldn’t get too bold if I were you.”
When the crowd saw the gun, there was a sudden fear; some people even stepped backward, but others staunchly maintained their ground. Someone yelled, “He ain’t gon’ shoot all of us!”
“We’re police!” the blond man claimed, walking back to where his companion was standing with Pres. “We’re taking this man in for questioning!”
One of the women yelled, “Let’s see your badges!”
Someone in the crowd said, “They ain’t got to show us no fuckin’ badges!”
The blond man returned to the black sedan and opened the door. He had his hand on his gun as he reiterated, “This is police business.”
“Good,” said a woman in the back. “ ’Cause I just called them and they’re sending a couple of black-and-whites to investigate you.”
The fat man hurriedly pushed Pres toward the open door of the black sedan. The blond man went around to the driver’s side and exclaimed, “Oh, shit!”
“You’re not going far in that car,” someone shouted. “I already slit those tires.”
Police sirens wailed in the background.
“The real police are coming now,” a woman shouted. “What are you going to do?”
“We’ll take his car!” the fat man said as he pushed Pres back toward his vehicle. There were more angry rumblings in the crowd and they began to press closer. The fat man jammed his gun under Pres’s chin and said, “You better stay back or he’s a dead man!”
“Get his keys!” the blond man said hurriedly.
The fat man yelled to the crowd, “Stay back or I’ll shoot!” He jammed the gun further into Pres’s chin. “Where are your keys?”
“You aren’t the police!” a woman yelled.
Someone else shouted, “If they were police, they would have shot somebody by now!”
Two police cars pulled up with their lights flashing. As the officers got out of their cars, the fat man and the tall man placed their guns on top of the cars and raised their hands. “We have permits to carry guns,” the blond man said loudly.
As soon as the fat man raised his hands, Pres kneed him in the crotch. Air whooshed out of the man’s mouth as he bent over.
“What’s going on here?” said a policeman as he pushed his way through the crowd. Someone stepped out from the throng and kicked the fat man in the head as he started to straighten up. “That’s for Pres!” The fat man staggered back against the car and snarled, “Oh, fuck, no!” He spun and reached for his gun, but Pres intercepted him.
“Can’t let you do that,” Pres grunted as he wrestled with the fat man, who outweighed him by seventy pounds.
The crowd came immediately to Pres’s aid. In no time the fat man was being pulled away. Pres saw him go down in the center of a swarm of bodies. People crowded in front of him; he couldn’t see what was happening. A woman came to his side and grabbed his arm supportively and led him away.
“Get back! Get back!” a policeman ordered as he and two other officers shoved people out of the way to reach the fat man, who was now being pummeled on the ground. “Get back, goddamn it!”
Someone brought a damp towel and began gently wiping the blood off Pres’s face. A chair was brought out of the restaurant for him. People crowded around him asking if he was all right. Many of the faces he recognized as trainees, but there were others he didn’t know at all.
A stockily built female officer pushed through the crowd and said to Pres, “I guess you’re the victim, Pres Cordero. Now, why don’t you tell me what happened.” Pres recounted step-by-step the course of events as he remembered them. The officer, a woman with pale skin and a broad Slavic face, asked occasional questions as she wrote down his statement. She turned to the circle of onlookers and asked for names and addresses of witnesses and practically the whole crowd volunteered.
“Are you all friends of his?” she asked with a trace of humor. There was a predominance of affirmatives and nodding heads.
One man came forward and said, “I don’t know this guy,” he indicated Pres with a nod of his head, “but those two goons you got locked up in the squad car started it. I saw the whole thing.”
The officer turned to Pres. “Do you wish to file a complaint?”
“Definitely! To the fullest extent of the law!” Pres asserted, his whole forehead aching.
As the officer turned to go, she said, “You’re a pretty lucky guy. You got a lot of support from these people; without them, who knows what would have happened.”
“Friendship and community spirit are the real treasures and riches of life,” Pres said sincerely. “You’re right, I am very lucky.”
Saturday, June 26, 1982
There was no sound in the hospital room after Jackson’s grandfather finished speaking. Muffled movement and voices could be heard through the closed door, but there was only an intense quiet between Jackson and his grandfather. Thirty-one years of silence had been broken and Jackson was speechless. He sat and pondered why he had to wait so long to hear how his mother had died. He wondered what his grandmother and grandfather had gained from their long silence. Was there some purpose behind it?
His grandfather interrupted his thoughts. “Took me nearly three years to collect this information and interview everybody connected with the happenin’s of that night. By that time, yo’ daddy was dead and I was raising hell!” His grandfather shook his head sadly. “Yo’ daddy was some man! Bad luck you never got to know him.” With these words, his grandfather seemed to sink farther down into the bed. Jackson looked at his watch and discovered that he had been in the room nearly two hours. His grandfather was obviously tired, but the old man’s eyes were alert. He watched Jackson, assessing his reactions.
“You all right?” Jackson asked.
The old man nodded his head. “Now you here—it’s all right!”
“What’s so important about me coming down here, Grandfather?”
The old man spoke quietly and Jackson had to pull his chair closer to hear him. The old man’s voice had a feathery quality. “Never lost track of you, boy. You my blood. The last of the line. The fire’s in you.”
“What fire are you talking about, Grandfather?” Jackson asked suspiciously.
“Flame of life, boy! Flame that burns in the belly! Makes a man stand tall for his family and what he believes in! You got to take care of the last few that had a hand in yo’ daddy’s death!”
He stared at his grandfather incredulously. The old man was watching him, waiting for him to speak. Jackson said, “Grandfather, I’ll be happy to assist you in handling any legal issues, or executing your will, but I’m not killing anyone or causing anyone to die. That’s not my world, Grandfather. That’s your world.”
“These last men got yo’ father’s blood on they hands!” The old man coughed and rasped out his words with as much anger as his exhausted condition would allow. He was fading, his strength was ebbing as Jackson watched. Jackson realized suddenly that he was alarmed for his grandfather. He stood up ready to find a nurse, but his grandfather waved him to his seat, protesting. “It�
��s all right. Jes’ sit down. Did you hear what I said before?” the old man asked querulously. “There’s a blood debt still to pay!”
“I’m sure that you’ve let enough blood flow to more than repay that debt,” Jackson answered with a touch of sarcasm.
“They gon’ come after you! What you got to say to that?” Jackson shook his head unbelievingly. The old man lifted his head briefly in consternation. “You’s a warrior, boy! You tryin’ not to accept it, but you’s a warrior. You been one since you was pint size. I know what’s in yo’ heart better’n you do. You’s a strong, courageous man. I know what you think about me and the things I’ve done. I’m tellin’ you, put that aside and look at the facts. A man who fights just to protect his life and his family ain’t no killer. That’s all I’m asking you to do. They gon’ come after you, so fight to protect yo’ life and yo’ family!”
“Give it a rest, Grandfather,” Jackson suggested. “I’m not picking up weapons to continue your feuds. But I want as much information as I can get about these people who are following me.”
“They on to you, huh? They must figure that Franklin don’t amount to much.”
“They could be following both of us, I really don’t know,” Jackson answered. “All I care about is who are they and what they want with me.”
“Jes’ because I’m dying don’t mean it’s over. I wiped out a pretty good section of the DuMonts and the DiMarcos. Them folk ain’t forgot nothin’! They want payback. Second, they want the corporate papers and certificates for my management company.”
“Who would want to carry on a thirty-year-old feud? What’s the purpose?”
“Feud was old in 1916 and the purpose was and still is revenge.”
“You mean to tell me that the men who were following me are descendants of someone killed in 1916? That doesn’t even sound believable!”
