Diesel Heart

by Melvin Carter Jr

  Frazier strapped on the utility belt, helmet, and ankle spikes, shinnied up the high post with a long safety rope attached to his utility belt and dangling to the ground. Tobacco-chewing Schmitty, Sacra, and them counterbalanced the opposite end of the long safety line, spotting Frazier in case of a slip or fall. So, trying to help, or trying to act like I thought I was part of the activity, trying to pretend not to be stupid, I grabbed the dangling slack on the far end of the safety rope. Then the most astonishing thing happened. Chief Schmitty, right in front of me, let go of his end of the safety rope and turned, flailing his fist repeatedly at my face until I let go and backed away.

  Fortunately, his flailing sissy swings just grazed me, slightly scratching my face. But in truth I was hurt, beyond my own understanding. Deep down in my spirit and soul, I was shattered, deeply disappointed in me, myself. This rejection was somehow my fault, proof that my existence had no meaning. I had nothing to give, nothing to offer. As a son and big brother on a quest to find myself, discover who I was, I was ashamed of my insignificance. I was just glad that Dad, Mom, Terrie, Paris, Mark, Mathew, and Larry didn’t see this. I couldn’t write home and tell them: “Dear Mom, Dad, today I was bitch-slapped and just stood there fighting back tears.” The new release “To Be Young, Gifted, and Black” made me feel even worse, because I had no gifts. Maybe all this flunking and failure in school is who I really am! Maybe all those great things that Mom saw in me were just a lie. No, I can’t let them know. I stopped writing home.

  I turned to my own resources. Running the power plant went like this: press this button, pull this switch, turn this knob. Standing watch consisted of checking gauges and recording digits, which took about five minutes every hour, boring as hell. So reading, writing, shadowboxing, push-ups, and jumping jacks were my way of keeping sanity, along with the process of self-development, especially upon the realization that this electronic experience wasn’t gonna provide me with no futuristic career.

  I collected reading materials of all kinds, from Marvel comic books, Reader’s Digests, and novels to Playboy Magazine (which actually had great articles). The reading turned into serious studying time. I kept a notebook and a dictionary at my desk at all times. I’d select and master at least one new word every day, look it up, record it, and then define it in my notebook exactly as it was written, then play one of me ’n’ Henry’s homemade games. The goal was to insert a new big word on some unsuspecting victim as though it was already common in our everyday language—to slip in the new vocabulary word so naturally that it fit into some kind of conversation, but without me getting caught.

  Malcolm X’s Autobiography had the biggest effect on me. I identified most with being self-taught and self-developed.

  Mostly I hung out with jarheads. The Black marines were a brotherhood that I, never having been in combat and a sailor besides, could never be totally accepted into. But “the Brothers” related to one another as boys from back on the block, in the hood, and they said I reminded them of one of those pool hall thugs from back home.

  Sims and Nesbitt were the unofficial co-mayors of Bouk ghetto life. Nesbitt was such a personality that when he stood watch in a shack out in the field, over a dozen brothers would be out there with him, listening to him talk and to his storytelling. Ironically, he had the least combat experience of them all, but the others stood mesmerized as he talked about landing in a combat zone late at night, under cover of darkness in high grass, exiting a helicopter, being told to keep his head down while racing for the cover of a nearby forest. And not a single shot was fired.

  A new marine named Boguson arrived, and as with all new arrivals, we gathered around to learn what was goin’ on back in The World. Boguson seized the stage. “The revolution is full fledged! Sisters are at the airports, grabbin’ brothers goin’ off to war, sayin’ ‘Come on, let’s make some babies right here in the airport.’” Boguson was a self-appointed authority on what was truly Black and what was Uncle Tom. His Black Power demeanor was down to a science. Off duty, Boguson’s Black Panther tam tilted very angrily over to one side of his face. He wore a blue jean jacket, black leather fingerless gloves, and dark sunglasses, especially at night.

  Come to find out, the navy had two sets of rules, one for the chucks and another especially for me. Their rules were embellished with privileges, opportunities, and supremacy. Mine were laced with venom. My routine conversations mostly consisted of “Don’t call me Lightning!” which sometimes evolved into scuffles and shoving matches. But every now and then, Sturdevant would say, “Hi, Mel.” And I always appreciated it deeply.

  The radio shack, precisely a quarter mile from the power plant, needed new underground cables. A ditch needed to be dug—a quarter mile long, four feet deep, and two feet wide. So again, as an electrician, I was yanked from running the power plant, issued a shovel, a pickax, and a gigantic jackhammer, and ordered to start digging.

  A work detail of Moroccans from nearby hamlets who usually performed such dirty hard labor started digging from the opposite end. The only American assigned to this work detail was me. America the beautiful, which so many of us had signed up to fight for, to die for, to protect with our lives, now dealt my patriotism a final blow. As far as I knew, my ancestors had served in every American conflict since the Revolutionary War. Momma lost her beloved uncle Archie and uncle Wade in World War I due to mustard gas. So my love for America had nothing to do with all that Plymouth Rock–ass bullshit. I’d fight and die for America to protect my momma, daddy, and siblings, aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents, and St. Paul. On one hand I was flattered to be on the labor work detail with native Africans in Africa and wanted them to accept me. On the other hand, this insult was irreversibly, irrevocably etched.

  All alone I started digging on my end, working my way down to meet the Moroccan work crew at the opposite end. I could hear them singing, talking, and laughing while digging toward me. My segment crossed a double-lane asphalt road, which had to be cut through with this awkward eighty-pound jackhammer, which agonized my back. For several days, I was out in the A-Field by myself until Omar, a huge Moroccan man, was bitten by a deathstalker scorpion, taken away, and never heard from again. I was immediately taken off the ditchdigging detail and returned to the power plant. The Moroccans finished digging the ditch without me.

  Most liberty was spent in the nearest town, Kenitra. On one beautiful day, the sun was just finishing drying up leftover puddles from torrential rain. The atmosphere was festive. Me ’n’ Swindler (a newfound Black marine buddy from DC) had just gotten off the Bouknadel bus and were strolling around town, looking into shops, when Stevie Wonder’s voice singing “My Cherie Amour” came from around the corner on loudspeakers. We followed his voice down the street and around the corner to a nearby record shop. Playing Stevie Wonder, they must be calling me.

  A group had gathered in front of the record shop, sipping wine. Young Moroccan men on the sidewalk put on a show, taking turns performing stunts with a soccer ball, kicking, balancing, keeping it in the air, passing the ball back and forth using their feet only. We stood there watching them for a while before entering the shop. They ignored us. No big deal.

  Four beautiful young ladies tended the shop from behind countertops. Fine cloth draped their bodies from head to the floor, revealing only enough to allow them to see and breathe, exposing golden brown skin, dark mysterious eyes, long shy fluttering eyelashes. The fabric only accentuated hidden poetic motion underneath. Bodily gestures, blushing, flashing eyes signaled to me, calling me by name. “Untee Izweena!” (You lookin’ good.) “Lah! Lah! Untee Izweena bizzeff!” (No, no! You lookin’ real good!)

  An older distinguished managerial-type gentleman eyeballed us from across the floor. Ignorant of proper customs and protocol, we flirted like crazy. The ladies tried to hide involuntary blushing, but fluttering eyes encouraged us onward.

  I was having the best of a good time, for a change, when the boss stepped up to me and commanded: “Zid!” (Leave
now!) He said it again and again, getting in my face. Stunned, not fully understanding, I strolled to the door. He followed on my heels, escorting me to the door as if he were putting me out. Injury was added to the insult!

  Shopping in the medina.

  Hold it right here! Wait a minute! There was one name never to call a Moroccan without expecting an ass whoopin’, and I knew better even then. But the word came out of my mouth at the doorway. He shoved me, and my hands betrayed logic. Left hand pinned his head against the wall. My other fist repeatedly pounded his face into the doorframe. Soccer guys and the crowd in front surrounded me. The tall lean man kicked me soundly between my legs. I caught and held onto his foot, yanking him forward, pulling him hard, swinging at his face as he fell backward to the sidewalk. Instincts screamed, Smash his face! But incoming blows from every direction forced me to let go. He grabbed the wine bottle and came at me swinging, just barely missing, forcing me to flee up the street. Running for my life, I felt his breath and heard his footsteps, but I was slightly increasing the distance between us with every stride. Inside his head, I already knew he was gonna throw the bottle at me, and I stepped behind a telephone post just in the nick of time.

  The bottle missed, crashed, and shattered on the sidewalk just at my heels. He stopped, retreating back to the safety of his crowd, presuming that I would continue to flee, which I should have done … but noo! Feet came to a screeching halt, reversed directions, and chased him. Back in the safety of the crowd, he turned to fight, spun around to kick me solidly in my balls, this time much harder, lifting me slightly off the pavement. Again I grabbed and held onto his kicking foot, then ran clutching his foot in one hand, dragging him across the pavement on his back, he still kicking at me with his free foot, me trying to get separation from the crowd. He had committed sacrilege against my sacred holy temple, a crime against the ultimate bastion of my human dignity.

  The urgent need to smash and finish him off overwhelmed survival instincts, superseded all reason, all other needs, even pain. Maintaining my grasp, dragging him down the street, I saw men, women, and children joining in, smashing my new sunglasses against my face, tiny hands searching my pockets for cash, snatching my hat and my fine new Bulova wristwatch, ripping my clothes. Taking hits from all sides, careful not to injure the women and children, I still maintained my grasp, but I was overwhelmed and collapsing. Just as I was falling to the ground, Swindler threw my arm over his shoulder and ran, dragging me down the street. We escaped around the corner to the bus stop.

  On the bus, I curled on my back, rolling around in agony on the way back to base. At sick bay, the physicians ran some tests, issued me some special bandage-type underwear, and informed me that my testicles had lost the ability to produce semen. “It may come back, maybe not!” HUH?

  The navy white guys were very macho when it came to heavy machinery, high towers, and electricity. But one day Johnson and Schmitty got off the Bouk bus whining: “We had to stand all the way back on the bus ride to base because Guillotine, that fuckin’ jarhead, told us to give up our seats so he could lay down! That fucker took both our seats, and we were there first.”

  I tried to understand why these two guys gave up their seats for one guy. They said it was because he was a fuckin’ bully and he threatened to hold thump call on their asses.

  Why the two of them allowed Guillotine to bully them was beyond me.

  12

  Bouk in Pieces

  Sims ’n’ Nezz warned the brothers again about some white supremacist group of marines who called themselves the Henchmen and had been going around Kenitra at night catching and beating Black marines severely. Boguson stood up and pulled out a knife, raising the blade to the sky and shouting, “Death to the white man! Death to his women and babies!” Skinny, the recon, stared off into oblivion with chronic giggles.

  These were tumultuous times. Racial tensions in the air were at an alltime high across America, and I read about it in the letters and clippings I got from home. Henry was in Vietnam. Fatso had somehow been released from active duty. My sister Terrie was engaged to Bill. My brother Mark was playing trumpet in a rock group called Purple Haze. Other letters were extremely upsetting: Goon Tremble had shot and killed Tweet; the “pigs”—police—were roaming our neighborhood and shooting down Black boys like wild animals, killing Wayne Massie and Keith Barnes.

  Racial tension overlapped into military base life. I went to bed and found a handwritten note that said, “Die tonight, nigger.” After taps and lights out, the only lights in the barracks were the red exit lights. With them off, the barracks were completely dark. I slept in the bottom bunk—the top bunk in my cubicle was empty—which afforded me some sense of shelter from surprise attacks. Every night I stockpiled heavy metal folding chairs around my bottom bunk, and I slept clutching my switchblade under my pillow with my thumb on the switch. The idea was that a stalking attacker would knock over the chairs and the noise would wake me up.

  The problem was that I slept hard. One morning I awakened to learn that a horrible earthquake had killed over three hundred in a nearby village, and that I had slept through an official entire barracks evacuation. Everyone had been awakened except for me. They must have tiptoed past my cubicle, shushing one another.

  For some reason, me ’n’ “the Geech” hit it off from the start. That’s what the marine brothers called Private Danny Hayes, Black brother from South Sea Island off the Carolinas. “Geech” didn’t sound respectful, so I never called him that. Hayes was one of the very few people I could have a meaningful conversation with, whatever the topic. Hayes was the kindest, gentlest person on the entire base, and it was difficult to imagine that he too was a decorated combat soldier.

  A squid—me—hangin’ with some jarheads, August 1969. Left to right: Boguson, me (in sailor’s cap), Swindler, Hayes.

  It was a cloudy dreary windy day. Someone had already mentioned in the boiler room that Eastridge and his henchmen “did the Geech.” But I was preoccupied with my own drama. It had slipped my mind.

  I happened to be strolling on the walkway between barracks and ran into Hayes. One side of his face looked like raw hamburger, still seeping watery blood. His eyes closed deep inside swollen eyelids. Half his lip was busted.

  “What happened?!”

  A tragically broken man described how Eastridge, White, Reid, and Guillotine had caught him alone last night off base and stomped him into the pavement, merely for their recreation. Stunned, I watched Hayes continue down the pathway.

  I was delirious, vacillating between anger and actual mad-dog-rabies mad. My eyes throbbed in my face. My heartbeat echoed loud between my ears. Of all people, Hayes? The nicest guy on the planet? I had passed Eastridge and his boys entering the marine barracks just a few minutes before that. I paced back and forth, my feet continually reversing directions between navy and marine barracks, until reason set in. Aww, hell no! I turned around, headed back toward the navy barracks. Then madness prevailed and had the final say.

  Out of my mind with rage, I opened the marine barracks door. The loud gush of wind accentuated the door explosion, punctuated my words, carrying my voice to every corner of those barracks. “Eeeeeast-riiddgge, where you at? I know you in here, punk mahfukkah!” For some reason, I imagined that he’d be somewhere in there hiding. But a calm voice responded from between some bunks deep inside.

  “Here I am.”

  I followed the direction of his voice. “Did you do the Geech? Mahfukkah!”

  Disinterested, if not bored, he completed the task of making his bunk and turned to face me as casually as though he were brushing his teeth. “Yeah, Carter, I did him!”

  I closed in. He stepped up to face me. His boys—White, Reid, Guillotine, Renfro, and others—took up positions beside and behind him. There were about twelve to twenty of them. It was hard to tell.

  Suddenly, reality caused my anger to subside. This ain’t good! Here I am, a sailor, all alone in the marine barracks, confronting white supremacis
t chucks while being Black. Better get myself an emergency exit strategy, I thought. Hey? How come I ain’t gettin’ my ass kicked?

  “Don’t let me catch you! You gonna pay! Blah, blah, blah …”

  Half the marines in the barracks mustered up alongside of him. Eastridge, neither moved nor shaken, almost bored, let me know, “I’m right here, Carter!”

  My madness had gotten me into this. As I edged backward, the question echoed in my mind: Why ain’t I gettin’ my ass kicked? The back of my heel stepped on someone’s toe. Every time I shifted back, either to the right or left, gentle hands from behind nudged me forward again. It was Sims, Nesbitt, Bates, Swindler, Recon, and a host of the boiler room brothers. Everyone—except Boguson. They had gathered behind me and to my flank. The Brothers had my back. Some shouted “THUMP CALL”! Suddenly coming to my senses, realizing the situation my anger had placed me in, I backed off, ad-libbing an emergency exit plan, trying to save face, still tough talking while backing toward the door. The intense eyeball-to-eyeball nose-to-nose stalemate showdown ended with no thump call that day. But my mouth had issued a check that eventually would be cashed.

  Later that afternoon in the boiler room, Boguson appeared in pure Black militant regalia, deep dark sunglasses, fully tilted tam turned to the side, black leather fingerless gloves, sporting an antisocial dashiki. His criticism was harsh. Huey Newton and Bobby Seale would have done this! And what he woulda done. Here’s what you shoulda done! … But no … ! In conclusion, he proclaimed us all Uncle Tom-ish and performed his ritual, lifting the open blade of a knife to the heavens, yelling “Death to the white man! Death to his woman and babies!” and storming out, leaving us all bewildered. “Sa-a-a-y whaaat?!”

  Periodically, the marines trained navy sailors—running drills, assault tactics, shooting, and extreme military stuff. When it came to hand-to-hand combat, the marines were experts, and navy personnel were no match for them.