Diesel Heart

by Melvin Carter Jr

  14

  Thump Call

  So now with about a two-and-a-half-month countdown, I was a “short timer.” Some things seemed to be coming together for me. I enjoyed the people, their culture and history, even getting quite good at communicating in their particular dialect of Arabic. With the end in sight, I was savoring the remaining time, imagining when I’d possibly even miss this godforsaken desert hellhole. Then, one day when the postmaster had been good to me, I got a letter from Sophia informing me that she was canceling her visit because she had eloped with the guy across the street. “Wish you happiness! Bye-bye!”

  Well sure, it was kind of a “Dear John” letter and a “Jody got your girl and gone” event. We had formally broken up, but she had held on wanting to be friends. Although I was anxious to see a familiar face from back home, I knew it was for the best, and I was happy for her, but my emotions were mixed and ran rampant. After all, she and I had gotten each other through these most perilous and confusing stages of life. Now feeling sorry for myself, I played the Temptations’ rendition of the song “I Wish You Love.” I tried to set her free; I tried to wish her bluebirds in the spring. Although I fully understood and was sincerely happy for her, I was stuck with a nasty, raunchy, vicious mood, and I couldn’t shake it.

  I went on duty that night fully hoping to shrug my foul mood. By this time, I had mysteriously been switched and trained in. My new job title was engineman, still in the power plant. Seaman Collins, my relief, came early that night, releasing me from duty in time to change into my civvies and pop over to the EM Club and slam a shot of Bacardi 151 rum. I hurried to the barracks, hopped out of my dungarees and Boondockers, and slid on my mighty fine dashiki.

  As I approached the EM Club’s main entrance, I noted shouts and lots of commotion on the patio. I recognized voices chanting, “THUMP CALL!” and “Brothers unite!” Swindler, Bates, and some new guys raced to greet me. “Carter, Reid and these chucks in there callin’ themselves a lynch mob, vowin’ to fuck you up tonight!”

  The predictable, inevitable moment that I had been thirsting for was at hand. Time for the bell to toll! Besides, the letter had already plunged me into the rottenest of all moods. What better time to fight than right now? What better place than right here? Like the songwriter said, Tonight, tonight, won’t be just any night!

  The chucks had been inside the club bragging about the “coons” they’d brutalized, flaunting taunting racial slurs, vowing that Carter was next. Some scuffling and skirmishing had ensued inside and been broken up. And now the brothers had fallen back and regrouped in the patio just outside the main entrance. The chucks had long been spoilin’ for a showdown. This time they had gone way too far. It was in the air. It was goin’ down tonight!

  My sudden appearance was the spark that sealed it.

  A wine bottle was passed around as a talking piece. Each warrior took a sip while making his own dying declaration, thanking others for all the love here tonight. “Remember, ya’ll, no matter what happens tonight, that I loved each and every one of you brothers. If anything happens to me tonight, tell my family I love them. Tell them how I went down on my feet rather than to live on my knees.” Spirituals were being hummed faintly as each received the talking bottle and declared his decree, his thoughts, how he wanted to be remembered, and his love for the Marine Corps. Instead of “Amen,” each decree was cosigned, accentuated with a muffled shout or grunt—“Thump Call!”

  The next round evolved into a claim-a-chuck. “Eastridge is mine! I been wantin’ that punk ass mahfukkah!” “I got White!” “No, I got Reid!” and so on. Boguson, with impeccable Black militant demeanor, his Black Panther tam tilted to the side, snatched the wine bottle and lifted it to the starlit heavens, shouting, “Death to the white man. Death to his women and babies!” Everybody looked at him like he was crazy. He was on his own with that shit.

  And so it continued. Everybody was in. Everybody was gonna get somebody and do something horrible to him. That is, until the bus into town pulled up. Boguson brilliantly articulated some extreme militant anti-white-man bullshit, criticized us all for some reason visible only to a purist such as himself, called us all Uncle Toms. But just before the bus door closed, he stood in the doorway, raised a clenched fist, and said, “Just remember that I am with you!” The door slid shut, and the bus left for town with Boguson and a few of the other brothers who had said they were gonna do horrible things to the chucks. Those of us who stayed, stunned in utter amazement, watched the party bus drive down the street, turn the corner, and disappear.

  For an instant this seemed to have a defusing effect. But then all of a sudden things grew quiet. The faint visibility of the patio lights produced new shadows. A voice shouted from across the other side of the patio, “Thump Call!” Sounds of violence erupted, crushing sounds of fists meeting human faces, bodies landing on tabletops, chairs sliding across the floor, shouts, groaning, and grunting.

  Someone jumped on my back, choking me from behind, attempting to wrestle me down with his legs wrapped around my waist. Carrying his weight, managing to keep my legs under me, I ran backward and dove into a wall, using a corner as his backstop. He let go. I spun around, but another pair of hands appeared from my blind side, grasping my throat. Twisting at the torso, gasping for breath, positioning to strike, I saw who my attacker was—and even more breath seemed to leave my body. It was Sturdevant, the nice guy who had gone out of his way to learn who I was, who learned my first name and called me Mel, a guy I had grown rather fond of. And now he was choking the life out of me! I watched in disbelief as my right fist crashed into his face time and again, as he clung to my throat for dear life. When I realized that this guy was ready to die in exchange for killing me, I gained more strength. My fist crashed hard into his face. Bright red blood exploded from his forehead to his cheekbone near his left eye. His grasp relaxed as the rest of him slumped over and slid limply to the deck.

  Waves of violence occurred off and on. Fully preoccupied with my own survival, I found it hard to tell what was going on with the others. But eventually I was overcome, handcuffed, and made to lie facedown in pools of (other people’s) blood. The “officer of the day” had arrived, deputized an informal posse of sorts, and took control of the crime scene. I was uncuffed upon promising to stop fighting.

  The fallout was significant. Sick bay overflowed with white gauze and medical tape, bandages, stitches, tetanus shots, but no life-threatening injuries. The stitches and other patch-up efforts would take care of everything necessary.

  But, still offended, I was mad as hell. I was in the bathroom, using a thick navy-issue washcloth to wash off blood and broken glass, irrigating bleeding gashes in my knuckles caused by human teeth. I was greatly relieved to find no tear in my fine fine dashiki.

  But then I saw it! This $*&@ chuck Sturdevant had had the nerve, the audacity, the gall to bleed down my front! I tossed the washcloth over my neck and ran out looking for him. “That punk-ass mahfukkah bled on my fine dashiki!”

  I burst into the MAA shack. “Where he at?” The medical corpsman was meticulously treating Sturdevant’s wounds, wrapping his head with tape and gauze. The OOD had summoned the master at arms. The base was on full alert. Someone with authority shouted, “Don’t do it, Carter!” Voices shouted in unison as I got closer and closer. “Carter, noooo!” But I was smacking Sturdevant across his head faster than the medical corpsman could wrap him up. In fact, at some point I was smacking the bandages off. “Carter, stop!” But I continued. “You got blood on my dashiki!” I smacked his head again. “Why did you do it?” SMACK!

  The OOD grabbed a long deer hoof that the shore patrol used as a billy club and launched at me. I grabbed it. We tussled. I was able to keep him from hitting me, but he, having a height and weight advantage, using my grasp against me, slung me around, slamming me into wall after wall and finally slamming my upper torso through a heavy-duty plate glass window. The weight of the thick, jagged-edged broken glass crashed heavily on my
neck and shoulder.

  All sound and activity stopped. The only sound was of more broken glass falling to the hard floor. My throat was cut. The only question was how bad. Curious eyes looked to see if it was time to watch me die. Forcing a calm hand, I searched my neck, my throat, and around my head for the gaping mortal injury. I removed multiple fragments of broken glass and slivers fell from my neck onto the floor. I had completely forgotten that I had tossed the washcloth over my neck just minutes before. The wetness of the thick heavy-duty twelve-inch-square military washcloth had caused it to stay in place. Yea, whereas I looked for dark red oozing blood gushing from deep throat lacerations, instead trickles of light pink ran down my neck from tiny scratches. (Before God almighty, this is my testimony!)

  Sims, Nesbitt, Huff, and them had been telling me all along. Finally, they held an intervention. “Quarter,” Huff spoke. “Here you’ve been getting away with all that fighting because nobody has any guns here, but you can’t go on like that when you go back to The World. You’ll get blown away.”

  There were legal consequences as well. Some of the marines had what they called Article 15, which was a Marine Corps version of a captain’s mast. The chucks were not held to account at all. And then good ol’ Boguson showed up the next morning, more militant than ever, telling us what he woulda done had he stayed, where we went wrong.

  “Carter, I told you! Carter! I warned you. How many times? Again and again! But you didn’t listen. Now you gonna hav’ta pay! You gonna hav’ta pay dearly for what you have done, son!” Ol’ Capt’n Fiester dictated from his pulpit. But his sympathy was sincere. Part of him actually regretted what he was about to relish, savor, and gonna hav’ta do to me.

  In my formal navy dress white uniform, I stood rigid and tall, at attention, chin up, chest out, feet firmly planted together, readying myself for the verdict. I knew it wasn’t going to be pretty, but I had prepared myself and was ready to pay the price, to die on my feet like a man rather than live on my knees. I was in full contact with my beliefs, and I felt a new freedom. We bore the brunt of white supremacist brutality, fended off the wannabe lynch mob, and fought the good fight of faith. So I stood satisfied, validated as a man and as a human being, ready and willing to go down for my beliefs, almost exuberant in the fulfillment of martyrdom.

  “Now … umm …” Captain Fiester cleared his throat, looking around the room. “Before sentencing, is there anything anyone has to say?”

  Just then the most amazing unexpected unbelievable thing happened. “Yes, sir.” Warrant Officer Lear, also in full dress uniform, standing at attention next to me, stepped forward and saluted. The captain returned the salute.

  As Warrant Officer Lear spoke, I could not believe my ears. “Carter is a hard, dependable worker and a good shipmate.” He went on to say wonderful things about me that made my head spin, and he asked for leniency to the fullest extent.

  Navy warrant officers command a great deal of respect and are regarded with a certain peculiar reverence. Everyone was surprised that he’d go out on a limb for me, but no one was near as shocked as I was. Officer Lear and I had talked and connected at special events, even liked one another (inasmuch as military protocol permits). But as I was drowning in this barrel of shit, my expectation was that he had come to shit in the barrel. His standing up for me took me and everyone else out at the knees. They had to regroup. Captain Fiester called everyone to the bench for one of those special secret private conferences. I could hear the rapid-fire high-pitched urgent whispering, “Spps-sps-spsss … !”

  Finally Captain Fiester thoughtfully took off his bifocals, setting them down on the table, then began addressing me, staring down at me as I remained standing at attention. “Son, this is your lucky day,” he said. He shook his head as he spoke. “I am taking two stripes from your rank, reducing you to E-1. Instead of brig time, you will return to work. You are placed on legal hold, restricted to your base for a month, and ordered to pay ten dollars for the replacement of the window you broke.”

  Weeks later, President Nixon ordered an enormous cutback in American troops, which meant early outs for thousands of military personnel. Rumors circulated that I was getting an early out. The eternity of my time there gradually was coming to a halt. I was going home—that is if I was ever released from legal hold.

  Time passed, and suddenly I was formally notified that “Carter, your legal hold has been lifted. Your plane to New York leaves at 1745 tomorrow afternoon. Be on it!”

  The legal hold had created all kinds of extra sign-offs, paperwork, and footwork at offices not just at Bouknadel but also at Sidi Yahia to the south and Kenitra to the north—and they were about forty miles apart. My only transportation was the buses, but I got the paperwork done. Upon realizing that I was unlikely to make the flight, Chief Officer King assigned a shore patrol officer to the task. “Get Carter on this flight. Make sure he is on it and don’t you stop for nothin’!”

  I interrupted, “How about just stoppin’ and getting me a bottle of wine?”

  Without looking at me, he barked, “Get him out of here! Don’t stop for anything! Don’t come back until you make sure he is on the plane!”

  Following orders, the shore patrol officer, with a military police escort, stopped for nothing and drove me to the airport, past the gate, out onto the runway, directly to the airplane’s ramp—and waited for departure. I joined the crowd on board and we took off.

  So I was sittin’ on the long flight back to America somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean, wondering what just took two years of my life. The stewardess brought me a glass of rum ’n’ Coke to sip on. I reflected.

  Okay, so I survived a military stretch during wartime. Now what? Not that surviving was a bad thing, but as far as I could tell, I just barely broke even. The navy recruiters had promised me the sun, the moon, rainbows, and the stars. “All you got to do is sign here! Everything is gonna be real good if you just sign.” But I didn’t just give over two years of my life, spend eighteen months in a frickin’ desert, go through all that merely for the sake of breaking even. Hell, I could have stayed home and done that! “You gonna learn a trade. Gonna have big adventures and women waiting for you in every port!” Hell, who wouldn’t sign up for some shit like that, especially rather than go into some combat that made no sense at all. Well, I did learn a lot about electricity and the engine parts, and I got pretty good at running that power plant.

  I opened my mail, which I’d picked up at one of those offices. Bighead Benny was having emotional difficulty. His letters had stopped making sense. Both Henry and Fatso had been released from active duty. Arlan was doing time in some Marine Corps prison somewhere. Phil Jackson, a new old friend I had been stationed with back in Connecticut, a guy who proclaimed himself to be Aretha’s Dr. Feelgood (in the mornin’), just happened to be home on leave in Chicago.

  I dozed. Late at night, waking up as the plane slowed to a low glide over Harlem, I could see large trashcans tipped over, trash up and down streets and sidewalks, almost smell the stench of poverty in this visibly Black neighborhood. This was my first glimpse of America, The World, the Promised Land that I had ached for, agonized to see, to return to. This was the world for which these brothers had fought, took bullets and shrapnel, and died. I vacillated between exuberance and numbness.

  Although I was clearly American military, the customs officers treated me like shit. My release and clearance had come so suddenly that I had only had time to throw my gear into my seabag. Before I knew it, these guys had dumped the contents of my seabag all over the floor, exposing my dirty drawers along with my dress clothes. Welcome back?

  Brooklyn Navy Yard was a huge military complex, big beyond description. The discharge barracks were more like large warehouses with various bunking areas sectioned off. There was a huge barracks marked “Dishonorable Discharges,” another marked “Undesirable Discharges,” another marked “General Discharges,” another marked “Medical Discharges.” All of which were very occupied. By th
e grace of God, by some miracle, I was sent to the barracks marked “Honorable Discharges.” To my dismay, I had the entire barracks to myself. Yes, of all these guys, I was the only one to receive an honorable discharge.

  After about a week, with all my papers in order, signed in triplicate, sealed, and delivered, I was finally processed out. It was done! I sat long and still in the EM Club, nursing a victory shot of good whiskey, killing time before my flight to Chicago, where I planned to barge in on my new old buddy Jackson before continuing on to St. Paul. I put quarter after quarter in the jukebox, and Aretha continuously serenaded me personally, telling me she loved me and to “call her the moment I got there …” Eventually my cab arrived. I slammed a final shot of goodbye-thank-God whiskey and was whisked off to the airport. Finally, I’m comin’ home!

  In Chicago, I hopped a taxi to the Jacksons’ apartment on Drexel Boulevard to make a surprise visit. We had a big reunion. His brother and some of his cousins threw a party just for me, so I stayed a couple of days. Chicago women were stunningly beautiful, so the couple of days lasted a week or so. When I called home, there was a lot of commotion back in St. Paul. A white cop named Officer James Sackett had been ambushed and assassinated a half mile away from my family’s house. No one knew who did it. There were no suspects, no witnesses, and investigators had no evidence, but word was that it was the work of the Black Panthers. An intense police dragnet swept through my neighborhood.

  This event, so close to home, had my family and neighborhood cornered. But hey! I’m way over here in Chicago, just getting back. What can I do about it? Got things to do, places to go, people to see. Man! These Chicago women! Day’am! I might hafta move here! I’ll stay a few more days, but then can’t wait to see my Carter people in St. Paul.