Diesel Heart

by Melvin Carter Jr

  Finally, one by one, sirens and rotating red lights screeched to a halt. The unconscious officer was identified by his badge number and turned out to be Richard Fillmore, a hotshot young rookie.

  “Melvin!” Paul whispered. “There’s another officer under there.” Naw, couldn’t be, ain’t enough room! But Officer Greenly managed to squeeze his hand down far enough to grab a motionless wrist and find no pulse. John O’Brien was dead.

  As I stood motionless, the huge sky took over as the earth stopped rotating. My mind in a haze, faint distant lights illuminated the northernmost sky in multiple colors, swirled, whirled, and danced, celebrating the new arrival into the heavens. Momma said it may have been the aurora borealis. The sky had come to take Dude away. In the utmost silence and with absolute respect, uniformed officers stationed themselves around John, lifting him in unison, coddling his remains from head to toe, fingertip to fingertip. Draping his dark blue leather uniform jacket over his face, they reverently slid his body into the back of a large black van. Two uniformed officers rode inside, escorting the body to the morgue.

  Late that night in the emergency room, we learned that the teenage driver and the girl had died at the scene. Another teenage girl was in a coma. So that was three dead and two survivors. The girl from the back seat awoke a week later, fully recovered, with no memory of the accident. Officer Richard Fillmore awakened three weeks later but was never able to return to duty.

  Dude’s funeral invoked the highest of honors—uniformed armed guards standing at attention, bagpipes, and rifle salutes. Joan O’Brien, his widow, graciously received the folded flag.

  Months later, the daily SPPD memo announced the arrival of their baby.

  I was still in shock over the sudden death, and the new birth gave me whiplash, plunging me into a bottomless dive of flashing memories, conversations, and replays. The realization that John would never get to see this baby, the one he always talked about, snatched me back to my own high-speed chase when I shot the tires out from under two fleeing Mustangs. Being alive for the birth of my child validated that decision for me.

  And now, haunted by survival astonishment, I spiraled, swirling from joy to grief to guilt. Old issues and complexes evolved into new syndromes, floor pacing, and serious binge drinking. Finally, after much consultation with my wife and my mother, we drove to Dude’s house and delivered a new baby blanket. Mother and baby were resting, but the family told us her name was Megan.

  Shortly thereafter, Lee Kline, who also had supported me, died while hunting. These two men had made my work life much better, helped me to be a better officer. What’s more, it had been only due to John O’Brien’s and Lee Kline’s influence that I had been deemed acceptable. Without them to protect me, my popularity dwindled.

  On routine patrol one night: a boyfriend had fired shots out the window, and now held his girlfriend at gunpoint in a lower east side apartment building. Under cover of darkness, I parked my squad car down the street, exited my vehicle, and proceeded surreptitiously on foot. Slowly and methodically I crept, step by step, inch by inch, blending inside the darkness and shadows. When I peeked inside the first-floor window, I had the bad guy under surveillance. Eventually we gained entry. After a brief standoff, the bad guy stood down. The call de-escalated to a nonevent.

  Upon clearing the call, Sergeant James Hedman rushed at me, accusing me of exposing myself in the line of fire. But I knew what I was doing every step of the way. The bad guy getting the drop on me was not possible. It was eerie when Sergeant Hedman blurted that it wasn’t my job to get killed—getting killed was his job. Later that night I told Paul that that guy was suicidal.

  Shortly thereafter, we came to assist at a homicide scene. Upon entry, Sergeant Hedman shouted at me, “Get the hell out of here right now!” After accusing me of coming just to gawk, minutes later he called us back to assist. I cornered him in his office the next day and told him, “Sergeant, I know you are going through some tough times. But don’t you never talk to me like that again! If you do, expect some insubordination.” He agreed, was apologetic and repented.

  About six months after Dude died, Sergeant Hedman piled his personal car into a telephone post. He was off duty and sloppy drunk, but not hurt. We did not charge our supervisor with drunk driving. Respectfully we tried to pamper him, tried to get him to eat, while all along he mumbled stuff like, “Nothing matters anymore. Goodbye, I’ll never see you or my car again.”

  By this time I knew too well the specter of death. We drove Hedman around, staying with him as long as we could, offering to get him some coffee or some pizza. He refused. We tried to sit with him at his house but were dismissed. About an hour later we were dispatched to a suicide attempt at that house. Sergeant Hedman had curled up inside his garage with a fine bottle of whiskey and the car engine running. He was still alive upon our arrival but could not be revived. He was pronounced dead on the way to the hospital.

  I was sent to counseling. Some big guy talked to me real softly in a dimly lit room, then returned me to the squad.

  I had joined SWAT out of a sense of responsibility and duty because I was so gifted at all SWAT-type stuff. But my fellow officers shunned me, tolerated me at best. Many did not want a Black officer to be part of their team, and they let me know it. During breaks I often ate by myself. Everyone scampered off when I tried to mingle. When I spoke, no one listened. My war room suggestions went completely ignored.

  After a couple years, I quit the entry team and tried out as a SWAT sniper. My first day at sniper training, my shooting score was higher than all the other snipers, even better than the Nazi instructor’s. (The fact that he was called “the Nazi” sweetened the victory.)

  I did a pretty good job with all the humility stuff, playing small, not gloating. But I knew that they knew that I knew I had kicked some ass, and you gotta give these guys credit. They are masters at cheating the Black guy. So from that day on, I was issued a rifle with cloudy telescope lenses and off-centered crosshairs.

  I had settled it in my mind: when I did so well that they were forced to cheat me, lie directly to my face, I had proven myself. For example, I loved the rumor that I was on steroids.

  But playing off my own ego, I set myself up for failure. “Fuck it! I’ll still outshoot all you mahfukkahz!” (I never said it.) That wasn’t the case anyway, because these guys were good, real good. My shooting scores tumbled from bad to the worst.

  The last straw was one Sunday morning when I canceled going to church with my family for a callout that turned out to be an intense training exercise. The training went from early morning to late night, and for the entire time, I was totally ignored. I never got to participate in any of the training activities—it was like back at Bouk when nobody would pass me the salt. My feelings were crushed. I was mad at myself, even embarrassed and ashamed, for letting these white boys hurt my feelings so bad again.

  My bottom lip quivered. The torment was being aware that quitting was exactly what they wanted me to do. Normally I was above allowing myself to be run off, but by this time I had two children, going on three. I had canceled intimate family plans to answer the call of duty; this shit vampired my precious family time, and now it was a vampire to my soul.

  When I announced that I was leaving the SWAT sniper team, satisfaction registered loud on the faces of the lieutenants and the Nazi. “I respect your decision!” echoed ironically in the air.

  25

  One Good Man and Then the Battle

  On a few occasions, after I had fended off unprovoked attacks in the (whites-only) Rice Street or Payne Avenue districts, hordes of the East Side’s finest citizens came to HQ, complaining about that nigger cop. They blamed the chief for assigning a nigger cop in their district because he knew they were gonna attack me once I got there. They admitted pushing me at the scene of an incident, thinking they had the right, claiming that I had overreacted. But good ol’ Capt’n Bob Grey, the senior watch commander (like Warrant Officer Lear, back in the nav
y), always backed me up. In fact, once he came outside with me to confront an accuser who had attacked me at the scene.

  “Mel, did he attack you?” he asked.

  “Yes, sir,” I replied.

  “Take ’em!” he commanded. I obeyed.

  But sometimes the least significant thing can be most pivotal. Me ’n’ my rookie were dispatched to a domestic-in-progress, on the top floor of a low-income apartment building. Three teenage Black males, unrelated to the call, were standing in the hallway as we made our way up the stairway. My rookie stopped to identify them as I continued upward, and they ran.

  So now I’m in a situation where I’m handling a violent domestic alone when my rookie calls out a foot pursuit. I stop everything. He’s chasing the kids on foot while I’m racing around the neighborhood in the squad car trying to find him. In the process of changing directions, I backed hard into a foot post, causing damage to the squad car. As it turned out, one of the Black youth had a misdemeanor warrant for some petty crime.

  We get through the incident, no big thing, until Sergeant Prima Donna calls me into the ol’ “Mel, come in and shut the door” routine. “Now, Mel, I’m gonna be honest with ya. The guys complain that you treat Negroes better than you treat whites. I mean, you are good to everyone, but you’ve been here over six years and still have not quite proven yourself like …”

  He named a list of other Black police officers I was supposed to be like. I had no intention of ever being anything like them. The ones he named were particularly brutal to Black people only. The last thing Blacks needed was more iron feet of oppression. I wanted Black people to know it was a new day.

  But that sounds good and easy. There was a price to pay. My rookie had reported me because he didn’t feel that I was with him during that chase. I had six years’ patrol seniority—and my white rookie with six months turns me in because of his feelings!

  When dispatched to a violent domestic, an officer’s first priority is the woman’s safety. My rookie had abandoned the domestic call to chase Black kids for some unrelated petty misdemeanor warrant. Making matters worse, I was formally reprimanded for the damage to the squad car. (The post I backed into was three feet high and hidden in tall grass in a wooded area.)

  My A-2 tour had gotten stale. So I requested a transfer to the Selby-Dale area, where I had grown up and where I lived.

  Connecting with a citizen’s humanity was my thing, but even beyond virtue, it was also a survival tactic. Generally speaking, people of color were better recipients of respect and kindness. When you treat whites with kindness and respect, they think you’re sucking up to them. All African American situations required infinitely more sensitivity and tenderness. In a matter of a few minutes, you had to overcome centuries of mistrust. I made sure not to be the “Negro employee” Malcolm X described who disowned other Blacks just to show loyalty to whitey. I sought to relate whenever possible.

  The flip side was that I couldn’t allow a fellow African American to attempt to manipulate me with the term Brother.

  Come to find out, policing white people was infinitely easier than policing Blacks. White people believe in the law and trust the police because both always work on their behalf. Blacks have always had an entirely different experience. They have never had the protection guaranteed by the Constitution, never enjoyed the presumption of innocence, never trusted the police.

  Policing the Black neighborhood of Rondo where I grew up was riddled with extreme complexities—the most I had ever faced. Toni and I had built a new house on a busy street smack-dab in the heart of the ghetto. Black cops were still a rarity in those days, and everyone knew where I lived. So my house became an emergency resource center for people in danger, or in trouble, or who just didn’t trust the police. They rang our bell or pounded on our door in the middle of the night, looking for lost children, seeking shelter, needing to get off drugs, or escaping attackers.

  While I was off duty at a party one night at Oxford Playground, another off-duty officer who was working security was surrounded by a group of young men. They taunted, challenged, and threatened him. Eventually I had to let them know, “He ain’t alone!” Then I became the “Bitch-Ass Uncle Tom, white man’s nigger.”

  I explained that now would be a good time to leave me alone. “You all may leave now, and I will permit it.”

  But no! They surrounded me and followed me as I walked out into the night. The tall lean one closed in on me in a low crouched position. “Nigga’, your life is over! You gonna die tonight, nigga’.” His boys fell in tow.

  At a place of my choosing, I pivoted and pounced, shouting and lecturing while punching him in his face, accentuating each point with a blow. “Brother, I gave you respect!” Whop! “Told you to leave me alone!” Crash! “I gave you every chance!” Body slam! “You shoulda …” Crash-bang-rough-stuff. “Now look whatchu made me do!” I removed his wallet, about to take his money—but as a cop I could no longer charge my usual handling fee, so I gave it back.

  It saddened me because I knew most of them and felt accountable to their families, perhaps even more than to the police department. One had played high school football with my youngest brother, Larry. But in those days, there were no special penalties for attacking police officers. I felt it my appointed duty to make an assailant deeply regret attacking me. Teach ’em a lesson once and for all; make an example out of them so we won’t have to do this ever again. It was the usual challenge, like on every beat: “Take off that badge and gun, and I’ll kick your ass!” You are gonna get tried. In this case, I was out of uniform, in regular civilian clothes, and this was a personal, man-to-man affront, not a police action. So when you threaten and stalk me, then move in for the kill, I must respect your decision by protecting my life. I owe my wife, children, mom ’n’ dad, and siblings a coming home. But I also had to rise to the occasion, to help him understand the errors of his ways so he won’t have to make the same mistake ever again.

  It was ironic that many of the citizens whom cops labeled “assholes” had been my dear friends for years. In many ways, I had more in common with the criminals than the cops. So not only was I very particular about how I treated citizens, I was particular about how other officers treated them as well.

  In the meantime, certain Negro officers proved themselves in ways that betrayed their humanity. The department rewarded them for brutality against Black males. For instance, one officer frequently belittled Black males, calling them “niggers” just for the entertainment of white officers. Another brutally beat a Black male and tossed him into a downtown dumpster. Another, a sergeant, publicly demeaned highly respected community members and Black-owned businesses, in exchange for a special assignment: loitering Black males were bad for downtown business, and his assignment was to run them off. Using Black officers against Black people couldn’t be called racism. Astonishing!

  In the middle of all this, a Negro sergeant whom I trusted completely was assigned to be my supervisor, and he teamed up with the white supremacists to find fault with everything I did. A major criterion for performance evaluation was traffic and parking ticket stats. My job performance was vulnerable because I generally wrote up only reckless violations; writing tickets merely for the sake of stats seemed petty, if not harassment, to me. Because of low ticket stats, my career was sabotaged.

  For almost a decade I had navigated through onslaughts of hostility, defended myself pretty well. But now, suddenly, failure became an option. I never went running to the white boys to settle squabbles with other Black officers.

  Now, not defending myself was to be my downfall.

  Stuff came at me furiously, faster than I could handle. I fell into the trap of suffocating bitterness. I fantasized executing specific individuals. I was angry, bitter, and extremely dangerous, especially to myself.

  Resignation would mean trashing hard-earned seniority, benefits, and promotability that could never be restored. I would be walking away from all that I had worked for.


  In 1983, with nine years of seniority, I quit my job.

  26

  Who Woulda Thought It?

  Obviously Willetha was sharp and intelligent, and for several years she stayed in my shadow. But who knew the half of it? She rose to every occasion, solved problems, got things done, never flaunted the superior intelligence thing, never played small. And everything and everybody would always be all better. She’d never gloat, take a bow, or even accept credit. Her very presence was always a blessing to everyone, everywhere.

  It was fine with me that she’d been recruited for high-paying careers, and her salary was nearly double mine. We had money to build a brand-new little house deep in the heart of the ghetto. We paid the equivalent of college tuition for our children’s elementary school education. Friends said we should save all that money for college. But if you wait until children are idiots before you try to educate them, it’s too late. I been there, done that.

  Anika and Melvin were six and four years old, and I was still employed at the SPPD, when Willetha broke the news. “Naw! It can’t be!” Yep! Even after that injury back at Kenitra, I slipped yet another one past the goalie. Although she was on the all-new-improved-extra-strength birth control pills, we had pregnancy number three. You know the routine: hand on Mommy’s belly, late-night conversations into the morning. This was the most active unborn infant, always changing positions, elbows and knees kicking and bucking while running in place. Mommy’s tummy rippled with this most energetic baby. “Don’t worry, baby. We’ll get you outta there! … Zzzzz.”

  The labor and delivery were brutal, even scary. The baby had moved so much that the cord was wrapped around her neck. (Breathe, my child!) Doctors raced to clear her mouth and throat. (Thank you, dear God, for another beautiful and healthy daughter!)