Southland (33 page)
1965
The air outside was heavy and Louisiana-thick. All week, the whole city was confused. People who hadn’t seen the South in thirty years woke up expecting to hear the sound of tractors and cotton gins; of cows mooing and roosters proudly announcing the day. But instead they heard sirens and car engines and far-off factory whistles, and when they opened their eyes, they were in L.A. The heat of California was usually dry, unoppressive. Not like this. This kind set you sweating and wore you out, made you feel like you’d worked a full day by nine in the morning. This kind made you feel like you were swimming. People didn’t want to move—it was too hot to work, to eat, to fuck. And when skin
did
come together, you could be sure it was nothing good—a mother losing patience with her crying little boy, a husband enraged by what his wife served for dinner, a group of teenagers itching for something to smash. Everyone was laid low by the heat, but struggling against it. There was a watchful suspense in the air. And the Southerners knew the only thing that could break the grip of the heat was an old-fashioned, earth-shaking storm.
This particular storm had been a long time coming. Anyone who kept an eye on the horizon, a nose lifted to the wind, had known it was on its way. They’d known their whole lives, maybe, and their parents had known for
their
whole lives, too. All it took, finally, was the proper combination of elements, the crashing together of gas and cloud. A young black driver pulled over by a motorcycle cop, some words, a misunderstanding. A gathering crowd, including a pregnant woman who witnesses later said was slapped by a policeman. More people, drawn by the noise, the crowd, the steadily rising voices. No one knew who threw the first rock.
All through the night, the storm was building, gathering force and dimension. A few bursts of fire split the sky like heat lightning. The storm, inflamed by history, swept down in curtains, sheets, and shrouds, all twisting together, forming rivers and collecting in pools. Those who were not part of the storm were locked away safely inside. By morning, all was clear again, although a black sooty cloud still lingered over Watts—darker than the usual imagined one, which hung there all the time. But nightfall brought the storm again, larger and more powerful, the odd and all-consuming partnership of water and fire. Hundreds, thousands of people now, their anger and energy stoking the fires that stoked the everincreasing heat. More stores and factories hit by lightning, brightening with flame. Someone picked up the phrase that Magnificent Montague was always saying on the KGFJ morning show—
burn, baby, burn
. And the words traveled from mouth to mouth, like fire passed on through the touched tips of torches. Soon, that phrase was one of the sounds of the storm, along with the whoops, the smashing glass, the greedy feasts of fires, the shots that ripped through the rest of the noise like thunder. A deluge—torrential and blinding. Those who got stuck in the storm—outsiders and even some long-time residents who should have known better—did not make it home unscathed. They got dragged from cars and beaten, but not a single outsider died. That fate was reserved for the people who lived there—engulfed in the storm they helped along or tried to contain, or caught by the armed outsiders who tried to quell the storm by force. By late Thursday night, Watts was glutted; by Friday it started to flood. And all the powerful, churning water that had gathered there spilled over the banks, streaming into other parts of the city.
The flood reached Crenshaw on Saturday. Just a few yards away, on the boulevard, the rivulets were sweeping past them; Curtis saw groups of boys and men running up the street. They whooped and yelled—out of exhilaration, out of a mad destructive frenzy, out of the pure undiluted relief of smashing back at the land that had beaten them down for four savage unspeakable centuries. Curtis stood in front of the store, along with David, David’s little brother Tony, and Tony’s best friend, Gerald; Derek, who’d been there earlier, had left. With them too was Akira, who was home for the summer. The door behind them was closed and bolted; Mr. Sakai had locked it up before sending everyone home. But there they stood, Sakai himself already long gone, shut at home with his family like almost everyone else, except for those who stepped out to join the flood or those who were finally drowned in it. Curtis and the other boys watched, mostly silent, occasionally muttering a sound in concern or disbelief. Most of the men who ran by were empty-handed, but some bore bats or bricks; a couple of them were waving guns, as casually as napkins. And the return foot traffic, going the opposite way—people running by with televisions, shoeboxes, diapers, and bread. Curtis saw no cars—after the first couple of days of this conflagration, people knew better than to try and drive. The body of the city itself was at a virtual standstill—but within it, the cells rampaged freely, cancerous with life. Curtis heard the smashing glass, smelled the smoke blown north from Watts. He heard, too, the occasional crack of a gunshot, and far away, the sirens. For the first time, he was glad the store wasn’t on Crenshaw—they lost the incidental traffic they might have gotten on the boulevard, but this different traffic now passed them by. Still, he intended to stand there until the flood had spent itself, washed through. He told David that maybe the younger boys should go on home, but that entailed crossing Crenshaw, so they stayed. Occasionally he looked over at Kenji Hirano, who was standing on his steps, preaching, voice deep and firm and certain. He was about to tell Kenji that it wouldn’t do any good, but then the gardener went into his house. They kept watching the scene on Crenshaw and they were all facing right, so they didn’t see the squad car that approached from the left until it had pulled up beside them.
“Gonna go join the party?” asked the voice that was instantly familiar to Curtis. He looked and saw the cop who’d beaten him, his harsh eyebrows, his metallic yellow hair. Curtis still bore a scar on his cheek where the cop had opened his face two years before; unconsciously, he reached up to touch it.
The cop continued, arm slung casually out the window. “Or you going to just knock out this store right here? Looks like no one’s looted it yet. You boys have got first dibs.”
Akira stepped forward and said, with a gall that Curtis found both admirable and reckless, “Why don’t you keep driving, asshole? They need you up on Crenshaw.”
The cop’s partner, who’d been silent so far, let out a quiet laugh. A larger man than his partner, his edges more blurred, he usually stood back and watched Lawson’s antics. He enjoyed the citizens’ comebacks as much as his partner’s acts themselves; saw them all as part of the same larger comedy. But Lawson’s face colored, and now he shot an angry look at his partner. “Oh, you think it’s funny now, do you?”
Curtis watched the men fearfully, hoping that Lawson’s venom toward his partner would distract him from the boys. But now he turned toward them, got out of the car. “I appreciate your advice,” he said, looking at Akira, “but I think I’m needed
here
. To get some punks off the street so they don’t hurt anyone.”
Curtis felt, in his chest, a spasm of fear. The boys moved closer together. The cop passed all of them once, like an officer inspecting his troops. Then he said, “Now get on into the store.”
Curtis didn’t know what the cop had in mind—probably another beating—but he knew instinctively that they must stay outside. The other boys seemed to know this, too. On the street, behind Lawson, the Irish cop drove by, and they all appealed silently for him to stop. He didn’t, and Curtis’s heart sank. “We ain’t got no key,” David lied.
The cop turned and walked past them again. “Maybe
you
don’t,” he said, not looking at David. Then he took his gun out of its holster, cocked it, and aimed it at Curtis’s head. “But
you
do.” The silence in Curtis’s chest was so long and complete that he knew his heart had stopped. He felt the cool mouth of the gun pressed lightly against his temple; it was almost a relief against the melting heat. And then he felt his heart resume, thunderous and loud, beating so violently he didn’t know how his chest could contain it. “No, no I don’t,” he stammered.
“Yes, you do,” said Lawson, leisurely, in command of himself again. He stood at arm’s length from Curtis, in a relaxed, easy posture, as if he were caressing the boy’s head with a feather. “I
know
you do. You work for the Jap and he trusts you with everything. In fact, I’ve seen you close the place up.”
Curtis was afraid to look away from the cop, afraid to look at his friends, but he felt their eyes on him, their paralysis and shock.
“Open it up,” the cop commanded, and Curtis reached into his pocket and pulled out the jangling keys. Fumbling now, feeling the snout of the gun hover near him although it no longer touched, he moved unsteadily toward the door. He thought of telling the others to make a run for it, but he knew it was useless. The best thing to do was go along with the cop and get inside. And there, in his territory, amidst the aisles and objects he knew so well, maybe the boys could summon up some kind of defense. He unlocked the door, pushed it open, and stepped inside. The cop stood under the awning now, like some kind of demented doorman, and waving the gun, he ushered the other boys in. He ordered them to stay in view, and then called, without turning, for his partner to join him. Both cops moved inside quickly, the partner sighing as if bored with the game. “Lock the door,” instructed Lawson, and his partner obeyed. Lawson swept his gun back and forth, looking pleased with himself. The boys huddled together like sheep.
“I don’t see why you boys have to act like this,” said Lawson. “Burning things. Stealing things. You think it’s going to make people like you better?”
Curtis shivered and didn’t say the obvious—that the boys in the store had done no such thing; that they were, in fact, protecting the store.
“Shit, over on Central, we had cops backing up the firemen trying to put out a fire, because a bunch of stupid niggers—oh, excuse me,
‘brothers’
—were shooting at them. And the firemen were trying to help them, trying to put out a fire in their neighborhood. In their
own neighborhood. Imagine.”
Lawson was enjoying himself. While his colleagues’ reactions to the riots had ranged from the disgust of his commanding officer to the complacency of his partner, Lawson’s own feeling about the unrest was a kind of glee. The blacks were finally doing it, acting like the senseless animals he had always known they were. He could say anything to them, do anything, and there was no one around to stop him. Now he lowered his gun and approached the boys, looking David up and down. “What exactly were you doing outside, anyway? Figuring out which place you were going to break into first?”
David’s eyes were open wide, his lips quavering. “Naw, man!” he insisted. “We was trying to keep
this
place safe.”
“Shut up,” the cop said, and at the same time, he brought his knee up hard into David’s groin. David doubled over, grabbing himself, making high gasping sounds. “Come on, what were you planning to do?” asked Lawson, moving down the line. “What were you boys going to steal? Maybe you started
out
protecting this place, but you would’ve joined in eventually. You can’t help it,
man
,” he mocked. “It’s in your blood.”
“Just like beating the shit out of people is in
your
blood?” This was Akira, and Lawson turned toward him.
“You better be careful. None of your Yellow Brothers are around to protect you now. What the hell’s wrong with you, boy?”
“What’s wrong with
you
?” Akira shot back, stepping toward him. “Why don’t you just shoot us, man? That’s what you want, isn’t it? That’s all you seem to know how to do.”
Lawson swung out with his gun and struck Akira on the side of the head. Akira jerked back at the impact and then put his hands to his face; between his fingers, blood trickled out. Curtis gulped and tried to stop shaking, but he was nervous and bumped into the cereal boxes, which fell onto the floor. He had an arm around Gerald, David’s brother’s friend, and the boy was stiff with fear. Lawson came and stood in front of them. His eyes slid down Curtis’s face, settling on the scar on his cheek, and Curtis wondered if he remembered putting it there. Lawson looked him in the eye now and lifted his hand, fist clenched, callused fingers blunt and solid. Curtis held his breath and put his arms up as he waited for the punch.
* * *
1994
Lanier walked for several hours, and by the time he got back to the motel, he’d made a decision. He banged on Jackie’s door. It was 5:15.
“Hi,” she said when she opened the door. She was in sweats and a T-shirt, and her hair was wet.
“Hi. Listen, I think we should go talk to Paxton.”
“You don’t want to wait till tomorrow?”
“No,” he said. “Do you?”
She brushed her hair back off her face with a long sweep of her arm—a tired, unself-conscious motion that made Lanier realize how self-aware she usually was. “Actually, no. Let’s go.”
Oliver Paxton lived in East Palo Alto, about an hour south of San Francisco. Once they left the freeway, they had no trouble finding the house. Jackie was surprised—although she’d heard that this city was rough and run-down, Paxton’s block was full of neat one-story houses with well-trimmed lawns. Lanier parked at the curb and the two of them looked up at the house. “This is our case,” he said. “Right here.”
As they walked up the driveway, mounted the stairs, and rung the lit-up doorbell, Jackie half-hoped that Paxton wouldn’t be home. It was as if by leaving the end of the story blank, by never hearing how Curtis and the others were murdered, the boy she’d come to know in the last few months—her uncle—would still be alive, would never have died at all. But just a few seconds after the chime died down, someone approached and then opened the door.