L.A. Blues Read online

  L.A. Blues

  Maxine Thompson

  www.urbanbooks.net

  All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Acknowledgments

  Epigram:

  Prologue

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

  27

  28

  29

  30

  31

  Epilogue

  Book Club Questions

  Copyright Page

  Acknowledgments

  Ephesians 6:12 For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.

  Hosea: 4:6: My people are destroyed for a lack of knowledge: because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee . . . seeing that thou hast forgotten the law of God, I will also forget thy children.

  First, I give honor and glory to Jehovah. I thank Him for allowing me to live long enough to have a second career, and for being able to look back on all that has been bad or good in my life, and still know joy.

  Sometimes we do not write the story we intend to write, but the one we are called to write. For years, I thought I would one day write about my twenty-three years of experience as a social worker in the inner cities of Detroit, (my home town,) and then later the mean streets of L.A. (which is my present home residence.) But instead, I became fascinated with the voice of my character, Z, who is the child of a female O.G. Crip, and a product of the social service system. It scared me to have to go where Z’s voice took me, but as a writer, I had to push beyond my comfort zone. I generally write historical or women’s fiction, which examines the old dark secrets spawned in slavery. My stories are usually taken from an era when we, as African American women, repressed and hid our sexuality.

  This time, however, I found myself looking at our present day ills through a set of younger eyes—eyes which I imagined were on the other side of my caseloads.

  Hence, L.A. Blues is my first foray into crime fiction, yet told from a woman’s perspective.

  This story started back in October 1984, when as a thirty-something-year-old social worker, I rode with two LAPD officers, as part of the D.P.S.S. ERIC (Emergency Response in the Community) Project. We were responding to a case where my colleague and I wound up placing three children in the middle of the night. I’ve forgotten a lot of what transpired that night, other than the fact that I’d worked sixteen hours straight. This I do recall, though—a sight I will remember as long as I live—a young black woman’s corpse, laying in the floor with a knife in her back. Her husband had stabbed her to death. That’s why we had to place the children. This image has haunted me for years. Thus, unknowingly, Chapter One of L.A. Blues was conceived.

  I’ve also been haunted by a fresher sense of grief—an overwhelming sadness I feel for the young black males murdered on the streets of L.A. and other inner cities, and the attendant anger I feel about this carnage. I cry for the loss of all this young potential.

  At the time I penned this story in 2009, this situation had hit close to home. My nephew, Sanchez Thompson, had just been murdered in Detroit at the young age of eighteen, only four months after I closed my sister’s eyes in death at her hospice bedside. To say I was numb and grief-stricken is an understatement. But out of this grief, I’ve emerged with a sharper appreciation of life. In fact, this grief not only gave birth to my story, but gave me a renewed sense of purpose. That is, to try to save or to protect the lives of the upcoming generation.

  That’s why I quoted the above scripture to say, Bloods, Crips, or Latin Kings, (or whatever set you claim), are not each other’s enemies. Let your enemy be injustice, poor housing, poor schooling, discrimination, and unemployment. Wage war against the institutions that perpetuate the ghettos and disenfranchisement. Know that this is a spiritual warfare as well.

  Let’s face it. We’re witnessing a modern-day holocaust and genocide when young people are killed senselessly and no one does anything about it. How can we have a domestic warzone going on, yet no one seems to care about it? How can Black and Brown blood run in the street, and there’s no outcry? These are just some of my story’s questions.

  But, on the brighter side, this story is a tribute to the “unsung” good foster parents, many of whom I was privileged to work with throughout the years. I thank them for the safety they provided the abused or neglected children entrusted to their care. I thank them for the free meals, the shoulders to lean on, and the much-needed solace I gained during home calls, as I was a young working mother myself.

  L.A. Blues is also an effort to commemorate all the foster children who will become or have become strong “over comers” like my protagonist, Z.

  That being said, I thank my late parents, Mervin and Artie Vann, who were wordsmiths and poets in their own right. I thank you for building a strong root in me; for giving me stability during the turbulent 1950s and 1960s, which has prepared me for the economic climate we’re living in now.

  I thank Horace Thompson, Jr., my husband of nearly forty years. Before you were diagnosed with dementia, you told me many stories of your street adventures as a Detroit police officer and a L.A.P.D. officer, which informed this novel.

  I acknowledge my adult children, Michelle, Maurice, Tamaira and Aaron, and my thirteen grandchildren.

  I thank Carl Weber, Martha Weber, Natalie Weber, and the Urban Book family for giving me this opportunity.

  I thank Dr. Rosie Milligan who is a publisher, mentor, sister, and friend, who read my rewrite of L.A. Blues. I also thank Lorine Calhoun (actress Monica Calhoun’s mother) for her reading and input.

  I thank my network/writer family, bestselling authors, Michelle McGriff, Shelia Goss, Monica Carter, Suzetta Perkins, Charlene Green, Roslyn Wych-Hamilton, Leola Charles, Tracie Loveless-Hill, Rosalyn McMillan, N’Tyse, Brian Smith, Tiffany Tyson, Rachel Berry, Yvonne Medley, Christine Robinson, and Leigh McKnight.

  I thank Ella Curry of EDC Creations, for her excellent on-line promotion of my re-issued novel, Hostage of Lies, and I thank Pat G’Orge Walker, a sister/writer friend, for the referral.

  I thank radio show hosts, Dr. Rosie Milligan, Denise Turney, Gloria Taylor Edwards, Pat Tucker, Cheryl Scott, Kejohnna Owens, Yvonne Perry, and Kimberly Kaye, for having me as a guest on their shows in the past year.

  I thank all the listeners to my radio show, the Dr. Maxine Thompson Show, on the Artistfirst.com Network. I’m coming up on my ninth year of hosting Internet radio shows. Thank you for your continued support. Please keep those emails coming!

  To all the book clubs who have read my books, such as the Ten Ladies of Literature, who I found out on Google, read my first novel, The Ebony Tree, I thank you.

  I thank Carol Mackey of Black Expressions, Tee and the Rawsistaz Book Club, Book Remarks, and APOO.org for your continued support of Black writers and your role in our literary renaissance. I also thank Sexy Ebony Book Club for featuring me on their website for Mother’s Day of 2010.

  I’d like to thank Verna Bartnick and the late Art Bartnick, who acted as foster parents for me in my junior year of high school in Traverse City, Michigan, when I became the first black student to attend St. Francis High. This was an experience,
which changed my life forever.

  Last, this novel is dedicated to both the young and adult children whose families have been splintered by any of the following: the foster care system, the prison system, domestic violence, murder, incest, alcohol, drugs or gangs in the community.

  You can contact me at [email protected].

  You can find me on the web at:

  http://www.maxinethompson.com,

  http://www.maxinethompsonbooks.com,

  http://www.maxinethompsonshow.com

  At twitter at safari61751.

  On Facebook as Maxine-Thompson

  On Myspace/Maxinethompson

  Epigram:

  When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.

  —The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance

  “The murder rate is down in L.A.”

  (The media)

  In this business, you’ve got to have a little dirt on you for anybody to trust you.

  —Training Day

  Prologue

  The L.A. Riots

  1

  April 29, 1992

  East Los Angeles, CA

  Zipporah a.k.a. Z

  “Gimme your money, Mamacita.” The punk had a cobra tattoo coiled on his right bicep peeking out from under his sleeveless-leather vest. He poked his gun, gangster-style, directly in my face. Apparently, he was the spokesman for this group of gangbangers who surrounded me. His wool cap slid down close to his rust-colored eyes, and his scowled look was threatening. I was shook, but I tried to appear composed.

  “I beg your pardon?” I asked, stalling for time.

  “You heard me. Did I stutter? Don’t scream or I’ll shoot you.” The middle one, who was of medium height and sported a menacing bald head with a tattoo on his neck, leaned in, and a vicious sneer curled on his lips.

  My pounding heart echoed in my ears and a gush of pee streamed down my legs. Why didn’t I see this coming? Generally, I had intuition when it came to danger. My stomach quivered and I clutched my Slauson Swap Meet Gucci knock-off purse to my chest to try to calm my galloping heart.

  I tell you. L.A. sucks. If it weren’t for his sinister words, I would’ve sworn dude’s mellifluous Hispanic accent sounded like a song. However, this was no love song. This was a siren of danger. The group of predators, who, judging by their smooth faces, could have been anywhere from ages thirteen to nineteen, meant business.

  See, this is what I’m talking about. Can’t go nowhere and can’t have nothing in L.A. Can’t even be nowhere without some shit going down. This place ain’t nothing but a bunch of wannabe gangbangers who think they own imaginary turf that really belongs to the city. I don’t care what the TV says about Hollywood and the beautiful people living here, in my world it was different.

  I couldn’t believe I was being jacked right here in broad daylight, on Cesar E. Chavez Avenue. I thought if I worked in a different neighborhood, if I got away from Watts or Compton, I could escape the Grape Street Crips or the Piru Bloods. I wouldn’t have to worry about if I wore red or blue. I wouldn’t have to worry about no stupid-ass vendetta against my brother, Mayhem, a born-and-bred Crip. But I guess I thought wrong.

  It was still light outside for early spring, but no one else could be found in the parking lot as I looked around for help. I was surrounded by beautiful jacaranda trees, which covered the parking lot with their crushed-purple blossoms, yet the world looked dark to me. A gust of wind lifted up the leaves; they circled around my feet.

  “What’d’ya talkin’ about?” I decided to play dumb. My heart’s palpitations almost drowned out my words.

  “Don’t make us have to kill you,” the baby of the group snarled, his voice cracking, he was so young. “Mami, we seen you go in there and cash your little check.”

  I didn’t respond as my heart sank. Please, God, don’t let me die. Just minutes before, I pranced out of Dix’s Check Cashing Place floating on cloud nine because I’d gotten off work for the week and just got paid. I could feel the crush of fresh money pinned inside my bra. Having hard-earned money was the best feeling in the world, next to my release papers. I was released three months earlier from foster care. My emancipated minor’s release papers included my birth certificate, my social security card, and my California I.D., which would supposedly set me free on my merry way to adulthood—whatever that means at eighteen. I could’ve gone in another program, but I wanted to be grown and on my own.

  I never worried about being alone in East Los Angeles, or El Barrio, as it was called. The weather was balmy, and you could smell the Santa Ana winds on the fringes with a little hint of smoke. I wondered if California was experiencing its typical wildfire season early this year. I appreciated my first real job, if you didn’t count afterschool McDonald’s, as a waitress at Maria’s Mexican Eatery. I generally brought home day-old, warmed-over tamales, wrapped up in my purse. I drove my hooptie across town on the streets, but couldn’t risk getting on the freeway. It was cool. At least I was off public transportation and was able to get around town.

  I still didn’t respond.

  “Did you hear me?” The medium-height one held up his right hand, then rubbed his thumb and forefinger together, pointing to my purse. “Look, we don’t want to hurt you, but give us that dinero, mami.”

  As frightened as I was, I still kept on my game face. “I ‘on’t got no money.” I spoke in the vernacular I was used to before my foster mother, Shirley, taught me how to enunciate and speak “proper English.”

  My lead attacker grabbed my purse, and snatched it open, dropping my tamales to the ground. When he didn’t see any money inside, he flung it back at me. My purse hit me in the breast and almost knocked the wind out of me. I winced in pain as he growled in a grimace of disgust. “We don’t believe you.”

  They began to speak in Spanish among themselves. Fortunately, language was no barrier for me since my current roommate and former foster sister of eight years, Chica, a Latina, taught me Spanish. Plus, my late father, who was part Spanish, although he was black and came from Belize, only spoke to me in Spanish when I was a little girl. Even when my attackers were kibitzing among themselves in their native tongue, I understood them clearly.

  “Let’s check her car.”

  “Go ’head.” I spoke back in Spanish and tried to front like I wasn’t afraid of anything. At eighteen, I’d already seen it all.

  They followed me to my hooptie, which, unfortunately was the only car parked in the lot. The taller one handed the burner to the medium-height one.

  “Yeah, mami, you sho’ is fine,” the taller one said as he cracked open my car door. “I almost hate to rob you.”

  “Roberto, shut the fuck up,” the short one snapped.

  “Stoopid, don’t use my name.” Roberto came up out the car and slapped shorty upside his head, reminding me of The Three Stooges.

  Meantime, the medium boy stood guard, still holding the gun and looking out for the police, while Roberto scoured my car.

  “Bet’ be glad this ain’t no initiation day,” shorty mumbled. I guess he was embarrassed that Roberto slapped him upside his head.

  For a split second, I almost considered giving up my secret hiding stash.

  I understood what initiation meant; from what I knew personally and from what I heard on the streets, my oldest brother Mayhem had outed more people since he’d been ten than I dared to even guess. My mother, Venita, was an OG who had been doing time for murder since I was nine years old, and I vaguely recalled witnessing a few drive-bys from when I was young.

  If I hadn’t been raised the second half of my life in a Baldwin Hills foster home, I probably would have been a second generation Crip myself, and perhaps money would’ve been no object because I would have been making that paper. But, as a working stiff, broke as I stay, no way was I parting with my only and last hard-earned two hundred dollars, plus the tips I earned as a waitress. After they searched under my raggedy floor mats, which covered the hole in the floor, under the towels I used for car seat pads,
and under the back seat and found nothing, they turned back to me. For a moment, a penetrating silence filled the air.

  “We should rape you,” Roberto said. Suddenly, a shift in the current of their intentions flashed as their eyes beamed hard with lust.

  “Yeah, let’s pull a train on her, ese,” Shorty jumped in.

  I never took my eyes off the burner. I had to think fast. Should I give up the money? No, I decided I needed my little hard-earned money. I didn’t know where my bravado came from, but I did know my younger brother, Diggity, age ten, and my nine-year-old baby sister, Rychee, as we called Righteousness, who was born while my mother was in prison, were depending on me to come visit them in their different foster homes over the upcoming weekend. They always looked for gifts.

  Speaking in the broken Spanish I learned from my father, I challenged,

  “Go ahead, Papi. Knock yourself out.”

  The shorter one’s neck craned around, suspiciously. “What did you say? You serious?”

  “Yeah, which one first?” I slid my hands down in a sexy, provocative manner between my long, sinewy legs that showed through my polyester uniform. Although I was thin at five-foot-nine, I was shapely. “Come on and get it. Give it to me. Hey, I ain’t got all day.”

  “What the fuck?” Roberto threw his hands up, holding the other two back. “Wait a minute. You’re too eager.”

  I wiggled my fingers in the air like a prostitute on the stroll flagging down a john. “That’s right. I’m only HIV positive, but take your chances, Papi? Who’s ‘gon go first? Hurry up. Let’s get it on.” I even shimmied my shoulders.

  “This bitch is loco.” Roberto looked revolted, circling his right finger around his ear. He spit through the gap in his teeth in disgust.

  “¿Que paso?” A strange voice interrupted my would-be attackers.

  I glanced up and was surprised to see a stranger who seemingly appeared out of nowhere. He was a slightly older Mexican guy. I became even more afraid because I didn’t know what to expect. Would he make my situation worse?