L.A. Blues Page 3

  I still wanted to get Diggity and Ry-chee out of the foster care system to come live with me. I graduated in December, and then turned eighteen in January. I was late graduating from high school because I’d missed so much school in my early years, but I made it up after I got in Shirley’s home and by going to summer school. When I was a sophomore, I met a teacher, Miss Golden, who enrolled me and Chica in a program called “I’m not your Victim,” which turned my life around. It was for teenagers with parents who were incarcerated or on drugs. It started me to take going to college seriously.

  Anyhow, it was too late for my nineteen-year-old brother, Mayhem, whose life was so entrenched in the Crips, that he was one of their leaders, and already a kingpin from what I heard. My brother had already had a few scrapes with the law, but somehow he hadn’t been incarcerated yet. I gave up on him, but I had hopes for Diggity and Ry-chee reuniting with me and making something out of their lives.

  Then an idea hit me. If I became a police officer, I could probably get my younger brother and sister into my custody without any problem. My family might be on the wrong side of the law, but I was going to be different. This was it. I would go out for becoming a police officer as soon as I turned twenty-one.

  I glanced down at my wrist to check the time, then I remembered how my Timex watch and several other small items had come up missing lately. Something inside of me snapped. That’s when I knew it was time to move. But where could I go? I had no father. My mother was in the pen. I didn’t know what I was going to do, but no way was I staying with a crack head.

  At eighteen, everything still looked black and white. I hadn’t learned about the grays and the in-betweens yet, but right then and there, I decided as soon I turned twenty-one, I’d apply to be a Los Angeles police officer so I could get custody of my baby brother and sister. But I need a plan to carry me while I attended community college. I couldn’t get sidetracked with Chica’s mess.

  I’d always hoped that I could get Rychee and Diggity out of foster care as soon as I turned eighteen, but, I learned the hard way, it wasn’t that easy. First, they wanted me to have a job and a suitable place to live. I guess I was going to have to put that plan on hold. I never forgot it was my fault they were in the system in the first place. If only I had never placed that call that dreadful night.

  The news flashed back to the burning buildings and the start of fires raging all over L.A., but they kept replaying the Reginald Denny scene where the gang of young Black men hit him in the head with the fire hydrant. Everything seemed surreal. Why were my people burning up our neighborhoods? I wondered.

  Man, the world was going crazy. With television cameras in helicopters, crazy things were being reported as it happened.

  I picked up the phone and called the very one whom Chica and I used to call “The Queen Bee,” (Bitch) behind her back, and I mean she was a “B” in every sense of the word to us as blossoming teenagers. We couldn’t really date. We had to go to church. She kept us in all types of activities such as modeling, cheerleading, guerilla theater, you name it. And, at sixteen, you had to work at McDonald’s. Yeah, she was the original cock blocker. In spite of all my gripes against her, I called Shirley, better known as Moochie, which was her nickname when I wanted something.

  “Hi, Moochie, what are you doing?”

  Shirley sniffled and blew her nose into the phone.

  Dayumn! I covered up my ear to keep her from splitting my eardrum.

  “Sitting here crying, watching TV while my people burn down our city,” Shirley answered. She sniffed again. “When I was coming home, I saw white, Asian, and Mexicans rioting, but all they’re showing is my people on T.V.”

  It was times like this I remembered that Shirley used to be a Black Panther and was still a ‘down-for-the-people’ person. I murmured a few ‘tsk tsks’ sounds of sympathy, then I cut to the chase. “Can I come home so I can finish school?”

  In one breath, I told Shirley about my plans to go to junior college until I was old enough to get into the police academy.

  Shirley paused. My foster mother, a former Black Panther in the late sixties, who had morphed into this black middle-class postal employee who worked nights, got her degree in three years, then later turned school teacher, and who raised me from the age of nine, hesitated before speaking. I held my breath.

  “No one told you to move out in the first place. Didn’t I tell you Chica was too fast for you? Why did you let her get you geeked up to move out when I put her fast behind out?” She paused before continuing. “You can always come home.”

  Relief flooded through me. Home. Just the words I want to hear. In the life of a semi-orphan that word was a symphony.

  I swallowed the lump in my throat. “Thank you.”

  “No thanks needed.” She hung up without saying good-bye.

  I heaved a sigh. If life were a lottery, then I hit it when it came to getting a good foster home. My peeps—my people—Chill and Shirley, treated me good when I was growing up the second half of my childhood, so when I hear the horror stories about foster homes, I knew I’d been blessed.

  Now strange as they were as a married couple, (they’d slept in different rooms since I could remember), they were great as surrogate parents. There was never any physical abuse, misappropriation of the funds, or sexual molestation going on at our house.

  In fact, when I was growing up there, adult foster children from years before would come home to Shirley’s and Chill’s rambling five-bedroom Baldwin Hills—calling them “Mom and Pops.”

  When I hung up the phone, I let out a sigh of relief. I could already see myself wearing my black and white police uniform. I just knew this was the right path for me.

  1

  (Fourteen years later . . .)

  December 31, 2006

  “I lived in Hell and I can tell you the address.”

  People always ask me did I kill anyone as a cop, but the truth was I destroyed my whole family as I knew it when I was nine years old. I would always wonder. Did I do the right thing? Some corridors in our lives lead us back to where we started, and we just unravel. No matter how hard we try to run, no matter how hard we try to hide, it seems as if everything comes back to the same place. Déjà vu. You can’t escape the past.

  Maybe that’s why it seemed as if I’d been here before as I tiptoed behind my partner, James, in the narrow hallway whose indoor-outdoor carpet reeked of poverty, piss, and alcohol. We were in an apartment building with one floor, and we were headed to a back apartment. Our service revolvers, which were 9 mm Berettas, were drawn. I felt like I’d been here before, either as a cop, or in my life before I went into foster care. It was one-thirty in the morning.

  Earlier, when the call came in to Southwest Division, it sounded like a typical domestic violence case. I just finished one shift, so when we got the dispatch, I decided to work overtime.

  “Neighbors heard couple fighting. Children crying. Father may be holding the family hostage. Possible 187.”

  For cases like this, sometimes L.A.P.D. would call SWAT, L.A.P.D.’s Special Weapons & Tactics Team—particularly if this happened in the suburbs, but this was in South L.A., where unemployment and crime were high, and life and liberty was a cheap commodity. We were off of Hoover, around 52nd Street—Hoover Trades territory, I believed. Although we didn’t have a warrant, we had probable cause to go inside—what was called exigent circumstances exception to the warrant requirement.

  Across the nation, husbands were killing their wives, so it seemed to be becoming part of a Greek theater with this beginning recession. White, black, rich, poor, it didn’t seem to matter. The domestic killing sprees were rampant. What made the husband do it? Or did something just come over him? Was being unemployed and not being able to take care of their family a reason to kill the whole family? Men and, in some cases, women, were doing it every day, so without saying it, we were afraid we’d find another case of a family being massacred.

  Without warning, an apartment d
oor swung open and a plum-colored woman with matching bloodshot purple eyes, wearing a tattered terry cloth robe, and a greasy headscarf, scurried out from her apartment, sputtering, “Officer. I called y’all seem like an hour ago. If she was white, I bet y’all da been here—”

  “Save it—” My partner, Officer Okamoto, threw his hand up in the halt symbol.

  “But, Officer—”

  “Get back in your apartment,” Okamoto barked. He turned towards the woman, his gun inadvertently pointed at her heart. “You’re obstructing an investigation.”

  The woman gasped, placing her palm over her heart and without another word, she slammed her apartment door.

  They say Okomato had a short-man’s complex. I preferred to think he was just a little overzealous. When your life depended on your partner’s quick reflexes, I’d work with Okamoto any day. He was my training officer when I was a rookie, and we’d been partners for the past ten years. He’d saved my ass a many time. The irony was he was a computer geek on his down time, when he wasn’t getting wasted.

  Unfortunately, this was the very job which I thought would be my savior, which in reality, had kept me working so many swing shifts I never did get Diggity and Rychee out of foster care. I don’t know which came first. Working swing shifts or my drinking, but whatever the case, I wound up breaking my promise.

  First, I began to anesthetize myself from what I’d seen on the streets with a beer at the end of the shift, and then, before I knew it, I guzzled down a short dog of Hennessy in the morning. Over the past ten years, I lost touch with my younger siblings, and they were now grown, adopted, and spread to the four winds. The last I heard, Mayhem was incarcerated in Folsom Prison.

  Earlier that day, I received a letter, which was sent to Shirley’s house from the Parole Board, saying my mother was being paroled in six months, but I was so angry at Venita, I didn’t even want to see her. I hadn’t seen her since they took her away in handcuffs with blood all over her shirt when I was nine.

  Just thinking of my mother made me want to take a drink. I wanted a sip so bad I could taste it. I thought about taking a hooker from my small flask of Hennessey I kept strapped on my police belt, but I restrained myself. I was trying not to drink on duty since I’d been suspended for drinking on the job several times before.

  Anyhow, I hated domestic violence cases when they turned 187 because they brought up too many memories for me. Truth be told, these cases could be more dangerous than a drug bust. So there we were, creeping down the dimly-lit corridor, into Hell’s corner. I held my breath, heart flapping like the sole of a worn out shoe against my rib cage. With me piggybacking him, Officer Okamoto kicked in the door, and then stepped to the side. A rectangle of light fell into the dim hallway.

  We stepped in, sweeping the area with our guns, we saw no one. Fortunately, there was no gunman. We also didn’t see any children either. But I saw something else. “Oh, my God.” My jaw dropped; my hand flew to my heart.

  In the oyster moonlight, I saw the woman’s blank eyes first. Devoted in her Hershey-grey skin, they held the ragged, blank stare of a jack-o-lantern’s and right away, I knew there’d be no City of Angels for this woman after tonight. Although the smell of death was not in the room yet, the vibration of it was. It had an eerie other-worldly feel to it. Transfixed, I stared at the scene, as if I were watching a movie unfold.

  Lord knows, over the past ten years as a police officer, there was little I hadn’t seen. I’d seen a baby with syphilis in his scalp, I’d arrested a man who orally copulated his daughter because Mom was crazy and in a mental hospital and the twelve-year-old became the surrogate mother. Lord, I’d seen every atrocity known to man committed on men, women, and children, and I lived through my own nightmare I wouldn’t wish on any man, woman or child, but this was different. It struck a chord in me that made me think of what happened when I was a child. It also made me know beyond a doubt, without “Mama”, tragically, these children’s souls would be up for grabs.

  Over these years working the streets, I witnessed a few shootings, although I’ve never been hurt myself. But, there was something else about this woman’s corpse that was different . . . as if she were an omen of something else bad to come. She also reminded me of what I wanted to forget—my past.

  The woman’s red gym shoe tread over and over inside my mind, perhaps because she only had the one shoe on. The other foot was bare with neatly polished, cherry-red toes. A brown grocery bag leaned against the wall by the door, as if in preparation to leave. A man’s white shirt sleeve hung out of the bag. A lamp and chair were overturned in the living room floor. A hole in the linoleum, where the woman’s corpse lay on her side, caught my attention.

  “Knife wound,” Okamoto said, then twisted his customary toothpick in the corner of his mouth to the side, and sucked his teeth. He swiveled away on one foot, and fired up a cigarette as if he’d said, “Nice day, isn’t it?”

  “Man, give me a smoke, too.” Okamoto handed me his cigarette and I took a long drag. Meantime, Okamoto tucked his gun back into his holster, and lit up another cigarette, letting a gush of cigarette smoke rush out the corner of his mouth.

  From habit, we switched cigarettes again. We stood still, contemplating what we were going to do. Okamoto took another long puff. “Guess we better call Homicide.”

  2

  Although I didn’t see the knife, I saw a pool of blood haloed around the woman’s back. She could have been anywhere from twenty-five to thirty-five years old. I turned away, sucking in the smoke, trying to keep from vomiting. The room began spinning and the floor swayed, feeling like the Northridge earthquake of ‘94. I was no longer standing in this dimly lit, dank room because my mind was somewhere else.

  “Rise above it,” my first therapist, Doctor Schmidt, used to tell me. I felt my spirit lift above the scene. It was 1983. I could still feel the blinding flashlight in my nine-year-old eyes, see the pasty doughboy-looking police man’s face looming before mine, smell his coffee breath, and hear his voice resonate in my head. “Did you see what happened?”

  My chest tightened and suddenly I couldn’t breathe.

  “Are you okay?” A voice snatched me back to the present moment.

  “No. I’m cool.” I sneezed to keep from passing out, then covered my mouth.

  “Bless you,” Okamoto said.

  I swallowed back the hot bile scorching the entryway to my throat. My ears were logged as though I’d gone swimming. I felt dizzy and ready to pass out any minute. I deliberately took deep breaths to center myself.

  I caught a hold of myself when an emaciated man with a craggy complexion appeared in the doorway. He tried to peek around our shoulders to get a look at the body.

  “The fuck you want?” Okamoto snapped. As a first-generation Japanese American, Okamoto had acclimated to the job and to the streets like he’d never grown up with Japanese-only speaking parents up in the Valley. “Who are you?”

  “I’m a neighbor—”

  “Get the fuck outta here and mind your own business.”

  I spun around and left, not looking back. After being a police officer for ten years, I guess I was becoming callous too, and smoking a cigarette was a defense mechanism. I squeezed the cigarette butt between my thumb and finger, and then stuck the leftover square in my belt.

  Please, God, help me. I took deep breaths to keep from totally hyperventilating. I felt someone gently touching my shoulder. It was Okamoto. “Z, I can handle this if—”

  “I got this.” My voice cracked, and then the professional starch returned to it. “No, I’m okay. I’ll talk to the children.”

  This was getting a bit too much for me, so I slipped down the hallway. I glanced over my shoulder, and not seeing anyone looking, took a quick hooker off the flask of Hennessy I had latched under my police belt. I downed a pint earlier. I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand, then popped a mint.

  Out of the shadows, the woman with the greasy head rag appeared again. “Officer, Ma’
am, my name is Florida. The kids are down here. I tried to tell that fool--”

  “I know, Miss—” I cut her off. I couldn’t take anymore, but I had to press on. “Miss, do you know what happened?”

  Florida lowered her voice. “All I know is they started fighting around seven. It went on and on. The kids came running down here saying their daddy had stabbed their mama in the back.”

  When I first saw them, seated side by side on the plaid Herculean couch, faces blank except for their eyes entranced by the black and white TV, which flickered ominously into the dark room, my heart plummeted. I recognized the stare—the same one which probably had been mirrored in Mayhem’s and my eyes when we were nine and ten—the vacant ravine—the landscape that childhood had deserted, never to return. These girls should be playing Double Dutch, singing “Rock steady, ’cause your team ain’t ready,” and the little boys should be out playing stickball, but no, they were now facing the unspeakable and the unthinkable—“Daddy killed Mama”—an affliction they would have to live with the rest of their lives.

  The apartment’s worn lentil-colored carpet had a nap which looked as if the sweeper was run daily. The middle child was wearing coveralls with one suspender hanging down loose. Her hair was shoulder length but looked as if it hadn’t been combed for several days. Her thumb was stuck in her mouth as she twirled her top braid.

  “Hello. My name is Officer Saldano. I’m here to make sure that you’ll be safe.” I directed my question to the oldest boy who looked to be about ten or eleven. “What’s your name?”

  “Shirrell.” The little boy seemed unusually calm. His eyes were dry, but white salty streaks down his face betrayed his composure.

  “How old are you, Shirrell?”

  “Ten.”

  “And your name?” I glanced over at the older sister who appeared to be about seven.

  The little girl pulled the only clean finger—her thumb—out of her mouth. Snaggle-toothed, she spoke with a lisp. “Sade.” I knew she meant to pronounce it like ‘Sha-day’, but it came out like sa-day. She pointed her index finger at the youngest child. “Her named Starkisha.” Starkisha, desperate for security, clenched her raggedy teddy bear.