L.A. Blues Page 5

  During the L.A. riots, Chica got hooked on “the rock,” had each baby taken by the County at birth and placed with Shirley, who even adopted the oldest two of the children. In and out of prison, over the past fourteen years or so, Chica had stayed involved with the wrong type of guys, including the whole downward spiral which came from that first puff off the glass dick with that notorious drug dealer, Dog Bite. I heard Dog Bite was shanked in a drug deal gone bad while he was in prison about ten years ago. He was the father of Trayvon, Chica’s oldest son.

  Seeing her now, here for me when I’m injured, I cringed at how judgmental I’d been. I guess I had been pretty harsh in my treatment of Chica. At the time, though, I felt like Chica had let me down. When we were teens, Chica was the better student. She liked to read, and could quote Shakespeare. We’d once had a pact to make something out of our lives, in spite of our circumstances.

  Chica somehow, miraculously, gave birth to five precocious children: Trayvon, fifteen, Malibu, twelve, Soledad, eight, Charisma, seven, and Brooklyn, five, all bright, and all good kids, in spite of, or perhaps because of, their circumstances; which was the bright side of all of this. Trayvon, her only son who was the oldest, was an Honor Roll student and a high school sophomore basketball star. He was already being watched by NBA scouts. He had plans to attend Morehouse College in Atlanta after he graduated from high school. As the only only boy, he was Shirley’s pride and joy.

  You would have never thought Chica, who gave our foster mother pure hell as a teenager, would have been able to dump one, let alone five children on Shirley, but that’s just what she did. Both Chica’s mother and father had died in prison so there were no other available relatives. Thus, this was Shirley’s second generation of foster kids she was raising.

  Anyway, this was a new and improved Chica standing in my room. She still had the tattooed names of two of her three different baby daddies’ on both upper arms, but she looked healthy. For the first time in years, she appeared to be clean and sober. Her eyes were clear and not blood shot. Her skin was not pimpled or sand-paper dry like the last time I saw her. She’d dyed her brunette hair a straw-colored blonde. She kind of resembled J-Lo now that she’d cleaned up her act. She was still a good-looking woman. I guess she had re-invented herself.

  “When d’you get out?” I asked.

  “It’s a long story. But I’ve been out a year. Trying to get my kids back. But they’re so attached to Shirley now.”

  Shirley stepped in. “You can have your younger children back as soon as the court gives them back to you. Have I ever denied you any visits?” Shirley didn’t mention that Chica had adopted Trayvon and Malibu. She was the foster parent to the younger three, though.

  “True dat, Mami. I love you for all you’ve done for the kids.” Then she turned to me and showed me the smallest diamond ring I’d ever seen. “But the good news is I’m getting married.”

  “Yeah?” I was shocked. Who would want to marry a woman with five children with almost that many daddies? But you never knew.

  “Yeah, to a Riley Whitmore. We met in rehab eight months ago, and although they say you’re not supposed to have a relationship for the first two years, we fell in love. We tried not to get serious for a year, and we just couldn’t fight it any more.”

  “What?” I didn’t say anything. I thought about my new take on love.

  Love? What a joke. I hadn’t dated seriously in a couple of years. I had an on-again, off-again relationship with a fellow police officer, Flag, who worked undercover in Vice out of 77th Division, but he was nothing more than a booty-call to me. After one bad marriage, and one bad living-together arrangement, I no longer even believed love was a possibility. I never wanted to live with another man, let alone deal with a man for something other than sex, and I could do that without cohabitation.

  “Well, I’ve got to go out and let the kids see you. They say you can’t have but so many people in here at a time.”

  After Chica left, Trayvon and Malibu came in to see me. They were wearing back packs, like they were coming from school. Beforehand, Shirley had decided that seeing me would be too much for Soledad, Charisma, and Brooklyn so they were at home with Chill.

  “Hi, Aunt Z,” Trayvon leaned down and kissed me on the cheek. “We’re praying for you.” Trayvon, who was also my godchild, wore a curly afro, which resembled my short hair cut. He was about my height now and, even with his spread of pimples across the bridge of his nose, was becoming handsome. Whenever I took him places, people asked if he were my son.

  Malibu, who was tall for twelve, handed me a single rose she’d taken out of Shirley’s garden. “Love you, Auntie Z.” She was already a stunning beauty, with the same long hair that Chica used to sport. Only her hair was black and had more of a wave to it, probably due to her black father.

  When everyone left, I dozed back off for I don’t know how long since they were keeping me doped up on Demerol, but a strangely familiar male voice startled me awake. There was an amused tone in the speaker’s words.

  “Hey, is this that feisty girl who ran off a gang of boys?”

  I gazed up at a familiar Hispanic face, but I didn’t recognize him. All I knew is that he was wearing a detective’s badge, and was dressed in a suit. Then I noticed his badge. “Detective Romero.”

  “Do I know you?” I asked, puzzled. He seemed to act as if he knew me.

  “Do you remember me? Romero Gonzalez? When I read your bio on the computer and saw your picture, I said, I think that’s the girl I gave the ride that day. You haven’t aged that much.”

  I scoffed, “Flattery will get you no where,” but I felt myself smiling. By me not having children, I guess I hadn’t aged as much as my friends.

  “Besides, I knew there couldn’t be many Zipporah’s around.”

  I perked up and pushed the button to set my bed in a sitting position. I reached out my fist for a pound. “I don’t think I ever got a chance to thank you.” He gave me a pound back.

  “No problem. I just hate we lost touch. I tried to call you and could never find you. I still chuckle about how you scared those knuckleheads that day.”

  “Did you hear what I said to them?”

  “Never forgot it.”

  “Believe it or not, I was still a virgin at the time.”

  “You know I kind of figured that. There was something streetwise, yet innocent about you.”

  “Oh yeah?” I tried to envision my earlier eighteen-year-old self. Mmm. I guess God did look out for fools and babies.

  “I’m glad getting gang raped didn’t turn out to be your first time.”

  A memory of my first time at nineteen, which wasn’t anything to write home about, crossed my mind, but at least it was consensual. Thinking of what could have happened, I commented, “I’m glad you stepped in.”

  “Well, you kind of had the situation under control.”

  I looked closer at Romero and noticed that the old tattoo on his neck had been faded as if he tried to have it removed. He was wearing an Armani suit and seemed like a different person than the man I met years ago. I guess we all had changed. I knew a lot of people who’d gotten their tattoos removed as they worked their way up into mainstream society.

  “Where have you been all these years?” he asked.

  I thought about it. “In L.A.”

  “I thought we’d keep in touch. I tried to call you, then your number got changed.”

  “Well, just say life got in the way. Besides, after I got on the force, I got married in Vegas, had that one annulled, married, and divorced again.” I paused. “How ’bout you? Married?”

  “No, I’m divorced.”

  “One of the job hazards, I guess.”

  Romero nodded, ruefully.

  “It’s something I wanted to ask you when we met,” I said. I was thinking back to how Romero had probably been a gangbanger when he was young. I remembered the fear he inspired in my would-be attackers. And I wondered why.

  “Shoot.”
>
  “What made you want to get on the force?”

  “I wanted to make a difference.” Romero’s voice sounded earnest.

  I studied him. He was really serious. I had started out with those lofty aspirations, too, but it had just become a job as time rolled by. A job which required more and more drinking for me to dull my senses.

  Romero continued. “I didn’t want to be another statistic. Too many of my homeboys had been killed, and I wanted to be able to turn as many lives around as I could.”

  I didn’t comment. “What division do you work in?”

  “Pacific.”

  Okay. So that is West Los Angeles. “Which unit?”

  “Detective.”

  I switched gears and jumped to what was on my mind. “Do you know why someone would shoot my partner?”

  “That was a known drug house. The perp had two strikes. Do the math.”

  I figured that Unca Pookie’s house was a crack house, but after that shoot out, and being unconscious for a couple of days, I guess I’d forgotten.

  “Do they have the shooter?”

  “We have a Lawrence Mitchell in custody. He’s denying doing the shooting though. But we found a .350 Magnum in his house. Okamoto was hit by a .350 Magnum.”

  From what Romero told me, Uncle Pookie was a small, low-level drug dealer. “What we found on him was enough crack to send him back to prison for life. I guess he freaked out and started shooting. He didn’t want to go back to prison the rest of his life so he went for broke. Now he’s facing murder of a police officer. I hope they gas him.”

  After Romero left, a parade of Internal Affairs officers trailed into my room to interview me. I told the same story over and over about the shooting—that is, what I could remember, then I dozed off in a nice drug-induced sleep. I used “exigent circumstances” as the reason for us not getting a warrant at Elizabeth Black’s apartment, and for us taking the children to Uncle Pookie’s house as a possible placement.

  5

  I didn’t get out of the hospital in time to attend Okamoto’s funeral, but I watched brief clips of it on the news. At least he didn’t leave behind a widow or small children, I thought, since he was divorced without children. Still I felt bad that I didn’t make Okamoto’s funeral. The media was having a field day.

  As they launched the twenty-one gun salute, the guilt pierced my heart with each shot. I wept at the sight of his flag-draped coffin.

  “Ashes to ashes, dust to dust,” the chaplain’s voice droned on.

  I lay there, trying to envision my future riding in the squad car without Okamoto. Who would they give me as a new partner?

  Okamoto, had been a drinker, which was how we’d become so tight. Many off days we spent barbecuing at his home in La Puente on his hibachi grill and getting wasted from morning until we passed out. Sometimes we’d be so drunk we’d have to spend the night with each other. We’d never been lovers though. We were just the best of friends. We’d both gone through our divorces together, so that had become our bond—the job, talking shit about our stupid exes and street adventures, and getting totally shit-faced. I really had every intention of going back on the streets as I sat there, the words of the Chaplain seeping into my consciousness.

  My mind drifted back to our last night together. What was Okamoto going to tell me that night when we got off? I guess that was just one of those things I would never know.

  I got sick of watching the news, so I changed the channel.

  Meantime, everyone from the captain to foot patrol officers came to visit me and offer condolences over my five-day stay in the hospital. Funny thing was I knew something was wrong when Internal Affairs showed up. No one was speaking to me or looking directly in my eyes. They were talking at me. Yes, something was definitely up. My stomach started churning like it did whenever I sensed trouble.

  When the sergeant handed me a trial board review notice, at first I didn’t think anything of it. I had five in the past five years—all of them drinking-related misconduct issues. I was warned twice, and had to go to AA. I had three suspensions in the past three years, but I was still on the streets.

  But as I scanned it, I read between the lines. People blamed me for Okamoto’s death. They said if I hadn’t been drinking I would have been more alert. But no one knew how badly I felt inside. No one had beaten themselves up more than I had. If I hadn’t been drinking, then my reactions would have been better. No, no. I couldn’t do anything better than I did. How were we to know that Lawrence Mitchell would turn sniper?

  My head told me I did everything I could do, but in my heart, I felt as if Okamoto’s death was my fault.

  Due to the Rampart Division Scandals and the Community Resources Against Street Hoodlums (CRASH Unit) debacle, now they kept a computerized track of officer misbehavior and misconduct. I was screwed.

  Three weeks later, accompanied by the union rep, James Pinckert—which was a big joke since in my gut I knew beforehand he couldn’t change my fate at this Board of Rights Review since he’d gotten me off before—I listened to my sentence.

  The Parole Review Board consisted of seven members sitting on chairs at a long table. They represented all races, white, black, Latino, and Asian, so I couldn’t exactly say I had a kangaroo court here. I sat across from them in a chair, next to my union rep.

  I smelled a strange odor. The smell of the room was one of disgrace. The detectives on the case, Internal Affairs, the lieutenant, everyone was present and they were looking at me as pariah. I was no longer part of the brotherhood. I was an outsider.

  “Zipporah Saldano, you have been suspended three times for drinking-related incidences, both on duty and off-duty in the past four years. The Board finds reasonable cause for termination from the Los Angeles Police Department.”

  Termination! What a penalty! I sat there, numb, as they took away my badge and my city-issued Beretta. The only thing I had left were my uniforms, which I bought, and cleaned out of their city allowance. I didn’t have the uniform I was wearing when I got shot because they had it in evidence locked up. I was stripped to the core.

  Over the past ten years, so much of my identity had been tied up with being a police officer, I didn’t know what I was going to do. How would I live? My rent in the Venice Canal area was $3,000 per month. I had about 10k in the bank. Hmmm. This would be interesting.

  As I was being sentenced, the only thing I could think was how funny it was that the children of alcoholics find each other. My mother and all her men had been heavy drinkers. My ex-husband, Rafael, another cop, had been a rip-roaring drunk off-duty, whom I had infamous brawls with. We had to break up before we shot each other, because, when we’d drink together, we would pull our guns on each other in a heartbeat. And Okamoto had also been a functional alcoholic.

  As I sat there, frozen in my seat, I could see my future going up like a wisp of smoke from a crack pipe as they read out the sentence. What was I going to do if I couldn’t identify myself as an L.A.P.D. officer? I was so stunned that I didn’t even hear the union when they said they could appeal the decision. I’d been suspended before, but this was the first time I was terminated. I was too disheartened to worry about anything. I didn’t know what I was going to do.

  “Is this what I get for ten years of service?” I demanded when they asked me if I had anything to say.

  “Well, what did you expect?” Captain Finney asked. “We tested your blood alcohol and it was .10. The public was demanding some type of action. You’ve been given chance after chance with this drinking. We’ve put you in programs, and you still keep relapsing.

  “We recommend you go to an in-patient alcoholic’s program, and support that with on-going AA meetings,” were the last words I heard.

  I didn’t know how I made it home that afternoon, but all I knew was I couldn’t wait to get home so I could get into my kitchen cabinet and pour another drink. How did I get caught up in so much scandal and wrongdoing? I wondered.

  I lost my job as a poli
ce officer. I was blamed by all my fellow officers for Okamoto’s death. The media was having a field day with my downfall and had gone on a smear campaign to ruin my reputation—or what was left of it. It was open season on misconduct of L.A.P.D.

  No one remembered I was once a decorated cop for bravery in the face of a sniper. All they knew was I had fucked up, my partner was dead, and someone had to be blamed. Although I didn’t go to jail, I became a prisoner by my addiction. I took a drink on the night of a case that was to become a media fiasco.

  Six weeks later, after I was released from my doctor’s care for the bullet wound, I began to drink so much I lost track of how much I was drinking. I’d drink first thing in the morning and before going to bed. I couldn’t stop. I don’t know if I ate. I just know for nine months I was lost in a bottle.

  Although I told my union rep I was going to seek help for my addiction, I didn’t. The truth was I really didn’t mean it, but as part of my trial board I was advised to go to AA meetings. I hadn’t been to one meeting and I’d been drinking ever since I was fired.

  I was also advised to see a therapist, and I did see the city shrink a couple of times for my resulting “post traumatic stress disorder”, but I never opened up and told the truth so it didn’t help. The only thing that seemed to help was to drink. It became a vicious cycle. I drank so I didn’t remember and as a result, I didn’t know how or if my bills got paid.

  Apparently I didn’t pay them, because suddenly lights were cut off, the phone was cut off and the gas was cut off. The only reason the water was on was that the co-op paid it. It was too much to even believe that this could happen to one person.