Exile Blues

by Douglas Gary Freeman

  “Prince Earl?!”

  “Yeah, man. What you got to say, Prez?”

  “Brother-man, you and the Knights gotta cool it. You dig?! You gonna have to ice that roll-down ’cause it wasn’t the Kobras, man. Do you trust me, Prince Earl?”

  All Prez could hear on the other end was Prince Earl’s measured breathing. “You cool wid me Prez,” Prince Earl finally said.

  “Then dig, brother. It wasn’t the Kobras, man. This shit jumpin’ off is way deeper than that. I got the proof, man. Do you trust me, Prince Earl?!”

  “I said, YOU COOL, dude!”

  “I’m asking you if you trust me. You gotta say yes, or you gotta say no. Which is it, brother-man?”

  “Yeah, Prez. I trust you. The K-Knights, we all trust you, man.”

  “Then I’m gonna ask you to do something, my brother. And you have to do it my way, O.K.?”

  “O.K., Prez, your way.”

  “I’m at your Mama’s right now, and—”

  “You where, you silly-assed nigga?”

  “At your Mama’s, man. I’m just using the phone, that’s all.”

  “Does Sharon know you’re there, stupid?”

  “Listen, Prince Earl, I came over to check the damage to Mama Bell’s ride. I came over here as fast as I could ’cause I suspected this whole thing stank, and I was right. I haven’t seen Sharon and wouldn’t want her to see me. I just have to make one other phone call, then I’m leaving.”

  “Who else you got to call, Prez?”

  “Big Diesel,” said Prez, and waited for the inevitable.

  “Goddammit, Prez. You know I don’t want that nigga nowhere near my Mama’s crib. That’s all part of the truce. He stay away from the crib and he stay away from Sharon. What the fuck’s wrong wid you, Prez? I’m still thinkin’ about bustin’ caps in that big nigga’s ass ’cause ’o my Mama’s ride and now you want us all to PARLAY! FOR FUCKIN’ WHAT, MAN?!”

  “You both need to see what I found and hear me out,” began Prez. “If you don’t want to get played, you’re going to have to bury your animosity towards each other. You already said you trusted me. You already agreed to do it my way. Are you going to go back on your word now, Prince Earl?”

  After a long sigh, Prince Earl said, “I guess you want Truce Rules?”

  “That’s right.” said Prez.

  “Well, you either a genius . . . or a fuckin’ fool, Prez.”

  Truce Rules meant that the two warring parties’ representatives would show up for the meeting alone and unarmed. And when they reached the white flag zone, so designated by Prez, they all must strip down to their underwear to show that neither weapons nor wires were present. Thus, only three people would actually be there talking: Prez and the two gang leaders, Prince Earl and Big D.

  The legacy of slavery is manifold in the black community. The destruction of African ethno-cultural lineages amongst Afro-Americans has resulted in some strange manifestations. One such being black folks walking around with names like Herman Wilfred Dieseling the Third.

  Objections to and protestations against such a state of affairs have taken on many forms. Some subtle, some not so much. As when eleven-year-old Herman Wilfred Dieseling III up-ended the desk of his sixth-grade teacher, who had the lack of wisdom to snicker as he performed the first roll call of the new school year and said, “My god, boy. Where’d you get a name like Dieseling?”

  The eleven-year-old toffee-complexioned boy in question already stood six feet tall and weighed two hundred and twenty-five pounds. He hated his name, but he hated people who made fun of him or his name even more. So, it was with grievous error that Herman Wilfred Dieseling III was suspended from school for a week for assaulting a white teacher. He would have overturned the desk of any complexioned teacher under those circumstances.

  Now Big Diesel was six foot three, three hundred and twenty-five pounds. Oh, he was big and round and jolly-looking. But there was not a soft patch of flesh anywhere on his body. And things could be the farthest from jolly if Big Diesel was not happy. Once his anger propelled him, it was like a big ole diesel locomotive had rolled through, flattening everything in its path. The only thing that could stop Big D cold was his mother. She wasn’t even five feet tall. And she called him Hermie!

  The same with Prince Earl’s mother; she could stop him cold; which is why he rarely went around to his mama’s anymore. He didn’t like his tough-guy image being blown.

  Prince Earl was truly tough; his dark-chocolate body had the scar tissue over stab wounds and bullet holes to prove it. He was a lean six-footer with finely chiseled features, a genuinely handsome man who was a supreme athlete. He would show off on the basketball court by standing under the rim and with a tremendous vertical leap, propel the tip of his head straight through the underside of the hoop.

  With Prince Earl, one could appeal to his sense of honor. With Big D—and it wasn’t that he didn’t have a sense of honor—one must appeal to his sense of logic.

  Prez rolled an empty keg over into the middle of the shed to use as a table. They found milk crates to sit on, but there were only two. It worked out well, because with Prez standing, he could tower over them for a change. And tonight, he needed every little psychological advantage he could muster.

  So Prez stood in the shed behind Mama Bell’s house still feeling dwarfed by these two big dudes and wondering where Chi-Chi and Goon had set up their lookout posts. They were the other two members of Prez’s unit and he knew they would have already been there and in place at least by the time the three of them went into the shed.

  From his pocket he pulled a folded-up paper bag, from which he dumped onto the upturned keg chunks and bits of charred broken glass. With his right hand he made a “voila” gesture.

  “What do you see?” asked Prez.

  Both Prince Earl and Big D, with heads leaning forward almost touching, stared down at the broken glass. Then, with incredulous looks on their faces that questioned whether or not Prez had lost it, they looked at each other. Prez knew he had to start talking fast.

  “What do the guys like to drink?” Prez asked. “Now I know neither of you drink, but I’m talkin’ about the blood on the street, in the hood. Think about it.”

  “Mostly, they drink rot-gut, Prez. You know that, man. Cheap wine,” said Big D.

  “What about champagne . . . or vodka?”

  “Nigga, what?!” interjected Prince Earl. “Where a motherfucker gonna even find that kinda shit around here, man? You gotta go downtown. That shit’s too damned expensive anyway. But you know all that shit, Prez.”

  Then Prince Earl’s mood quieted. And he looked at Big Diesel. Then they both looked down at the glass again just as Prez was turning over a few of the larger chunks.

  On one large chunk they could the letters S, M, and maybe part of an I. On another chunk, they could clearly see the letters F, F. Another piece had what appeared to be a V but was really a broken N. Then there was an O. Big D said “Smirnoff.”

  “A vodka bottle,” said Prince Earl. “Who the fuck even drinks that nasty shit around here?”

  “That shit’s from Russia, anyway, homes,” said Big D.

  Whoever threw that Molotov cocktail, had a taste for Russian vodka, and could afford it. Big D got up from his double milk-crate seat and went to look out the window of the shed.

  “So, you Knights didn’t shoot Baby D, did you?”

  “No, man,” said Prince Earl. “I already told Prez. I gave my word about the truce. And you might not like me Big D, but you know I always honor my word.”

  “What’s going down, Prez?” asked Big D, still looking out the window, but at nothing in particular.

  “It’s the GIU,” said Prez. “They trying to get you brothers to start killing each other all over again. So, they kill Baby D, and plant a pipe at the scene with Prince Earl’s name scratched o
n it. Then, they torch Mama Bell’s car to make Prince Earl think that the King Kobras are comin’ after his Mama. Then, the next thing that’s suppose to happen is the Knights and the Kobras kill each other off; and the Pig would have been laughin’. Laughin’ like they’ve been laughin’ at us since slavery. Laughin’ all the way to fuckin’ eternity, my brothers, at dumb blacks, not smart enough to unite and fight the power.”

  Then Big Diesel turned from the window and walked over to where Prince Earl was sitting. Prince Earl got up and they grasped each other’s hands in a Black Power hand-shake before each gave the other the salute of their respective gang; finishing it all off with each giving the peace sign.

  “You a fuckin’ genius, Prez,” said Prince Earl.

  “No, he ain’t,” said Big Diesel. “He just reads a lot.”

  6

  Montreal, Summer Solstice, 1969 – Pre-dawn

  “Why is she here?”

  “Who?”

  “Oh Prez, don’t you dare.”

  “Shh, Marianne,” he said, holding his forefinger up to his lips while easing the door shut behind him. “What’s wrong with you? Hey, that’s my old robe. I was looking for that.”

  “What’s wrong? Oh, there’s nothing wrong. You’re perhaps just being yourself.” In her best rendition of a Southern drawl—“find ’em and fuck ’em. Is that it, Doug?”

  “Goddammit, Marianne! You’re the one who broke it off. You needed your goddamned espace. You wanted your goddamned ouverture so you could keep it up with Jamie and have a pseudo-philosophical justification for it.”

  “Such large ideas so early in the morning, and I haven’t even had my coffee.”

  “Well, why did you come here knocking on my door before coffee? You never do anything before coffee. Especially at five-thirty in the morning.”

  “Oil your fucking bed springs, you stupid jerk!”

  “Marianne! You never talk like that.”

  “Prez, are you coming back to bed?” Tala opened the door and stood with just a towel wrapped around her.

  “Prez? You know him as Prez?” asked a shocked Marianne.

  “Of course, strange question,” answered Tala. “His mother calls him Preston Jr. His uncles still call him Little Preston. I’ve called him a few things I won’t mention here now, but to the world that knows him and loves him he’s Prez.” Tala gave her big sunshine smile. She walked over and offered her hand. “Hi! I’m Tala from his home town.”

  Marianne bristled, then glared. She gave Tala’s hand a hard once-up and once-down shake. At that moment Tala realized there was something between Prez and Marianne which made her bristle and glare back.

  Prez intervened. “Tala, meet Marianne. She lives downstairs. How about coming in for coffee, Marianne? Is that OK with you, Tala?”

  He held the door as each deliberately rammed his chest with their shoulder as they walked in.

  “I’ll serve in the living room,” he said. “Make yourselves comfortable.” They ignored him and began talking.

  “I saw you getting out of the cab last night,” Marianne said to Tala. “I was quite surprised to see Prez coming in with you, because he never brings anyone home.”

  Oh really, thought Prez. What about that find ’em and fuck ’em bit you threw at me? And, you spy on me? Aha!

  “Why didn’t you come out and say hello, then?”

  Oh yeah, thought Prez, and then give me a boatload of shit afterward.

  “It was just a coincidence that I happened to be looking out the window. I had company over.”

  Coincidence my ass, thought Prez. Company? That would have been punk-assed Jamie. You and your goddamned ouverture, which seemingly . . . obviously . . . only you are allowed to practice.

  They were talking like old school chums when he returned with the coffee.

  “When I first saw him,” said Marianne, “he looked like he had been through a little war. He was injured, bleeding. He passed out.”

  “He had been. He’s not supposed to be alive, the way they came at him. He’s never told you about any of that?”

  Prez heard a car door slam. He went to his window and looked down.

  “You have company,” Prez announced to Marianne. “Don’t rush out wearing my robe. Jamie will think the wrong thing.”

  Tala’s eyes squinted, one eyebrow raised and her lips pursed.

  “Oh, mon dieu, who cares? Give me that towel, Tala. Here.” She tossed the robe to Tala. “And, don’t forget, dinner at my place. Don’t be late.”

  Tala looked at Prez. “It’s not what you’re thinking,” said Prez.

  “Cut the bullshit, Prez,” said Marianne as she closed the door behind her.

  *

  This was not the 1969 summer solstice morning Prez had envisioned when he learned Tala was coming to visit. She would only stay until Sunday morning so there was a lot to try to cram into one day. He had wanted the whole time with her alone. There was just so much to sort out. But his Saturday morning was still quite young, so young that the sky was still lighting itself. There was so much about the city he had fallen in love with and he wanted to share as much as he could with Tala.

  It seemed as if their relationship—the one she had always said they didn’t have—had been so complicated right from the time she kicked him in Lincoln Park all those years ago. She thought then that he was just a kid who thought he was a man because he could beat up grown men. He believed love to be boundless fusion of two souls. But they would always be out of synch, he thought.

  So she caught him off guard again when she arrived, put her little bag on the floor, kissed him deeply, and said she’d missed him. He didn’t understand. Tala, he thought, is this really you? She had promptly undressed and walked into the bathroom while he was peeing and started to draw bathwater. He was shocked. Then she insisted he get in the tub with her. She lay back against him and took his arms and wrapped them around her. They sat in the hot water until it became tepid and she was so still and quiet that he knew she had fallen asleep. He gently woke her and told her it was time for bed. She got out drowsily and Prez toweled her dry. He wrapped a giant cuddly towel around her and led her to his bed. He pulled the covers back and asked if she had brought any nightclothes. No, she slept nude. Prez could feel his heart thump-thumping in his chest. He could feel himself becoming aroused.

  “Okay then, hop into bed and sleep peacefully. I’ll be in the living room. Good night, Tala.”

  She got into bed and as soon as her head touched the pillow her eyes were shut. He tucked the bedding up around her and turned to go. Just as he was about to turn out the light she whispered his name. He looked around and she held out her arm motioning for him to come to her.

  “Turn out the light,” she whispered.

  She lifted the bedding and he slid in beside her. She turned over on her side and tried to pull him close. But he was too aroused, embarrassed about it, confused, knew not what was happening. He wasn’t about to get close to her down there.

  “Come on,” she said, “put your arm around me.”

  He resisted and she tugged harder.

  “C’mon, Prez.”

  “I can’t, Tala.”

  “What—put your arm around me?”

  “No, get too close.”

  “C’mon Prez. Cuddle up to me. We’ll make everything cozy so we can get a good night’s sleep together.”

  She reached down and took his hardness and snuggled it in between her butt cheeks, squeezed his arm around her, and fell asleep. Prez lay there throbbing and thinking that if he did not go crazy within the next few minutes it would be a miracle.

  The next thing he knew he was being awakened by Tala nibbling on his earlobe. “Please, Tala, what is going on?”

  “Make love to me.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Oh yeah,” she giggle
d.

  He rolled over on top of her and the touch of her body against his, the smell of her, the taste of her mouth and tongue were enough to make him wonder about the existence of God and heaven—two things he did not believe in.

  “Don’t come in me, okay? Please.”

  “Alright.”

  Soon she dug her knees into his side, buried her face into his neck and let out such a deep, guttural, growling moan that all he could do was hold on and not let her go.

  Her body then relaxed and she seemed to melt into the sheets.

  “Thank you,” she whispered. For what, he wanted to know? “For keeping your promise.”

  7

  Montreal, Summer Solstice, 1969 – Sunrise

  It was becoming a perfect morning.

  “Hurry! Get dressed. We have to catch the sunrise.”

  “Where?”

  “At the lookout.”

  Prez grabbed a bunch of keys and took Tala out the back door.

  “Are you trying to keep Marianne from spying on you?”

  “No. My car is out in the back,” scowled Prez.

  “You have a car?”

  “Well, sort of. It was sort of given to me. Anyway, I’m now its exclusive driver.”

  “That’s a lot of sort-ofs.” She stopped and stared. “What . . . is that?”

  “A 1965 Citroën 2CV roll-back top. It’s my getaway car! Get in! We have to get to the lookout before the sun comes up!”

  He closed the passenger-side door after Tala. She was well into the rhythm of her own sweet protestations: “I’m not riding in this thing. It’s yellow! It’s the ugliest car I’ve ever seen!”

  Prez hopped in.

  Tala was looking all over the little car as they started rolling along. “Hey, it rides kind of smooth,” she said. Prez rotated a little knob that Tala hadn’t even noticed and a radio came to life. Prez rotated another knob and as the little yellow Citroën made its way down the alley and onto the street the voices of Robert Charlebois and Diane Dufresne trailed along. As they sat at the stoplight on the corner of Mount Royal and Park Avenue, Prez pointed up and to his left. “It’s up there—the lookout. We’re right in the heart of the city, don’t forget!”