Echoes of a Distant Summer

by Guy Johnson

  He sat back in the plush upholstery of the backseat and could not concentrate on anything but his wife, Wichita Kincaid, and the thought that he would soon be joining her. He just wanted to hear her laugh again, watch the way she moved her head when she was trying to make a point, taste some of her smothered chicken and dumplings again. It was hard for him not to daydream about her. She had opened his eyes to the world with her far-ranging interests and she had introduced him to literature. King Tremain had taught him to read, but all that King had ever read was newspapers and occasionally the Bible. Sampson had no idea that novels even existed until Wichita brought home Richard Wright’s Native Son. From then on he read with a rabid frenzy. She introduced him to a world where his still tongue was irrelevant, a world where he could commune with philosophers and kings and dialogue with rogues and roustabouts. He was captured by the lyricism, the imagery, and the ideas expressed in the written word. He was stimulated and touched in ways he had never imagined possible. He actually gobbled up books, then he and Wichita would stay up late into the night discussing the questions the books raised, or pretended to answer. The seventeen years they were married were the best years in Sampson’s life. She changed him from a virtual illiterate into a man who thirsted for knowledge. Then she died because the nearest hospital didn’t treat Negroes.

  He was embittered after her passing because she had died needlessly. Her appendicitis could have been easily treated. Nor did it make it more palatable to know that famous people like Bessie Smith and Robert Johnson had died in similar circumstances fifteen to twenty years earlier. Sampson felt that his life had been violated, that the one person he valued most had been stolen from him by the ignorance and hatred of whites. There were only two people he had ever met with whom he could spend unlimited time in harmony. The first was King Tremain and the second was Wichita Kincaid. He had never been a social being anyway, but after she died, Sampson lost the desire to travel far from home. King, who had come to the funeral, had visited him a few times after that, but otherwise they had kept their friendship alive through letters and assisted phone calls. Wichita’s death had left Sampson with an abiding intolerance of his surrounding society, and over time he became a recluse.

  The Cadillac pulled up in front of the hotel, which was a dilapidated three-story affair with a large pink neon sign. The sidewalk was alive with the south-of-Market nightlife. There were homeless people, leather queens, dope dealers, cross-dressers, sailors, drug addicts, narcs, people trying to sell a cheap trick and others trying to buy a cheaper one all wandering the street as if they had lost the way to where they really wanted to go, but were nonetheless in a hurry to get there.

  Sampson passed the driver a note. The driver read it then turned back to him and asked, “Are you sure you want to go through with this? El Negro said that you could change your mind and it wouldn’t be a problem.”

  Sampson nodded his head and held out his hand for the bag. The driver held back reluctantly then handed over a shopping bag.

  The driver explained, “It’s just like the one you practiced on in Mexico City. It’s already wrapped in a dirty T-shirt. I suggest you pour the bottle of urine that’s included on it and that will prevent people from picking it up.”

  Sampson wrote another note and handed it to the driver. The driver stared at him then conceded with a shrug. “You want the poison too? Okay, but if you take it too soon, you’ll be dead before our friends come calling. Once you take it, you only have five minutes max, and given your age it might be much less. Are you absolutely sure you want to do this?”

  Sampson merely nodded. There was no doubt in his mind. This night, God willing, he would join his cherished Wichita and put an end to the pain of his mortal flesh. His eyes had seen too much, his heart was weighted down by unresolved grievances, and he could not let loose the anger and indignation he felt boiling inside of him. He did not want to live in a world where history dictated everything yet meant nothing.

  The driver handed him a small vial. “There are three pills in there in case you drop one or two. You only need one; if you take all three you may not have as much time as I originally indicated. Good luck to you. I hope this evening goes as planned.”

  Sampson smiled and nodded his thanks. He got out of the car and walked through the hotel’s front door and went over to the registration desk, where he wrote a note and pushed it in front of the desk clerk.

  The desk clerk, a thin, pale white man with stringy, dark hair and a sunken chest, looked over the note as he popped his chewing gum. After he finished reading he looked up at Sampson and said, “Sure! Sure, we’ll call you if you get any visitors. That’s hotel policy. We ain’t going to treat you any different than our other patrons.”

  Sampson took two hundred-dollar bills out of his billfold and tore them in half. He gave two halves to the clerk and wrote on the bottom of the note he had previously written. He now had the clerk’s full attention. The man’s whole demeanor changed as he read the note.

  “Mr. Davis, you don’t have to worry. Your money talks! I’ll make sure that everyone who works the desk and the switchboard knows that you want to be called the moment your visitors arrive.”

  Sampson turned and headed for his room, which was situated on the old mezzanine floor at the back of the hotel. There were only two other rooms on the mezzanine floor, which was part of the original hotel that had burned down in the forties. The rest of the hotel was newer, but it certainly wasn’t visible to the eye. Like most flophouses that served the local down-on-their-luck stiffs, prostitutes, and small-time criminals, it was covered with the scum of years. Dim lighting in the halls and rooms helped hide the filth, but the smell could not be ignored. As he started up the stairs, he saw a white woman in a very short shift and fishnet stockings coming down with a muscular, black john. He recognized her. She had the room down at the end of the hall. The woman, whose makeup was so garish that she looked like a circus performer, gave him a professional smile as she passed. The john shouldered roughly past him, bumping him into the wall without a word of apology.

  Sampson continued on up and entered his room at the top of the stairs. He set immediately to preparing the bomb. He lifted it out of the shopping bag, pulled back the T-shirt, connected the leads to their appropriate terminals, and took the bomb out into the hall. He placed it on the floor in the corner by his door then poured the strong-smelling urine on the shirt. Using the shopping bag to protect his hand, he reached up and broke the lightbulb at the top of the stairs and sprinkled the pieces on the floor in front of his door. When he went back inside his room, he pulled a rickety chair close to the door, moved the phone within easy reach, got himself a glass of water, which he set on the floor by the chair, then sat down to wait with the remote in his hand.

  He did not feel even a twinge of regret that he planned to kill the men from Tree’s before he himself entered the ether. They were men without history, tumbleweed men who raised only dust with their passage. This new, modern world seemed populated by such men. Sampson had read somewhere that an Uncle Tom had been appointed to some high panel over California’s college system and that the fool had espoused getting rid of all affirmative action programs, as if racism no longer existed. Whoever he was, he definitely didn’t know his history. Sampson wondered where was this man when the whites rioted in Tulsa in 1921 and burned down the black community, killing more than five hundred black people, many of whom were women and children; where was this man in the forties, when the water was diverted from the black-owned farms surrounding Bodie Wells and the land was squeezed dry. Where was he in the fifties and sixties, when only white farmers could get agricultural loans from the government? Where was this man when sad-eyed black people were driven by hunger and bank foreclosures off the farms on which their ancestors were buried? Where was this man and others like him when Wichita died in a pickup truck after being bumped around on rutted roads on the way to the closest hospital that would serve blacks?

  Sampson sat for
nearly two hours in his chair mulling over questions that only God and the fates could answer before the phone rang. He picked it up and was informed that three men were coming up to see him. No one else but King’s men and the people at Tree’s knew he was here, and King’s men wouldn’t visit him now. He returned the phone to its cradle and smiled. He opened the vial and put all three pills in his mouth. He picked up the glass of water and waited to hear footsteps outside his door. What did it matter that these three men would accompany him? Fate was a strange and twisted thing; there was no logic to it, no system by which it could be understood.

  He heard the sound of broken glass being crunched outside his door and simultaneously drank his water and pushed the button on the remote. I’m coming, Wichita. I’m coming.

  BOOK I

  The Awakening of

  Jackson St. Clair Tremain

  Tuesday, June 8, 1982

  There are ominous events that occur in the sea of life, that rise above all other activities and happenings like a shark’s fin above the liquid surface of a rolling wave. And so it was for Jackson Tremain when he received a call from his grandmother informing him of the death of Sampson Davis. After the call he attempted to concentrate on his daily duties, keeping a measured stroke, swimming through the passing minutes, but the meaning and importance of the call began to circle in a tightening spiral around his consciousness. He could ill afford such diversions. He had the tasks and responsibilities of a deputy city manager. Other areas that needed his full attention. He had fallen increasingly out of favor with the city manager, not for quantity nor quality of work but for things far more serious, differences in philosophy and style. Thus he had other predators in sight, ones that ate more than simple flesh.

  Perhaps his response to the call might have been different if his whole morning had not begun in an unpleasant manner. Jackson had just arrived in his office when the phone began to ring. He glanced at his watch. It was seven-thirty. He put down his coffee and his cinnamon roll and picked up the receiver. The mayor’s voice came bawling out in a blistering tirade. As a deputy city manager, Jackson had listened quietly to many such tirades; it was part of his job. He held the telephone between chin and shoulder and continued to drink his coffee, eat his cinnamon roll, and take notes all while being absolutely attentive.

  The mayor’s angry voice growled into the phone, “We need a Community Police Review Commission resolution to adopt during tonight’s city council meeting concerning this matter. Goddamn it, this is an election year!”

  Jackson listened quietly while Mayor Garrison Broadnax ranted on through the telephone receiver. He recognized that the mayor had every reason to be upset. The night before, two white police officers wearing masks while on duty in a patrol car had cruised the Chinese district of the city shouting words like gook, Chink, and slope to people on the street. The two patrolmen pulled a Chinese businessman from his truck and beat him after he cursed them for calling him racial epithets. They opened a five-inch gash in his forehead, locked him out of his truck, and left him lying in the street. They did not report the incident to police dispatch, but several scores of witnesses did. Jackson had received a call concerning the matter from one of his connections in the police department before he had come in to work that morning.

  “What do you have to tell me, Tremain?” the mayor barked.

  Jackson replied, “I may not have all the information. But as far as I know, the two officers in question have been placed on administrative leave pending an investigation into the allegations. It’s only fair to say that they are denying everything and claiming that the Police Officer’s Bill of Rights has been violated by putting them on administrative leave. They have requested a closed hearing in front of the Civil Service Commission to challenge any disciplinary action that may be forthcoming.”

  “I don’t give a damn what those assholes say,” growled the mayor. “The Civil Service Commission will deny any claims they have.”

  “I hate to remind you, Mr. Mayor, but you haven’t had a quorum on the commission in three months. Only five of the nine seats are filled. You still need to appoint four commissioners.”

  “Damn!” the mayor exclaimed, and then there were several seconds of silence. “All right, I’ll appoint at least two Asians; that’ll fix their butts! What’s the ethnic breakdown of the commission now?”

  “Let me check the file.” Jackson got up and went over to his filing cabinet, pulled a manila folder, and returned to his desk. “Two blacks, two whites, and a Hispanic.”

  “Hmmm, I need to give the Hispanic community another appointment and I’ve got to give that white woman from the Oakland Hills area something too.… All right! All right! I’ll announce the commission appointments tonight at the council meeting. I want that Police Review Commission resolution you’re preparing on my desk by three-thirty this afternoon!”

  Jackson exhaled slowly, gathered his thoughts, then spoke calmly into the phone, “Mr. Mayor, the city manager has assigned me the responsibility of preparing the agenda for the executive session for this afternoon at four. I can’t possibly poll all the council members for their agenda items, prepare the revisions, if any, to the executive session agenda, attend the executive session, and prepare this resolution.”

  “Listen, Tremain, Bedrosian didn’t want to hire you. As the first black mayor of this city, I pressed him into hiring you. He was going to hire that white girl who had come here as an administrative intern three years ago over you even though you had three times her experience.

  “And one of the important reasons I supported your appointment was that I wanted to be sure I could get at least some of the inside information on the legislation that he prepares for council. You know he was here before me and he thinks he’s going to be here after me. But he doesn’t know me. I’ve been dealing with white boys like him all my life. I’m going to get this boy treed, then I’ll be looking forward to seeing the back of him!”

  “That’s pretty strong, Mr. Mayor,” Jackson chided, thinking he couldn’t risk being openly disloyal to his immediate supervisor. After all, the mayor was a politician and everything was salable if the right issue arose. “I mean, some of your electorate is white.”

  “You know what I mean and don’t waste my time with naive remarks. There’s people who happen to be white and there’s white people. Now get me my goddamned resolution before three-thirty! Remember who helped you get where you are.”

  “I understand, Mr. Mayor,” Jackson replied with resignation. The mayor played this card whenever Jackson showed any reluctance to perform some extra chore for him, and whenever he played it, Jackson responded appropriately. He assured the mayor, “The resolution will be on your desk by three-thirty.” No reason to make an enemy of his principal advocate.

  “Jackson, my boy, I knew you’d find the time for something like this.” The mayor’s voice now took on a honeyed tone. “I knew you came in early to work, that’s why I called before eight. This resolution doesn’t have to be a three-page monster with twenty whereases either. Just something simple and to the point.”

  Knowing the answer, Jackson asked, “Shall I inform the city manager of this item at today’s agenda luncheon?”

  “Don’t tell that fool Bedrosian a damn thing! All he’ll do is find some pretext to delay. You know he’s in bed with the police department on this matter. He and Chief Walker would love to see me defeated in this next election. Once I approve the resolution, I want you to send it directly over to the city clerk’s office. She’ll be waiting for it.”

  “You realize when you direct me to do something like this, it appears to my boss, Bedrosian, that I’m not following the chain of command. He’ll know that I prepared this resolution, because I’ll have to go to the agenda secretary for a number.”

  “As long as I’m here, you don’t have to worry about him. Get it to the city clerk, I’ll get her to get a number, okay?”

  “Whatever you say, Mr. Mayor,” Jackson replied, shaking hi
s head. Bedrosian would still know that he prepared the resolution. As a result, Jackson knew that another confrontation with the city manager loomed. At least he had a job until the next election.

  After he got off the phone with the mayor, Jackson called his administrative analyst into his office for a quick closed-door session. Corazon Benin was a short, good-looking woman in her mid-thirties who wore her lush, dark hair rolled into an attractive bun.

  “What’s up, boss?” she asked as she sat down with a yellow tablet and a pen.

  “The mayor wants something and I can’t report it at the agenda luncheon.”

  She laughed. “Again? He certainly doesn’t mind putting you on the spot. What is it this time?”

  “He wants a resolution for a Police Review Commission prepared for adoption by tonight.”

  Before Corazon could respond, the phone on Jackson’s desk jangled loudly. It was the switchboard line. He complained, “What is this? I told the secretaries to hold calls before eight-thirty!”

  “I’ll go see,” Corazon volunteered as she stood up and went out the door. The phone continued to ring and was still ringing when Corazon reappeared.

  “Carol says it’s your grandmother and she says it’s urgent.”

  “What the hell can she want?”

  “You told me she was dead,” Corazon observed. “So it must be pretty important for her to call from the grave.”

  “She is dead, been dead for years, she just hasn’t realized it,” Jackson answered. “Why don’t you let me take this call, and while I’m on it, would you make a copy of the resolutions that were recently adopted for the Parks Commission and the Civil Service Commission? Maybe we can lift some of the language right off of those two.” Corazon nodded and left the office.

  Jackson took a deep breath, picked up the phone, and said, “Good morning, city manager’s office.”