“My cousins are your cousins. They talk funny to you and you talk funny to them.”
We laughed and moved on to new subjects—the Lakers, the Rams, USC, the upcoming concerts at Hollywood Bowl, wondered how much decent tickets for Maxwell’s or Janet’s concert tour would cost, but I knew Garrett was off Jake Ellis’s mind as much as Jimi Lee was off mine.
My daughter was a liar, just like her mother. And with a few words she had demanded money, broken my heart, then sashayed away, never looked back, just like her goddamn mother.
When we were mid-Wilshire and passing the taco shop owned by Danny Trejo, the dude from the movie Machete, I said, “I think Margaux has a gambling problem.”
“How so?”
I told him about how she said she needed USC to lose a home game.
He asked, “You think she’s fifty thou deep because of gambling?”
“Could be. She wouldn’t be the first on my side of the family with that habit.”
“Who bets against USC at home? They might as well have lit their money on fire.”
I nodded. “Someone desperate. And my daughter sounds like she’s desperate.”
“How that guy fit in?”
“Bookie? He’s here to collect the fifty large she owes.”
“He left like he was running from slave catchers. She said he’s her ex-boyfriend, right?”
“Could be a lie. She’s a liar. You said he had a woman waiting in the car.”
Anxious, Jake Ellis nodded. “We need to get back to San Bernardino business.”
Something profound was on Jake Ellis’s mind. I knew him. I knew that stern expression.
The Ghanaian knew me. He knew I was stressed.
And with all that stress on my mind, a soft hum reminded me I had forgotten something.
CHAPTER 11
JAKE ELLIS STAYED on La Brea, then hooked a left on Washington, zoomed toward LA’s heart. The area was mostly Spanish-speaking with enough signage to feel like we were in Tijuana. Colorful murals and graffiti. Barbed wire around businesses. Wrought-iron bars on the windows of the homes, making most look like diminutive prisons. I thought we were rolling up on a dozen pictures of Hitler, but it was the president’s orange face on the Führer’s body.
Jake Ellis pulled over. Two minutes later, a Mini Cooper pulled up behind us. The driver of the Mini was Latina. Purple cowboy boots. I SUPPORT DACA T-shirt on. Hair brown, pink, red, and purple, tied back in a ponytail. Colorful tats spilled out of all sides of her Daisy Dukes. Sun-kissed legs. Keen brows. Face frustrated. One of San Bernardino’s overworked employees.
In accent-free English she said, “Whaddup, homies. Long time no see.”
Jake Ellis said, “Whaddup, Esmerelda.”
I motioned at her attire. “Aren’t you scared to wear that T-shirt nowadays?”
“We’re safe in Los Angeles. Sanctuary city.”
“Well, keep out of Arizona.”
She countered, “And you should keep out of Saint Louis.”
“It’s the sixties down there. All they need is German shepherds and water hoses.”
“Neo-Nazis are up this way too, in Torrance, Redondo Beach, and Hermosa Beach. I was just alerted on my phone. They call themselves the Rise Above Movement. Or RAM. Don’t confuse it with the football team. They have videos telling each other to say the fourteen words.”
I asked, “What are those?”
“‘We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children.’”
“Sounds like paranoia to me. Impossible to maintain their definition of white.”
“That purity crap is bullshit. They’re mutts acting like best dog in show. Most of those racists need to publicly take DNA ancestry tests, then sit the fuck down with the other losers.”
I said, “The junkyard dogs are barking the loudest.”
“This is why we should unite. Blacks and browns should’ve always been united. You know we used to be united. We were the Los Angeles Pobladores. Forty-four brave settlers and four warriors from Mexico founded Los Angeles. Over half of the group was of African descent.”
“I know. People have forgotten, but I know.”
“We’ve been led to believe we are each other’s enemy, and instead of being as strong as the Amazon River, we’re separated like the Black River and the White River in Brazil. Too bad we only unite on Cinco de Mayo. Or when a riot is in progress, but even then, we’re competing.”
“Everyone competes for everything. It’s called capitalism.”
She grinned. “Or dating.”
“That too.”
“We need to unite the other three hundred sixty-four days too. And not just on special occasions to break out a window in a Korean-owned business to snatch a flat-screen or take a new sofa as reparation.”
“Tell your people and I’ll tell mine. But I don’t think it’ll help.”
“I know. They like sofas and TVs.”
“Oh yeah. Those riot sales are better than being on The Price Is Right.”
“But on the real. We need to come together. We are the majority. Together we are the mainstream. We must go in one direction and be powerful like the Amazon River. Especially the way things are now. We’re back in the fifties. They want us to either disappear or shut the fuck up.”
I nodded. “Divided we just watch each other fall like we each have cultural dyspraxia.”
“Cultural dyspraxia.” She tendered a small smile. “If you have time, march with us.”
“San Bernardino got us on the clock. But I hear you’re at protests every day.”
“If they come for us, they’ll come for you. The KKK will march down Crenshaw.”
“And the Nation of Islam will be there to greet them, along with Crips and Bloods, and some old-school Black Panthers. Fools know where to go, and know where to not go.”
“They know to picket down by Disneyland, or in Simi Valley.”
“Exactly. In this box, our box between the 10, 405, 110, and 105, they can get a permit to march, but if your people and my people show up, there will be a lot of blood on the dance floor.”
She slid Jake Ellis an envelope. “DACA rally is in front of the Wilshire Federal Building.”
My partner took the envelope, felt its weight. “Was starting to wonder if that was for us.”
She was more comfortable with me than she was with my African friend.
She went on talking to me. “It pisses me off that so many Mexicans who were lucky to be born here are not siding with the Dreamers. Since they are citizens, those anchor babies think that they will be accepted more by America by shunning Mexico and acting as white as possible.”
“Part of the conditioning.”
“They think that since they can speak English with no accent, the ones who can’t speak perfect English are below them.”
“It was that way with former slaves, with freed men, and men who had never been enslaved. Freed people didn’t want their daughters and sons to be married to former slaves. They were adamant about that piece of status, almost as bad as the people against race mixing.”
“With us, the ones here don’t want their children marrying wetbacks.”
“The invisible class system that runs through my community, just like with yours.”
“Speaking Spanish or the Queen’s English, we’re all the same to them. Our own will turn on us and push us up front so the violent racists can beat us, will help the racists, and then they will be beaten as well. We have too many traitors. Way too many deserters and spies.”
“We all have spies. Africans captured Africans and sold them to the slavers for guns. The FBI had Uncle Toms inside the Black Panther Party and used their lies to bring the group down.”
“I saw a movie where Jews betrayed Jews and turned them in to Germans. They sided with Hitle
r. That blew my mind. Jews pretended to be German, like my people pass for white.”
“There will always be sellouts. Judas wasn’t the first, but he raised the bar.”
“I have to get back down on Wilshire so I can stand in this heat and be heard.”
“Aren’t you afraid ICE will just round up everyone down there?”
“We can’t keep living in the shadows. Hiding and being afraid takes too much energy.”
“Never a dull moment.”
“All of this fighting reminds me of one of my favorite quotes. ‘To be led by a liar is to ask to be told lies. To be led by a tyrant is to sell yourself and those you love into slavery.’”
I asked, “Malcolm X?”
She grinned. “Octavia Butler. Parable of the Talents. One of my favorite books.”
I grinned. “Hey, wonder if you can do me a favor?”
“What’s that?”
“We have tags to a car. I’m having issues with this dude. Personal thing, if you know what I mean. Can you get the DMV on it? We have a contact, but they seem to be on vacation today.”
“Day like this, everybody not socially aware is at a beach.”
“The city is a baking parking lot.”
“You know how LA gets every Friday. How soon you need this DMV thing?”
“It’s sort of urgent.”
“Sure. I have a hookup at the DMV in Inglewood.”
Jake Ellis showed me the info he’d put in his phone. I showed it to Esmerelda.
She said, “Well, Ken Swift, I’ll need your number so I can call you.”
I gave her my private number, then asked, “How much will this set me back?”
“You scratch my back, I scratch yours.”
“Quid pro quo.”
“Something for something.”
“Favor for a favor.”
“Cool.”
“Cool.”
She hurried back into her Mini Cooper and drove away. The bold message on the back of her DACA T-shirt read WE WANT TO BE HUMANIZED, NOT DEMONIZED. Jake Ellis handed me the envelope as he pulled from the curb, then followed the Mini Cooper east. The Mini Cooper didn’t have any license plates, nothing that could be traced back to the DMV, same as this Mustang.
“That cutie was bending your ear and flirting hard.”
“No, she wasn’t. She’s recruiting people to fight in this ongoing civil and cultural war.”
“She likes you. Had her suntanned breasts all in the window for you to look at.”
“I maintained eye contact. Kept it professional.”
“She was happy to get your number.”
“It’s a business situation. All about Margaux and whatever she has going on.”
“See how Esmerelda made her booty do that happy twitch when she went to her car?”
“That’s just how she walks. She used to dance. Rachel Redman has that same walk.”
“Third time she’s talked to you that way. You always passing it up.”
“If only I were more like you, then I’d break protocol and investigate.”
“Go investigate Esmerelda, like Rachel investigated the Russian when you left town.”
“Thanks for always bringing that up.”
“Nice tanned legs. Tight little body. Fit. Solid. Bet she can salsa her ass off.”
“She’s barely older than my daughter.”
“And she wants you to make her call you daddy.”
“Bro.”
“Bruv. Should I follow her for investigation?”
“If I was still twenty-one, I’d be up there in the car with her, investigating my ass off.”
Traffic remained bumper-to-bumper on every freeway and on every main street.
“Ken Swift, what do you think it would be like if black Americans had been freed, then given their own state to live in? What if you had been segregated and given land that way?”
“Like those internment camps they call reservations?”
“No, I mean a real state. Like North or South Dakota. Like the many white people who wanted an all-white state, what if they had given black Americans an all-black state of their own?”
“If they had us all corralled in one spot, you know they’d’ve tested the A-bomb on us.”
“Think so?”
“They injected black men with syphilis. Operated on black women with no anesthesia. Used black babies as alligator bait in Florida. Burned down Black Wall Street and kept it out of the news. They would’ve dropped an A-bomb on us and nobody would have ever known we’d existed. The government has done a lot. Now slave catchers are shooting us in the back.”
Esmerelda turned left at Crenshaw, and I assumed she was headed toward DACA rallies and heated protests near UCLA. Jake Ellis tooted his horn and turned right, headed south toward our side of LA, where Muslim brothers were at every intersection selling Final Call newspapers and bean pies. I looked at the money, mostly fifties, a few twenties, knew it was our standard fee, then handed Jake Ellis half. He put his part in his pocket without counting it. I folded my bills, wished I had earned fifty thousand, then stuffed my part of the payday in my suit pocket.
I looked in the side mirror, saw what was behind us, then said, “Slave catchers.”
Six police cars zoomed our way. Came up behind us like a raging storm.
Jake Ellis said, “Drop your .38 in the stash spot while I trafficate.”
I was already stashing my gat before he told me. Jake Ellis turned on his right blinker, pulled over to the right. The fleet of squad cars took to both lanes, passed doing over sixty, the Rodney King brigade wailing and hot on the scent of someone else on the se habla español side of town. When One Time was a half mile away, Jake Ellis signaled, then pulled from the curb.
Jake Ellis said, “Koti been on the move all day.”
I nodded. “Always on the move on this side of town.”
Jake Ellis shook his head. “I don’t know about that Dreamer shit Esmerelda is selling.”
“What you mean?”
“If people are here illegally, they are not supposed to be here. Her argument is emotional. Makes no sense. They are illegal and want to go march to protest. That’s ridiculous.”
“It’s the intersection where political and emotional meets culture and entitlement.”
“I don’t like your new president. He reminds me of Nigerian conmen. But why everybody on the left mad at Adolf Twitler? Bomb-Dropping Obama deported illegals both day and night.”
“Don’t diss my boy.”
“He split up a lot of families, in between dropping bombs like a Gap Band record.”
“Tread lightly.”
“Illegal means illegal. They are breaking the law and are mad because they’re getting called on breaking the law. She’s right about the dissension. I went to a board of directors meeting. Legals hate illegals because the illegals want to skip the long line because they have jumped a wall and picked a few berries. And that anchor-baby thing makes no sense.”
“We’ve never talked about that. Same immigration problem in Africa?”
“At least three million are in Ghana alone. Most of the beggars on the streets. Illegals have no jobs and poverty brings crime. That is a fact. The same as here, but different. But here, the illegals coming here to have babies, American babies, and demanding rights, is ludicrous.”
I said, “Like she said, this was their land.”
“Was. Like this car used to belong to Ford, then the car dealer. Now it’s mine.”
“You were antsy when she was talking. You wanted to debate all she said.”
“If some country was giving out checks for breaking the law, I’d rush there too. They are not having that madness in Mexico or Central America, yet they feel entitled to it up here.”
“Closet conserva
tive.”
“Ghanaians, Kenyans, Tanzanians, and Nigerians love your arrogant president.”
“You and Garrett could have been friends.”
“Oh, that racist coward blew a chance at an intellectual debate from his first sentence.”
We talked more, but something remained off. I’d been his friend most of my life. I knew when Jake Ellis was pissed off. I was pissed too, that sit-down with Garrett heavy on my mind.
Jake Ellis said, “We have to talk about Margaux before we go home.”
I nodded. “I know.”
CHAPTER 12
WE CRUISED AND five minutes later we were in Culver City, in the zip code named after a real estate developer from Nebraska, back when only a certain race of people could buy property and the Jews were locked out, Italians were treated like shit, and the black man wasn’t allowed to own anything but his own misery. Jake Ellis parked on Washington Boulevard right under the Expo train line, the route that stretched from downtown LA to Santa Monica. Everything west of here was majority white. If you drove east, within ten minutes, you’d swear you were in Mexico.
As we got out of the car, I asked, “What’s this new spot called?”
He motioned at a sign. “Platform shopping mall.”
We walked side by side. “Bro, anything here black-owned?”
He laughed. “Bruv, c’mon, now. Popeyes chicken ain’t gluten-free.”
“I see SoulCycle. That’s not a black business?”
He laughed harder. “Black people lost the right to soul when the train went off the air.”
“Yeah. The top soul singers are Adele and Sam Smith.”
This part of Culver City was filled with shops that sold shirts and dresses that cost more than a Walmart worker’s paycheck. Cost seven dollars for a small ice cream. Simple folding chairs sold for 1,250 dollars. Cost eight dollars for juices. Area was clean. It was crowded and quiet at the same time.
A little nervous, I asked, “I left my .38 stashed in your car. We have a job here?”
“You don’t need it. Stuff on my mind.”
My nostrils flared. “What’s going on, bro?”
“Bruv, I’ll get to that.”
Bad Men and Wicked Women Page 11