Diesel Heart

by Melvin Carter Jr

  The predators closed in for the kill. Trapped, I did my ally cat leap across the asphalt, attacking him so suddenly that female spectators screamed, his boys backed up, backed off and away enough for me to commence to kickin’ his ass.

  Taking his weapon was top priority. Whatever it was, I had to get it. I locked his weapon hand inside his front pocket and wrestled it from him. His weapon turned out to be a big black wallet, containing a ten-dollar bill. I informed him, “Gonna have to charge you my handlin’ fee for this-here ass whoopin’!” I removed the bill, turned the wallet upside down, searched for more money. “What—dis all you got? Dis here whoopin’ gonna cost more than that!” I was so busy entertaining myself, I kind of lost track of the fight.

  He was a half-assed-trained partially skilled fighter. My brief distraction allowed him to deliver multiple blows to my face, snapping my head backward. When I retaliated, his body buckled, and realizing the severity of his miscalculation, his feet backed off. Closing in, cutting off escape routes, the prey had captured the hunter. “Remember this here whoopin’ from now on every time you raise your hand to strike a woman!”

  He crawled away on his hands and knees as fast as he could back onto Hennepin Avenue, offering, “Let’s forget the whole thing!” I casually strolled behind him, allowing him to regain his audience.

  “Nah, too late!” Not allowing him to get up, my fist landed a finishing kidney blow.

  A getaway car honked from across the street. The driver yelled, “Melvin, come get in this car!” The driver had recognized me from high school. Lavender came with me as far as the car and stopped. “I can’t!” she said. “He’s hurt. I must go to him!”

  Cool! Be that as it may. But I bet it will be a while before he hits you or any other woman.

  And so it went. Coming to people’s rescue became my thing, kind of like my favorite comic book superheroes. There was that time when some teenagers surrounded an old lady. And that time when three guys attacked another guy out in front of Dirty Gertie’s Bar. I had yanked a dangling muffler from a rusted-out raggedy car and was chasing a culprit down Selby Avenue when Mr. Mann pulled up in a squad car, made me duck down in the back seat, and took me home. These all seemed to connect with the time back in high school when that woman called my mother to thank me for saving her son’s life. And I became addicted to using my superpowers for the good of humankind.

  Late one night while sipping rum ’n’ Coke at the Establishment, my favorite nightclub in downtown Minneapolis, I thought I saw a familiar figure from my past on the opposite side of the room. Nah! Couldn’t be! But the closer I got, the more it looked like him. “Huff? … What the … ? How the … ?” Man! We shouted. We clasped hands, laughed, hugged up, and had a big reunion. Somehow, during our all-night conversations at Bouk, he was persuaded to come to the University of Minnesota. I assured him that I had finally grown up now, no more mindless violence. He listened, tilting his head in cautious disbelief. I tried to believe it myself. We toasted a drink!

  So there I was, late at night, beboppin’ on down a St. Paul Electric Avenue on foot at a moderate rate of speed. The night was suddenly illuminated in the brilliant lights of a police squad car. “Carter!” Officer Corky Finney called from the car. Aww shit! I thought, scanning my conscience. I didn’t think I had done anything wrong, at least not lately. Officer Finney and his partner were Black beat cops from the community that I had known all my life. They now approached me with the most astonishing words I had ever heard: “We need you to sign up to be a cop!”

  “Aww, hell nah!”

  To me, at that time, the police were “the pigs” who had “offed” my early childhood friends, seemingly as a sport. By this time, they had shot Booker Ellis, a robbery suspect, in the back. The response of Black radicals was, “Off the PIGS!” I wasn’t for offing anybody, but I’d protect my St. Paul family with my life. My sentiments were more in line with the Black Panthers, founded to monitor the cops in Oakland, and with Malcolm X, who regularly brought attention to police violence against Blacks. Malcolm and the Panthers both advocated armed self-defense, though, and while I wasn’t above using weapons, I was convinced that my brains and hands were the only weapons I needed. Guns were too fatal, shootings always struck me as fatal exercises in futility, and generally I believed in avoiding at all costs situations in which I may need a gun.

  I was on a different high alert in defense of family, neighborhood, and community: the freeway that took our Rondo home was a means to transport army tanks into my neighborhood for genocidal extermination. Black radicals related this to how Nazis sectioned off the Jewish ghettos as they started the Holocaust. A piece by the popular radical spoken-word group the Last Poets echoed in my mind: “When the Revolution Comes!” Black folks were tired of being legally killed by police. Some elders reflected that “Somebody has to do something!” Although I knew it was suicidal, I had been privately training, mentally and physically preparing my mind and body for “The Revolution.”

  Becoming a police officer was nowhere in my mind. Still, I listened to what they had to say.

  I later learned that other Black men had been trying to get onto the St. Paul police force, and they had brought this thing called a “class action suit” against the city of St. Paul for failing to hire Black police officers. In 1972, out of a total of 525 St. Paul police officers, seven were Black. So now, due to something called “affirmative action,” the St. Paul Police Department was under a court order to hire Blacks.

  I was surprised that they asked, but I suspected they had their reasons. Wayne Wilson, another lifelong friend dating back to SPC elementary school and Corky’s best friend, now Dr. Wilson, had referred to me as “Always Lion Hearted.” Mr. Mann also remembered that I saved the white kid back in high school, as well as my recent interventions in multiple dangerous situations. So now the Black cops made recruiting me a high priority. Time and again they’d stop me while I was walking down the street, their squad car spotlights illuminating the night. “Hey, Carter, did you sign up yet?” Sign up for what? I appreciated the respect and enjoyed the conversation, then said goodbye and forgot about it.

  PART 3

  16

  In the Valley of the Shadow

  Henry had been in California for several months and had landed a great job as a banking officer. Sunday morning, April 28, 1974, he was back in town, paying me a midmorning surprise visit. We spent the whole day catching up, visiting relatives from house to house. I hogged the conversation, telling him, Gregory, and Jeffrey that this Buddhism was helping me with my anger issues. I was discovering my own innermost universe of self-evolution, conquering my own issues, avoiding pointless violence. I bragged about the time I saved Lavender from her boyfriend, and the senior citizen from the teenaged stalkers, and another time I rescued a kid on a tricycle from an attacking Doberman. I had stopped boxing because I was too good at it. Protecting and defending others now revealed itself to me as my life’s purpose. I was into this global peace thing, in tune with universal rhythms and harmonies!

  Henry, Gregory, and Jeffrey sat still, hardly able to believe their ears. They glanced at each other in disbelief, puzzlement clear. On and on I babbled without giving them a chance to speak. There was a brief pregnant pause.

  Henry gawked curiously at me. “Cahta-babe, are you still binding me to our childhood pact not to get married before the age of twenty-six? Are you?”

  “Oh hell, yeah!” I said. “I’m kidnapping your ass!”

  He smiled, saluted, and toasted a drink. “Just testing you, Cahta-babe!” Then, still, ominously quiet, he said, “If anyone ever killed you, I’d kill them!”

  Of course, this was an understood element of our secret childhood pact, but it seemed kind of out of nowhere. I shrugged and reaffirmed the covenant with “And I’d kill anyone who killed you, too.” We toasted, sealing the pact with a drink as well.

  There was so much to catch up on, so many questions, too much for one single day. Late evening was
falling upon us. Gradually and forcefully, a powerful energy began pushing me out of the room. It felt like an invisible balloon expanding in that space, squeezing me toward the door, commanding me to leave. Counterintuitive as it was, I couldn’t reason with it and stopped trying. Me ’n’ Henry could well have hung out, talked each other to sleep, woken up and talked throughout the night.

  “See ya tomorrow,” I said. Neither Henry nor I could hide our confusion as to why I was leaving. He stood at the sidewalk holding his niece as we looked strangely at each other. But what was the big deal? I reckoned we’d get together around nine the next morning.

  I could feel Henry’s eyes watching me as I pulled away. A tangible relief overwhelmed me, and I found a series of house parties to go to on my way home.

  The entire day had been exhausting. Sleep slam-dunked me into the mattress. But all too soon, a far-off ringing woke me. Partially comatose, I answered the phone. It was my sister Terrie. Aunt Toobie had called and told her that Henry and Gregory had been killed. Someone had come into the apartment I had just left and shot them both dead.

  That night, I sat and cried with my dearest beloved Aunt Rhoda as she grieved the loss of her two sons.

  Pure raw grief is impossible to articulate. Words cannot explain. I felt shock because I had no idea anything was amiss, guilt for still being alive, and blame. I was furious with Henry for not bringing me into the situation—and for abandoning me. We were supposed to be in this life together. Gregory was more of a gentle loving soul, not a fighter. Had I stayed, the killer might have gotten Henry or me, but one of us would have got him. And I was saturated with shame, because now I had to hunt down and kill some sleazy scumbag motherfucker.

  Back when we were kids, promises to avenge one another’s death seemed to be a continuation of our routine action-packed adventurous lives. There was none of that now. Only haunting stillness and quiet finality. Henry took inseparable parts of me with him.

  Days later, my mom’s knowing eyes captured me, looking right through me. Those eyes swelled up, gushing gigantic mommy tears, weeping uncontrollably for me.

  “Melvin, I know you have to kill him.”

  Sometimes mommas just know things. “I didn’t say that, Momma!”

  Momma, gagging on tears, could hardly speak. “Melvin, there’s a lot of talk about revenge in the neighborhood, but you are the only one who is going to do it.”

  I tried to calm her. “Momma, I am not saying that!”

  After a half box of Kleenex, she spoke again. “Melvin, I know you.”

  I spent days in bed in my old bedroom at Mommy and Daddy’s house. Dad stood in the doorway for minutes, trying, watching his son lay limp, scratching his head. He asked, “Son, do you want to play some duets?” I declined, hoping that he’d just spend some time with me.

  Me ’n’ Henry, the oldest males of both families, were innate protectors. We always protected siblings and each other. Come to find out, Henry’s only sister had been continuously abused by an ex-boyfriend who was now threatening the entire family. When Henry learned about it, he caught the first flight back to St. Paul.

  Going over and over it again and again in my mind, I believe that Henry decided not to involve me because of all my ranting about peace, and how I had changed; besides, the die was cast.

  The killer turned himself in the day after the murders and was released on bail. I got his name and address from the newspaper. I had no idea what he looked like, just a vague description of him and his car. I trusted that I’d recognize him on sight when the time came. For weeks I stalked the nights, lurking behind trees, around corners, waiting.

  Months later, there was a court trial. The killer, claiming self-defense, was acquitted and released. Due to threats and rumors of revenge, police escorts transported him from the courtroom directly to the train station. He left Minnesota on a fast train westbound. Mom, Aunt Rhoda, and Dad somehow had kept the time and date of the trial from me. Years later, Mom would tell me that Dad had contacted the killer’s mother in St. Louis and paid for the killer’s train ticket out of St. Paul.

  Henry and Gregory, big, radiant, vibrant, and strong all my life—but suddenly gone. This perverted my reality, plunged me into the bottomless abyss. Feeling guilty for breathing each breath, I’d pass by strangers and be angry with them for not being dead. How come you’re alive? my spirit screamed silently.

  But a couple months later, to make matters worse, Dennis Durand, Mark’s best friend, who lived across the alley and was a member of the Carter daily household, was stabbed to death at a party.

  Yea, though I roamed the streets, day and night, in the valley of the shadow of death, I had no destination!

  Those three sudden deaths finished off what I had left, betrayed who I was and who I thought I was. The guy was lost and gone! My eyes turned away from sunlight. The realities of death displaced every delusion of joy. Shame on me for still being alive.

  One late night, moping down a dark avenue, I heard, “Hey, Carter! Did you get your application in yet?”

  “Application for what?”

  Officers Mann, Finney, and Thomas were not the kind of persons to be out-argued. “Just get down there and get your application in. Applications close next week. Just sign up. You can always change your mind.”

  Aretha pounded in my head: I can’t get no satisfaction. I had a good job title, anticipating raises and promotions. But the work was meaningless. So gradually this police thang became appealing. The idea of making a difference, or even bringing about a change from the inside rather than as a revolutionary, resonated for me. Additionally, police work was attractive to a self-proclaimed action figure.

  Just making the decision was an agonizing nightmare.

  Just in the nick of time, I signed up.

  17

  Head to the Sky

  That same summer, just weeks later, me ’n’ Mark found ourselves in a band with a group of students from a nearby college that I’d never heard of called Carleton. They were all young, energetic, interesting characters, and good musicians.

  The lead female vocalist stepped into the picture, caressed the mike, and crooned a Minnie Riperton tune, “Loving You.”

  No! I resisted. No, wait! No human voice can possibly be this beautiful! But her voice beckoned unto me from afar, signaling her arrival, invading my delirium.

  Willetha Toni Parker, the youngest in the group, although almost ready to graduate college, still looked like a schoolgirl. Her momma probably ironed her clothes, packed her lunch with strict instructions when to be home, and told her not to talk to strangers. With no makeup, exposing zero flesh, reeking with dignity, seething with class, she cloaked intense femininity behind schoolbooks and the fragrance of Doublemint chewing gum. The fact that she didn’t advertise her sexuality accentuated the intensity of her femininity all the more. No need to advertise or flaunt that which is innate!

  She inflicted the new Earth, Wind and Fire hit on me—“You want my love and you can’t deny. You know it’s true but you try to hide!” Was this my imagination, or were her eyes really watching me as she sang? Is this child singing to me? my inner voice questioned. Now directly in my face she belted, “Betcha you want my love, I betcha!”

  She was right. This woman suddenly walked into my life out of nowhere. Eventually, her kiss was a sweet tantalizer. We received one another as a sacrament.

  T’was the Fourth of July, and all through the hood floated aromas of barbecue, potato salad, baked beans, and all that was good. Live music echoed from open windows and screen doors. The front porch opened itself to greet her as I brought her into Mom and Dad’s house. Brother Mat-Mat was at the piano in the living room as we walked in. Musicians had stopped by with their axes to jam!

  All heads turned as we entered the front room. Over the years I had stopped by with other young ladies, but everyone knew that this was different. I made the introductions: “Hey, ya’ll, this is Toni, our lead vocalist.” On cue, Mat-Mat fired up a series of
arpeggios. “Whatchu wanna sang?” The house chimed in. “Yeah, yeah, let’s hear something.”

  She ’n’ Mat decided upon a song. Dad sat up straight in his chair. Mom’s eyes gleamed from the other room. Mat’s fingers tickled the intro. Words flowed from her mouth like notes from a violin or harp—no, a cello!

  “Master told me one day I’d find peace in every way.” She, brother Mat, and everyone else in the room harmonized at the chorus as if rehearsed. “Keep your head to the sky! Keep your head to the sky!” At the final lyric she snapped at me, “Don’t walk around with your head hung down!” How could she move my spirit and soothe my very soul at a time in my life such as this?

  Immediately my sisters, Terrie ’n’ Paris, snatched me up by each arm, rushed me around the corner into the front room, and repeatedly commanded me: “You marry that girl!” They let go of me only when I acknowledged what they’d said. We smiled.

  Scattered rays of sunshine began to trickle back into my life. God had sent my own personal Earth Angel to my rescue!

  Willetha Parker, aka Toni, was from Cleveland, Ohio, where she had been in accelerated education all her life. At the age of sixteen, having skipped a grade and been accepted on early admission to a number of schools across the nation, she chose to come to Carleton College in North-field, Minnesota, on a full-ride scholarship. Her search for truth had taken her on Freedom Rides to Mississippi and other parts of the Deep South. After studying an international movement called Negritude in France, she found her current college path inapplicable. So just months out from graduating with honors, in her fourth year, probably summoned by my spirit, she suddenly quit college and moved to Minneapolis—and found me to be utterly astonishing and fascinating.