Diesel Heart

by Melvin Carter Jr

  Finally, one spring day, the doors were open. Loud punk rock music came out the side basement windows. I knew they were in there. Remaining outside for several minutes, I knocked on the door again and again with no answer. I decided that I’m no good as a man, or as a cop, if I allow this senior citizen to be bullied. Although my legal right to enter was questionable, I stepped through the unlocked, open door and held an informal unofficial conversation with them that resolved the issue permanently, in terms that they clearly understood, once and for all. She was never bullied again.

  They ain’t heavy, they’re my KIDZ: Melvin, Anika, and Alanna.

  I awaited an internal affairs complaint, ready to take responsibility for my action. The complaint never came.

  “Carter, I can’t find anything that you did wrong” was about the best compliment I was ever going to get from any supervisor. Supervisors were fearful of being the ones to give me credit for anything that I could use in my defense when I finally had enough collected demerits to get me fired.

  “Come on in, Carter, shut the door and sit down.” Service evaluation was a one-to-ten system, one being the worst, ten being the highest. “Carter! You are a credit to your people!”

  Not only was I not offended, but I found his observation to be validating. I said to him, “Hell! I know that! Being a credit to my people was the real reason I’m here in the first place.” I thanked him and congratulated him for being a credit to all white people everywhere.

  “Now, Mel, I’m gonna be honest with ya’. I never supervised a colored guy. And I don’t give tens …”

  That was all to justify assigning me a five. He wasn’t evaluating my services. He was evaluating my humanity. I already knew that many others received tens from the same supervisor.

  One lazy afternoon, a two-man squad was dispatched to a robbery-in-progress. Some bad guys jumped out of a pickup truck at a gas station and loaded it up with stolen tires, then sped off. I went to the call to assist. After some mighty fine police work on my part, I had the vehicle stopped on I-94 eastbound in the center lane. As I walked to the truck, several bad guys piled out, spread out, and advanced in my direction.

  Backpedaling, I called for the original squad to hurry up and get here. Their response over the air was that they were having lunch. “Who canceled you?” I retaliated. It angered me that when I went to assist them on their call, they refused to come to their own call and instead had gone to lunch, claiming to have been canceled. In other words, they had dumped their robbery-in-progress on me, ignored my need for backup while facing multiple bad guys, and gone to lunch!

  So here’s my Black ass out here alone. The bad guys had just roughed up the gas station owner and now were trying to encircle me out here on the frickin’ freeway! “Who canceled you?” I asked while backing away. Thankfully, a downtown squad arrived and assisted without incident. All the bad guys went to jail.

  No problem, except that Sergeant Intellect was waiting for me at HQ in the report writing room. “Carter, come here,” he said. He led me into the holding cell. “Carter! I didn’t like your tone of voice over the air!”

  Trying to believe my ears, I privately thought, “You mean to tell me that after I took their call, chased down their robbers, was surrounded by multiple assailants, and arrested their bad guys, my tone of voice is your only issue? This was an officer safety situation, but they wouldn’t come to my aid because they were having lunch.” (But I didn’t say it.)

  I went home steaming. Got madder and madder.

  Intense emotional toxicity is a tricky thing. The internal monster growled while dozing, one eye open, one eye closed, while it pretended to sleep. But it could sneak up from inside and pounce, snap from zero, past anger to stark raving mad, at the simplest trigger points. And sometimes it escaped with my consent.

  By the time I got to work the next day, my lid had blown. Sergeant Intellect started roll call with, “Okay, listen up! Yesterday we had a little problem. But today it’s squelched. It’s over!”

  I blurted out, “Hell no, it ain’t over! You white motherfuckers tried to bury my Black ass three years ago, when I first got here, and last night you tried to bury me again. I put up with a lot of shit and don’t say nothin’, but it ain’t because I didn’t understand, or missed the insult. It’s because you white motherfuckers can kiss my Black motherfuckin’ ass.”

  I stepped up on a chair so that those in the back could see me giving them the middle finger. Just then, Kobinsky, one of the officers whose call I had taken the day before, came toward me saying, “Fuck you, Carter! I swear to God that I have never backed you up, and I swear to God that I never will.” His right hand was on his revolver. I retaliated in a similar manner. Sergeant Intellect intervened.

  The next day I reported to work and found that the chief had transferred me to A-2, St. Paul’s Rice Street District, a hotbed of racial violence.

  When I was growing up, we all knew to stay off Rice, or to zip through fast and not stop. It was entirely off-limits for all Blacks. Now, as Black communities expanded, racial tensions soared. One night at a dive bar called the Nickel Joint, a Black guy shot and killed a white guy. This set off a series of border battles, brush wars, and threats of car bombings and ongoing attacks. The news media jumped right on it. It grew worse and worse.

  Other Black cops had warned me not to go work the Rice Street area because of the people, and also because the fellow cops there were reputed to be extreme racists. At first I protested about going, but the report of my tantrum at the A-3 showdown had made it to top command. Deputy Chief Griffin asked me to try it, and if it was too bad, I could get another transfer. Yeah, I thought, but to where?

  My first Rice Street call was at the North End Bar. I broke up a big white-on-white gang fight that left one guy unconscious. I took him to the hospital. I had been the only Black there, the guy who saved his life, and the only one who didn’t kick his ass. But he “nigger’d” me to death all the way to the hospital, spewing hatred for niggers, gurgling blood from his esophagus.

  Another time, cops had just done battle with a suspect. The supervisor had me ride shotgun with the transporting officer so he would not be alone with such a violent bad guy. That guy was already bleeding from his face and nostrils when I got there. I had been the last cop to arrive and the only one who hadn’t done anything to him—and I was treating him with respect.

  A wire screen cage was the only barrier between the front and back seat. He gurgled with hatred. “I kill fuckin’ niggers. Fuck niggers!” he yelled.

  I couldn’t help but ask, “Why are you mad at me when I’m the only one here that didn’t kick your ass?”

  “Because I spit on niggers!” I could hear him spitting back there but didn’t think he was actually spitting on me. I was so proud of myself for not getting angry. But then something trickled down the back of my neck. Running my hand across the back of my head, I felt strings of hot, slimy mucus and spit extended from my hand and hair. This demanded as much restraint as when Draggit put gum in my coffee.

  And then there was the domestic near Rice Street and Maryland. Upon arrival, I found a white female crying so hard she could hardly talk. Her face was bruised. When she was finally able to collect herself and speak, I could barely make out the words. “P-p-please—g-g-get m-m-me a white cop …” She refused police services.

  So as racial tensions heated and boiled, Chief McCutcheon ordered a “salt and pepper” team to walk a foot beat up and down Rice Street. His orders specifically commanded that I be the pepper.

  Willetha found out that I was to be the sacrificial offering, and she appeared at roll call. She was livid. She took the sergeant into his office demanding to know why it had to be me. When I came into the office, he had run behind his desk, explaining, “Mrs. C., this order came directly from the chief! This is not my doing!” When he showed her the written directive, she backed off.

  23

  Rice Street Parade

  My very first night o
n foot patrol was the night of the Rice Street Parade. I had never seen anything like it—absolute pandemonium in the streets and sidewalks from end to end, from side to side. Excited mobs, jeering and cheering, lined the streets from front porch to porch and lawn to lawn. Motorcycle gangs neatly aligned their bikes in formation along the curbs. The mob seized a stopped city bus and rocked it back and forth, trying to tip it over.

  My partner drove slowly. I was in the passenger seat with my window open. The sky echoed with “Kill the nigger!” Beer cans flew into my open window. Amazingly, my right hand was swatting the beer cans, deflecting incoming projectiles and metal objects. Only gobs of spit and beer splashed in my face. I had cold sticky beer in my eyes, all over my shirt, and down my lap. I was so intensely focused, looking to see who was calling me nigger, who was spitting and throwing the beer cans, that rolling up the window was an afterthought.

  We pulled away fast. Privately, secretly, I seethed. The only thing to offend me more than being called “nigger” was getting spit on. The only thing that made me madder than either was both.

  A sister squad met with us around the corner. “This is gonna go tonight! You can just feel it!” Officer Richard Gardell observed. I too could feel it, see it, smell and even taste it. Minutes later, Sergeant Joe Renteria ordered us into the wedge formation at Rice and Maryland, to move the crowd south on Rice Street. I raced to be the point man at the front of the line. Upon his command, our line moved in unison, shouting commands to the crowd to move. A large-framed man on a front lawn refused. I nudged him softly. He shoved me back hard. This time I shoved him hard. He stumbled and began to fall. On his way to the ground, he grabbed a woman and pulled her down with him. He announced, “The nigger shoved my mother!” The mob encircled me, cutting me off from the police formation, and was on me. Hordes of attackers rushed from every angle, shouting and chanting, “Kill that nigger! Kill the nigger!”

  Fully encircled, I kept my feet moving, maintaining balance, spinning and whirling, hands slashing, fists smashing, multiple assailants attacking from everywhere, especially from behind. I fully expected to be overwhelmed at some point. So this is what getting taken out is like. Blood splattered into the air. “Kill that nigger!” A metal object smashed into my face; blood exploded and splattered, flowing and trickling down into my mouth, warmed my tongue. The very taste of my own blood released the trapped, injured animal instincts. Now I was more dangerous because of the injury, surrendering, relieved, finally knowing how my story was to end. But if this was it, I was taking as many with me as possible. I smashed, twirled, whipped, and whirled, scanning for more incoming attackers.

  Suddenly everything was still. All motion had stopped as quickly as it had started. A bizarre hum lingered. All the vicious chants were replaced with loud sirens and the emergency rotating light. I had no idea how many I had struck. Other than a little blood and some bruised knuckles, I was relatively unscathed. I was surprised and grateful that only four men lay barely moving on the ground.

  The St. Paul–Ramsey emergency room at two-thirty AM was crawling with patients, media, lights, cameras, photographers, newspapers, supervisors, and high-ranking officials. Chief McCutcheon himself and his deputy chiefs had gotten out of bed and come to see me. The wait in the ER was an eternity. An African American female police officer was also injured in the same incident. A glass fragment was wedged in her eyeball. She and I hugged and held hands, both awaiting treatment. I was frightened for her eye.

  As for myself, I was only horrified to think that I might have dealt somebody a death blow. My own injuries were minor. My face had stopped bleeding and now was just a little scratched. A knuckle on my hand was swollen, and a supervisor had told me to get it treated. Deputy Chief Griffin, St. Paul’s first African American deputy chief (and a friend of my father), was the only one sincerely concerned about my well-being. He cornered me privately. “How ya doin’, son?” he asked. Seeing that I was still dazed, he said, “Comes with the territory, comes with the territory!”

  To my great relief, I learned that I had hospitalized only three of the multitudes of assailants. One of them visited me in my waiting room, his face and head covered in tape and gauze. Surprisingly, he was not at all hostile, rather understanding. He wanted me to know that he understood why I had to hit him. He had been rushing to help his brother, who had attacked me and lay on the ground near my feet, and I had mistaken him for another assailant. We apologized to each other and parted ways.

  To my great relief, everyone, including myself, was treated and released that night. When I returned to the A-2 team house to turn in equipment and reports, fellow officers stopped and cheered, “Melvin—Melvin—Melvin!” giving sincere genuine respect, many in spite of themselves.

  The media had a field day. The angry mob that attacked me filed a lawsuit against me, personally, for brutality. (And they were actually awarded a small go-away sum.) Many onlookers came on record and stated in the papers that it was the department’s fault for putting a Black officer there in the first place. They shouldn’t have assigned me there if they didn’t want me beat up.

  But then the most astonishing thing! My dad, upon seeing the story in the news and headlines, called me up to see if I was going to be all right. My mind flashed back to his ordering me to never fight again. I didn’t want him to know that once again I had let him down, once again failed the good sense test. But instead, for the first time in my life, he told me he was proud of me! FOR FIGHTING? You’ve gotta be kidding me!

  I got it from the other side, too. One day after a sensitive standoff in a housing project with a large group of Black people, a towering young teenager taunted the police, called us names, made lots of noise, called me every kind of Uncle Tom in the book, and refused to leave. When officers vamped on him, under color of protecting me from him, they grabbed up the woman next to him and arrested her also.

  So now she’s hollering, “Don’t take my son!” He’s hollering, “No, please don’t take my mother!” Not willing to allow myself to be used to take a Black child from a Black mother, I intervened. “Let him go,” I said, deliberately fronting him off. “Alright, alright! I’m gonna let your mommy come to your rescue.”

  “Come in and shut the door. Mel, I’m a fair man.” Sergeant Choirboy put on a rehearsed performance, pacing the floor, using the sound of the heels of his boots striking the hardwood to accentuate the empty echo of his words.

  “Mel, you didn’t do anything wrong, but the guys just didn’t feel you were with them. Don’t get me wrong—you are good to everyone, but the guys think that you treat Black people much better than whites. I’m gonna level with ya, Mel. Whenever it comes to Blacks, the guys just don’t trust you. You need to prove yourself to them. The guys feel that you are no different from all the rest of the Blacks.” (“The guys” were evidently all, and always, white guys.)

  I sighed with great relief. “Sarge, thank you. This is the first time I ever felt fully understood. I am just like the rest of them. I ain’t no different! Had it not been for the class action and affirmative action led by my Black community, I’d have never been here in the first place. And the last thing Blacks need is hardnosing from me.”

  As for me, the life I saved every day was my own. When I made it home safely and brought home groceries, I slam-dunked a loaf of bread on the floor like a running back who’d just scored a touchdown.

  My babies would laugh, asking, “Mommy, is Daddy cuckoo?” That was my recognition.

  “Yes, dear, Daddy’s cuckoo.”

  About once a week, I’d partner with Officer Keith Mortensen, when his regular partner, Officer John O’Brien, was off duty. When Keith was away, I’d fill in for him with O’Brien, a tall, large-framed, barrel-chested, broad-shouldered Irish cop. John was a rare, dynamic, and powerful presence, one of those guys everyone, even the supervisors, tried to imitate so they could win his approval. With no official rank or formal authority, he ran A-2 from the bottom up. He had been the main one that ot
her Black officers had warned me about. He also had been warned about me.

  Full-fledged street patrol officer, mid-1980s.

  Whatever the case, he and I hit it off from the start. One day he casually mentioned, “Carter, you’re not as bad an asshole as they say you are.”

  I smiled. “Why, thank you! And you don’t seem to be the racist white supremacist either!” He thanked me. We laughed.

  He and I could get lost in conversation for the duration of a shift. We talked about our families and our kids—he was very excited that his wife was expecting another child. So with O’Brien and Officer Machoman (the bully I had tussled with) protecting my reputation, I became somewhat acceptable.

  And then there was Sergeant Lee Kline, the best supervisor in the world if he liked you, and especially if you were one of his “thoroughbreds” on his softball, golf, or volleyball teams.

  Although I had never played the game, John and Lee convinced me to join the softball team. Come to find out, I wasn’t bad. My fielding was average, but I was always good for at least a base hit, if not an occasional triple. But Lee Kline’s full-contact-combat-barroom volleyball was among the most vicious sports I’ve ever played.

  One day Lee called me to come into his office and shut the door. The county attorney had called him complaining that a report I had written was not making any sense. My squad car windshield had been shattered from the inside out.

  Working alone the night before, I was dispatched to a late-night bar fight at Jenks and Arcade. I had done a wonderful job negotiating peace between combatants, and I felt warm all over admiring my own work. I got back in my squad car. “Oh, Officer!” a voice came from behind me. “Yes?” Graciously I rolled down my car window, expecting a heartfelt “thank you.” Instead, two hands locked tightly around my throat, cutting off my air and circulation. Unable to break the real-life death grip, I locked my arm under his armpit, leaned over, and pulled him through the car window. Now his upper torso was inside the car with me, his feet hanging out the window. My left hand clamped his face against the windshield just over the steering wheel. My power fist detonated like a rapid firing piston until his head buckled the windshield outward. He had to get stitches on both sides of his face.