The Dying Ground (8 page)

“Wassup?” I leaned across the passenger seat to give him a pound.

“You, baby.” He returned the pound and extended his hand to Holly. Holly shook back. He liked Jeff and had even financed a skateboard event or two when Jeff was down on his luck. “Man, y’all hear about Billy Crane? That was some cold shit. He was cool people.”

“What’d you hear?” Holly asked.

“I heard he was on College with his girl and somebody smoked him.” He looked at me, suddenly remembering my connection to Flea. “You know his boys are looking for her?”

“I heard.”

“I don’t believe she had anything to do with it, but Charlie and them mad as hell.” Charlie Carl was Billy’s stepbrother and a wild card. He and Flea had never gotten along. Charlie resented Billy’s commitment to a “broad,” as he put it, and Flea never tolerated his lack of respect. I heard from her more than once that she and Charlie had exchanged harsh words.

“You seen Charlie?”

“Last I heard he was roaming the streets trying to find a way to get himself killed. I wouldn’t fuck with him tonight if
I was you.” Jeff backed away from the car as Mike Crowley approached.

“You’ll shiver, you’ll shake/Your back might break/But do it anyway/To see what you can take.”

“Spoonie Gee,” Holly answered. He was a veteran at Crowley’s rap game and was rarely stumped by obscure lyrics. Crowley’s favorite pastime was greeting people with words he never expected anyone to recognize. The more underground the artist, the better. And if you failed to identify the rapper he simply refused to speak with you. No second chances.

“My boy is up on ol’ Spoonie.” Crowley sounded impressed.

“Spoonie Gee and the Treacherous Three. I knew about him before you, baby. You heard about Crane?” Holly asked.

“That was fucked up. Billy was straight.”

We sat in silence for a minute and considered the truth of the statement. “I heard his girl got in the cut.” Crowley nodded toward me.

“Ain’t nobody seen her.”

“She knew the drill. Saw that gun and got ghost. Heard she left her shoe in the car and everything.”

“Charlie been looking for her?”

“Charlie looking for anybody. Stay away from that fool.” He tapped his head. “He ain’t right. You know Billy had started to cut him loose ’cause Charlie was acting too wild.”

This was news to me—and Holly too, judging from his expression.

“Since when?” he asked.

“Since Charlie fucked with those white boys.” I remembered then that Charlie had started dealing in strict-as-hell Marin County, bringing heat into Billy’s quiet territory. “Soon as white boys start muddying the pool, Feds ain’t too far behind.”

“And they’ll snitch in a minute.” Holly had a hard and fast rule against teaming up with white boys.

“You know that’s right,” Crowley agreed.

“Billy and Charlie weren’t cool anymore?” I asked.

“I wouldn’t say that. You know Billy didn’t like static. He just kind of shut down for a while and let Charlie go on his own.”

“Think we can find Charlie at the Caribe tonight?”

“Probably. You know his ancient ass can’t give up that dead spot.” Any club that played anything other than rap was useless to Crowley, and Caribe was all island music.

“This murder don’t make no sense when you think about it. Who would take Billy out like that?” Crowley seemed as confused as we were. “There’s always Smokey, but he’s a chump deep down.”

“He woulda had to have somebody wit’ him that Billy trusted.” I could tell from his words that Holly somehow suspected Felicia.

“That brother was sweet!” Crowley continued. “’Member back in the day he went through that party in Richmond and tore things up?” Billy had a fierce reputation as a street fighter, and the Richmond party lived on as his best bout. “He was slaying people left and right. Went in there to get his boy Charlie out. Shit, I can’t believe the man is gone.”

“I hear ya. Chaos on the streets. Sign of the times.”

“Holly, baby, niggas gone crazy in the eight-nine, losing they minds. You know I got three—not one, but three—kids in my class named Corleone. First name. And one Montana, and you know damn well they ghetto-ass parents didn’t mean the state. Corleone! Now … what … the … fuck … is … that?”

Crowley ran an after-school program at Bushrod Park. The neighborhood had grown used to seeing him lead his motley crew of kids through the streets like the Pied Piper.

“And you two fucking wit’ Smokey. That fool worse than Charlie ’cause he think he got something to prove.”

“We handlin’ it.” Holly stopped the direction of the conversation.

Crowley motioned backward over his shoulder. “You know Off-Beat was slangin’ rock for Billy?”

Off-Beat looked toward us eagerly but Holly grimaced.

“I hate that clown. What was Billy fuckin’ with him for?”

“He ain’t all bad. Just took the Beastie Boys too serious.”

“You think he knows anything useful?”

Crowley shrugged. “He might.”

“Check it out and let me know.”

Crowley caught my eye. “You better watch out for your girl, Maceo. People, ’specially Charlie, talkin’ big shit about findin’ her.”

“I hear ya.” I popped the ignition.

Crowley started to back away from the car. “Somebody need to call her brothers to get her the fuck up out of Oakland.”

Felicia’s older brothers, members of Los Angeles’s infamous Eight Tray Gangsta Crips, had made an unforgettable impression on Oakland when they visited the city. Flea and I were kickin’ it when Reggie and Crim—short for Criminal—came out to see her. Reggie had been shot more than once and lived to retaliate each time. He was loud, fearless, and quick with a gun. The younger brother was quiet, given to very few words, and a notorious street fighter. He too had been shot, but knives were his weapon of choice. Before their arrival Flea had tried to explain that her brothers were ghetto stars in their South Central neighborhood. She told me this but I was not prepared for them when I met them.

The two of us were sitting on the steps in front of Dwinelle Hall when a distinctive whistle lit up the campus. The sound caused people to look up in curiosity. Flea, in the middle of a
conversation, heard the sound and jumped to her feet. Then she let go with a whistle of her own. A whistle came back, and their fierce call-and-response stopped several students in their tracks.

Finally, two men came into view, both loaded down with the blue wardrobe of L.A. Crips. The taller one, who I found out later was Reggie, had a swinging style to his walk. One arm swung loosely, almost in slow motion, back and forth across his body while he favored his left leg in a cool-as-hell skip. The other arm held up pants sagging so low they defied gravity. His jeans were unwashed Levi’s, with copper buttons instead of zippers and copper stitching to match. He had sharp creases down the front of his pants and a crisp white T-shirt. His tennis shoes were blinding-white K-Swiss and his hair was braided in tight cornrows. A scar on the left side of his mouth gave him a permanent grimace. He wore gold hoops in both ears, and a toothpick dangled from his lip.

At his side was Crim, the quiet brother who made more than a few people uneasy as he passed. Both of them spoke in death and murder even in silence, but in Crim it breathed on its own. Crim was dressed like Reggie but with a blue T-shirt instead of white. Crim also wore a short Afro, more functional than stylish, and silver hoops. They both had the same dark skin as Flea. In Reggie you saw a handsome devilish face beneath the gangster, but Crim was a sight to behold. The man was ugly bordering on monstrous, with rock-hard arms and a short neck to match. Inbred pit bull was the first thing that came to my mind.

While the rest of us watched, Felicia flew down the stairs and grabbed both of them in an embrace. After they finished hugging she turned and motioned me forward.

“Maceo, these are my brothers.” Surprise crossed my face but I recovered quickly and offered a hand. They both ignored it.

“Wassup?” I asked.

Reggie nodded and looked me up and down. I allowed the scrutiny, knowing how older brothers can be. I was also no fool. I knew immediately that the brothers had a fight-to-the-death pack mentality that could be unleashed at the slightest provocation.

“This is Reggie. And this is Crim.” She swatted Crim on his crossed arms. “What y’all doing here? Aunt Venus know you came?”

“Naw, we just rode out this morning. Wanted to see our baby sister and shit.” Reggie managed a semblance of a smile.

“How long y’all staying?”

“As long as these white people can stand us.” Reggie directed his words at two frat boys who’d strolled a little too close. They jumped away as he leaned toward them. Once they were a sufficient distance away, Reggie turned back to Flea. “Let’s go eat.”

“Alright. Maceo, you wanna come?” All of us knew there was no point in my joining them.

“I have to study. I’ll call you later.”

Flea leaned over to give me a kiss. Her brothers stared. By way of an exit Reggie simply said, “Check you out, square padna.” I noticed the
d
he used in “padna,” another difference between the Bay Area and Los Angeles. We preferred to come down hard on the
t
—“patna”—but I chose not to point that out to either one of the Bennett boys.

I watched the three of them walk away, Flea between her brothers. For the entire week they were there I stayed as far away from Flea as possible. Trouble was just waiting on that family. It came less than twenty-four hours later when they started a mini-riot at San Francisco’s End Zone nightclub. The End Zone, so notoriously violent that it displayed handwritten signs that read
LADIES PLEASE INFORM SECURITY IF YOU RE BEING
HARASSED OR MANHANDLED,
was not equipped for what they unleashed.

The details of the evening were sketchy, but everyone agreed that the fight ended bad for everybody but Reggie and Crim. The same thing was repeated at Geoffrey’s, the Caribe, and Silk’s. By the time they left northern California there were very few people who wanted to see them return.

Holly shook his head in response to Crowley’s suggestion. “Don’t nobody need to call them niggas out here.” His one encounter with them had left him spooked for over a week.

After their visit I had been grateful that my squareness saved me from their wrath. The fact that I fell into the athlete category spared me their violence more than any sort of loyalty to their sister. If the mood had struck them I could have just as easily fallen victim to their crimes, though I was too far on the other side to even consider. But Holly they recognized as one of their own, which left him with a rare sense of fear.

“I’m just saying”—Crowley stepped back from the car—“ somebody got to look out for Flea and nobody, not even Charlie, will fuck with her brothers. Peace.” He rejoined Black Jeff and Off-Beat as Holly and I drove away.

Silence accompanied us as I headed back to West Oakland. Holly finally broke it with a few reluctant words. “Crowley’s right. If you wanna help your girl, you gonna have to get her brothers out here.”

A
fter dropping Holly at home I headed over to Bushrod Park. I was due to pick up my Little Brother, Scottie Timmons, from Little League practice, murder or not. An impassioned sermon by Harry Livingston had convinced me to become involved with Oakland’s Big Brother organization, and Scottie was the result.

“Maceo!” Scottie yelled when he spotted me.

“What’s up, waterhead?” I noticed Livingston at the end of the bleachers sitting with his daughter, Lisa. He was so busy stuffing his face with a hot dog he didn’t notice my arrival. I tapped him on the shoulder. “Pig’ll kill you if the white man don’t get you first.” I took a seat as his lips twitched into a laugh.

“Now what kind of nonsense is that?”

I pointed at the hot dog. “Pork will do you wrong, my brother.”

He laughed and nodded toward the field. “The boys are
looking good this year. Maybe we can finally put a hurting on Richmond.”

“Maybe. What about the big boys? A’s or Giants?”

“Neither one. I’m a Kansas City man myself.” I placed my hand across my heart. “You killing me, you know that. Up until this moment I had respect for you.”

“And now you don’t?”

“Not a bit.” I paused. “You heard about Billy Crane?”

“This morning. Any word from Felicia?”

“I haven’t heard from her. If she saw anything she’s probably laying low for a while.”

“Any clues?”

“No. Billy was only into dealing—”

He held up his hand.
“Only
into dealing? Do you
know
how that sounds?”

“I meant—”

“You meant that you’ve accepted this genocide without question if you can even put those words together in a sentence. And don’t think it ain’t genocide, this shit about to wipe out an entire race!”

“Billy was straight, man.”

“His straight was about as crooked as Lombard Street.”

“Alright, alright, I surrender.” I’d do anything to avoid one of Livingston’s long-winded sermons. But I could tell he was reluctant to let me off the hook.

“Everybody makes choices, Maceo. You may not pull the trigger, but if you have knowledge of the crime you’re just as guilty.”