Dutch (4 page)

He stood up as silence filled the air and he walked over to the solitary chair in the room and picked up his pack of Kools
out his jacket pocket. He pulled one out and lit it.

“A man can lose his mind fightin’ an enemy he can’t see, gettin’ it from every which way and not knowin’ where it’s comin’
from, why or when it’s gonna come knock you on your ass again. Every black man you done seen or know done felt that. Only
difference, from me and them, is that they confused, they fight the wrong people. They get to thinkin’ it’s comin’ from them,
so he start fightin’ his woman, start fightin’ his kids, start fightin’ his brother, even start fightin’ with himself. They
confused, they mad, they hate, they despise, and then they blood turn to poison and a man can’t live like that. So, before
I lost everything I got lucky, I figured out who the enemy was and how they was winnin’, you just couldn’t
see them.
” He emphasized his words with his hands as if he were gripping an invisible person. He slowly walked to the window, blowing
smoke against the pane with Delores’s eyes glued to his back.

“My first time in the bush wasn’t nothing. A little spelling recon operation, me and about five others, two was white boys.
Them Vietnamese muhfuckers was sure nuff slick. They had tunnels that went everywhere and would come outta the ground like
snakes. The first shots I fired in action struck one of those white boys square in the back, then everybody ran for cover.
From where I was, I could see the other white boy; he could see me, too. See, baby, they fightin’ some war for they president,
but I’m fightin’ my own. So, when I lifted my M-16 he ain’t pay no attention, no attention till it was too late. The look
on his face, when the nose of that M-16 swung around and stopped on him…” Just then he broke out into a mad liberating laughter,
which scared and warmed Delores all at the same time. It was that same laughter she heard come from her own mouth the night
she bit into that Snickers bar, then set Mr. Reilly’s store on fire. She watched him as he turned around to face her, pretending
to hold a gun in his hand.

“He didn’t know what was going on, till them slugs ripped through his face like paper… just like paper,” he said, his words
traveling off into a distance as he pictured himself that day in full living color.

“That was my first,” he said proudly as he took a long draw on his cigarette, then let the smoke out slowly. “I lost count
after fifty-somethin’. Sometimes, I’d mow ’em down in bunches, sometimes one by one, and sometimes I’d get me one while he
was sleepin’, cut that muhfucker’s throat without ever makin’ a sound. But you know, I never killed one of them Vietnamese
people, except in self-defense. Shit, I see one of them muhfuckers and keep right on about my business, unless they got in
the way. But naw, them crackers, they catchin’ it out there from me, every chance I get,” he said, flicking his cigarette
out the window. He walked back over to the bed and sat down next to her, taking her hands into his.

“I… I don’t expect you to understand it, baby. I just… I gotta be where insanity is acceptable, where my anger is legal, you
know? Where a black man
can
fight back… fight back for every black man lynched, every black woman raped, every black child cold and hungry. I can kill
these muhfuckers and come home to you, free. I know it sounds crazy…” his voice trailed off to a mumble as Delores just stared
at his bowed head.

He probably didn’t think she understood, but she did. She understood the need to destroy old ghosts in order to fully face
the future. She knew deep inside that he wasn’t telling her he was leaving, he was
asking
her to let him go. Delores knew he would stay if she refused. He’d stay and gradually she would come to despise him for allowing
anyone to get in the way of his freedom, including her. It was a feeling she had come to value above all else. She also knew
that he would come to despise her, if she didn’t let him go.

Delores traveled off in the near future to one day… their wedding day. She imagined herself in a white flowing gown and her
soldier standing so tall and handsome in his uniform. She knew that day would never come. The house they would live in for
the rest of their lives would never be built, and the life they would share they would never have, and she resigned herself
to the reality of the situation. It was over.

Tears streamed from both of them, silently. She kneeled with him on the floor, took his tear-soaked chin into her hand, and
lifted it to look into his eyes. Their last words were hers, “I love you.”

They parted at the entrance to Pennsylvania Station in New York City. She watched him disappear from her life in the sea of
people moving to and fro through the terminal. She waited until she could no longer see him, then returned to the cab awaiting
her.

She never heard from him again. He never wrote, he never came back. She never had the chance to tell him she was pregnant.
She never had the chance to tell him he had a son. A son that she named after him, Bernard James, Jr.

T
his court stands in recess for lunch until one o’clock,” the judge said, banging his gavel loudly as he stood.

The courtroom hummed with the cacophony of multiple conversations being carried on as people filed out. Michael Glass asked
Dutch if he needed to see him before he went to lunch.

“Enjoy,” is all Dutch replied. He flashed Glass a reassuring smile. As Glass walked out he noticed that there were a lot of
old women in the courthouse.
Unusual for this kind of trial,
he thought to himself. He shrugged them off as probably the mothers of Dutch’s many victims hoping and praying for justice.
Not if I can help it, old ladies,
thought Glass with a devilish grin on his face. He walked out, with Dutch walking slowly behind him, taking in the many faces
in the crowd until he stopped on one in particular who was still seated in the back of the courtroom. He looked again, placing
the familiar face he hadn’t seen in years. It was Mrs. Piazza. He smiled sincerely as he approached her.

“Mrs. P, is that you?” Dutch asked, knowing that it was.

“Of course it is. Whazza matter, you tryin’ to say I’m getting old?” Mrs. Piazza asked as she stood up and hugged Dutch tightly.

“You don’t look a day older than the day I last saw you,” he lied, looking at all the makeup she wore trying to cover the
many wrinkles life had dealt over the years. She playfully hit him.

“And you still can’t lie, I see,” she said to him.

They shared a light chuckle.

“It’s been a while. How are you doing?” she asked with lines of concern on her brow.

“When have you known me to worry, huh?” Dutch responded, and she could tell he wasn’t worried at all. But she was. “I didn’t
expect you to be here,” he said, happy she was.

“I didn’t expect you to be here, either,” she joked. “How’s your mother?”

“Like you, worrying too much,” Dutch answered.

“Things ain’t the same, Dutch, not since—” Her voice broke off and Dutch quickly cut in to comfort her.

“Nothing’s changed, Mrs. P, trust me, really. Okay?”

Just then, one of Dutch’s boys walked up.

“Give me a minute.” Dutch spoke in a tone letting the guy know he needed privacy as he turned his back to him and focused
on Mrs. Piazza.

“You sure you okay? Can I take you somewhere?”

“No. No, thank you, I’m driving. I just wanted to see, to see if you needed anything,” Mrs. Piazza told him.

“You know what I need. One of your old-fashioned Italian feasts, huh? After this is all over, I want some chicken française,
fettuccini alfredo, the stewed vegetables with the potatoes, and some of your homemade lasagna. Oh, and of course, a pizza.”

They both laughed, but they both knew there’d be no gourmet Italian feast after this, no matter what happened in the courtroom.

“Sure, I’d like that,” said Mrs. Piazza, trying to sound convincing.

“It’s a date then. Listen, I gotta go, though.”

“I know, I know, go ahead. Take care of yourself, Bernard,” she said, cutting him off and wishing him a last farewell.

He nodded, and with that, he was off.

As Mrs. Piazza opened the door to her blue Volvo wagon and got in, she stopped short of inserting the key into the ignition.
She sat back in the leather interior and peered up at the courthouse that towered above her. She had been here many times
over the years, but this was the first time she had felt so dwarfed by the building. It was the first time the courthouse
had looked so ominous, despite the afternoon sunlight. When her husband, Roberto, was alive, he himself had been in and out
of this building, but always with a smile and a swagger in his step. He never saw a day in jail. But Roberto had died three
years ago.

That was the last time she had seen Dutch, at the funeral, and she thought how Dutch over the years had played such a major
part in her life. She knew if he were Italian, he wouldn’t be on trial for his life, and for the thousandth time, she wished
that he was. She always wished that for Dutch because she disliked blacks, not passionately, but passively.

In her eyes, they never amounted to anything, except Dutch. Dutch was different. He had saved her husband’s life and her own.
Her mind traveled back fifteen years to the day when Roberto had his pizza parlors.

The parlors did well, but the better business took place in the back where Roberto handled Fat Tony’s gambling money. Roberto
had five parlors in different parts of Newark, all in impoverished areas, so Mrs. Piazza was exposed to the seedy, seething
side of the ghetto. Her interactions with blacks were usually with the street element and the drug addicts who sold them everything
from kitchen appliances to jewelry, all stolen and very cheap.

Not to mention the young black girls who spat out baby after baby, running scams on the welfare department, getting food stamps,
then bringing them to her in exchange for cash; seven dollars for every ten dollars in food stamps. Then there were the little
kids who never seemed to go to school and who had no pride in their appearance. They hung around the pizza parlor trying to
jig her video machines with paper clips for free games. These were the types of blacks by whom she shaped her opinion of all
blacks, and she treated them all the same. This was her idea of equality.

Dutch was one of the young boys who always came to her pizza parlor and hung around. He was a lot like all the rest, except
he usually had some money and seemed to have good hygiene habits. She also noticed her husband taking an interest in the little
black boy. Roberto would let him sweep the floor and help unload the delivery trucks every Thursday, stuffing the boy with
pizza and worldly chat. She, unlike her husband, didn’t warm to Dutch’s presence, but merely grew accustomed to him being
underfoot… until that night.

It was a night like any other at closing time. Dutch was sweeping the floor, while Mrs. Piazza was cleaning the counters and
utensils. Roberto was balancing the cash register when all of a sudden, a tall black man in a ski mask burst through the front
door brandishing a .38 caliber revolver and yelling, “You know what it is! Gimme what I want ’fore you get what you don’t!”

Mrs. Piazza froze with a feeling of fear mixed with anger. How dare one of these niggers try to take something from her? How
dare he step into her husband’s shop and demand anything? But her anger took a backseat to her fear as the gunman pointed
the .38 at her, then waved it in the direction of her husband.

“You! Get over there by yo’ husband and start takin’ off them rings and them chains, NOW!” Mrs. Piazza moved over closer to
her husband, quickly removing her many jewels. Dutch stared at the gunman openly. The gunman turned to him. “Who the fuck
is you? The monkey or somethin’? Get yo’ ass in front of me where I can see you, nigga!”

Dutch stepped over to the counter on the gunman’s left, still clutching the broom. The gunman ran up to the cash register
and shoved the gun in Roberto’s face.

“Okay, you fuckin’ wop, put all that money in a bag, real quick, ya dig, and it’ll all go down smooth.”

Roberto began to fill the bag, never taking his eyes off the gunman. He was trying to find a distinctive mark or tattoo with
which to identify the man later, on his own time, but the gloves and mask completely covered up his skin.

“Hurry up!”

Dutch looked at the murder in Roberto’s eyes and he knew he had to do something. He looked at the gunman, who continued to
keep a close watch on him in case he tried to run. But Dutch was no sprinter. He had already decided what to do by the time
Roberto handed the bag to the robber and he began backing toward the door. Just as the gunman was about to make his exit,
Dutch spoke up.

“That’s not all the money.”

Roberto and his wife looked at Dutch with wide-eyed surprise. The gunman stopped dead in his tracks.

“Whut?” he asked, confused, as he glanced down at the bag of money he held. “Whut you say?”