Echoes of a Distant Summer (33 page)

LaValle, sitting in the back, nearly lost his balance as the vehicle began climbing the hill along the narrow, winding street. It was obvious to him that she was speeding. “Slow down, damn it!” he growled. “What’s the damn hurry?”

“We’re being followed,” Eartha said simply as she watched in the rearview mirror the car behind her increase its speed.

After he turned and looked, LaValle gasped, “They’re right behind
us!” As he spoke, the following car swerved out into the oncoming lane and tried to draw alongside the Packard, but Eartha accelerated and blocked the car. The street dipped sharply to the right and then continued to ascend. Eartha careened off of several cars fighting for control over the Packard, which lost traction on every sharp turn.

LaValle cried, “Be careful or it’ll be you who kills us!”

“What’s the difference?” Eartha asked in a monotone. She was concentrating on driving the car, yet she felt somehow distant from herself, as if she were watching herself in a dream sequence. The street continued to climb but straightened out into a long, flat curve. Along the outside of the curve, the hill dropped away steeply. The following car sought to pass once more, this time more aggressively. It was only the momentary narrowing of the street that prevented it from drawing even with the Packard. Both cars were now maintaining speeds in excess of sixty miles an hour on a street built for twenty-mile-per-hour traffic. The car behind surged forward and crashed into the rear of the Packard. The Packard skidded sideways, precipitously close to the edge, before the wheels caught traction and pulled the car out of danger.

“We should pull over,” LaValle shouted over the roar of the engine. “I don’t think they’ll do much. They don’t want to go to war with my father.”

“I don’t intend to find out,” Eartha answered as she negotiated the crest of the hill and the street began to descend in sharp turns. The Packard sideswiped three cars as Eartha struggled to keep the speeding car on the street.

“Pull over, bitch!” LaValle shouted. “I’d rather take my chances with them than die with you.”

Eartha heard LaValle’s words, but they did not penetrate her consciousness. She was consumed with steering the car. She had given up trying to avoid parked vehicles, and she was glancing off them left and right. The sound of the Packard’s engine, the screeching of its tires, the metal-on-metal collisions with parked cars all turned into one long, distended sound, and it was the sound of bedlam. Houses were flashing past. They blurred into a continuous wall that was broken only by the occasional street. Every little movement of the steering wheel caused the car to change direction. All her energy was focused on keeping the car on the street.

“Let me out!” shouted LaValle.

Eartha spoke between bouts of wrestling with the car’s inertia. “The only way you’ll get out of this car is if you jump!” The street descended steeply and veered to the right around a bank of apartments. Along the length of the right side of the street, a metal barrier guarded the edge of an embankment which dropped steeply to another street below. Eartha swung the Packard around to follow the curve of the street as the following car rammed them from behind. The Packard fishtailed out of her control and went into a spin. Every time the car swung around, she saw the apartments coming nearer and nearer. It looked like the Packard was going to skid right into the supporting pillars of the apartments, but the car slammed into a fire hydrant on the passenger’s side and ended up facing uphill. The hydrant was knocked off its seating and water gushed upward before falling on the Packard. The other vehicle, located farther up the street, had run through a fence on the uphill side of the street and was now attempting to back out. Eartha, slightly dazed and bruised but uninjured, turned the Packard around and accelerated down the street. The other car pulled free from the wreckage of the fence and roared after her. On her right, she could see another street rising to intersect the one on which she now drove. However, before the intersection, there was another sharp turn to the left as the street followed the curve of the hill. She knew she was going too fast to make the turn. She attempted to apply her brakes, but the car started to skid toward the edge of the embankment. The pursuing car rammed the Packard again, sending it hurtling through the metal barrier. The car was briefly airborne as it tore off the top of a stop sign and then nosedived into the street, crashing amid sparks and the tortured sounds of twisting metal. It ricocheted off the pavement, went flying, bounced off a pickup truck, and landed on its side, where it skidded briefly before falling heavily upside down on its roof.

LaValle, who had been trying to get out of the car after it crashed into the hydrant, had his door open when the car went airborne. He was thrown clear when the Packard nosedived onto the pavement. He landed in a hedge that broke his fall and saved his life. He lay partially on the hedge with one leg touching the ground for several minutes as he fought his way to consciousness. In the background he heard sirens and people’s voices as the neighborhood awakened. He rolled out of the hedge and fell heavily to the ground. The pain caused him to pass
out. LaValle lay unconscious a few minutes then awakened groggily and forced himself to sit up. He discovered when he attempted to brace himself with his left hand that a splitting pain shot up his arm and clanged in his brain. Holding his left arm carefully, LaValle got unsteadily to his feet. His back and his arms were terribly lacerated and bruised, but it appeared only his left arm was broken. He stood in the shadows of the bushes surrounding him, watching the spectacle in the street.

He heard someone say, “Stay back, this car is leaking gasoline!” He heard a woman’s voice: “There’s someone in the car.” Suddenly the car caught fire. LaValle could see the black silhouettes of the bystanders as the leaking gasoline caught flame. Far below, he heard an explosion and looked down the hill. There was another car burning in the rear parlor of a house on the next street below. Their pursuers had not escaped unscathed. The sound of high-pitched screaming interrupted his thoughts. He realized the sound was coming from the Packard. Staying in the shadows, LaValle gingerly made his way down the hill until he could no longer hear the sound of Eartha’s screams.

T
he M Taravel issued out of the darkness of the tunnel at upper Market and returned to daylight. The sun shone wanly between large, wind-shredded clouds that whisked their way eastward. Deleon sat on the edge of his seat watching the crowd of passengers that boarded the streetcar. Most of the people were under thirty. A number of them were dressed in punk black with their hair dyed different shades of red, purple, and green. None of the other boarders stood out, particularly as a possible addition to the existing two-man team. Deleon did not discount the possibility that San Vicente might have men on the scene that he didn’t know about. He needed to take some divergent action, but it couldn’t be too elusive. He had no desire to lose his followers, merely to identify them. He had made up his mind that he would switch to one of the bus lines crossing Market then would transfer to
another bus which would take him to the central bus station at First and Mission. No one who had a legitimate business or personal errand would follow the circuitous path he intended to take. He saw the 54 Van Ness bus waiting to cross Market Street. As he used the pole to swing erect he thought, It won’t be long now.

The streetcar screeched to a stop and the doors opened. Deleon exited quickly and ran across the tracks to board the bus. He showed his transfer and took a seat in the back, facing the door. Only the two men he had recognized earlier boarded the bus from the streetcar. The bus lurched forward and began the long, slow grind up Van Ness to California. Deleon looked at his watch and smiled: It was ten-fifteen in the morning. If things went according to plan their bodies would be cold by noon. He relaxed himself with the thought that when his debts were paid he would be free. He owed only two men on the whole planet: his grandfather, who had provided the ladder by which Deleon had climbed out of the pit of poverty, despair, and ignorance; and his father, who had been the one to put him in the pit in the first place. Life in prison had taught Deleon very clearly that all debts had to be paid, in one form or another; and when messages had to be sent, they were best understood when they were written in blood.

The first time Deleon ever really talked to his grandfather was just before his trial as an adult. Deleon had been eighteen years old at the time and was facing twenty to life for participating in the murder of a pimp. His grandfather had worn a colorful, short-sleeved shirt with a floral print, a panama hat, and had a cigar sticking out of his mouth. There was no word of greeting shared between them. They sat across the table from each other in a small blue-walled room for nearly five minutes without saying a thing. They had simply stared at each other. Finally, Deleon had gotten impatient. He stood up and called for the transport deputy. Then his grandfather had asked, “Is this all you wants from life, or is you lookin’ to be somebody’s girlfriend? ’Cause you sho’ ain’t tough enough to avoid that when you gets sent up!”

The truth of his grandfather’s words stopped him. It was only luck and timing that had prevented him from being raped while in juvenile hall. He was well aware that he wasn’t the toughest kid around. He had sat back down at the table, then his grandfather had continued, “I got lawyers that can get yo’ time reduced. Maybe down to five years, but I needs yo’ oath that you gon’ pay yo’ debt to me.” Deleon had started to
babble some inane promises, but his grandfather had held up his hand. “Don’t say shit you don’t mean! I ain’t doin’ this ’cause I want to be nice. I’s doin’ it ’cause you’s blood and we got a war on our hands. I needs to know whether you’s ready to do yo’ part.”

Deleon was confused. He sputtered, “What war? I don’t want anything to do with some crazy war!”

“Why not? You’s throwin’ yo’ life away, ain’t you? Why not help yo’ family? Shit, boy, we can do more for you than you can do for yo’self. You ain’t exactly made a success out of livin’ in the streets.”

“What family are you talking about? I don’t want anything to do with my father. I hate him!”

“Ain’t nobody talkin’ ’bout yo’ jive-ass father. He ain’t in the mix. We’s talkin’ ’bout the DuMont name, boy! We talkin’ ’bout you standin’ up fo’ yo’ family name!”

Deleon had thought for a minute then asked, “What do I have to do?”

“Let’s talk ‘bout what kind of life you wants first: like, do you wants some money in yo’ pocket? You wants a nice car? Nice clothes? I heard you used a knife on that pimp. Do you wants to learn how to really use a knife? How to fight and defend yo’self? How to be one of the baddest motherfuckers around?”

Deleon was incredulous. “You can do all that? You’d do that for me?”

His grandfather had nodded. “I can do it, but I ain’t doin’ it for you. I’s doin’ it for the DuMont name. For the family. But I ain’t gon’ throw money away. You got to come on with the program heart and soul! First, you got to get yo’ GED whiles you in prison. Then when you gets out, you got to make a commitment to go to college and get you a degree in business.”

“College?” Deleon couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “How long that take?”

“I’on know. Fo’, five years, I guess. It don’t matter how long it take. You got to get you a BA degree.”

“How come I got to get a degree? I mean, four or five years! Damn!” Four years sounded like forever.

His grandfather nodded his head. “Yessiree bob! That’s it! You gon’ need book learnin’ to win this battle. If we win, you gon’ need the smarts to hold on to what we get. Anyway, it gon’ take that long to train you and to see that you got the grit to do the job.”

“What job is this?”

His grandfather leaned forward, his face grim, and hit the table emphatically with his fist. “We got to set things aright with them Tremains! We got us a blood debt that got to be paid!”

Deleon smiled as he remembered how he had promised everything that his grandfather wanted to hear without having any intention of following through on his agreement. He would’ve said anything to get his sentence reduced. The memory of his first year in prison was almost too painful to bear. Prison was the only place where men did not kill time; instead it killed them. Boredom was as deadly as a knife, it merely took longer. All the shucking and jiving he had done on the streets was useless in prison. He soon learned that death was in the balance every hour of every day. Even after he had been accepted as a soldier into one of the prison’s most vicious gangs, his days were still dominated by fear and boredom. There was a continuous pattern of violence between the top four gangs in the struggle to control the drug trade. Rival gang members were killed whenever the opportunity arose. It was only through the escape provided by his reading and his painting that Deleon had maintained his sanity.

The bus wheezed to a stop at Geary Street and Deleon saw the 55 Geary bus coming toward him a block away. He pulled the exit cord to alert the driver he wanted to get off and the rear door swung open. Deleon got off and walked over to the Geary bus stop. There was a bookstore right behind the bus shelter and Deleon peered in the window, concentrating on the reflections. Once again, only the two men he had recognized got off the Van Ness bus. Not yet wanting to confront his followers, Deleon continued to look in the bookstore window. Surprisingly, he saw an edition of
The Wretched of the Earth
for sale. It was a touch of kismet, after all the years that had passed, that he saw a copy of Fanon’s book. Butch Austen, with whom he’d bunked his last four years in prison, had discussed this book with him at considerable length. It had been an awakening for Deleon and had helped him focus on his desire to throw off the shackles of ignorance. After he was released from prison he got his bachelor’s degree, then went on and got a master’s in fine arts, and his grandfather, true to his word, had paid for everything.

Deleon boarded the 55 Geary and went to the back of the bus. His followers sat in the middle, where they could keep an eye on him.
Deleon was beginning to get excited. The Cubans were so smug. Soon they would see what he had learned about handling a knife, what his six-month, eight-hour-a-day stint in Hong Kong had taught him.