Low Road (20 page)

Black Gangster
reached book racks by summer, the same year as
Whoreson.
Donnie was at the start of a creative torrent that wouldn't slow down any time soon. Overall, it didn't take much for him to come up with a scenario in the vein of what he had already sold to Holloway House. He had plenty of those. The mechanics of the storytelling could always be worked out with his writing coaches on the West Coast. Donnie located a character named Prince at the center of
Black Gangster.
In the opening pages, Prince is being let out of his cell at Jackson as he and other prisoners are led to the mess hall. Suggesting the author's familiarity with the history of the old-time Detroit mobsters, such as those in the Purples and the Little Navy Gang, Donnie brought Prince out of the pen and up through the ranks of the underground as a bootlegger. Finally, the character finds himself as the powerful boss of organized crime. Like
Dopefiend,
it would become an urban classic. Donnie had finally matured to the point that Prince's ascension no longer resembled his personal aspirations. There was, however, a personal aspiration he held outside of his writing career, one he'd held for many years: to kick. To kick, or break the addiction, was, in fact, the most deeply held desire of many an addict. It was true that he'd done terrible things, undoubtedly contributed tears and heartache to the lives of others. At various times, he had even been deemed unfit to exist as a human being outside of the strictest twenty-four-hour supervision. Donnie knew within himself that no person who was controlled by any source was fit to be called anything except a slave. Perhaps the most torturous form of slavery was the one that had complicity at its root. The kind that felt like hell to let go. He was tired of heroin's torture. Had been since that first time he asked his mother to lock him in the bedroom. However tired he was, though, he wasn't ready to sign himself over to the whitecoats. A rehab clinic or hospital was more than he felt ready to deal with. Maybe the concept of confinement and restrictions seemed too much like prison.

Marie was now married to her third husband, a career military man named Warren Richardson. She and her clan, including Charles, who had become a free-spirited young performer, settled in an area of Georgia where Richardson was stationed. The community of Warner Robins was about 120 miles south of Atlanta. Located in the central region of the state, it was relatively small in size with a population of about 30,000. Marie had become accustomed to traveling the country and relocating when necessary. Her children would total four, with the birth of Jean, a daughter. Detroit virtually became a second home in the time and space that separated them from the city. As Donnie continued adjusting to his new professional direction, he decided that a change of scenery was in order. He gathered his belongings and headed south to spend time with his sister and her family. Donnie would use the time in Warner Robins to continue his writing but also to try and distance himself from familiar temptations. With Joe and Myrtle slowing down and Joan tending after her own clan, he could use a support network, and he hadn't spent a great deal of time with his big sister in recent years. Meanwhile, the nephew he'd spent the most time and energy trying to coax—or corrupt—into manhood had developed a talent for music. Charles could sing and play drums. He began writing songs and preparing for what he hoped would be a career of making records and grooving on the stage. His bands performed as Round House, Free Soil, and Doc Holliday. They played rock and blasted southern blues. It was rare for a drummer to handle lead vocals, but Charles could melt soul into the microphone. Like much of his generation, he was heavily influenced by the Motown Sound. He grew to love Marvin Gaye. Yet, Charles was versatile enough to sing like a white boy when the music called for it. He began to dress and adapt himself to the part of universal rock rebel, in the young and free tradition of a long line that preceded him. And like a long line of musicians' mothers before her, Marie was less than thrilled. She knew of her son's talent, but the accoutrements daunted her. Heels and pouches had somehow never fit in with the image she had envisioned for her oldest boy, no matter what his career choice.

It was cool for Charles to be able to reconnect with his uncle. To whatever extent that he had become hip or street wise, it was not without Donnie's influence. Charles remembered the way he'd walk the neighborhood in Detroit when he was younger, without fear of a hassle from anyone. His uncle's reputation had its benefits as a hedge of protection that followed him when he went to buy a candy bar. At the same time, he could recall occasions when he didn't know what in the world could be wrong with Donnie, like when old Joe gathered the power from somewhere and shoved Donnie across the room. In a drugged-out haze, Donnie was feeling ornery and Joe didn't appreciate the mistreatment he saw being given to his grandson, Charles. Donnie could play the crazy nigger out in the world; Joe wasn't going to abide it in his presence. Whether it was for the good or bad, Charles knew few dull moments when Donnie was around. Now he would have the opportunity to see his uncle in the flesh again. Unbeknownst to Charles, it would also be the last occasion during which they spent any substantial amount of time together. For now, it appeared to be a good period, and there appeared to be favorable circumstances for Donnie to beat his drug habit. He met and hung out with his nephew's bandmates. He had plenty of stories to tell and a truckload of shit to talk about everything from war to women. At the same time, he continued to focus on his work, mentioning that he'd like to attend a book conference out West. Donnie seemed genuinely content with his stay when, as quickly as he arrived, he decided to leave. Charles wasn't sure how much the stay had accomplished, but he knew he had seen no indication that Donnie was shooting up. That wasn't testimony Charles had been able to offer on many occasions.

*   *   *

Jessie and Nancy Sailor were established Detroiters who had moved north from Georgia. Jessie did well as a company man with Ford Motor. His cousin, Earl Little, had done quite the opposite. While living near Lansing, about ninety miles from Detroit, Earl was killed in 1931, reportedly by the Black Legion, a white supremacist group. While he had been a Baptist minister, he was also part of a worldwide movement organizing for Marcus Garvey's influential Universal Negro Improvement Association. In time, the white folks in the community came to regard Reverend Little as an agitator. Much later, his seventh son, Malcolm, would become even more widely known for his efforts to awaken the masses as the Nation of Islam's spokesman, Malcolm X. Jessie and Nancy had children of their own, fifteen in all. They resembled a big southern family living in the city. The second-youngest child was a daughter named Shirley Ann. Acknowledged as a striking beauty, with brown skin and delicate features, by the time she reached womanhood she had strayed from the path her folks had laid out for her and her siblings to follow. Shirley hooked up with a pimp who eventually turned her out. When their relationship ended, she moved on. By the time she met Donnie, Shirley had a son and a daughter. Though she had developed a level of street knowledge, Shirley had a childish innocence, a sweetness, about her. The combination of her physical and character attributes was enough to quickly gain Donnie's attention. Shirley was ten years younger than him, yet they connected as a couple. She grew to love Donnie dearly and deeply. They appeared to complement one another well. Close to Joanie in age, Shirley found approval in the Goines family. And she was enough of a fox that she didn't ever have to worry about Joe slamming a door in her face.

Donnie, Shirley, and her children settled into a place together. It was probably the most domestic setup he had experienced in his entire adulthood, but he seemed OK with it. After all, he had done plenty out in the world, and he was still a fairly young man. For better or worse, he had made his own way for the past twenty years. So with his new career, it was appropriate that he adapt a new lifestyle. His common-law wife, Shirley would be about as close as he'd ultimately come to having a bride. Their daughter, Donna, named in unmistakable similarity to her father, was born to complete the household. She became a Sailor, rather than a Goines. In the meantime, other Sailors had begun moving west from Detroit. Shirley had siblings in California, which was, just by coincidence, where Donnie's business contacts were based. The couple agreed that they would try something new together: living in Los Angeles.

At one point, Donnie had made his way out there before, appearing as an extra in the film
Soylent Green,
which reached theaters in the seventies. Set in 2022, it was a sci-fi flick starring Charlton Heston. He played a cop named Thorn, who uncovered the chilling source of a government-manufactured food after investigating a murder. Donnie's screen time in the film was nothing worth mentioning, but the experience probably contributed to the final motivating factor in his decision to relocate: Donnie wanted to see at least one of his books become a movie. His work would have been a good fit for theaters, with the recent arrival of what the trade publication
Variety
dubbed “blaxploitation” flicks. A combination of the words
black
and
exploitation,
the phrase described works that largely depicted characters in stereotypical images but who often operated entirely outside of the social order. Hundreds of derelict, downtown-area theaters in urban cities beckoned these releases and the audiences who would pay admission to appreciate them.
Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song,
which opened in 1971, was described by the
Los Angeles Times
as “a series of earthy vignettes, where [director Mario] Van Peebles evokes the vitality, humor, pain, despair and omnipresent fear that is life for so many African Americans.” Along with
Shaft
and 1972's
Superfly,
the release helped open the door to an era of story lines in which, through whatever means, the black characters would win in the end.

This time, Donnie's trip to the West Coast would have greater longevity and more sense of purpose. He who hesitated was lost, and Donnie no longer felt lost in his goals. Again, he told friends he wanted to kick; the trip to Georgia hadn't done it for him as he'd hoped. They chipped in to help him do what he felt led to do. The day when he and Shirley prepared to fly out of Detroit was one to remember. Donnie must have decided he would need to show Los Angeles that Detroit was hip to fashion because he threw on a suit and a sharp, wide-brimmed hat resembling the popular style that had been worn in
Superfly.
And sexy Shirley was looking the part as Donnie's woman: A red mini dress and thigh-high boots that she wore the hell out of made up her ensemble. The family saw them off at the airport. They knew this could be a flight into what might become Donnie's most life-changing success yet.

Los Angeles had seen its share of devastation in the black community. Two years before Detroit caught fire behind the police raid, residents in the South Central neighborhood of Watts participated in the first major race-related uprising of the 1960s. A twenty-one-year-old man was arrested that August, after a cop flagged down his vehicle on suspicion of intoxication. Not unlike the scene outside the after-hours joint in Detroit, a crowd of observers taunted the officer, and so a second cop was called to the scene. As elsewhere in the nation, the air had already grown thick with racial stress, not to mention a late-summer heat wave. There was good reason for those in depressed neighborhoods to be tense. Black folks numbered around half a million by that time, but with the western emigration, much like the northern movement, plenty found themselves out of work and living in overcrowded ghetto sections. In another unfortunate parallel with the urban centers elsewhere, L.A. cops had begun to develop a reputation for brutality that would linger in their ranks for many years. Eyewitnesses said it was the second officer who became overly aggressive when he showed up to assist with the suspected drunk driver. The cop swung his baton at members of the crowd, unnecessarily, they said. Soon, news of the altercation spread through the streets and alleys of South Central, leading to violence on a massive scale. During the rebellion, there were four days of burning, looting, and wreaking wholesale havoc, then another three days of sporadic outbreaks as an estimated 35,000 people participated. The toll, after a combined effort of city, county, and National Guard members to end the disturbance, was thirty-four dead—all but three black—at least a thousand wounded, 4,000 arrested, and $200 million in property damage. It all began only five days after the Voting Rights Act was signed. Proof that symbolic legislation was no substitute for treating men and women with dignity.

Los Angeles city administrators first tried to pin the blame for the eruption on outside agitators. There was no discontent among the good Negroes of Watts, they contended. Later information, however, revealed that most of those involved with the rebellion had lived there their entire lives. The rage they expressed had been set off by police but had grown as a manifestation of their resentment of Caucasian shopkeepers in the neighborhood, another element in a relationship with the black community that would remain contentious long after the last ashes had lost their glow. It was not by mistake or coincidence that black churches, neighborhood libraries, businesses, and homes were virtually untouched. The destruction was actually applauded in circles containing those who saw it as a necessary signal to the powers-that-were. It helped to define political camps in the next phase of social struggle, though the community never completely recovered. And the fallout was more far-reaching than the boundaries of Watts: A number of political careers were damaged, including that of Edmund G. “Pat” Brown, the liberal governor, who was assigned his share of the blame by conservative politicians. It was to become a tired and pitiful, yet recurring, scenario. Wherever black men and women lived in unofficially segregated, so-called inner-city areas, there loomed the likelihood that one form of head game or another would be played—with white insecurity as a primary rule.