Echoes of a Distant Summer (26 page)

I
n the hot afternoon sun a yellow, mange-ridden dog walked slowly across the empty square and found a cool resting place in the shadows of a two-story stucco building. Across the square, a stout, black-haired woman with reddish-brown skin opened the rickety shutters of her second-story apartment and screamed,
“Miguel! Miguel, venga aquí!”

Miguel did not answer, and except for the irritating drone of the flies, all was quiet. The doors and shuttered windows of the businesses and apartments that faced the square were closed. There were no people on the street. The old yellow dog was the square’s sole occupant.

On the roof of the building adjacent to the woman’s apartment, ten-year-old Jackson sat. His brown skin was covered and protected from the blazing sun by a heavy woven serape. A straw sombrero covered his kinky hair. He sat very still in accordance with the instructions he had received. His duty was to signal the coming of the strangers. In an alley off to his right stood four men waiting for his signal. He did not turn, nor acknowledge their presence. He had been taught to wait in absolute stillness. The scolds and slaps of previous summers had developed his control to perfection. He did not even move to wipe away the sweat which was running into his eyes.

From the corner, down the street to his left, he heard voices: raucous, drunken male voices, laughing and carousing. Three men appeared. As they drew nearer, it was obvious to Jackson from their accents that they were American.

The woman came to the window again. This time there was panic in her eyes. She looked up at Jackson, but he did nothing to acknowledge her presence. She peered down the street at the approaching men and many expressions crossed her face, the first of which was painful resignation, as if she realized that it was too late to call again, but the last and most enduring expression was hatred. It was the mask she wore when she closed her shutters on the passing men.

When the men were abreast of him, Jackson stood up. He took off his sombrero and waved it at the men, saying,
“Hola, señores!”

The men, caught off guard, looked up at him simultaneously, their pale faces reddened by the sun. One of the men shaded his glance with a hand. To Jackson it looked like a sloppy military salute. The man and his companions never had an opportunity for another reaction. They
did not even see the men rushing from the alley until the first was in their midst. A savage fight broke out. It was three against four, and the four had machetes in scabbards which they wielded like clubs. The fight was over in minutes. The three men were subdued then their arms were tied tightly behind their backs. Once again the square was silent. No one had opened a door or come to the aid of the men.

Jackson left the roof to join the attackers. When he got to the street, the three men were being led down an alley away from the square by their attackers. As he started to follow the group, his grandfather, still carrying his machete, turned and cut him off.

“Where do you think you’re going?”

“I was going with you, Grandfather,” Jackson responded with surprise.

“You’s too young for this part! You done what I wanted, now git!”

“Can’t I wait for you, Grandfather?”

“Boy, didn’t you hear me say
git?
”

“Yes, Grandfather,” Jackson answered obediently.

His grandfather turned away without another word and walked rapidly down the alley to join his comrades.

Jackson stood watching the thick, muscular torso of his grandfather dwindle in the distance. When the men were out of sight, he was left standing in the square alone. He knew better than to disobey his grandfather, but he had no place that he wanted to go. He stood until the sun forced him to move. By the time he crossed the square, the small stores and shops began opening their doors. The owners nodded at him respectfully as he passed and continued his way along the sun-baked cobblestone streets.

He did not concern himself with the fate of the three
norteamericanos
. All he knew was that the Chavez family had been avenged and that these three men would never rape anyone else’s teenage daughter.

A
steady breeze came off the Alameda estuary, blowing leaves and scraps of paper eastward, the detritus of anonymous lives. The charcoal sky was filled with large, dark cumulus clouds that rolled before the wind like huge dumplings boiling in a pale gray fluid. The surface of Lake Merritt was covered with ripples, moving in ranks like liquid soldiers, marching west to east to die upon the banks of Lakeside Park. Elizabeth Carlson was not concentrating on the weather. She was focusing on getting a full breath and coordinating the movements of her arms with her legs. She was in the last quarter of a mile of her three-mile run around the lake. She was turning the corner onto Lakeshore Drive and she had been gradually increasing her pace as she neared the end of her run. She kept her knees high and lengthened her stride. Her heart was pumping. Her chest was heaving. Her arms were swinging back and forth. Sweat ran down her face. She was running nearly at full speed and was now concentrating solely on her footing and her breathing. Her running companion and friend, Diane Holloway, was just behind her. It had been Elizabeth’s intent to leave Diane behind, but Diane would not accommodate her. She could hear Diane’s footsteps right behind her. A pain was beginning in Elizabeth’s chest. Her breathing was getting labored. Still she kept up the pressure. She squeezed out a little extra speed. She began to pull away from Diane. All she had to do was to run to the stop signal at the intersection of Brooklyn and Lakeshore. She forced herself, despite the pain, to run the remaining distance at top speed.

She was leaning against a lamppost when Diane caught up to her, waving her finger at Elizabeth and mouthing words she was unable to say because she was out of breath. Elizabeth wanted to laugh, but she was too busy concentrating on catching her own breath. She bent over and rested her hands on her knees. After a few moments of deep breathing, Elizabeth had recuperated. She leaned down slowly and touched her toes with her knuckles, stretching her back and hamstrings. She stood up and said to Diane, “I see your new manless regime hasn’t made you any faster.”

“Maybe not, but I’m a lot healthier,” Diane replied as she checked her makeup in a small mirror which she had taken out of her fanny pack. After making what small corrections she could, she snapped the mirror
shut and looked up. “Hey, let’s catch this light!” Both women scurried across Lakeshore before the light turned red and walked up half a block to Diane’s apartment building, which had a broad lakefront view. As they rode the elevator up to her third-floor apartment Diane asked, “Did you finish submitting all that paperwork for the apartment upstairs?”

“Yes. That’s what I meant to tell you over the phone. I’ve got it. The manager called me this morning.”

Diane rushed to hug her. “That’s great! Now I’ll have me a running buddy as a neighbor. Since neither of us has the burden of men in our lives, we can get together for drinks and dinner on a regular basis now.”

“I don’t know about that,” Elizabeth demurred as they entered Diane’s apartment. “I met somebody. A real man.”

“Are you talking about that slick pretty boy who tried to force his attentions on us in the bar the other night? Damn! Can’t you learn from my mistakes? He’s probably nothing more than facade anyway!” Diane was stripping off her Spandex jogging suit. She stopped and faced Elizabeth and declared, “They are all sleazes! Why do you think black American women writers never have strong, positive black male characters in their work? There aren’t any, that’s why!”

Elizabeth sat down and untied her shoes then replied, “I don’t know that that’s true. I haven’t read every black woman writer—”

“I’m talking about the major ones! Naylor, Morrison, McMillan, Walker,” Diane interrupted as she stepped out of her panties. “Can you point to just one positive male character?”

“I don’t consider myself to be well read enough to give a knowledgeable answer to that question.”

“Think about it while I’m in the shower,” Diane said, picking up her workout clothes and heading into the bathroom.

Elizabeth went over to the stereo, turned the radio on, and tuned the station to KJAZ. The sounds of a quintet with a mellow lead alto saxophone floated out of the speakers. She walked over to the living room windows, which looked out upon the lake, and studied the view. She wondered if there wasn’t a grain of truth in Diane’s words. Perhaps Jackson wasn’t what he appeared to be, but the possibility that he was real was too great an opportunity for her to pass up. Certainly there was something between them. She had never felt such an attraction to anyone before. She had even noticed it when they first met at Wayman’s graduation ceremony. At first she had sought to discount her feelings as simply the response of a woman who had not been intimate with a man
for over a year, but there was more to it than that and she knew it. This was a totally new feeling, a sensation of excitement.

Strange as it was, she was not distressed by the man who had followed them the day before on Angel Island, nor was she put off by Jackson’s explanation of his grandfather’s world. What she remembered most was the ease with which she bantered with him, how there seemed to be no obstacles in saying what was on her mind, how comfortable she had felt in his presence and the wonderful anticipation that she felt when they were parting at the end of the day. When he had walked her to her door there was an undeniable tension between them as she waited for him to decide whether he was going to kiss her. He had not kissed her and she, although she was reluctant to admit it at the time, was disappointed. She thought of his last words before he turned and went back to his car. He had stepped close to her and looked directly into her eyes and said, “It seems to me that this is no ordinary first date. I feel something for you, Miss Carlson, that I have no right to feel. It compels me to want to see you again. Is there a possibility you feel the same way?”

Despite her better judgment, she had grabbed the lapel of his jacket and pulled him closer until his dark brown eyes were inches from hers, then replied, “Anything is possible. Why don’t you call me and we’ll see?” He had smiled, his even white teeth gleaming in the afternoon light, then he touched her cheek softly with his hand before turning away and walking down the steps to his car. She had followed him with her eyes, the skin of her face still tingling from his caress. She had known right then that he was the one who was meant for her.

Diane entered the living room wearing a robe. “The shower’s yours,” she said as she got a large bottle of juice out of the refrigerator. “I put out towels on the toilet seat.”

When she got out of the shower, Elizabeth went into Diane’s bedroom and found her friend half dressed in front of a floor-to-ceiling mirror, checking out the fit of her skirt over her behind. She said, “That looks great on you, Diane. What are you doing?”

“I just want to make sure it still falls like it’s supposed to,” Diane answered as she turned in front of the mirror. “I want to make sure that the thousand leg lifts I do monthly are keeping me in trim.”

“No fear,” Elizabeth said as she began to get dressed. “You’ve got the body of a twenty-five-year-old!”

Diane frowned. “I look that bad?”

“That’s good!” Elizabeth countered. “To have the body of someone who’s a decade or more younger.”

“Honey, as hard as I work to keep in shape, I want the body of a teenager! Did you think about my question? Could you come up with a positive, strong black male character in any novel you’ve read? I mean, one who’s alive at the end!”

“Truthfully, I didn’t give it much thought.”

“You ought to. There’s a lesson there. As far as I’m concerned there’s only two reasons to have a man in your life: one, the dick is so good you want to give up TV; or two, he can give you expensive gifts and do something for you financially.”

“That’s very cynical,” Elizabeth observed with a laugh. “What about love?”

“Love is just a concept that some men thought up to mess with women’s heads.”

Elizabeth declared, “I don’t believe that. I know my mother loved my father and I know that he loved her. He was a good man and although I didn’t get along with him, I loved him. I’m seeking what they had. I know it’s still possible.”

Diane finished off her glass of juice then said, “Damn, girl, orient yourself to the times. This is 1982! Women have been liberated. Your parents lived at a time when people stayed married because they had to. They had to put up with shit and work out their differences. People today can get to stepping!”

“But where does that leave you?” Elizabeth countered. “Particularly when you know that everything of value takes work. And to have something of value, you must risk.”

“Okay. Okay. I can see that something serious has bit you in the ass. What makes this guy you’ve only seen twice so damned important? You haven’t even spent an hour together!”

“Oh, yes, we have,” Elizabeth declared as she put on her jacket. “I went to Angel Island yesterday with him and it was wonderful. It was the best time I’ve ever had with a man.”

“So that’s why you took off from work! Well, you better tell me about him, since I may see him once or twice before you scuttle him.”

“Don’t bet on it! It was like something out of a fantasy. I’ll tell you about it as we ride back to work. I have to be in court at two o’clock. Are you ready?” Diane nodded as she got her purse and turned off the
stereo. The two women took the elevator down to the garage and got into Diane’s car. As they drove back to the district attorney’s office, Elizabeth recounted the events of the previous day.

When Diane pulled into her parking spot she was flabbergasted. “I can’t believe you slashed the tires of a stranger’s car! You’re supposed to uphold the law, not break it!”

“Jackson recognized this brown Cadillac and when the man in it started to follow us, we knew he was the partner of the guy we left on Angel Island. We didn’t want him following us. So while Jackson went and got us a couple of ice cream cones I doubled back and slit the guy’s tires. It’s really not that much different from the time you put sugar in that public defender’s gas tank. I think he had to get a new engine after that. All this guy had to do was change a couple of tires.”