Echoes of a Distant Summer (4 page)

Chief Torvil Walker was a florid-faced, potbellied man with white hair and pale gray eyes. He had the splotched and purple nose of a drinker. He was a good old boy who had come up through the ranks, who due to his mediocrity and caution had not made the enemies that many of his more talented rivals had, and thus had been appointed to the department’s top position. Chief Walker began his presentation with a recommendation that a reprimand be placed in each officer’s file. However, after an hour of merciless questioning by council members, he recanted and agreed that stronger action must be taken. Several of the council members were close to asking for his resignation.

The city council meeting didn’t convene until seven in the evening and, of course, many minority community leaders appeared to speak on the incident in Chinatown. Waiting for a break in the line of speakers, the mayor dramatically pulled out his resolution to establish a Police Review Commission. Despite the police chief’s and the city manager’s objections, it was unanimously adopted to resounding cheers from the audience. The council then proceeded on to other city business.

It was nearly midnight before the city council was adjourned. As Jackson walked out, he saw City Manager Bedrosian staring at him with
displeasure. It wasn’t the first time and it probably wasn’t going to be the last. He crossed the street to the four-story parking lot and sought to wash all thoughts of work from his mind.

At one o’clock in the morning Jackson Tremain stood out on the deck of his house overlooking the glittering lights of downtown Oakland. He could not go to sleep. There were too many memories flooding across his consciousness, washing up emotional driftwood. He sought to lose himself in the tranquillity of early morning silence. The night sky had been swept free of clouds by a persistent, gusting wind. The stars glistened with promise on the dark, blue velvet dome of night. There was a lonely, wavering train whistle from freight chugging its way through Jack London Square. He stared at the patterns of lights from the Bay Bridge, stretching in long arcing loops across the bay. The bridge itself could not be seen, but faded into the darkness that extended over the water. That same darkness seemed to reach right into his heart.

After the phone call with his grandmother, he had successfully suppressed all thought of her and his grandfather. Unfortunately, the loneliness of night reawakened the specter of his grandfather. He saw himself once more, just out of high school, kneeling in the shadows of a building in rural Mexico, a hand grenade and a rifle in his hands while explosions and gunfire echoed around him. After nearly twenty years, Jackson could still hear keening voices rising and falling with the wind from that last summer with his grandfather.

When the moon began to rise above the dark horizon, he went back into the house, thinking that he would simply ignore his grandmother’s phone call. He would not let his grandparents pull him back into their conflicts. He would rise above their predatory distractions. He went to bed hoping for dreamless sleep.

M
cIvey’s was a bar located on the Embarcadero, along the old Jack London waterfront area, not far from Oakland’s City Center. The bar was across the street from a vacant pavilion which blocked the view
of the bay and the estuary that ran between Oakland and Alameda. Across the street in front of the vacant pavilion, Jesse Tuggle and Fletcher Gilmore sat in a car and watched Jackson Tremain lock his car and walk into the bar. Jesse was slouched over the steering wheel, chomping on a pungent beef stick. He chewed and smacked unconcernedly with his mouth open. His companion, sitting with a derby hat in his lap, quietly cleaned his rimless glasses.

“You sure that’s him?” Jesse asked, smacking loudly on his beef stick in between his words.

The older man sniffed, “I couldn’t miss him in a crowd. Except for his color, he’s the spitting image of his grandfather. Like he was reincarnated after burning in hell.”

“He one of the guys who killed Frank? You want me to get him, boss?” Jesse asked with an angry frown. He turned toward Gilmore, a piece of beef hanging out of his mouth.

The older man averted his face from the smell and replied, “The way you and Frank manhandled that old man is what got him killed. The old guy would never have blown up that bomb if you two hadn’t scared the shit out of him.”

Jesse didn’t say anything. He and Frank had both been raked over the coals by their uncle, John Tree, before Frank and two others had been sent out to bring the old man back for further questioning. Their subsequent deaths had only increased his uncle’s rage.

Gilmore asked, “Is there a back door to that bar?”

“Yeah, but it lets out onto a little alley that only exits onto this street,” Jesse answered, his words slightly slurred by his chewing. He laughed humorlessly and turned toward Gilmore. “That’s sort of funny, huh? The back door lets out by the front door.”

Gilmore averted his face again and rasped irritably, “Why can’t you chew gum? I can’t stand the smell of that stuff!” He did not share in Jesse’s humor. There was a great deal of money at stake, a fortune, in fact. Although Jesse did not know it, many lives had already been lost in the thirty-year battle with the man to whom this fortune belonged.

“We’ll just wait for him to leave and follow him,” Gilmore said as he adjusted his clothes and flicked a piece of lint off his derby. He was fastidious in his dress and manner. He exhaled slowly in an effort to relax and prepared himself for a long wait.

Inside the bar, Jackson Tremain paused to get his bearings. It was
happy hour and the bar was crowded. He was a tall, broad-shouldered man in his late thirties. His skin was a reddish-brown color, the genetic gift of his African and Choctaw ancestors. He was handsome, dressed in a fashionably cut double-breasted suit, and he received several admiring looks from women as he made his way farther into the bar. He heard himself being hailed over the rhythm-and-blues tune that blared from a jukebox in the rear.

“Jackson! Jackson Tremain! We’re back here!”

Jackson turned and saw several men waving at him. He made his way through the crowd to their table. It was four of his friends, conducting their usual Wednesday evening male-bonding ceremony. A chair was being passed overhead to him. He took it and sat down.

His friends were drinking top-shelf margaritas and hotly discussing the pros and cons of working in the public versus the private sector. There was a full pitcher of margaritas in the center of the table along with several shot glasses of Grand Marnier and an empty pitcher. It was obvious they had started without him and were feeling no pain. The men, Presenio Cordero, Wesley Hunter, Dan Strong, and Lincoln Shue, had been his friends since childhood and they were all roughly the same age.

Pres Cordero reached over and jabbed Jackson in the arm. “Haven’t seen you all week. Didn’t think you were going to make it.” Pres was a good-looking, brown-skinned man with an easy smile and twinkling eyes. He had straight black hair which he wore artistically long and a thick black mustache. He looked as if he could have been the product of any one of a dozen different ethnic groups, but he hailed from the Philippines. Pres jabbed Jackson in the arm again and said in a teasing tone, “Don’t you value our time? We’ve been getting drunk waiting for you.”

Before Jackson could answer, Dan Strong pushed a margarita toward him. “Drink up! We’re tired of waiting for your sad, middle-aged ass.” Dan was a big bear of a man. He had played on the offensive line for Howard University, and even though many years had passed and he was getting soft, the size of his arms and shoulders still reflected thousands of hours of pumping iron. Dan raised his glass. “Here’s to working in the municipal public sector where the people still have access to their public officials. Also, I would like to drink to Romance, Liberty, Equality, Brotherhood, and pâté de foie gras!”

Lincoln Shue smirked and said, “And God bless Roy Rogers. I’m surprised you didn’t include truffles.” Lincoln was a graceful man of medium build with the pale skin and broad, flat face of his Chinese ancestors. He wore his black hair cut in a neat, professional manner and almost always had a trace of a sardonic grin on his face. He raised his glass, “Nonetheless, I’ll join you in drinking to some of mankind’s loftier goals.”

“Liberty? Equality? Fraternity?” Wesley Hunter challenged. “Those aren’t societal goals, those are just words! The only thing that society respects is power. And the way you achieve power today is through the pursuit of money!” He was a dark-skinned man who wore his kinky hair cut in a short, stylish flat top. When he smiled, even, white teeth were exposed. He raised his glass to Dan. “But I too will drink to the mythical ideals.”

Dan gestured at Lincoln and Wesley and said sourly, “You two clown-butts have ruined the intent of my toast.” Dan turned to Pres and prodded, “You come up with a toast. See if they give you shit.”

“I want to follow up on what Wesley said,” Pres replied, sipping from his glass. “I think Wesley is right. There is no societal reward for ethical behavior or moral stature. Money is the only indicator of success. And we wonder why our culture is falling apart.”

Dan looked at Jackson. “You’re mighty quiet.”

Wesley interjected, “What about the brilliant point that Pres and I just made? No response?”

Dan made a gesture of dismissal. “You’re preaching to the choir. There’s nothing further to say, so we’ve changed directions.” He pointed to Jackson. “We’re talking about him now.” Dan put a look of sincerity on his face and asked Jackson, “What’s up, Ace? You look like you heard that the woman you were going out with last year just died of a dormant venereal disease.”

Lincoln shook his head and said, “That was in poor taste.”

Wesley shrugged. “The existence of dormant venereal disease would make me sort of quiet. I love fucking and I haven’t yet met all the women I intend to fuck.”

Dan waved a hand of dismissal in Lincoln and Wesley’s direction. “I’m trying to find out about Jax. He hasn’t said two words since he got here. What’s up, Jax?”

Jackson shook his head. “You guys don’t need my input. You’re doing fine without me.”

Dan gave Jackson an evaluative look. “Are you having an emotional breakdown?”

Lincoln protested, “Why should he expose himself to your casual observation? He has a right to keep his sickness to himself.”

Wesley agreed. “Some dysfunctions are best kept behind closed doors.”

Pres waved his hand to quiet the liquored tongues. “Just ignore the peanut gallery, Jax, and tell us what’s going on. You do look damn serious.”

Jackson Tremain looked at the expectant faces around him and asked, “Do you think people are born evil, so evil that everything they touch turns evil?”

Dan boomed, “Whoa! How dysfunctional are we going to get here?”

Jackson took a deep breath. “We’re going to the far side. I got a call from my grandmother on Tuesday. First time I’ve spoken to her in ten years.” Jackson took a drink and then summarized his conversation with his grandmother.

Wesley questioned, “Your grandfather would do that? Send a close friend on a suicide mission? Just to send a message?”

Dan sipped his drink and said, “In his heyday, Jax’s grandfather was a pretty bad dude. You have to remember, he removed a lot of people from the gene pool.”

Wesley was incredulous. “But would he send a friend to his death?”

Lincoln interjected, “What does your grandmother think?”

Jackson shrugged. “She thinks he sent a message and that I ought to go down to Mexico with my cousin Franklin and see him.” Jackson took a long drink from his glass. No one spoke and although there were voices and music in the background, there was silence at the table.

Finally, Wesley asked, “You’re not that close to your grandfather, are you? Did you ever love him?”

“In sequence to the questions asked,” Jackson replied, “no. And I hated him! I think he’s evil incarnate.”

Pres argued, “No human can embody evil. It’s too big and complex a force. It’s like entropy. Plus, humans are the products of their experiences. They’re not innately anything.”

There was a moment of silence then Lincoln asked Jackson, “You hated him back then; do you hate him now?”

Pres offered, “He hated him then, he loved him then. He hates him now and he loves him now.”

Dan responded, “Thank you, Pres, for clarifying absolutely nothing.”

“Some things are too complex to be clarified,” Pres answered with a shrug.

Lincoln asked, “What are you going to do, Jax?”

Dan chimed in, “It seems to me you got to go down and see the old guy and make your peace.”

“That’s just like him,” Pres exclaimed while pointing at Dan. “There can be serious issues or questions under discussion and Dan will attempt to provide all the answers himself, like no one else really needs to be there!”

Dan looked at Pres questioningly. “Are your biorhythms fluctuating off the scale? Is your rising sign in Haiti or Biafra? Are you on the rag?”

This time Pres had to shake his head. “That last was truly a politically backward statement.”

Dan pointed a big, beefy hand at Pres. “Don’t give me that politically correct fascism! I’m going to keep saying shit that I think is funny.”

“All right! All right! You assholes don’t care,” Jackson interrupted. “I’m spilling my guts and you turkeys are busy capping on one another. Some friends.”

Lincoln answered, “We’ve been drinking! What do you expect? If you want serious analysis, get here on time, not when we’re on the second pitcher of margaritas.”

Pres urged, “If you think he really is close to death, you have to go visit him before he dies. You have to forget about what has gone before and make amends. It’s the only way you’ll ever be totally free of the way his memory affects you.”

Dan pointed at Pres and declared, “See! He’s saying the exact same thing as me.”

Wesley began to sing “Go Down, Moses,” substituting the words, “Go down, Jackson. Way down in Mexico.”

Lincoln stood up. “On that note, I think it’s time to go.” Wesley and Dan rose as well.