The Dying Ground (2 page)

Crowning Glory, Cutty’s shop of thirty years, sat on the Oakland side of San Pablo Avenue, a dirty artery that ran from Oakland’s city center all the way through six cities. It was his fifth location since incorporation. Initially his shop had been on Alcatraz Avenue, the Oakland street so named for its clear-day view of the famed Alcatraz Island. It was there, when I was seven, that my granddaddy took me for my first haircut.

When business picked up enough for Cutty to leave Alcatraz, his bad luck began in earnest. His new location on MacArthur and Broadway attracted all the hustlers and Superfly wannabes of the 1970s. Though Cutty hated to compromise his profession, he built his reputation on the mean, slick perms so favored by that generation. And as his reputation grew so did his clientele until finally, inevitably, a crosstown gangster rivalry was played out in his barber chairs.

The first casualty of Crowning Glory was Scott Hathaway, a heroin dealer with control of North, East, and West Oakland. He was slaughtered by an up-and-coming drug dealer named Jordy Prescott.

Legend has it that Hathaway’s look of surprise was driven off his face by a bullet through his right eye. A quick nosedive in business confirmed that most people believed Cutty helped set up the flamboyant Hathaway. Only a new location on Shattuck
Avenue and a year’s worth of time brought people slowly but surely back into his shop.

The next move was caused by a retaliation shooting that occurred three blocks away, but Cutty took no chances. Before moving into the dusty San Pablo storefront, he had the property baptized by a local preacher, he installed church pews instead of seats for the waiting customers, and there hadn’t been a murder since. But sometimes, through the ever-ready smile, I suspected that a cutthroat heart beat in the old man’s chest. That much bad luck in one place made anybody suspect.

Memories were short, however; the boys dealing on the curb proved it. The eighties had brought a fast and furious new industry into Oakland, the crack trade, and there was evidence of it everywhere you looked.

The circus atmosphere of the drug game seeped into every aspect of urban Black life. Nothing went untouched as newfound wealth allowed men, women, and children to dream of something different. To the older cats, Michael Corleone and the crew of
The Godfather
supplied the props to let them dream in an elegant manner and jump the class barriers of their birth. But the rules and regulations of
The Godfather
became old to the youngstas even before the credits rolled. They had no time for rituals and order, just time enough to shove a big-ass foot through a door and demand the respect only a loaded gun and lots of money could bring.

Scarface
was their manifesto.

It was a mess, but more seductive than anything we’d ever seen.

In 1989, the entire Bay Area, San Francisco included, fell under the 415 area code, and under that name a prison gang became a strong independent faction within the penitentiary system, eventually edging out the stronghold of the Black Guerrilla Family and keeping the Los Angeles Crips and Bloods
from infiltrating the northern California crime force. The Bay Area was proud of its No Crips, No Bloods policy, but once in a while small pockets of transplanted criminals made their way into the fray, usually by way of family members, more often than not by way of good-looking women.

All that added to the big-man-on-campus swagger of the young men gathered here and there in front of Cutty’s. Fellas who, a mere two years before, never rated second glances now had all the props of true hustlers, and they used every opportunity possible to flaunt them. I rode the wave as a person on the edge of the inner circle, aware all the time that the Wizard was just inside the curtain. Anyone who looked closely knew the center would not hold; the smoke and mirrors would disappear and reveal a body count to equal a homegrown war.

The unseasonable warmth pumped the festivities to a fever pitch, and all I could do was watch. The heat had an entirely different effect on my spirits. While the others laughed and joked and made plans to hit Geoffrey’s, Politics, and the End Zone, I waited for what was to come.

The 90-degree temperature just weeks before Halloween threw off my alignment. It felt unnatural to my blood and, coupled with the bad dreams, left me coiled like a snake for the first sign of bad news. It was coming, I just didn’t know how or when.

I
n an attempt to keep cool inside and out, I grabbed a crisp white towel from a broken chair and wiped the sweat pooled on my neck and shoulders. The chair had been broken for as long as I could remember.

Cutty was superstitious to a fault, hailing from the same folklorish state as my grandparents—Louisiana—and he took all minor omens and signs as the gospel. He refused to remove any of the furniture that had been there since he opened for business, and as a result his place looked more like a flea market than a barbershop.

“Man, Cutty, when you gonna fix this chair?” the man next to me asked.

“Soon as you mama come over here with her tool belt.”

I winced for the victim. Everything and everybody, no matter how sacred, was fair game. Entering Cutty’s meant donning a thick skin and readying a sharp tongue of your own.

Cutty pointed at me when he spotted the towel in my hand.
“Boy, what’s wrong with you, wiping your greasy face with my clean towels? Grab you some tissue paper.”

“I might lose my place in line,” I countered.

“That ain’t got nothing to do with me,” he shot back.

“Alright, alright.”

“How’s the pitching arm?” Cutty continued. “You had some good stats year before last.”

“I remember that.” A man about my age turned to give me a quick pound of his fist. The gesture was the surest sign of respect Oakland had to offer. “You’re the Watch Dog.”

I nodded in affirmation, but I was reluctant to resurrect an old past through conversation. Watch Dog is the nickname I received while pitching for the St. Mary’s High School baseball team. My habits before each pitch earned me the title and a bit of local notoriety, but it’s been at least a year since I’ve even picked up a ball. An injury plus cowardice saved me the disappointments of being second string on my collegiate team. But since Oakland is such a small town I am constantly reminded of my much-copied pitching style.

During sophomore year I developed the habit that would become my signature on the field. I would study my surroundings down to the last detail before releasing a pitch. While the ball rested in my hand I would take in the batters, the opposing players, my teammates, the fans, the coaches, the vendors, the announcer, and the scouts, and if there happened to be birds and dogs in the park I studied them too. I’d take it all in, then wait for that perfect moment when the air and the elements sang in unison.

Strike!

Every time.

That long prep dismantled a lot of batters and secured me a place on four all-star teams. The waiting, the patience, the timing; those were the keys to my success on the field.

In life I try and apply the same rules. If given the chance I’ll chose silence every time, listening instead to what the talkers
don’t
say, what they avoid, what their hands, legs, and arms add to the conversation. The body is always closer to the truth than the mouth, and I’ve come to trust silence the way others avoid it. This practice, like smiling at jokes, has served me well and kept me out of trouble.

“I was at Bishop O’Dowd when you were pitching for St. Mary’s. You took the championship from us. Three times.” He stuck his hand out. “Lamont Quailes.”

“Maceo Redfield.”

“I remember. I remember. You use to kick it with my cousin Billy. Y’all was hella tight back in the day. Matter fact, I was with Billy when I saw you last.”

I took a closer look at him and smiled. “Monty! Man, was-sup? I didn’t know you played ball.”

“I mostly rode the bench. Too many superstars for me to play, but they wasn’t tough enough to face you.” He pointed across the room to one of the Little League pictures. “Remember that? They couldn’t even touch you way back when.”

The picture in question happened to be my favorite, one I kept on a wall at home. In it I’m in the front row of a winning team, game ball at my feet, my two best friends—Jonathan Ford and Billy Crane—on either side. The photo captured a peace that no longer existed among the three of us. The years managed to drive a wedge through our friendship, a gulf further widened by women, an unhealthy rivalry between Billy and Jonathan, and the complexities of time and age. For a couple of years, though, the lines of our friendship were simple and clear. Me, the natural mediator smiling easily in the center, four inches shorter but the definitive link between them both.

Monty gave me another pound and a wider smile, then
looked me up and down, noting my Negro League baseball jersey, vintage original from my grandfather’s closet.

My stomach clenched for what was to come.

“You still play?” he asked.

“Naw. I was at Cal for a minute but that didn’t work out.” I didn’t want to discuss my injury or the player who relegated me to relief pitcher.

“You know why, don’t you?” Cutty intervened to fill in the gaps. “Cal recruited an Asian cat from southern California with an arm that’s something else.”

The man turned back to me for details but Oliver chose that moment to announce the Daily Double. I was grateful. It was more than just the Asian recruit that kept me from the UC Berkeley team. It was also a rebellious arm, playing fast and loose with tuition money, and a penchant for quitting that I have yet to shake. My athletic scholarship was revoked after I hurt my arm and dropped below the required twelve units—a weak excuse to former fans and a weaker excuse to myself.

“Hey there, Maceo. You think we gonna have us a Bay Bridge Classic?” The Bay Bridge Classic was what the locals had taken to calling the possible 1989 World Series matchup between the Oakland A’s and the San Francisco Giants. The competition between the two cities was legendary, held up because the fairy-tale city across the bay viewed Oakland as a ring-wormy poor relation.

Oliver chimed in. “Not if they keep playing like they did today. Toronto beat the green and yellow off of ’em. Seven to three. That’s a damn shame.”

I pulled off my A’s cap and waved it in the air. “Just give ’em a minute. They’re going to the Series, ain’t no doubt about that.”

Oliver looked skeptical. “We’ll see.”

“Shoot, we thought you was gonna pitch your way right into the A’s camp,” Cutty said. “Vida Blue, Catfish Hunter, Maceo Redfield. Got kinda nice ring to it.”

“Don’t forget Rollie Fingers.” A graying old man walked in the door and entered the conversation like he’d been there from the beginning.

Cutty waved to him. “Them boys had some names, didn’t they?”

The old man sat down. “Oakland was the place back then, I’ll tell you that. The A’s going back to back to back, ’72, ’73, and ’74, while the Raiders ran roughshod over everybody.”

To many Oaktown residents the Raiders’ departure had marshaled in a decade of decline that refused to let up, but diehard fans kept the faith that one day the silver and black would find their way home and restore the city to its former glory. Even Cutty kept the candle burning with a black poster that shouted Al Davis’s famous words of inspiration in flaking silver letters: JUST WIN, BABY!

When the Raiders abandoned ship in 1982, it was like taking a big careless bite from an already rotting apple: a stingy gesture, and a precursor to the upcoming havoc of the Reagan eighties, crack, and the continued decline of inner cities. As factories closed, jobs went south, and blue-collar slid quickly into no-collar, Al Davis showed his ass in Technicolor by mooning a city that was devoutly faithful to the silver-and-black pirate logo. Oakland residents responded in kind to Davis’s disrespect. Seemingly overnight, bold billboards and bumper stickers populated the Bay with a simple, heartfelt message:
THANKS, AL DAVIS. YOU SON OF A BITCH
!

I loved it; it gave me my first real taste of pride in the outlaw style of my hometown.

“Boy, the Raiders had some rednecks, didn’t they?” the old man continued, with undisguised pride in his voice. “Tough
white boys, just kickin’ ass everywhere.” He shook his head. “They don’t make ’em like that no more.”

“Right, right. You got a point, Lester.” Cutty smiled. “You still write Davis them hate letters?”

Lester grinned. “Aw, naw, the FBI told me to cut that shit out.” I had to belly-laugh and so did half the shop. Cutty laughed the hardest until he remembered the remains of my bloodied carcass.

“Any chance me and your granddaddy gonna see you out on the field before we die?” he asked.

“Shee-it,” Oliver interjected. “Dave Stewart ain’t giving up his spot for nobody, Black, White, or Puerto Rican. Hear what I’m saying?”

“That’s true. Then there’s always the added expense of the platform cleats they have to order for Maceo.” The laughter wasn’t as hearty the third time around, simply because it was time for fresh meat.