The special dust that Raymond Donahue, the sorriest drug dealer in West Oakland, had added to that Champion Joint Smoke was very poorly manufactured fentanyl, the so-called King of All Opiates. The drug, fifty times more powerful than 100 percent pure heroin, may have been king on the streets, but in the cheap and deadly way it had been produced, distributed, and smoked, it was the Killer of Champions.
When the chemical in smoke form had seeped into Champ’s lungs and entered his blood system, he’d immediately convulsed and vomited, the puke mixing with his saliva, gushing quickly in reverse down his esophagus, and flooding into his lungs. Champ had begun choking to death instantly. His heart, already vulnerable from years on the street and hundreds of bad choices, couldn’t handle the potency. He had suffered a mammoth spasm, then crashed. No time for reflection, no time for regret.
“What the—” Maurice whispered, stunned.
“Holy shit,” Lawrence said, barely audible.
Their fallen street bud’s body lay on the ground, a few feet away. Maurice and Lawrence slowly got down from their concrete seats, faces masked in dumbfounded, dazed expressions — equal parts weed, booze, and shock. Maurice slowly reached out a toe in a dirty shoe and pushed it into Champ’s shoulder. Nothing.
“Shit, he’s dead, Lawrence.”
“Holy shit,” Lawrence repeated.
Maurice reached to pick up his backpack without taking his eyes off the body. He threw the pack over his pork butt — sized shoulder. “I’m blowing Dodge before the cops come,” he said. But massive Maurice hesitated, slowly and carefully bending down and pulling off Champ’s dirty knit hat and then his do-rag. “I’m taking this,” Maurice said, either to Lawrence or to no one. And he rambled off, keeping close to the concrete wall, quickly swallowed up by the dark tangle of overgrown bushes and thick weeds. In a moment, he was gone.
Lawrence stood completely still. Without turning his head, his eyes followed his friend, quickly losing sight of him. Lawrence dropped his gaze to the lifeless body on the dirty cold ground; he realized he had but one choice to make.
He squatted down beside Champ and touched the dead kid’s left hand, which still clutched that business card. Lawrence pulled it from Champ’s fingers, straightened up, and tucked it in his jacket pocket, all in one motion. With a last furtive glance in the direction Maurice had gone, Lawrence turned and loped off the opposite way, into the darkness, into the cold Oaktown night.
Cabbie
by Judy Juanita
Eastmont
March 21, 2009
The last day in the life of Lovelle Mixon turned out to be a big holiday in Oakland — the Day of Reparations. Too bad no one knew. Everyone could have prepared, the way they do for Columbus Day or Halloween. Macy’s could have sent circulars with 50 percent off. Even the coolie-hatted immigrants recognize holidays as an inappropriate time to dredge for bottles in the recycle bins. Too much clamor for the homeowners in the hills (not so deferential to us in the flatlands). Weekdays they make noise, Sundays they let people sleep. Mystically, they know which holidays to trample on. I call it the commotion-sensibility quotient. For instance, Thanksgiving — they know everyone’s too tooted up to be bothered by container-hustlers.
Some newspaper called Mixon a cowboy, but he wasn’t. Drug cowboys run weed from Arizona and New Mexico up through California. Lovelle Mixon was a gun runner. Dope dealer is an occupation. Gun runner is a different occupation, but he didn’t make it as a dope dealer. He went to UC, the University of Crime, and found there were openings at several levels. Lovelle came out of jail with the ability to make new connections. They told him, Why you wasting time dealing weed and coke instead of products that move faster and are more profitable? Like guns, illegal weapons, flesh. The new criminal doesn’t have to deal dope. And he’s not going to get into gambling, fraud, or cybertheft because he’s not trained for it.
I intend to put Lovelle Mixon in my book, the before-and-after-I-started-cabbing book. Of course, it doesn’t exist outside of the parameters of my thick skull, packed with these streets. But what a spot it holds there.
New Year’s Eve, 2008
My baby brother Terence was broadsided by a hit-and-run as he rounded 66th Avenue and Foothill. Crazy fool didn’t even stop, just clipped his Toyota and kept going. Terence’s son, my nephew, barely two, was sitting in the backseat, strapped in his car seat. Terence said, “I wouldn’t give a damn except that drunk motherfucker in his Humpty Dumpty — looking Benz coulda killed my kid.” When State Farm said they wouldn’t pay a dime unless he could identify the driver, Terence was so pissed he started a block-by-block search on his off days. Everyone else was carrying on over Oscar Grant getting shot by the BART cop on New Year’s Day, except Terence, who was fuming over his car.
It took a few weeks. Right after a Martin Luther King Day celebration, he spotted it on 74th Avenue. Terence said he sat there, angrier by the minute, waiting for the driver to come out. The car, a green Mercedes-Benz G55 AMG, was dented on the right passenger side. Some of the Toyota’s maroon paint was on the dent like blush on a woman’s cheek. Twenty minutes go by. Terence had to get to work at Kaiser. Nobody came out so he took down the license plate number. As he drove to the corner, he saw through the rearview a burly man come out, get in the car, and pull away. It was the hit-and-run driver. He wanted to confront him, but now he had the license number. He drove back and got the house number too. I know that house, a notorious drug den. I’ve picked up fares there. No bueno — bad actors in and out of that place. I told Terence, “Don’t give your info to the insurance people.”
But Terence is hardheaded. He yelled at me, “Man, I’m not paying for what some hopped-up junkie did to my car!”
“Listen, lil’ bro: you mad, you sad, you all that. But if the police or insurance give him your particulars, his crew will come by your house and do a drive-by. And they ain’t gon’ be mad or sad, just taking care of biz. No emotion. Just boom, boom, boom, blow you and whoever’s in your house away. Forget it. End of discussion.”
My bro stewed for two months, like a pressure cooker about to blow if the jiggle-top gets popped too soon. He was intent on driving back by that house on 74th Avenue, where he saw the Benz. The day he chose to go there was the Day of Reparations.
March 21, 2009
It was after three p.m. Terence goes to 74th Avenue and runs into a hundred cops, a crazy scene. He told me there was nothing he could do but stand outside his car and watch. I can’t believe he didn’t hear on the radio about Mixon and the first two cops he shot. But that’s Terence — he goes to work listening to jazz, mows his lawn listening to jazz, watches his kids play listening to jazz — he’s the most predictable guy in Oakland.
By the time Terence got there, the cops were frantic, all over MacArthur Boulevard. Terence said it looked like nobody was in charge. The cops started going house to house until they knew Mixon was at 2755 74th Avenue — right in the part of Oakland that is under relentless siege by the po-po. Then they zeroed in, like bees to the queen. That black boy was queen for a day. Otherwise known as a clusterfuck. Terence said it was almost like a party and the people in the streets behind the barricades were talking shit, taking bets on when the po-po would go in like stormtroopers. There’s no such thing as a standoff in Oakland. We don’t have that kind of patience on either side. Either the po-po are gonna let it fly, or the target will. This ain’t a TV show like Law & Order — this is town biz. Terence said the cops were angry, confused, and frustrated, running back and forth. But the street was not even nervous, not hot or bothered.