8/31/2018 0 Comments The Decision“I can’t work with you anymore.”
“What?” I asked in amazed wonder “I thought everything was going great.” “I love working with you. I just don’t want to be shot.” “What!?! What are you talking about? Who wants to shoot you?” I exclaimed. “I don’t want to talk about it.” Pulling into the parking space in front of his apartment, I grabbed his camera and strode to the front door determined to talk about this sudden change of events. When knocking on the door yielded no results, I left the camera on the side porch with a bag of jelly beans I had bought for his family. In that lonely moment, I accepted that he was serious. Something was very wrong. Amazed when he answered the phone a few minutes later, I turned to him for guidance. He had been my mentor for ten months. We almost always talked through my decisions. I had grown to trust him. “What am I going to do? Where am I going to go?” I queried, in shocked disbelief. “I don’t know.” he said. “I see the exit for Travis AFB. That’s a good place. I can go there and catch my breath... figure out what to do next,” I shared with some relief. “Travis is closed,” he shared. “What? When did that happen?” I countered, starting to feel overwhelmed by bad luck. “I don’t know. I don’t remember. I just know it is,” he insisted. “Now, what I am going to do?” I whispered. “I don’t know,” he said, “I’ve got to go.” Overwhelmed, I pulled off of the freeway using the Travis exit and found my way into a mall parking lot. The car was facing the setting sun five blocks from the base gates when I began thinking about where I would spend the night. Caswell Memorial State Park was vacant at 9:00 PM on that week night in mid-November; not a person in sight. I chose a spot where the headlights of a vehicle driving through the front gates would shine into my driver’s window, waking me with enough time to start the car and drive out of the park. Four hours later, I woke with a sudden start and sat bolt upright in sheer terror, realizing there is as much vulnerability as security when completely isolated in the wilderness. It was noon when I pulled into the Barstow Motel 6. Feeling exhausted but secure in the familiar setting, I was only slightly disappointed when the key did not work in the door. Even the black man standing on the second-floor balcony watching me drive back to the office did not raise more than mild curiosity. The young black man running across the parking lot to the street did make me turn my head and pay attention; he had, after all, come from the same side of the building as the first man. When he turned his head to look at me for the third time with a phone to his ear, I told the receptionist I changed my mind; I would not be staying there. My mind went back to the conversations about how I had crossed into gang territory by promoting music. It would be two years before an Oakland minister would tell me how I had probably been marketed to the west coast gangs with the video made of me on stage during The Pack’s hip-hop show two weeks earlier. At the time, I had to accept that Southern California was still very much west coast gang territory, and my first priority was finding a place away from the west coast gangs and their affiliates. Africa looked good. At that point, it just became a matter of figuring out the safest place to stay until I could board the next flight. In 1990, the Albuquerque Gang Task Force had taught me about how the Hispanic gangs had left Southern California, leaving the black gangs behind in what was understood to be a division of territory. With the adrenaline of a pursued animal, I took a deep breath, set the cruise control, turned up the music, and prepared to cross two state lines. At the moment, I chose to believe that the Hispanic gangs would not bother with me. Seeing the snow provided additional reassurance as people tend to hibernate during wild winter moments in the high desert. I did not tell anyone my plans. If I had thought about it, I would have changed my phone number before leaving California in order to prevent tracking, but I was a neophyte with the new technology and did not know about tracking at the time. I turned on the computer just long enough to verify that I did not have enough money to travel to Ghana. My only affordable option was a flight to Senegal in three days. I wrote the name and address of my host on a piece of paper so that I would have enough information to obtain a visitor visa, and, reassuring him that I would call before my flight, shut off all technology. I also scribbled his phone number on the bathroom mirror as a continuation of the “bread crumbs” I had been leaving on Facebook while homeless. If my head had been clear, I would have remembered that the entire reggae industry would know my plans within 72 hours. Things work this way because the industry is so small and originates in a primarily oral culture. People talk. My 4:00 AM flight was delayed by four hours, so I returned to the motel room for more rest. The man was obviously drunk as he pounded on my door, shouting a woman’s name, insisting I let him into the room. I slid further away from the door on the bed, pulled the covers over my head, held my breath, and prayed the locks would hold. After I told the front desk clerk, he shared his surprise and told me that, at about the same time, somebody had called, insisting he provide personal information about the people staying at the motel. Apparently, this is extremely unusual. He, of course, said nothing. This sequence of events made me again consider the possibility I was being pursued, and people were trying to confirm my location. Seeing the big black sedan with darkened windows parked just outside of the motel lot did nothing to calm my nerves. One last look at the contents of my luggage before leaving the extended parking lot revealed my favorite book: a well-worn, heavily notated bible. Doing a double-take, I decided to remove it from the suitcase. My thoughts while placing it in the back of the car? It’s okay to leave it here. I will find another one in Senegal. Doesn’t every hotel have a bible in each room? I would soon learn that safety can be as much a state of mind as a physical location.
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