Meat Eaters (eBook)

Jack Eitelgeorge (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2022 | 1. Auflage
126 Seiten
Bookbaby (Verlag)
978-1-6678-3993-6 (ISBN)

Infos

A story of action and romance in the chaotic years of civil unrest during the late 1960s in the San Francisco Bay Area.

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A novella about a couple who meet in Oakland, California during a period of civil unrest in the late 1960s. Their mixed-race relationshop must deal with the obstacles to their love and friendship.

Textauszug

CHAPTER 1

Jeff Wiler eased his brand new 1968 lunar-blue Pontiac LeMans onto the Bayshore Freeway, headed north to his apartment in El Sobrante. According to his Timex it was five-thirty Thursday night, one day before the three-day Veteran’s Day weekend. The evening commute from Oakland through Berkeley promised to be a slow one. He turned on his radio and heard the end of a news broadcast with Black Panther Stokely Carmichael shouting, “Black is Beautiful!”

“No shit,” Jeff said aloud. “That’s only the four-hundredth time I’ve heard you say that, Stokely old boy. I think it’s time the Panthers found a new spokesman.”

He searched the FM stations and settled on one playing a tender Supremes’ number. He loosened his maroon Wembley knit tie, unbuttoned his shirt, and welcomed the slow traffic as a chance to unwind.

A horn blared next to him. He looked over and saw an angry young woman with four children in a station wagon. Her frame strained against a steering wheel that nearly blocked her view. She ranted at the elderly driver ahead. Then she turned her wrath upon a crying child in the back seat.

Jeff shook his head sympathetically. “Baby love, my baby love,” Diana Ross sang.

The scolding woman gestured wildly. Like Rita, he thought. He opened a pack of Juicy Fruit and put a stick into his mouth. Rita. What had gone wrong? He remembered how deeply in love they had been in those early years. They met at a fraternity function at UC during his freshman year. She was a feisty Mexican-American girl, a senior at San Leandro High School. She lavished her attention on him and he welcomed her favors. Once married, she became more possessive of him, a trait he grew to resent. When she became pregnant with Suzy, Jeff started working part-time as a legal intern in Berkeley while he attended law school. Laurie was born the year following his graduation. Rita never returned to work since she felt it was best for the girls to have their mother at home. Their relationship grew progressively worse. But that was all history now.

Several romantic ballads successively drifted into Jeff’s ears and he attempted to escape into their lyrics. He drove past a young, black motorist in a trench coat, struggling to replace a flat tire. Poor bastard, he thought. Nobody will stop to help him. He thought about stopping, but indecision solved his dilemma, as he soon had traveled too far to return.

“Would you have stopped if the man was white?” he could hear a make-believe do-gooder asking him. That night Jeff wouldn’t have stopped for anyone. He had tired of trying to please others. He resented the “Mr. Solid Citizen” role—one he saw as a bit part in the suffocating rat race that ended for some men with a heart attack at age 56.

The strains of “Born Free” came over the radio, breaking his thoughts. He chuckled at the irony.

“Maybe not born free,” he said, “but, goddamit, I sure as hell am going to die free.”

Darkness had fallen by the time he pulled off the freeway in El Sobrante. The station wagon with the frustrated woman passed on. Jeff felt disturbed that he wasted time fretting about his confused outlook on life. Then he recalled that only one more work day remained before he would be seeing his daughters again. Pleased, he set his mind on getting through Friday.

“Did you hear about the cop over in Richmond, blowing that guy’s brains out, last night?”

Weldon Duffy’s shocking question greeted Jeff at nine o’clock on Friday morning in the cafeteria at the county courthouse. Duffy held the office of Alameda County District Attorney. Jeff worked for him as Deputy District Attorney.

“Last night?” Jeff responded. “Jesus, that’s terrible.” He had not read the morning newspaper nor heard a news broadcast. His steely-blue eyes looked inquisitively at the DA. He sat down slowly, lifting his slacks above each knee with his thumb and fingers to preserve the creases. He briefly scanned the table to avoid placing his navy blue coat sleeve on a greasy food remnant.

“Yeah, this black guy with an automatic pistol jumped a motorcycle patrolman. The cop was responding to a call in the Iron Triangle District to check out a citizen’s report of someone threatening passing motorists. He’d just gotten off his bike when he was attacked by this big guy with the gun. Apparently he didn’t have time to draw his own weapon. They wrestled around on the ground for a couple minutes, and the pistol went off. For a few seconds the cop didn’t know if he’d been shot or not. Then the black sucker just went limp, half his head had been blown away!”

“Christ, how’s the officer?”

“He’s okay. He’s at a Board of Inquiry this morning. I got a quick briefing from the City legal counsel about an hour ago. No one’s sure who actually pulled the trigger.”

Jeff looked over at the table next to them and saw that the woman sitting there, a secretary, had overheard the blunt description. She had covered her mouth with her hand. A strand of her blond, beehive hairdo fell across her eyes. She brushed it back but it fell once more. Uncomfortable with Jeff’s sympathetic expression, she rose and left the room. Duffy should be more discreet, Jeff thought.

“Can you imagine,” Duffy said, “having a guy’s brains blown out while you’re holding him?” He squinted slightly, awaiting a response.

Jeff said nothing, and shook his head.

“Probably one of those friggin Black Panthers,” Duffy continued. “Those mothers are lunatics. They want to kill every cop in the country.”

Duffy took a large bite of a pastry, and chewed slowly, relishing the act, his eyes glued upon the next chosen morsel. He continued speaking, matter-of-factly.

“You know, sometimes I can’t believe the developments in this country. Look at the past eight years. The civil rights movement, Kennedy’s assassination in 1963—supposedly by that Oswald guy, the anti-war demonstrations, the black power movement, and then, this year, the assassination of both King and Bobby Kennedy. Jesus, when’s it all going to end?”

He blew to cool his coffee.

“At least we got rid of that asshole Texan in the White House. Nixon’ll bring it all back together. You know, he really should’ve won in ‘60 against JFK. And he would have, too, if our electoral system wasn’t so screwed up.”

Jeff leaned back in his chair, picked up his cup of coffee in both hands and brought it close to his chin, with his elbows on the table. A strikingly handsome man of thirty-five, he had dark, razor-cut, short hair that showed hints of gray at the temples.

His prominent chin pressed against the thumbs holding the cup of coffee. With his strong, striking profile he had been described by some as a young George Raft. He said this was silly, yet he had managed to see all of Raft’s movies and had studied his face closely.

Duffy went on. “The thing that disturbs me the most is this black power shit. I’ve handled a lot of cases involving blacks in the last few years, and I don’t see it getting any better. Each case gets more violent. I never thought when I first entered law practice that the work would become so damn dangerous.” He slid back his chair. “Well, I better have another maple bar.” He brushed crumbs from his lap as he got up and walked to a glass counter covered with assorted sugar-glazed pastries that were melting together.

Jeff remained at his seat. He turned his attention to a figure that entered the cafeteria, one he first only noticed in the corner of his eye. Turning his head he saw a slender, shapely black woman, dressed in a clinging, fawn-colored dress, with a hem about four inches above her knees. She wore a silky black blouse with gold seashells fanned in a semi-circle. She appeared to be five foot nine or ten. Her exceedingly long legs and snakeskin high heels accentuated her height. She had high, polished cheek bones under black oval eyes.

Jeff rated her as a knockout and couldn’t help but stare. He glanced around to see if anyone noticed his gawking. A few other men were looking intently. One nudged another and nodded toward the woman to alert his co-worker. Their appraising looks were ones of approval.

Jeff felt guilty for looking at a black woman, in view of Duffy’s comments on violence and outspoken prejudices against blacks. Unconsciously, he ran his palm across the right side of his head to smooth down his hair.

“Wiler, you seem to be troubled. How’s the divorce going?”

Duffy’s return to the table broke the trance.

“Life’s a bitch,” Jeff said, as he watched the black woman walk out of the cafeteria, carrying a cup of steaming coffee.

“Rita’s making things pretty tough, huh?”

“Yeah, you’d think that as long as the decision has been made, she’d try to make the most of it in the interest of the kids. But, hell no, all she wants is my ass up on a flagpole.”

“Well, I’ve gotta say, I never thought you’d have the guts to stand up to her. You surprised everyone. Do you think...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 11.4.2022
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Romane / Erzählungen
• ISBN-10: 1-6678-3993-4 / 1667839934
• ISBN-13: 978-1-6678-3993-6 / 9781667839936