Sunday, Shooting Across The Bay
Sunday summer evening, 1964 George and Dave and I sat in that order from the drivers seat in Georges 52 dark blue Plymouth at a toll booth on the Bay Bridge headed back to San Francisco from a weekend in Rodeo. One booth over was a white car full of black people yelling at us, pointing at our car (did we have a flat? was a wheel coming off?) I opened my window and heard only cacaphony, and the sentence fragment beat your white hair straight well, the meaning was clear: lets get Out Of Here. We had six lanes pointing toward the sunset and the City. They raced along beside us then pulled around in front. Next a green car, also jammed with blacks, came along our right side, boxing us against the far left edge. They began to slow us down, to bring us to a stop. George braked, backing quickly from the forming box. He swerved right (traffic was very light) and our two pursuers adjusted closing us in again against the right side of the bridge. Where are cops when you need them? Next they started throwing things chunks of metal (I dont know what) empty liquor bottles and on the back shelf of the white car George saw some shiny metal which he said looked like a gun and the next minute they were shooting at us. Organisms usually fear death but machines dont. and at this point I felt already dead, resigned. I asked George to read me their license plates which I mechanically put on paper on the dash so the police could do something when we were found. Miles went by as George maneuvered back and forth and we began to realize that sooner or later (assuming we could keep this up) wed run out of bridge: if we didnt do Something? Soon! These nuts would have us in the loneliness of Daly City. The certainty of death left us somewhat; now that we had a puzzle to solve we became more animated. We discussed options as if we were choosing clothes: Dont try the Hall of Justice; its locked up Sunday night. The VanNess Avenue off-rampthats our best chance. The ramp was on the right side, and George surprised me by driving toward the left ignoring my complaint. We were boxed in again with VanNess coming up fast. At the last moment George slammed his brakes and raced across six lanes of red tail lightsVanNess! We raced to the Jack Tarr Hotel (drive-in lobby), jumped from the car (with bullet-holed windows) and telephoned the licenses to SFPD. They got there twenty minutes later saying niggers were shit (they never took the numbers). Afterschock 1: next Tuesday, nine in the morning still hung over I answered the doorbell Whos there? I opened the chained door as two black hands shoved police IDs through reporting they found nothing. Thanks for nothing. Aftershock 2: one week later I saw six other blacks high, or drunk as skunks. get in a blue Buick parked near USF. They smashed cars in front of and behind theirs, laughing then flying off down Fulton Street. At home I phoned Park Station We just got em at Fulton and Stanyon. Thanks.
Stephan Poems