BLOOD ON THE MOON

17

to divert through our presence the looting and other criminal activity taking place. This is the sole regular infantry company in an otherwise armored division. You men, I’m sure, will be the spearhead of this peace-keeping force of civilian soldiers. You will be briefed further when we reach our objective. Good day, and God be with you!”

Nobody mentioned God as the convoy of armored half-tracks and personnel carriers rolled out of Glendale toward the Golden State Freeway southbound. The main topics of conversation were guns, sex, and Negroes, until P.F.C. Lloyd Hopkins, sweltering in the canvas covered half-track, took off his fatigue jacket and introduced fear and immortality:

“First of all, you have to say it to yourselves, get it out in the air, say it—

‘I’m afraid. I don’t wanna die!’ You got that? No, don’t say it out loud, that takes the power out of it. Say it to yourselves. There. Two, say this, too—

I’m a nice white boy going to college who joined the fucking National Guard to get out of two years’ active duty, right?”

The civilian soldiers, whose average age was twenty, started to drift in to Lloyd’s drift, and a few of them muttered, “Right.”

“I can’t hear you!” Lloyd bellowed, imitating Sergeant Beller.

“Right!” the guardsmen yelled in unison.

Lloyd laughed, and the others, relieved at the break in the tension, followed suit. Lloyd breathed out, letting his big frame go slack in an imitation of a Negro’s shuffle. “And you all be afraid of de colored man?” he said in broad dialect.

Silence greeted the question, followed by a general breakout of hushed conversations. This angered Lloyd; he felt his momentum was drifting away, destroying this transcendent moment of his life.

He banged the butt end of his M-14 into the metal floorboard of the halftrack. “Right!” he screamed. “Right, you dumb-fuck, pussy-whipped, niggerscared, chicken-shit motherfuckers! Right?” He banged his rifle again.

“Right? Right? Right? Right?”

“Right!!!” The half-track exploded with the word, the feeling, the new pride in candor, and the laughter that followed grew deafening in its freedom and bravado. Lloyd slammed his rifle butt one last time, to call the group to order.

“Then they can’t hurt us. Do you know that?” He waited until he was rewarded by a nod of the head from every man present, then pulled his bayonet from its scabbard and cut a large hole in the canvas top of the half-track. Being tall, he was able to peer out the top with ease. In the dis-18

L.A. NOIR

tance he could see the flatlands of his beloved L.A. Basin awash in smog. Spirals of flame and smoke covered its southern perimeter. Lloyd thought it was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.

*

*

*

The division bivouacked at McCallum Park on Florence and 90th Street, a mile from the heart of the firestorm. Trees were downed to provide space for the hundred-odd military vehicles that would cruise the streets of Watts that night, filled with men armed to the teeth, and C-rations were distributed from the back of a five ton truck while platoon leaders briefed their men on their assignments.

Rumors abounded, fed by a cadre of L.A.P.D. and Sheriff’s liaison officers: The Black Muslims were coming out in force, in whiteface, bent on hitting the profusion of discount appliance stores near Vermont and Slauson; scores of Negro youth gangs on pep pills were stealing cars and forming

“kamikaze” squads and heading for Beverly Hills and Bel-Air; Rob “Magawambi” Jones and his Afro-Americans for Goldwater had taken a distinct left turn and were demanding that Mayor Yorty grant them eight commercial blocks on Wilshire Boulevard as reparation for “L.A.P.D. Crimes Against Humanity.” If their terms were not met within twenty-four hours, those eight blocks would be incinerated by firebombs hidden deep within the bowels of the LaBrea Tar Pits.

Lloyd Hopkins didn’t believe a word of it. He understood the hyperbole of fear and understood further that his fellow civilian soldiers and cops were hyping themselves up to kill and that a lot of poor black bastards out to grab themselves a color TV and a case of booze were going to die. Lloyd gobbled his C-rations and listened to his platoon leader, Lt. Campion, the night manager of a Bob’s Big Boy restaurant, explain orders that had come down to him from several other higher echelon civilian soldiers:

“Being infantry, we will provide foot patrol, walking point for the armored guys—checking out doorways, alleys, letting our presence be known; bayonets fixed, combat stance, that kind of shit. Look tough. The armored platoon we trained with last summer at camp will be the platoon we hang with tonight. Questions? Everyone know who their squad leader is? Any new men with questions?”

Sergeant Beller, stretched out on the grass at the back of the platoon, raised his hand and said: “Loot, you know that the platoon is hanging in at four men over strength? Fifty-four men?”

Campion cleared his throat. “Yes . . . uh . . . yes, Sergeant, I do.”