Chapter 4
"You're late! I told you the meeting was set for five-thirty," railed Jackson, shooting his sometimes lover a baleful look as he sank into a tattered overstuffed chair with marijuana holes burned in the threadbare arms.
"What are you bitching about?" charged Una angrily, tearing at the tiny pearl buttons of her blouse as she stomped through the littered living room of Jackson's Berkeley hovel and collapsed wearily down on an Indian bedspread covered mattress matted with dog hair. "You don't have to get up for work every morning at eight o'clock and have some impotent old bastard stare at your ass all day!" She kicked off her platform shoes and yanked the lace-trimmed blouse down over her satiny arms and her full, milky bosom. Breasts bouncing like water filled balloons, she jumped up from the mattress, unhooked her skirt at the waistband and stepped out of it, her lush body deliciously naked except for a pair of bikini panties that clung to the crevice of her ass as she stormed toward the bedroom.
Jackson didn't bother to look up. He sat slumped in the chair, beer can in one hand while the other black paw pushed back into place the multi-colored crocheted hat that lopped over his black forest of kinky pubic-like hair that sprung from his head.
When she returned, the attractive blonde research assistant wore a pair of faded out men's overalls rolled up to her slim mid-calves, her half-dollar sized nipples peeking out from the sides of the bib, one size too small for modesty. With a tired sigh she collapsed back down on the mattress and rubbed her aching feet, her nipples winking out at the black leader like the eyes of a prostitute hanging on a lamp post.
"When is this scene gonna come together so I can quit working for that dumb bastard?" she snapped. "For three years I've been digging through his lectures, his letters and anything I can get my hands on, and I can't find anything to prove he's working with the CIA to keep South Africa under white rule.
But no . . . " she gestured disgustedly, throwing up her hands. "You guys just fart around all day and get loaded and talk. TALK! You never do anything meaningful." Her dark moonish eyes fell on an ashtray brimming with matches and marijuana butts.
"Farting around? Who's farting around?" bellowed Jackson, sitting up straight in his chair, his panther-like body ready to spring, his long black fingers digging into the chair arm. Muttering to himself, he jumped up and began rummaging through a suitcase he'd pulled out from under the sagging sofa while the blonde stared at him in expectation. From this angle, she could see one side of his thin, chiseled face-the side with the faint scar running along its proud African cheekbone. Una's breath quickened as she examined the South African Liberation Movement leader's ruthless expression, for that scar-which he told he'd acquired in a knife fight during a Black versus Chicano uprising in San Quentin prison-always triggered a tremor of sexual arousal in her.
Truth be known, the radical leader had sported that scar since the age of twelve when he'd got into a knife fight with a white boy standing in a school lunch line in East Oakland. But Jackson had always wanted to be somebody important, somebody brave, and he brandished that scar like a purple heart.
"Hey!" Jackson yelled at the two brothers out in the kitchen satisfying their marijuana munchies with a peanut butter sandwich. They stumbled through the door, their glassy eyes suddenly alert at the sight of the shining weapons. Until now, they'd not taken Jackson seriously about wanting to start a movement to free black South Africa from white rule and apartheid-a imagine name some politician had made up for separateness. But being college drop outs this was better than working and more exciting than competing to stay in school.
Both James and Carl were white, and sometimes they felt they were fighting on the wrong side of the fence, but what the hell? The Black Panthers had turned into a bunch of pussy cats, Huey made a fortune off his ghetto rap, and the 1960's white radicals had all copped out to religion and straight politics. Now the brothers were excited at the sight of those guns-the first real weapons the SALM had acquired.
"We gotta make a move to get ourselves recognized, man, and that's what these are for!" Jackson enthused, stroking the pistol barrels reverently. His black beady eyes shot sparks of triumphant anticipation. "We're gonna let people know who we are. Down with repression and up with arms embargos!" He brandished a pistol above his head and struck a pose that brought a disgusted snicker from Una who thought it corny, reminiscent of radical posters she'd seen in Berkeley bookstores.
They were all squatting down on the floor pawing over the weapons when there sounded a loud knock on the door. Jackson's lean black body stiffened and he hastily snapped the suitcase shut and shoved it back under the cat-scratched sofa.
"Who the hell's that? We're all here."
Una's blank face stared back at him, and then James shook his blonde hair from his eyes. "Must be that dude we met over at the Mediterranean Cafe today, huh, Carl?"
"Oh, yeah," agreed Carl, talking with his mouth full. "That guy."
"What guy? Who the hell you idiots been talking to?" Jackson's voice was cold with fury and the biceps under his red fish net T-shirt bulged with anger. "How you think we're gonna do in the professor if you two guys are too stupid to keep your mouths shut!"
James looked abashed and stared down at the floor in silence. From the sheepish expression in his marijuana clouded eyes, the leader correctly deduced that the two younger men had been jactating about their political affiliations.
"Who the hell is he?" he demanded, working his square jaw in anger, and the knocking once again rattled the front door.
"Far out dude, Jackson." James sounded defensive. "Give us a little credit, huh? He's from Harvard. . . been in Columbia in the middle '60s.. . from there he went to Ann Arbor and got some shit together there.. . Madison, Wisconsin . . . he's been all over man. I tell you he knows the action."
"You're so goddamned dumb!" burst Jackson, but his expression softened. His ghetto education and prison sentence had taught him how to use knives and guns, but when it came to the fine points of strategy and communiques and anything that demanded education, he couldn't fight his way out of a paper bag.
"Okay, let the guy in . . . but no blabbing until I give the signal and offer him a beer."
The front door rocked on its hinges, and James rose from the floor, his lanky figure unfolding. The other three sat in hushed silence as the youth padded down the hall to admit the stranger, their ears cocked attentively, their guns hidden from sight. Only when the tall, bushy haired, well-muscled man strode into the room with a grin on his intent looking face did they relax somewhat.
"Hi! Tried to make it on time, but I got kinda hung-up," the newcomer exclaimed in his Eastern accent. "How you guys been?" He nodded to James and Carl as if they were blood brothers. Then, turning toward Una and Jackson, he announced, "I'm Peter . . . Peter Goldberg."
Jackson sat sipping his beer, his dark brooding eyes appraising every muscle, every inflection in the newcomer's voice. From his street education, he could tell this man could handle himself physically and he seemed very intelligent and sprinkled his conversation with enough names and places to convince the leader that here was a man who knew the circuit. His dress was right, too: faded work shirt, dirty levis, scuffed addidas and a hand-crafted belt. Confidence and personality exuded from his being, as did quotes from Marx, Mao, and Castro.
Una, sitting in a half-lotus position on the dirty mattress, was equally taken by the stranger. This guy's got to be dynamite in bed. Squirming against the mattress as her ever-eager vagina began to swell and throb, she thought And I'm gonna find out!
"Hey, man . . . you like a beer?" Jackson asked in an aggressive tone.
The five of them bantered ideas back and forth about the South African history professor suspected of linking arms with the CIA to keep dark, black Africa repressed. The room sparked with excitement and a new enthusiasm spirited them; James even sketched a black flag with a profoundly meaningless circle in the middle to use as the SALM's logo. Somebody got out a pencil and scratched down ideas for a communique to be sent to a local radio station.
Only Una remained unconvinced that kidnapping and/or killing Dr. Tarrington was the most efficient means of exposing suspected CIA affiliates on campus. "If we outright kill him it's going to turn people off . . . but if we open up to the media the issue of suspected CIA involvement, we'll get more favorable attention and support. Remember, we're not a bunch of murderers . . . we're here to change things for the better."
Jackson struggled to comprehend, scratching his head beneath his lopsided hat. Just when they'd worked out a feasible sequence of events, Una had to get intellectual.
"So.. . we take his wife hostage!" Una continued, her eyes sparkling with the idea of committing such an audacious crime. "We can ransom her off and use the money in case we have to go underground . . . we'll need guns and cars and money to stay in motels and to rent apartments every few weeks and all that shit. Tarrington's loaded, and his wife is a senator's daughter so she's got bread and clout.. . "
Jackson bristled with attention. Go underground, staying in motels, buying cars.. . f He'd never considered that angle of radicalism before, but it sounded more enticing than hanging around Berkeley and Oakland forever.
Peter took a thoughtful sip of his beer, feeling a traitorous ripple of guilt squirm in his belly. Three years ago he'd have committed suicide in the library mall on campus rather than become a turncoat and work for the FBI. Damn, it was either this or rotting in jail after his bust on conspiracy charges to blow up Harvard's administration building. At least he was still working with like-minded people and he could talk about Marxism, the Venceremos League and wear levis and work shirts. It's just a job. . .
"I see . . . give the bastard time to squirm his dirty hand into his bank account and pay for his sins against the people! What a brilliant coup!"
Una's buttocks squirmed into the mattress and she wiggled excitedly, making her naked breasts bounce with anarchistic joy. Here was a man with brains and a cock to match-both big!
Glowering malevolently, Jackson didn't quite understand all the words and ideas floating around, but he did understand Una's interest in the handsome East Coast radical. Instead of admitting to his feelings of jealousy, he became suspicious of the black haired radical.
From that moment on, Una had become uncomfortably aware that the black leader wanted her to linger behind the others and stay overnight, ruining her chances for a private tete a tete with the Jewish college boy. Much to her relief, Jackson cornered her on a trip back from the bathroom and told her he wanted a little checking up done on the newcomer to make sure he wasn't connected with the FBI. The voluptuous blonde research assistant agreed instantly, trying to hide her glee at having Peter Goldberg to herself.
"I think he's legit," said Una confidently in a throaty whisper. "He seems to know what he's talking about . . . how to handle sabotage and communiques and all that shit."
"Maybe so," agreed Jackson. "But you know that Berkeley's got more agents and spies than dog shit. Who the hell knows what kinda guy would walk up to Carl and James and say he wants to get into heavy politics."
Una's blonde curls swept over her shoulder as she nodded her head. "You let me take care of it. . . "