Chapter One
ER
As I watched the doctors and nurses
work on this man I was taken back with all his scars and tattoos, and how young
he looked with his clothes off. He had a tan, well-muscled body and very little
hair, but the scars and the ink were really rather impressive. Around each
bulging bicep was barb wire; on his toned huge hairless chest was a black heart
with barb wire around that. Near his belly below his navel the word
“peckerwood” was ornately displayed only interrupted by a thick scar that
started at his left nipple and formed a crescent that ended right above his
enormous package. And even his large
penis had scars on it. There were round scars across his chest and written in
an arc over each one was a black crude prison tat. “100% white boy” one read,
and “Honkey” circled another quarter
sized healed hole. The blood was pouring out of this guy as fast as they could
pump it in. I counted seven new bloody holes in his chest, stomach and
shoulders. I watched as they frantically shaved his bloody head, I heard the
pretty nurse gasp as a large black swastika revealed itself under his thick
blonde hair. When they flipped him over
a huge crucifix stretched from shoulder to shoulder and right down to his
powerful rear end. Jesus Christ lay there
staring right at those hard working folks now covered in this man’s blood. Four
new bloody holes in his back, made eleven and some more jail house ink. His
wide and muscular back was covered in red goo. The young black doctor yelled
for more blood and more hands. I looked at the patience’s hands, they were
burnt: the flesh black and peeling, his enormous forearms had naked ladies on
them and the burns followed there shapely figures right up to the bullet holes
in his shoulders. The round face of a bulldog was on one bloody shoulder and
USMC was written on his other bowling ball size shoulder
Who is this fellow? I wondered; I
hope he makes it I sure would like to find out where he got all those bullet
holes and scars. I felt bad for this guy it sure looked like he had been
through the ringer. Nobody seemed to notice me though; I mean who ever notices
a 12 year old anyway.
San Francisco General Hospital
I left the trauma room number three and made
my way to the lobby of San Francisco General Hospital. I looked out the large
glass doors and noticed a group of people gathering outside; many of them held
candles, a lot were looking at their phones some had I pads, all watching,
crying, laughing and cheering. People were showing up in the car loads the city
buses were dropping people off. police
were coming now and the crowd was noisy. More people, more cops, yellow tape,
cops with bullhorns telling everyone to go home. More came, Chinese folks,
Mexican folks, black folks and gangsters: there was a small contingent of shady
looking young men in baggy clothes milling around the corners of the crowd, and
the cops were watching them real hard.
I walked over to a young couple
staring at a large TV screen in the lobby. The crowd grew inside; it seemed
like all the workers at the hospital were gathered around this huge flat
screen. The people in front were gesturing for the people to be quiet and
asking how to turn the TV up. I slid easily towards the front almost seemed
like I was walking through the people. When I landed a good viewing spot and
the crowd inside grew silent as an Asian news reporter began an incredible
story with something in Spanish and then something in Cantonese as far as I
could figure it was “The Big Cat or tiger or Lion and then Third Street”. The
people in the lobby grew silent as and the shoddy video began:
Two hooded masked men walked up to
the doors of a school or School district building the Sign in front read San
Francisco Unified school district. The men had gas cans in their hands and a
big chain. They sat the gas cans down and started to run the big chains around
the double doors. You could hear the gasps from the crowd inside the hospital
as the little hands reached for daylight from between the big doors. The hooded
men fastened a large paddle lock to the chain and spread the gas down the
wooden walls and across the wooden doors. In about 20 seconds the cans were
thrown in the garden area and a cigarette was tossed among them, with a loud
boom the men ran holding their pants up back to the cars. Many in the lobby
were crying loud now and holding each other as the old wood building went up in
flames.
Suddenly; the video shifted to the
play area. A stalky, what looked like a dark skinned blond man was running out
of the buildings’ side door with what looked like four kids draped around his
arms and neck and even one on his leg as he ran to the play structure, to what
looked like a giant concrete pipe. As he turned to run back into the burning
building the cries of the children could be heard in the background; this
brought more screaming and crying from the crowd in the lobby of SF General.
Before the blonde man could get back into the building the two hooded men ran
to block his way. Both men had guns out pointed at his head and face. The
blonde man neither slowed nor looked up and plowed through the gangsters like a
linebacker to the quarterback, the flash of a gunshot could be seen as he
barged by the masked men then what appeared to be an ear flew in the air. One
of the shooters was knocked to the ground but the other reeled and sent a hail
of gunfire into the smokey school as the burnt black blonde made his way to the
cries of the children. Finally a siren could be heard in the background, and
the masked men started backing away to their cars. Just then the man came out
again with what looked like five kids all about 4 or 5 years old crying and
hanging all over him he had three around his neck and one in each arm, in one
fluid motion he swung the kids off his arms and neck and deposited them safely
in the concrete pipe. As our hero turned to enter the inferno yet again a tall
skinny masked gunman let off a barrage of gunfire, it was hard to tell how many
hit the guy running in the building because he just slowed down a bit and
almost dropped to one knee. No sooner did he get in he was out again with two
more screaming kids one under each arm. He wheeled and tossed the two little
ones into the pipe and as he turned a Skinny tall hoodlum had a pistol to his
head. With all the sirens and crying and yelling you couldn’t make out what
they were saying but they were talking. The skinny thug had one hand on his
pants and one on his gun pressed firmly against the fore head, what was now a
nearly naked burnt black tattooed man with some of the few shreds of clothes he
had left, smoldering. The gunman kept motioning the blonde guy away from the
pipe tunnel and jamming his pistol in the blondes’ forehead. The muscular half naked man spit a black and
bloody blob right in the gangsters face, then braced for retaliation with both
hands across the front of the concrete safe place. The skinny gangster wheeled
and brought his piece hard across the naked man’s face almost knocking him
over. You could see the blood and teeth propel from the face of the children’s
protector. The tall burnt guy righted himself again and braced for a shot to
the head. The sirens grew louder and the skinny hit man looked to the street to
see his buddies pointing at the police and fire trucks roaring down the wide street.
This was just the break our big friend needed; as the tall gangster looked away
a tremendous blow was delivered to the kidneys of the cowardly would be child
killer. A blow so serious the gangster dropped his weapon and bent nearly in
half with pain. The burnt black white man scooped up the pistol, and with one
movement straightened up the gangster, spun him around and put one huge forearm
around his skinny neck and had the child killer facing his gang begging them
not to shoot him. The half-naked, bloody and burnt man walked slowly towards
the other hooded masked men. The other gang members quickly started their cars
and kept their big handguns out the windows and open doors. Shots rang out
again as the fleeing masked men fired from their moving cars, hitting their
partner several times. The big naked guy dropped his limp shield and fired
several times into the fleeing caravan of raised shinny sedans with oversized
tire rims. The gangster’s windows exploded as they sped in reverse right smack
into the fire truck rumbling around the corner. A huge explosion followed and
the crowd in the hospital lobby gasped in unison. The two gangster cars were
engulfed in flames and dazed fireman wandered around their wrecked engine
truck. The smoldering blond janitor dropped the pistol just as the boys in blue
approached him with guns drawn. Men and women from the neighborhood were
frantically bringing the crying children to the ambulance as the paramedics
motioned them to stop.
The whole two block area was pure
chaos now as the video panned around the scene: crying neighbors, cars on fire,
firemen and gangbangers lay on blankets stretched across the parking lot
nearby.
The San Francisco police had our
nearly nude hero on his knees and handcuffed for a few seconds before he fell
over in a pool of blood. The next few seconds of this flip video brought more
screaming and crying to the already distraught crowd. Some of The children from
the burning building wriggled free from their adults and made their way to our
fallen hero. As the paramedics scooped
the bloody and burnt janitor onto a gurney five or six children circled the
near dead man that carried them out of their smoldering school. They circled
him as the Fireman wheeled him to the ambulance, the little ones holding the
sides of the soiled gurney. One big black forearm rolled off the sheet and a 5
year old girl gently set the huge painted arm back on the red sheet that
covered the man that saved her. The video went blank and our local newsman came
on the screen.
Preacher man
I looked out the window in front of
San Francisco General Hospital; a black Towne car pulled up as the police moved
the crowd back. Out of the shiny Lincoln stepped an older black man with two
bodyguards and a well-dressed white women. I recognized this man from TV he was
some kind of preacher. I stood in front of the large automatic doors as the
sharp dressed brother walked up to the entrance of SF general hospital, a big
young fella quickly stepped in front of the old minister and blocked the doors
from closing. The old black man and young white woman slowed till the
bodyguards were in place; I thought they had done this before, they sure looked
they knew their way around big doors and bodyguards. As the reverend approached
me it suddenly came to me: I knew this guy, but from where? I thought I would say hi but it looked like
they did not see me even though I was standing right in front of them. I
stepped forward and offered my hand to the preacher; he looked down and walked
on right through me it appeared. In followed the entourage of reporters and
bodyguards and camera people who were stationed in the lobby of this gigantic
hospital, waiting for some word on the shot up blonde man with all the tattoos.
As the group made their way up the elevator and on to the ICU, the preacher was
going over some notes handed to him from his lady friend. Suddenly the whole
group stopped and the Black preacher began to speak; the cameras were rolling
and the microphones were thrust into the face of the preacher. “A terrible
tragedy like this only proves that the work we are doing with the black
community and poor formally incarcerated black men is working and working well,
Right here in this bed,” as he pointed to the bandaged unconscious
and handcuffed man with the naked ladies on his huge tan arms. A gasp
rang out from the crowd as the reverend turned to the glassed room were the
shot guy slept. “Turn those off” the
reverend shouted to his bodyguards as the big men in suits pushed the reporters
back; “Were is the brother that saved
those kids” the reverend’s girlfriend asked.; right about then the pretty ICU
nurse that was taking care of the shot up con, stormed out from the nurses’
station and ordered everyone out. The reverend shook his head and off the whole
group went down the elevator and back into the waiting Limousine. And off they went in a cloud of gravel and
exhaust. There were some giggles from the nurses as they watched the you tube
video. Because our hero was covered in soot and burned badly his curly blonde
hair soaked in blood, he looked like he may have been a black man. Coupled with
the fact that the good reverend had the contract for the maintenance on the
building with the city and county of San Francisco as part of his expansive
nonprofit empire and he mostly hired black folks it was assumed that the fella
in the video fighting the gangsters was a black man. Still no one knew who this
chained inked up guy was.
Nobody seemed to notice me though, I was able
to walk around, in and out of rooms, I could sit with the burnt guy I could
listen in on the nurses and doctors and nobody seemed to care; weird. Now I was
starting to get curious about this guy it sure seemed like I knew him. I went
into his room right through the door it seemed, and sat down on the bed, as I
stared at his swollen face he still was an extremely handsome man with a big
square jaw and golden skin. He had a bandage around his head but the sheets
were pulled down exposing his wide shoulders and muscular chest small square bandages
covered the holes in his chest and arms. I couldn’t help stare at this man and
wonder how he got here. Burnt, shot, stabbed, beat and to top it off handcuffed
to the bed with four San Francisco cops watching the room. While I was staring
at him he started to speak to me, now, this sounds a little strange but his
eyes were not open and his mouth was not moving, but still the same; I heard
him plain as day. “My name is James Louis Booker Jr. I was born in this
hospital 50 years ago”
