A Bucket of Blood

By Dirty Red

A brilliantly original 'down and dirty' chronicle of the Los Angeles WATTS area before and after the infamous riots of 1965. The author is not only an outstanding storyteller; he was part of the community as well as a participant.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Trafford Publishing
• Release date: Nov 21, 2019
• ISBN: 9781490798417

Dirty Red

Licoln 'Dirty Red' Wiley writes from the gut. From the beginning in the cotton fields of Arkansas, to the Los Angeles WATTS ghetto, experience has been his greatest teacher. His insight into human nature and the animal psychology of Man is immeasurable. If his fascinating accounts of prostitutes, hustlers and con games doesn't leave you wide eyed with astonishment; you will never be King in the Land of the Blind. This is realism about real people.

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Copyright 2019 Dirty Red.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written prior permission of the author.

ISBN: 978-1-4907-9840-0 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4907-9841-7 (e)

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

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Trafford rev. 11/15/2019

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CONTENTS

Dedication

Foreword

Why Was I Born?

Chapter 1   Early Recollections

Chapter 2   A Military Experience

Chapter 3   The Ghetto

Chapter 4   My Casino

Chapter 5

Chapter 6   Ghetto People

Chapter 7   Welfare

Chapter 8   Riots

Chapter 9   Violence

Chapter 10   The Hustler

Chapter 11   Nicknames

Chapter 12

Chapter 13   Black Humor

Chapter 14   Different Beliefs

Chapter 15   Ghetto Youth"

Chapter 16

Chapter 17   Fort Worth

Conclusion

QUOTATION

Any man, or any group of men that remain at the bottom socially and economically for a period exceeding twenty years, or either wants to be there or deserves to be there….

LINCOLN (Dirty Red) WILEY

QUOTATION

I would have to be insane to want to integrate into an insane institution…

LINCOLN (Dirty Red) WILEY

DEDICATION

Dedicated to my sainted mother, the wife of an ordained minister who never set foot in a tavern, nightclub or bar. She would never dignify them by the names such as The Duck Inn: or The Dew Drop Inn or the Casino, she simply called them all

BUCKETS OF BLOOD

She honestly believed that if she talked to me enough, prayed to me enough, and beat my ass enough, I would remain in my home town of Pine Bluff, Arkansas and join her Saint Paul Baptist Church and attend Arkansas AM&N college. I would say to myself, Damn that… I plan to grow up, leave this armpit of a town and open my own Bucket of Blood" of my own.

LINCOLN (Dirty Red) WILEY

FOREWORD

This book was started thirty-five years ago so you can make up your own mind as to the progress my Era has made if any, since the Watts Riots.

Each year thousands of people migrate to the large cities seeking a better life or seeking an escape from their past. With no income and no job skills they find it necessary to relocate into the ghetto area. Then they proceed to occupy the places left behind by the people born there. The people before them either made good of their escape, went to prison, or died there trying to escape. Once a job is found and financial stability is obtained, ninety per cent move away to suburbs. The remaining ten per cent would not dreams of leaving, because here they have found the very core of their existence. Any attempt to change or elevate the mode of living for this ten per cent is considered a mistake. In this book I will try to re-travel my road to the ghetto.

I could never have imagined myself as a writer; rather I like to think of myself as a storyteller. I like to think, had I been left the hell alone, I would still be in Mother Africa, telling my stories to a group of wide-eyed African kids. Stories such as, How the leopard got his spots. Why the camel has a hump. Why the hippo has wrinkly skin. I would have had five wives, twenty kids and a damn good life, had it not been for that lying, cheating, damn Christian missionary that… that oops… excuse me. Some times I get carried away.

LINCOLN (Dirty Red) WILEY

WHY WAS I BORN?

The reason for my living, I have often wondered

why the part in life, I am to play before I die.

Could my existence be worthwhile?

Or was it mere coincidence. I’ve got to know the

answer, to relieve me of this suspense.

I bade my time an looked around up to the age of

seventeen then I traveled around the world for an

answer to my dream.

But nowhere could I find, for what I now search

must I spent my life forever, dependent on a crutch?

Was my future planned, even before this earth I

came or was I a tool just to bear my Father’s name

Mysterious and fantastic all this to me seem.

Or could I possible be asleep and this is just a dream?

We have doctors, lawyers, novelists and professions

renowned, why was I born, what is the purpose of

my sticking around, maybe someone can tell me for

I do not know my aim, am I destined to be a symbol

of failure, to hang my head in shame?

Was I born to be rich with a palace on a hill or born

to play God inflicting my every will?

Was I born to be a success and settle for nothing less?

Or take life, as it is, just do my very best.

Was I born to be a martyr, for all men to admire or

born to be a lover for all women to desire?

Was I born a disciple of God, to save you from sin?

Or born to be a coward, desperate to all men?

Should I see a fortuneteller, to have my fortune told,

or become a roving adventurer, dashing and bold?

Should I become a pilot, and fly away into the skies

or should I live as a fake, is life a foundation of lies?

I’ve searched and searched, but nowhere could I

find the answer to my problem to give me peace of

mind, a vision may some day soon appear in my

sight to give the subject why I was born a little more light.

Is death life and life death or could I be wrong? Or

Must I spend my life, a question most desperate and

long? There are some people who know why? Why

is why? I only want to know my purpose were before I die.

LINCOLN (Dirty Red) WILEY

CHAPTER ONE

EARLY RECOLLECTIONS

My childhood was a very happy one. I had a wonderful family, and poverty was only a word. We were poor, but everyone else was too, so nobody noticed. Although there were eight of us no one ever went hungry and I can remember how everyone smiled all the time. My Mother would cry a little and pray a lot, but that was all too complicated for me so I went on my way enjoying boyhood. My older brothers would all leave one by one never to return and I just couldn’t understand this. Didn’t they like the tall tress; the clear lakes open fields and the Sunday dinners? An old lady taught me how to catch catfish with a cane pole. When I was not in school I was usually in the fields or woods of Arkansas. I would often sit perfectly still in a spring meadow like a baby rabbit was making his first trip from his nest. At the age of thirteen I could out run, jump and out wrestle any kid in the neighborhood? Life was a beautiful thing. The small town of Pine Bluff, Arkansas was comprised of two groups, the very young, and the very old. I made a silent vow that when it grew up I would never leave. Then I continued with my favorite past time – running.

My father was ordained Baptist minister. He died when I was only three. My mother was forced to return to her former profession as an elementary school teacher. To make ends meet, she worked after school at a nearby honky-tonk called, The Casino. It was there I first became aware there was something wrong with the land of my childhood. I was not old enough to understand the problem, but I could sense that it was a terrible thing. My mother, being a true daughter of the south, would not discuss it with me.

Each Sunday I would go to church and listen to a preacher in a black suit shout, jump, holler and dance in the act of delivering his religious message. However it seemed funny to me that he never talked about his hidden problem.

My tears in school could answer any questions that we asked. If we made any comments about the fear in their eyes, they would promptly change the subject. I realized that I was small child, change the subject. I realized that I was small child, but if they would only discuss it with me maybe I could help. After all it must concern me, must have something to do with the fact that everyone was preparing me to leave home, when all I wanted to do was stay. I thought to myself that if ever I have to leave, it certainly would not be like the others that didn’t return. Very often I would take long walks among the tress. Nobody worried about me in the woods after dark, I was professedly safe. The sound of a bullfrog croaking and the sight of a firefly flittering in the warm night made me cry just thinking of leaving. Life to me was skipping a flat rock on a creek three times or catching a five-pound catfish or turning a snapping turtle over his back. I just couldn’t understand what those silly grown ups were afraid of in this Garden of Eden. Then I would joke with myself and say; if they are afraid, why the hell don’t they leave and let me stay?

When I helped my mother at the honky-tonk, it was easy to notice that she was not at ease with herself as she was at home. Also, she was not as aggressive at work either. This struck me as being strange and when I asked questions she either told me to shut up or else she changed the subject. I never liked nor disliked the old cracker bastard who ran the honky-tonk, but the place fascinated me. I learned all I could from him. He was a foul mouth, two-fisted whiskey-drinking cuss ass, whom after a good night, never failed to get drunk. I would help him up the stairs to bed and take my usual five dollars from his roll. He never said anything about it. He knew I was clipping him but he refused to admit it to himself. The following morning he would ask me, Boy, do you steal? And I would never fail to answer, Who me?

Even though I still didn’t know what dreadful disease had infected the people of my hometown, I was convinced that all the young people whom left did so to try and find a solution. This made me loose faith in my mother’sprayers. Why couldn’t our preacher ask God to solve this problem whatever it was and then I wouldn’t have to leave? My mother knocked me down a couple of times for asking too many questions, so I quit asking.

Our teachers would insist that we try a little harder at math and English because we would need these qualifications in Chicago or Los Angeles when we went to apply for work. This never impressed me since my only reason for going to any of these places would be to ask a few questions and then return home.

With the end of World War II the defense plant, which supported the small town, closed. The honky-tonk was folding fast and this southern town was beginning to show the effects of no revenue of its own. The older kids were in college or away in the service and my mother who had been reinstated as a teacher returned to the classroom. I had been accustomed to carrying five dollars to school and now there was only enough for lunch money. Having only fifteen cents a day made me loose all interest in a school. The environment at the club had taught me numerous ways to hustle money, but now, there was no money in town. After my older brother enlisted in the Air Force, I became the man of the house.

At the age fifteen I was drawn to red light district of town, which was known nationwide as the toughest, meanest corner in town. My time was usually spent at a club called Skeletons Trail. The owner was a small ordinary tough guy who had the reputation of carrying two guns on him at all times. Once he owned the entire black section of the red light district, bit the boom.

The good years were over and most of the property was mortgaged to Joe the Greel. I married his niece, and after he lost his entire fortune, he joined us in California. Through my associations with the two club owners, I could now out fight, out drink, and out cuss any man in the district. This and the complexion of my skin combine to give me a nickname that stuck to this day. My complexion can best be described as a muddy red almost color of the Mississippi River in the spring. That’s when the water is so thick with red clay it takes on a shallow ‘dirty red’ hue.

During my junior years in high school we had beaten every team in our state conference and were invited to play a post-season game in Louisiana where we soundly defeated. Our Coach was upset and he took his frustration out on me, not knowing that I was the worst kind of loser. I had a drink of mint gin for the first time and told him where to go. He slapped me and all hell broke loose on the bus. It was late at night and we were miles from any town. The white bus driver stopped the bus, leaped out and took off running down the highway. My coach looked at me and said, "Red you’re a dirty red son-of-a-bitch." The name has stuck to this very day.

After the fight, I drove the bus and caught up with the regular bus driver and told him to get his white ass in or else we would leave him. He was so frightened he was reluctant to enter the bus and asked, Are you niggers through fighting?

We returned home knowing the coach was going to tell my mother. On my way home I was fabricated the grand daddy of all lies. It was so convincing that the next day when he knocked on our door, my big sister told him to get away from our house.

When the football season was ended so did my interest in school. My teachers continued to pass me from the tenth through the twelfth grade because of my good family name…

I never owned a book. I was razor sharp in the streets, but I couldn’t tell you what seven times a number was. All night long you could find me at the corner of Third and State. Then at noon I would go on to school. Meanwhile I had developed an insane desire to take on the meanest nigger in town just for the hell of it. His name was Half Acre.

The story goes that he once sharecropped cotton for a white man all year, only to be told that his share was a half of an acre. He killed the white, am and half a dozen black men