Maxwell Park

By Dave Perry

It's 1969 in Oakland California. Two young brothers and their family move to the Maxwell Park area. They are quickly befriended by a group of neighborhood boys. They all are challenged by one another by playing sports, adventures in the ‘hood and by the tumultuous times. In a town and neighborhood led by the powerful yet mercurial Black Panthers, learn of their challenges and watch as everyone's life changes daily.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Page Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: May 12, 2021
• ISBN: 9781662423734

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Maxwell Park

Dave Perry

Copyright © 2021 Dave Perry

All rights reserved

First Edition

PAGE PUBLISHING, INC.

Conneaut Lake, PA

First originally published by Page Publishing 2021

ISBN 978-1-6624-2372-7 (pbk)

ISBN 9978-1-6624-2442-7 (hc)

ISBN 978-1-6624-2373-4 (digital)

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

The Town and the City

Pungent Whines

Best Avenue

Runnin’

Friendly Hedges

Wild West

Runnin’ Some More

Fussin’

Strapped

Alameda Plans

Rolling the Rounds

Temptations

Alameda

Big Boys

The Portal

For my big brother, Bob, my friend and my hero.

For my other big brother from a different mother, Marcellus Gathright. You made a big impact on us.

For Uncle Tommie, Tommie Smith, you’ve always been an inspiration to us all

To Emily and Laura, my loves and lights. Mi corazon y mi alma

To my Uncle Dave Miles, who I’m named after. Laddybuck, your support and encouragement has been the wind beneath my wings.

To my sweet Auntie Janis Emberton, the queen of commas. Thank you for the help on my manuscript and your love and support

1

The Town and the City

San Francisco is the only city that I can think of that can survive all the things you people do to it and still look beautiful.

—Frank Lloyd Wright

The Bay Area was shaped like an ear. The land was sculpted like the funny appendage on the left side of America’s head; the wind and the endless ocean were the sounds that came into the ear and then go out. Seems it has always been listening to the endless sea tell its tales.

The Pacific Ocean was a vast blue expanse with countless life and ecosystems. The dual Farallon Islands, many miles west of the Golden Gate, served as permanent scouts to all that came toward the bay.

The tides came in and out of the bay twice daily since time eternal. The currents were strong, leaving no stagnant pools or algae blooms. Many times whales even came in and out of the bay owing to the depth and the richness of feed. Once man realized the usefulness of their creation of the sail, the bay became a mighty playground of motorless boating fun and fishing prowess.

This spring morning, the air was very dry with little to no wind. The bay was mostly still with uncommonly slow approaching sets of short incoming waves. No white caps today. The tops of the palm trees had their usual reflection glare, but they didn’t have their usual shimmering gloss. They usually fluttered like a whale’s fin, slowly fanning. The palm fronds hung like idle feather dusters. Since there was no wind coming from the ocean, the air had a hot electrical static feel. If you stood prone too long, you’d feel like God was holding a mirror above you. Oaklanders called this earthquake weather.

The softly undulating streets and boulevards that rose steadily from the flat bay shore to the top of the eucalyptus- and fir-lined skyline were alive with kids playing after school, women hanging clothes on outside lines, people finding shade in the shadows of trees to talk under, and the occasional pair of men huddled together chatting their next move.

On the street Kris and his brother, Marlon, lived on, at the corner end lot three doors down from theirs, a German shepherd with a husky, raspy bark constantly took inventory. He barked at every passerby and any foreign sight, sound, or smell. When a kid or adult would walk by, his chain would unravel as he ran toward the person. It sounded like a windlass chain being released to anchor, running quickly, click, click, click. It made the nerves jump to attention and the feet quickly walk away from the fence and dog. The fence didn’t seem like a proper barrier, but the chain was just long enough to stop him before he could put his paws on it. This morning he occasionally barked at passersby but was mostly content to lay under the shade of the tall, scraggly oak he was chained to.

Kris was the oldest brother of a large family. His younger brother, Marlon, was constantly at his side, watching his every move and tagging along with him. Their dad, Morris, was a Baptist minister, a quiet and intense man. His face had few expressions, chiseled, with high cheekbones and a firm chin. A tall muscular man, his powerful frame was usually hidden in a dark suit or formal clothes. His closely cut wiry hair had a few hints of gray shooting through. His skin was jet-black that almost shone depending on which angle you saw him at. His occasional smile showed perfectly white teeth that looked like Steinway piano keys. When any of his kids or yungins were around him, he was watched and admired like a Greek god. His movements were slow but deliberate. He had a gentleness about him though that was disarming.

His wife, Talitha, was a beautiful lady with dark chocolate-colored skin with many differing tones. She seemed to glide around comfortably. Every feature on her face seemed meticulously created and softly formed. A very quiet woman, she was, however, very demanding of her children to follow in the family’s rules of faith and discipline. All their children were mindful and obedient for the most part. Their days were regimented around school, chores, play outside, and church at night. Sundays were full days of church, meals, and socials with family and friends. Kris longed for any and all free time to venture out with his brother and their friends to play pick-up football. Kris took after his father in build and demeanor. He only needed to glance sideways at Marlon and the younger brother was quickly in step and behaving.

Kris and Marlon had two sets of cousins on the same street. Peanut and Mitch were two doors down, and Jerome, Monroe, and Curtis were five doors down. Peanut and Mitch’s parents came out from the same town as Morris and Talitha had: Florence, Alabama. The same went for Jerome, Monroe, and Curtis’ parents. Their grandparents and older generations of slaves—three-fifths—and freed people had tired of the dead-end working life and ubiquitous struggle of being black people in the Deep South.

Once Kris and Marlon’s grandparents had learned of a civil job on an army base in Oakland, California, they packed up and slow-motored out to the new life and new beginning. As soon as the obvious signs of success and stability were channeled back to their extended family, their kin and cousins packed up and followed.

It was Saturday, so Kris had his brother, the five cousins, and a couple of neighborhood kids with him. Sometimes the kids rode bikes, though rarely since most of the kids didn’t have bikes. For a few months in the spring and summer, the kids would play baseball when they had numbers and enough of the gear: sometimes makeshift (a broomstick or two-by-four for a bat), sometimes borrowed from the school or park, but really, any kind of small ball and glove sufficed.

But the game of choice seemed to always be football. They only needed the one ball, they could play with a few or a bunch of kids, and it was a gritty test of will and physicality. In this neighborhood, that seemed to be a necessary and constant rite of passage at every age and circumstance. They usually found an empty lot with grass or groundcover to play on. More times than not though, the lots were hardened natural-grade dirt. There was also the time that Peanut dared Kris to a game on the asphalt street. Peanut ended up captain of the team opposite Kris and quickly regretted the dare.

Today there was an equal amount of ten, so it was five a side. They were in the vacant lot on a corner of Best Avenue. The lot rose from the sidewalk and street, and the curb rose quickly at a thirty-degree angle for about ten feet then leveled off so the boys played on the terraced top. They agreed that the drop-off was out of bounds. The back end had a stripped down and rusted station wagon on concrete blocks and creosote timber dunnage, and they agreed that that marked the opposite edge of out-of-bounds. The grass was a brownish quilt of strewn green, with starved weeds as a thin, felty surface that belied the hard surface of naturally pressed dirt underneath that was akin to concrete pavement.

They played tackle football, and