Alameda, Undead. 11/1/17

     “OH MY GOD, BABY! The bridges are up, hurry up and come home! I love you! I gotta call my mom! I love you!!”… the call went. It’s 4:42 pm. I should have punched the clock and headed home 12 minutes ago. Fuckin’ coworkers with their “blah blah-black blah-blah”. SHUT THE FUCK UP. I don’t care. I don’t care about your day, I don’t care about how hard you’re struggling in life, I don’t—fucking—care. I just listen because I’m nice, and, I guess, I would want someone to listen to me.

     Alameda, is an island. 4 bridges, and 1 tunnel: those are your ways in; those are your ways out. I don’t know what the fuck is going on. All I know is that “the bridges are up” and I better get home soon ’cause my girl sounded panicked, and that’s kind-of worrisome… I collect my gear (travel-mug, lunch-bag, jacket), clock out, and head to the car.

     The shop is on 98th and Doolittle, in Oakland. 10 minutes on the frontage road, and I’m home; usually. I pull out of our driveway and go to make a right on Doolittle… Traffic is stopped. Frustrated after seconds that felt like minutes—”the bridges are up”, DUH!—I turned around and parked at the shop again; deciding to walk.

     3 miles from work to the Bay Farm bridge. 3 miles walking next to stopped traffic. People are frustrated. You can see it in their faces. You can hear it in there angry—useless—honks, that enraged everyone.  I’m walking, they don’t bother me so much; it’s almost kind of comical.

     Up ahead there’s an Alameda Police car parked parallel with the bridge, in the middle of the road. “At this moment, we’re only letting residents through”, he says through a megaphone, over the group of people surrounding him, to the people in their cars. “If you’re a resident: please turn left, park in the field, and walk across the bicycle-bridge. If you’re not a resident: please turn around and go home”. “And may god have mercy on us all” he whispered softly to himself once he brought the megaphone down to his side, as I was walking up.

     “Whats going on?” A woman asked. “I gotta pick my kids up” , said a man. “my mom’s sick”, said another. And all of a sudden everyone was speaking over everyone else, forming an incoherent mess of panic and anxiety. The cop said “settle down. Jeeze Louise… there was some sort of attack. That’s all I know. Now, stay calm and please proceed to the bicycle bridge. Calmly”, he stressed.

     I had only made it 20 feet away  from the cop car when I heard the officer yell “Stop right there!” I turned around to see what was going on. The officer had his gun drawn, and aimed. I followed the invisible line from his pistol to his target; a homeless junkie by the look of’em. A dirty old malnourished white guy with sparse long hair, drooling from his 3-toothed mouth as he talked to himself. the police officer warned him again, “sir, stop right there”. The fucking tweaker didn’t stop. By this time, the crowd that was surrounding the cop, all got behind him. And the two police officers checking I.D.s at the foot of the the bridge ran over to help the other officer control the situation.

     The junkie didn’t stop, the police drew tasers and tased his ass. To no avail. A big, corn-fed, cop chuckled and drew his nightstick. Cracked that motherfucker against his head so hard, his right eye burst in the big cop’s face, speckleing his visage . But he didn’t go down. Rather, wrapped his arms around the cop and bit out the side of his neck. “AAAHHH!!!” the cop screamed, and his partners let the lead fly. Dropping the meth-head like a sack of shit.

     The two officers dropped to their knees in front of their partner. One used their shoulder radio to call for an ambulance, the other applied pressure to wound. They both looked up when someone yelled “there’s another one!” Sure as shit, there was another one. This one was female, maybe the junkie’s junkie-girlfriend. Shoulder-radio-cop stood up and shouted  “ma’am, get down on the ground and place your hands behind your head”. As shoulder-radio-cop un-holstered his firearm, corn-fed bit his friend, who was holding his neck, in the forearm.

     Fuck this shit, man. Everyone is fucking running frantically and shit. trying to get across the bridge…

     I reached into the cop car and grab the 870 shotgun, upright between the seats, as I yell to the last standing police officer, “I’ll cover you, bro!”. He was stuck in the moment. He didn’t know what to say, looking back and forth between the she-tweaker, me, and the corn-fed cop who is now getting  up, despite his missing jugular.

     Still pointing his gun at the junkie who’s steadily approaching, he’s yelling at what used to be his partner. A giant brute of a man, now sinister in appearance with blood dripping from his mouth. “Back up, buddy”, as corn-fed approaches. “Relax, your hurt!” corn-fed lumbers some more, placing his arms over shoulder-radio. struggling with all his might, they fall to the floor and roll around together, like an old, bad movie. megaphone cop, with the bit forearm, pulls my pant-let and grunts out “hey.. shoot’em”…

     BLAOW! 12-Gauge slug vaporizes a head. Shoulder-radio gets up, freaking out! Pointing his gun at me. Yelling, Y-you shot him!” “I can’t hear!!” I yell and point behind him “behind you!” at the she-tweaker right behind him. He must have read my lips ’cause he whipped around and started dumping lead. BUCK! BUCK! BUCK!

I don’t know what happened after that. As soon as he turned around to deal with her, I split! Shotgun in hand, I ran my big ass across the bridge. 1/2 a mile to my house. 1/2 a mile to my love and “safety”. I ran faster than I ever ran before, and probably faster than I ever will.

 

Meet Chuy. Machinist and fabricator by trade. Generally handy with things, clever, calm under pressure, indifferent.