Jerome’s Unwanted Initiation: 1
12:07 PM, January 1, 1967.
Los Angeles, California.
The white people were protesting again.
Most the time Jerome Jackson had no problem with all that, but today he just wanted to get to work, so he punched the dashboard of his Chevy Chevelle and blared his horn at the tie-dyed, Day-Glo-colored parade of longhairs flowing past.
This lanky cat with flowers threaded through his beard and a buckskin coat turned around and flipped him off.
“Fuck you, pig,” the hippie said and spit towards Jerome’s car. Without realizing it the hippie saved himself from an ass whooping by coming up short of actually hitting the vehicle.
Jerome could only shake his head and laugh at the irony of a white-boy protester spitting at a black man who was just trying to get to work. That, right there, was just goddamn funny, folks, and if you can’t appreciate the humor than you’ve let the politics get too deep into your head.
Most any other time he’d happily sit and watch the show unfold as the inevitable men-in-blue came to crash the party, but on this particular day he was five minutes away from being fifteen minutes late to his construction gig.
His foreman was a cool enough guy and not the sort to hassle him for being a little late, but…
