Remembrance of Black American Fugitives Past

Hearing about the black American fugitive who was caught recently after 40 years on the lam brought back lots of memories. No, I’m not black and I’ve never been a fugitive from justice, but the memories are quite pleasant because I met all those Black Liberation Army conmen in Algeria just about the time George Wright flew in from Boston to join them.

It was pre-PC but worse. I remember one night at the Sherry Netherland in New York in the company of an exquisite beauty, a lady who had the lead part in that haunting film Summer of ’42, which had just been released. I was back from Vietnam and after lots of drinks I thought my chances were pretty good, especially as she asked if I would walk her across Central Park. Back then the park was a more dangerous place than Da Nang. Alas, the Nam came up while walking and I mentioned enlisted men’s fragging of officers. “It’s one hundred percent black GIs who do it,” I said. If I had called her mother a hooker she would not have gotten as angry. After calling me a racist mother———g pig, she rushed off into the night and I never saw her again.

Jennifer’s reaction might seem over-the-top now—especially as she hardly knew where Vietnam was—but it was predictable. Black gangsterism was beautiful back then, and to hell with firebombing buildings, murdering judges and policemen, and robbing banks in the name of revolution. Some revolution. When Angela Davis was finally apprehended, Newsweek gushed about her looks as if she were Helen of Troy rather than a rather rough-looking gap-toothed woman with an extreme hairstyle.

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