Southland

Victor returns to Angeles Mesa after living in Watts. He moved away a few months after Frank left for the concentration camp. Back in his old neighborhood, he notes how the people he once knew have either moved away or died and that many of the Black families have also moved away. He originally left after marrying a girl named Janie and living on her parent’s property in Watts. He managed to find a job at the dockyards because most white men were away fighting in the war. One day, a white woman named Peggy starts speaking to him, something taboo and dangerous, especially for Victor as a Black male. He and his friends all know that his life now depends on the whims of this white woman. They find out that she likes to sleep with Black men, and that she’d taken an interest in Victor early on. Victor tries to play it cool and distance himself, but Peggy persists. He begins receiving threats, including a dead cat in his locker: “Throughout those few weeks, the air at the shipyard seemed thin, dry, sharp enough to cut” (257). One day, Peggy touches him and asks if he wants to get breakfast. Although he says no and rushes home to be with his wife and child, the damage is done. He finds his wife raped and beaten on his way home. Victor and her parents care for her, and she eventually pulls through. When Victor returns to work, he’s fired for missing a day (which he knew would happen).

No one ever sees Peggy again, meaning perhaps that the same men who abused his wife got to her. Victor then takes another job in Watts, while Janie recovers and delivers the baby that she was pregnant with when raped. However, Victor takes to drinking and sleeping around due to the incident. He even suggests that the newborn isn’t his. In time, he leaves Janie because he feels responsible for her rape and can’t withstand the guilt. He moves to Little Tokyo for a spell, and then finally returns to Angeles Mesa: “It was Watts that he’d returned from, swimming upstream from the flow of people down into the ghetto” (252).

Jackie calls Lanier and reveals everything Kenji admitted. The two are relieved as they finally have a witness to testify against Lawson. Jackie is still a bit skeptical because Kenji has dementia, and they also want to follow up on Akira and then track down Victor Conway. Jackie plans to contact the district attorney’s office for information on their next steps, noting that they’ll need to get the certificates to confirm the boys’ deaths. Jackie hesitates, but then also tells Lanier about the strange call Frank made. She believes it was to Alma, not his wife, and Lanier wonders if this had anything to do with why someone killed Curtis. They speculate that Lawson didn’t like the fact that Frank and Alma were a mixed-race couple, or that Lawson wanted Alma for himself. When she wonders how they managed their affair, Lanier tries throwing her a bone by saying, “[P]eople can be real secretive about love when they need to be. And even when they don’t need to be” (262). Despite this, Jackie still doesn’t tell him about her orientation.

Two days later, Jackie and Lanier meet up to talk with Victor Conway at his job. He works as a janitor at a low-income elementary school. He immediately recognizes both Lanier and Jackie: “The boy who always followed after Curtis. This girl with his best friend’s face” (265). The three begin talking about the past. Conway admits to seeing Lawson standing outside the store and entering on the day of the murders, though he didn’t see Lawson leaving the store. He also talks about how serious Frank was as a student, and how he watched over the house until he moved away. Jackie pivots the subject to Alma, and Conway reveals that Alma and Frank went even further back than the two realize: Alma moved to Angeles Mesa before the war, and her family name is Sams, not Martindale (which is Bruce’s surname), meaning she knew Frank when they were young adults. Although Lanier and Jackie play down the relevance of this info, Conway himself does wonder at how interested Frank was in Alma.

Jackie fills Rebecca in later about many of the developments, but she doesn’t tell her about what she’s finding out about Frank and Alma because she feels protective of the information. She also doesn’t tell Laura anything about what’s happening, and the two still haven’t made up. Jackie and Lanier then meet up again, and he reveals that he found the marriage announcement for Alma. They call Angela Broadnax to get Curtis’s exact birthdate and find that he was born on March 24, 1947. Alma was married in November of the previous year, meaning that she was four or five months pregnant when she married and that she was pregnant before moving to Oakland. Lanier also reveals that Alma’s sister, Althea Dickson, is still alive and may have information for them. She’s in a nursing home somewhere in Oakland, and his mother is finding out where exactly. When Jackie wonders if they should start calling nursing homes, Lanier comes up with a better plan: “Wanna go on a road trip?” (273). He’s also found out that Thomas’s old partner, Oliver Paxton, lives in East Palo Alto, so they can visit both Althea and Paxton.

Frank sees Alma resting against a palm tree and falls in love at first sight. He “could see in her the trap ready to spring, the lit fuse, the coiled tension (274). Frank, who was tending to his sick mother, rushes to work late without speaking to her. At Old Man Larabie’s, he can’t help thinking about Alma, though he doesn’t even know who she is. When he looks up to greet a customer, it turns out to be Alma. Frank is excited, and she asks for a dozen oranges. They make small talk, and then she leaves. Frank asks Larabie about her, and Larabie reveals that her name is Alma Sams. Her father has an alcohol addiction, which Larabie attributes to her brother Reese having died by suicide after murdering a few fellow trainees.

Alma was on her way to a friend’s house when she stopped to rest against the tree, believing that if she stayed there, something good would come into her life. When she saw Frank, she took it as a sign that he was the “good” thing for her. She notes how handsome he is, and then goes to see him in the store. Alma feels some guilt over her brother’s actions at training. Everyone knows that she and Reese were close, and so people wonder if she’ll turn out like him. The community is upset that Reese murdered fellow Black trainees rather than whites. Althea ran away up north with a man, so Alma’s parents are keen to keep an eye on her.

Despite all this, Frank and Alma manage to meet up in secret to get to know each other better. They meet in Old Man Larabie’s store when he leaves for the day, both making excuses as to why they need to work later at their respective jobs (Alma housecleans for a white woman). Eventually, their romance builds, and they have sex for the first time in Larabie’s office. Alma chose Frank and vice versa, and one of the main reasons is because neither needs to explain their respective hardships to the other:

And while she gradually gave Frank the straightforward, newspaper facts about her family’s history—Reese’s murders and suicide; her aunt’s repeated stabbing of her violent, cheating husband; her father’s drinking and struggling faith—she didn’t have to explain to him, either (281).

They’re both people of color dealing with heavy loads, but neither wants to feel like they need to surrender to the other. They are both aware of race being an issue, yet they also feel that they are perfect for each other.

Jackie and Lanier head to the San Francisco Bay area and are excited to be on the open road. They marvel at the change of scenery. Lanier remarks about the beauty, “and Jackie laughed, and let that laughter break up the tension in her stomach. She realized she hadn’t laughed like that in months” (284). They book rooms at a small motel near the Castro District and walk the streets at night. Lanier takes everything in and is even appreciative of, rather than offended by, all the men who are checking him out. Jackie is embarrassed by her fellow lesbians eyeballing her. To escape this, Jackie mentions that she’s hungry. They go to a Mexican restaurant for dinner, where an attractive waitress hits on Jackie. Lanier thinks it’s hilarious, while Jackie feels mortified. He mentions how popular she is with the waitresses, and Jackie finally relaxes a bit. She then relates how she lived in San Fran for a while for school and finally admits that she met Laura in the Bay area as well. Lanier isn’t surprised, so she continues with the story of her and Laura. When the waitress interrupts again, Lanier jokes that Jackie is horrible with flirting, then admits that he has a hard time keeping a conversation going himself.

Lanier has located the name of Althea’s nursing home in Oakland, so he and Jackie go there in the morning without prior notice. After some initial hesitation, the nun at the front desk (who is apprehensive of Lanier’s appearance) lets Jackie and Lanier in to meet Althea. Althea is nothing like the two expected. Although she is in her seventies and in a wheelchair, she looks young and agile. She’s immediately suspicious of the two when she finds out that Lanier is kin to Bruce, but she accepts the donuts they brought for her. Back in her room, she begins smoking while fielding their questions.

She explains how Alma came to live with her when she was about 18 and met Bruce, who was around 28 or 29. She says Alma came up because there was work, and that she herself ended up in Oakland because she ran away with a sailor. Lanier then asks if work was the only reason Alma moved up to the area. He begins to bring up the marriage and pregnancy, and Althea admits that Alma was pregnant before marrying. Lanier asks about the father, but Althea says it doesn’t matter. When Lanier informs Althea that Jackie is Frank Sakai’s granddaughter, Althea’s demeanor changes. She then admits that their mother sent Alma up to Oakland when she found out about Alma’s pregnancy: “They forbid her to see him, but that didn’t work” (294). Bruce never found out who the real father was but resented both the man and Curtis. Jackie realizes then that her grandfather’s random trip to San Fran all that time ago was for Alma’s funeral. Although she tries to make Althea see that her grandfather loved Alma, Althea doesn’t seem to think that Frank ever did anything good for Alma.

Jackie and Lanier thought they’d feel elated or have a sense of closure after talking to Althea, but both feel tired after the revelations. Jackie wants to be alone with her questions. She wonders at how the two kept their love a secret, and whether her grandmother knew. Lanier walks throughout the city, not wanting to be alone. He thinks about how Curtis is his cousin but also not his cousin—he’s actually Jackie’s uncle, and how, “Curtis, whose real father—unlike his own—was right there in front of him, but also just out of reach” (296).

Frank learns from Victor that Alma has died from ovarian cancer. He decides to go to the funeral, though “he had no right to grieve. She wasn’t his wife, hadn’t even been his lover since before all his children were born” (297). Frank mentions to Mary that he’ll be out of town up north for a funeral. She intuits that Alma has died, revealing that Mary has known about his love for Alma. Their marriage has always been fraught with tension because Mary knows how much Frank cares for Curtis and Alma. When Alma or Curtis is around, Frank is torn between families, and he has guilt about all of it. When Alma moves away, Frank and Mary enjoy a moment of pure happiness, as if they can rebuild their marriage. Frank doesn’t want to interrupt this peace, but he feels he must do this one thing to honor Alma and Curtis.

Frank heard rumors about why Alma left Angeles Mesa, but she never told him where she was going. He was heartbroken to realize she left but elated when she returned with their son. Although he couldn’t be a part of Curtis’s life like he wanted to be, and though it hurt him to see Alma with another man, he tried to do what he could for Curtis. In time, Curtis began coming around the store on his own, and Frank finally began wanting Alma to tell Curtis the truth. Alma was adamant that Curtis shouldn’t know about Frank, but Frank wanted Curtis to own the store one day. He also thought he should know who his real father is. Everything changed, however, when someone murdered Curtis. Frank couldn’t bear to be in the store, so he sold it. He tried to give Alma the money, but she refused, only taking half the cost of Curtis’s funeral.

After Alma’s funeral, Frank goes and gets drunk, something he never does. Then he contemplates suicide, even stepping up on a railing to do so. But he thinks about his family back home and decides to be there at least for them, because “one family was enough to betray” (301).