Pluto Jackson


Pluto Jackson has been a friend for a long time. I met Pluto when he was running with Seals and Cleaver and those guys, back before the Panthers went belly up.

From what I could see, they got a lot of their ideas from Pluto. He was the original black Renaissance Man back when his nickname was "Black Death." But he liked to hang in the background and let others do the talking.

Pluto was a physically impressive dude in his prime. At six-six and 280, he was all muscle and mass. His Afro flared out proudly around the black beret he wore. He dressed all in black before Johnny Cash ever dreamed of it.

Pluto's complexion was very dark and he shined like rain-washed ebony wood. He was a scary dude until he smiled, and then he lit up the space he occupied. They said Pluto had killed several people, but it was hard to believe that when you saw him smile. But as I've learned over the years, looks can be deceiving.

I was a greenhorn reporter with an Oakland paper when I first met him. My editor sent me to interview Bobby Seals. 

With my complexion, I frankly wasn't too thrilled with the idea. I've never been a racist, but I had no problem imagining a bunch of these guys kicking my skinny white ass. I don't mind admitting I was scared shitless.

Their headquarters was in a storefront down in the ghetto. I felt ill at ease tooling those mean streets, although in truth nobody seemed to pay much attention to me. When I found the address and pulled up by the curb in front there were two big dudes standing outside the door. They were wearing dark clothing, shades and berets. One of them was wearing a black satin windbreaker with a big red fist logo on the right breast. Above it was the legend "Free Huey!"

Huey P. Newton, who along with Seals had co-founded the Panthers, had been jailed on a murder charge a couple months before. The police claimed he was involved in the ambush murder of a cop. The Panthers claimed that was just another Pig lie. The situation was, to put it mildly, tense. There were rumors that the Panthers planned to go on a rampage and settle the score for Huey.

The guy with the free Huey message walked over to my car. "You the boy from the paper?" he asked. I almost said, no, I'm the man from the paper, but I changed my mind in a hurry. No need stirring the shit.

"Yeah," I answered. He motioned with his head. "C'mon then."

We went inside the door, out of public sight and then he turned around and held his hand up. "Gotta frisk you man, make sure you not packin'," he said. "Check him, Leroy."

"Hell man, I wouldn't come down here with a gun on me!" I laughed nervously.

It didn't matter because Leroy, who'd been bringing up the rear, came up behind me and started to pat me down. Around the waist and then down the legs, inside and out. Then in the crotch area, which made me even more nervous.

I thought of all those old tales of whites castrating blacks in the old days. I hoped to hell it wasn't payback time.

"He clean," said Leroy.

The atmosphere in the back room was chilly. Seals sat behind a battered old wooden desk with his hands locked behind his bereted head. He eyes were covered by big plastic-frame shades. He was almost smirking under a mustache of minor Fu Manchu proportions.

He looked scary as hell, but not half as scary as most of the other half dozen guys standing around in the room. My mouth went dry as a popcorn fart and I had to struggle to keep my knees from knocking together.

"So you come to tell the brothers' tale of the fight for liberation and social equality?" he asked softly, his voice carrying an amused note. "Y'all believe he's up to the challenge?" That was greeted by a smattering of light laughter. "Well boy, whatcha say?"

"I don't know, man, I was just send down here to talk to you," I said, my voice quavering. "If you're like too busy or something we can do it another time or whatever." I just wanted to get the fuck out of there and in one piece at that.

"Calm down, little brother," said the big dude sitting back near the wall, a slight smile cracking his face. "Ain't nobody gonna do nothing to you here, the brothers just funning with you."

"Yeah man, Pluto's right," said another. "We pullin' the white boy's leg." Several laughed aloud at that and the atmosphere in the room seemed to change suddenly, grow a little lighter and less threatening.

I got my story that day and several others in the months to come. Fact was, I had some degree of sympathy for what the Panthers were trying to do and they could see it in my copy.

Pluto became my contact man with the Panthers and over time we became friends. I had no trouble seeing that, were it not for the struggle for liberation of his people, Pluto would have been the most gentle of giants.

But he could get rough when he had to. He wasn't the kind of guy you could fuck with, and only a fool wouldn't realize that simply by looking at him.

After the Panthers more or less folded Pluto's problems grew. The organization had no time for drugs--they believed that the white man had long used narcotics to enslave brothers and keep them locked into a ghetto mentality. But Pluto drifted into heroin and the problems that come along with it and wound up serving a long stretch for robbery. He got clean then, but it didn't stick.

The last time I saw Pluto his ''fro was rimmed in gray, but he was still wearing it. The revolutionary light in his black eyes had been dimmed by crack cocaine. Pluto burned about 10 rocks a day. Big "black man rocks," not those paltry little grains sold to white kids from the 'burbs for $40 each.

"The shit got a grip on me man, got me locked down," he told me. "Ain't no way loose. I done been to the edge and seen over, I know where I'm bound."

"There's always rehab, man," I said. That comment caused the fire of old to flare up behind Pluto's bloodshot eyes.

"Don't gimme that shit," he growled. "Rehab is for honkie mothafuckas like you. Ain't no mothafucka gonna pay my way to Betty Ford."

"So what's the bottom line? Where does it all wind up?"

"If the shit doan get me, the Man will," he replied softly. "And it doan fuckin' matter to me. I been on the top and I been on the bottom. Where I'm at now, they both look the same. The future's just a hole in the ground man, that's all. Doan make no shit who you are neither, the destination be the same."

There was an element of truth in Pluto's comments with which I could find no reasonable argument. And yet it was just too simple to throw up your hands and say, screw it, nothing matters in the end so why should it matter now?

"Goddammit, what you stood for counts for something," I said. "You gonna just give up like that?"

Pluto smiled then, and his smile reminded me of the old days.  It was a smile one saw often just before Pluto said something that made a lot of sense.

"It ain't 'bout giving up, bro," he said softly. "It's about accepting things the way they are."

I remembered the old drunkard's serenity prayer and kept my mouth shut.


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