This employee told me to take the elevator to the 4th floor and turn to the right and to go all the way to the end and there was a restroom. I jovially headed towards the elevator, got on and was on my way. I got to the 4th floor and when the doors opened....There was a silence, it was dim, quiet and spooky. It was a completely different atmosphere, a dark, wide open area, a derelict looking floor. It had boxes, crates, rolling shelves, body parts of Playtex mannequins and other old equipment which seemed carelessly lying around, it was some kind of storage floor. It was a big change, no piped in music, no sound of people, just dead silence. I hesitated in getting off, however, I had to go bad, so I turned right just like the lady said and walked towards that side of the huge room as my foot steps echoed throughout the floor.
I got to the door that read Restroom and I opened the door and voila! a well lit white wall bathroom all to my self. So I went into the stall and took care of natures way. After taking care of business I was getting ready to make it back when I hear the restroom door open. "Who could that be?" I said to myself, it was a long way from the store floor. I heard the voices of men. I began to feel a little tension and insecure, so I proceeded to walk out of the stall and there were two men standing in front of the door looking down dead straight at me. The restroom was getting smaller and smaller as I looked up at these two men. I felt my shoulders droop and felt all the energy leave my body, I couldn't have even peed or pooped my pants since I was all out. The shorter of the two men said 'Shup little man?', I couldn't even get any words out with all the stress in my throat. He was impeccably dressed a three piece pin stripe suit with a dark shirt and tie, he had wrap around sunglasses, white and black wing tip shoes, and I remember his skin being really dark and it was perfect. "Whash yo name" he asked as he rubbed his fingers around the edges of his Fedora hat looking in the mirror. I could barely get a word out of my mouth, but somehow I mustered to say 'Noah', he suddenly bent over and said "What?, Cobra?", I didn't even correct him I just nodded my head in agreement, he said "that's a tough name for little man like you", I continued to nod in agreement.
The taller guy had a tailored leather jacket with a black turtle neck shirt underneath, he also had his dark wrap around sunglasses and was wearing a black beret cap and leather gloves. On his leather jacket was a patch that had a black hand making a peace sign and on his cap a button that had a black fist with a broken chained cuff around it's wrist. I remember saying to myself "Jesus if you get me out of this one, I promise I will hand out church pamphlets all day on Saturday".
I've been in many situations but not one quite like this. It seemed like the trek back to the store floor, was a distant travel to the center of the earth. I thought that this was the end of me, and all I was thinking of was what I thought would be the worst way of dying. At the time, it was to be thrown off a tall building (My 7 year old mentality at the time). So then the taller guy asked me "So who are you wit?" Ah, the magic question, in my young mind I was thinking astutely and had to be careful with the answer. I said in a shaken voice "My mom is waiting for me outside" and he answered "There's nobody out there" and I said "I mean she's down stairs waiting for me", I emphasised 'waiting'. The shorter guy was tapping his cane on the floor which was as tall as I was, it was dark brown and glossy, it had the image of a snake wrapped around it that led to the top of the cane and the head of the snake protruding with it's tongue out. I noticed he had a gold ring on everyone one of his fingers and a gold watch with the image of the African continent on it, as I remember it now.
The shorter guy turned to the taller guy and said "I dig that name, Cobra, don't you?" and the taller guy answered "I dig it, I dig it". The shorter guy then takes his cane and taps my shoulder and says "OK Cobra, you watch yourself now" as both men made a path for me to exit. It was as significant as the parting of the Red Sea. I strolled out the door quivering in tension. My first instinct was to take off running after I got out, but I decided to composedly walk. My legs felt like jelly fish tentacles anyway, if I would have tried to run I probably would have wobbled down to the floor in my Buster Browns. I got to the elevator door and my little finger pressed that button relentlessly, feeling like it was an eternity for that elevator door to open. I was thinking to myself, I don't want to run into those men again, they might change their mind.
Finally the elevator door opened and I could hear harps and a choir of angels singing, I got in and pressed the 1st floor button relentlessly again, saying to myself "close!, close!, close! And when it finally closed I leaned back on the elevator wall breathing in a sigh of relief as the elevator floated to the 1st floor. As the door opened on the store level and I could hear the hustle and bustle of people and the department store music, all normal again. I found my mom and she said "Lo encontraste?" I said 'si', I didn't even begin to tell her about my experience, I thought to myself , it wasn't worth it to worry her after the fact, I felt safe now. And another day ended as my mom and I got on the DC Transit bus back home.
Some might say, I would never let my kids go to the bathroom alone at 7 years old. But in that era it was different. I had working parents, no daycare, no siblings and I had to get around on my own as a small child, fixing my breakfast walking a mile to school dodging 'wineos', weirdo strangers calling me over and bullies trying to take my lunch money. It was a way of life for me and I did most of my things on my own.
I wasn't afraid of these guys merely because they were black men. We lived in a neighborhood that was a ratio of 80/20 black. However, the way these guys were dressed made an impression as well as intimidate a 7 year old, it was like something out of the movies, eccentric. And I've watched enough Petey Greene's Washington and 'Soul Tran' to know these guys were different. Later on I realized that these guys may have been party to the Black Panther Organization, when I saw them on the Petey Greene Show 'Adjust your color', a local TV show of the era. Just to think I was rubbing elbows with the Black Panther Party. Those cats must have gotten a kick watching me squirm.
The Black Panther Organization of Self Defense was formed in October 1966 in Oakland, California at the height of the civil rights movement. Chapter 27 was formed in Washington DC in 1970 and ironically enough they opened an office around the corner from where I lived. Their cause founded by Huey Newton and Bobby Seale. The Panthers practiced militant self-defense of minority communities against the U.S. government, and fought to establish revolutionary socialism through mass organizing and community based programs. The party was one of the first organizations in U.S. history to militantly struggle for ethnic minority and working class emancipation — a party whose agenda was the revolutionary establishment of real economic, social, and political equality across gender, color and cultural lines.
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