Joachim was known in the scene as Joe or Joe Dread. I never called him by that nickname. When we met he was 28 and I was 31. By then he was starting to go bald and trying to keep his dreads intact as his hairline receded. My nickname for him was ‘Bozo Dread’ because his hair reminded me of Bozo the Clown.
Joachim and I were in and out continuously for a year or two. I couldn’t keep up with the 24/7 wacko cycle he was on. Drinking, drugs, weed, and more drinking. He could drink anyone, anywhere under the table and walk away upright.
By 31 I had simmered down with all that, becoming more mature. Getting high alone was a bad sign to me. I snapped right out of it and into being more ‘straight edge’ ( punk slang for someone who’s a teetotaler or clean ).
The summer between 1998 - 99, one of Joachim’s best friends, Carlos, was getting high at Shammy’s mom’s house and just like that, he overdosed. Carlos was only 27 years old. Shammy’s mom panicked and didn’t want the cops or anyone in the house. They tried to revive him, but Carlos died that night on the front lawn.
Carlos, Joachim, and Jeffrey (aka Jabba the Hut) had a punk thrash band when they were, I don’t know, 14 or 15. As I knew it, they were a mess, making noise while stumbling over cans of Old English and day old pizza. They could actually play, they just lacked focus and discipline.
One night, Carlos, Joachim and two of their homies came to a friend’s house party on Croxton, rolling in like a squad of the young, black, and beautiful. They were cool with an underlying energy of power and presence. At one point there was a bit of a ruckus outside. Carlos and Joachim were the first to intervene and diffuse the situation.
Everybody freeze! On your knees, butt naked please! Before any of you guppies get heart.
When we were kids our parents had been friends; part of the same social circle of beatniks, revolutionaries, and back to the land hippies. Joachim’s mom, Cherise, had taken us in a few times when we’d flee from my dad. I remember one night, Pop sat silently at the kitchen table with a knife as he stabbed repeatedly at its surface.
RUN!
Joachim was mixed like me. It was a radical thing then for our parents to be mixed couples at the time. When I was born in 1967, only 16 states had repealed anti-miscegenation laws after Loving vs. Virginia. Prior to that, California repealed the law in 1948.
Cherise was an earth mama Lola Falana with a beauty mark near her upper lip. She had a picture of me at 6 years old with a 3 year old Joachim sitting on my lap. Twenty-five years later, in the late 90s, Joachim and I met through mutual friends. I didn’t make the connection until I met Cherise at her house in West Oakland and saw a face from my magic bus childhood. Wait What? No way.
Ironically I did not like Joachim when were kids. I thought he was crude and obnoxious. I liked his cousin Phillipe with his pretty green eyes.
I met up with Joachim and his mom at Carlo's funeral, which was heartbreakingly sad. When he died, Carlos was with Hannah, a young sister maybe in her early 20s at the time. They had a 4 year old daughter together. When I saw Hannah with the baby, I broke down. I had given them whatever I could to help them: a dresser I had refinished, food, some cash.
Cherise sat between Joachim and I in the pew. We were on one of our break-up cycles; at odds with one another. We bickered in whispers and talked shit.
‘You two need to stop!’ Cherise said. ‘ You’re at a funeral! Get it together. Just love one another. Carlos is gone. We only have one chance.’
One chance? One chance at what? What is she talking about?
I had to think about that. As we left the funeral home, I got over myself and decided to try and work things out with Joachim.
The following weekend we had a BBQ at my place on 53rd street off San Pablo. I had two housemates at the time who were gone for the summer, so I had the place to myself. A rag-tag crew of Joachim’s punk homies came to hang out. I went to the store and when I returned, I found a white girl in the kitchen with him.
She wasn't a punk girl, but what we called a ‘gray girl’ back then. A gray girl was East Bay slang for white girls into black dudes. When you mix black and white on the color spectrum, the result is gray. At the time, such a term was meant to be an ironic, smart-ass diss. I don't think such a slang term would be tolerated now.
The girl was young, but looked hard and loose. She had the kind of face one gets from grinding life out too fast and doing too much.
‘ Oh, I’ve known Joe for awhile.’ She said. ‘ We ran into each other on Telegraph and he invited me over. He said it was cool. You’re friends.’
You don’t say?!
This is the kind of manipulation Joachim would do to test me; to see how far he could push it, and what my response would be. Alright, homie you and your little friend better be cool.
Well, they were not cool.
Everyone was hanging out on the deck in the backyard. At one point, I notice that Joachim and the girl are conspicuously absent. I went into the house and found them in my room where he was making his dorky moves on her. Joachim was essentially a nerd, but somehow circumvented such mystique to tough guy. He would call me ‘fair lass.’ How many black dudes in America talk like they learned English in the Shire? Homie must have read Tolkien in middle school. Well, he could be quite charming when he wanted to.
I proceeded to disrupt the shenanigans and create new ones.
‘ That’s it. ‘ I said. ‘ Both of you gotta go. Right now. ‘
The girl ran like it was a memory; like she’d made the same mistake before. As the saying goes, heaux never die!
That was it for Joachim. Whatever he had at my place I threw at him or out on the street. Also a plate ( I remember the plate flying, but not where I got it. I must have gone to the kitchen to get a plate? That would have been intentional ). I just missed his head as he went out the front gate, gathering his stuff into a grocery bag.
In life, women are either yellers or throwers. In my youth, I was a thrower. I had anger and defensive issues. Batter up! Smash! I destroyed stereos, walkmans, plates, cups, artwork, and mugs. At my age now, I check myself and I’m more pragmatic.
Wait. Stop. Don’t break that thing! That’s a cool thing!
You could say I was passionate then, but I was just a hurt person, shouting like Karen Finlay: ‘ You fuckin asshole! Bastard bitch!’
My neighbor across the street saw the domestic disruption from her window. She came out onto her front porch.
‘That’s right, girl!’ she cheered. ‘Fuck him! Kick his bitch ass out!
I remember thinking how black the whole situation was. My neighbor didn’t have any context, but somehow knew what was up, like an old blues song. A ‘ he done gone and did her real wrong ’ song. That scene with Angela Bassett in Waiting to Exhale is legendary for a reason. I notice how black women whomp at that scene every time while the men get a bit skittish with their internal ' Damn. I better be good to her or else. '
I was once at a hotel event in Detroit with my aunt and a couple at a table started fussing. Their voices escalated and others at the table joined the fray. When I saw chairs go up, myself and other guests where I was seated, grabbed our drinks and ran towards the kitchen. Security broke the couple up and the event was shut down. I learned later it was the wife that started that fight. She had had it with hubby’s shit and was not fucking around. Black folks gossip is an oral tradition. I got the straight scoop!
Joachim had left a sweatshirt behind at my place. I threw it in the fire pit and watched it burn. Hail to Queen Angela!
‘Damn, Lisa. That’s harsh. ‘ Someone said.
‘ Fuck him.’ I said. Watching the sweatshirt disintegrate like my love.
Joachim being himself ( drama queen, loverboy, a person of contradictions ) called the house and told someone he was at a bar in Temescal. The same person ratted me out.
‘ She burned my sweatshirt? Bro, I love that sweatshirt! ‘
Then I remembered something and hatched a plan. The homies asked for a ride to a show that night at a dive bar in downtown Oakland. They got in my truck, I dropped them off with the yada yada I’ll be right back, went to the bar in Temescal, and in front of everyone there, broke Joachim off of my army shorts that he was wearing.
‘You’re an asshole!' I said. ' Give me back my shit! ‘
‘You’re crazy!’ he said.
‘ I sure am. Give me my shorts! Who do you think you're fucking with?!'
‘ I don’t have any other pants! ‘
‘ Fuck you! ‘
He took my shorts off and handed them to me. This seems petty and petulant to me now, but those were my German army cargo shorts; punk utilitarian gear that I liked to travel in with pockets for stuff. There was no way he was keeping my shorts after pulling that stupid shit with a skanky little heaux. Wrath logic.
The people at the bar were cracking up as the end of things played out. Joachim followed me out to the street in his boxers.
‘ I should call the cops!’ he yelled.
‘ Call em, Joachim! I want to hear that conversation! You’re the one with a record and probably an outstanding warrant. Fuck….you hurt me!’
‘ So, be hurt! ‘
Say what now? Be hurt? That was the last straw right there. Who says that?
After sobering up, Joachim caught up to the consequences of his actions. He called me for days, leaving long messages on my answering machine. He was known to have an entire conversation with your answering machine. One night I was laying in bed listening to him natter on, his voice filling up the room.
This nigga….I couldn’t take it anymore and picked up the phone.
‘ Dude, if you don’t stop calling me, I am going to crawl up your ass and rip your heart out. ‘ ( I said that verbatim. There she goes again - the hurt person with the violent imagery! ).
He paused for a long time. ‘ Damn.’ he said. ‘ Chill. I just want to talk to you.’
Click.
One fond memory I have of Joachim was after one squabble at a kick-it house. I was over it, so I left and went home. Later that night I heard some racket outside my bedroom window. I looked outside and saw Joachim climbing into the bathroom, which was next to my room.
What the ….?
He came into my room with flowers in his hand he had stolen from someone’s yard. I sat there in disbelief for a minute, then cracked up.
‘Forgive me.’ he said.
‘Joachim…,’ I said. ‘Dude, I am not going down this path with you.’
Ten years later I was in Arizona and I got a call from Cherise that Joachim died from complications of cirrhosis of the liver, exacerbated by a life of extreme self-abuse. He was only 41 at the time.
After his memorial, a group of us went to Mama’s Royal Cafe for brunch to remember him and share stories. His time living in the punk house on 8th street, the girl he loved that he married 6 years earlier and their son Jude (named after The Beatles song). He loved Jude and had visitation with him, but wasn’t present, Cherise was. Joachim did not have the capacity to be a husband or father. I met his ex-wife, a young woman whose parents were Japanese butoh dancers. They owned a little sushi cafe in the Mission at the end of Clarion Alley.
They were lovely people; part of a Bay Area avant garde scene.
We had stopped by their house in Berkeley to pick Jude up for the weekend. Jude’s mother didn’t say a word to Joachim. I could see in his face that he still loved her, but she had given up on him. That is the most tender expression a man has.
We would spend the occasional weekend at Joachim's dad’s house in Sebastopol. Michael was white, a hippie doppelganger to Art Garfunkel. Growing up in Philadelphia, he came across a picture of a girl with flowers in her hair that inspired him to move to CA in the 1960s.
Early one morning over coffee, while everyone was still asleep, Mike and I sat in the kitchen and talked. I listened to him reflect on when he and Cherise had Joachim and hanging out with my parents.
‘ I wonder if things could have worked out for him if I had custody.’ he said. ‘But I didn’t do it. I didn’t want to hassle with Cherise about it. Things might have been better for him if I did.’
Joachim was mixed like me. It was a radical thing then for our parents to be mixed couples at the time. When I was born in 1967, only 16 states had repealed anti-miscegenation laws after Loving vs. Virginia. Prior to that, California repealed the law in 1948.
Cherise was an earth mama Lola Falana with a beauty mark near her upper lip. She had a picture of me at 6 years old with a 3 year old Joachim sitting on my lap. Twenty-five years later, in the late 90s, Joachim and I met through mutual friends. I didn’t make the connection until I met Cherise at her house in West Oakland and saw a face from my magic bus childhood. Wait What? No way.
Ironically I did not like Joachim when were kids. I thought he was crude and obnoxious. I liked his cousin Phillipe with his pretty green eyes.
I met up with Joachim and his mom at Carlo's funeral, which was heartbreakingly sad. When he died, Carlos was with Hannah, a young sister maybe in her early 20s at the time. They had a 4 year old daughter together. When I saw Hannah with the baby, I broke down. I had given them whatever I could to help them: a dresser I had refinished, food, some cash.
Cherise sat between Joachim and I in the pew. We were on one of our break-up cycles; at odds with one another. We bickered in whispers and talked shit.
‘You two need to stop!’ Cherise said. ‘ You’re at a funeral! Get it together. Just love one another. Carlos is gone. We only have one chance.’
One chance? One chance at what? What is she talking about?
I had to think about that. As we left the funeral home, I got over myself and decided to try and work things out with Joachim.
The following weekend we had a BBQ at my place on 53rd street off San Pablo. I had two housemates at the time who were gone for the summer, so I had the place to myself. A rag-tag crew of Joachim’s punk homies came to hang out. I went to the store and when I returned, I found a white girl in the kitchen with him.
She wasn't a punk girl, but what we called a ‘gray girl’ back then. A gray girl was East Bay slang for white girls into black dudes. When you mix black and white on the color spectrum, the result is gray. At the time, such a term was meant to be an ironic, smart-ass diss. I don't think such a slang term would be tolerated now.
The girl was young, but looked hard and loose. She had the kind of face one gets from grinding life out too fast and doing too much.
‘ Oh, I’ve known Joe for awhile.’ She said. ‘ We ran into each other on Telegraph and he invited me over. He said it was cool. You’re friends.’
You don’t say?!
This is the kind of manipulation Joachim would do to test me; to see how far he could push it, and what my response would be. Alright, homie you and your little friend better be cool.
Well, they were not cool.
Everyone was hanging out on the deck in the backyard. At one point, I notice that Joachim and the girl are conspicuously absent. I went into the house and found them in my room where he was making his dorky moves on her. Joachim was essentially a nerd, but somehow circumvented such mystique to tough guy. He would call me ‘fair lass.’ How many black dudes in America talk like they learned English in the Shire? Homie must have read Tolkien in middle school. Well, he could be quite charming when he wanted to.
I proceeded to disrupt the shenanigans and create new ones.
‘ That’s it. ‘ I said. ‘ Both of you gotta go. Right now. ‘
The girl ran like it was a memory; like she’d made the same mistake before. As the saying goes, heaux never die!
That was it for Joachim. Whatever he had at my place I threw at him or out on the street. Also a plate ( I remember the plate flying, but not where I got it. I must have gone to the kitchen to get a plate? That would have been intentional ). I just missed his head as he went out the front gate, gathering his stuff into a grocery bag.
In life, women are either yellers or throwers. In my youth, I was a thrower. I had anger and defensive issues. Batter up! Smash! I destroyed stereos, walkmans, plates, cups, artwork, and mugs. At my age now, I check myself and I’m more pragmatic.
Wait. Stop. Don’t break that thing! That’s a cool thing!
You could say I was passionate then, but I was just a hurt person, shouting like Karen Finlay: ‘ You fuckin asshole! Bastard bitch!’
My neighbor across the street saw the domestic disruption from her window. She came out onto her front porch.
‘That’s right, girl!’ she cheered. ‘Fuck him! Kick his bitch ass out!
I remember thinking how black the whole situation was. My neighbor didn’t have any context, but somehow knew what was up, like an old blues song. A ‘ he done gone and did her real wrong ’ song. That scene with Angela Bassett in Waiting to Exhale is legendary for a reason. I notice how black women whomp at that scene every time while the men get a bit skittish with their internal ' Damn. I better be good to her or else. '
I was once at a hotel event in Detroit with my aunt and a couple at a table started fussing. Their voices escalated and others at the table joined the fray. When I saw chairs go up, myself and other guests where I was seated, grabbed our drinks and ran towards the kitchen. Security broke the couple up and the event was shut down. I learned later it was the wife that started that fight. She had had it with hubby’s shit and was not fucking around. Black folks gossip is an oral tradition. I got the straight scoop!
Joachim had left a sweatshirt behind at my place. I threw it in the fire pit and watched it burn. Hail to Queen Angela!
‘Damn, Lisa. That’s harsh. ‘ Someone said.
‘ Fuck him.’ I said. Watching the sweatshirt disintegrate like my love.
Joachim being himself ( drama queen, loverboy, a person of contradictions ) called the house and told someone he was at a bar in Temescal. The same person ratted me out.
‘ She burned my sweatshirt? Bro, I love that sweatshirt! ‘
Then I remembered something and hatched a plan. The homies asked for a ride to a show that night at a dive bar in downtown Oakland. They got in my truck, I dropped them off with the yada yada I’ll be right back, went to the bar in Temescal, and in front of everyone there, broke Joachim off of my army shorts that he was wearing.
‘You’re an asshole!' I said. ' Give me back my shit! ‘
‘You’re crazy!’ he said.
‘ I sure am. Give me my shorts! Who do you think you're fucking with?!'
‘ I don’t have any other pants! ‘
‘ Fuck you! ‘
He took my shorts off and handed them to me. This seems petty and petulant to me now, but those were my German army cargo shorts; punk utilitarian gear that I liked to travel in with pockets for stuff. There was no way he was keeping my shorts after pulling that stupid shit with a skanky little heaux. Wrath logic.
The people at the bar were cracking up as the end of things played out. Joachim followed me out to the street in his boxers.
‘ I should call the cops!’ he yelled.
‘ Call em, Joachim! I want to hear that conversation! You’re the one with a record and probably an outstanding warrant. Fuck….you hurt me!’
‘ So, be hurt! ‘
Say what now? Be hurt? That was the last straw right there. Who says that?
After sobering up, Joachim caught up to the consequences of his actions. He called me for days, leaving long messages on my answering machine. He was known to have an entire conversation with your answering machine. One night I was laying in bed listening to him natter on, his voice filling up the room.
This nigga….I couldn’t take it anymore and picked up the phone.
‘ Dude, if you don’t stop calling me, I am going to crawl up your ass and rip your heart out. ‘ ( I said that verbatim. There she goes again - the hurt person with the violent imagery! ).
He paused for a long time. ‘ Damn.’ he said. ‘ Chill. I just want to talk to you.’
Click.
One fond memory I have of Joachim was after one squabble at a kick-it house. I was over it, so I left and went home. Later that night I heard some racket outside my bedroom window. I looked outside and saw Joachim climbing into the bathroom, which was next to my room.
What the ….?
He came into my room with flowers in his hand he had stolen from someone’s yard. I sat there in disbelief for a minute, then cracked up.
‘Forgive me.’ he said.
‘Joachim…,’ I said. ‘Dude, I am not going down this path with you.’
Ten years later I was in Arizona and I got a call from Cherise that Joachim died from complications of cirrhosis of the liver, exacerbated by a life of extreme self-abuse. He was only 41 at the time.
After his memorial, a group of us went to Mama’s Royal Cafe for brunch to remember him and share stories. His time living in the punk house on 8th street, the girl he loved that he married 6 years earlier and their son Jude (named after The Beatles song). He loved Jude and had visitation with him, but wasn’t present, Cherise was. Joachim did not have the capacity to be a husband or father. I met his ex-wife, a young woman whose parents were Japanese butoh dancers. They owned a little sushi cafe in the Mission at the end of Clarion Alley.
They were lovely people; part of a Bay Area avant garde scene.
We had stopped by their house in Berkeley to pick Jude up for the weekend. Jude’s mother didn’t say a word to Joachim. I could see in his face that he still loved her, but she had given up on him. That is the most tender expression a man has.
We would spend the occasional weekend at Joachim's dad’s house in Sebastopol. Michael was white, a hippie doppelganger to Art Garfunkel. Growing up in Philadelphia, he came across a picture of a girl with flowers in her hair that inspired him to move to CA in the 1960s.
Early one morning over coffee, while everyone was still asleep, Mike and I sat in the kitchen and talked. I listened to him reflect on when he and Cherise had Joachim and hanging out with my parents.
‘ I wonder if things could have worked out for him if I had custody.’ he said. ‘But I didn’t do it. I didn’t want to hassle with Cherise about it. Things might have been better for him if I did.’
That I knew to some degree. Cherise had gotten into using when we were kids, which was why Ma ended drifted away from their friendship in the 1970s. Ma was super straight edge as much she loved San Francisco rock and outlaw country singers. Getting high made her feel anxious. The one time she dropped acid when I was little, she cleaned the bathroom with a toothbrush.
I realized how much Michael loved Joachim, but didn’t know how to deal with, help, or save him. I knew that struggle and it made me sad. Michael told me a story I hadn’t heard before:
Joachim was about 17 and got busted for drug possession. In the 1980s teenage boys with a first offense had two choices: jail or the military. Being as good looking as Joachim was, jail was probably not a good idea. He was sent to army boot camp in Germany.
Six months in and one night, after lights out, he realized he lent his Walkman to another enlisted kid in the dorm room next to his. Joachim climbed out of his window, scaled the ledge to reach the kid’s room, lost his footing, and fell two stories straight down, landing on his head. He was in a coma for several weeks after that. After he recovered, the army sent him back home to the Bay.
In his 20s he experienced another head injury during a fight in jail. Michael thought that the trauma of those experiences had messed Joachim’s head up; altered its wiring and functioning. I thought about the possibility of that. He was fearless and rarely thought of consequence. He would just do it, whatever it was. He had poor short-term memory and seemed immune to physical pain. He had scars from wounds he had neglected or let fester before he got them checked.
Maybe a year after the last straw, I crossed paths with Joachim hanging out with friends in an apartment building on 40th Street. He tried to get me to talk to him, but a friend ran interference for me. Exit stage left.
At his memorial I met one of his homies he grew up with. Noah was a nice dude. We thought maybe somewhere out there our old friend was stoked.
I realized how much Michael loved Joachim, but didn’t know how to deal with, help, or save him. I knew that struggle and it made me sad. Michael told me a story I hadn’t heard before:
Joachim was about 17 and got busted for drug possession. In the 1980s teenage boys with a first offense had two choices: jail or the military. Being as good looking as Joachim was, jail was probably not a good idea. He was sent to army boot camp in Germany.
Six months in and one night, after lights out, he realized he lent his Walkman to another enlisted kid in the dorm room next to his. Joachim climbed out of his window, scaled the ledge to reach the kid’s room, lost his footing, and fell two stories straight down, landing on his head. He was in a coma for several weeks after that. After he recovered, the army sent him back home to the Bay.
In his 20s he experienced another head injury during a fight in jail. Michael thought that the trauma of those experiences had messed Joachim’s head up; altered its wiring and functioning. I thought about the possibility of that. He was fearless and rarely thought of consequence. He would just do it, whatever it was. He had poor short-term memory and seemed immune to physical pain. He had scars from wounds he had neglected or let fester before he got them checked.
Maybe a year after the last straw, I crossed paths with Joachim hanging out with friends in an apartment building on 40th Street. He tried to get me to talk to him, but a friend ran interference for me. Exit stage left.
At his memorial I met one of his homies he grew up with. Noah was a nice dude. We thought maybe somewhere out there our old friend was stoked.
‘ Right on, bro! Do better than I did with the fair lass.’
Joachim would have liked that gathering at Mama’s Royal. I suppose he wanted life to be like that always; good times among friends, without the responsibility of being a man. He was a master of fun and risk, but struggled at navigating other aspects of life. He gave no consideration to routine, work, or order. He functioned differently, oblivious to reality and time, which seemed to get in the way of his whims. That’s why he liked the punk scene and shows so much; no rules, no order; just straight up fun and freedom.
Joachim, the vivid, out of control spirit, would have been 51 this past October.
Joachim would have liked that gathering at Mama’s Royal. I suppose he wanted life to be like that always; good times among friends, without the responsibility of being a man. He was a master of fun and risk, but struggled at navigating other aspects of life. He gave no consideration to routine, work, or order. He functioned differently, oblivious to reality and time, which seemed to get in the way of his whims. That’s why he liked the punk scene and shows so much; no rules, no order; just straight up fun and freedom.
Joachim, the vivid, out of control spirit, would have been 51 this past October.
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