Michael O'Meara

I was recently watching a documentary on San Francisco Chinatown’s struggle to build housing in the early 1970’s including the politics of fear that was part of that era and I was reminded of an afternoon spent there in 1969 with several of my army buddies. At the time, I was training troops at Fort Ord who would shortly be headed for Vietnam, a trip I would join them in a few months later. I was housed, with 3 other sergeants in a small, spare, barracks on base. Our housing differed from the privates we trained only in our individual cots instead of bunk beds and our private bathroom. It wasn’t much but relief from having to do your morning constitutional with 32 other guys, knee to knee, was welcome. One weekend we had a leave, meaning we could ditch the base Saturday morning, returning Sunday evening. The consensus was easy, San Francisco, but our only means of getting there was my older, Chevy Corvair. I had recently purchased it from a fellow soldier who had to move on to a new posting and had needed to dump the car in a hurry. The Corvair was mechanically suspect even fresh off the assembly line and my sad, little, car had already seen a lot of hard use and not so many repair shops. The seats were ripped, the sides dented and the tires were threadbare, the corded fabric showing where the rubber had completely worn off. Round trip to San Francisco was likely a bridge too far my sorry tires.

Army bases then were more secure, closed, facilities without civilian gas stations or tire stores or stores of any kind, just military housing, training grounds, mess halls and weapons. My fellow sergeant, Bock, said he wanted in for the weekend and off handedly said not to worry about the tire problem, that he’d take care of it, offering no further explanation. Bock, a stout, affable, young, Chinese American, had grown up in San Francisco’s Chinatown. He and I shared a passion for Marvel comics and often swapped copies, sometimes throwing in cigarettes to sweeten the trade if one comic was more desirable than the other. Friday evening wore on and nothing more was said about tires that night and as usual, we went to bed early. The next morning, as we were settling in for another mess hall breakfast, Bock casually mentioned that the tire thing had been taken care of and we should come see. “Are you nuts”, immediately came to mind but he insisted we look. Just down the street form our barracks, my Chevy Corvair sat high and proud with four shiny, brand new tires. I asked Bock how and how much and with a small grin, he said, “My boys liberated the tires last night, so no charge.” How his friends had gotten onto a secure Army base in the middle of the night and switched out four tires without making a sound, seemed the larger mystery to me than the meaning of “liberated”. We drove the hundred odd miles to San Francisco and after knocking around there for a few hours, Bock said he had a place he wanted us to try for lunch. The restaurant, in Chinatown, was named the Golden Dragon. It had a wide glass store front with Asian pictures and artifacts and looked fairly expensive, not good news as sergeant’s pay didn’t support much of a life off base. We hesitated at the door until Bock told us not to worry and to follow him in. We walked down a short, narrow hallway that lead to the dining room when we came upon two traditionally dressed women. One of them said something to Bock in Cantonese. He briefly replied and the women instantly threw themselves against the walls, eyes down, clearly uncomfortable. I thought that they must not get many GI’s in here but quickly realized it was Bock’s presence that had super charged the air. The manager, a trim, middle aged woman, hurried to Bock and exchanged a few words. The restaurant was packed with tourists and locals with no available tables in sight. She turned to a table with four diners, said something to them in Cantonese and they stood up and backed away. I tried to protest but no one seemed to speak English. Bock waived me off as the staff quickly cleared the dishes and wiped down the table. The manager seated us and food and drink started to appear almost immediately. Occasionally. Bock would say something to the manager and another wave of dishes would be brought out. An hour or so later Bock said, “Let’s go”. No check had been offered and no money exchanged. I assumed Bock had somehow paid for everything and I offered him money but he assured me that it was all free. A few days later, I pressed him about the tires and the odd behavior in the restaurant and the cost of all of it. I said he shouldn’t be paying for all of us and to let us pay our share. He again said it was all taken care of. I again said we should pay. Seeing I was determined, he said he would be risking his life if he told me the truth and it got around. I remember thinking, “yeah, right” but I reassured him I wouldn’t tell anyone. He hesitated but finally said that he was the treasurer of the Joe Boys Gang and that they did what he told them to do. He said the restaurant wouldn’t charge him for anything so forget paying him back. I’d never heard of the Joe Boys and didn’t think too much more on it, accepting it as an act of generosity from Bock. 1969 turned into 1970 and we all went our separate ways.

1977, in a struggle with the Way Ching Gang for control of Chinatown, the Joe Boys shot up the Golden Dragon in an attempt to assassinate their rival’s leadership. They wound up killing five tourists and wounding 11 more people. It became known as the the Golden Dragon Massacre, severely reducing the tourist trade for years in Chinatown and leading to the creation of SFPD’s Asian Gang Task Force.

Twenty years later, having just moved back to San Francisco, I looked Bock up in the phone book, called him and suggested we get together. He laughed, said he was a fat, old, grandfather and declined.