The first time Gabriel Jones heard the name Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes, he had to bite back a laugh. What sort of white man named their kid after President James Buchanan—? Then Happy Sam Sawyer told him in no uncertain terms that this Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes had requested his transfer to the 107th Infantry—“ASAFP” yes, that is what the telegram said so yes he’d better get his ass moving, private, he had a plane to catch—and no this was not a joke and no laughing matter and no it was not a mistake Barnes was indeed well aware he was black, gotten authorization from Colonel Phillips himself for the transfer and it’d be a wrench letting him go so he’d better damn well do the 92nd and all of ‘em proud, did he hear?
The first time Gabe Jones laid eyes on Sergeant James Barnes, he was told, in no uncertain terms, “not to stare, you smoke, Sarge is a nasty motherfucker. Can’t wait to see what he’ll do to a nigger like you.”
The first time Gabe met Sergeant Barnes in person, Barnes punched a man in the dick for saying as much. Gabe didn’t really know what he had been expecting, walking into the 107th, knowing he’d be the only black man for miles, the first desegregated deployment he’d or anyone else had ever damn heard of…but dick-punching certainly wasn’t it.
The second time he met Barnes, Barnes held a man’s face in a scalding soup pot in the mess tent for over a minute all for telling Gabe to “get to the back of the line, where you belong." Then he smiled and asked if anyone else needed Mom to help feed them dinner, too.
The third time...Gabe wasn't sure he wanted there to be a third time.
But the next time Barnes appeared, strolling out to the edge of camp to the latrines to take a piss, Gabe followed him. Marched right up and stood at attention. Barnes ignored him.
Gabe would not be deterred so lightly.
Barnes proceeded to piss.
Gabe...might have to rethink his strategy. His determination faltered, if only for a moment. He'd seen intimidation tactics before, though none quite so crude. He continued to stand, spine ramrod straight, shoulders up and back, arm raised in salute, trying not to dwell too much on the scene before him.
Sarge shook off the last drops. Tucked himself back into his pants. Started whistling Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy.
You smug son of a bitch, Gabe bristled.
Barnes took out a pack of Luckies and lit up, content to ignore him.
Well. Gabe had marched himself over here, he had seen the man's dick, for godssakes so and he’d be damned if he marched himself back without getting what he wanted. Perhaps it was the musician in him, but Gabe always knew how to act around white folks to get what he needed, get in and get out untroubled. How to yes, sir, and no, ma’am, to feign ignorance, to walk and talk so he was just some swanky jazz player, some dumb, friendly negro and not a threat. But Sarge here had ruined that, blurted to the whole damn encampment that he was a university man, and sure, Gabe was proud, but the 107th was pissed, and no, a black man couldn’t very well blend in but a college-educated black man? Now he couldn’t even lose himself in assumptions, not since Barnes had painted a target on his back. Sarge wanted to play games? Fine. Gabe could do this all day.
“Oh, fuck’s sake,” Barnes finally sighed, blowing out a long stream of smoke. “You're worse than Steve. At ease.”
“Permission to speak freely, sir?”
“Got the feelin’ you’re gonna, anyways. Sure, Jonesey. Shoot,” he took another easy drag. “You got something you want to say?”
“Why me?”
“You’re a radioman, ain’tcha?”
“Yes.”
“A good one.”
“So I’ve been told.”
“And you speak German and French.”
“Yes.”
“So here I am, a Sergeant in the 107th, stuck in the middle of God-forfuckingsaken Europe of all places, I’m down a radioman ‘cause these Nazi cocksuckers have learned to shoot ‘em on sight, and you’re a radioman, a damned good one, who’s trilingual and such and you’re askin’ me why you’re here?” Sarge drawled, took another lazy drag on that Lucky. “Fuck, Jonesey, it's plenty obvious. You sure you’re a university man?”
It felt friendly, but Gabe had met enough CO’s in basic to suspect it was a test. “Howard, sir,” Gabe said carefully.
“I look like a knight to you, Jonesey?” Sarge raised an eyebrow.
“Sir?” he blinked.
“I ain’t a knight. I’m a person, Jonesey, same as you, probably in over his head and scared shitless. You don’t gotta sir me, pal.”
So that was it. “I’m not a queer.”
“What?” Sarge laughed so suddenly he nearly choked on his butt.
“If you brought me here just to mess with me, owe you, get me to do you favors, get, get down on my knees, I’m not a queer, and I’ll report you,” Gabe threatened as fast as he could rattle out the words.
“Fuck, no, Jonesey,” Sarge hiccoughed. “Ain’t nothing like that. Could use the help, is all, and you were the first able-bodied man I came across.”
“But—“
“But what, champ?” Sarge took pity on him.
It's plenty obvious, Jonesey. “I’m black.”
“Well, shit son, why didn’t somebody say somethin’?” Sarge grinned. "I ain't exactly blind, pal."
Gabe raised an eyebrow. “Last I checked, desegregated units were still illegal.”
“Yeah, like I give a fuck. Hell if I was gonna let more of my men die ‘cause some fat cat in Washington wrote some dumb law. The most decorated units in the European theater are black or Japanese, Jonesey,” Barnes explained, as matter-of-fact as if discussing weather. “We’re lucky to have you, if you’ll take us.”
Gabe considered it a moment. It felt an awful lot like kindness… then again, it felt an awful lot like patronizing. He’d met his fair share of “kind” white folk, that sort that somehow always made the injustices of slavery and segregation all about themselves. “Your granddaddy own slaves or something?”
“Fuck, no, my granddaddy didn’t own shit. Not even a goddamn potato!” Barnes chuckled. “You think that mad Irish bastard wanted to come to America? Hell, back then being Irish was barely one step up from being black. In New York? Maybe worse.”
“Then if you’re not a queer and it’s not the great white man’s burden then why the hell are you doing this?” Who are you, he wondered, and what on God's green earth do you want from me?
“Never said I wasn’t.”
It took Gabe a minute to process. “I—what?” He couldn’t mean—surely not?
“Never said I wasn’t,” Sarge repeated, dropping that butt and snuffing it out with his shoe like it was the most casual thing in the world. “Know a thing or two fighting for a country that don’t see fit to let you serve, hates you for something you can’t help but doing your damnedest to defend her anyhow. And hell, Jonesey, you didn’t even have to lie on your enlistment form.”
Gabe blinked. He did mean. As in three-letter-word man. Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes of the US Army 107th Infantry just outright admitted to being a queer. “What are you telling me for, Sarge?”
“You’re a jazz player from Manhattan, university man in Washington, D.C.,” Sarge shrugged. “Makes you about the swellest, most liberal guy I gotta know. Figure I can’t tell you, I can’t tell no one.”
There was a moment of silence, and Gabe didn’t know what to say, what to feel. Respect? Revulsion?
“Besides, seen Gone With the Wind."
Gabe gaped. “Is…is that some sort of code, Sarge? I speak seven languages and I still have no idea what you just said.”
“What, and English ain’t one of ‘em?” Barnes grinned. “You ain’t seen it? Fuck, Jonesey, where you been these last four years?”
“Howard. And yes, I’ve seen it. Everyone’s seen it,” he argued. So not code then. “I just don’t see what it's got to do with me.”
“Then you know Hattie McDaniel won herself an Academy Award for it, but she couldn’t attend the premiere on accounts of it was in Georgia. Jim Crow and all. Biggest, best, most goddamned expensive movie ever made, and that dame can’t go to her own damn party,” Barnes shook his head in disgust. “Well, she proved those bastards wrong, didn’t she? Desegregation don’t look so bad after that. And hell, the way I figure it, if it’s good enough for Clark Gable, it’s good enough for me.”
"What--you watched a movie, read some paper, now you think you can trust me?" he stammered. "You, you think we're friends-?"
"Jonesey," Barnes rolled his eyes. "'Course I can trust ya. I got your back, and now you've got mine. 'Cause if you let anything happen to me, Jonesey-boy, these fuckers will eat you alive."
"You son of a bitch," Gabe groaned. Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes was a pain in the ass...and against his better judgement Gabe was actually starting to like the guy.
"Aw, look at us two, Jonesey, you're black and I'm a queer Irish kike. Hitler hates us, and that lot out there? Our side? They'd beat us both as soon as look at us. We were born to be friends, pal," he grinned. "Now tell me, what's the fanciest gig you ever played?"
And suddenly it was just the two of them, no war, no officers, no queer, no white, no black, just himself and some poor, scrappy, street kid from Brooklyn, tugging on his coat-tails and begging for stories of life on the swell side of The Big Apple. “I met Louis Armstrong once. Got to play with him in at the Savoy,” Gabe rushed suddenly, face flushing. "Best night of my life." Aside from his Howard acceptance letter, it was his proudest moment.
“No shit, huh?” Barnes asked in awe--genuine--and offered out that open pack of Luckies. “Tell you what, Jonesey, as your new NCO and best pal, I gotta insist you’re gonna stand there and you’re gonna goddamned tell me all about it.”
“And I want details,” Gabe heard as he leaned in for a light. “Copious fucking details.”
The last time Gabe saw Bucky Barnes, it was from the roof of a speeding train in the Austrian Alps. And yeah. They got their target. They got their man. But hell if it wasn’t a high price to pay, and hell if in the end when Cap put that plane down and the world lost both of them within days of one another, Gabe wondered if it had all been worth it.
Epilogue
On March 7th, 1965, Gabriel Jones was arrested in Selma, Alabama while watching Amelia Boynton beaten unconscious on the Edmund Pettus Bridge. When asked what would Captain America think of him now, “Son,” Gabe said, “Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes would be right here with me.”
On March 30th, 1973, Gabe married fellow SHIELD agent and founder Margaret Elizabeth “Peggy” Carter in a small, private courthouse ceremony attended by Edwin and Anna Jarvis. It was a bittersweet moment for all of them: Peggy's long time lover and companion, Angie Martinelli, had passed away the previous spring.On January 6th, 2011, Gabriel Jones attended the premiere of HBO's JOSEPHINE miniseries accompanied by wife Peggy Carter, and friends Jim Morita, George Takei and spouse Brad Altman. The children, grandchildren, and great-grandchild of Jaques "Frenchie" Dernier were also in attendance. Set to air in February, JOSEPHINE was written by Shonda Rhimes, starring Kerry Washington as the titular character. With the declassification of SHIELD documents and the close cooperation of the French Government, the series depicted her life from humble beginnings on the streets of St. Louis to singer, actress, and darling entertainer, as well as revealing for the first time the full extent of her true involvement with Resistance efforts, collaboration with the Howling Commandos, the American Civil Rights Movement, and her personal struggles with family, aging, and the twilight of her career. "I played on stage with Josephine Baker in 1944 establish a cover and smuggle Cap into Paris...and for 68 years I couldn't tell anyone!" Jones laughed. "Cap created the first desegregated unit, always pushed Morita and I into the foreground of shots. I think he'd be happy. He'd be happy to see people finally get the credit they deserve."
On February 2nd, 2014 @TheGabehimself twitter account updated for what would be its final time. Its last post was a picture of the eponymous Gabe at home in his hospice bed, an aging yet bright Peggy Carter nestled against him with her long grey hair unbound, adopted son Antoinne Triplett, an elderly Jim Morita, four generations of Falsworths, Josephine Dernier, Rebecca Barnes-Proctor and Steve Rogers all in matching Black Lives Matter T-shirts. There was one last message to his followers and fans:No, you move.
Steve Rogers @StarSpangledMan
@TheGabehimself You were so much more than a symbol or hero, you were a friend when I needed one most. Thanks for taking care of my best girl. You’re loved and so, so missed.
01:51 AM Feb 3rd