“Sure is some nice scenery out here, though,” said Willis, his sights already set on another girl.

“Sure is,” said Dennis, smiling at the familiar feeling he had, looking at his people, his world.

They rolled slowly past T Street, where the Howard Theater was set just east of 7th. Lately, the Howard had been replacing its stage shows with what they called adult films. Today the marquee read, Miniskirt Love, and underneath the title smaller letters had been put up, saying, “Warped Morals of the Mod World.” Dennis wondered, Why would anyone care about some rich-ass white kids, doing shit ’cause they bored?

“Where the music gone to, man?” said Willis.

“Acts be goin’ places where white folks got money to spend,” said Dennis. “Ray Charles just played Constitution Hall. James Brown, Gladys Knight, shit, they’re out there at Shady Grove next week.”

“Where the fuck is that?”

“In some cornfield out in Maryland. All I know is, I ain’t interested.”

He couldn’t have afforded to go to those kinds of shows if he wanted to. Dennis Strange had no job. He lived with his mother and father. He sold marijuana in small quantities so that he could afford his own stash. He had a pill habit. He drank too much, and what he drank was cheap. In fact, he could smell last night’s fortified wine coming out his pores now. When his head was up, he thought of these things and his shame grew. But that didn’t stop him from getting high.

Being up on reefer, it chilled some of his anger, too. That was good, as it felt to him that he’d been angry for a long time. He’d been fired up on the injustices done to his people way before these Johnny-come-lately motherfuckers came out with their black gloves, naturals, and slogans. He was no longer interested in wearing signs.

Early on, during his stint in the navy, he’d gotten involved with a couple of Muslim boys who were into the same kind of ideology as him. Quietly, they’d hung together and talked about Elijah Muhammad and the new world they knew would have to come. They exchanged books like The Colonizer and the Colonized and The Wretched of the Earth. They talked about institutional oppression, the disease of capitalism, and revolution deep into the night. But Dennis never could get with the personal politics of the Muslim religion. For one, he liked to drink and get high, and he liked his women smart and free. Wasn’t any god worth giving those things up for. Then, when Malcolm was assassinated by his own, Dennis got disillusioned all the way. He stopped hanging with his Muslim friends and retreated inside himself.

One night, drunk on Night Train, out there in Chicago where he was stationed, he tumbled down a flight of stairs and broke his tailbone. He had been coming down out of a tenement where he had gone to cop some weed when he tripped and fell. He blacked out from the pain and the drink. No one got to him until the next morning. When they did he was sober and lying in his pee. His time in the navy was done. He received an honorable discharge and full disability. He walked with a slight limp and always had pain. He was prescribed barbiturates and fell in love with them. He began to receive a monthly check.

Dennis Strange came back to D.C. as a cripple living off the government tit, more bitter and insecure than he had ever been before. He moved in with his parents and did not try to get a job. He got high every day. He went to seminars at Africa House, a couple of SNCC and Black Nationalist rallies, and attended a few meetings organized by the local chapter of the Black Panthers in Shaw. He thought he would be into the Panthers, but he was put off by them, too. True, many in attendance were genuinely committed. But a few of the young brothers were there because they liked the fit of the beret and the cut of the uniform. Others were there for the pussy to be had. Some of them liked to shout; all of them liked to talk. To Dennis, they were dark-skinned versions of those kids with the long hair who hung out at Dupont Circle, on the other side of town. They were playing soldier, but they didn’t really want to go to war. As usual, he did not fit in.

He tried to follow Dr. King but felt the reverend was too forgiving. Time was gone for joining hands. King’s followers believed freedom could be got with pacifism and words of love. Dennis knew that America would only respond, really respond, to the sound of gunfire, the sight of blood, and the smell of ashes.

“Goddamn right,” said Dennis, the reefer, along with the pill he had taken, hitting him all at once.

“Say what?” said Kenneth Willis.

“Nothin’.”

“You talkin’ to yourself again.”

“Yeah, I know,” said Dennis. “Must be ’cause I’m high.”

Willis parked the Monterey on a residential block of LeDroit Park, southeast of Howard University, in front of a row house converted into three units.

“This your cousin’s new crib?” said Dennis.

“His woman’s,” said Willis. “She got a baby in there, too.”

“From his blood?”

“He’s made a couple his own self. But this one’s not his.”

Dennis Strange looked at the steps going up a hill to the house. There’d probably be at least another flight he’d have to take once inside. All those stairs were hell on his back.

“You can run the shit in to him,” said Dennis. “I’ll stay in the car.”

“You need to come with me,” said Willis.

“Why?”

“Alvin says he’s got a proposition for us. Wants you in on it, too.”

ELEVEN

DOMINIC MARTINI CAME up off Longfellow and turned left, taking Georgia Avenue north toward Silver Spring. His wrist rested on the wheel of his Nova, and a freshly lit Marlboro hung between his lips. Jack Alix, the DJ on WPGC, sprang boisterous from the radio as he introduced a song.

“Here’s Gary Puckett and the Union Gap, with ‘Woman, Woman,’ comin’ in at number one!”

The singer started out sincerely, then went dramatic on the chorus, demanding to know if his girl was thinking of stepping out on him. The music swelled around Martini in the car, but it barely registered. His attention was focused on the street.

When he’d gotten back from the service, the first thing he noticed about Georgia Avenue was that it had been repaved. The white concrete and streetcar tracks were gone, replaced by black asphalt. The platforms and watering troughs had disappeared. Everything looked less bright.

The second thing he’d noticed was that there were many more blacks in the neighborhood, up on the commercial strip and in the residential areas as well. Soul music came from radios of cars cruising the Avenue and sometimes it came from the open doors of the bars. Realtors had brought in black buyers and turned white blocks gray, causing many white homeowners to sell their houses on the cheap and move into the Maryland suburbs. Martini’s house on Longfellow looked the same as when he left it, but most of the neighbors he’d known in his youth were gone. He felt like a stranger in his hometown.

There were changes inside his house, too. His father had died of liver failure. Angelo was gone. His mother was in a state of perpetual mourning and always wore black. The smell of the pasta sauce simmering in the kitchen reminded Martini he was home. But it was a lifeless place now. Windows were kept closed. The air was still, and the furniture held a thin coat of dust. He often heard his mother sobbing at night in her room.

He had few friends. He had not finished high school and felt cut off from those who did. Some of the kids he’d come up with were away at college, and he seemed dead to those who remained. He had not expected to return to D.C. with a hero’s welcome. But he had hoped for respect.

He got it from the old-timers, especially the veterans, but it was different with the young. To many of them, he was a freak. In bars, he no longer talked about Vietnam. It didn’t help him with women and sometimes it spurred unwelcome comments from men. When he mentioned his tour of duty, it seemed to lead to no good.