Available units had been called to the scene by radio. Derek Strange and Troy Peters were among the first to arrive. Strange got out of the car with his hand on his nightstick. He and Peters joined the other uniforms who had gathered around the lieutenant in command. The men were instructed to use their presence, rather than physical force, to restore order and protect the commercial properties on the strip. The crowd, now numbering in the hundreds, continued to swell as the men received their instructions. “Do not draw your guns unless it is absolutely necessary,” said the lieutenant. Strange felt a trickle of sweat run down his back. His hand involuntarily grazed the butt of his.38.
Strange and Troy joined the police line in front of the store and spread out several arm lengths but remained side by side. From what Strange could see, he was the sole black officer on the scene. He heard screams of “Tom” and “house nigger,” and felt a pounding in his head. He brandished his stick and slapped it rhythmically into his palm. He did not look the crowd members in the eye.
Serve and protect. Do your job.
A missile broke the pane of the Peoples door. Rocks, cans, bottles, and debris flew around them. A Doberman pinscher was unleashed into the crowd by a local store owner, further inciting the mob. A sergeant screamed at the civilian to get his “goddamn dog” out of there, but it was too late. A full bottle of Nehi grape soda hit a cop car, cracking its windshield. Two police went into the mob and pulled out a man, cursing and kicking, and threw him into the back of a wagon. A second man was cuffed and put into the wagon. Kids poured lighter fluid against a tree and set it aflame. They laughed and cursed at a fireman who put it out. Pebbles hit a squad car with the force of shot and twelve-year-old girls screamed out horrible things at the uniforms and Strange’s hands felt damp upon his stick. He looked at Peters and saw Troy’s wide eyes and the sweat bulleted across his forehead. For the next twenty minutes it was like a flash fire that they were powerless to stop. A young officer drew his gun in fear, and the noise grew louder and Strange knew then that they had lost control. Their lieutenant ordered them to pull back.
But suddenly, as if spent from its own rage, the crowd began to calm down. Stokely Carmichael, wearing a fatigue jacket, arrived from the SNCC office, was given a bullhorn, and instructed everyone to “go home.” He told people to disperse and clean the street of what they’d thrown, as this was, after all, their neighborhood. They did not move to clean a thing, but as he spoke the crowd quieted further and moved slowly away from the scene.
Police stood in the emptied street, surrounded by shattered glass and other debris. Smoke roiled in the strobing light of the cherry tops idling in the intersection. A boy rode through on a bicycle, his kid brother sitting on the handlebars, both of them laughing. A young officer lit a cigarette with a shaking hand.
“Troy,” said Strange.
Peters’s face was drained of color. He stared ahead, his feet anchored to the street.
“Come on, buddy,” said Strange, tapping him on the arm.
They walked together to their car.
LIKE THE MAN who lived in it, James Hayes’s apartment was clean and unpretentious. Its furniture came from a downtown store and would still be stylish in twenty years. The kitchen had been outfitted in new harvest gold appliances. A color television sat in the living room along with a console stereo. The shirts hanging in the bedroom closet were dry-cleaned and custom tailored. All of these possessions were of some quality but deliberately understated. The man showed no flash.
James Hayes had lived here on Otis Place long enough to have seen boys like Dennis and Derek Strange run the alleys and streets of Park View and grow to be men. He didn’t talk to the young ones until they came of age, and when they got involved with him it was always of their own volition. He was not a good man, nor was he bad.
Hayes sat in his living room with Dennis Strange, having a couple of Margeaux cognacs, listening to a record, enjoying the music and each other’s company but saying little because both of them were high. They had shared a joint of gage, and now the cognac was working on them, too, giving them that warm liquor thing on top of the head thing that blurred the edges of the room. Dennis had swallowed a red an hour earlier and was just about where he wanted to be. He had left the apartment before his parents came home from work, because he hadn’t wanted to look them in the eye.
“There it is, right there,” said Hayes. “Hear him growlin’?”
“Man can do it.”
“They say Sam was soft. If the only Cooke you own is Live at the Copa, you might think so. But you got to listen to these old records to know.”
Dennis smiled and nodded his head. Like Dennis’s father, Hayes went for that old sound, the R amp;B singers with the gospel roots. Dennis had spent many a night up here, listening to Sam Cooke’s Keen sides, the Soul Stirrers with R. H. Harris, the Pilgrim Travelers with J. W. Alexander, Jackie Wilson, and others. He was not religious, but he often got the feeling he got in church, listening to these records.
Dennis felt comfortable here. When they weren’t deep inside their heads or into the music, he and Hayes often had long discussions about politics and the black man’s future in America. Hayes was smart and sensible and put his words together right. Dennis knew enough to realize that James Hayes was a father to him in ways that his own father could not bring himself to be. He listened, for one, and was not quick to judge. Dennis also knew that it was easy for a man to let you slide on things, and be your friend, when you were not his son.
“I’ve got a woman,” said Hayes.
“Ray Charles,” said Dennis, laughing at his little joke, laughing because he was high.
“What I’m sayin’ is, I’ve got a lady friend comin’ over tonight.”
“I hear you.”
“I don’t mean to put you out.”
“Ain’t no thing,” said Dennis. “We’re cool.”
Dennis didn’t want to leave. He had no place to go. But he got up from the floor, where he had been sitting cross-legged, and stretched. He finished his cognac and put the empty snifter on the small table beside the chair where Hayes always sat. He shook Hayes’s hand.
Near the front door of the apartment, in a bowl on a telephone stand where Hayes kept his keys and things, Dennis saw the check, written by Jones’s lady friend, that he had brought over on Sunday night.
“You ain’t cashed this yet?” said Dennis.
“Was feeling poorly the last couple days. Haven’t had the chance to get to the bank.”
“I was just wondering if it was any good.”
“If it isn’t, I’m gonna need you to make it good.”
“You know I will.”
Dennis said this with bravado, but he didn’t know what he’d do if the check were to bounce. He didn’t want to deal with Jones again, not after what he’d done to him and especially Kenneth. He wondered what had happened to Kenneth, if the police had took him in, and if they had, would he do time. He hadn’t really thought the whole thing through, the consequences and such, when he’d talked to that old man down at the market. Just an impulse, really, nothing like a plan. He wasn’t sorry he’d done it or anything, ’cause it was the right thing to do, but… whatever. He didn’t want to think on it, not right now. His head was up too good.
“Take it easy, young man,” said Hayes.
“You, too.”
Dennis went out the door. He took the stairs down to the foyer of the row house where Hayes had his place and stepped out to the street.
The moon hung low and bright. Dennis could see no clouds. But to him it smelled like rain.
He walked up Otis toward the school, passing many parked cars. Mustangs and Novas for the cock-strong, Dodge Monacos and Olds 88s for the middle-aged and elderly, Caddys and Lincolns for those who liked to show. This was not his street, but he could match many of the vehicles to the houses where their owners stayed. He could match them all when he was straight. He passed a green Buick Special, then a VW Bug owned by this brother he knew who was always high, and a new Camaro, white with orange hood stripes, whose owner was a mechanic up near Fort Totten. Dennis had always been able to identify large things with small pieces of information. Like the dogs barking in the alleys. He could tell you the names of those dogs. Though maybe not right now. His head was all torn up.