Hard Revolution

“It’s that brother of his who’s deaf,” said Darius, coming into the kitchen. He went to the old Frigidaire and grabbed a bottle of beer from the bottom shelf.

“He’ll find his way,” said Derek.

“He better start. ’Cause he sure ain’t found it yet.”

Darius got an opener out of a drawer and uncapped his beer. He had a pull from the bottle and drank off its neck. Derek put the last plate in the rack as Alethea dried her hands. The three of them stood in the closeness of the galley kitchen, a space that was tight and badly lit but was as comfortable to them as a warm glove.

“You doin’ all right?” said Darius.

“Fine,” said Derek in an unconvincing way.

“Rough, isn’t it?”

“It can be.”

“I suppose you’re not gettin’ the love you thought you would.”

“I’m not wi

“Remember, the good folks, they got no problem with seein’ you coming down the street. It’s the criminals and the no-accounts go

“It’s just hard.”

“If it’s important,” said Darius, “it usually is. You’ll be fine, long as you don’t get off the path. Get caught up in that power thing, the way some of these police do. Forget why they took the job to begin with.”

“I’m straight,” said Derek.

“I know you are, son,” said Darius.

“You just watch yourself, hear?” said Alethea.

“Yes, ma’am.”

Darius looked his son over with admiration. He didn’t have to say what he was feeling. Derek knew. He was getting, in a silent way, what every son craved from his father and what few ever got: validation and respect. It was all in his eyes.

“We get your big brother straightened around, too,” said Darius, “we go

“BUY ME ANOTHER beer,” said Walter Hess.

“They already turned the lights on,” said Buzz Stewart.

“That’s good,” said Hess. “Now I can see what I’m drinkin’.”

“He means it’s closing time,” said Dominic Martini.

“I know what he means, you dumb fuckin’ guinea,” said Hess. He turned to Stewart with unfocused eyes. “Buy me another beer, dad.”

They were in a white bar in a black neighborhood on 14th. The men wore leathers, Macs, and motorcycle boots. The women wore Peters jackets and Ban-Lon shirts. Mitch Ryder was playing on the radio. The crowd was sweaty and drunk-ugly in the bright lights of last call. A fog of cigarette smoke hung in the air.

“C’mon, Shorty,” said Stewart, grabbing a sleeve of Hess’s jacket and pulling him toward the door.

Hess pulled his arm free as they walked. He stopped at a woman he did not know who was standing beside a guy who was drinking a Schlitz. The woman had a pocked face and a peroxide streak in her hair. Hess gave her a kiss. Her back was to a wall and she dropped her arms helplessly to her sides. Hess jammed his tongue in her mouth and licked her lips for good measure as he pulled away.

“Hey,” said the guy she was with, stepping forward.

“Hay is for horses, faggot,” said Hess, cross-eyed and gri

The man did nothing and said nothing else. A bouncer named Dale, a friend to Stewart and Hess, came quickly from around the stick. He went straight to the guy who had defended the girl and put him up against the wall. Dale’s left hand held his shirt collar and pi

Hess left the place cackling, followed by Stewart and Martini. All lit smokes on the way to Hess’s car.

They drove up 14th, all three drunker than shit. Stewart fucked with the radio dial and found a Marvin and Tammi single he liked. He turned it up. Hess double-clutched coming up a rise and the surge pushed Martini back against his seat.

“Slow down,” said Martini.

“Slow down,” said Hess in a girlish way. He gave the Ford more gas.

“I’m not kiddin’ around,” said Martini.

“Shut your cocksucker,” said Hess.

Over the rise, on a residential strip of 14th somewhere between Park and Arkansas, they saw a young black man walking the sidewalk a block or so south of their car. Hess eased his foot off the gas, looked in the rearview, looked ahead, and saw no one else driving the street. Except for the black man, there was no pedestrian traffic. Hess cut the headlights and slowed to a crawl.

“Buzz,” said Martini, “tell him to knock this shit off.”

Hess and Stewart kept their eyes down the road. The black man looked over his shoulder and slightly quickened his pace.

“He heard us,” said Stewart.

“Course he did,” said Hess, “loud as you’re playin’ that boofer music.”

“It’s the exhaust system in this piece of shit that’s makin’ all the noise.”

“If you call purrin’ noise.” Hess squinted. “How come he ain’t ru

“They don’t never run no more, you know that. He’s daring you, son.”

“I should peg that nigger, Stubie.”

“Scare him some,” said Stewart. “Go ahead.”

“Don’t,” said Martini, the word barely making a sound against the music coming from the radio.

Hess found a break in the line of parked cars, carefully drove over the curb, and got the Ford up on the sidewalk. He cruised slowly down the hill. The black man turned his head again, double-taked, and ran. Hess laughed and hit the gas.

“How many points?” said Hess.

“Make it ten.”

They closed in on him quickly. The black man leaped off the sidewalk and hit the street.

“Look at him go,” said Hess.

“Like he seen an alligator,” said Stewart.

Hess tore up turf as he jumped the curb and got back onto the street. He downshifted, rubber crying as the tires struggled for purchase on the asphalt. He pi

The young man suddenly cut right and headed for the space between two parked cars, a purple Chevy and a white Dodge. Hess followed. The Ford fishtailed, then found its feet again.

Stewart looked over at his friend. “Hey, Shorty.”

They were on the young man startlingly fast. Hess jammed the middle pedal to the floor, but the speed was too much for the brakes, and the Ford went into a skid. The young man’s head turned. Stewart thinking, Damn, his eyes are wider than shit, as the Galaxie lifted the young man and took him into the front quarter of the white Dodge. At the point of impact, all the occupants of the Ford were thrown forward. Stewart and Hess jacked into the dash; Martini’s head bounced off the bench. They sat there dazed, the world spi

Hess swallowed blood. His mouth had hit the wheel violently and the collision had split his upper lip. Stewart touched a deep gash on his brow, felt wetness there, pulled back a finger smudged with red. With a shaking right hand he cut the radio off.

They cleared the dizziness from their heads. They looked through the windshield. They saw the young man, arms twisted, torso misshapen, lying at an u

“We need to get ourselves gone, Shorty,” said Stewart, seeing Hess working the shifter through the gears but doing nothing else.

“What?”

“Haul ass.”

The young man’s body slid off the hood as Hess put the Ford into reverse and flipped on its lights. A single beam shot out from the front of the car. They pulled back, and a fine spray of blood erupted from the young man’s mouth as he rolled onto his side in the street. One hand reached up as if to grab at something. The hand dropped. The body moved in spasm and then didn’t move at all.