Hard Revolution

Strange switched on the lamp, then quickly switched it off.

From the darkness of the apartment, he watched Jones cross the street. He watched Vaughn emerge from the corner market, a small automatic in his hand. He watched him say a few words to Jones in a threatening way, then point him toward the market with the muzzle of the gun. Vaughn stepped aside to let Jones pass inside the market before he followed him in.

Strange heard a popping sound from below, then two more pops right behind it. Light flashed from the market’s depths and briefly illuminated the street.

Strange left the apartment in darkness and walked down the stairs. He exited the row house and headed across the street to an alley entrance beside the market. Vaughn came outside, looked around, and smoothed out his suit jacket. He joined Strange, standing in a patch of black at the edge of the alley. He pulled a wad of cash from his pocket and handed it to Strange.

“Take it,” said Vaughn. “I emptied his pockets and his wallet.”

“I don’t want it,” said Strange.

“Take it. Throw it away or give it away, it makes no difference to me. It’s gotta look like a robbery, so there it is.”

Strange put the money in his pocket.

“It gets easier,” said Vaughn, looking into Strange’s hollow eyes. “Let’s go.”

They walked toward 7th Street. The sirens and burglar alarms grew louder, as did the upraised voices of the soldiers, citizens, and police. As they neared the commotion, they came upon a sewer that was taking in a river of water from the curb. Vaughn drew the cheap.32 from his belt line, wiped it off with his cloth handkerchief, and dropped the gun into the sewer along with the wallet he’d taken off Alvin Jones. Vaughn barely broke his stride.

At the intersection of 7th and P, amid the confusion, the strobing lights, the flames, and the noise, he shook Strange’s hand and broke away.

Vaughn disappeared into the smoke. Strange walked north.

THIRTY-FOUR

THE CURFEW, AND the presence of more than six thousand armed soldiers, National Guardsmen, and police, brought the city under control. Prisoners in overflowing precinct jails were transferred to facilities downtown. Rioters and looters who had escaped arrest began to return to their apartments, houses, and public housing units to examine their bounty, treat their wounds, and tell tales. A few law-abiding residents came out of their homes, in violation of the curfew, to give food and drink to exhausted firemen and police. For many, it was the first shocking glimpse of the streets and businesses they had frequented every day for most of their lives. The destruction of their neighborhoods had been devastating and complete.

By midnight, the capital of the United States was under occupation by federal troops. Sporadic rioting and civil disobedience would continue through the weekend at a greatly reduced degree, leading to a Sunday of relative peace.

By the end of the weekend, there would be almost 8,000 arrests, 1,200 reported injuries, and nearly 30 million dollars’ worth of damage. Twelve citizen deaths were attributed to the riots. A thirteenth death was listed as a homicide. The body of a man was found in a gutted market near 7th Street, his death the result of close-range gunshot wounds to the head, throat, and chest.

The man was never identified. His killer was never found.

LATE FRIDAY NIGHT, a squad car went up Georgia, along Howard University. It occupants, two veteran white cops out of the Thirteenth Precinct, pulled to the curb, where a big white man in a cheap suit stood talking on the phone in a public booth, the door open to accommodate his bulk. The cop riding shotgun had recognized the man.

“Detective,” said the cop, tilting his head out the window of the Ford. “Everything all right?”

Vaughn put his hand over the receiver. “Just out here solving homicides.”

“You’re behind enemy lines, case you haven’t noticed.”

“I’m undercover,” said Vaughn, and the uniforms laughed.

“You been around forever,” said the cop, winking at his partner. “Any advice for this situation we got here?”

“Don’t shoot till you see the whites of their eyes.”

“That ain’t no trick.”

“You be safe, hear?”

The patrol cops drove off. Vaughn removed his hand from the receiver.

“Couple of cops,” said Vaughn into the phone. “Worried about the Hound Dog.”

“I’ve been worried about you, too,” said the woman on the other end of the line.

“Told you I’d call, didn’t I?”

“Sure, only…”

“What?”

“I wa

Vaughn screwed a cigarette between his lips. “I could use a drink.”

“I’ll be waiting,” said Linda Allen, and she cut the line.

Vaughn stepped out of the booth and lit his smoke. He’d go home to Olga and the kid. But not yet.

THE SQUAD CAR continued north. The veterans drove by a young black cop, slowly walking up the long hill.

Derek Strange saw the squad car pass. He didn’t wave or acknowledge it. He crossed Georgia Avenue and walked west on Barry Place. He stopped at Carmen Hill’s row house and looked up at her apartment and saw that it was dark. He stared at the blackness behind her window and then he walked on.

Despite the curfew, people were out, sitting on their stoops, the younger ones gathered in alleys, some at street corners, leaning against lampposts or perched atop garbage cans. Some cold-eyed Strange. A few nodded in a friendly way. None spoke to him at all.

In his mind, Strange pictured his brother. Standing in the living room, trying to school his family on the revolution that had to come.

“You missed, D,” said Strange.

He wiped tears from his cheeks as a boy ran from an alley, carrying a dress over his shoulder. His eyes were wide as Strange reached out and grabbed his arm.

“What’re you doin’?” said Strange.

“I’m just fu

“Where’s your mother and father at? Didn’t they tell you there was a curfew?”

“I ain’t got no father, mister. My mother is out with a man.”

“Go home,” said Strange, releasing the boy’s arm. “Go home!”

The boy dropped the dress and fled. Strange walked on.

He turned right on 13th Street and went up the hill alongside Cardozo High, not looking at the smoldering ruins of Shaw behind him. At the top of the hill he came to his building and glanced up at his apartment. His windows were wide open. He tried to remember if he had left them that way when he had gone out last.

Strange started up to the door of his building, went for his key, and felt the roll of cash folded in the pants pocket of his uniform. He stood there for a moment at the door, thinking of the boy he’d just rousted. Thinking of all the boys he saw out here every day. Thinking of the baby boy whose father he’d just killed.

Strange returned to the sidewalk of 13th. He walked north, past Euclid, to Fairmont. West on Fairmont, he came to the row house with the turret and the peeling paint. He went inside and up to the second-floor landing. He knocked on a door there and waited.

The door opened to reveal the tall, heavy woman with the wide features and the almond-shaped eyes. She wore an old shirt and the “Black Is Beautiful” earrings he’d seen before. She held her baby boy in the crook of her arm.

“Mary,” said Strange. “Sorry to bother you so late.”

“You look rough.”

“Been workin’ damn near two days straight. Can I come in? I won’t stay but a minute.”

She stepped aside to let him pass through, then closed the door behind him. They stood there awkwardly in her small foyer. The apartment smelled of baby and cigarettes.

“You want a coffee, somethin’?”

“No, thank you,” said Strange, thinking of the cup she’d served coffee in before and the roach crawling on its saucer.