Light It Up

by Kekla Magoon

  You walk the streets, uncomfortable. You walk the streets, with your eyes open. Someone has to be watching. Someone has to see how it all goes down.

  You’ve seen enough, and yet not enough. Too much happens in back alleys. Too much happens in the heat of a moment. Too much goes wrong, and yet no one has seen enough to ensure justice.

  The whole city’s on fire. That’s how it feels anyway. Underhill is a war zone. Tanks in the streets are only the beginning.

  You walk, because you have the right to. You watch what they do in the name of order and law. You wonder what is the definition of freedom; you wonder what is the cost.

  Shots fired. Shots fired. A symphony of sirens.

  This is your neighborhood. They can’t have it. This is not a peaceful protest. This is a throwdown. You will not go quietly.

  It makes no sense. The urge to race toward the tanks. To run up on them, denting them with your cleats. Stabbing the metal with the spiked heels you imagine yourself to have. You would be a superhero. The picture paints itself across the back of your eyes and you emerge heroic.

  There are no handcuffs. You eat no cement. The knee in your back is a badge of honor, a ghost of the hardest punch you ever threw.

  TINA

  I do not like the sound of tanks.

  It is worse than chewing.

  It is worse than the garbage disposal.

  No one calls out noise, noise

  like Mommy does before she runs the vacuum.

  It is worse than sirens.

  It is worse than snow shovels scraping.

  Light it up! comes the shouting. Light it up!

  I cannot plug my ears hard enough.

  Mommy says put on your headphones.

  My headphones block the outside noise.

  My headphones make their own noise

  inside me. I am not sure

  which noise is worse.

  BRICK

  It’s on now. Fuck all the signs, all the marching. The crowd explodes with ungodly fury, and I won’t step away from the center of it.

  Light it up!

  They can come for me tonight, if they want to. I am one cog in the machine of the 8-5 Kings. These pigs got nothing on me. They’ve been trying for a decade to tear down what we’ve built. They haven’t yet. I take pride in that. We’re untouchable.

  Light it up!

  There is no such thing as peace tonight.

  ZEKE

  From the precinct steps, we have full view of the moment when the protest turns. Light it up! chants the crowd. Light it up! I did not tell them to say it. The suits moved me away from the microphone to make the official announcement. I’m no longer in control.

  The district attorney drops his bomb and then retreats up the steps, flanked by his little team of men. They move like they think they’re so important. It makes me want to claw at things. They move with a carelessness, too, like what happens next has nothing to do with them or what they have done.

  It’s impossible to see what force—save unbridled rage, save desperation—turns the tide. It seems to happen all at once, from the fringes, moving in. Down the block, a storefront goes up in flames. Across the street, the police in their helmets and shields charge forward, as one, like a wave. The shouting and chanting loosens. All rhythm is lost and chaos takes over.

  The microphone is still right there, but I don’t know what else to say into it. The tide has turned. What can I say to get them back? What can I say to make it all right that we are dying? There is nothing I can promise—clearly not justice. Clearly not peace.

  Kimberly appears at my side. “What do we do?” she says.

  I put out my hand, and she takes it. In any other light, she would run from me. Even now, probably, she is dying to run from me, but we have a job to do, and the world is falling apart around us.

  The row of police officers at the barricade below us raises its shields. Their stances change in one fell swoop, as if they’ve been called to attention from parade rest. The people at the front of the demonstration—fists up, still chanting—sense the shift. They stare up at me, asking for guidance. I don’t have any to give.

  Across the street, there is fighting. The perfect picture of our crowd blurs and pixelates at the edges. We are watching something dissolve. Batons fly. A different kind of scream rises up. People down below look around, uncertain which direction to run. Among them, others move firmly, spoiling for the fight.

  I’m scared. There’s no other word for it. “I don’t think we can hold them.”

  Kimberly’s eyes are fire. “Can you blame them?”

  My skin tingles. My limbs tremble. I don’t know where to place this feeling. Somewhere between rage and despair. “We’re supposed to be in charge. In control.”

  “We’ve never had control.” Kimberly shakes her head. “That’s the whole point.”

  MELODY

  My gloves are green, Brick’s are black.

  Light it up! Light it up! Light it up! chants the crowd. We jumping. We pumping. Fists punching high.

  Light it up! Light it up! Light it up!

  And then someone does.

  Flames burst up along the street somewhere to our left. I can’t see it, past all the arms and shoulders penning me in. I only hear it. A sizzling whoosh. The crowd rocks and shimmies. Gasping, cheering.

  The rhythm is broken. People move every which way. Toward the flames, away. It’s hard to stay standing.

  My gloves are green, his are black.

  All my focus is on the place where they meet.

  Brick is there, and then he’s gone.

  It’s me. Alone, and drifting.

  Shoulders, coat sleeves, elbows, fists. Tossed about in a human ocean. No shore in sight.

  I never seen the ocean. Don’t know what it feels like to drown. Maybe like this?

  “Brick!” I shout. “Brick?”

  I’m turning and turning and turning. The rock of my fist crumbles. I’m grasping for anything.

  Bump. Check. Stumble.

  Then, out of the ocean of sleeves, there’s a face. At my level. Huge eyes. Trembling lips. Cheeks slack and shiny. We’re gasping at each other. Her face, like mine, has succumbed to the water.

  My gloves are green, hers are brown. We take hands. No words. Safety in numbers or something like that. We become bigger together.

  KIMBERLY

  “Please disperse. Please disperse.” The officer’s droning voice is projected from a metallic-sounding speaker. “Please disperse.”

  I want to find the voice. To yell STOP in his face. No one is dispersing.

  Zeke hovers near the microphone. I pull his arm. “We have to get out of here.”

  “This is SCORE’s protest,” he answers.

  Things are on fire. There is nothing we can do. “It stopped being ours a few minutes ago.”

  “I have to—” Zeke’s free hand bats at the microphone stand, as if petting it will calm anything. “I have to try.” There’s silence for a beat, and then he leans forward. Shouts, “We are. Unarmed! We are. Unarmed!” The rhythm is decent. The crowd picks it up. We are unarmed! We are unarmed!

  We are flanked, suddenly and dramatically, by riot-dressed cops. The line of cops at the barricade pushes forward against the crowd, while more rush forth from the precinct building, filling the steps and then some.

  I let go of Zeke’s arm because I have to. We put our hands in the air, because we have to. A baton passes in front of us. Terror sizzles through me. A searing streak, like lightning. My body tenses to take the blow.

  What is hit instead is the microphone. It gets knocked away down the steps.

  This is it. We’ll be arrested.

  The most terrible thought—maybe this means Zeke will get to stay. Can you work at the US Capitol if you have a record? Shame floods me. My own selfish horror breaks me harder than anything I’ve seen tonight. Any second now, the tears will start to fall. Any second.

  I don’t understand what happens next. At
all. The cops flood past us. Every damn one of them. They pile on top of one another to get into the fray below. Swinging batons and knocking people to the ground.

  “Please disperse. Please disperse.” The drone continues unabated.

  The strongest, loudest voice is still the crowd. We are unarmed! We are unarmed!

  All but alone on the steps, Zeke and I look at each other. Are we relieved … or insulted? They ran past us? We are not a threat. We are two kids with our hands up, and no way left to speak.

  “We have to get out of here,” I say.

  Zeke lowers his hands. “We can’t just leave.”

  “We can.” I shake my head, and even then the tears don’t come loose. “I think we have to.”

  DEVANTE

  I’ve always made fun of that thing they do in movies, that battle-scene shaky-cam effect, where everything is jostling and confused. I’ve always said it looks stupid. It does.

  But I get it now. I mean, I get where the idea comes from.

  They get it wrong, though. It’s supposed to show urgency, on-screen, but that’s not what it is in real life. It’s terror. It’s my whole body thumping because my heart is beating so hard. Every blink is like a snapshot from a slightly new angle. The whole world changes in the split second it takes my eyelids to go up and down. It’s jarring as hell. My head starts to pound.

  Beside me, Will jumps to the beat and pumps his fist in the air.

  Light it up! Light it up!

  On my other side, Tyrell doesn’t even want to be here. He glances around like a scared rabbit, which is nothing new. He’s been like that since we got here. Only, now it’s justified.

  “We gotta go,” I say. “It’s gonna turn.”

  Tyrell nods. He leans toward Robb, who’s on the other side of him, bouncing and pumping as loud as anyone. I can’t hear what he says, but I can see Robb shrug him off. Damn it.

  “Hey, Will. Will!” I shout. “We gotta go.”

  “Hell no,” he says. “This is my town. This is my fight. I ain’t leaving.”

  Light it up! Light it up!

  Well, crap. Tyrell is ready to go. He edges away, even as a swelling shift in the crowd strikes all of us and we’re knocked slightly apart. But I can’t go, not without Will. We’re not so little anymore, but I’m still older. He’s my responsibility. He’s not even supposed to be here.

  “We agreed,” I shout. “Any hint of violence, we bug out. It’s not safe.”

  Will stops bouncing. “Nowhere’s safe,” he answers. “Isn’t that the thing?”

  I don’t have an answer for that, but when the storefront glass shatters behind us, when the heat of the flames rushes our backs, it no longer matters.

  TYRELL

  “Let’s get out of here,” DeVante chokes out. I don’t need to do the math on this one. The crowd dissolves around us. Screaming. Coughing. Running, except we can’t. We’re all penned in. Smoke pours out of the building that was behind us, and is now in front of us. It turns out, you can’t help but turn to look when something is burning.

  Bodies slam into me, from every side at once. Smoke billows around. My feet freeze against my will. Which way to run? Which way to run?

  A voice from somewhere orders us to disperse. Can’t they see we are trying?

  “This way!” DeVante steps behind me. His hand is on my arm. When I turn my head toward him, I can see the opening he’s spotted in the crowd. People are running, shouting, railing against the night. The cluster of bodies is thinning enough to make our escape.

  Time to go.

  A clump of police officers with their batons up charge across the street in front of me. They begin shoving protestors aside from the edges of the crowd. They fan out, circling the scrum, as if hunting the person who threw the bottle.

  DeVante moves away, toward the gap. I glance back. “Robb, come on!”

  One of the officers charges toward us. Two petite young black women stumble out of the throng right in front of us—and right in front of the officer. The first woman falls to her knees. Her arm is bleeding.

  “I’ve got you.” Robb reaches down and helps her to her feet. The second woman is scared, she’s trying to get out of the way of the jostling crowd. You can tell by her tears. You can tell by the way she holds her green-gloved hands up to protect her face and chest. Someone behind her knocks her forward. She staggers into the cop.

  His baton, already raised and ready, comes down hard on her. Crack! She screams as the cruel metal tube strikes her shoulder. She falls to the ground. The cop spins, putting his back to us, and brings the baton down on her again.

  “Oh, hell, no!” Robb exclaims. “Police brutality!”

  The moment hangs above me like a cloud, even as it’s happening. Robb slips around me, light on his feet, like a breeze. His hand goes out, grabs the officer by the collar with one hand. His other hand knocks the baton aside and away from the woman on the ground.

  OFFICER YOUNG

  I feel under attack. I feel like a monster. All at the same time. It’s not so easy to breathe through a mask. We do our duty. We do the uniform proud. We stand our ground against the mob that threatens to tear everything down.

  I’m not alone. But I’m at the end of the line. Exposed.

  We withstand the shouting. We step strong, in formation, to drive them back.

  We withstand the surge of bodies. I hold my baton down at my leg, ready, but still. Poke with it, when anyone gets too close.

  The hands that shove my shoulder, jarring my helmet, knocking me off balance, are the last straw.

  Whirl around, find the nearest dark, guilt-ridden face. Slam it to the ground.

  ROBB

  The police officer pivots away from the girl on the ground. He charges past me, slams his forearm into Tyrell.

  Tyrell goes down, the cop’s knee in his back. “You’re under arrest,” the cop shouts. “Don’t move, asshole!”

  Shit. Oh, fuck.

  More cops.

  Will kneels beside the beaten girl. I turn and there is no way out. The cops surround us with shields engaged. We put our hands up, except for the girl, who can’t move her right shoulder.

  Some cop grabs my hands, wrenches them behind me. It’s fast and it’s fierce, and we know enough to go peacefully. The plastic band tightens around my wrists.

  They don’t even put us in the same van.

  We’re split up, me and Will, DeVante and Tyrell. I don’t know where DeVante even went, or if they got him. Tyrell was taken to the ground and cuffed and chained. Me, shuffled into a paddy wagon with a bunch of hissing activists, plastic zip ties around our wrists. We sit where we are told to sit.

  There is energy, excitement. The worst has happened, we have done what we came here to do. Our faces will be on the news. We are willing to go down for the cause, but I can see now that we won’t. That we have it easy.

  STEVE CONNERS

  The call you fear. When it comes, there are no words. There is no breath. There is only your wife’s hand, if you can find it, and at the moment you can’t.

  There is the chorus in the back of your mind: He is alive. He is alive. He is alive.

  There is, too, the extra voice. The lone gunman with his rifle cocked: For now.

  “Steve?” Will’s voice is small. “We got arrested.”

  ZEKE

  We are smoky. We are shell-shocked. We are grateful we parked my car ten blocks away, just in case. It’s barely far enough. The community has heard the news. People pour out into the streets, curious, angry.

  I grip the steering wheel tight, tight. Try not to look at anything but the road in front of us. We take the long way, because we don’t want to be stopped. If we see a cop … I no longer know if I have it in me not to strike.

  I have studied these phenomena, in school. The history of so-called riots. Watts. LA. Chicago. Ferguson. Baltimore. I have wondered, time and again, what stupid, reckless forces drive people out of their homes, into the night, to wreak havoc on their ow
n neighborhood. The buildings they pass every day on the way to work, to school. The businesses they trust. Their very homes.

  I know now. Nothing is simple.

  The presence of tanks is confusing. Enraging. The powers that be are ready to wage war to keep us in our place. The imbalance, the injustice, is enough to make me want to light a bottle on fire. Sure enough.

  I don’t have a bottle. I don’t have one. I don’t have one, or I might.

  “Let’s go inside,” Kimberly says.

  We’re parked in front of my building. We’ve been sitting in the car for a while, I guess. I don’t know how long. She lays her hand over mine and gently peels my fingers from the wheel.

  We climb to my apartment, wash up. When we sit on the couch, it is ostensibly to snuggle, but we are too wound up to find comfort. I put my arm around her. My knuckles stroke her upper arm. She leans against my chest.

  “Your heart is racing,” she observes.

  Don’t I know it.

  “Did we wimp out?” I whisper. “Did we walk away from a fight?”

  “No,” she says.

  But we did. We did. We did, and I don’t know why we did. Or how.

  I unwrap my arm from her and lean forward, resting my head on my knuckles, still clenched. “I didn’t think it would really happen. That we’d lose control.”

  “It’s been happening,” she says.

  “I thought we could keep it peaceful.” My fists sit like rocks on my knees. “I should have been able to stop it.”

  “Okay, Superman,” Kimberly says. “Tell me another one.”

  The burst of my laughter is unexpected and strange. I clamp a fist to my lips. Hmm. I still can’t unclench my fingers.

  “It’s Sloan’s fault,” Kimberly insists. “No justice, no peace?”

  Great. She’s gonna throw that back in my face right now? I glare at her. “They’re just words.”