Grant Park

by Leonard Pitts, Jr.

  He gave Malcolm a look. “What happened to you?”

  The question deflated Malcolm’s estimation of Sonny a little bit. He’d figured that if anybody would understand the political implications of an Afro and a dashiki, it would be a forward-thinking brother like Sonny Dupree, still young enough that all the spark had not yet been beaten out of him by honky oppression. Malcolm ignored the question. It seemed the kindest thing he could do.

  “I’m lookin’ for him,” said Malcolm. “His knee twisted up, he don’t need to be out here.”

  “Yeah, well you know your father. Once he get his mind set on somethin’, you can’t change it.”

  “What’s going on here?” asked Malcolm.

  “City council just stabbed us in the back, that’s what’s goin’ on.” Just speaking the words seemed to make Sonny’s eyes flare. “Made like they was ready to recognize the union and maybe settle this thing, then they voted to support the mayor instead. Henry Loeb, that racist son of a bitch, he the reason we ain’t got nothin’ settled yet. Think he can treat us any old kind of way. He don’t understand, this 1968 now. Ain’t no more 1948. Them days gone. Ain’t nobody gon’ put up with they shit no more. We men and by God, they gon’ treat us like men.”

  “Damn straight,” said a man next to Sonny. “Time they learned.”

  “They say we can march!” Another voice floating high above the charged energy of the crowd. “They say we can march to the Mason Temple!”

  If they really were men, Malcolm thought, they wouldn’t be out here waiting for permission to walk down the street. The realization filled him with a dull pity.

  “Four abreast!” someone else cried. “They say we got to walk four abreast!”

  “Hell with that!” This was still another voice. “Take over the street!”

  “No. We gon’ do this right. Ain’t no takin’ over nothin’. Y’all line up. Four abreast.”

  Then the crowd was moving, spilling around Malcolm like water, and bearing Sonny away. “You follow after us!” he told Malcolm. “See your daddy directly. He here somewhere.” And then he was swallowed in the crowd.

  Malcolm watched, fascinated, as the men organized themselves obediently into ranks of four under the stone gazes of city cops, and then proceeded down Main Street. The sidewalks were narrow and the procession spilled into the street. What, Malcolm wondered, was the point of protesting under rules laid down by the very people you were protesting against? Shaking his head, he crossed to the far side of Main and followed the men. There were hundreds of them, organized as they had been told, into ranks of four, walking past the department stores and TV repair shops, some singing songs of gospel and defiance. Their idea of fighting white oppression was to walk together and sing hymns to the same blue-eyed Jesus who had turned a blind eye to their sufferings for years going on to generations. This was what they had learned from watching “De Lawd”—the great almighty Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King—all these years.

  Still watching them from across the street, Malcolm sighed. He was pleased the sense of impending storm had eased, but the spectacle frustrated him. How long would black people content themselves with turning pious eyes to heaven for relief while begging white men to please, finally, treat them like human beings? How long would the evening news be filled with footage of them receiving their answers in the form of swinging nightsticks, exploding bombs, and snarling dogs, or just in the insufferable, insincere smiles of white potentates telling smug lies to TV cameras?

  Why couldn’t these old Negroes, these “yassuh boss” wage slaves, see that power was the only thing whitey understood or respected, and that only when you spoke to him in his native language—violence—would he finally hear what you were saying? The marches and sit-ins, the prayers and singing, gave the impression of doing something without ever actually doing a damn thing. It was, he supposed, harmless enough to be out there marching and singing songs, but in a sense, that was the whole problem. He’d had enough of harmless gestures. The white man would only move when faced with some threat of harm by an opponent he knew had the will and the ability to back it up. That was why—

  Malcolm froze.

  A phalanx of squad cars had appeared on the street, riding bumper to bumper in a tight formation. There were five cops to a car, the cars moving slowly up the line of marchers, lights flashing silently. Malcolm saw billy clubs and rifles. He felt his stomach clench like a fist. He watched from the far side of the street, horrified and fascinated, as the cars closed on the marchers.

  They were aiming for the men. And then he realized, no. The intent wasn’t to hit the men. It was something less deadly, but far more humiliating. The cars were there to herd them, as dogs herd sheep. Sure enough, the formation moved in, pressing close to the marchers, forcing the men to bunch up, step back. It was hard to tell from Malcolm’s vantage point, but the cars actually appeared to make glancing contact with some of the men.

  “Get that car back and away from us!” This was yelled by a black man with a clerical collar, some kind of preacher who was marching with the men. The police cars continued pressing close. The men retreated, still in ranks.

  “Just keep marching,” the man with the clerical collar yelled. “They’re trying to provoke us!”

  Malcolm stepped off the sidewalk, wanting a better vantage point, feeling dazed. The cars were clearly making contact with the garbage men, and with those who were walking with them. Malcolm saw white men. He saw a few women. The marchers were trying to maintain their discipline, trying to hold their ranks. And then:

  “Oh! He runned over my foot.”

  It was a woman’s voice. Men had circled around her. A police car had stopped. On her foot.

  “Get that car off the lady’s foot!” someone yelled.

  The car did not move.

  “Hell with this!” someone else cried.

  The ranks broke. A group of men went to the police car and took hold. They began rocking it, trying to get the woman free. Malcolm took another step, intending to join them. Then he stopped again. The doors on the black-and-white Plymouths had flown open and begun to disgorge police. Nightsticks slapped against palms. A pump-action shotgun was lifted high above the melee. Dark spray bottles appeared in policemen’s hands.

  “Mace!” the cops cried. “Mace! Mace! Mace!” As if the word itself contained some fearsome power.

  And then the nightsticks came crashing down, swinging indiscriminately, the air suddenly filled with the smack of wood on flesh.

  And the spray bottles opened up.

  The police doused the men as if they were roaches scurrying about a kitchen sink. And, like roaches, the men were stopped in their tracks by the chemical. Some staggered. Some fell. Some wandered blindly, groping for walls, their eyes red, tearing, and sightless.

  Malcolm saw the sanitation workers lower their hats and lift their coats around their faces to avoid the chemical. He saw police officers reach under those coats and spray men full in the face.

  And still the nightsticks came down.

  They bashed the sanitation men, but they did not stop there.

  They bashed an old black man who was just standing there.

  They bashed a black woman who came out of Kress’s department store.

  Skin splitting, blood flying. The police officers were out of control. “Mace! Mace! Mace!” they cried.

  Pop.

  In that instant, Malcolm’s eyes finally found Mozell Wilson. He was on all fours on the sidewalk. His face looked as if it had been painted in blood. Some white cop towered over him, rearing back for another blow.

  Malcolm ran, crossing the narrow street in a few long strides. “Leave him alone!” he heard himself cry. The cop turned, surprised, and that moment of hesitation gave Malcolm time enough to launch himself. He lowered his shoulder and plowed into the white cop, sending him sprawling. And even as it happened, some part of Malcolm was standing aside from all of it, watching dispassionately and telling him, You just hit a
white Memphis cop. Your life is over now. You know that, don’t you?

  He blocked the thought, helped his father to his feet. “Junie?” the old man asked, “is that you?”

  No time for that. “Come on, Pop, let’s get out of here!” Holding his father’s arm, he turned. And got a blast of spray right in the face.

  Malcolm screamed. His eyes leaked unadulterated fire that trailed, sizzling, down his face. Every nerve ending was reporting the same thing. Pain. Pure, raw agony. Malcolm fell to his knees, gasping for breath that would not come.

  From somewhere far away, he heard the white cop’s voice. “It hurts? Go jump in the river, nigger!”

  And he would have been happy to do that, would have praised blue-eyed Jesus himself for a blessed baptism of muddy Mississippi water, if he had any idea where the Mississippi was. Or legs capable of carrying him there. He groped about on the sidewalk, blind, miserable, hacking from the poison air.

  Then hands seized him under his armpits and he felt himself hauled upright, pulled along the sidewalk, his feet scraping behind him like an afterthought.

  “Where are we going?” The words squeezed out of him in a raspy croak.

  “We got to get out of here!” Sonny’s voice, on his left.

  But where was…

  “Pop,” he managed. “Where is…?”

  “Shush up, boy.” His father’s voice, close by on the right, hard as concrete. Malcolm nearly sagged in relief.

  Stumbling, lumbering and awkward, Malcolm barely able to find his feet, they ran.

  six

  The two men stood talking in front of the door only a few feet away and the moment seemed oddly intimate. Malcolm thought of watching the wife in some 1950s movie as she saw her husband off to war.

  “So, you’ll be right back?”

  “Yes, Clarence. Like I already told you a hundred times. I’ll take the DVD to this guy’s boss and come right back. I can handle a fucking drop-off, for Chrissake. Which one of us the captain here, Sergeant?”

  “You are, Captain. It’s just…well, you know.”

  McLarty grunted. “Yeah, I know. But it won’t be that way this time, promise. I’ll be quick. Boost a car, zip”—he made a farting sound, sliced the air with the flat of his palm—“drive it over to the jewspaper, give the disc to whoever this shitbird reports to, then right back here so we can get everything ready for tonight.”

  “I just don’t like the way you are when you use. You’re mean when you use.”

  “I won’t use. Promise.” And McLarty even crossed his heart.

  After a moment, Pym nodded. It was, thought Malcolm, as if he had to force himself to be convinced. “All right,” he said. “I don’t mean to be a pussy about it. It’s just…you know, we’ve spent too much time planning this to fuck it up now.”

  McLarty reached up and patted his friend’s cheek twice. “Hey, don’t worry about it,” he said. “This is going to work just fine. Trust me.”

  “Yeah, I trust you, Captain. You know that.”

  McLarty indicated Malcolm with a nod of his head. “You want me to leave you the gun?”

  Pym made a derisive sound. “Why would I need a gun to keep shitbird in line? He’s not going anywhere. You’re the one going into enemy territory.”

  McLarty’s nod was crisp. “You’re probably right,” he said. “I’ll hold onto the firearm. See you shortly, Sergeant.” He lifted the door, which rose with a metallic rattle upon a rectangle of pallid sunlight framing a forest of weeds. Pym called to him then.

  “Captain?” he said.

  “Yeah?”

  “Be careful out there.”

  “Sure thing,” said McLarty. “You know me. Careful’s my middle name.” He grinned, passed through the door, and then was gone.

  Pym brought the door down behind him and then simply stood there, as if lost in the maze of his own contemplations. After a moment, he spoke without turning around. “Ain’t nothin’ faggy about it, you know.”

  “What?” Malcolm was confused.

  “I seen the way you was looking at us. I know what you was thinking. But we’re not fags. We’re not like that.”

  “That’s not what I was thinking,” said Malcolm, who had, in fact, concluded the two men were gay.

  Pym turned toward him and chuckled. “Sometimes, I forget what natural-born liars niggers are,” he said.

  “There’s nothing wrong with it if you are gay,” said Malcolm and immediately wondered why he had said it. The words felt cliché and automatic.

  Pym’s chuckle turned into an incredulous laugh that bobbed his Dennis the Menace cowlick up and down. “There sure as hell is! Look at the plumbing, for Chrissake. You think your body is designed to take a dick up the shit chute? Get real. ‘For man shall not lie down with man as he lies down with women.’ Don’t you read your Bible?”

  Malcolm swallowed. “Well,” he said. “I did read the part that says ‘Thou shalt not kill.’”

  Pym’s face went still. Then he grinned a sour little grin. “Yeah, I guess I also forgot what a tricky nigger you are. Like to use words to confuse things, don’t you? Try to get people all mixed up.”

  Malcolm didn’t speak. He didn’t know what to say, didn’t know how to play it. His body was throbbing and the metal of the cuffs was cutting against his wrists.

  Pym pursed his lips, unwilling to let the thing rest. “Me and Dwayne, we known each a long time, that’s all. We’re simpatico, you know? We look out for each other and that’s all there is to it. Anything else is just something you cooked up in your filthy nigger mind.”

  “So, what is it you’re planning to do? With me, I mean. What’s this all about?”

  The grin again. “Wouldn’t you like to know.”

  He moved toward the table where the laptop was. Malcolm yelled after him. “I’ve got money,” he said. “I can pay you. I mean, I’d have to go to the bank, but I can get you some money. You don’t have to go through with whatever it is you’re planning.” For some reason—he wasn’t sure why—he wanted to keep Pym talking. Somehow, that seemed the wisest course.

  It worked. The big man lumbered back. “Money?” he said. “You think this is about money? Shit, maybe I gave you too much credit for smarts. This ain’t about money, you dumbass. Didn’t you listen to the manifesto? This is about taking our country back from the apes and the Jews and the ragheads…and the fags. We’re sending a wakeup call to white, Christian America. That’s what we’re doin’, shitbird.”

  He moved away again. “It’s not going to work!” cried Malcolm.

  Dutifully, Pym came back. “So you say,” he said. “You don’t even know the plan.”

  “Don’t have to. It doesn’t matter. You and the other idiot can waste all the time you want, pretending to be soldiers, pretending you’re on some big mission. But at the end of the day, you’re not that. You’re not anything. And you know it.”

  “You don’t know what I know.”

  “Hell I don’t,” said Malcolm. “You know you’re a loser. You’d have to be even stupider than you look not to know that. But go on, don’t let me stop you. Keep strutting around here like you’re somebody.”

  “I am somebody,” insisted Pym.

  Malcolm didn’t even deign to look at him. “Yeah, you’re somebody, all right. You’re a fat fucking nobody, that’s who you are.”

  “You just shut up! You hear me? You just shut up!” Storm clouds had come into Pym’s eyes.

  Malcolm chuckled. “Whatever you say, you fucking fat-ass nobody.”

  The change was sudden. Pym snarled like something feral. He wasn’t fast, so Malcolm saw the blow coming, not that it did him any good. The meaty fist crashed against his jaw on the backswing and the force of the blow was so powerful he reeled back and would have fallen, except that the handcuffs bolted into the floor bit into his ankles and held the chair suspended on its two hind legs, his arms stretched to either side by their manacles.

  The pain seemed to come from everyw
here. From his jaw, blazing like a four-alarm fire. From his ankles and wrists, the metal shackles sawing into the flesh. From his throbbing and maybe-broken ribs. From the tendons in his arms, creaking and stretching and supporting his weight as he struggled against gravity to bring the front legs of the chair back down.

  He had wanted to rattle the big man. He had wanted to see what would happen. Well, he consoled himself bitterly, now he knew.

  Pym watched him for a moment, his anger evidently spent. Then he shook his head. He put his right foot on the front crossbar of the chair and slammed it down. The jolt only freshened Malcolm’s agony. He sat there with his head hanging and eyes closed, grateful at least that flaccid, 60-year-old muscles were no longer supporting his weight. Beyond the rasp of his own breathing, he heard Pym’s steps as the big man walked away.

  A few seconds later, he returned. “Here,” he said. Malcolm opened his eyes. The disposable plastic cup looked absurdly dainty in Pym’s massive fist. Malcolm looked up at his captor.

  “Go on, drink,” said Pym. “It’s just water. Really. I didn’t piss in it or nothin’.” Malcolm nodded and opened his mouth and Pym held the cup for him. The water was blessedly cool. It tasted like salvation.

  Pym waited until he was finished, then pulled the cup away. He produced a paper towel and dabbed roughly at Malcolm’s mouth. “I get what you’re doing,” he told Malcolm. “Try to get inside my head, see if there’s a weak spot, find something you can exploit. I’m not stupid. I get that. And I guess I don’t even blame you for trying. I’d do the same thing myself, I was in your shoes.” He pulled the paper towel away. It was streaked with blood. “But don’t make fun of me, you hear? That’s the only thing. Don’t you call me ‘fat ass’ or ‘hippo’ or any shit like that. I won’t let you do that. I’ve had enough of that. You understand?”

  Malcolm nodded. “Yeah.”

  “Good. Then we won’t have no more problems.” Pym tossed the cup down.