“Come on, Ly,” said Strange as they hit the steps going up to the house. “Let’s have a little fun.”
Strange and Blue waded into the outdoor crowd. They got a couple of Miller High Lifes out of a washtub filled with ice and popped the tops with an opener hung on a string from the tub. Blue introduced Strange to the host, a young Howard student named Cedric Love, who was renting the house with two other young men. Lots of Bison here on Barry Place and the surrounding streets, as Howard U wasn’t but a long spit east. Strange looked around, moving his head to the Wilson Pickett, “Don’t Fight It,” coming from a couple of speakers set up on the porch. People in the yard were coupling up and dancing to the driving rhythm, the Stax/ Volt horns and Wilson exhorting them on. Up on the porch, Strange saw the back of a young woman, had a short baby-blue dress on, going into the house. Strange knew those legs and that shape.
“Excuse me,” said Strange to Cedric Love, “I’m gonna see what’s going on inside.” He was looking to catch Blue’s attention, but Lydell was already asking some girl to dance.
Strange went up on the porch. A guy he knew from high school said, “What’s goin’ on, big man?” and Strange said, “Everything’s cool, George, how you been?” and gave the guy the soul shake and moved on. Then he was in the house.
It was warm inside and packed with folks. People against the walls and tight in groups, and men and women leaning into each other, Afros on the men and some of the women, the women wearing big hoop earrings and a few of the dudes wearing shades. Tobacco smoke, and the smoke and fragrant smell of marijuana, hung thick in the air. Conversation and laughter rumbled up under the music, louder in here than it had been outside.
Strange caught some eyes as he walked slowly through the crowd. He saw two fine young women, Rachel Phillips and Porscha Coleman, who had come out of Cardozo a few years back. He recognized many of the faces here. The people who recognized him knew he was police.
He went into a room that was more crowded than the one before it. An O. V. Wright song, “Eight Men, Four Women,” came up on the system, with those lazy-voiced female backup singers he liked to use, and Strange thought, Back Beat number 580. And then he thought, Someone at this party knows his shit.
“Derek,” said his friend Sam Simmons, tall and rangy, who came up on him suddenly out of the hall. “My brother.”
Simmons was with a dude, had a black beret and a soul patch, who Strange didn’t know. Probably a college boy, ’cause many of them had that ready-for-the-revolution look going on.
“Cootch,” said Strange, using Simmons’s nickname, giving him skin.
“Here you go,” said Simmons. “Groove on this.”
Simmons passed Strange a lit joint. Strange looked at it for a moment, then put it to his lips and hit it deep. Smoke was still streaming from his nose when he hit it again. It was smooth to his lungs, which meant it would be good to his head.
Strange passed the joint to the man in the beret, who looked at Simmons first, then took it after Simmons made a small go-ahead motion with his chin. Simmons, who’d played end for Dunbar when Strange was playing safety for Roosevelt, smiled at his former adversary. There had always been respect between them, especially when a game had been on the line.
“My man’s all right,” said Simmons to his companion.
“I am now,” said Strange.
“Heard you been keepin’ the streets safe,” said Simmons.
“Streets gonna have to do without me for a little while,” said Strange. “I’m layin’ back tonight.”
They talked about football and who was coming out of what high school and what colleges they were going on to. The dude with the beret never did warm up to Strange, but that was all right with him. Strange was higher than a motherfucker by the time he finished his beer and could muster no bad will toward anyone. He shook hands again with Simmons and went to the kitchen, where he found another High Life and opened it. He drank its neck off down to the shoulders and drifted into another room.
It was an all-couples room. Someone had cleared the furniture and changed the bulbs in the lamps so the room was bathed in blue. Solomon Burke was on the stereo now, singing “Tonight’s the Night,” Solomon telling his woman, “And when the lights are low, I’m gonna lock all the doors,” and some couples were slow-dragging on the hardwood floor, others just holding each other, standing still, kissing each other deep. Strange smiled and leaned his back against the wall. He felt a tap on his shoulder and turned his head. What he saw made him smile even more.
“Carmen,” said Strange. “How you doin’?”
“I’m good.”
She had a little blue ribbon tied in her hair, the same color as the dress. She had big dark eyes, dimples in her cheeks, and smooth, deep-brown skin. She had a figure that caused his breath to come up short. Carmen Hill had it all. The memory of her naked in his bed made Strange’s mouth go dry. He had a sip of his beer.
“What you doin’ in the blue-light room all by yourself?” said Carmen.
“I was waitin’ on you, girl.”
“Go ahead, Derek.” Carmen laughed, looking into his heavy-lidded eyes. “You’re high, aren’t you?”
“A little.”
“I just had some nice smoke myself.”
“You gonna be a doctor, you need to quit it. Can’t be, like, operatin’ on people with your mind messed up.”
“I’m just an undergraduate. I got time to have fun. Anyway, what you gonna do, write me a ticket?”
“I’ll let you off with a warning tonight.”
Strange held his beer out to Carmen. She took it, drank, and gave the bottle back. Strange reached out and wiped his thumb across some foam that had gathered at the corner of her mouth. She leaned a little into his touch. She looked at him and looked away. Then she looked back into his eyes.
“I was thinking of you last December,” said Carmen. “The day Otis died.”
“Yeah, December tenth,” said Strange. “I was in my squad car when the news came on the radio, said his plane had gone down in Wisconsin.”
“He left some music, though, didn’t he.”
“Always gonna be there,” said Strange. His eyes went to one of the speakers in the room, where King Solomon’s voice was still coming out strong. “This is real pretty right here, too.”
“Sure is.”
“Wanna dance to it?”
“Okay.”
He placed the beer bottle on the floor and as he stood tall she came into his arms. He trembled a little as she put her head against his shoulder. He smelled that shampoo of hers and her dime-store perfume. Her breasts were firm against his chest, her fingers warm through his. They moved slowly and easily, as if she’d never left him, as they’d danced all through high school and beyond, until the trouble had come between them and she’d told him to go.
Otis Redding came on the box, the song with that beautiful piano introduction that always gave Strange chills. “Nothing Can Change This Love.” It had been one of theirs. Strange held Carmen close and breathed her in.
“I been missin’ you,” said Strange.
They kissed. Her lips were warm, and he felt the heat come off her face. Otis sang to them and there was no one else in the room.
LATER, AS THE crowd thinned and the music notched down, Strange and Carmen Hill sat outside the house on the front steps, sharing another beer. Lydell had gone back to Strange’s place with a girl he’d been on and off with for some time. The alcohol had brought Strange down nice, taking the edge off his high. His thigh touched Carmen’s as they talked.
“Tonight was good,” said Strange. “Good to relax some, you know? Good to see you.”
“Was for me, too.”
“It’s easy with you, Carmen. Always has been.”
“You can pick up the phone, Derek. You want to talk, you can call me.”
“I feel like I need to sometimes. Been rough, with my job and whatnot, these last few months.”
“You knew it would be.”
“I knew some of the white police would resent me. I was ready for that. What I didn’t expect was my own people lookin’ at me like I’m the enemy. I’m just trying to do my job and I’m duckin’ fire from both sides.”
“Then do your job,” said Carmen. “That’s what you always told me. Keep your head down and go to work. That’s what grown folks do.”
“I guess you’re right.”
“Anyway, you always did want to be like one of those dudes from those westerns you love. ‘A man who protects the community but can never be a part of it his own self.’ Isn’t that how you described it to me once?”
“I might have,” said Strange.
“You’re luckier than most, then. You’re the man you wanted to be.”
She found his hand and laced her fingers through his. He looked her over with deep affection.
“Where you stayin’ at now?” said Strange.
Carmen Hill nodded across the street. “I’m right there on the corner, up on the third floor. See that light up there? That’s me. Finally got a place that’s walking distance to my classes.”
“I heard you moved.”
“You did?” said Carmen in a slightly mocking way.
“Saw your sister one day, on the street.”
“You sure it was like that? ’Cause she said you called her up and asked her where I’d gone to.”
“I don’t remember the particulars. Point is, your sister told me.”
“Okay,” said Carmen with a little laugh. She squeezed his hand.
“So, seein’ as how you ain’t but a few steps away . . .”
“What?”
“Aren’t you gonna ask me over?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Why not?”
“I been talkin’ to people, too. You still seeing that little hairdresser from Northeast, right?”
“That ain’t nothin’ serious.”
“It never is with you.”
“She’s just a girl, is all I’m sayin’.”
“But she’s not the only girl, is she, Derek?”
“I ain’t married to her, if that’s what you mean.”
“And now you’re lookin’ to get with me tonight, too.”
“What’s your point?”
“You got the same problem you always had. And that will not work with me, Derek; not again.”
“If I could be with you, it would be only you.”
Carmen leaned in, kissed him on the side of his mouth, and stood.
“I always knew, Carmen,” said Strange. “Even when we were kids . . . you standing down by the corner market in that Easter dress of yours and those patent leather shoes. I knew.”
“So did I. We try it again, though, this time it’s gonna be on my terms. You need to think on that, Derek. You come to a decision, well, you know where to find me. Now that you know where I live.”
“You remember where I live, don’t you?”
“Yes. I still have your key.”
Strange watched her go down the steps and across the street to her row house. He wondered if he would ever be capable of committing to one woman or if it was just that he was young and would change in time. He wanted to change. ’Cause there wasn’t any question about it: Carmen was the one.
He got up and went down to Barry Place, then onto Florida Avenue. He walked east through a quiet city. He stopped to tell a boy of nine or ten, dribbling a basketball alone on the sidewalk, to get inside his house. The boy asked him why it was any business of his.
“I’m a police officer,” said Strange.
He waited for the boy to do as he was told, and then he walked on.
TWENTY
ON TUESDAY, IN Memphis, Negro leaders announced plans for a massive march at the end of the week, with trade union members and civil rights spokesmen from across the country due to attend. A settlement of the garbage workers’ strike would postpone the march, but no one expected that to happen. Dr. King had been scheduled to arrive in Tennessee that day to prepare for the demonstration, but he had been held up in Atlanta. His people promised that he would begin to head the operations in Memphis on Wednesday instead.
On Tuesday, in Milwaukee, Senator Eugene McCarthy celebrated his victory in the Wisconsin primary, having soundly beaten noncandidate Lyndon Johnson as well as write-in candidates Robert Kennedy and Hubert Humphrey the night before. In the Republican primary, Richard M. Nixon had won 80 percent of the vote to Ronald Reagan’s 10 and seemed well on the way to his party’s nomination.
On Tuesday, in D.C., the Cherry Blossom Festival of 1968 officially commenced. Over the Potomac River in Virginia, U.S. Park Police removed a Vietcong flag found flying over the Iwo Jima monument near Arlington Cemetery. Later that afternoon, two brothers were busted in the parking lot of a Northwest drive-in restaurant on Wisconsin Avenue, netting the largest seizure of hashish ever made in the Washington area.
At the same time, Buzz Stewart and Dominic Martini worked uneasily together at the Esso station on Georgia Avenue while Walter Hess, without remorse or anything else clouding his head, did his duties at the machine shop on Brookeville Road. Darius Strange flipped eggs and burgers on the grill of the Three-Star Diner on Kennedy Street while his wife, Alethea, cleaned a house in the Four Corners area of Silver Spring, Maryland. Their older son, Dennis, slept late, watched television, and read the want ads in the Post. Their younger, Derek, had a slow morning, reading and listening to records, then dressing to meet Troy Peters for their evening patrol.
Frank Vaughn heard the hash bust story on all-news WAVA as he drove his Polara south on a downtown Silver Spring street. It made him think of Ricky, and the small pipe he’d found in his son’s car the week before.
“I was driving around with a bunch of guys the other night,” explained Ricky. “One of them must have dropped it under the seat or somethin’. I swear, Dad, I don’t even know what it’s for.”
Bullshit, thought Vaughn. But to his son he said, “Just get rid of it, okay?”
Vaughn turned onto Sligo Avenue, then made a quick right onto Selim. He parked in front of a beer garden called Fay and Andy’s, where drinkers stared at Georgia Avenue and the B&O railroad tracks when they weren’t staring into their glasses or the ashtrays in front of them. There were several garages, engine repair businesses and body shops alike, on this strip. Vaughn was out of his jurisdiction, but that meant jack to him, and anyway he was off the clock.
Vaughn had gotten his lab man, a guy named Phil Leibovitz, on the phone that morning. Leibovitz had studied the grillwork, glass, and logo left at the hit-and-run scene and discerned that the car involved was a ’63 or ’64 midsize Ford.
“It’s not a Falcon or a pony car,” said Leibovitz. “I’m sure of that. Different kind of gridwork. You need to be looking for a Fairlane or a Galaxie Five Hundred.”
“What the hell, Phil?” said Vaughn. “Which one?”
“The Galaxie.”
“How come?”
“I’m assuming the impact knocked the emblem off the front of the car. The Fairlane doesn’t carry the Ford logo on the grille.”
“You’re a genius.”
“Compliments don’t pay my bills.”
“The next beer’s on me.”
“Beers don’t pay my bills, either, Frank.”
“I’ll get you when I see you,” said Vaughn.
Vaughn spent the next hour doing walk-ins, questioning mechanics and metalworkers, trying to get a line on a damaged red Ford. He talked to grease monkeys, straights, near idiots, guys who looked like they’d done time, and guys who looked like candidates for time. He turned up squat.
Vaughn drove into D.C. He still had an hour before his shift. He was the primary on a fresh homicide in Petworth, and that would cut into the time he could devote to the hit and run. From the history they’d turned up, the young man, Vernon Wilson, was clean. He had a steady job and was going on to college. He came from a family he loved and who loved him back. He was murdere
d, Vaughn decided, because he was colored. Vaughn felt he was close to nailing Wilson’s killer, and that got his blood up. All he had to do was find the car.
Vaughn went down to Arkansas Avenue between 14th and Piney Branch Parkway. A one-bay garage stood there near a glass shop and a commercial-refrigeration outlet. Vaughn knew the head mechanic, a huge colored guy named Leonard White, who he’d dropped on a B&E charge many years ago when Vaughn was working Robbery, his first position out of uniform.
Vaughn parked near a pay phone and tapped his finger on the wheel. He thought of a friend in Prince George’s County who might be of some help. First he’d play the long shot and talk to White.
White’s head was under the hood of a ’63 Valiant when Vaughn walked through the open bay door. Music came loud from the shop radio. Another colored guy, slim in his coveralls, with a watch cap cocked on his head, was handing White a ratchet arm. He cool-eyed Vaughn and said, “Leonard, the Man here to see you.” White looked up, squinting through the glare of a droplight hung over the Plymouth. The light gave the illusion of warmth, but the interior of the cinder-block box was cool as a tomb.
White stood to his full six-feet-something, wiped his hands off on a shop rag, and walked over to Vaughn. He wore black-rimmed eyeglass held together at the bridge with surgical tape. His head was the size of a calf’s. He looked like Roosevelt Grier.
“Officer Vaughn.”
“Leonard. See you’re still working on those Valiants.”
“Long as they keep puttin’ push-button trannies in those Signets, I’m gonna stay in business.”
“I talk to you a minute outside?”
White walked out without answering, and Vaughn followed. Vaughn shook an L&M from his deck. White took a pack of Viceroys from his breast pocket and put one between his lips. Vaughn produced his Zippo, lit White’s smoke, lit his own, then snapped the lighter shut.
“There was a homicide the other night over on Fourteenth.”
“That ain’t no surprise.”
“Not down in Shaw. A mile or two from here. Car ran down this colored kid, wasn’t doin’ anything but walking home.”
“I heard about it.”
Hard Revolution Page 19