Hard Revolution

by George Pelecanos

  “Tom-ass nigger,” said the man.

  Strange led him without comment to the paddy wagon and pushed him roughly into the back.

  Strange’s next capture was a running boy who had bumped into him, looking over his shoulder as he tried to carry a stereo system down the street. The boy dropped the stereo to the asphalt as Strange got him in a hug. He looked into the boy’s eyes, saw himself at twelve, and let him go.

  About five hundred MPD officers and CDU police had now arrived on the 14th Street corridor due to the call-ups and overlapping shifts. Fire trucks had arrived as well. Still, the police and firemen were badly outnumbered by rioters, unprepared for the frenzy that had ensued, and rendered impotent by the restraint orders they had been given.

  At half past midnight, fires were set at the Central Market and the Pleasant Hill Market on opposite corners of the intersection at 14th and Fairmont. The Pleasant Hill fire spread to Steelman’s liquor store beside it and to the apartments above. Firemen tried to extinguish the blaze as they were surrounded by taunting crowds and pelted by rocks and bottles from the street and from the rooftops of the adjacent buildings. Police threw tear gas canisters into the crowd. They tossed them from on foot and out the windows of roving squad cars and paddy wagons. CDU officers used grenade launchers to shoot tear gas onto the roofs from which offenders were attacking them with projectiles.

  The rain had stopped. Burglar alarms rang steadily in the night. Smoke drifted in the street through the light strobing off the cherry tops of the squad car roofs.

  Strange sat on the running board of a fire truck, a wet rag in his burning, tearing eyes, his throat raw, his breathing short. A fireman had handed him the rag. The tear gas had driven back the crowd, but it had also incapacitated many of the uniformed officers, who had no masks. Strange watched two women coming down the street, laughing and holding up dresses against one another to check their fit, tears running down their faces. They were of his generation. They were his color.

  He looked around the street and saw no police he knew. He could not see Lydell.

  A white police officer walked by him, dirt on his face, rubbing at his eyes, unaware that Strange was sitting on the truck. The police officer said, “Fuckin’ niggers” to no one, then repeated it, shaking his head as he walked on. Strange watched him pass.

  He thought of Carmen: where she was and what she was doing tonight. She was with her friends, probably, from Howard U. Talking about this, getting behind it, most likely, while he was out here fighting it. He thought of his brother and what he would say if he were still alive. His father and his mom. The conversations they’d all be having, the spirited debate, if they were together again on Princeton. What would his father tell him to do if he were here right now?

  Strange dropped the rag to the street, got up, and walked to an area of disturbance to the south.

  At the Empire Market at 14th and Euclid, a group of youths had attempted to set fire to the looted store. Police had driven them away with tear gas, but they had returned. One of the young men threw a canister back at the officers who had thrown it at him. Strange joined the officers in their attempts to repel the assault. The boys disappeared into a nearby alley, returned fifteen minutes later, and tried again. Police were successful in chasing them off but were called back north to quell more rioting. When Strange returned with other police, the store had been set ablaze.

  Strange stood in the street as firemen trained their hoses with futility on the store.

  A woman his mother’s age, wearing a housecoat, came out from a nearby apartment building and handed him a teacup full of water. Strange thanked her and drank it down, lapping at it like a dog. Strange and the woman watched the market burn, their faces illuminated by the flames and embers that rose into the night.

  STRANGE FOUND BLUE down around U Street near dawn. Police now lined the strip, and most of the citizens had gone indoors. Tear gas and the smoke of fires still roiled in the air, and burglar alarms continued to sound. But it seemed as if the trouble was done.

  Two hundred adults and juveniles had been arrested. Two hundred stores had had their windows broken, and most of those stores had been looted. Many buildings had been destroyed by fire.

  Some windows of the F Street Hecht’s had been broken, as had the windows of D.J. Kaufman’s at 10th and E, near Pennsylvania Avenue. Scattered window breaking had been reported on Mount Pleasant Street, 7th and Florida, and in Park View, where kids had hurled rocks from moving cars. But the rioting seemed to have been contained to the 14th Street corridor.

  “Go home,” said Blue, his face streaked with dried tears of dirt.

  “I’m on till eight.”

  “I talked to my CO,” said Blue. “He said you can go. Take those boys you came with, too.”

  Strange nodded. Blue tapped his fist to his chest. Strange did the same.

  Strange and his fellow officers from the Sixth took their squad car up to the precinct house. Those that did not go to sleep immediately in the car did not speak. At the station, Strange picked up his Impala and drove down to his parents’ row house. As he turned off Georgia onto Princeton, he noticed that the window in the door of Meyer’s market had been broken. Mr. Meyer was there, taping a square of cardboard over the glass.

  Derek Strange’s parents were seated at the eating table of the living room as he entered the apartment. He hugged his mother, who stood to greet him, and shook his father’s hand. Derek had a seat at the table and rubbed one hand over his cheeks while his mother went into the kitchen to get him a cup of black coffee.

  Darius Strange looked at his son’s dirt-streaked face and the areas of his uniform darkened by ash and perspiration.

  “You had quite a day,” said Darius.

  Derek nodded. By his tone Derek knew that his father was telling him he had done well.

  “I want you to take care of yourself, you hear me, boy?”

  “Yes,” said Derek.

  “Your mother can’t take another loss.”

  “I’ll be fine.”

  “Look at me, son.” Darius leaned forward and lowered his voice. “I’m sick, Derek.”

  “What you mean, sick?”

  “I mean I don’t know how much longer I have on this earth.”

  “Pop . . .”

  “Ain’t no need for you to stress on it. I’m tellin’ you now so you think about it the next time you step out that door.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I know. Now, listen, you’re gonna need to stay healthy for your mother. She’s strong, but there is only so much a person can take.”

  “Have you told her?”

  Darius shook his head. He kept his gaze on his son, telling him with his eyes not to speak about what had been said, as Alethea returned to the table and placed a cup of coffee before Derek.

  “Thank you, Mama,” he said.

  “We should say some words,” said Alethea.

  Darius led them in a prayer. They prayed for Dr. King and for what he stood for, and for peace to come to the streets. They prayed for justice. They prayed for Dr. King’s soul and for the soul of their son and brother, Dennis Strange.

  “Amen,” said Alethea and Derek when Darius was done.

  Darius cleared his throat. “This trouble is gonna change the funeral plans.”

  “I’ll call the home today,” said Derek. “See what they say.”

  “You need to get some rest first,” said Alethea.

  “I will.” Derek noticed his mother’s uniform dress and his father’s starched white shirt for the first time. “Y’all are going in today?”

  “Everybody is,” said Darius. “Business as usual, that’s what they’re sayin’ on the radio and TV.”

  “They need to close everything down,” said Derek. “Show some respect for the reverend. That’s what most folks are lookin’ for.”

  “I agree,” said Darius. “But the decision’s been made. Even the government’s open. “

  “You don’t
work for the government.”

  “True. But I’m not gonna leave Mike shorthanded. And your mother’s got her obligations, too.” Darius looked at his wristwatch. “I better get goin’. I need to fire up that grill.”

  Darius got up from his seat, went to Alethea, and kissed her on the edge of her mouth. He took his jacket off a limb of the coat tree and put it on. Derek followed him to the door.

  “You remember what I told you,” said Darius. “You mind yourself out there.”

  “I’ll do my best.”

  Darius eyed Derek up and down. “You got tested, didn’t you?”

  “You know I did. I got called every name in the book by my own kind. I got looked at with hate by folks who been looked down on their whole lives, just like me. I’m tellin’ you, there were times when I felt like joining those people last night.”

  “You want the truth?” said Darius. “I felt like joining them, too.”

  “Why didn’t you, then?”

  “’Cause that’s not me. Doesn’t mean I can’t recognize that what happened last night was necessary. People gonna listen now. They have to.”

  “So what do I do?”

  “You made a commitment,” said Darius. “Folks always gonna respect you for that, even if they say different.”

  “What are you tellin’ me?”

  “Do your job.”

  Darius hugged Derek and patted his back. He nodded to Alethea before heading out the door.

  Derek took his seat at the table again and sipped his coffee. “Anyone call me?”

  “You mean Carmen?”

  “Anyone.”

  “Carmen didn’t call.” Alethea reached across the table and touched Derek’s hand. “Go get a shower while I make you some breakfast.”

  Derek took off his uniform in his brother’s bedroom and folded it neatly, placing it on a chair. He showered and changed into pants and a shirt that were Dennis’s and smelled like Dennis. As he dressed, his mother used some grease from an old Wilkin’s coffee can to fry bacon and eggs in a skillet. She served them along with toast, hot sauce, and another cup of coffee as Derek came back to the table. She sat and watched him eat.

  “You need a ride?” said Derek, sopping up the yolk of the eggs with a triangle of toast.

  “I’m gonna catch the uptown bus,” she said. “You finish your breakfast and get yourself into bed. I want you to sleep.”

  Derek did as he was told. He fell asleep quickly in his brother’s bed and did not hear his mother leave the house.

  THIRTY-ONE

  ON FRIDAY MORNING, Strange slept soundly. As he slept, commuters from the suburbs drove cars and rode buses to their downtown jobs. One hundred fifty thousand students and teachers reported to D.C. public schools, which had been decreed open by Mayor Washington after he had conferred with school superintendent William R. Manning. It was decided that activities related to the annual Cherry Blossom Festival would also go on as planned. Despite the rioting of the night before, public officials and police administrators expected it to be a quiet day.

  From the start, there were indications that this would not be so.

  All night and into the morning, tales had spread throughout the city of the exploits of the Shaw rioters and looters. They spread via phone and ghetto telegraph: street talk at bus stops, in living rooms, at corner markets, and at predawn pickup points for day laborers. The stories became romanticized with each telling; they fired up the anger, imagination, spirit of adventure, and ambition of the young.

  Many black working-class men and women, along with black government workers, managers, and bureaucrats, stayed home from their jobs. Black teachers, and some white teachers, called in sick in protest or asked outright to be excused from work so they could attend memorial services for Dr. King.

  Shortly after the opening bell, school officials began to report massive student absences, as well as a general unruliness and insubordination among the students who had reported to class. An SNCC official tried to persuade Superintendent Manning to close the schools, but he did not. As the morning went on, increasingly frustrated principals, some with panic in their voices, reported that the situation was deteriorating and claimed that the students could no longer be controlled.

  Based on history, officials believed that riots occurred, for the most part, at night, after extended lulls in activity during the daylight hours. Accordingly, D.C. National Guardsmen had been ordered to be prepared for possible action on Friday night and were in the early stages of assemblage at the downtown armory. The CDU riot police were not due to report back until five p.m. Also, because of the relative quiet at dawn, many cops working double shifts had been dismissed early. Consequently, on Friday morning, police presence on the street was not noticeably heavier than it was on any other day.

  Youths began congregating and drifting in roving bands on 14th and 7th Street, along H Street Northeast, and in east-of-the-river Anacostia. They stood in the doorways of retail establishments and taunted white store owners and clerks who had reported in for work. They shook the cars of white drivers stopped at red lights. A young white man was dragged from his automobile on 14th Street and brutally beaten. His life was saved by a Catholic priest.

  Just below the apartment house of Derek Strange, at 13th and Clifton, the students at Cardozo High School began to walk out of classes. By midday, half of them had left the grounds. Along with students of other nearby high schools, many joined their friends on 14th and 7th Streets. Some walked to the grounds of Howard University, where Stokely Carmichael was scheduled to speak.

  At a news conference that morning, Carmichael had said, “When white America killed Dr. King last night, she declared war on us. There will be no crying and there will be no funeral.” And: “There no longer needs to be intellectual discussion. Black people know that they have to get guns. White America will live to cry that she killed Dr. King last night.”

  At Howard U, there had been an early service for faculty and students in Crampton Auditorium. Following a speech by university president James Nabrit, a choir led the attendees in Brahms’s Requiem, along with “Precious Lord,” which Dr. King had asked to be sung at Thursday night’s gathering moments before he was shot. The final song, “We Shall Overcome,” was reportedly less well received. Many young people in the Crampton audience refused to sing along.

  Afterward, outside the steps of Frederick Douglass Hall, a more aggressive rally had begun, as speakers stepped up to denounce white racism to an audience of several hundred listeners. The crowd was heavy with serious faces, black turtlenecks, fatigue jackets, goatees and Vandykes, naturals, and shades. The American flag, flying at half-mast, was lowered, and the flag of Ujamma, a campus Black Nationalist organization that advocated a separate black nation, was raised. A female speaker came out against nonviolent response. “I might die violently,” she said. “But I am going to take a honky with me.” Stokely Carmichael, in sunglasses and fatigues, stepped up to the microphone next.

  In the crowd stood Carmen Hill. She had been up half the night with her friends discussing the events and watching them unfold on TV. Most of her friends were in favor of the violence that had erupted Thursday night. None of them had participated. She had called Derek twice during the night at his apartment to make sure he was all right. There had been no response.

  Carmen knew intellectually that what had happened, what was going to happen, had been coming for some time. She was a black woman, and in her heart she stood with her people. Like many young black people, she felt invigorated and emboldened by the response to the King assassination. She was also afraid.

  Carmen listened to Carmichael’s speech. She watched him produce a gun from his jacket and wave it above his head, as he had on 14th Street the night before.

  “Stay off the streets if you don’t have a gun,” said Carmichael, “because there is going to be shooting.”

  Carmen thought of Derek and prayed to God to keep him safe.

  A LITTLE AFTER noon, on 1
4th Street, just south of U, a fire broke out at the local Safeway. Four minutes later, eleven blocks north of the grocery store, a mob of young men set fire to a clothing store on the corner of Harvard Street.

  Firemen and available police were called back down to 14th.

  Almost immediately, teenagers and young men, who had been gathering all morning on the strip, began to initiate further activity. Fires were set in Belmont TV, the London Custom Shop, and Judd’s Pharmacy, which had already been damaged and looted the night before. As firemen tried to hook up their hoses to hydrants, they were bricked, assaulted, and verbally abused, protected only by small groups of baton-wielding police who had arrived on the scene. The fires spread to the apartments above and the tenement buildings behind the stores. The Worthmore Clothing store on Park Road began to burn.

  The mob moved from one spot to the next, undaunted by tear gas canisters and gas grenades. They began to break into stores between Columbia and Park Road, a retail strip of chain and white-owned businesses. They used small missiles and trash cans, and kicked in windows with their feet. They uprooted street signs and used them as battering rams. Rioters swarmed into the Lerner’s and Grayson’s dress stores, Irving’s Men’s Shop, Carousel, Kay Jewelers, Beyda’s, Cannon Shoes, Howard Clothes, Mary Jane Shoes, Woolworth’s, and the G.C. Murphy’s five-and-dime.

  Many black business owners had spray-painted or soap-written the words “Soul Brother” on their store windows or doors in the early morning hours. Many of these businesses were spared.

  Middle-aged men and women began to loot. Families stole together. Parents and their children carted entire dining-room, bedroom, and living-room sets out of the Hamilton and Jordan Fine Furniture store at Euclid.

  “Animals,” said one policeman, standing impotently on a street corner as a father and his sons carried clothing, still on hangers, on their backs, laughing as they walked without fear of reprisal down 14th. The cop could only watch. Few arrests were being made. The police were outnumbered and completely unprepared.