Hard Revolution

by George Pelecanos

  Molotov cocktails were concocted in alleys and thrown from sidewalks. Hahn’s shoe store burned after being picked clean. Beyda’s burned. Hoses lay serpentine in the street as firemen scrambled to find water sources amid the jeers and general confusion.

  The G.C. Murphy’s was engulfed in a tremendous, raging blaze. Two teenage boys were trapped in the fire. Both died. One was burned beyond recognition and never identified.

  Three hours after the first arson at noon, a large portion of 14th Street above U was on fire. By now, other parts of the city had begun to experience the same kind of devastation as Shaw.

  Police officials called all available officers to duty and ordered scheduled late-shifters to report immediately as well. Lydell Blue arrived on 14th in a squad car packed with five men. He stepped out of the car, wide-eyed, and drew his stick.

  DEREK STRANGE HEARD a phone ringing in his parents’ living room. He fell back to sleep. The phone began to ring again and continued to ring until he got off the bed, his head unclear, and answered the call.

  The rioting, looting, and burning had spread to 7th Street and the H Street corridor in Northeast. Ed Burns, his duty officer, was on the line, telling him that he was needed. He’d been trying to reach Strange at his apartment and was now using the alternate number Strange had left on file.

  “You don’t have to do this,” said Burns. “I know what you been through these past few days. I hated to even call you up, but I’m callin’ everyone, understand?”

  “I’m fine,” said Strange, thinking of Alvin Jones, thinking of where Kenneth Willis had said he’d be. “I’m right off Georgia Avenue, just a couple of miles north of Seventh. I’ll head down there now.”

  “Good luck.”

  Strange went to the stove in the kitchen and used a straight match to light the gas of one of the burners, where his mother had left half a pot of coffee. He returned to the living room and turned on the television news.

  Fourteenth Street was burning. Hundreds of youths were reported to be moving south on 7th Street, looting and starting fires. The Charles Macklin Furniture Store, at O, had been looted and was now aflame. Crowds were forming on H Street, where a liquor store was on fire. Sporadic burning and looting had begun east of the Anacostia River. In the downtown shopping district, the Hecht’s and Woodward and Lothrop’s flagship stores had shut down and carpenters had boarded their windows after youths ran through the aisles, stealing small items and yelling obscenities and threats at customers and clerks.

  Strange got a cup of hot black coffee, came back out to the phone, and looked up the number of the Washington Sanitarium in the book. The receptionist put him through to Troy Peters’s room. He told Troy about his night and relayed the current situation.

  “I’m watching it on TV,” said Peters. “The reporter said that LBJ’s gonna call in the army and the guard.”

  “You’re gonna miss all the action.”

  “Looks like I caught a lucky bullet.”

  “I guess you did. You, who wanted to be on that welcome wagon come revolution time.”

  “It shouldn’t have happened like this.”

  “Wasn’t but one way for it to happen. Everybody saw the fuse burnin’, but they turned their heads away.”

  “Listen . . .”

  “Lotta people sorry now,” said Strange. “I gotta get to work.”

  “Take care of yourself, Derek.”

  “You, too.”

  Strange built a sandwich, not knowing when he’d get his next meal, and washed it down with two glasses of water. He drank another cup of coffee while he got back into his uniform in his brother’s room. The uniform stank of last night’s dirt and sweat. He fastened his utility belt around his waist, patted his handcuffs at the small of his back, and felt for the backup ammo in his dump pouch. He pushed his nightstick down through its loop. He checked the load of his .38 and slipped it into his swivel holster. He looked at his brother’s unmade bed before walking back out to the living room and picking up the phone.

  Strange called his father at the diner. He told him that he was going in and suggested that his father get back home.

  “I’m leaving now,” said Darius. “Mike’s about to close.”

  “What about Mama?”

  “I called her at the Vaughns’. She says that Frank Vaughn’s heading into town. He’s gonna drive her in.”

  “Vaughn’s okay,” said Strange. “He’ll make sure she gets in safe.”

  “Right.”

  “I might be out here for a while, Pop. I don’t want y’all to worry about me.”

  “I’ll see you at supper on Sunday,” said Darius, trying to steady the catch in his voice.

  “I’ll be there,” said Strange.

  He left the apartment, went down Princeton, and turned left on Georgia Avenue. He walked south, hearing the sirens of police cars and fire trucks coming from all directions. A young man yelled something angrily at him from a passing car, and Strange did not react. He stopped for a moment at the crest of the long hill that descended along Howard University and looked down to the Florida Avenue intersection, where Georgia became 7th Street. People swarmed in the canyon there under a smoke-dark sky.

  THIRTY-TWO

  OUTSIDE THE THREE-STAR Diner, on Kennedy Street, young men stood on the sidewalk, occasionally looking through the plate-glass window, alternately laughing and hard-eyeing Mike Georgelakos and his son, Billy, both behind the counter. Mike knew all of them by sight and many by name; he knew their parents and had served a few of their grandparents as well.

  Darius Strange had used a brick to clean the grill, left his toque lying on the sandwich board, and was in the process of putting on his jacket. Ella Lockheart had finished filling the ketchup bottles and the salt and pepper shakers, and now sat on one of the red stools, applying lipstick that she had taken from her purse. Halftime, the dishwasher and utility man, had phoned in sick.

  “Mavri,” said Mike with disgust, looking at the kids.

  “Dad,” said Billy.

  “What the hell,” said Mike.

  Darius had heard all the bad Greek words come from Mike’s mouth over the years. He knew that mavri, in all its variations, meant black people, and usually when Mike added something before or after, or did that curling thing with his lip, its meaning was negative and foul.

  Darius’s and Ella’s eyes met for a moment. She dropped her lipstick into her purse.

  “I’m gonna be gettin’ on,” said Ella.

  “You need a ride?” said Darius.

  “No, thank you,” said Ella. “I’ll walk.”

  “I’m gonna call you both,” said Mike, “let you know about tomorrow. I’m hopin’ this here is gonna blow over and we’re gonna open up.”

  Ella went out the door without a word. Darius watched her walk down the sidewalk through the group of kids, which parted to let her pass.

  “You better get goin’,” said Mike.

  “You, too,” said Darius.

  “Ah,” said Mike with a wave of his hand. “I don’t worry ’bout nothin’.”

  “Where’s Derek?” said Billy.

  “Seventh Street, right about now,” said Darius, turning up the collar of his jacket. “Working.”

  “God bless the MPD,” said Billy. “Tell him I was thinking about him, okay?”

  “I will,” said Darius.

  “Hey,” said Mike, his voice stopping Darius as he reached for the door. Mike’s forehead was streaked with sweat, and his barrel chest rose and fell with each labored breath. A cigarette burned between his fingers.

  “What is it?”

  “Thanks for comin’ in today, Darius,” said Mike.

  Darius nodded, looking without emotion into Mike’s eyes. Neither could know that they would both be dead within the year.

  Darius walked from the diner to his car on the street.

  “Let’s go,” said Billy to his father. “Pa-meh.”

  “I ain’t goin’ nowhere, goddamnit,” said Mi
ke. “Those boys gonna break my window, somethin’.”

  “We can fix a window,” said Billy, putting his hand on Mike’s shoulder. “C’mon, Ba-ba. It’s time to go.”

  Mike left the register’s cash drawer open, as he did every night at closing, so that anyone could see from the street that it was empty. He took the store keys from his pocket and locked the front door.

  DESPITE THE WARNING from Derek Strange, Kenneth Willis had phoned Alvin Jones at Ronnie Moses’s apartment on Thursday afternoon and told him that Strange was looking to hunt him down. Strange had put a scare into Willis, and a hurting on him, too, but it didn’t stop Willis from making the call. He couldn’t do Alvin like that. Alvin was kin.

  On the phone, Jones denied any knowledge of the murder of Dennis Strange. He had decided not to admit it, on account of Dennis was Kenneth’s boy from way back and he didn’t want Kenneth to get upset. Also, he didn’t care to give Kenneth anything the police could use against him if Kenneth got picked up on something later on. Kenneth was strong, but even a strong man could get flipped.

  “All right, Ken,” said Jones. “Thanks for the tip.”

  “What you gonna do?” said Willis.

  “What you think?” said Jones, as if he were speaking to a child. “Keep my head low. Understand, I ain’t have shit to do with your boy’s demise, but I can’t be fuckin’ with no police nohow.”

  “You got a plan?”

  “Man like me always got a plan,” said Jones before hanging up the phone.

  The riots of Thursday night had given him his plan. Jones had gone out, near midnight, and stepped onto an eastbound D.C. Transit bus on Rhode Island Avenue with a stocking over his face and his gun in his hand, robbing the driver of eighty dollars in cash. It was the easiest robbery he’d ever pulled. Seemed like all of the police were over in Shaw. He knew they weren’t gonna give a good fuck about some little old stickup job when 14th Street was going up in flames.

  And here he was today, in Ronnie’s apartment near 7th Street. Standing in front of the mirror, admiring his new shit, which he and Ronnie had looted from the Cavalier Men’s Shop between L and K just a little while back. Looking at his new Zanzibar slacks, his Damon knit shirt, and his side-weave kicks. The shirt, especially, was right on, a real nice color gold. Picked up the gold band on his favorite black hat. He cocked the hat a little so it sat right on his head.

  Ronnie had left the crib to get more vines. Said he was heading down to his place of employment, the big-men’s shop, to get what he could, ’cause those clothes there were the only ones in town that could fit a horse like him. Said he knew where his sizes were and exactly the items he wanted, ’cause he’d had his eye on them for some time. Jones telling him he wasn’t thinking straight, to be shittin’ in his own feeding trough like that, but Ronnie had waved him away.

  “I know what I’m doin’,” Ronnie Moses had said, heading for the door. “You with me, blood?”

  “Go on,” said Jones. “I’m gonna take a little rest.”

  “Lock the apartment, man, you go out.”

  “Yeah, all right.”

  Jones thinking, Now I am really gonna roll. Take someone off for some real cash. ’Cause the police, they are busy. Too busy tryin’ to contain those thousands of black motherfuckers out on the street to worry over one black motherfucker like me. Make a nice score, real money, none of this eighty-dollar shit, and leave town. Go down to South Carolina, where his mother’s people still stayed, and visit for a while. See what he could score down there.

  Thank you, Dr. King. Thank you for this opportunity.

  Jones went to his bag, had all his clothes and shit inside it, which he kept beside the sofa where he slept. He withdrew his old .38, had the bluing rubbed off the barrel. Jones had wrapped black electrical tape around the grip; his hands tended to sweat when he was working, and he needed to have a tight hold on his gun. He released the cylinder, checked the five-shot load, and snapped it shut. He dropped the pistol into the right pocket of his Zanzibar slacks. He found a crumpled-up stocking in a bedroom drawer, belonged to Ronnie’s bottom girl, and shoved it into the left pocket of his slacks. He checked himself in the mirror one more time, readjusted his hat, and left the apartment, locking the door behind him as he had said he would.

  He went down to 7th Street and walked south.

  There were hundreds of young people out on the street, looting stores, hollering and laughing, having fun. Boys and girls, and some older people, too. Cops trying to contain the rioters, having little success. Firemen hosing down burning buildings, ducking the occasional rock and bottle thrown their way.

  Leventhal’s Furniture Store, at Q, it wasn’t much more than a shell now. The store had been stripped of goods and was burning inside. The apartment houses nearby were burning with it.

  Leventhal’s, thought Jones, stepping around a flaming mattress. Jew name, wasn’t it? Like most of the stores down here, owned by Jews. Long after they’d moved out the neighborhood their own selves, they were still doing business on 7th, selling jewelry and furniture and stereos and appliances to blacks. Selling credit, really, and high-interest credit at that. Jones could see the glee on the faces of the looters as they broke into another store. Wasn’t much about Dr. King anymore, was it? It was about getting things for free, and getting back at every motherfucker, Jew and white man alike, who’d been bleeding them and stepping on their necks their whole goddamn lives. Leastways, that’s the way Jones saw it. His people, getting a little bit back.

  His people. Truth was, Jones didn’t give a fuck about them. When this was done, they’d go back to their sad-ass lives. While he, Jones, would be driving south with cash in the pockets of his new outfit, maybe under the wheel of that white El D he’d seen across town. Had electric windows and everything.

  He passed a brother in the street, wearing shades and fatigues, imploring some other young brothers to drop the stolen shit they were carrying and go home.

  “Dr. King wouldn’t want this!” shouted the man.

  Jones laughed. Now he’d seen it all.

  A black man stood outside his deli, holding a pistol at his side, watching the neighborhood burn. His store was untouched. Jones passed other stores and heard dogs barking and growling viciously behind their doors. These stores, too, had gone untouched.

  People ran around him and bumped and said not one thing. He coughed and rubbed at his eyes. The police had started using gas. He was sweating some, too. The fires in the buildings were throwing off serious heat.

  Down by the big-men’s shop, he saw Ronnie lying facedown in the street, a sweaty white cop over him, knee down, cuffing Ronnie’s hands behind his back, other cops doing the same to some other young brothers, a paddy wagon parked nearby.

  You fucked up, cuz, thought Jones. You have lost your job now, too. But I can’t help you, can I? You’ll be out in a few days, if you’re lucky, and you can put your life together then. In the meantime, I got work to do.

  Down below L, past the Cavalier Men’s Shop, which had been picked clean, Jones could see a row of police and squad cars blocking off Mount Vernon Square. This was the line dividing black residents from the commercial center of downtown, white D.C. Isn’t no surprise, thought Jones. They’re protecting the master’s castle, like they always do.

  Jones cut right and then right again, going north of Massachusetts Avenue. He had parked his car over here the night before. He had heard talk on the street that 7th was going to burn the next day. Funny how most everyone down here knew, when the police, they hadn’t known a thing.

  THE HOUSE IN Wheaton had gone quieter through the morning and into the afternoon. Olga sitting at the kitchen table, smoking her Larks, watching the news broadcasts on the little black-and-white Philco set on a rolling metal stand. Olga telling Alethea how sorry she was for her “people,” not meeting Alethea’s eyes as she spoke. Frank lumbering around in his robe, reading the sports page, drinking coffee, smoking cigarettes, like it was any other day. Only th
eir son, Ricky, had talked to her not as a Negro woman but as a woman. Asked her, also, if there was anything he could do to help her get back home.

  “Your father’s going to drive me,” she said. “Thank you.”

  He hugged her outside the kitchen, unselfconsciously, as he had when he was a child. She had always been fond of him. Maybe there was hope in the young. Maybe she and the Vaughns and everyone like them needed to die out before this sickness was erased. It was a shame it had to be that way. But she had the feeling it was so.

  Alethea stood in the foyer by the front door, waiting for Frank Vaughn to come downstairs and drive her back home. She could hear his muffled voice coming from his and Olga’s bedroom, and the music behind the closed door of Ricky’s room.

  Up in the bedroom, Vaughn slipped his .38 Special into his shoulder holster and went to the small nightstand on his side of the bed. He opened its drawer and used a key on a green lockbox. Inside the box was another gun: a cheap .32 automatic holstered in a clip-on. He removed it from its holster, checked the magazine, and palmed the six-shot load back into the laminated-wood grip. He clipped the reholstered .32, which he had taken off a pimp in Shaw six months earlier, onto the belt line behind his back. He folded a cloth handkerchief into a small square and dropped it into the pocket of his pants. He shook himself into his Robert Hall suit jacket, gray with light blue stripes, and looked himself over in the mirror.

  “Why do you have to go in?” said Olga, looking at him from across the room, leaning against the frame of their master bathroom door.

  “I’m workin’ a case.”

  “Today?”

  “Homicide never sleeps.”

  “Haven’t you been watching the news?”

  Vaughn formed his mouth into an O, gave Olga a theatrical look of surprise. “Why, is somethin’ goin’ on?”

  “Don’t be an ape.”

  “I’m not goin’ near the trouble spots, Olga. Don’t worry.”

  “Promise me, Frank.”