by Gabriel Bump
“No!”
“DISPERSE,” a bullhorn said.
“Fuck the cops!”
“They killed that boy!”
“Talk!”
“Don’t kill!”
“They want to kill us!”
“Brothers and sisters!” Big Columbus yelled. “Take back your sidewalk. Take back your pride. Make your own history! Eradicate the virus!”
“DISPERSE,” a bullhorn said.
“They killed my cousin two years ago!”
“They killed my brother!”
“They killed Fred Hampton!”
“You disperse!”
Big Columbus jumped off the hood of his car. He stood with his soldiers. I held Janice tighter than she held me. Jimmy and Annette stood at attention, focused on Big Columbus. Everyone looked at Big Columbus. He had a general’s air. The cops maintained their formation behind us. I felt my heart beating against Janice’s back. I felt her heart in my arms. My eyes darted between the cops and the Redbelters. A few civilians walked behind the Redbelter phalanx. A few civilians tried to find security behind the cops. The cops held up their shields and wouldn’t let them through. The refused joined Big Columbus, were welcomed like family by the Redbelters. I considered which side to seek out. I tried to consider what was at stake. The lines between right and wrong seemed blurred and indecipherable. What was everybody saying? How was this supposed to end?
“Let’s go,” Jimmy said.
“Damn right,” Annette said.
Jimmy and Annette pulled Janice from my arms and dragged her toward the Redbelters.
“Claude!” Janice yelled.
More civilians tried to break police ranks.
“We’re on your side!”
“Let us through!”
“Help us!”
“DISPERSE,” a bullhorn said.
Soon, it was just me in no man’s land.
Why wouldn’t the cops accept us? I could see the officers’ faces underneath their riot helmets. Couldn’t they see our fear? Why didn’t they let us through? Black cops too, standing there blank and emotionless. Why weren’t they scared? Why wasn’t everyone scared like me? I got angry at the cops’ blankness. And, then, I wanted them to fear me, to fear us, to understand our capabilities.
Instead, they pushed us away.
“DISPERSE,” a bullhorn said.
“Claude!” Janice yelled again.
I lost sight of her.
Now, all these years later, all my inner chaos remains hard to decipher. Why didn’t I join her and Jimmy and Annette? Why was I stranded? I couldn’t move. Why? Did I feel trapped in history, between two violent wrongs? There was no available peace. Throughout high school, my history teachers wouldn’t explain what happens when there’s no available peace. When they kill one of yours and you want to defend yourself. Big Columbus just wanted to free us. And you can’t ask for freedom. And we’re free because of it. We didn’t ask. A war was fought over freedom over a century ago. People said, when they wanted to sound smart in history class, those people in the front row, they said: “The Civil War wasn’t fought over slavery, to free black America.” They said, “The Civil War was political.” And they said, “Black America still isn’t free.” And then other people have said Martin Luther King was a revolutionary—not some singing pacifist. They’ve said, “Nonviolent protest was political.” They’ve said, “Nonviolent protest was meant to show the world how violent the white man was, how backward the South was. What about the North? What about Chicago? Martin Luther King said he saw worse racism, worse discrimination, more evil in the North, in Chicago.” And they’ve said, “Martin Luther King was a puppet.” And these people who’ve said Martin Luther King was a puppet have also said, “Brother Malcolm got it right: any means necessary.” And both those brothers got shot. And both those brothers wanted freedom. And the Civil Rights Act was political. And black America still isn’t free. And black men are still dying. And black women are still dying. And there’s anger, yes, there’s anger. And that anger has to go away when you go to work or go to school or ride the bus or go to the grocery store or go to a movie downtown. And that anger has to go away—if it doesn’t, how do you survive?
And there I was, that early afternoon, alone, feet stuck, unable to escape.
During the riot, everybody was angry as hell. And that anger was confusion. And confusion is dangerous when you’re standing in the middle of the street and not sure if you should go with the gang that kills people or the cops that kill people. And there’s only one option.
And that option is standing with your people.
We’re free. We’re free. We’re free. We’re free. History says we’re free. We’re free.
“DISPERSE,” a bullhorn said.
And I went looking for Janice.
“Janice,” I yelled.
“Claude,” Janice yelled back.
“Annette,” Janice yelled back.
“Jimmy,” Janice yelled back.
“Are you all dead?” Janice asked.
I still couldn’t see her. Big Columbus clapped his hands.
“Brothers and sisters!” Big Columbus yelled at his allies. “You see how they pushed you away. You see the hate in their souls. We must rid ourselves of these vermin, these vile scourges! Join me! Rise with me!”
The crowd responded with cheers.
“DISPERSE,” a bullhorn said.
“Dismantle the oppressor!” Big Columbus yelled.
He pointed and then his allies ran toward the cops. I stayed on the sidewalk, still looking for Janice.
The tear gas came the moment the two sides collided. This was an old battle scene. Hand-to-hand and unforgiving. The Redbelters kept their guns tucked. The cops smashed their riot sticks indiscriminately against torsos and skulls. The tear gas plumed and drifted over the throng. Fighting continued through coughing and hacking. Everyone was clumped together and hurting. I saw a hockey stick break against a riot shield. I saw a skull break against a riot stick. I saw cops don gas masks and descend upon coughing and blind fathers and mothers and brothers and sisters and big cousins and uncles and nieces and aunts and nephews. I saw no peace.
“Janice!” I yelled.
No response.
“Janice!” I yelled again.
“Fight!” Big Columbus yelled. “Fight for your freedom!”
“DISPERSE,” a bullhorn said.
“Janice!” I yelled again.
“DISPERSE.”
I saw a blinded and coughing woman break a cop’s leg with a shovel.
I saw a blinded and coughing man spin his arms like windmills against a riot shield.
I saw mounted horsemen on the horizon.
I saw helicopters above.
I saw madness and confusion.
I saw humanity collapse in on itself.
I was scared.
I was alone.
“Janice!” I yelled one last time.
I dispersed.
I ran home.
I ran past family homes, homes of friends, brothers, and sisters.
There were the Jacksons with their three toddlers. The Jackson parents were professors of medieval literature at Chicago State. Their oldest son died of cancer when he was thirteen.
SWAT trucks sped past.
There were the Mitchells, an old couple that organized block parties and neighborhood-wide garage sales because they wanted the community to remain intact.
The Howards and their four-story blue stucco. Their daughter was in my grade. She stuck gum underneath her desk every day. She had bad breath and said gum made her feel normal. Mrs. Jamaica would have given her detention if she found out.
The Smith and Williams families gathered around the picket fence that divided their houses. They hated each other because the Smiths’ dog liked pissing on Mr. Williams’s roses and shitting next to Mrs. Williams’s garden gnomes.
No one noticed me. I could hear faint screaming over the sirens, gunshots, and helicopter bla
des.
I tripped and fell on the Billings’ lawn. The Billings had moved back to Virginia after their twins graduated from private schools last May. Their grass was overgrown. Their bushes were dying. The For Sale sign had a giant spiderweb in between the posts. People didn’t want to buy houses in South Shore. They wanted to buy apartments in Bucktown.
A large blast, like a bomb, went off. I turned and saw flames. The families ran back into the houses. I was alone on the street. I saw a burning man running toward me. He dropped. People smacked the burning pile with their coats and feet. I ran home with my eyes half-closed, tripping every couple of steps.
Grandma was standing on our porch in her Sunday dress and church hat. A wooden plank rested on her shoulder like a musket.
“Where’s Janice?” I asked.
“She’s inside with Paul,” she said. “And, why the hell are you not inside?”
Janice sat on the living-room floor wrapped in a blanket. Paul, in his suit and on his stomach in front of her, wiped the blood from her shins.
“You guys should’ve come to church,” Paul said, with a nervous smile.
I fainted.
When I came to, Grandma was an inch away from my face.
“Those motherfuckers,” she whispered. “Those motherfuckers.”
Paul had Janice in his arms on the couch.
“Is it over?” I asked. A frozen pork chop was on my forehead. I looked down at my chest. The blood was still wet.
“It’ll never be over,” Grandma said. “The National Guard is coming.”
Grandma stood, used her wooden plank like a crutch.
“Bush might send the air force,” Paul said.
“Everybody’s dead,” Janice said. Her eyes slammed shut.
“Not everybody,” Paul said. “But a lot.”
A knock at the door.
“Don’t think you’re getting in here!” Grandma yelled.
“Is Janice there?” a voice asked.
“Who the fuck is asking?” Grandma yelled back.
“Annette!” Annette yelled.
Grandma opened the door.
Annette.
She was covered in dust. She looked like a ghost. Her face was hollow. She wasn’t dead.
“Is Jimmy here?” Annette asked. “Where’s Jimmy? Our house is empty and the windows are broken.”
She noticed Janice and ran to the couch. She kneed Paul in the stomach by accident. He pretended he wasn’t hurt. I sat up.
“I think Jimmy’s dead,” Annette said.
She held Janice’s head against her chest, spoke into her hair.
“I’ll go get some water,” Paul said.
“Turn on the TV,” Grandma said.
South Shore was on every channel. News cameras from the helicopters showed burning houses and burning lawns; people running scared, people standing their ground; cops advancing, cops retreating; firing guns, tear gas, leaking wounds, charging horses.
Each channel had a different headline.
Breaking: Police Kill Criminal. Neighbors Riot.
Breaking: Gangmembers Kill Old Woman. Police Overwhelmed.
Breaking: Death of Unarmed Black Teen Ignites Violence.
Breaking: Chicago Burns.
Paul carried five opened bottles of wine into the living room and handed us each one.
“This,” Paul said, “is nothing compared to when MLK died.”
“Paul,” Grandma said. “They’re kids.”
“They’re fourteen,” he said. “The world is about to end. A little Riesling won’t hurt.”
I drank from my bottle. So did Grandma. So did Paul. Janice and Annette held theirs with shaking hands and stared at the aerial footage.
“Remember the Democratic convention?” Paul said.
“Paul,” Grandma said. “This is bad enough.”
“I know,” Paul said, “but this is nothing like sixty-eight.”
“It’s worse,” I said.
“What do you know?” Paul asked me.
“This is our neighborhood,” I said.
“What does that have to do with it?” Paul asked me.
“The cops are occupying our neighborhood,” I said.
“You sound like that Big Columbus fool,” Paul said.
“The cops wouldn’t leave,” I said. “The cops wanted a war. They wanted to kill more of us.”
“How do you know?” Paul said.
“I saw it,” I said.
The aerial footage followed four teenagers running down Sixty-Seventh Street toward the epicenter.
“Hooligans looking for action,” a newscaster said over the footage.
They carried duffle bags and had their black hoodies up. I wondered if I knew them. I wondered if I should join them. As they ran, they took turns pulling out liquor bottles from their duffle bags. There were rags stuffed in the bottles. They took lighters to the rags and tossed the bombs at parked cars.
“Horrible, horrible,” a newscaster said.
“You see?” Paul asked me.
“Is that Monica’s son?” Grandma asked. “Those knuckleheads are going to start World War Three, Four, and Five.”
“At least they’re doing something,” I said.
“This?” Annette asked. “This is something?”
In history class, we talked about gunfire during World War I, constant and pounding, so constant and pounding you forget it’s there, forget death is flying over your trench. Looking at the live footage, those teenagers exploding cars, I stopped paying attention to the gunfire outside. Where were they heading with that explosive cargo? Those teenagers, my age—what did they know that I didn’t? There they were: heading into the maelstrom I fled. Brave and strong, they were unstoppable.
The teenagers approached a line of riot-geared cops.
“Don’t do it,” Grandma said to the TV.
We could see the cops, guns raised, yelling at the teenagers. We could see the teenagers standing side by side. We could see a paper bag flutter between them, fallen leaves swirling skyward. We could see our neighborhood aflame.
We couldn’t hear what the cops were yelling. We couldn’t hear their hearts beating. I couldn’t hear anything over the blood rushing behind my ears.
The teenagers pulled their hoods down.
And it was Monica’s son. And it was Travis. And Chin. And Mary Dobson.
“I know them!” I shouted.
And then Mary Dobson reached into her duffle bag.
And the cops fired into their teenage bodies.
And they wouldn’t stop.
The screen cut back to the studio. A newscaster looked pale.
“We apologize,” he said. “That was—what a—terrible—”
Janice dropped her bottle. Annette held Janice tighter.
“He’s not there,” Grandma said. “Don’t worry. He’s not there.”
“Where is he?” Annette asked. “Where is he? Where is he? Where is he?”
“Our hearts go out to those in Chicago,” the newscaster continued. “We’ll be back with more from South Shore.”
A commercial for enlarged-bladder medication came on. A fire truck passed by our house. I noticed the gunfire again, then, and forever. I thought of things I would die for. All of them were beside me.
Nothing changed when the sun went down. Paul tried to order pizza. We heard the guy laughing at him through the phone when Paul told him the address. Grandma decided to make bacon and eggs.
“We never got breakfast,” Grandma said.
Annette and Janice didn’t move from the couch. I was almost done with my Riesling and felt tired and sick. Paul was on his second bottle. He was smoking on the porch because Annette’s head hurt. Bush was scheduled to address the nation at nine. Jimmy was still missing.
“We don’t need to watch this anymore,” Grandma said. “We know what’s happening. Let’s eat.”
Grandma finished cooking the eggs, walked into the living room, turned off the TV, stuck the remote in her bra.
“Claude,” she said. “Get Paul.”
Paul leaned over the railing. A burning cigarette was next to his foot.
“Do you see that?” he asked. “I wouldn’t mind that being the last thing I ever see.”
The smoke in the distance looked like heavy mist. Helicopters shone spotlights down on the wreckage. We couldn’t see any of the fighting. We could hear sirens and gunshots behind the peaceful houses and apartment buildings in front of us. Cop cars and trucks drove up our street. One of them stopped. The officer told us to get back inside. “At night,” the cop said, “it’s only going to get worse.”
“Let me enjoy this,” Paul said.
“If you’re drunk,” the officer said, “I can take you to jail. Go inside.”
Then he drove off. I stood with Paul a second longer. Then I pulled his arm and told him breakfast was ready.
“Is it morning already?” he asked. “I thought I was only out here for twenty minutes.”
Grandma had plates ready for us.
“I was just telling Annette that I thought you died in sixty-eight,” Grandma said to Paul.
“I was hiding,” he said. “Jimmy is probably hiding.”
“You hear that?” Grandma asked.
“But I did almost die,” Paul said. “Jimmy could be dead.”
“Paul,” Grandma said.
Janice poked her eggs with a fork.
Paul told us about sixty-eight.
First, Martin Luther King got shot. Grandma and Mom had just moved in with Paul. Mom was a baby. Paul was working on a photo series about urban decline.
“No one knew what was going on,” Paul said. “If you didn’t live in a city, you had no idea what us black folks were doing. I knew black country folks that saw black city folks as a mystery. I got a commission from some Podunk gallery in Texas. I took my camera to opened fire hydrants, got pictures of children playing, jumping rope, that kind of thing. I took my camera up to the Rucker. I took pictures of people going to the movies. Just normal stuff that everyone does. I was saying, with my work, I was saying, ‘Look, urban decline isn’t caused by the individual urbanite. It’s the urban institution. The individual urbanite is just like everyone else when it comes down to living life.’ Government is the problem. Capitalism is the problem. We were all Communists back then. So I was shooting these photos, trying to humanize and contextualize. And then they go ahead and kill Martin.