Читать книгу The Last Poets - Christine Otten - Страница 36

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AKRON, OHIO, 1968

The Love of Strangers

‘Look what that bastard’s doing, will you! It just made those motherfuckers’ day that all hell’s broke loose. Look at that, Reggie. Those crackers were just waiting for this.’

The television was on. Omar opened a can of Budweiser and slid it over to his friend. They were in Reggie’s basement. It was nine in the morning.

‘I’m gonna go crash,’ Reggie said. He was slouched on the enormous white sofa that took up the whole wall of the basement. He took a swig of beer, whipped off his glasses, and rubbed his eyes.

‘Just watch,’ Omar said. The only light in the low-ceilinged space came from the flickering blue and silver images on the TV screen. Reggie had shut his eyes. Omar kicked him in the shin. ‘LA’s burning and you’re asleep.’ On the TV a black policeman used a billy club to beat a black youth lying on the street. Sirens howled in the background. People ran from paramilitaries in dark helmets. The helmets made them unrecognizable and invincible, as though they weren’t real people but remote-controlled robots.

Reggie looked up. ‘Weird, when the sun’s always shining. Makes it look less bad, you know?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘They’ve got palm trees in Los Angeles.’

‘Yeah, so?’

‘I dunno. Even though the whole city’s on fire, they’ve still got the ocean and the beach. I’d dig going to California—you?’

‘You’re crazy.’

Reggie laughed. He tucked up his legs and stretched out on the sofa. ‘We gonna do something tonight?’

‘Yeah, right.’ Omar got up and switched off the TV. He turned on a lamp, and suddenly the basement looked a whole lot bigger. On the coffee table was a silver candlestick on a floral-patterned cloth. Reggie had put mirrors on the wall above the sofa, and a dark-blue velvet curtain hung in front of the room’s only window. There was white wool carpeting and Reggie always made you take off your shoes before you came in. He even had a fancy new brass faucet installed on the hallway sink. The bathroom smelled like soap and flowers. It was like the basement was waiting for a woman to show up. Omar looked over at his friend, who was pretending to sleep. The violent images of the LA riots were etched in his memory. He knew he should go home and rest, that he’d be crazy to do two night shifts in a row without sleep, but he was too wound up. He heard Reggie’s breathing become deeper and more regular. There was something endearing about seeing him lie there in the middle of all his fancy stuff. Reggie had refinement. For him, that stuff was like the California palm trees. They protected him. They erased ugliness.

Omar shielded his eyes with his arm. He would always squint as soon as the small steel door slammed behind him, no matter if it was raining or dusky, or if smokestack emissions were the source of the haze. He felt like a mole, cautiously sticking his head above ground, sniffing the cool air, and then ducking back, only to try again later. He couldn’t see a thing until his eyes were accustomed to the morning light that cast a surreal glow over the industrial park. The massive gray buildings, the ingenious steel machinery that gurgled and hummed and vibrated and spat out steam. The sky above, light blue from the dust. The heat of the furnace, still burning on his skin. The dust tickled his nose. He heard Papa Snow’s languid, wavering voice: ‘Come on, Huling, don’t go falling asleep again. They’ll fire you yet. Show a little respect. You should be grateful.’ Grateful. Once outside the gate, when he’d inhaled the thin morning air that smelled like dew and burning rubber, it was like waking up from a bad dream. His life in the factory felt unreal. Firestone was a chimera, something he’d read about in a magazine. Like he’d just arrived in Akron and didn’t know his way yet. He shambled down the dusty road, his head becoming clearer with every step. He felt buoyant and high. Everything seemed possible. Maybe it was the night shift that made him feel this way. It didn’t matter. These morning walks and the strange blitheness that went with them were the only good things about working at Firestone Tire and Rubber. He never mentioned it to anyone; the optimism he felt at those moments would evaporate the minute he talked about it.

It started to rain. Fine, vertical rain. The street was deserted. In the morning hush he could just hear the raindrops hit the asphalt. A thin, whispering sound. He continued on to Wooster Ave. Caught the fresh scent of wet leaves and grass. The city was asleep. He saw the glistening asphalt. Felt the cool raindrops on his skin. The rain washed away the dust and the fatigue. He tried to retrieve the chaotic images of Los Angeles, the burning cars, the black and white students fleeing the rubber bullets and tear gas, but for one reason or another they eluded him. As though he’d left them back at Reggie’s, in the basement where it always felt like night. It irritated him; it felt like something had been taken from him. He walked on. He should have turned left, but he kept on going, without a destination in mind. He just followed the rhythm of his footsteps. The monotony soothed him. As long as he kept moving he didn’t feel his restlessness.

‘Do you play anything?’

‘No.’

‘But your father does, right?’

‘How’d you know that?’

He stood in Chetta Davis’s bedroom. It was about 2 a.m. on Sunday. He had shimmied up a drainpipe, broke open her window with a stone, and climbed inside.

Wearing a lilac-colored nightie, she sat upright in bed, the lamp on the nightstand casting a cozy, soft yellow light. The radio was on. It was as though she’d been expecting him.

‘Now what am I gonna do about that window?’

‘How’d you know that about my father?’

‘My mother mentioned it once. She said he was really good. In the old days, anyway. When she was as girl.’

He looked around. The plaster walls of Chetta’s room were painted light green. The carpeting was thick and beige. There was a white vanity table with all sorts of bottles and jars. Dolls and teddy bears filled the top of a hope chest. It was as though he’d wandered into another world. A week ago he and Chetta had danced at the Hi-De-Ho Lounge. She’d worn tight plaid slacks and a sleeveless black sweater. They’d smoked cigarettes and drank port.

‘How come you don’t play?’ she asked.

‘I dunno. I’m no good on trumpet. I mean … I guess I can’t carry a tune.’

‘How do you know?’

‘Just do.’

She turned up the volume. There was a vaguely familiar song playing. A lazy, dreamlike number from an old movie. The music swelled—violins, he figured, but it could just as well have been other instruments. Maybe even a whole orchestra.

He stood at the open window and felt the chill through his T-shirt. Chetta opened the drawer in her nightstand and took out a cigarette and matches. She lit it and inhaled deeply. Held the smoke in her lungs for a bit and then slowly blew it out. Omar watched the wisps of gray smoke spiral elegantly upward until they dissolved in the darkness.

‘I love the saxophone,’ Chetta said. ‘When somebody plays the sax well, you can hear his breathing. Especially the low notes. Just like he’s whispering in your ear. A secret. Sometimes I almost can’t even listen to it. Like somebody’s touching you, with sounds. You follow me?’

‘You’re a romantic.’

‘Why?’ Chetta asked.

‘Why what?’

‘Why am I a romantic?’

‘Because you say things like that.’

‘How about you? You’re crazy to work in that stupid factory.’

‘Look who’s talking.’

‘I know. That’s why I said it.’

‘Can I sit down?’ Omar asked.

‘Do I have to give you permission all of a sudden?’

He leaned against the window.

‘What’d you come here for?’

‘To see you.’

‘Oh.’

‘Gimme a cigarette,’ Omar said.

She shook her head. ‘Last one,’ she whispered, holding her breath. She’d just taken a drag and held the half-smoked cigarette in the air. She exhaled. ‘And you thought: Chetta wants to do it with me. That’s what you thought, isn’t it?’

He laughed.

‘What you doin’ here, Omar?’

She was staring back at him, brow furrowed. She had pulled up her knees and leaned her arms on them. She seemed to have forgotten her question. Her thoughts were someplace else. As if it didn’t matter that he was standing in her bedroom in the middle of the night.

‘You need to go to sleep,’ he said.

She laughed. ‘D’you know I have an aunt in New York? My mother’s big sister. Name’s Jo. I only know her from stories. She was just fifteen when she took the bus up north, all on her own. She lived in some backwater in North Carolina. Didn’t tell anybody she was pregnant, not even my mother. My mother just cried and cried till her eyes burned and she was out of tears.’ Chetta paused. ‘I want to go see her in New York sometime. I think my mother only saw her once or twice since. Crazy, isn’t it? If you ask me, my mother’s still mad at Jo, or maybe jealous.’

She was talking more to herself than to him, but still, her words lessened the distance between them.

Omar sat down on the foot end of her bed. ‘Come on,’ he said.

‘What?’

‘Can I kiss you?’

‘Sure.’

‘And then I’ll go.’

‘Whatever you want.’

‘I like you, Chetta.’

‘I like you too.’

He only gave her a quick peck on the cheek. He didn’t really know why. There was something in Chetta’s demeanor that scared him. He didn’t want to hurt her. He got up and went over to the broken window, looked outside, and saw only white. Thick mist hung between the trees and above the lawn and the street. The glow of the streetlamp shone vaguely through it. The mist muted all noise: it was so still that he almost wondered if he’d gone deaf. The world seemed so small. As he climbed back outside he stopped halfway, with one leg outside and one inside. Chetta had already switched off her bedside lamp. She was invisible. He heard only the soft gray hum of the radio as he breathed the cold, damp night air. Imagined he saw clouds instead of mist. The clouds were so thick and firm it was like you could walk on them. His foot felt for the drainpipe and then he slid back down.

He stood in the narrow alley behind their house on West Chestnut. He had no idea how long he’d been walking. His jacket and T-shirt hung heavily on his shoulders, sodden from the fine gray rain. But he didn’t want to go inside yet, didn’t feel like talking. His grandmother was always home. He leaned against the neighbor’s shed and looked into the yard. The branches of the thick old oak tree hung low over the lawn. The grass hadn’t been mown for months now; weeds were taking over. At the back of the yard his grandmother grew herbs and strawberries and bell peppers. Billy’s rusty bike lay on the stoop by the kitchen door. The garbage can was open, the ground was strewn with leftovers and broken glass: the neighbor’s dogs had probably gotten loose again.

He had to go in and sleep. He’d promised Reggie they would go out tonight before work. But he just stood there and felt how tired his limbs were. He hadn’t seen Chetta again after that one visit. He’d done his best to avoid her. The way she talked to him, like she knew more about him than he did. ‘What you doin’ here, Omar?’ He was almost embarrassed to think back on that encounter in her bedroom. The thick mist that seemed to swallow everything up. He was the only human being on earth that night; at any moment the cold white clouds might have swallowed him up too.

He pushed off the shed wall with his foot, walked over to the kitchen door, opened the screen door, and went inside.

‘Grandma,’ he called. No answer. ‘Grandma.’

‘I’m here,’ came the singsong voice from upstairs.

‘It’s me.’

‘There’s food for you on the stove,’ his grandmother called. She looked down from the top of the stairs. Wisps of scraggly gray hair fell along her round face. He was always surprised that his grandmother had almost no wrinkles. Her eyes sparkled. Sometimes she looked even younger than Mama.

‘Somebody came by for you,’ she said. ‘He left a note. It’s on the table.’

‘This early?’

‘A Mr. Evans. He came all the way from Cleveland. Had a beauty of a car. He was a real gentleman. I made him some coffee.’

Ahmed Evans had left behind a note in elegant, old-fashioned handwriting. Saturday afternoon, 2 p.m. Antioch College, Yellow Springs, Ohio. Let me know if you can be there. Black Arts Festival. You’re in charge. Peace, Ahmed.

Fred Ahmed Evans was a black nationalist. Omar had met him at a club in Cleveland about a year back. Evans drank orange juice and water. He wore a black suit with a white dress shirt. He was a small, slightly built man with a suspicious, self-assured look in his eye. Evans had the aura of an intellectual but his hands were large and strong and calloused. He had been a welder in a Cleveland steel factory before deciding to devote himself to the cause.

‘Where’d you get that fancy shirt?’ Evans had asked him. ‘Looks like it’s made out of gold.’

‘From a neighbor of mine who died. His wife gave it to me. She said it suited me. Why do you ask?’

‘Sad.’

‘He was sick.’

‘I hear you. Sad.’

‘What are you doing here? You look lost. That suit and all. You from the Nation or something?’

‘I haven’t come all this way to be put down again,’ Evans snapped.

‘Whoa, didn’t mean to rile you. Let me buy you a drink.’

Evans made a dismissive gesture. Then extended his hand. ‘Evans. I’ve seen you here before. I hoped we’d get the chance to talk.’

‘You’re from the cops.’

For the first time Ahmed Evans’s stern face broke into a smile. ‘You could be doing other things,’ he said.

‘Like what?’

‘For your own people, your own kind … the way I see it, you’re nothin’ but a big, stupid, motherfuckin’ nigga.’

‘Say what?’ Omar was surprised that he wasn’t even angry at this slender man with his strange sense of humor.

‘All that time you spend on women and hustling. You’d feel better if you did something for your own people. I guarantee it.’

‘I feel fine.’

‘Really?’

‘Why wouldn’t I?’

‘Because you do exactly what white people expect you to.’

‘Fuck off.’

‘Why don’t you come to one of our meetings.’ Evans scribbled an address on the back of a silver foil lining from a pack of Marlboros. ‘Tuesday at eight.’ Shook his hand, as though to confirm the appointment.

But Omar misplaced the slip of paper with the address of the nationalists.

A few months later he bumped into the man again, at the same club.

‘We’re looking for someone to handle security,’ Evans said. That was after the Cleveland riots.

‘Sooner or later the police are going to arrest us, Omar. We’ve got to be prepared. Protect our wives and children if it comes to that. I don’t want to go through that hell again. What do you say?’

Evans rattled on about the right to self-determination and about niggers and Hough and education and the need for discipline, while all Omar thought about was that shiny .38 he’d hidden at the back of the closet in his room after the incident outside the Circle Ballroom. He hadn’t touched the weapon again, in an attempt to erase his memories of that cold winter night in Cleveland.

‘What do you think, Omar? Can you handle the responsibility?’

It was as though Evans was looking straight through him, giving him a second chance. Omar didn’t know if he liked it or not. Evans’s tone was self-assured and authoritative, almost arrogant, but at the same time Omar had the feeling that this black activist was actually looking out for him, actually putting his faith in him.

‘Yes,’ he said.

‘Can you change your life?’

He laughed.

Evans wrote down his address again, this time directly onto the inside of Omar’s left arm, so he couldn’t lose it.

In the kitchen he took a few bites of the catfish his grandmother had fried the night before. He passed over the vegetables and sticky rice. He’d filled up on beer with Reggie. He shook the wet coat off his shoulders, kicked off his boots, and climbed the stairs. He had stuck Evans’s note in his back pocket.

Saturday. Antioch College. You’re in charge.

That was two days away. He wondered why Evans didn’t just phone him. You’re in charge. He was proud and nervous at the same time. Evans was his mentor. For the past couple of months Omar drove to Hough every Tuesday evening and sat in a stuffy elementary-school classroom listening to the small black man tell about the history of his people, about Marcus Garvey, who long ago had campaigned for the emancipation of the blacks, who believed that blacks could only be free once they had returned to Africa, about Malcolm X and black identity, about black Americans’ right to self-defense. But Evans had never put him in charge of security before.

He would take his .38 with him, but that wasn’t enough, not for someone in charge.

‘What was that about?’ His grandmother was waiting at the head of the stairs.

‘Nothing.’

‘That gentleman drove all the way here from Cleveland for nothing?’

‘Uh-huh.’

‘Don’t mess with me, Jerome. I don’t want your mother to worry.’

‘You just said that Evans was a gentleman, those were your words.’ He put his arm around his grandmother’s shoulders. She was a large, powerful woman. Rose Fuller had helped Mama get a job in the hospital’s linen room. She had raised the younger children, and for every little scrape or ache she prepared a salve or special tea from the herbs in her garden. She was proud to be a southerner by birth, even though she’d only lived down there as a child. Every day she said how much she missed the wide open space, the heat. The humidity, which was like a second skin. That if it had been up to her she’d never have moved to Akron, Ohio, where it was cold for half the year and where it rained and snowed. ‘But your great-grandfather had big plans when he brought us here. He wasn’t scared of anything.’ She told them about the witches in the swampland. And about her Indian mother, who got medicine and herbs from the witches, which was the only reason, she said, that she and a couple of her siblings survived fever and diarrhea. ‘I only realized she was Indian when I went to school and the other kids said so. Until then, as far as I was concerned, she was just black, despite her skin being so light. She talked differently too. Words sounded softer out of her mouth.’ The stories were like make believe, like fairy tales. And that’s how Grandma told them, too: as though her ancestors were mythical figures from an imaginary land. She had a beautiful voice, Grandma. Omar loved Rose Fuller as much as his own mother.

‘I’m going to bed, Grandma.’ He felt the letter in his back pocket.

‘You’re old enough to know what you’re doing, aren’t you?’

‘There’s nothing going on. I’m just going to bed. I’m beat.’ He opened the door to the room he shared with Chris and Billy. The floor was littered with stuff, old magazines and T-shirts and underwear and socks and empty beer cans, but he didn’t care. He flopped onto his bed and closed his eyes. He couldn’t move anymore. ‘Good night,’ he heard his grandmother say in the distance, and he thought of Yellow Springs, Ohio and saw a vast meadow stretched out before him, and cows and trees and cornfields under the clear blue sky. Then he fell asleep.

He saw Don Cooper and Nona walk hand in hand into the Circle Ballroom. Cooper had a dirty bandage tied around his head. ‘Hey, Omar,’ he said. He didn’t let go of Nona’s hand. ‘Hey, Omar.’

He said something back but they didn’t hear him. It was as though he were watching it all from a distance, as though he was seeing himself as well as Nona and Cooper.

‘You think you’re too good for us? Is that it? Is that why you don’t open that mouth o’ yours? I said: “Hey, Omar”.’

He was outside his own body. He looked at Nona in her glittery blue dress. She teetered on high heels and held for dear life onto Don Cooper’s arm. Omar tried to say something to her, something nice, that she looked good, but again his words dissolved into the gray hum of the fan in the middle of the ceiling. She didn’t even see him move his mouth. There was no music. There were no other people.

‘Come on,’ Nina whispered in Cooper’s ear. ‘Let’s go.’

‘Bye, Omar,’ Cooper said, with a theatrical wink.

‘Omar. Wake up.’ He heard Reggie’s voice from way off. He opened his eyes. He was still lying there on his back on his bed, on top of the covers, fully dressed. He hadn’t budged since he fell asleep hours ago. He was cold. His muscles hurt.

‘Your grandma said you were here. What’s going on? You were supposed to pick me up at six.’ Reggie was standing at the foot of the bed.

‘What time is it?’

‘Seven-thirty. If we’re still going to do something … ’

‘Easy, man. I … I … I … ’ He thought of that note from Evans. ‘I have to get something to eat. You go on.’

‘What’s up?’

‘Nothing.’

‘We’re not going out?’

‘I got stuff to do.’

‘You look bad, man. Go fix yourself up first.’

‘Evans came by.’ He propped himself up. ‘For a job, Saturday. Sorry.’

‘Shit.’

‘What?’

‘Want me to go with you?’

He shook his head. ‘Better not.’

‘How come?’

He wasn’t sure if it was because he wanted to protect Reggie or just wanted to keep Evans’s jobs for himself.

‘See you at the factory, okay?’

After Reggie left he put on clean clothes and splashed cold water on his face. He crept downstairs and left the house by the front door.

The keys to Sandra’s old VW were still in the ignition. He got in and started the car. He felt in his pocket. Five twenty-dollar bills. It wouldn’t be enough for a decent gun but maybe Leo would give him a good deal if he heard that Evans had sent him.

Omar parked halfway up Wooster Ave., got out, and walked to the Hi-De-Ho Lounge. It was getting dark. He looked at the full-leafed lindens lining the street. They grew a little crooked, slanting toward each other; the upper branches and leaves touched but didn’t block out the light. It was like he was walking through a tunnel or under a bridge. In a few weeks there would be a thick, porridgy carpet of yellow and red and brown in the road. It was early October, and he could just about catch the sweet-sour scent of autumn. He liked that smell, the smell of earth and wetness and rot. He remembered trudging barefoot through the thick layer of half-decomposed leaves as a child, fantasizing that he was wading upstream through a fast-moving river. A few days later all the mush and mud was gone, the streets clean and new, the trees became bare, and black silhouettes against the sky. As though the earth had been rinsed clean in a single night. How could all those leaves have just disappeared into nothing?

He spotted Leo right away, sitting alone at a corner of the bar. He was pretty much a permanent fixture at the Hi-De-Ho. Always there in that corner. He wore a jogging suit and a baseball cap, which was supposed to make him look younger. But the deep lines in Leo’s gaunt face gave away his age. Omar could hardly imagine this man was ever young.

‘You’re early,’ Leo said, with a low, lazy voice.

Omar pulled up a barstool. ‘You want to do me a favor?’

‘Why would I want to do that?’

Omar took out the rumpled twenties. ‘It’s for Evans. Evans from Cleveland.’

‘When?’

‘Tomorrow.’

‘Action?’

‘Security.’

‘Oh la la … ’ Leo sang. Omar wondered if he was being laughed at, but controlled himself. He couldn’t afford any nasty business right now. He thought of Evans’s note.

‘Can I count on you?’ Omar asked. He alone heard how formal and official those few words sounded.

‘Tomorrow night,’ Leo said. ‘Same time.’

The Antioch College campus in Yellow Springs, Ohio resembled a vacation resort. The sun gave the proud redbrick academic buildings an extra glow. In the middle of the campus was a large quad. Beyond the faculties and student dorms were meadows and fields and woods and wooden houses. It was a pleasant late-summer day.

Omar checked his watch. One-thirty. That morning he had gone straight home from the factory, slept for two hours, had breakfast, and then driven to Yellow Springs. He felt refreshed, even though he knew that the clear-headedness was mostly thanks to adrenaline. He looked at the black girls with their soft afros and big silver hoop earrings. Girls in halter tops and long flowered skirts. Their satin skin. Boys in brightly colored dashikis. They must be about his age, but they seemed much younger. Everyone appeared so carefree today, laughing and flirting with each other.

He observed, from a short distance, the activity on the quad. His hand glided over the inside pocket of his leather coat; he felt the heaviness of his .38 and the .45 Leo had sold him the previous evening. If those students only knew. Their innocent blitheness had something contagious about it, but at the same time their lightheartedness irritated him. Like this was some kind of party. Evans hadn’t asked him to be in charge for nothing: he knew that the event’s organizers were being shadowed by the FBI. There was always the danger of provocation, so everyone was patted down at the entrance. He hadn’t seen Evans yet—the man probably kept himself at a safe distance.

Omar went over to the auditorium entrance. A young guy in black pants and a black T-shirt was frisking people as they went in. He looked like a bouncer—Omar had seen him before at nationalist meetings—and it looked as though he might burst out of that tight T-shirt any minute, his biceps and torso were so pumped up. He had tried to phone Evans but his number had been disconnected. What did Evans expect him to do? ‘You’re in charge.’ The students thronged inside. The bouncer giggled along with the girls, ran his huge hands lightly over the boys’ bodies. Omar turned to look back across the nearly empty quad. The sun reflected off the white and red tiles. He squinted a bit, saw only the bright white light. He heard the excited chatter behind him. He felt invisible. He thought back on the night classes at the University of Akron. He’d gone four times, just to please his mother. He saw the white walls of the classroom, the students chatting at their desks about the courses they were taking, the books they’d read; he saw the satisfied look on their faces, their excitement about the future. They truly believed they were safe within the university’s white walls, that it was just a matter of time before they would conquer the world outside those walls. He hated them. It didn’t matter if they were black or white. Every time he was on campus he became invisible, crossed an imaginary bridge that led to an island where nothing was real, nothing was tangible, where the buildings were like a reflection of the sky, the air white and rarefied. After class he’d always fled the building to drive over to Howard St. The yellow and red and orange neon lights of the bars and clubs flashed welcomingly at him, as though he had just landed back on earth. The air smelled different on Howard St. He always got a whiff of perfume and dust and alcohol. The hot, rancid, bittersweet smell of sex. Eunice, who smiled at him as soon as he entered the High Hat. The familiarity of that smile, of her perfect blue-black skin. The way she laughed off the grousing of the whores and the pimps. After her shift she usually made out with John behind the bar. He’d never seen a woman so totally surrender herself to a man. Eunice wasn’t one to play games. Wasn’t afraid of getting hurt. She trusted the half-white, baseball-crazy John. They were a nice couple.

Omar even preferred the sweltering heat of the factory to the vacuity of the university classroom. There, at least, he wasn’t kidding himself.

He opened his eyes. Clenched his fists. Music spilled out from the auditorium. He heard conga riffs, brisk Latin rhythms. He squeezed between the students and tapped the bouncer on the shoulder.

‘Leave it to me,’ he said.

‘And who are you?’

‘Ben Hassan. I’m in charge.’

‘Says who?’

‘You know that as well as I do.’

‘Don’t get bent out of shape, man. Everybody’s already inside.’

Omar opened his jacket. Offered the bouncer a glimpse of the gleaming metal.

‘What, am I supposed to be afraid now?’ He didn’t look at Omar, but waved some more students through. ‘Go ahead, asshole,’ he hissed, and then turned and walked off.

Omar began awkwardly frisking the last few boys. On stage, a small black man with an African cap sat behind two enormous congas. He drummed so fast that you could only see the motion, not his hands themselves. His hands disappeared in the forceful, compelling rhythms that flew off the congas.

A man with a beard and an afro pushed his way in.

‘Hey, you!’ Omar shouted.

‘What?’ The man looked back, irritated. He wore a red-and-yellow dashiki. His skin was deep brown.

‘Just wait.’

‘What for?’

‘So I can frisk you.’

‘What’re you talking about? I’m one of The Last Poets from New York, you fool. I’ve gotta perform now.’

‘I don’t care if you’re James Brown. I’m in charge of security here. Nobody just walks on through. Otherwise get lost.’

The man raised his hands. ‘Can you reach?’ he asked condescendingly while Omar’s hands patted under his dashiki and along his pant legs. ‘That tickles.’

Omar stood at the back of the auditorium, near the exit. He was sweating but couldn’t take off his leather jacket because of the guns in his inside pockets. The weight of the metal tugged at his shoulders. For the first time that day, he was relaxed. He watched the drummer on stage. The guy looked like he was in a trance. The complex rhythms seemed completely effortless. Omar leaned against the wall. It was like he was listening to an entire orchestra of drummers—he heard a bassline rhythm and a melody at the same time, but the melody wasn’t really being played, it just wafted up from those natural rhythms like a wispy vapor; he caught snippets of soft, mysterious tones that were gone, evaporated, before he even really and truly heard them. He looked at the microphone stands and the speakers on the stage. The students had nestled into their seats, leaning back expectantly. He wished he could go sit with them. He felt superfluous here. He knew he had to stay alert, and that the lazy, relaxed mood could be a forewarning of something else, danger, violence. Evans had explained it to him so often, the principles of security, deterrence, always being a step ahead of your enemy; fear and how to combat it with prayer and weapons, how fear heightened your senses. Omar knew it well. The rules of security didn’t differ that much from the rules of the street. He closed his eyes. Fear was the last thing he felt—the complete lack of it, in fact, sometimes worried him. The dull indifference that came over him at the strangest moments. He never told Evans. He didn’t want Evans to think he missed the hustling, the drugs, the flashy cars. He was startled out of his reverie by the loud, agitated male voice that came through the loudspeakers. ‘They come from Harlem. Their poems are grenades. Give ’em a round of applause: The Last Poets!’

Three men sauntered quasi-nonchalantly up onto the stage. The drummer slowed his rhythm. Omar recognized the man he had just frisked. All eyes were drawn to his brightly colored dashiki. He took the microphone. ‘Who’s the big talker from security?’ he shouted into the auditorium. Snickering from the audience. Omar straightened his back. He didn’t give a shit what that nigger from Harlem thought of him.

‘This poem’s for him and for all the other muthafuckas who think they’re ready for the revolution. When the revolution comes … ’ he chanted, and the other two men joined in at the same pitch. ‘When the revolution comes … When the revolution comes … ’

The drummer stopped. The audience held its breath. He gave the conga a few cautious slaps, gradually built up the tempo: supple, round beats that seemed to reverberate around the room, faster and faster, becoming a single, drawn-out note that snaked its way around the hall.

The poet moved his head with the rhythm. He appeared to be the youngest of the three. He had a deep, vibrant voice, a forceful, aggressive tone.

When the revolution comes

some of us will catch it on TV

with chicken hanging from our mouths

you’ll know it’s revolution

because there won’t be no commercials

when the revolution comes

preacher pimps are gonna split the scene

with the communion wine …

Omar’s attention waned. He couldn’t keep his eyes off the attractive Latino who, in the background, kept repeating the poet’s words, ‘When the revolution comes’, like a refrain. He wore tight jeans and his shirt was unbuttoned down to his navel. His mocha-colored skin glistened. He danced. The other poet was older. His skin so black, almost purple in the sharp blue theater lighting. ‘When the revolution comes … ’ Omar thought of The Temptations. He imagined them standing on the stage in their chic suits, dancing to the monotone rhythm of this mesmerizing poem. The older poet walked upstage. ‘Tell me brother,’ he said, with a husky voice, ‘Tell me brother when you first saw yo’ child dead son born of a pussy long dead long black yo’ son stumblin’ in blind rage out past the box … swollen lips … ’

The words kept coming out of the black poet’s mouth, faster and louder as he gesticulated wildly—faster, louder, angrier. ‘Tell me brother … ’ Sweat poured off his forehead. The Latino sang a gentle melody in the background. He had a high, attractive voice. The older poet was like a preacher in church. The poem resembled a sermon. He whipped up his audience with his lofty, solemn voice. ‘Tell me brother … how did you feel when you came out of the wilderness … screamin’ baby … baby!’

The words melted into the poet’s jagged, gravelly voice. This kind of music was a first for Omar. He felt the bass notes reverberate through his body. His thoughts wandered back to the last day of school at South High, to the poem he had read aloud to the teachers, the applause and laughter from the students, cheering him on, urging him to continue, clearer and faster, how he glowed with exhilaration and triumph. The taut smile on Giovanni’s face. He thought of his father, who practiced the trumpet down in their basement, just in case someone invited him to play. No one ever did. Sonny Huling was crazy. Through the melodious violence of the words and rhythms that spattered from the stage he could hear the dreamy, soft tones of his father’s trumpet. ‘How come you don’t play? How come you don’t play?’ Right in front of him, a girl got up from her seat. She clapped her hands and swung her hips. Her small, round breasts swayed gently along. ‘Baby … baby!’ the poet screamed. Omar looked at the girl in the white blouse with the fancy stitching. Her bare, chocolate-colored shoulders. She didn’t notice him watching her. He heard the music and the words via her body, saw the sounds in the fluid movements of her hips and hands, her radiant young face. Omar wasn’t feeling like himself anymore, wasn’t in control of his thoughts. As though someone were pricking needles into his brain. He saw Uncle Jean, Mama’s brother. Uncle Jean, dozing on the chair in front of his house, the empty bourbon bottle on the ground next to him. He saw Uncle Jean’s yellow Pontiac. He was eleven. He stole the keys from his uncle’s threadbare dungaree pocket and opened the driver’s door. His head barely reached the top of the steering wheel. He started the car up. The engine drowned out his uncle’s snoring. He put his foot on the gas pedal and drove out onto the street and down the hill. The bright sunlight blinded him. Uncle Jean was livid. ‘You crashed my car! You coulda got killed!’ The beating he got, first from his aunt, then from his mother. The burning sensation on his back and his ass. But—he could drive.

The music stopped. It was like waking up. Applause and cheers for the three poets and the drummer from New York. Omar left the auditorium. A few students were standing in the hallway, chatting and smoking. He ignored their suspicious glances and continued into the open air. Squinted against the misty white October light. He no longer felt the weight of the guns. From the auditorium he could still hear snippets of conga and the melodious voice of the Latino. Unintelligible Spanish words. He heard insects, animals moving in the warm, humid air. Silence. He saw wispy clouds, like feathers drawn on a blue background. It was a pleasant sight. Like seeing the sky for the very first time. He laughed. He knew that lack of sleep was clouding his judgment, that being wound up over Evans’s assignment was making him oversensitive, but he didn’t care, because after the performance he would go to the poets and ask that arrogant motherfucker in the ugly dashiki for their address in Harlem. And tonight, at home, he would write a new poem. There was bound to be an old notebook stashed in one of his dresser drawers.