them

  “Five dollars.”

  “Five dollars? Shit. You got five dollars, that’s all?”

  “Five dollars.”

  “How you gonna do the thing for her with five dollars? Damn shithead!”

  Jules gestured for him to go away. The very thought of Vera wearied him. He imagined her posed before a window, wavering, faltering, falling out…better to die, to get it over with. Her dreams had been too violent. Somewhere a window awaited him. Or a gun. But he would have to borrow someone’s gun. Vera in jail, leaning her head against a damp wall, waiting…

  “She’s cleaned up by now, you wondering,” the Negro said irritably. “Was she on a bad habit, son? You want her cleaned up all the way, is that it?”

  “I don’t have any money.”

  “Jesus, if you got one hundred to begin with, and the rest on installments—”

  “No. Nothing. Leave me alone.”

  And now he remembered the slowness of his walking away. Hard to walk away from a black man who is staring contemptuously at you. He walked away.

  His neck hurt, the skin of his neck. Sunburn. There was no mirror in this room. He rubbed his neck. It was strange that he could still feel pain, so far on the surface of his being, when deeper inside him there was nothing. Another police car sped by. Jules waiting, pale and unshaven, dressed like a bum…waiting at the window.

  Outside, on the street, he decided it was almost dawn. The air had an odd taste to it. He smelled smoke. People were gathering at the corner, their shirts unbuttoned. A strange smell to the air. Jules, very weak, puzzled, walking along at dawn. A few young Negroes were arguing over a car. One of them shrieked. One of them brought his fist down hard on the windshield…a flying spurt of blood. He walked past and felt again that strange sinister slowness, slow motion. No one saw him.

  Then, turning the corner, he saw that the street was milling with people. Why these people, why awake so early? Wasn’t it before dawn? There were Negro men and women and a few white men. They milled back and forth and around, talking excitedly. They were gathering out in the center of the street. Someone climbed up on the hood of a car, to yell at them. Jules could not make out his words. Above, far above, the sky was getting ready for another hot, misty day; Jules could tell. He wondered if he could be wrong and it was really twilight. Sunset. His brain whirled. Someone took him by the arm and cried into his face, then drew back with a shocked politeness, saying, “You ain’t him!” Jules shook his head, no, he wasn’t.

  He moved down the street. The street itself was moving. Heads bobbing. One block down there were trees arching over the street. No shade here. Someone knocked over a trash can, and it rolled angrily past Jules. He stepped out of the way. His agility was a surprise.

  The papers inside the trash can burst into flame. A miracle. Something shattered, Jules didn’t know where. He rubbed his forehead. Why was he so slow? He would have liked to run up to a store window to get a look at himself, at his reflection, but the crowds had become too dense. Maybe there was a parade beginning somewhere and they were lining the streets. A siren wailed nearby. The crowd began to surge away from it. Jules saw himself stumbling into the burning trash can, though it was obvious he would be burned. He cried out in pain. His pants leg was smoldering.

  A squad car appeared at the intersection ahead but did not advance. Its red light was whirling. Then, slowly, as slowly as Jules himself, the car drove off and out of sight.

  The crowd gave a happy yell!

  In one surge it carried him up to the sidewalk, and there he saw a window smashed. DR. PALMER RALSTON, OPTOMETRIST had owned that window. The slabs of glass fell slowly. A Negro boy ducked out of the way. The glass hit the sidewalk and shattered, someone screamed, a trash can was thrown into the showcase, knocking plastic-rimmed sunglasses in all directions. It was an explosion of glasses. Husky, energetic men in sports shirts galloped up to a liquor-store window and took hold of the iron grating, heaving themselves upon it, yanking at it, twisting it. Someone was cheering in rhythm. Come on! Come on! Glass broke behind the grating. The men got the grating loose at one end and twisted it down, their muscles bulging. Then, bending it down, they placed it neatly over the broken glass and everyone scrambled inside. Come on, come on! They afraid!

  Jules held onto a lamp post. He could not remember where his room was. Better for him to crawl back there, get sick there or die, where at least he wouldn’t wander so slowly about, in a daze. Already men were emerging from the broken window with bottles of liquor! Already! In the time it took Jules just to figure out what was happening, everything had happened, completed itself, and had rushed right on by. A child of about ten scrambled through a maze of broken glass, clutching a bottle. Jules caught him as he slid. The child righted himself and ran away.

  He was standing near a sign that said KEEP CROSS STREET CLEAR. It was a fixed point. From there he could see in three directions, though not well. More people were milling out onto the street. Some stood in the center, watching. Others were struggling on the sidewalk. Another trash can rolled out into the street, on fire. Someone shouted. Jules hung onto the post. CANCELLATION SHOES had been broken into. Shoes flew jubilantly. A small Negro boy ducked under a fat woman’s arm, carrying a bunch of shoes. “You gonna wear all them, boy?” someone yelled in delight. Jules wandered around the corner. More mobs attacking stores, making the street vibrate. A holiday. The very pavement shook with the energy of their enchantment—such people! Jules picked up a stray shoe and threw it into a broken store-window…a drugstore. Kids were scrambling inside, knocking over the faded cardboard advertisements of shampoo and toothpaste. The air was heady with cries, like music. It vibrated with their music. Jules caught sight of another white man, about his own age, and tried to keep within a few yards of him. The white man was screaming, his shirt was open, his chest bleeding as if from an enraged lady’s fingernails…he had a bottle of whisky. Jules felt the slowness of his own being in the midst of all this urgency, Jules himself inching along, a white man, half-asleep. Sleeping. He could not really believe in it. He was probably asleep, dreaming. Everything vibrated. Was this real? More sirens, a smell of bitter, thick smoke, the rollicking cries of looters…

  Down a cross street flowed a great mob, and in front of it something was flying…many things…rocks, bottles? At the other end of the street, its target, was a police car parked sideways, as if it had skidded into this position. Its siren blared helplessly. The barrage of rocks and bottles rained upon it, the car backed up onto the sidewalk with the spryness of a toy, someone fired a shot, the car rushed away…a flood of bottles and rocks followed it. Everyone was rushing to two positions: stooping to pick something up, wrenching an arm around to throw it. Stooping…throwing…The street was breaking up into pieces.

  Jules found himself being carried in one direction. The neighborhood around him looked familiar, but with the familiarity of a snapshot—he did not quite seem to be in it, walking in it. Faces on all sides of him shared this sensation. Behind the faces was disbelief, but on the surface of the faces was an immense excitement. Get this one! Right here! came the repeated cry, and the muscular outer rim of the crowd ran forward, sweat-glistening boys and men with flapping shirts, in a hurry to throw something through something else. Jules thought of fireworks. He thought of a telephone ringing, a continual nervous jangling. Calls were coming through for everyone. It was everyone’s birthday. The sky was lit at the near horizon, a few blocks away. Jules was being pushed from one side to the other, sometimes grasped and released, and he felt in these hurried fingers an alarm that was turning out to be his own.

  Through the smashed window of a grocery store women were stepping carefully, their arms already filled. Someone dropped a cantaloupe and it smashed onto the sidewalk. A boy with too many jars and boxes dropped everything on the curb and cried out in disappointment. A woman carrying an infant stepped gracefully inside the store, looking around. Her hair was fixed in buoyant
red curls. She had a querulous, dissatisfied look, a regular shopper. Jules waited until the front door was broken so that he could enter in this way, properly.

  “You the manager or something?” a woman said, laughing at him.

  He went to get a carton of cigarettes and stuffed packs in his pockets. He felt no hurry, though everyone else was hurrying. The sirens were all around them. Red lights flashed on the inside of the store, a few people ducked, nothing happened. “They afraid! Look at that, they afraid!” a man yelled. Jules took a jar of peanuts and tried to open it, but the lid was too tight. He knocked it against a counter, smashing it, then selected a few peanuts from the broken glass, picking them out carefully. He must not have eaten for some time; he was weak with hunger. A white woman, her nightgown showing sloppily beneath her raincoat, pushed past Jules to get hold of some cans…shrimp. The woman reminded him of his mother, though she was rather ugly, maybe crazy. She stood flat-footed, snatching cans of shrimp off the shelf and stuffing them into a shopping bag. Not even the rowdy little Negro boys could push her aside; she knocked them back with a blind sweep of her arm.

  In a sparkling dream—sparks were flying now everywhere—Jules made his way back out to the street. The crowd had thinned out here. People were standing on rooftops, at windows, watching. Some Negro women were crying into their hands. Thick curls of smoke rose from the back of the street, back somewhere, and Jules heard more sirens. A milk bottle flew past him and smashed on the sidewalk but he thought it nothing personal, nothing. He was a white man but the kind of white man who didn’t count. “You got a camera?” someone cried. Jules lifted his hands to show that he had nothing. “He ain’t no cop!” someone cried. Jules sat down on a porch step, having a step all to himself, and watched. A few fires burning down the block. Some distance away a firetruck had stopped and firemen, white men, were milling around. A knot of Negroes watched them. The very air, lovely with sparks, was melodious and bright; Jules could hardly accustom himself to such festivity. So this was really happening? The end on its way? It was like flaming gasoline poured out onto a flat surface, free to run in any direction, in all directions, urgent and beyond help. Jules smoked cigarettes and watched.

  The fires were spreading. People were running up the street, their arms filled with clothes and bedding and kids. A couple, arms entwined, ran by. Running, running! At the other end more fires waited. Some kids turned over a car and set it on fire. They wore their hair long and kinky, their shoulders were muscular beneath their dirty shirts, and their shoes had cruel pointed toes. They cried out to one another in a language of shrieks, like large, dangerous birds. The couple paused to watch them, arms around each other. Jules could see their joy. He felt touched by it, drawn to it. Let everything burn! Why not? The city was coming to life in fire, and he, Jules, was sitting in it, warming to it, the flames dancing along his arteries and behind his seared eyes.

  Hadn’t he understood all along that this would happen?

  A few blocks over toward Woodward police had already come into the area, stationed in front of stores. But the stores were being bombarded anyway. A young cop, his arms folded and his hand nowhere near his gun, leered at Jules as he approached. Around the cop, behind him, kids of six and seven were smashing a dime-store window. “What’re you waiting for, you?” the cop cried to Jules. “Come and get it or it ain’t gonna last!”

  “Why should I?” said Jules.

  “It’s all for free! C’mon! It ain’t gonna last, none of it, you ain’t gonna get another chance!”

  “I don’t need anything.”

  “The Mayor says give it away! Christmas presents, Christmas time! He thinks he’s Santa Claus! Everything’s for free!”

  A spray of glass hit the cop and Jules. For an instant Jules thought a piece had gone into his eye, but he was all right. Someone screamed. It was a little boy, bleeding from the face. He staggered on the sidewalk, his eyes shut, streaming blood. He bumped into the cop’s legs and the cop gave him a shove.

  The next cop, a burly man, stood with his arms crossed and legs apart, guarding a store that had just been set on fire. His hair was wild. He was middle-aged, with a high, heavy stomach. He fixed his eyes upon Jules and said something, moving his lips. Jules cupped his hand to his ear politely. “Go help yourself, you nigger!” the cop said, staring at Jules. “Soon as we get the word everyone is going to get mowed down, so help yourself now, get it while the getting’s good!” His manner was husky and secretive and furious at once, oddly confidential. Jules thanked him but did not linger.

  For some hours he wandered the streets, smoking cigarettes, smelling smoke. Everyone’s lungs would be coated with soot, he thought. It was now a solid hot morning, Sunday morning. He felt the need for sleep back of his eyes, but his body could not have slept. It vibrated, feeling the street shaking. His knees and fingers tingled. On certain streets nothing was happening. People waited, with baby buggies and umbrellas. On other streets fires were blazing noisily. Firetrucks were at work. The firemen seemed sluggish, burdened by their outfits and their white skin. Even the water from their hoses, rising mightily in the air, could do little against four stories of flames. Jules felt something rush past his foot and saw a rat. It sped by him. On another street, in the rubble of a grocery store, several large rats were feasting in spite of the smoldering junk and all the commotion around them. Rats! People! Sirens! Gunfire! Jules felt suddenly intoxicated. Someone touched him and the intoxication was complete: he understood that the old Jules had not truly died but had only been slumbering, in an enchanted sleep; the spirit of the Lord had not truly departed from him.

  A girl was tugging at him. He recognized her. “This way! Come on!” she cried. She wore cut-off jeans and a man’s shirt. Her hair was fixed in pigtails. They ran through the street, ducking through smoke, careful to go around patches of glass. Everything had been cleared out here and now the buildings were on fire. Jules held the girl’s hand and caressed her fingers. She led him upstairs, in a building not yet on fire.

  “Jules, where’ve you been? Looting? Wasting time looting?” someone cried. It was a friend of Mort’s whose name Jules could not remember.

  On the rooftop of the building a group of white people were standing around, drinking beer. One boy was very drunk. Just as Jules came up the stairs he dropped a heavy pair of binoculars over the edge of the building.

  “When is this one going? You sure this one isn’t marked?” someone cried. It was a small red-headed man in a shirt and tie, pulling at someone’s arm. His face was distorted, droplets of sweat ran down his cheeks.

  A transistor radio was giving out news.

  “Is there a place for me to sleep? I want to sleep,” Jules said.

  “Sleep, are you crazy? This is a revolution!”

  He caught up with the girl who had led him here. She was yelling at a boy with a blemished face who had started to cry. Jules pulled her around to face him. “Take me downstairs. Show me the way,” he said. The shirt she wore was too big for her, the collar far too big. Jules reached inside and touched her collarbone, which was prominent and nervous. What an articulate girl! A lovely girl!

  She pushed him away without interest, screaming at her boy friend. “Oh, Jesus Christ! You make me sick!” she cried.

  It was a playground. The sky was orange, burning, vile and sweet at once. Someone ran up the stairs, shouting. Someone surged against him. He tried to go downstairs, wanting to get back to the ground, but the stairway was too crowded. A man whose name Jules remembered was Fritz clawed at him, pushing by. “They’re coming! They’re here!” he yelled. Jules stepped aside. The roof shook with the pounding of feet. Police followed Fritz up onto the roof, clubbing at him.

  Screams. Rushes. The girl with the pigtails began to scream at a young policeman and he clubbed her in the face. She fell forward, still screaming. Blood poured out of her nose. The policeman stood with his legs apart, clubbing her. Two policemen got Fritz aga
inst the edge of the building and worked him over, clubbing him. Jules saw the man’s blood fly up in a fine spray, like a fountain. When he fell they propped him up again and clubbed him again, the face, the cheeks, the nose, the head, the back of the head, and someone tried to stop them and they turned impersonally and clubbed at him—Jules saw the man’s nose broken. A spray of blood, a drooling of blood…Another policeman rushed up to the roof, knocking people aside, in a frenzy. The boy with the blemished face ran at him. He paid no attention, pushing the boy aside, yelling. The other policemen heard him and stopped. They backed away. They ran down the stairs.

  Jules, thinking they might clear the way, ran after them. They paid no attention to him.

  He ran all the way down into the basement. His heart was thudding. He had been very frightened. A box fell over. The air was stinging down here. Sparks and pieces of blackened paper floated everywhere. Jules liked the taste of ash and could not remember a time when he hadn’t tasted it, floating everywhere in the air. He walked into a nail that grazed his thigh.

  After a while he climbed out of the basement. A solid mass of flame across the street…firemen slipping in the wet streets. Someone shot up into the sky. There were other shots. A rat ran past him, in a hurry and knowing where it wanted to go. Rats. He did not mind the rats, they did not mind him; rats in a hurry were never any bother. The sparks in the air must have dazzled them as they dazzled Jules. The very movement of the air, the shivering patches of heat from the sun, told him that all was well.

  He would not die.

  In a burnt-out block he got some food, left behind on smashed shelves. He had to dash in and snatch the food out, away from the rats. They were everywhere now. A helicopter passed overhead, at some distance. Jules squinted at it. He wished he were in that helicopter, moving so proudly and easily over the fires, lifting itself up into the sky. The sun was almost down. Jules could not remember if he had spent a day on the street or if he had only now awakened, having lived through hours of flamboyant dreams. He crossed to an alley…very much alone, in all this noise…Jules always alone. A police cruiser spotted him but did not pause. He was drifting with freedom, intoxicated with freedom. That was what he had tasted in the air…freedom. The roofless buildings, already burnt-out, looked up into the sky in a brazen, hopeless paroxysm of freedom.