Prez began hanging out with boys much older than him at a corner on the southeast side of Lincoln Park. School was out. Gussie was with his aunt and his mother was teaching summer school.
“Lookit! Lookit, I tell you. Dem stupid white men ober at Chevrolet want us to buy their bran’ new shiny nineteen hundred and fiddy-nine Impala cause it’s da—lookit what it says here, heck, I can read.” It was now high noon on what was a sweltering June day and old Preach Chambers was holding court at his usual spot, sitting on the mailbox just in front of Richardson’s Drugstore. “It says right here, ‘Da last and de best of de big Chevies of da decade!’ Now ain’t dat what it says? Lookit! Dey so stupid.”
Lincoln Park separated the white haves from the Negro have-nots. The US capitol just eleven blocks west could just as well be on the moon. But the corner was a gathering point and a vantage point. People like Prez were not welcome west of the park. And their treatment by the police indicated there was a de facto rule that the park itself was off-limits to the black populace of the Lincoln Park area.
“But I tells you one thing,” continued Preach, “even tho’ dey can’t count, they sho’nuf ain’t stupid to cut the top off’n dat car. ’Cause it gonna be a hot one dis year. Dis summa ’o fiddy-nine gonna be a hot one!”
Under his soiled, sweat-stained fedora, Preach’s face dripped sweat that gathered at the bottom of his scraggy beard.
“Hey you! You wid da funny hat on. How old ye be?”
Under the floppy white canvas hat peered the eyes of nineteen-year-old Alvin Proctor. Everyone was in awe of Alvin. Al was a multi-sport phenomenon who had fielded offers of a football scholarship from Caltech, a basketball scholarship from North Carolina State, and a track scholarship from Bowling Green. But he decided to stay in Washington to be near his mother and younger siblings after his father, a noted and decorated Washington police detective, was found dead with a bullet through his head.
“Hey, boy! I says, when you born, son? How old is ye?” Preach sat up real tall on the mailbox now, his back straight, neck erect, jawline flexing. “Ain’t you got no manners, boy? Didn’t yo’ daddy teach you to be r’specful o’ yo’ elders? Well, den, boy, what is it? Yo’ age. When you born?”
“I was born in 1940. I’m nineteen years old.”
“Whhaaa! . . . Is you really, son?” Preach was dumbfounded that on his very first try, he picked on the right one. He just couldn’t believe it. From his back pocket he pulled his ever-present brown paper bag, uncapped the bottle and threw his head back for a long pull of rotgut wine. “C’mon! You was really born in fordy? Naawww! Ha!”
Still holding his brown paper bag in one hand and his Washington Star Post newspaper in the other, Preach continued, “Okay, you dere whose daddy taught him real good manners, heh, heh . . . you say you be nineteen now? Okay, now listen bery careful.” Old Preach took another long pull on his wine, wiped his mouth with his hairy old forearm, recapped his bottle, and let out a big “Aahhh” that exposed all of his toothless gums. He put the bag back into his back pocket and squinted down real hard from his perch on top of the mailbox at Al. “When you gonna start yo’ third decade on this earth, sonny-boy? Ha!”
“When I turn twenty-one.”
“Well, I’ll be . . . Hot damn!” Preach slapped his hand on his thigh. “Hot damn, boy! Hot damn! Ha!” Preach began unfurling the newspaper page that had gotten crumpled during the time he had begun his inquiry, and through the multiple pulls on the wine bottle. He said, “Dat boy’s smart!” The other kids looked on and smiled. Any of them could have answered that easy question.
Some of the older boys and girls had paired off and were engaged in various forms of communication, verbal and otherwise. A couple of the bigger guys had begun a non-contact sparring session that Prez thought had the promise of escalating into a serious full-contact contest. That petered out quickly under the scorching weight of the day. A quartet of boys with a trio of girls began harmonizing under the shade of one of the big oak trees. Against this backdrop, Mr. Richardson came out of his drugstore with a bag full of garbage in one hand and a sandwich and soft drink for Preach in the other.
“I’ve told you, Mr. Chambers, that you should be putting real food in your stomach, and not that stuff you keep hidden in your brown paper bag. That stuff will eat a hole right through your stomach and destroy your liver if you’re not careful.”
“Why, thankee Mistah Rich’son. You’s always so nice to me.” Preach hastily and messily refolded his newspaper and sat on it again.
Preach munched on his sandwich and slurped down his soft drink. The vocal septet was singing an a cappella compilation of Platters songs. Everyone else seemed to be just lazing around laughing and talking, when screech! Car doors slammed shut.
“Why don’t you niggers move along, now?”
The cop who got out on the driver’s side was a huge, red-faced, cigar-chomping, beer-bellied man who wore his police cap cocked to one side.
“I said fa you niggers to move along, now! Git!”
The cop who alighted from the passenger side was practically a twin of his partner, only smaller. His police cap, however, was cocked in the opposite direction. He was also more intimidating than his bigger partner. His billy club, which he continuously slapped into the palm of his hand, seemed larger. And so did his gun. It had a barrel so long, it stuck out the end of his holster.
“Are you niggers deaf? Did y’all hear me say git?”
The stillness was defeating and strangling.
“Whew. It be a hot one today, don’t it, Mr. Officer?” said Preach, once again unfurling his newspaper to the page containing the advertisement for the 1959 Chevrolet Impala.
“Yo’ car!” he continued, squinting down at the car from his perch, “It’s yo’ car in the paper, see!” The big cop came over to the mailbox and snatched the paper away from Preach.
“Lookit!” exclaimed Preach pointing to the Chevrolet advertisement in the paper, “Ain’t that yo’ car? How come you gotta top on yours?”
“Look here, Teddy, he’s right. The old nigger ain’t so dumb after all. It’s not every day someone can identify the model of a car under all the black and white paint, big letters, and lights.”
As the other cop came to look at the paper, Preach continued. “Well, thankee kindly, sir, fa sayin’ I ain’t so dumb.”
All the kids remained stone quiet, stone still, and stone staring at the cops. Preach continued, “Hm. Too bad they got the ad wrong.”
“Whaddaya mean wrong? We got a ’59 Impala, and that’s what’s in the paper, here,” replied the big cop.
“No, No! I means da part ’bout da decade being ober.”
Preach looked down at the kids and winked.
“Listen, old nigger, maybe you ain’t so smart after all. Of course, it’s the end of the decade. It’s the end of the fifties. It’s 1959!”
“Do tell,” said Preach. “You ’gree wid dat, sir?” speaking to the other cop who remained silent except for the sound of his billy club slapping his palm. “A decade be ten, right. Mr. Officer?”
“That’s right . . .”
“Ha! Gotcha!” exclaimed old Preach as he slapped his palm on top of his thigh. “Gotcha!”
The smaller cop took out his billy club and started beating Preach from behind, then the big cop joined in. Preach fell off the mailbox. The wine bottle in his pocket broke and gouged a deep wound in his leg. The cops kept hitting him.
“Ow! Ow! Ooh. Oh, Jesus, you killin’ me!” Blood flowed from his head and mouth.
The girls began screaming, “They’re killing him, they’re gonna beat him to death. Make them stop. Do something!”
First Alvin Proctor, then some of the other older boys rushed the cops and grabbed their sticks from them. They threw the sticks to the other side of the street and backed away. Mr. Richardson came rushing from his drugstore and exclaimed, “My god! Have you killed him? Call an ambulance! Aren’t you going to call an ambulance?”
Just as he turned to go back into his drugstore to call for an ambulance, they heard a gunshot.
The kids reflexively jumped, ducked, and raised their arms to shield themselves.
“Who’s shot?” “They shot somebody!” “Who’s hurt?” “Is anybody hurt?”
Alvin Proctor was lying on the ground beside a tree.
“Oh my god!” said Mr. Richardson. “You can’t just go around shooting people.”
He and some of the kids rushed over to Alvin, who was unconscious, but breathing. He had been shot in the shoulder. The impact had sent him reeling backward, causing him to hit his head against the tree and knocking him unconscious.
The girls were screaming and crying, the boys were shouting at the cops. Three additional squad cars arrived before the ambulance. The cops, guns drawn, shoved the kids away from Alvin and made them face a wall with their hands behind their heads.
“If any of you move, we’ll shoot!”
The ambulance put the old man on the stretcher, Alvin on the floor, and careened away with sirens blaring.
“Who are you?” asked a sergeant of Mr. Richardson.
“I own this drugstore,” came the reply.
“I see,” replied the sergeant, looking up at the sign. “Did you see what happened, Mr. Richardson? It is Mr. Richardson, isn’t it? Well, good. Did you see anything?”
“Well, of course I did. Your police officers were beating that old man, then they shot that boy!”
“Which officers do you mean?”
“Those two right over there.”
“You mean they both discharged their sidearms? It appears the Negro boy was only shot once. Is that right? Once? Well, how can both of my officers shoot him if he was only shot once, Mr. Richardson?”
Mr. Richardson fell into a silence. A thick silence heavier than the heat and humidity on that Washington summer’s day. A silence that made them all sweat more profusely than before. From the wall upon which the kids were lined up came a voice. It was a voice that broke through other voices around it advising it to be quiet and reminding it of the virtues of silence at a time like this.
“I said I saw who did it. And I saw how he did it.”
“Who said that?” asked the sergeant.
“Oh my,” said Mr. Richardson when he realized it was Prez. “He’s just a child. I don’t even think that boy is thirteen yet. Certainly not fourteen. He’s just a child.”
“I’m no child. I saw what happened. And I saw who did it. And I saw how he did it. And I’m not afraid to say it.”
“Be quiet, Prez!”
“Are you stupid, man?”
“You wanna go into the paddy wagon, man?”
“You’re gonna end up in a lot of trouble.”
“No, he’s gonna end up dead.”
“Listen, Prez. I know what you’re thinking,” whispered one of the older guys. “But, man, this ain’t about being brave. This is about being smart. Just don’t say anything else.”
Prez listened, and understood. This was something he had to do, though. He had to stand.
There was a large crowd of kids gathering across the street. They were starting to shout at and heckle the cops. Saying things like, “Get off our block.” “Leave ’em alone.” “This is Block-boy territory. You’d better get in your cars and get outta here!” “B-Boys forever.”
Prez was shaken. He hadn’t heard anything about B-Boys for a long time. Ever since he was a kid and his daddy was still alive. He wanted to turn around and look to see who was saying those things. But he was scared and hated to admit it to himself. Even though he was able to make his mouth move and say what he had so far, he was afraid to move his body because he didn’t want to get shot. The more he felt his inner self shake from the fear of the awful violence the police could unleash, the angrier he became, until he heard his voice say, quite loudly, “I said I saw who shot Alvin and I saw how he did it and I’m not afraid to say it!”
He was suddenly more afraid of being afraid than he was actually afraid.
“The short cop from car fifty-four. He shot Alvin! I saw him.”
Prez was still facing the wall. Sweat was dripping from every pore he possessed. He could feel his body shaking and hoped that no one else could see how scared he was. His head hung and his eyes were squeezed shut; he was waiting to be shot. He thought it best to get shot in the back. That way, you couldn’t see it coming.
“What did you say, boy?” growled the sergeant.
Prez could hear footsteps rapidly coming in his direction. He hung his head even lower and squeezed his eyes shut even tighter. The rapidly approaching footsteps brought a solemn, fearful hush over the whole group along the wall.
From across the street Prez could still hear the crowd: “Butch lives!” “Get off our block!” “B-Boys forever!”
Prez still couldn’t believe what he was hearing. His legs were getting stronger. He stopped shaking. He wasn’t going to be shot in the back, he decided. He wasn’t going to be shot without fighting back, even if he couldn’t win. He was going to fight the bullet. As the footsteps were practically upon him, he spun, ready to fight, ready to let his fists go with the fastest and mightiest barrage of punches anyone had ever seen. For old Preach-Mouth. For Alvin. For Butch. And somehow, for his daddy.
“Preston. Come with me, son.”
It was his mother’s boyfriend Ellis. Detective Ellis Perkins of the Washington, D.C. police department. His rank was lieutenant, so he outranked all the other cops at the scene. He grabbed Prez by the arm and yanked him along toward his unmarked police car.
The kids along the wall turned and began shouting.
“Hey, who are you?” “Where you takin’ him?” “You some kinda cop or somethin’?” Only Tons and Lightblood knew that Ellis was Prez’s mother’s boyfriend.
Ellis turned around, still yanking Prez along, and went back to the group lined up along the wall.
“I am Detective Perkins of the D.C. Police Department.” Ellis met the looks of astonishment on some of their faces with, “Yes, there are some Negro detectives on the force. The boy has to come down to the police station and tell what he said he saw.”
“But I saw the policeman with the hole in his holster shoot Alvin, too,” one of the older kids said. “So did I,” said another. “Me, too,” said a third, who added, “he didn’t even take his gun from the holster. He just kind of lifted the whole holster. Or spun it, or something, and just shot right through the hole.”
“What are you kids talking about a hole in a holster?” asked Ellis. He knew that the standard-issue police sidearm was a revolver with a four-inch barrel and the standard-issue holster was one that completely enclosed the barrel. He went over to the sergeant with whom he had a heated exchange. The sergeant then went over to the two cops from car fifty-four and they got in their car and sped off.
“That’s not what I ordered you to do!” screamed Ellis in the face of the sergeant. With his nose practically touching the sergeant’s, Ellis spat his Army Master Sergeant venom. “I gave you specific orders, Sergeant!”
“You git right outta mah face, you hear? I don’t give a shit about your war decorations, or your college education. You still a nigga! Detective or no. You still a nigga! Git the hell outta mah face! You Nazi nigger!”
Ellis turned from the sergeant, grabbed Tons from the group of kids and put him into the back seat of his car with Prez. Then he came back over to where the other kids were being held by other cops. He placed himself between the kids and the cops, then said, “The rest of you, I want you all to leave, now. I want you to get out of here. Go across the street where your friends are and then go home.”
Some of the cops began moving towards the kids and Ellis turned to confront them, brandishing two ebony-handled Walther P38 semi-automatic pistols. He had taken them from a dead German officer. His reputation as a master marksman was well known on the force. As was the fact that having served under the current chief of police in the war—the same man who had planted many of those decorations on Ellis’s chest—had gotten Ellis the special permission to pack those sidearms. But the white cops on the force hated seeing that German-made weapon. They’d say, “That’s a goddamn Nazi gun you got there! You a Nazi? You must be. You like their guns. You a Nazi nigger!” What Ellis liked was the accuracy of the weapon, and the quick reloading. Once at the police range he had put two cliploads of bullets, fourteen rounds, into a six-inch area of a target quicker than anyone else could fire six and reload their revolver.
“Hey, Sarge, he can’t do that, can he?”
“What about it, Sarge, do we let ’em go?”
“Can’t we just arrest all of ’em?”
“Shut up, Patrolman,” said Ellis. “You boys all get back in your cars and head back to the station, now. You too, Sergeant.” The sergeant hesitated. “Sergeant,” barked Ellis, “I am giving you a direct order. If you want to keep your badge, you will obey my direct order and get the hell out of here and proceed directly to the station where I will meet you in the captain’s office.” As the sergeant got into his squad car and drove off, Ellis turned to the other cops and said, “We’ll have to file reports and take this up with the captain now, won’t we?” This made the white cops wince. Their captain was the kid brother of the chief of police.
As Ellis drove away with Prez and Tons, Prez turned to look out the back window and was astonished at how large the crowd of kids had grown on the other side of the street. They were shouting and gesturing at the cops. The cops, abandoned by their sergeant, made a hasty retreat from the scene.
*
Later that evening, Mattie, Ellis, and some other neighbours gathered over at Tons Murray’s parents’ place to discuss the events that had occurred in front of Richardson’s Drugstore. While the adults conversed upstairs, Prez, Debra, Sticks, Dee Cee and some other young people from the neighborhood were downstairs with Tons in the Murrays’ basement, playing music and talking about what had happened. “I saw what the cop did, man,” said Prez. “He didn’t even take his gun out of his holster. He just kinda twisted the whole thing up and pointed it at Alvin, man. I’m telling you. It all happened so fast. Then bang! He shot Alvin, man. For no reason. He just shot him for nothing. That’s why that cop has that hole in the bottom of his holster, so he can shoot people without even taking his gun out, you know, like some kinda quick draw without drawing, you know what I mean? He just shot Alvin, man. For nothing!”
Upstairs, the parallel conversation continued. “What do you think’s gonna happen, Ellis? Is that cop gonna get away with shooting that boy?” Mattie asked.
“We put on American military uniforms and went overseas to shed all that blood fighting the Nazis and Tojo just to come back home and get treated like pure . . . pure . . .” Mr. Murray’s strict religious beliefs prevented him from uttering profanity. “Is anything gonna happen to that cracker? Or is it just too bad for another dead Negro boy?”
“Alvin’s not dead. He’s a tough kid, you know? They extracted the bullet from his shoulder and what I heard was that he’s going to recover alright. His mother is a wreck, though. You know, losing her husband and all. She said the strangest thing at the hospital. She said something about the cops trying to kill her son like they killed her husband. You remember Detective Proctor, don’t you? You remember he was found shot through the head in what was called a suicide. Well, Alvin is his son. Even the chief came to look in on him.”
“I didn’t know that, Ellis,” said Mattie. “But are they going to do anything to that cracker cop who shot that boy?”
Ellis paused to take a deep breath and looked down at the floor before continuing. “They’re saying it was an accident. That it was his ‘faulty’ holster. All they’re doing is issuing Officer Briggs a regulation sidearm and holster.”
Downstairs, Prez started up again.
“All those cops coming with all their guns out. I wonder how bad they’d be if they didn’t have any guns. They’d have to treat us with more respect if they didn’t have any guns, you know. Because they’re just white punks with guns, you know. I’ll bet they can’t fight a lick.”
“Prez, you have to stop talking like that,” said Debra. “All you can think about is fighting. Do you think that really decides who is a better person? Well, do you? Don’t you all remember Reverend Williams’ sermon last Sunday?” Debra asked. “He was telling us all about the preacher down south who’s starting to get us organized so that we can fight for our rights. That preacher, Reverend King, that’s what he says, too. ‘Turn the other cheek.’”
“Okay, Debra,” said Prez. “Yeah, Jesus did say that. And so did that preacher. I saw him on TV. They both say that violence is not right.”
“Prez! Are you punkin’ out on us, man?”
“What you sayin’, man? You ain’t gonna fight no mo’?”
“Damn, Prez. Did that shit up on the corner get in your head, man?”
Prez had no ready answer for any of those questions from his crowd. All he knew was that what Debra was saying about that preacher in the South was making him feel different than he had ever felt before.
“My daddy,” continued Debra, “says that it takes a braver person to be non-violent than violent.” For once Debra was catching a glimpse of a different person under the tough-guy face that everyone knew as Prez the street-fighter. For once she felt as though she was reaching a place inside of him that neither she nor anyone else had ever reached before. She felt a sense of power. But she was also scared of where this whole new thing would lead.
“Hey, is this a party? Ain’t nobody cut up on the dance floor in the last fifteen minutes. Let’s dance, y’all!” Tons was ever ready to dance and act the fool. “Where’s that Clyde McPhatter?”
Just then Tons’s father came downstairs.
“Ellis just heard; old man Chambers died.”
The floor of Tons’s basement became the subject of intense scrutiny again. Only Prez’s eyes locked onto Mr. Murray’s.
“Who’s gonna tell his family?”
“I don’t know, son.”
Mr. Murray turned to go back up the stairs.
“But somebody’s got to tell his family that the cops killed him!”
“Preston Junior!” Mattie had wisely thought to come downstairs behind Mr. Murray. “I’m sure someone will notify that poor man’s family. It’s a shame what happened to him.”
“Mama, they killed him like he was nothing. And then they shot Al down like he was a dog or something.”
“Preston Junior, I’m telling you that there’s nothing we can do about any of that. We just have to let things run their course.”
“What course is that, Mama? The same one you told me and Gussie was gonna tell us who killed my daddy?”
Mattie hit Prez so hard everybody felt it but Prez. “Mama, you should stop hitting me. You only hurt yourself, ’cause it don’t hurt me.”
“Listen, son, you shouldn’t talk to your mother like that.” Ellis had made his way downstairs with the rest of the adults. He went right up to Prez, got in between Mattie and Prez and pointed his finger at Prez, mashing his finger into the frontal knob of Prez’s nose.
Quicker than lightning, Prez swatted Ellis’s finger away and pushed Ellis back.
“Oh my god, Prez!” exclaimed Debra in a state of shock, “Have you gone crazy?”
“Get outta my face!” said Prez to Ellis. “You’re not my father!”
Prez lunged at Ellis. Mr. Murray grabbed him by the arm.
“Ellis, that boy is hurting.”
“I know, Wellington. I know.” He walked over to Prez with his arms outstretched.
Prez was frozen. He seemed to neither blink nor breathe. “I know you’re feeling bad, son. It’s not something that is easy to get over. Seeing someone you know, a friend, get hurt like that. Get shot. We’ve seen our share, haven’t we, Joe?”
“Sure have,” said Mr. Murray.
Mr. Murray placed his forefinger to his lips. Then he pointed over to where Ellis and Prez were standing. Ellis had his arms around Prez. Prez’s head was tilted back as if his body was wracked with pain. His fists were clenched. His mouth was wide open, but no sound emerged. Tears were streaming down his face.
Gussie went over to his big brother and hugged him from behind. “Don’t be sad, Prez. Okay?”
It was only then that Prez’s fists unclenched, his body relaxed, and he returned Ellis’s embrace.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Perkins. I’m sorry I pushed you.”
Then he turned around, bent down and said to his little brother, “Gussie, I’m never going to let those cops hurt you, ever. Okay?” Gussie gave him a big smile. Gussie could smile like the sun. It was impossible for Gussie to smile and it not become contagious. Prez smiled back at him and hugged him.