I keep scanning faces for Monday. Or, for that matter, for Tam or Aisha or anyone. But mostly for Monday. Not seeing her makes me feel guilty about the kiss, for not taking her to Seattle. A hot and confusing guilt.
Engines start. Headlights make bright spears in the dark of the street, brighter than anything people are carrying, making the candles and hand-crank flashlights look like dim stars fighting suns for dominance.
A gun fires.
The lights are attached to trucks. Raj pulls me to the side of the street, enveloped in a crowd of people. The trucks are open-beds with green shirts kneeling in them. The lights of trucks behind them illuminate faces peering at us and glint on the metal stocks of handguns and rifles.
We stand very still, watching. Three trucks, four, five. A string so long it might stretch all the way to the bridge.
Raj starts chanting next to me. “End the storm. Bring the light. End the storm. Bring the light.”
He might be praying.
His voice grows louder, and I chant with him, and then the people next to us, as if the shock of the trucks has helped us find our voices.
The trucks pass us slowly, as if showing they don’t care that we’re here.
They stop.
Lights swirl from the tops of the vehicles, flashes of yellow that force us to look away. The lights silence some of the crowd but drive Raj’s voice louder. Up the street toward Powell’s the red and white and blue light beams of a police bar add an ominous overtone to the show.
A motorcycle runs slowly alongside, outpacing the trucks, its engine low and powerful.
A man in the back of a white truck in front of us stands up and uses a microphone. I can’t see him well, but his voice booms over us. “Clear the streets by order of Mayor Alexis Storm. Martial Law is in force and curfew begins in one hour. Effective tomorrow, curfew begins at dusk and holds until dawn.”
The man stands there, as if waiting for us to scatter.
A few fade back, although no one runs. Most stand. I’m proud and scared to be right here next to Raj in the lead.
Raj has not stopped chanting and I start in again. He looks fierce and I can feel his breath, and his voice thrums inside me like an instrument. His determination infects me with his touch, and I chant louder and my voice sounds strong and sure. Only a few others take the chanting back up before the man begins to repeat his statement.
Three people in black clothes sidle close to the truck and the men in the bed brandish weapons at them. The three stop. Two of the greens yell at once, “Keep your distance!” and “No closer!” on top of each other. One of the men fires his gun, a quick action, barely aimed. A man back in the crowd screams in pain and the wails of women follow.
The three still stand. They back off, toward a man throwing cuss words at the truck. Other angry voices join in, although no one approaches closer to the vehicle. Whatever happened isn’t visible to us, just the street where the line of headlights illuminates the open ground between the trucks and the crowds lining the road, and dark silhouettes of people moving in the crowd, indistinct and almost seething.
Raj lets go of me and sprints toward the place the shot went. I follow, blood pounding, worried about Raj. What if he gets shot?
It’s only a little ways and Raj is running just on the outside of the crowd, between them and the trucks.
I follow.
An engine revs.
The curfew message is being repeated in the area we just left. People push forward in mass argument, faces illuminated by headlights, white and scared and determined.
Raj holds his arms out, as if he can hold back the crowd. “No violence!” he screams.
Another gunshot cracks the air.
Raj doesn’t fall.
No one screams. Maybe no one is hit.
Some people hold their ground, even move forward, but others dip back and people begin to tangle and two collapse onto the ground and for a moment I worry they’ll be trampled.
Cuss words fill the air. Screaming. Peace signs—two fingers up in victory.
Figures huddle in silhouette just off the street against a boarded store window covered with orange and blue spray paint. Flashes of yellow from the trucks’ overhead lights sweep across the crowd, making everything look staccato.
Raj pulls me behind him, using his voice and body to get through. I marvel at how he shows no fear of the angry men and women, no fear of the trucks and the guns.
“Sage!”
Monday, yelling my name.
I am light and happy, so relieved she is okay that I run faster, intending to hug her, except the look on her face and the direction of her gaze stop me cold.
A man on the ground rolls and holds his stomach, moaning. A black pool spreads below him. Monday is right beside him, Tam protecting her, and holding back the crowd. Most people seem frozen in place anyway, transfixed and immovable. Monday doesn’t come toward me, but leaves her hand on the man’s shoulder, whispers to him.
Raj has gotten us close enough for me to see that it’s Jim bleeding onto the sidewalk, his head rolling back and forth and his teeth clenched. He’s writhing so hard I can’t tell exactly what’s happened to him, but dark blood covers his fingers and the belly of his shirt, stains the top of his jeans.
Raj falls to Jim’s far side, face shocked, hands touching his friend, trying to lift his arms. This is the wrong thing to do since it will let the blood flow out even faster, but there isn’t any point in doing anything about it, it won’t matter. The blood is coming too fast. I’ve watched eagles and hawks and coyote hunt.
I know death.
I’m on my knees by Jim’s head, whispering to him. Oskar always told us that death was only life, and that the dead should look forward and go out loved. I have never seen a human die except Jack, and that only took a second.
Jim takes longer, and I whisper in his ear, using words Oskar might have said. “Go peacefully. Thank you for being on the earth, accept.”
He seems to hear me. He turns his face toward me for a moment, his eyes bright with tears and pain.
The disbelief in his gaze stops my voice.
His eyes narrow, reacting perhaps to whatever I must look like in that moment.
I say the same thing again.
He nods once at me and then doubles over harder, his head now turned away and his face scrunched tight. I can’t think of any new words, so I say the simplest part over and over: go peacefully, go peacefully, go well, go loved, go peacefully.
Jim stops writhing. He seems past the pain, and I feel his body stop fighting and his eyes turn back toward me, Raj, and then me, and so I say the words again and again until life flees every part of him, its last stop a single rattling breath followed by a slow exhale.
Raj and Monday are both looking at me like I’ve done something fabulous, but I’m just tired and sore and shocked.