Chapter Fourteen
“You’ve got to do something,” Andre pled, as Nique rattled off the latest facts and figures of hysterical destruction between deep drags on his second-to-last cigarette.
“Me?” snapped Macon. “What the fuck can I do?”
“Get on TV. Call for calm. Tell motherfuckers to chill before they end up homeless and in jail with nothing to show for it but a ten-dollar size-XXL Jimmy Jazz T-shirt-and-shorts set.” Andre’s hand darted to his head and twisted the same dreadlock he’d been playing with all day. It was hanging from the root by a thread now.
“Fuck you mean, ‘call for calm’? I ain’t going out like King Junior.”
The choppers hovered like gargantuan mosquitoes, browsing the riot. Nique glared up at them. “They’re just making sure it stays in niggerville.” He flicked his filter away and lit a new cigarette against a cardboard Radio Shack advertising cutout that stood burning in the middle of the street.
“You gotta say something,” Andre pressed. “They’re gonna blame this all on you.”
“As well they should,” said Macon, picking up a tennis shoe and heaving it listlessly through a hole in the window of a gutted sneaker shop. “If I hadn’t had some faith in white people, just a little bit, this never would have happened. If I hadn’t thought black people could handle their stupid asses . . . That’s my problem, man. I overestimate folks.” He made a fist and lifted it as if to punch himself in the forehead, then dropped and unclenched it, felt the blood drain away.
“Well, say that, then. Apologize. Do anything. Nique, gimme the phone.” Andre snatched it, jabbed Memory One, and waited for Yolanda Prince to pick up.
“Yolanda? Hey, sugar, Andre Walker. Listen, I’m here with Macon on One Twenty-fifth and Lenox, and I need a live feed. I want him on that big-ass TV screen in Times Square. He’s gonna talk to the people. Can you do it? Yeah, of course you’re the first reporter I called. Five minutes? Word.” He turned triumphantly to Macon. “She’s just down the street, covering the show at the Apollo.”
“Show?”
“Brothers broke in and they’re making white people dance and giving them the gong. Sounds like a blast.”
They made their way to a sizzling secondhand store and gazed at the grainy images playing on the only television left, a black-and-white Philco embedded in a wood cabinet, too heavy to be worth stealing.
“They came here and spat in our faces,” a black man panted into the microphone as he ran past the camera, wheeling a giant
Star Trek
pinball machine behind him. Nique wondered if Lavar Burton ever felt like a sellout as the only brother on the U.S. Enter
prise,
and blind as a bluesman at that. Maybe he and Han Solo’s Colt 45–drinking space-ho-macking running buddy, Lando Calrissian, could form a union and demand equitable treatment at the hands of the white gods of science fiction.
“We came here in good faith and they spat in our faces,” said a white man, passing the camera with an armful of Marvin the Martian dolls. Questionable as a black alien, thought Nique, but he got mojo points for wanting to destroy Earth.
Nique looked over at Macon, found his face placid, and scowled at The Franchise. Blackness as a state of mind was bullshit. Him touting Macon to the media as
possessing rare insight
and
acceptedby the brothers
was as ridiculous as Toni Morrison calling Bill Clinton the first black president in
The New Yorker,
or basketball heads geeked off Jason Williams’s handle rhapsodizing over how black the skinny whiteboy’s game was.
It was all semantic bullshit and everybody involved knew it and pimped it. If Clinton’s the first black president, nobody has to feel bad that they didn’t vote for Jesse. If we find traces of blackness in white folks, we can call that integration and kick the bona fide niggers to the curb like used-up batteries. It won’t be long, thought Nique, before race quotas are filled by whiteboys acting black. And, he reflected, grinding his teeth, it’ll be as much my fault as anybody’s.
He walked over and bashed in the TV with his foot. The forty-year-old screen gave easily; the inner coils spasmed, twitched, and died and nobody reacted. Nique spun toward Macon, eyes flashing. “Why didn’t you let those guys rob you?” he demanded. “You know why? It’s like I told you. Like I knew from jump. You’re full of shit.”
He stood chest to chest with Macon and lifted his arms to crucifixion height. “Welcome to ground zero, Macon. The moment we find out how black you are. Whether you gon’ give your life for the cause. How the song go? ‘It’s glorious to die for a cause / But you better find a cause soon, because you’re going to die anyway / Just because you’re black.’ ”
Nique was inches from his face, and talking hard. “Here we are, Moves. You know as well as I do that from here on in, it’s black people that are gonna die today. National Guard, pigs, you know who they’re gunning for. Dre told you to call for calm and you said no without even thinking about it. You know why? ’Cause you don’t give a fuck about all the niggers that’re gonna die and go to jail and get burned out behind this shit. You think it’s a game. ‘Not everybody’s a foot soldier.’ Please! You think Malcolm thought he wasn’t? You think King or Huey or Frederick fuckin’ Douglass or any of your supposed heroes ever thought they weren’t? And you somehow got the fuckin’ nerve to think you ain’t?”
“Dominique, come on,” said Andre, standing close behind him. “It’s not Macon’s fault.”
“Oh, no?” Nique’s eyes blazed. “Whose fault is it? Massa Lincoln? Cecil B. DeMille?”
Macon stood, thin and pale, arms dangling by his sides. “It’s my fault,” he said quietly. “I already said so. What more do you want?”
“See?” said Nique, jabbing the air in front of Macon with a finger. “See? Here he comes with that ol’ ‘If I take the blame, nobody can say shit else’ shit. The best offense is to pretend to forfeit. What can black folks say to an apology? All they can do is feel fucking stupid because there’s no way to respond. You can’t be mad, can’t be happy, can’t accept it, can’t reject it, can’t say shit. It’s the most brilliant mindfuck the white man has conceived of in a hot minute, that’s for damn sure. And you know what else, Macon? If you knew what you were getting into, you never would have done shit to begin with. Say I’m wrong.”
Macon was at a loss. “I didn’t—” he began anyway, but the look on Nique’s face stopped him.
“You know what I want from you, Moves? You know what would really mean something?” Nique started toward Macon, hands balled, and Andre stepped forward, locked his arms around Nique’s shoulders from behind, and held him firm. Nique twisted backward, fixing Andre with a wild, scornful glare.
“You crazy? Get the fuck off me, nigga. I ain’t gonna hit him.” They both knew Andre was strong enough to restrain Nique; the only question was whether he would.
Andre’s arms fell, and Nique jumped right back into Macon’s face.
“Here’s what you do, Moves. Grab that gun sitting next to your dick and apologize by blowing out your fucking brains. That’s what I wanna see. That’s a whiteboy who ain’t going home when shit gets thick. That’s John fuckin’ Brown, baby. Take out the so-called blackest whiteboy in America, Macon. Kill off the latest, greatest new black leader. With his last ounce of strength, Macon Detornay gives up on white folks and eats lead. Dies by the gun just like a real authentic nigger. Word up. Ratings soar and millions mourn the martyr.”
Macon pulled the gun and held it by his side. All three of them were still, and for the first time Macon noticed how hot it had become. The forecast had been wrong. It was eighty degrees, easy, and so humid he could hardly breathe. “If I give up on white people,” he said, cocking the hammer back, “you’re in more trouble than I am, Dominique. You’re right smack in front of a pissed-off devil with a gun.”
The two of them stood and stared, refusing to blink. Sweat danced on Nique’s forehead, beaded on Macon’s upper lip. Their hearts and the helicopter blades above seemed to beat at a common tempo: fast and steady, with the constant illusion of acceleration.
“Okay,” said Andre finally, “enough with the Mexican standoff shit. Nobody’s shooting anybody. Nique, shut the fuck up. Macon, put the gun away. Both of you, apologize. We’ve got a press conference in three minutes.”
Without dropping his eyes, Macon slowly uncocked and resheathed the weapon.
“I’m gonna die black with or without you,” Nique said. “You think I give a fuck?”
Yolanda Prince’s voice cut through the tension. “Macon? Andre? Dominique? Where are you guys? We’re all set up.”
“In here,” called Andre.
“Well, come on out,” Yolanda shouted, exasperated. “I want to shoot Macon in front of what’s left of Dream Weavers. We’re going live, so if you curse, it’s my ass, okay? You hear me, Macon?”
“I hear you,” he said, walking toward the light. Andre followed, a pace behind, and Nique brought up the rear.
“You want makeup?” asked Yolanda, running frantic errands between the cameraman and the light guy, adjusting their positions and snaking her microphone cord over broken glass and garbage.
“Yeah,” said Macon. He opened the case she handed him and gave himself two thick, black mascara streaks, one underneath each eye.
“Nice look,” said Andre. “Outfielder of the apocalypse. Cap Anson would be proud.” Macon shot him a vicious glare, but Andre had already turned away.
In Times Square, the planet’s largest television screen came to life and boomed over the raging block. People stopped in mid-pillage to see what was going on, the basic American what’s-on-TV impulse overriding everything else.
“Live in Harlem, this is Yolanda Prince.” Her face filled the screen. “These streets are all but deserted now, but only minutes ago an angry mob burned and looted stores after two white tourists and a local black man were killed for reasons which remain unclear. The rioting has moved east now, further into Harlem, as the Day of Apology takes a drastic turn toward disaster. With me now is Day of Apology leader Macon Detornay. Macon, what do you want to tell the people?”
Macon glanced over at Andre and Nique. Nique scowled back with murder in his eyes, brought his forefinger to his head, and pulled the trigger. Andre lunged for Nique’s hand and pushed it down to his side, and Nique turned and slapped the shit out of him. Andre grabbed him by the shirt and cocked back his arm as if to throw a punch, and Nique cocked his and they stood frozen for a moment in mutual, mirrored aggression.
Times Square held its collective breath. In the flickering glimmer of a dozen small infernos, rioters and heartsick protesters stopped beating one another up and turned their faces skyward, basking in the radioactive glow of Macon’s face.
“I’m giving up,” he told the world. “This whole thing was a mistake. White people, if you’re listening, forget it and go home. I was wrong to think that you’ve got what it takes to change. Forget apologizing. It’ll only make things worse. Power doesn’t have the power to change, only to self-destruct. If you want to make a difference, kill yourself.”
Macon shoved the barrel of the gun into his mouth and stared cross-eyed at the world beyond the hammer. He closed his eyes and tried to summon the courage to pull the trigger, feeling time stop and the city watch, but he knew immediately that he wasn’t going to go through with it. He took the gun out of his mouth and dropped his hand.
“I can’t do it,” he said flatly. “I’m just as full of shit as all of you. I’m not gonna justify it like I did when I robbed those crackers and say I’d make a bigger difference alive than dead, or that I don’t want to let you off the hook by dying for your sins. The truth is that I’m just not willing to die, for justice or for anything. Macon Detornay’s a coward and a sellout, and maybe deep down I even knew this apology shit was gonna fuck up black folks worse than whites, paint them into a corner, get them killed. I’d apologize, but I wouldn’t believe myself. So fuck it.
“I’m not gonna call for calm in the streets, either. I don’t care. Tear this place apart. Kill each other. It won’t change shit, and soon enough the cops will close it down and cart the black folks off to jail regardless, so you might as well get in a couple more hours of good, old-fashioned, honest race rioting before the spin control and white liberalism and pretending not to hate each other kicks back in. You might as well make somebody pay. I know I will. I’m out.”
Macon pointed his gun at the cameraman. “Turn that shit off!” he yelled. The dude obeyed.
“All right,” said Macon, “I’m getting the fuck out of here.” He trained his weapon on the tubby, bearded
Action News
soundman. “Out of the van, homeboy. And what the hell: You might as well leave your wallet on the seat.”
The soundman did as he was told, reached into his back pocket and deposited a billfold and emerged with his hands in the air. Macon waved the gun over everybody like a magic wand, and Andre, Nique, Yolanda, and her crew shuffled away from the van at his unspoken command. Macon slid into the driver’s seat and held the burner out the window.
“You were right,” he told Nique.
“I wish I hadn’t been,” said Nique, as sad as he was furious. “So where you going?”
“As far away as possible. I’m sure as hell not going to jail. Ten years of getting raped for what I don’t really believe in when push comes to shove? I’ll pass.” He looked at Andre. “Sorry ’bout the bail money, dude.”
“But not sorry enough,” Andre replied stonily.
“Obviously not.” Macon rolled up the window and peeled out, leaving them standing in the wreckage.
Nique raised his fist and thumped his heart. “Stay black and die,” he whispered as the van disappeared around a corner.
BOOK III
RACE
I stood at home plate and watched the ball clear the outfield fence
and let the bat drop from my hands. I stared back at the crowd,
and for the briefest of instants I felt at one with all of them, with
every person packed into the stands; we were united by the fact
that neither I nor they knew what would happen next. The tacit
script we’d all been following was gone; gravity had vanished and
left us floating in midair.For a preposterous instant, I felt that I had won, that it was
over, that they would hush and shuffle home, too broken to hurt
me. I stared down the Klansmen with no fear, no feeling even. I
turned to look at Cap Anson and found that he, too, was expressionless, arms limp at his sides, mouth slack and bulging with tobacco. Red Donner and Buck Desota watched me from the second
step of the dugout, ashen-faced but tensed to move. Everyone was
poised for something; this was the moment when crowds turned to
mobs, the moment when the bleachers emptied and a thousand
frenzied white men killed me where I stood. To gawk and wait was
worst of all, I decided, and so thinking I began to jog slowly toward first base, face lifted to the crowd. If I kept looking at them,
I thought, perhaps the spell would last.Halfway to first base the silence was unbroken. Every eye was
on me, and soon I would have to pass Cap Anson and every eye
would watch us both. As I approached, the fear swelled in my gut.
Anson would do something. Stand in my way? Scream
nigger
and
regalvanize the crowd? Spit on my shoes again?Instead, as I neared the bag, Anson turned his back and walked
away. Removed his hat and left the field, strolled straight into the
dugout and was gone. The catcher followed, and the screaming
started. The outfielders jogged in next, casually, as if the inning
were over, and what I thought had been unbearable noise was
nothing next to what came now. They roared at me, a tidal wave
of focused, blaring hatred, so sharp I wanted to bring my hands to
my ears in self-defense. Garbage flew out of the stands; detritus of
all kinds rained onto the field and I kept my head tucked and
forced myself to jog, to keep a steady home-run pace instead of
sprinting for my life. I was practically alone now on the field; only
the second baseman hadn’t walked into the dugout. I glanced up
as I rounded third and saw Buck gesturing frantically. The entire
team was standing on the steps, screaming and beckoning. I took
my time.I reached the dugout and my teammates swarmed around me.
“Let’s get the hell out of here,” said Buck, and the New York Giantshustled down into the guts of the building and through the
tunnel to the locker room. We stuffed our street clothes and equipmentin our duffel bags and made for the door.The players’ exit opened onto empty brambling countryside; a
flat half-mile separated the stadium from the train tracks. “You’d
better run, Fleet,” said Buck. “They’re gonna double back here
quick and we won’t be able to hold them off. You can hop a train
before they catch you. Go.” The hollers of the mob grew louder,
and I could see them rounding the side of the stadium as I sprinted
over the cracked tundra. There were hundreds of them, a human
blanket rippling behind the leadership of Anson and the Klan.
They moved with steady confidence, certain I was still inside. The
sight of them turned me into a black blur and I ran with a swiftnessborn of total conviction: There was no question what would
happen if they caught me. I prayed for a few more seconds of invisibility, knowing they would see me any moment, spot the dust
my cleats kicked up. I prayed for a train, for speed; absurdly, I
even prayed for justice. And suddenly, they saw me; I heard the cry
of recognition and the heavy pounding of boots as they broke into
chase.Red Donner’s stomach plunged as he watched the mob change
direction from the doorway of the stadium. He knew I was fast,
but what if there wasn’t any train? What if I tripped and sprained
my ankle, or leaped onto a passing car only to be ripped down
from it like a piece of fruit? As I heard later from Buck Desota,
Red removed his greasepaint from his satchel and scooped a heavy
gob into his palm. He rubbed it all over his face, covered his hands
in the bitter-smelling ointment, pulled his cap low, and turned to
his teammates. “I’m blacker than Fleet Walker now,” he said. “And
those sons of bitches will have to choose which one of us to chase.”
Red passed the greasepaint to Joe Wagner and sprinted from the
stadium, ninety degrees from the direction I had taken.The mob saw him and split in confusion. Red’s blackness was
stark, unmistakable, unlike that of the hazy shape in the distance.
Two of the front-runners switched directions to pursue him, and
the mob followed. And then, like a Fourth of July celebration, a
succession of black firecrackers exploded from the stadium doorwayand shot out into the Georgia sun, streaking every which way
with breakneck speed. The New York Giants had become a coloredball club.I crossed the train tracks and kept running, and a minute later
the ground rumbled. I doubled back and grabbed on to a cargo
car, lifted myself and swung my frame inside, and when the train
passed I was gone, nowhere to be found and never seen again in
Georgia, to be sure.Eventually, the mob rounded all the Giants up and figured out
the truth, and no one had the stomach to kill a white man, even if
it was for helping the nigger Fleet Walker escape. The Giants left
town bruised and badly beaten but intact, on the next train that
came along.Except Red Donner. The mob caught him first of all and didn’t
check too hard to make sure he was the man they wanted, or
maybe they just didn’t care. Somebody had a knife, and plenty of
others had their fists and work boots, and they stomped him to the
ground and sliced him up and left him there to die, leaking blood
and greasepaint into the parched Georgia soil.