Four Spirits by Sena Jeter Naslund

police force. Shuttlesworth had petitioned years ago. Not gonna arrest white folks. Just let us have black officers in ourown neighborhood. We need police who won’t wink at crime in our communities. But TJ knew he’d arrest a white man quick as a black man, quick as he’d shot yellow men. He wasn’t a racist.
    He shouldered his way through the riffraff surrounding the demonstrators. The fringe. Maybe Agnes would work in ladies’ shoes at Loveman’s, maybe Pizitz. He could see her, dressed so neat, soft but not fat—no babies for them—kneeling with her eyes down, helping some well-dressed white lady try on a shoe. He’d always liked that gadget for measuring feet, that metal plate with a slide to measure length, and especially the slide for taking the width snugged up against the big toe joint inside a clean sock.
    TJ didn’t like these riffraff men brushing up against him. He could smell beer breath, saw a fellow tilt up his bottle wrapped in a greasy sack, the paper all twisted up around the long neck of the bottle. Vagrant! But TJ appreciated the colors of the schoolchildren’s clothes. All colors, bright red and blue and yellow, pretty as a painting, a giant, dangerous picnic. TV couldn’t catch all this pretty color. He noticed the nice white shirts on some of the boys, some patent leather shoes on girls’ feet with white socks and a ring of lace on the sock cuff. Upgrade employment for blacks in the stores —that was a demand. Agnes, his own wife, was as neat and clean and more pleasant than any white woman.
    Never mind Loveman’s. Fielding’s Department Store—that was where a black woman might hope to work. Not just be the bathroom maid, run the elevator. The Fielding brothers were Methodists, supported the Salvation Army. They had an annual Christmas party, and last year, Agnes phoned the Fielding’s switchboard and asked if black people could come, and she said the telephone operator girl just sang it out: “Everybody welcome, black and white”—she had a white voice for sure—“come on down. We got cheese and crackers and cider and Santa Claus.”
    When she hung up the receiver, Agnes just sang it out again, in an imitation white voice right at the decorated tree: “We got cheese and crackers and cider and Santa Claus,” but she was happy, not making fun. “That what the girl said.”
    And something else about Fielding’s. No COLORED and WHITE signs on the drinking fountains. Just one fountain, and a plastic tube of paper cups beside it. You could pull down a cup, step on the foot treadle, and when the water arced up, catch your drink in the little white cup. Pretty little cup, sides all folded into pleats and a rolled rim around the top. Kind you could put mints in, or nuts, for a child’s birthday party. Agnes could work in Accessories, not beback in Shoes in the corner. Accessories right there in the front of the store soon as you walked in.
    TJ watched the back door opening on a police wagon and a German shepherd dog stepped out—Lord, God!—on a chain, then the dark blue leg and the whole of a policeman. And another pair—dog and man, linked by a leash. And another dog and man. Dogs always panting, muscles straining against the harness. The sun glinted from the metal snap that connected harness to leash. Several more pairs of dogs and handlers coming out of the truck, leaping down to the ground.
    Over on the south side of Kelly Ingram Park the fire trucks began to pull up, and the kids drifted that way, wanted to see the trucks the way kids always love a red truck. He’d seen kids in the neighborhood, so excited to see a fire engine. Suddenly, like a flock of pretty birds, the children all veered away from the fire truck—a jumble of bright clothing—and started for the street to downtown. Somebody had given a signal.
    It was early, TJ checked his watch, only around one