oâclock, and the papers said the demonstrations usually started at three. Already on the city scheduleâdemonstrations at three. Acted like black folks was weather. Something mindless in nature they could observe. Predict like nature. (But he was surprised; heâd thought the demonstrations wouldnât start till three.) Police werenât ready at one oâclock. Now the bystanders were laughing at the police and ridiculing them. Five girls in a line played âStrut Miss Lizzieâ in front of them, shaking their shoulders, noses in the air. Then a policeman shoved the big girl, last in the line. Big girl, might be fourteen, playing like a child, but shaking her new tits like a woman. She scowled at the police like any woman might scowl at a man who pushed her, then put her hand over her mouth and giggled like a child. The first gush of water scattered a patch of adults.
TJ marveled at how the flat fire hose went plump, how water leapt powerfully from the hose. Took two firemen to hold the brass nozzle between them. In a flash of sunlit water, a little girl in her Sunday bestâpale blueâwas drenched and smacked onto the pavement. TJ saw the riffraff man next to him change his grip on the neck of his bottle: now he had a short club.
Over there an explosion of rocks rained down on the helmets of the police, and the police raised nightsticks above their heads. Pulling their handlers behind them, the dogs lunged barking toward a human wall of retreating demonstrators. Black folks were commencing to run, and TJ found himselfrunning toward what was becoming a riot. He saw a Negro man exhorting the children to nonviolence, and they waited or moved at the commands of the adults, their hands empty, their faces stunned, as though they were dreaming.
The children were wary but not afraid. Some excited. Some closed their eyes, held hands, and sang the freedom songs with all their might. At the end of a blasting fire hose, a woman went skittering down the street, swept over the pavement by the water, her face bleeding. The dogs leapt at a boy, trapped against a wall, surrounded by popping flashbulbs, a TV camera, and TJ found himself picking up a rock. Five policemen held a fat woman down in the gutter. Every pound of her was piety and innocence.
âGod! God!â
Was that her shrieking? Some other voice gone high as a womanâs?
Like an avenging angel, TJ hurled his rock toward a police face.
TJ was a trained soldier. No dogs on children! Heâd show riffraff how to charge. He stooped for a broken brick as he ran. Heard the curses and scuffling feet of his platoon behind him. Way too many fighting folks to arrest âem all. Not gonna blast no chile! No sweet fat woman in the gutter. Get âem! Get âem! No snarling dogs leaping for a boy, just a boy.
TJ wanted to sink his own teeth in their necks.
At the Athens
AS CHRISTINE STIRRED HER MARTINI THAT EVENING, SHE thought angular momentum âa term from her physics class, and she had thought it while the fire hose spun her body. Who was she? Physics student by day; teacher by night. Miles Collegeâsame place, both roles, different station.
In the bar, her bar, the Athens Cafe and Bar, Christine felt pampered as a queen. Grateful for the puffs of air-conditioning soothing her body, she stirred the liquidâslightly viscous, she notedâher own drink, specially made for her, Christine Taylor. Maybe she hadnât thought angular momentum when they blasted her round and round like a top; she just thought it now, watching the magic liquid twirl in her glass.
Better than in her own basement apartment, here in her bar, she could claim safety and peace. This was only a beer joint, with a pink neon STERLING sign in the window, but Christine loved the sign. The jukebox belted out Ray Charles, and a large jar of pickled pigsâ feet sat on the counter.
Weeks before, Christine had marched into the Athens Cafe and Bar and
Robert Carter
Jeffe Kennedy
Gerry Tate
Lisa Fiedler
Edward Humes
Matt Christopher
Kristine Carlson Asselin
Tony Kushner
Caroline Anderson
Woodland Creek, Mandy Rosko