George Pelecanos - Hard Revolution

Vaughn watched husband and wife embrace on the front stoop of their row house before he turned the Dodge around. He felt an unfamiliar stab of jealousy as he drove down to Georgia Avenue and hung a left. He put this feeling from his mind and punched the gas. At Irving, a group of kids stood on the sidewalk yelling things at southbound cars. A kid screamed “white motherfucker” at Vaughn as he passed.

Vaughn flicked his cigarette out the open window and laughed.

THE TROUBLE ON H Street in Northeast started later than the trouble on 7th and 14th, but it came intensely and all at once. Sometime after one p.m., more than a thousand people rushed onto the strip, burning and looting twelve city blocks of commercial businesses, the longest continuous shopping corridor in black D.C. When the riot erupted, only two dozen police were on the scene.

Police decided to protect the major stores as all available men from the Ninth Precinct sped to H. Shotgun-wielding cops patrolled the front of the neighborhood Safeway. Patrol cars blocked the front of the area Sears. But they couldn’t stop the damage occurring in the form of fire between 3rd and 15th, where H Street met Florida Avenue and Bladensburg Road.

In alleys, looters collected their goods and made further plans of assault. Molotov cocktails were filled and ragged, tossed by men who were no longer interested in stealing liquor or merchandise. These arsonists went methodically from one store to the next, throwing their bombs. In this way, the Morton’s clothing store at 7th and H, one of the largest employers of blacks in the area, was destroyed. A teenage boy was later found inside the ruins, charred beyond recognition and never to be identified. At the I-C Furniture Company at 5th, a thirty-year-old man was crushed to death when a burning wall collapsed on him. Police arriving on H did not hesitate to fire gas grenades from launchers into the crowd. It deterred the rioters briefly. But by then, the entire corridor appeared to be on fire.

Kenneth Willis walked down H with purpose. He had left his apartment and gone down to the strip, urging on the young men who were carrying the last of the beer and wine from the liquor store beneath his place, slapping others five who had gathered on the sidewalk. But Willis wasn’t interested in liquor or anything that small. He had seen a nice watch, looked like it had diamonds around its face, in the window of this jewelry store up a couple of blocks from where he stayed. Could have been fake diamonds pasted on that watch; he wasn’t sure. But a woman in a dark bar wouldn’t know the difference. A woman would want to get with a man who wore a watch like that on his wrist.

Willis walked on, hoping these people out here hadn’t got to that jewelry store before he could.

EAST OF THE Anacostia River, looting had become widespread. Police from the Eleventh and Fourteenth Precincts, showing less restraint than their fellow officers in other areas of the city, and fearful for their lives, began firing their guns over the heads of looters to scare them off. By the end of the day, in Anacostia, police had shot and killed two young men.

Police officials and Mayor Washington conferred with LBJ. Schools were officially closed, as were government offices. Sixty-four District fire-engine companies were deployed or put on alert. A like number of engine companies from Maryland, Virginia, and Pennsylvania headed for D.C. Troops from the Sixth Armored Cavalry were called in from Fort Meade, Maryland, as were the Third Infantry troops of Company D from Fort Meyer, Virginia. The Third would guard the Federal City and police 7th Street; the Sixth would stage at the Old Soldiers’ Home on North Capitol and proceed to H and 14th. The 91st Combat Engineer Battalion from Fort Belvoir, Virginia, was ordered into Far Southeast, Anacostia. The D.C. National Guard, now ready at the Armory, headed for Far Northeast.

ALVIN JONES PARKED his Special on 15th Street, along Meridian Hill, and cut through the park to 16th. He headed for a strip of stone-and-brick row houses, apartments, and a few small hotels. Real nice over here on the Avenue of the Presidents. A broad, clean street, lots of trees… usually lots of white people, too. But not today. They were all stuck in their vehicles, looking out the windows. Paler than usual, eyes full of fear.

It had taken Jones a couple of hours to get across town. He realized he would have to leave his car where he had parked it and walk back to Ronnie’s crib. He hoped what he was about to do would be worth all this sweat and time.

Jones went up a sidewalk leading to the hotel. Looked like just another house, but it was not. He had cased it a couple of weeks back, walked right up to the registration desk and asked about their rates. Young white boy behind the desk, had doll lips, looked like he took it in his hind parts, had said, “Which type of room are you looking for?” not even thinking to call him “sir.” Well, he was gonna show some respect now.

Jones put the stocking over his face right before he stepped through the door. He had the gun out of his pocket two steps in. A woman sitting in a chair in the lobby got a look at him and said, “Oh!” in a loud voice.

“Shut up, bitch,” said Jones. She made no further sound.

Wasn’t anyone else in the lobby. Jones walked right up to the desk where that boy with the doll lips stood. He had put his hands up in the air. They were already shaking before Jones spoke. Boy wore one of those shirts with the flaps and brass buttons on the shoulders, like he was an admiral in the navy, sumshit like that. Figured that this one would be wearing a sailor suit.

“You know what this is, motherfucker,” said Jones, pointing the.38 at the white boy’s chest. “Give it up.”

Jones looked through the lobby window to the street as the desk boy extracted some bills from the cash drawer and placed them on the counter. Wasn’t anyone out there except those who were jammed up in their cars. The guests who were staying in the hotel were probably all upstairs, holed up in their rooms.

“You got a safe in this piece?” said Jones.

“Yes, but -”

“Open it, slim.”

“It will take a few minutes.”

“It’ll take a few minutes, sir. ”

“Sir,” said the young man, his lips trembling.

Jones smiled through the mask. “I got time.”

Fifteen minutes later he was walking east, his gun in one pocket, eight hundred dollars in the other, smiling occasionally at nothing at all, thinking on what a good day it had been, dreaming of a white El Dorado with red interior and electric windows and seats.

Here I go, thought Jones. No more police on my ass or women with babies trying to bust on my groove. I will be out of this motherfucker tonight. And: I am rich.

FRANK VAUGHN PARKED his Polara in a Howard University lot and walked with his shoulders squared into the fray on 7th. He had removed his badge from his case and pinned it on his lapel.

Everything around him was burning. Ladder trucks, now topped with plywood and wrapped with chicken-wire cages to protect the firemen, attempted to move through the crowds. White-helmeted riot police hung on the sides. Vaughn had not seen anything like this on the soil of his own country. It reminded him of the last days of the war.

He cut left down past P. Rats, fleeing the flames, smoke, and heat, scurried across the street. A couple of blocks in, he passed a corner market that had been looted and tossed, all its windows shattered. He had Criss-Crossed the phone number to the apartment and found the building, a common row house, where Alvin Jones’s cousin Ronnie Moses had his place. Vaughn went into a small foyer and up a flight of stairs.

He knocked on the door several times. He knocked again. He said, “Police,” just to have said it, and then he drew his service revolver and kicked in the door at the knob. He walked into Moses’s apartment and closed the door behind him.