Kim Hunter - The Official Report on Human Activity

“Wow, are you opera fans or something?” the man asked.

“It was our dad’s dissertation,” Tyrone said with a sad smile.

“Can we call your dad?” the woman said with a look that was half joke and half desperation.

“He’s dead.”

“Sorry to hear that. We uh…”

“He died before we were born.”

“Oh, God,” the woman frowned.

“We’re gonna stop bugging you now,” the man said, looking slightly embarrassed.

“Wait,” the woman interrupted. She placed both hands on the table and mustered as serious an expression as she could under the circumstances. “You’ve obviously read the dissertation. How fast can you write? We can pay.”

Rick saw Schwartz walking towards the house from the bus stop. The closer she got, the sadder she looked.

“What’s the matter?” He was afraid to ask about Tyrone. He felt a low gray ceiling descending over the summer. Without Tyrone and Schwartz, Rick would be constrained to the pool halls where Andre had not run scams, and the sections of the Smithsonian where Andre’s status as a guard allowed Rick free access, all of which Rick had already thoroughly perused.

Even though he had refused Tyrone’s pleas to help churn out papers, he had actually begun writing a paper for a business student taking a philosophy course, comparing Hamlet and Bigger Thomas, entitled “Choosing a Course of Action Even When There Seems to Be No Choice.” He had wanted to return to Schwartz and Tyrone’s because he wanted to talk books. He told himself writing the paper was the price of admission.

“Did they tear the place up?”

“You know they did! And he didn’t even try to hide. He gave himself up because…”

She looked down, her hands on either side of her face. “He didn’t want them to harm me.”

“Did they find the stuff he wrote, I mean the memoirs and the play, The Report ?”

“Who the hell cares? They weren’t there because of what he wrote.”

Rick only had the slightest clue as to why the police would be after Tyrone, things Tyrone had muttered when he was really high.

Andre had been assigned to the new part of the museum, a theater where they reenacted the trial of John Brown. He was looking forward to it, a much welcomed break in the monotony. He was standing near the turnstiles, waiting for more detailed instructions from his supervisor, when he noticed a group of men approaching. Some were in wheelchairs; some were in military uniform. A young, black, nearly bald GI ran to catch up with them and approached Andre, smiling.

“Got a bunch of vets here on field day.” He handed Andre about a dozen tickets.

“The ticket taker isn’t here yet, she’s—”

He recognized Wilson in a wheelchair and walked over to him. The man in the chair looked up, unsmiling but not unfriendly.

“Hey, man. How’s it going?”

“How the hell does it look like it’s going?”

“I didn’t mean anything like that. I—”

Wilson dropped his head. “I know you didn’t.”

He reached into his breast pocket, unfolded a piece of paper, looked at it, and handed it to Andre. It had the time, date and place for the anti-war march.

Andre didn’t get home until long after dark and Rick could tell he had been drinking. He wasn’t as funny as usual. After Rick introduced him to Schwartz, Andre joked in his best Butterfly McQueen voice that he “don’t know nothin’ ’bout birthin’ no babies,” then remarked that white folks wouldn’t understand the joke about the joke. When that was met with silence, he stared at Schwartz for a moment.

“You’re not…”

“My mother is!” she snapped.

“Don’t get mad at me. It’s dark, I’ve had a couple of shots, and it’s been a long day, all right? I assume a lot’s been happening ’cause you’re here without your husband.”

“He’s her brother, not her husband. There’s stuff I need to tell you.”

“Tell me in the morning. I’m going to bed. You and me are going to the anti-war march and they start gathering early. You can come too if you want,” he said to Schwartz.

Andre woke up before everyone else and fixed breakfast. Rick came down and Andre began talking about Wilson. They were about to walk out of the door when Schwartz came down. She seemed somehow more pregnant than the night before and had to convince the two guys that walking was good for a pregnant woman.

They walked over to the stadium and got on the bus that would take them to the National Mall. The bus was already packed with young white people. It seemed all the men had long hair. Some of them stared at the trio of Andre, Rick, and Schwartz as they paid their fares. A woman got up to let Schwartz take a seat. One young man thought she looked familiar, but when he realized where he knew her from, decided to stay silent.

None of them had ever been to a protest march before, to say nothing of one that large. Schwartz first learned about it because Tyrone paid to have some of the flyers printed. Rick had first read about it in an underground paper he found on a table in the Museum cafeteria while he waited for Andre’s shift to end. They saw dozens, then hundreds of people walking to the National Mall. They arrived overwhelmed by what seemed like millions.

The crowd was overwhelmingly white, as Andre had expected. The few black men he saw made him think of Wilson handing him the flyer from a wheel chair. The image wore on him. He zoned out during the speeches. After buying a Black Panther paper from a woman he knew, he was besieged by white people trying to sell him other papers. He was very ready to leave.

Schwartz was the one who noticed Rick was missing. She began looking for him as Andre tried to convince her they needed a plan find his cousin. She made it to the edge of the crowd where the police presence was evident. Andre was beginning to feel the effects of the previous night’s drinking and to question why the hell he was there with this white looking black woman he barely knew. Suddenly, he couldn’t even remember her name.

“Hey, hey wait,” he shouted.

But she couldn’t hear as she approached a police officer to ask if there were somewhere lost minors were gathered. Another cop who had seen them emerging from the crowd assumed Andre was an unwanted pursuer, approached, and shoved him to the ground. Andre hopped to his feet as the crowd around him gave way and two other cops rushed in for backup.

Any fault you find with this text rests with the so-called author. All that engages you is the result of the collaborative effort of the following gracious people: Tyrone Williams, Karla Passalacqua, Jane Slaughter, Dennis Teichman, Peter Markus, Melba Joyce Boyd, Chris Tysh, M. L. Liebler, Rick Ward, Annie Martin and the entire wonderful team at Wayne State University Press, my family Kathryn Savoie and Anika Hunter for putting up with my hours away from them as well as for their deep listening, and my mother for seeds from decades ago that remain.

kim d. hunter has published two collections of poetry: borne on slow knives and edge of the time zone . His poetry appears in Rainbow Darkness , What I Say , Black Renaissance Noire , 6X6 #35, and elsewhere.

He received a 2012 Kresge Artist Fellowship in the Literary Arts and he works in Detroit providing media support to social justice groups.