Christopher Sorrentino - Trance

“Elder sister, your daughter has generously—”

“Don’t older sister me.”

“Don’t you think that black people need to stick together?”

She stopped talking to him and went back into Sheila’s room. She gathered between her thumb and forefinger some flesh from behind Sheila’s knee and gave it a twist. Sheila screamed.

“Get up, you. If I don’t get nobody else to listen to me I’m going to get you. We’re getting out of here right now.”

She helped Sheila off the bed.

Her daughter asked, “What about Lillian?”

“Not enough hours in the day to worry about Lillian,” said Della Hurd, and as she said it she looked at her watch. Just about 5:30.

As they walked out the door together, two of the white girls looked up.

“Oh, nice to meet you!” said one, brightly.

“Bye-bye!” said the other.

THEY THINK SHE’S IN there. Tania sits on the floor at the foot of one of the beds, staring up at the spectacle efflorescent on the television screen.

OCCUPANTS OF ONE FOUR SIX SIX EAST FIVE FOUR STREET: THIS IS THE LOS ANGELES POLICE DEPARTMENT SPEAKING. COME OUT WITH YOUR HANDS UP. COMPLY IMMEDIATELY AND YOU WILL NOT BE HARMED.

The police have made numerous surrender demands. At this point the SLA has to be aware that it is surrounded. The choice is theirs whether to surrender or engage the police in a shoot-out.

PEOPLE IN THE YELLOW FRAME HOUSE WITH THE STONE PORCH. ADDRESS ONE FOUR SIX SIX EAST FIVE FOUR STREET. THIS IS THE LOS ANGELES POLICE DEPARTMENT SPEAKING. COME OUT WITH YOUR HANDS UP. COMPLY IMMEDIATELY AND YOU WILL NOT BE HARMED.

She thinks, Stone porch?

ALL PEOPLE IN ONE FOUR SIX SIX EAST FIVE FOUR STREET: COME OUT WITH YOUR HANDS UP.

She watches as an entire family, a woman carrying one child and pushing two others ahead while a third child and an adult man bring up the rear, heads for safety, skirting a SWAT cop in a gas mask who is assuming an awkward combat stance, covering someone with his M-16.

YOU WILL NOT BE HARMED.

A window covered up with a flattened cardboard box that says VIVA. As in paper towels.

Is she in there?

COMPLY IMMEDIATELY AND YOU WILL NOT BE HARMED.

From inside the house there come heavy bumping sounds, like furniture being pushed against the doors.

We are not sure but Alice Galton, the kidnapped newspaper heiress who is wanted for questioning in a San Francisco bank robbery, may be in there with her SLA comrades, repeat may.

She knows that they think she’s in there. The surrender demands continue to come; she waits for her name to be called. Her name uttered through a bullhorn, what an idea.

There’s a whoosh as the Flite-Rites are launched. The front windows shatter. The first sounds of automatic rifle fire come from the house. The police response is immediate.

“That’s Cin’s weapon!” says Teko, with dubious accuracy.

WE NEED ALL THE GAS THAT YOU CAN ROUND UP FROM PARKER CENTER OR ANY GEOGRAPHICAL DIVISION AND WE NEED IT DOWN HERE CODE, AH, THREE, FAST AS YOU CAN GET IT DOWN. IN ADDITION TO THAT WE NEED ALL THE AMMO THAT WE’VE GOT IN THE SAFE. WE’RE TAKING AUTOMATIC FIRE FRONT AND BACK FROM THIS LOCATION; THEY’RE MUCH BETTER ARMED THAN WE ARE.

Police are saying the fugitives are better armed than they are.

holding the Negro residents of the house hostage.

Teko: “Bullshit! Fascist bullshit!”

here in the newsroom we have a noted expert

We have been informed that more than three hundred police and FBI agents are participating in this operation, an awesome amount of firepower marshaled against the radical sect the SLA.

who is here to tell us about the SLA and their strange beliefs.

Reporters and police both fall back, fall back in a wave broadcast in a series of shaky images by the MiniCam Unit of KNXT-TV

The dry wind sends the CS gas coming back. Searing and choking.

FALL BACK, GET BACK.

Doughnuts and crushed paper cups on the street from the reporters, down there where their feet had been.

The police have made more than a dozen surrender announcements, folks. They have given the radical members of the Symbionese Liberation Army ample chance to drop their weapons and surrender.

have brought this fusillade of death upon themselves.

unsubstantiated reports that there are hostages inside.

“Bullshit! Damn it!”

A SWAT cop on a neighboring roof edges over to peer into the kitchen window at 1466 and is fired upon. He throws himself backward and rests, breathing heavily, on the shake roof.

THIS IS SKY ONE WE HAVE POSSIBLE WOUNDED TEAM MEMBER ON ADJACENT ROOFTOP REPEAT POSSIBLE WOUNDED REQUEST IDENTIFY AND STATUS TEAM TWO MEMBER OVER.

The camera jumps and turns. It pans past the long, low fieldstone wall surrounding this bungalow.

speculated the SLA may have picked this house because of its natural defensive barrier in anticipation of just such a siege as this.

Then with the sound of sustained gunfire the camera lens is suddenly pointed at the pavement; it jogs wildly before someone turns it upright to aim it again toward the horizon. Teko reaches forward and changes the channel.

tells us that groups such as the SLA often have a strongly suicidal bent.

MOVE ’EM BACK. MOVE ’EM BACK.

I’m told the gas is launched through the window in canisters where it explodes, a nonlethal explosion inside that’s of sufficient force to release the gas and, hopefully, to subdue

Unknown whether the SLA is equipped with gas masks. They are, in any case, very heavily armed.

Three cops slam a group of boys to the ground when, curious, they stray within an unstated “inner perimeter.” The boys have come from one of the neighboring houses, maybe. One, who complains about the rough treatment, gets his lumps right away, an indiscreet knee to the kidney. There is a boo from the surrounding crowd, and the cops redouble their zealous effort to push its members back.

The cops are interested in mopping this up fast. They don’t want to be here after dark.

— Is this Watts? says one reporter. Watts, damn it? Someone said Compton and I want to know is it Watts?

— The fuck do you care? You need a dateline for TV?

— What’s a dateline?

The SLA’s trail was picked up by the police department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation after the robbery yesterday of a Los Angeles sporting goods store. A member of the SLA is reported to have stolen a pair of sweat socks and when store employees confronted him with the theft they were fired upon by a young woman who may have been missing heiress Alice Galton.

“It wasn’t socks,” says Teko.

— When’s the last time you were here, buddy?

— Nine years ago, just like you.

— Get this, get this. Get over here with the minicam, damn it. Look at those holes, those are bullet holes, damn it. Zoom in on them. Zoom in.

The press moves back to yet another redoubt, the police are pushing them back, they’re pushing back the blacks, they’re pushing everybody back, in helmets and joyless eyes sheathed behind aviator sunglasses and ugly batons held at port arms.

— Watts, not Compton. Watts. What’s the fucking difference?

— Yeah, but there are white people in there …

The ghetto the ghetto this ghetto area is taking some of the heaviest damage it’s seen since the Watts riots, ah, nine years ago, Watts riots. Very heavy fire now. We are moving for cover.

THERE’S ONE DOWN AND ONE’S FIRING, HE CAME OUT AND WENT BACK IN, POSSIBLY HIT HE’S STILL FIRING. THREE FEMALES ARE SHOOTING.

They think she’s in there.