Sunil Yapa - Your Heart Is a Muscle the Size of a Fist

“Yes, sir?”

Bishop leaned forward to gather their attention, but he didn’t need to. Everybody was listening.

“Then, Sergeant, you fucking light them up.”

The sound of the chain against the plastic was a hollow kind of knocking like the sound of Victor’s heart whomping in his chest.

The Chief was striding back and forth through no-man’s-land, a megaphone to his mouth. A line of police at his back and the mostly seated crowd before him. Thirty feet of black pavement between them. The Chief — Victor watched him through the forest of people between himself and the front line. He looked at the Chief’s polished helmet which reflected the passing clouds, white streams of smoke growing long and then disappearing over the curve. Victor lost sight of him as the crowd milled and yelled.

And then saw him again. He looked at his round glasses and remembered the ring of keys that hung from his belt. Looked at the line of black-suited cops standing behind him like a SWAT team preparing a home invasion and he thought, Dad, what are you doing? Dad, don’t do it.

“Citizens,” his father said through his megaphone, “it is time to clear this street.”

Behind him the cops were sliding on their beetle-masks. They were loading their guns with tear gas and locking them tight.

“Citizens,” he said, “I don’t want to hurt you.”

Victor breathing and trying to will himself into whatever transcendent state it was that would ease his pounding heart.

His father spoke slowly and carefully. He wasn’t wearing riot gear — no polycarbonate faceplate, no chest protector, no elbow pads, no knee protectors, no riot shield — just the stiff blue shirt, the creased pants, the stars climbing his lapel.

“Citizens, if you do not disperse within two minutes,” he said, “we will deliver pain and chemical compliance.”

Victor thinking, Chemical what? Chemical compliance? Is that what he said?

“Citizens,” his father said, “don’t make me start now.”

A chant began among the seated and the standing. It was a simple call and response.

Whose cops? a voice asked.

OUR COPS!!! the crowd roared back.

Whose cops?

OUR COPS!!!

John Henry sat to Victor’s left, a girl he didn’t know sat to his right, both with their arms locked in PVC pipe perpendicular to their bodies and connected to Victor’s own. Both with their faces raised to the rain. Both chanting their damn hearts out. And Victor thought If I could chant. If I could just chant maybe I wouldn’t be so shit-scared.

He studied his sneaks. Not so lucky anymore. The light rain fell on his downturned head, gathered in his braids, ran in streams down his face. They were locked together in a circle at the corner of Sixth and Pine. Eight of them sat in a circle, facing out, locked on the pavement in front of the Sheraton. He could feel the locking mechanism above his hand in each pipe. He felt the chain running through the pipe. He felt the ache beginning deep in his shoulders as he held the pipes aloft. Above him the traffic signal turned red. Beneath his down jacket, his shirt was soaked in a cold sweat.

WHOSE COPS?

OUR COPS!!!

WHOSE COPS?

OUR COPS!!!

Victor closed his eyes and listened to the howling, heard the voices bouncing off the buildings, the discordant symphony of a thousand voices chanting and shouting and he thought, Shit, man, what did I do? Our cops? Did they really believe that? The police protect money and power. They protect the few from the violence of the many. Do you have to be black or brown to know this? No. Maybe it helps. Shit, our cops? The police, they pickle the world, preserve it the way it is. They are guard dogs keeping us afraid and obedient. They—

John Henry’s voice interrupted Victor’s panicked train of thought.

“Victor, how you doing? You feel all right?”

Victor nodded. Took a breath. What had he been saying?

“Because you’re looking a little pale.”

Victor smiled. Forced himself to speak, willing his voice not to tremble.

“I’m good.”

John Henry studied him as if he were a talking exhibit in the Museum of Bullshit.

“It’s all right,” he said.

“What’s all right?”

“It’s all right to be scared.”

“I’m not scared.”

“You’d be crazy to not be scared.”

Victor looked down.

“Try chanting,” John Henry said. “The chanting helps.”

Victor listened. He closed his eyes and listened. A thousand voices hoarse with fear and rage. A thousand voices joined in rhythm. It was a primal sound, a roar like a waterfall, a thousand voices becoming for the briefest of moments one voice, one roar, threaded through with frustration and yearning, their desperation to break through to another plane. One where the city belonged to them and they had no reason to be afraid.

He listened. He even moved his mouth. But he couldn’t do it.

“Victor, listen. That is the power of the human voice at its most profound. This is Ayahuasca chanting in the Amazon. This is incantation. This is the power of the spirit as formed and shaped by the human voice. Do you hear it, man? Do you feel it? You got to chant, buddy. It’ll make you feel better. It’s the communal ritual of the thing. The tie-back to older times. The chanting is the thread that links us to every people’s movement in this country that ever rose up for what was and for what is and for what will come. They chanted, Victor. That’s what they did. They chanted. I mean wow.”

“I hear it.”

“Look at the cops, Victor. They hate the chanting. Look at them there squirming. You think they fidget like that in their squad cars? No. They feel the power of our chanting in their boneless limbs. Ten thousand voices. They feel the power of it in their sparrow hearts. Look at them dancing in their jackboots, Victor.”

And what was it? Chanting with your friends on the cold concrete, chanting in the face of a line of pissed-off cops. Chanting in the street and waiting for those cops to come break open your stupid head like an overripe melon. What was it Victor heard in John Henry’s voice, what impish spark that suggested in some not-so-secret part of his heart John Henry thought this the purest fun known to man?

“Try to feel it, Victor. I know you didn’t get trained. But I’m here with you. We’re all here with you. You got to chant, buddy. Try a little one. This is the human music. This is how we shape the fear; it’s how we possess it and make it ours. The chanting, Victor. It’s how we hold the fear in our mouths and transform it into gold.”

“I told you I’m not afraid.”

“Victor.”

“Seriously.”

“Victor.”

“I told you I’m not fucking afraid.”

John Henry just shaking his head and turning away from him.

There were white Christmas lights strung in the trees.

There were thousands sitting in the drizzle and mist.

There was the Chief of Police with the megaphone, his father’s amplified voice echoing over the sea of bobbing heads.

“If you do not clear this intersection, you will be the subject of pain and chemical compliance.”

And Victor saying under his breath, “Don’t do it, Dad. Don’t do it.”

There was the crowd, the thousands of bodies packed between the buildings, some standing, some sitting, some, like Victor and John Henry, in lockdown in the center of the intersection.

And there was the cold fear crawling up his spine; his hands trembling in the chains. If he could only chant. Join their shaking roar.

“Head down, won’t you, brother?”

A woman in black jeans and a white T-shirt with a gas mask around her neck was kneeling before him.