I didn’t know whether or not my father liked the Doc

or even cared a hoot about him, but I could see that my

father was really upset. “Yep. They got ’im. He did good

for his people.” My father was shaking his head. “He

was a good one, but they got ’im.” My father got really

cynical sometimes when he got upset, and I could see he

was getting cynical.

“Is it real bad?” I asked.

“Looks that way,” he said.

Oh my God, I thought. What about Jonathan? I quickly

went into the bedroom to phone Jonathan. His line was

busy. I tried again after a minute, and Lendora answered.

I asked her if she’d heard the news, and she said of course

she’d heard the news. She said her house was crazy. Her

father had gone into a rage, swearing and cursing, and

now he was at the kitchen table, just sobbing. She said

her mother was praying nonstop. Lendora said she wished

they’d stop with all the stupid news reports so she could

watch some decent television shows. I asked her about

Jonathan, and she said he was up in his room with the

door locked. I asked if I could talk to him, but she said

she didn’t think I should. Then Lendora asked me if I had

heard that a white person had done the shooting. I said

I hadn’t known that. She said she’d heard Jonathan say

that it was a white man just as he was locking himself in

the room upstairs.

When I hung up, I headed right upstairs, but my

mother intercepted me to remind me that my supper was

getting cold. I said I didn’t feel good and just wanted to

be left alone.

“You really should eat,” she said, but I just bolted

upstairs and closed the door. A little while later, a news

report came through. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was

dead.

There was trouble at school the next day. I could feel

the tension in the halls. I desperately wanted to talk to

Jonathan, but he had stayed home. For the most part

the black kids and white kids had always gotten along

okay at our school. But occasionally there were some

problems. There were fights here and there and arguments

sometimes—but nothing like what happened that day. I

didn’t know how it started, but it was a lousy, ugly mess.

As we were changing classes for the second period, I

headed toward the main hallway on my way up to history

class. I heard some screams and then some rumbling

coming from the second floor. The hallway was pretty

crowded, and all of a sudden, I saw a kid running down the

stairs into the main hallway. He wasn’t saying anything,

but everybody started screaming; his face was covered

with blood. I’d never seen anything like it. I didn’t know

who he was, but he was staggering and looked awful. Then

I heard more scuffling and screaming, and two other kids

came running down the stairs, screaming, “They’re gonna

kill us!” Everybody was sort of milling around because we

didn’t know what to do, but we could still hear yelling,

rumbling, and fighting coming from the second floor. Just

then, I saw Frankie tearing down the hall. He was yelling,

“They’ve got the whole class trapped in there!”

“Where?” I asked. Suddenly, a whole bunch of girls

came screaming down the stairs.

“They must have let the girls go,” Frankie said.

“Who?” I asked.

I’m not sure,” Frankie said. “It’s bunch of black kids

who said they’re looking for somebody.”

“Who?” I asked.

“Beats me,” Frankie said. “But it’s scary up there.”

Just then, another kid came tearing down the stairs.

He was all bloodied too, and he was yelling, “Fire!

Fire! They started a fire!” We then saw smoke drifting

down the stairs. More kids ran down the stairs, and

they were coughing and wiping their eyes. By that time,

there was mass confusion in the main hall. Everybody

started screaming and yelling and heading for the main

doors. Some teachers finally came out and tried to calm

everybody down. Maybe they wanted a chance to practice

a real-life fire drill, but it sure wasn’t working out the

way it did all the times we practiced without any real

fire. Finally, the cops arrived. They were going to head

upstairs, but they quickly saw that the fire department

was needed, so the cops just took over for the hysterical

teachers, who were hardly doing any good with the fire

drill. The cops quickly booted everybody out.

Soon the fire trucks arrived, but they pulled up in

the parking lot in back of the school, so all of us in the

front went around to the back of the school to check it

out. I stuck with Frankie, and when we got to the back

of the school, we could see smoke pouring out of Mr.

Hackney’s biology classroom. By then, the firemen had

hooked up their hoses, and they were shooting water up

at the second floor. It didn’t take long to put the fire out,

and the firemen went upstairs to assess the damage. There

was quite a bit, and they came down with a rather badly

damaged Mr. Hackney, who was covered with soot and

didn’t look like he was breathing. An ambulance pulled

up and carted Mr. Hackney away with a few other kids

who were coughing, gagging, and bleeding. Mr. Krauzer

then arrived on the scene, and after conferring with the

fire chief, he told everybody to go home.

“That’s a switch,” Frankie said. “Hey, that’s great! Mr.

Krauzer is actually telling us to go home early! All right!

No school! Let’s get out of here. Almost a whole day off!”

Just then, one of Frankie’s friends came over, a guy

named Ronnie. “Hey, Frankie boy,” Ronnie said. “We and

the boys kinda figure we’d better try to figure out what

we are gonna do about these coloreds. Ya know? We gotta

protect ourselves. Dig?”

“Yeah. You’re right,” Frankie said.

“What do ya say, T. J.?” Ronnie asked.

“Ah. No. Ah. Not really,” I said. “You know who

started it?”

“Yeah. Some coloreds started it,” Ronnie snarled. “We

gotta fight back. Dig?” Ronnie had long, slicked-back

black hair. He was what most of us called a hood.

“Yeah,” I said, but I wasn’t really convinced about

who’d started the fire or the fighting.

“Well, come on. Let’s go,” Ronnie said.

“Yeah. Okay,” Frankie said. “Come on, T. J. We gotta

protect ourselves.”

Well, there was no way I wanted to start hanging out

with Ronnie and his boys, but I didn’t know how to say

no. “Yeah. Well, look. I, ah, want to go check on ole Mr.

Hackney now. And then maybe I’ll check you guys out.

Okay?”

“Mr. Hackney—suckface! Who the heck cares about

him?” Ronnie sneered. “Ah. Come on, Frankie boy.”

The next thing Ronnie said really floored me: “Ah.

He’s a colored lover anyway.”

Then they both left. Frankie kind of had a guilty look,

but he went off with Ronnie. I hadn’t realized I had an

image as a colored lover—whatever that was. I guessed

it was the flip side of the honky-lover image Jonathan

tried to avoid. Maybe Ronnie was right. But who cared?

All I really wanted to do was see Jonathan and tell him

how sorry I was and how bad I felt about the Doc. I

wanted to tell him that the guy who’d shot the Doc was

probably just a lunatic. But Jonathan wasn’t around. The

only things around were a lot of leftover smoke, dripping

water, and a lot of hate.

There was more trouble that night. Frankie told me

all about it the next day. I sat at home and watched Star

Trek. I wasn’t interested in it much and went to bed early,

listening to the radio. Frankie told me he was out cruising

with Ronnie and some of the boys. He said they had

chains and bats in the car for protection. They were out

looking for revenge. The kids who’d been bloodied in the

fight at school were some of Ronnie’s buddies, and Ronnie

swore to get even. Well, Frankie said that a fight broke

out at the downtown pizza parlor between Ronnie’s boys

and some black kids. The police were out in numbers and

broke up the fight.

Then there was another fire over in the black section

of town, followed by an incident in which a gang of black

kids invaded the white Jefferson School area, threw rocks,

and broke a bunch of windows at the school. Frankie told

me there were three or four fires on Elm Street, and there

were cops and fire trucks everywhere. Frankie said that

all in all, it was a pretty darn exciting night. He told me

that the police had put on a 9:00 p.m. curfew and that his

mother was going to lock him in the house at night. The

two kids who’d gotten bloodied at school were sent to the

hospital to be stitched up because they had pretty bad cuts

from being hit in the head with a broomstick. They were

okay, though. He said they looked a lot worse than they

really were because of all the blood dripping over their

faces. Frankie said that Mr. Hackney was all right. He’d

just suffered some smoke inhalation. Some of the other

kids had suffered smoke inhalation, but they were okay

too. Frankie said the fight had started because some of the

black kids were pissed off about Martin Luther King Jr.

being shot, and Ronnie’s friend made a stupid comment

about how King was better off dead. Then Frankie said

there was a rumor about Darrell’s friends using the King

assassination as an excuse to go after one of Darrell’s

enemies. Frankie paused when he reached that part of

the story.

“They think Darrell’s friends may be seeking revenge

against the guy who beaned Darrell with a baseball.”

“Oh great,” I said.

“But don’t worry,” Frankie said. “Right now, I think

the black kids are ready to beat up anybody’s who’s white. 

And of course, the white kids want to beat up anybody

who’s black. So don’t worry. Everybody’s after everybody.”

That wasn’t very reassuring. Then Frankie told me

that school was on for Monday, but there might be cops in

the hallways. There would be no extracurricular activities

until further notice, including JV baseball.

“I guess that’s for your protection, huh?” Frankie

laughed.

“Great joke,” I said sarcastically.

Then Frankie got serious. “Oh. And about what

Ronnie said yesterday about you being a colored lover?

Yeah, well, I know that Ronnie’s basically a creep and all,

but he and a lot of his friends don’t like black kids. You

know? And after all this stuff, I think they really hate

black kids. You know? And they know that you are really

good friends with Jonathan and all. And well, you know,

it kind of looks bad.”

I could feel my blood start to boil. “What looks bad?

What?”

“Hey, well, look. You know, I don’t care. Hey, I think

Jonathan’s a pretty good guy myself. And hey, look. He

even rescued me from the subways and all. And you know

I like some black kids. But look. Some of these white kids

are really pissed off, you know? They see all this rioting

and stuff on TV. And they see these black guys stealing

stuff and burning stuff—and then with this stuff right

in our own town. Wow! There’s a lot of totally pissed-off

people.”

“And also a lot of people with nothing else to do but

cruise the streets and look for trouble,” I said.

“True,” Frankie said. “But hey, look. Just for your

own protection, maybe you shouldn’t hang around with

Jonathan for a while.”

“Yeah, don’t worry. Jonathan doesn’t want to hang

around with me anyway,” I said. “He’s really broken up

about the Doc getting murdered, and he probably is

blaming all white people, including me, for it.”

“Yeah, well, look. I’m just trying to help ya out, you

know? We’re still buddies, you know?”

“Yeah. Yeah, Frankie,” I said with disgust.

There were a few more fires on Saturday night, but

they weren’t nearly as bad as the ones the night before. I

phoned Jonathan again but talked to Lendora, who said

Jonathan still didn’t want to talk to me. School was back

in session on Monday, and it seemed there were more cops

than students. A lot of the kids stayed home, including

Jonathan, who I was sure wasn’t scared but still depressed.

They called off school on Tuesday because it was the

day of Martin Luther King Jr.’s funeral, or maybe they

called off school because nobody was coming anyway. I

watched most of the funeral stuff on TV. It was mostly

pretty boring, but they showed some stuff about the Doc’s

career—stuff I didn’t even know about. They showed

some films of his speeches. I especially liked the one about

his dream and all that stuff—with black and white kids

going to school together and being friends. But it sure

seemed like nothing more than a dream.

One report focused on all the riots since the Doc was

shot. Something like forty people had died. The report

 even mentioned our town. It was the first time I ever

had seen anything about our town on stupid television.

It wasn’t complimentary when they described the town

as a “racially torn town that has experienced several

disturbances and even a fire in its school.” I was thankful

they didn’t mention my sidearm throw that had beaned

Darrell. Later on, they showed shots of the thousands

of people at the funeral. They showed all the celebrities

who were there, including Wilt “the Stilt” Chamberlain,

Jackie Kennedy, Bobby Kennedy, and even ole Richard

Nixon. Sure enough, if I looked close, I could see that

Nixon’s upper lip was sweaty. I wondered if Jonathan had

noticed it.