“It’s like a circus in the middle of a war zone,” he said.
Why were the protesters at the blockade wearing goggles? he wanted to know. Why were they dressed in garbage bags? Why the bandannas?
It was a strange place for McGee to feel like a tour guide. “Because,” she said, suddenly feeling scarred and world-weary, “it’s about to get ugly.”
In truth, she’d never seen anything like this either, but she knew Myles was looking to her for answers, and it would’ve been worse if she’d admitted how far she was in over her head. Another battalion of riot cops had begun advancing upon one of the blockaded intersections, shields on their helmets lowered. A voice over a bullhorn was issuing threats. Everyone was to be removed — if necessary, with “chemical and pain compliance.” As if these were special new products, name brands everyone would recognize from television commercials.
“This way.” McGee grabbed Myles’s hand, and they headed west, where the road appeared to be clear.
Cracks and booms were bursting behind them, like fireworks misfiring on the ground.
All at once the drumming stopped. McGee could hear the crowds at the blockade shouting courage.
Then the chants turned to screaming. The cops had swarmed the intersection, ripping off the protesters’ goggles and gas masks, firing pepper spray point-blank into their eyes. Another line of cops was advancing on the scattered bystanders and picketers, shooting rubber bullets and tear gas at anyone not chained in place.
“Go back to the park,” McGee said. “I’ll meet you there.”
“Where are you going?” Holmes said.
A concussion grenade exploded around the corner. McGee was having a hard time thinking clearly about anything.
“Just go,” she said.
Myles looked at Holmes, and Holmes looked up and down the street, his eyes wide and glassy.
“All right,” Myles said.
She was already turning to go when Myles leaned in to kiss her. In retrospect, it was an innocent enough thing to do. A kiss goodbye, as was their habit. But at the time it had felt like a strange moment for romance, and McGee was unprepared.
She put her hand to his chest. “Go,” she said.
She could see he was hurt, not so much because she’d refused him but because of the way she’d looked at him — past him, really — at the scene unfolding at his back. She’d made him feel stupid.
And the worst part, when she thought about this moment later, was realizing that was how she’d wanted him to feel. She’d liked leading him through the streets that day, explaining what was happening. She’d liked the way he followed her, the way he listened, the way he looked up to her. Before Myles and Holmes, she’d felt like a soldier, like someone possessing a powerful secret, even though in fact what she knew of blockades was entirely theoretical. She’d never been gassed or pepper-sprayed or shot with rubber bullets. She’d never even been arrested.
McGee left them there. A block away she got caught up in a crowd retreating before a line of riot cops. There was a fog of gas and a ripple of explosions, and she struggled to stay on her feet as people around her fell and were trampled. A canister went off by a storefront a few yards away, and the last thing she saw before the gas enveloped her was the mouth of an alley. She staggered in, crumbling against the wall, her hands involuntarily pulling at her face. Her eyes had turned to water.
Someone said, “I’ve got you,” and McGee felt hands on her hands. She kicked toward the sound of the voice.
“It’s me,” the voice said. Over the bullhorns and sirens she recognized April. McGee allowed herself to be lifted.
They were lucky. There was a building under renovation farther down the alley. April was able to pry open the plywood door. Once inside, McGee lowered herself onto a pile of broken cinder blocks.
A helicopter flew overhead, chopped into the distance, then returned and hovered there.
Lie down on your stomach with your hands behind your head.
April came back with a wet cloth. Beneath a hole in the roof on the second floor, she’d found a rusted drum full of rainwater.
It took nearly half an hour before the blurs became more concrete. After forty-five minutes, McGee could identify the features of April’s face. She was still having trouble making out their surroundings, but it appeared they were alone.
“Where’s Inez? Kirsten?”
April gestured vaguely toward the street. “What about Myles and Holmes?”
“They’re okay,” McGee said, hoping it was true.
She’d fucked up. Not just with Myles, with everything. All those people with goggles and bandannas had seen this coming, but she’d treated it like a field trip.
April sat down with her against the wall. It was nearly December. The building was unheated, and many of the windows were missing. Back home they would’ve been freezing. Here it felt more like fall than winter. But as the adrenaline left her, McGee felt a chill settling in.
“What do we do now?” April said.
The involuntary tears had drained McGee dry.
“I don’t know either,” April said.
In the silence that followed, McGee fell asleep.
By dusk, the helicopters and bullhorns had drifted away. The city was almost silent when McGee woke up and joined April at the window. April had enlarged a hole between the boards. She was keeping an eye on the passing patrols. Later they would learn the National Guard had been called in. A curfew was in effect.
“I don’t understand,” April said. “It was a peaceful protest.”
McGee’s eyes had finally stopped stinging. “That’s not something they know how to win.”
They waited until dark to crawl back out into the alley. Once they reached the street, they walked single file, clinging to the buildings, to the shadows. Twice they hit roadblocks that forced them to turn back and change directions.
Despite the curfew, there were pockets of people coming and going. Someone had thrown a trash can through the window of a bank. A Dumpster had been pushed into the street and set on fire. There were scrawls here and there of rushed graffiti. The curbs were lined with trash and tear gas canisters.
They headed west. Outside a convenience store, McGee bummed a cigarette from a woman in a rain slicker, who lit her up and quickly left. McGee and April leaned against a pair of newspaper boxes, watching helicopters sweep the streets with spotlights. McGee felt as if they’d been walking for hours. It was hard to be sure in the dark, but she thought she recognized the neighborhood.
“It’s not far,” she said. “The park.” But what were the odds that Myles and Holmes would still be waiting? She couldn’t call him. None of them yet had cell phones. Almost no one did.
April sat down next to a pyramid of windshield washer fluid. “They were arrested,” she said. “Inez and Kirsten. When I reached you in the alley, I looked back. They were getting dragged away.”
McGee flicked her butt into the parking lot, grimacing at the few feeble sparks.
“It would’ve happened either way,” April said. “They would’ve gotten me, too, if I hadn’t gone to help you.”
It had all been McGee’s idea, and she’d turned out to be the weakest one.
Myles and Holmes weren’t at the park. McGee figured they must have gone back to Kirsten’s sister’s place.
Just before dawn, McGee and April reached the house. The lights were on in the basement.
Myles was talking on the cordless, taking notes on a pad of paper. He nodded stiffly when McGee and April came in.
It seemed to take forever for Myles to finish his conversation. The whole time, he wouldn’t make eye contact. McGee couldn’t help seeing the wait as a kind of punishment.
When he finally did say goodbye and hang up the phone, McGee came forward and put her arms around him. “I’m glad you’re okay.”