A few yards away, the Chief darted back into the street, his short, fat legs pumping fiercely across the steaming pavement.
‘You know what I think about the Chief?’ Breedlove said as he watched him. ‘I think he’s loving every minute of this.’ He laughed. ‘You know, one of those New York-type reporters came up to him this morning at City Hall, says he wants to ask the Chief a question or two about the situation here.’ He laughed lightly. ‘And you know what the Chief said? He said, “First, I don’t talk to no New York reporters, but I’ll tell you one thing. They’s three things wrong with this country: Communism, Socialism and Journalism.”’ He shook his head happily, relishing the tale. ‘And he was loving it, loving every minute of it.’
Harry Daniels stepped up beside Breedlove, his eyes fixed on the wide gray boulevard.
‘Well, you made it over here pretty fast,’ Breedlove said to him.
Daniels peered down toward the end of the avenue. ‘They’re just over the hill,’ he said. ‘It’s all kids, nothing but kids.’
Breedlove looked at him wonderingly. ‘Nothing but kids?’
‘That’s right,’ Daniels said. He pulled a small pamphlet from his coat pocket. ‘They were handing these things out in all the nigger schools yesterday.’
Breedlove took it from his hands and glared at it. It was a call for the schoolchildren to join the march to City Hall.
‘Don’t that beat all,’ Breedlove said as he handed the pamphlet to Ben.
Ben glanced at it casually, then handed it back.
‘These people,’ Daniels said disgustedly. ‘I tell you, Charlie, they don’t care what they do. They figured we were ready for them this time, and so they decided that they’d just send the kids after us.’ He leaned forward slightly and looked at Ben. ‘I bet you there’s not one of them over eighteen years old, and most of them are a lot younger than that. I’m talking about school kids, fourth- and fifth- and sixth-graders, and such as that.’
Breedlove’s mouth curled downward. ‘Shit.’
Daniels shook his head. ‘King’s one smart nigger. They wouldn’t have a brain without him.’
‘Yeah,’ Breedlove said grimly, ‘they wouldn’t have a thing without him.’ He tossed his cigarette angrily into the street. ‘But I’ll tell you one goddamn thing, Harry. Kid or no kid, I’m going to handle them the same.’ He curled his hand into a fist. ‘I going to give back double whatever I get.’ He glanced at Ben. ‘What about you, Ben?’
‘I’ll do what the Chief said,’ Ben told him. ‘I’ll protect myself.’
Breedlove’s eyes squeezed together slowly. ‘That’s what we all have to do,’ he said, ‘protect ourselves.’ He glanced toward Daniels and smiled. ‘Right, Harry?’
Daniels nodded determinedly. ‘Absolutely.’
For a moment the three of them stood silently together, staring up the avenue and along the small grocery stores, poolhalls and flophouses that lined it on either side. The Chief was now moving toward them with Luther and Teddy Langley racing breathlessly beside him.
He stopped only a few feet away and motioned for a group of troopers to form themselves into a line across the avenue.
‘We’re going to stop them right here,’ he shouted. ‘Now line up! Line up! I want you all to stand shoulder to shoulder!’
The troopers moved out into the street and formed a straight gray line across it. When they had formed their ranks, the Chief paced back and forth in front of them.
‘Now I want you to know that the people of Birmingham are proud to have you here today,’ he said loudly. And ever-body in this city owes a debt to Colonel Lingo for bringing you in to help with this ridiculous situation.’ He smiled gratefully for a moment, then the smile disappeared suddenly, as if a hard wind had blown it from his face. Now I want to make something clear to you gentlemen.’ He pointed to the ground and raked the tip of his shoe across the pavement. ‘This is like the Alamo, gentlemen, and this is the line we are drawing in the dust.’ He paused, and dug his fists into his sides. ‘And don’t you let one Nigra pass it. Not one solitary Nigra.’ He pulled a small green notebook from his jacket pocket. Ben recognized it instantly as the one he’d turned in to Luther. ‘You know what King said to his people at the church?’ he asked. He flipped through the notebook and began to read: ‘“They know how to handle violence, but they don’t know how to handle nonviolence. It confuses them. They don’t know how to deal with it.”’ He closed the notebook and stared angrily at the troopers. ‘Well, bullshit, gentlemen. We know how to handle violence, all right. And by God we know how to handle violence that just looks like nonviolence.’ He pointed to the left where a group of reporters stood clustered together beneath the tattered green awning of a barbecue parlor. ‘Now these marches and demonstrations, they may look like nonviolence to people who don’t know any better,’ he cried, ‘but we know what it really is, and we know how to handle it.’ He returned the notebook to his jacket. ‘Do your duty as God gives you the wisdom to see your duty. And do it with pride, gentlemen, pride in your city, your state, your governor and your God.’ He paused a moment, eyeing each man in the line. ‘Are there any questions?’
Some of the troopers shifted uneasily on their feet, but no one spoke.
‘Very well, then,’ the Chief said. He clicked his heels together, saluted them, and then rushed off” toward the cooler shades of Kelly Ingram Park.
Luther and Teddy Langley remained at the Chief’s side, and from across the street Ben could see them nodding vigorously as he spoke to them, waving his arms right and left, deploying his men up and down the length of the park and sending squads of others out along the steaming brick side streets and parking lots.
‘Old Dynamite Teddy,’ Daniels said. ‘He’s always sucking up to the Chief.’ He looked at Breedlove. ‘You know they almost got him for some schoolhouse bombings in Tennessee.’
Breedlove smiled. ‘Teddy? Is that a fact?’
‘Actually locked him up one time for about an hour or two.’
‘Whereabouts?’ Breedlove asked.
‘Right here in Birmingham.’
‘When was that, Harry?’
‘Back when Big Jim was governor.’
Breedlove scratched his chin. ‘You reckon he’s been doing stuff like that around here lately?’
‘If the Chief wants him to,’ Daniels said without hesitation. ‘He’ll do anything the Chief says, that’s for sure.’
Ben’s eyes drifted over toward the park. Several squads of troopers were marching double-time across the southern end of the park, their feet kicking up a low, grayish-brown dust. Beyond them he could see a convoy of school buses as it nosed its way up the length of the far end of the park. The Chief’s white tank headed the procession, as if clearing away enemy positions.
Suddenly the Chief was in the street again, yelling through an electric megaphone. ‘Get ready now, gentlemen,’ he cried. ‘Here they come!’
Almost at that instant a line of marchers crested the hill at the end of the avenue and then proceeded slowly down the street. Their placards flapped loudly in the summer wind, snapping in the air like distant gunshots.
‘Take up your positions,’ the Chief shouted.
Another line of troopers moved in front of the first, while others marched forward in ragged flanks, their once-straight lines now breaking awkwardly around police cars, trees, telephone poles, until their ranks finally dissolved entirely into a jaggedly moving chaos of gray uniforms and gently waving nightsticks.
‘You there, up ahead!’ the Chief screamed. ‘You will not be permitted to continue this march.’
The single line of marchers continued forward at their same languid pace, flowing slowly, like a dark syrup, over the hill and down the avenue.
‘I repeat,’ the Chief yelled. ‘You will not be permitted to continue this march. You will not be permitted to reach City Hall.’ His voice, high and metallic, echoed from the surrounding buildings and rebounded into the shadowy park. ‘You will not he permitted to continue this march. Do you understand? Turn around. Turn back.’