Not even knowing if he had killed or not. But wait. Christ! Nobody could have stopped it.
Jake slowed and jerked his head nervously to look behind him.
The alley was empty. He vomited and wiped his mouth and forehead with the sleeve of his shirt. Afterward he rested for a minute and felt better. He had run for about eight blocks and with short cuts there was about half a mile to go. The dizziness cleared in his head so that from all the wild feelings he could remember facts. He started off again, this time at a steady jog.
Nobody could have stopped it. All through the summer he had stamped them out like sudden fires. All but this one. And this fight nobody could have stopped. It seemed to blaze up out of nothing. He had been working on the machinery of the swings and had stopped to get a glass of water. As he passed across the grounds he saw a white boy and a Negro walking around each other. They were both drunk. Half the crowd was drunk that afternoon, for it was Saturday and the mills had run full time that week. The heat and the sun were sickening and there was a heavy stink in the air.
He saw the two fighters close in on each other. But he knew that this was not the beginning. He had felt a big fight coming for a long time. And the funny thing was he found time to think of all this. He stood watching for about five seconds before he pushed into the crowd. In that short time he thought of many things. He thought of Singer. He thought of the sullen summer afternoons and the black, hot nights, of all the fights he had broken up and the quarrels he had hushed.
Then he saw the flash of a pocketknife in the sun. He shouldered through a knot of people and jumped on the back of the Negro who held the knife. The man went down with him and they were on the ground together. The smell of sweat on the Negro was mixed with the heavy dust in his lungs. Someone trampled on his legs and his head was kicked. By the time he got to his feet again the fight had become general. The Negroes were fighting the white men and the white men were fighting the Negroes. He saw clearly, second by second. The white boy who had picked the fight seemed a kind of leader. He was the leader of a gang that came often to the show. They were about sixteen years old and they wore white duck trousers and fancy rayon polo shirts.
The Negroes fought back as best they could. Some had razors.
He began to yell out words: Order! Help! Police! But it was like yelling at a breaking dam. There was a terrible sound in his ear--terrible because it was human and yet without words.
The sound rose to a roar that deafened him. He was hit on the head. He could not see what went on around him. He saw only eyes and mouths and fists--wild eyes and half-closed eyes, wet, loose mouths and clenched ones, black fists and white.
He grabbed a knife from a hand and caught an upraised fist.
Then the dust and the sun blinded him and the one thought in his mind was to get out and find a telephone to call for help.
But he was caught. And without knowing when it happened he piled into the fight himself. He hit out with his fists and felt the soft squish of wet mouths. He fought with his eyes shut and his head lowered. A crazy sound came out of his throat. He hit with all his strength and charged with his head like a bull.
Senseless words were in his mind and he was laughing. He did not see who he hit and did not know who hit him. But he knew that the line-up of the fight had changed and now each man was for himself.
Then suddenly it was finished. He tripped and fell over backward. He was knocked out so that it may have been a minute or it may have been much longer before he opened his eyes. A few drunks were still fighting but two dicks were breaking it up fast. He saw what he had tripped over. He lay half on and half beside the body of a young Negro boy. With only one look he knew that he was dead. There was a cut on the side of his neck but it was hard to see how he had died in such a hurry. He knew the face but could not place it. The boy’s mouth was open and his eyes were open in surprise. The ground was littered with papers and broken bottles and trampled hamburgers. The head was broken off one of the jinny horses and a booth was destroyed.
He was sitting up. He saw the dicks and in a panic he started to run. By now they must have lost his track.
There were only four more blocks ahead, and then he would be safe for sure. Fear had shortened his breath so that he was winded. He clenched his fists and lowered his head. Then suddenly he slowed and halted. He was alone in an alley near the main street. On one side was the wall of a building and he slumped against it, panting, the corded vein in his forehead inflamed. In his confusion he had run all the way across the town to reach the room of his friend. And Singer was dead. He began to cry. He sobbed aloud, and water dripped down from his nose and wet his mustache.
A wall, a flight of stairs, a road ahead. The burning sun was like a heavy weight on him. He started back the way he had come. This time he walked slowly, wiping his wet face with the greasy sleeve of his shirt. He could not stop the trembling of his lips and he bit them until he tasted blood.
At the corner of the next block he ran into Simms. The old codger was sitting on a box with his Bible on his knees. There was a tall board fence behind him, and on it a message was written with purple chalk.
He Died to Save You Hear the Story of His Love and Grace Every Nite 7:15 P.M. The street was empty. Jake tried to cross over to the other sidewalk, but Simms caught him by the arm. ‘Come, all ye disconsolate and sore of heart. Lay down your sins and troubles before the blessed feet of Him who died to save you. Wherefore goest thou, Brother Blount? ‘ ‘Home to hockey,’ Jake said. ‘I got to hockey. Does the Saviour have anything against that? ‘ ‘Sinner! The Lord remembers all your transgressions. The Lord has a message for you this very night.’
‘Does the Lord remember that dollar I gave you last week? ‘ ‘Jesus has a message for you at seven-fifteen tonight. You be here on time to hear His Word.’ Jake licked his mustache. ‘You have such a crowd every night I can’t get up close enough to hear.’
‘There is a place for scoffers. Besides, I have had a sign that soon the Saviour wants me to build a house for Him. On that lot at the corner of Eighteenth Avenue and Sixth Street.
A tabernacle large enough to hold five hundred people. Then you scoffers will see. The Lord prepareth a table before me in the presence of mine enemies; he anoint-eth my head with oil. My cup runneth--‘ ‘I can round you up a crowd tonight,’ Jake said.
‘How?’
‘Give me your pretty colored chalk. I promise a big crowd.’
‘I’ve seen your signs,’ Simms said. ‘‘Workers! America Is the Richest Country in the World Yet a Third of Us Are Starving. When Will We Unite and Demand Our Share?’--all that. Your signs are radical. I wouldn’t let you use my chalk.’
‘But I don’t plan to write signs.’ Simms fingered the pages of his Bible and waited suspiciously.
‘Til get you a fine crowd. On the pavements at each end of the block I’ll draw you some good-looking naked floozies. All in color with arrows to point the way. Sweet, plump, bare-tailed--’
‘Babylonian!’ the old man screamed. ‘Child of Sodom! God will remember this.’
Jake crossed over to the other sidewalk and started toward the house where he lived. ‘So long, Brother.’
‘Sinner,’ the old man called. ‘You come back here at seven-fifteen sharp. And hear the message from Jesus that will give you faith. Be saved.’
Singer was dead. And the way he had felt when he first heard that he had killed himself was not sad--it was angry. He was before a wall. He remembered all the innermost thoughts that he had told to Singer, and with his death it seemed to him that they were lost. And why had Singer wanted to end his life? Maybe he had gone insane. But anyway he was dead, dead, dead. He could not be seen or touched or spoken to, and the room where they had spent so many hours had been rented to a girl who worked as a typist. He could go there no longer. He was alone.