THERE were rows of iron fences backed by low hedges before the houses and I stumbled behind them and lay panting to rest from the crushing force of the water. But hardly had I settled down, the dry, dog-day smell of the hedge in my nose, when they stopped before the house, leaning upon the fence. They were passing a bottle around and their voices sounded spent of strong emotion.
"This is some night," one of them said. "Ain't this some night?"
"It's 'bout like the rest."
"Why you say that?"
" 'Cause it's fulla fucking and fighting and drinking and lying -- gimme that bottle."
"Yeah, but tonight I seen some things I never seen before."
"You think you seen something? Hell, you ought to been over on Lenox about two hours ago. You know that stud Ras the Destroyer? Well, man, he was spitting blood."
"That crazy guy?"
"Hell, yes, man, he had him a big black hoss and a fur cap and some kind of old lion skin or something over his shoulders and he was raising hell. Goddam if he wasn't a sight, riding up and down on this ole hoss, you know, one of the kind that pulls vegetable wagons, and he got him a cowboy saddle and some big spurs."
"Aw naw, man!"
"Hell, yes! Riding up and down the block yelling, 'Destroy 'em! Drive 'em out! Burn 'em out! I, Ras, commands you.' You get that, man," he said, " 'I, Ras, commands you -- to destroy them to the last piece of rotten fish!' And 'bout that time some joker with a big ole Georgia voice sticks his head out the window and yells, 'Ride 'em, cowboy. Give 'em hell and bananas.' And man, that crazy sonofabitch up there on that hoss looking like death eating a sandwich, he reaches down and comes up with a forty-five and starts blazing up at that window -- And man, talk about cutting out! In a second wasn't nobody left but ole Ras up there on that hoss with that lion skin stretched straight out behind him. Crazy, man. Everybody else trying to git some loot and him and his boys out for blood!"
I lay like a man rescued from drowning, listening, still not sure I was alive.
"I was over there," another voice said. "You see him when the mounted police got after his ass?"
"Hell, naw ... Here, take a li'l taste."
"Well that's when you shoulda seen him. When he seen them cops riding up he reached back of his saddle and come up with some kind of old shield."
"A shield?"
"Hell, yes! One with a spike in the middle of it. And that ain't all; when he sees the cops he calls to one of his goddam henchmens to hand him up a spear, and a little short guy run out into the street and give him one. You know, one of the kind you see them African guys carrying in the moving pictures ..."
"Where the hell was you, man?"
"Me? I'm over on the side where some stud done broke in a store and is selling cold beer out the window -- Done gone into business, man," the voice laughed. "I was drinking me some Budweiser and digging the doings -- when here comes the cops up the street, riding like cowboys, man; and when ole Ras-the-what's-his-name sees 'em he lets out a roar like a lion and rears way back and starts shooting spurs into that boss's ass fast as nickels falling in the subway at going-home time -- and gaawd-dam! that's when you ought to seen him! Say, gimme a taste there, fella.
"Thanks. Here he comes bookety-bookety with that spear stuck out in front of him and that shield on his arm, charging, man. And he's yelling something in African or West Indian or something and he's got his head down low like he knew about that shit too, man; riding like Earle Sande in the fifth at Jamaica. That ole black hoss let out a whinny and got his head down -- I don't know where he got that sonofabitch -- but, gentlemens, I swear! When he felt that steel in his high behind he came on like Man o' War going to get his ashes hauled! Before the cops knowed what hit 'em Ras is right in the middle of 'em and one cop grabbed for that spear, and ole Ras swung 'round and bust him across the head and the cop goes down and his hoss rears up, and ole Ras tries his and tries to spear him another cop, and the other hosses is plunging around and ole Ras tries to spear him still another cop, only he's too close and the hoss is pooling and snorting and pissing and shitting, and they swings around and the cop is swinging his pistol and every time he swings ole Ras throws up his shield with one arm and chops at him with the spear with the other, and man, you could hear that gun striking that ole shield like somebody dropping tire irons out a twelve-story window. And you know what, when ole Ras saw he was too close to spear him a cop he wheeled that hoss around and rode off a bit and did him a quick round-about face and charged 'em again -- out for blood, man! Only this time the cops got tired of that bullshit and one of 'em started shooting. And that was the lick! Ole Ras didn't have time to git his gun so he let fly with that spear and you could hear him grunt and say something 'bout that cop's kin-folks and then him and that hoss shot up the street leaping like Heigho, the goddam Silver!"
"Man, where'd you come from?"
"It's the truth, man, here's my right hand."
They were laughing outside the hedge and leaving and I lay in a cramp, wanting to laugh and yet knowing that Ras was not funny, or not only funny, but dangerous as well, wrong but justified, crazy and yet coldly sane ... Why did they make it seem funny, only funny? I thought. And yet knowing that it was. It was funny and dangerous and sad. Jack had seen it, or had stumbled upon it and used it to prepare a sacrifice. And I had been used as a tool. My grandfather had been wrong about yessing them to death and destruction or else things had changed too much since his day.
There was only one way to destroy them. I got up from behind the hedge in the waning moon, wet and shaken in the hot air and started out looking for Jack, still turned around in my direction. I moved into the street, listening to the distant sounds of the riot and seeing in my mind the image of two eyes in the bottom of a shattered glass.
I kept to the darker side of streets and to the silent areas, thinking that if he wished really to hide his strategy he'd appear in the district, with a sound truck perhaps, playing the friendly adviser with Wrestrum and Tobitt beside him.
They were in civilian clothes, and I thought, Cops -- until I saw the baseball bat and started to turn, hearing, "Hey, you!"
I hesitated.
"What's in that brief case?" they said, and if they'd asked me anything else I might have stood still. But at the question a wave of shame and outrage shook me and I ran, still heading for Jack. But I was in strange territory now and someone, for some reason, had removed the manhole cover and I felt myself plunge down, down; a long drop that ended upon a load of coal that sent up a cloud of dust, and I lay in the black dark upon the black coal no longer running, hiding or concerned, hearing the shifting of the coal, as from somewhere above their voices came floating down.
"You see the way he went down, zoom! I was just fixing to slug the bastard."
"You hit him?"
"I don't know."
"Say, Joe, you think the bastard's dead?"
"Maybe. He sure is in the dark though. You can't even see his eyes."