A Dangerous Road: A Smokey Dalton Novel

by Kris Nelscott

  And now it seemed I would have to. Taking this trip meant I would have to go into Atlanta proper, visit Sweet Auburn and the old neighborhood, take a look at the world I had left behind nearly thirty years before.

  I couldn’t do that with Laura beside me. And I didn’t even want to think of the complications it would cause, just trying to deal with her there. Dealing with her, and the altered relationship. I shuddered. For the first time, I regretted the weekend.

  “Smokey—”

  “No,” I said. “There won’t be any argument. In fact, there’s no point in you staying here either. Go back to Chicago, see what you can dig up in your father’s corporate files. Leave me a number, and I’ll call you.”

  The color had completely drained from her face. “I thought things were different,” she said softly. “I thought—”

  “We’d be Nick and Nora Charles, going through life in a debonair fashion, the slick detectives of the 1960s?” I shook my head. “I’m still working for you, sweetheart, but the personal stake just rose.”

  I stood too.

  She didn’t move. “How could you be so deliberately cruel? Why didn’t you just say ‘I don’t want you to come to Atlanta, Laura.’”

  “I did. You didn’t listen.”

  “You didn’t listen to me.”

  “Laura,” I said, as gently as I could. “I don’t want you to go to Atlanta. My parents were lynched there.”

  “Thirty years ago,” she said. “It’s different now.”

  “Not that different,” I said.

  “Neither is Memphis. You can’t say any place is safe these days.”

  I stared at her for a moment. She needed me. We both knew it. She was shaky and she was using me as a crutch. I had wanted her to. I still did. But, since I found that photograph, I was shaky too, and I couldn’t let anyone lean on me. I couldn’t let her lean on me. I might collapse.

  “Memphis is safe for me,” I said. “It has been for more than ten years. I understand it. I always will.”

  “Do you?” she asked. “Now?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  She sighed and looked down. “Are you sending me away because you believe you’re protecting me? Or because of this weekend? Do you think we made a mistake, Smokey?”

  I reached out and touched her face. Within the space of a weekend, the feel of her skin had become as familiar as my own. “I don’t know if we made a mistake, Laura,” I said softly. “Things are different now.”

  And they were.

  NINETEEN

  I COULDN’T LEAVE RIGHT AWAY, even though I wanted to. I had made promises. And I had some errands I had to complete first. I had to be at the march, but I was going to leave the moment it ended. I had to get my car ready for a winter drive through Mississippi and Alabama, two of my least favorite places. I was going to retrace the steps that Laura’s parents, whoever the hell they were, had probably made when they fled Atlanta.

  I did see the irony in that.

  I couldn’t be near Laura. I could hardly stand to look at her, and yet I wanted to hold her. I wanted to go back to our magical weekend.

  But the snow was melting, and beneath it, the garbage looked more rank than ever. And I knew, no matter how hard you tried to cover up something, it never got any better.

  I got her Chicago phone numbers, hurried her out of my office, and made her promise to take the next flight she could get. I didn’t even offer to drive her to the airport.

  Laura seemed to understand. She seemed to need the distance from me as well. Or perhaps I was imagining that. Perhaps I was imagining that because I needed to.

  I had money in my accounts—Laura had been paying me as agreed—and I decided to take a cheap hotel room near Sweet Auburn. I didn’t even call my foster parents. I couldn’t bear to talk with them. They would be so excited that I was coming to Atlanta. I could hear their voices in my head, their excitement, their plans.

  I didn’t want to tell them why I was coming. I might not even see them. I wasn’t sure I could look at them either.

  I went through the next two days by rote. I saw Roscoe, made plans for the march, spoke to the organizers. They were so proud that Martin had felt secure in Memphis, proud that he hadn’t even sent his own people to help organize the route.

  It was a detail, like so many others that week, that just seemed to float right past me.

  Thursday morning, a week after my first night with Laura, dawned clear and cold. My alarm went off damned early, and I felt as if I had spent the night drinking instead of sleeping. My head was muzzy, my eyes swollen and sleep-filled. I drank extra coffee, had a large bowl of cereal, and cut up an orange, but it didn’t seem to do much good. I was exhausted, emotionally and mentally, and I needed to be at my best.

  The cool morning air shook some of it off, and so did the drive to Roscoe’s. He brought his son Andrew and promised that we’d meet the others at the Temple.

  We arrived at 8 o’clock. There was supposed to be training for the marchers at nine, run by Martin or one of his associates. Roscoe and I scouted the area. Already there were too many police for my liking and a lot of people milling about. Henry was there, and so were the rest of the leaders of COME. They hovered near the doorway as if they didn’t know what to do. Someone had place a series of placards near the door which were emblazoned with the slogan of the sanitation workers: “I Am A Man.” Already some of the arrivals had picked up signs and seemed to be restless. I was too.

  But we had a long time to wait. At nine o’clock, one of the ministers announced that we would wait until ten to start the march. There was no sign of Martin or his assistants. I hovered near the edge of the street, watching for Invaders or Panthers or anyone else that looked like he might be trouble. Roscoe found a few Beale Street Professionals lurking at the fringes of the crowd and asked them to go home. Before he did, he pointed them out to the march leaders who merely nodded and seemed preoccupied.

  The crowd kept growing. They filled the street and were mostly silent, milling around, talking softly, craning their heads to see if anything was going to happen. At one point I stood on a car and tried to count. When I got past a thousand people and still hadn’t counted most everyone, I got back down. What was bothering me was the growing number of young faces. I couldn’t tell which were supporters and which were Invaders.

  I had no way of knowing.

  Shortly after ten, a boy not much older than Jimmy launched himself through the crowd, shouting that the police had killed someone. People were stepping backwards, startled—how could the police have killed anyone when the march hadn’t even started?—when I slipped off my perch and grabbed the kid’s arm.

  “What happened?” I asked.

  He was agitated, his eyes wide, his hands moving as fast as his mouth. He didn’t try to shake me off, but instead tried to convince me. “Down at Hamilton High. They were trying to keep the kids in school and they murdered this girl.”

  “Who is they?” I asked.

  “The police!”

  “Did you see this?”

  “I didn’t see her get shot, but I saw the police there.”

  “Then stop spreading the rumor,” I said. “We don’t know if anyone is injured.”

  “She ain’t injured,” he said. “She’s dead.”

  And then he slipped out of my grasp and ran into the crowd, carrying the news with him. His voice was drowned in the growing din. People were talking louder and with great nervousness. Others were shouting the same thing from the outside edge. More and more teenagers were arriving, all of them as upset as the boy. I saw Roscoe trying to calm some on the other side of the street. Henry doing the same near the Temple but it was doing no good.

  The crowd was getting louder, using the voice of indignation that would soon turn to a shout. Henry had told me the march was going to start with the training at nine and it was already over an hour and a half later. I didn’t know how much longer this crowd would remain under control.

 
; More teenagers ran from side streets, shouting about the murder at Hamilton High. Some of the Beale Street Professionals, including the ones Roscoe had asked to leave, were in the middle of the street, surrounded by people who had come to support the strike. Henry’s flock. The ones he had said he was responsible for. I felt a shiver run down my back.

  I turned and saw Thomas Withers. He was standing in the center of the crowd, pulling a handle off a placard, and handing the stick to the young boy beside him. The boy passed the new weapon to another boy. Things had already changed.

  I worked my way to the Temple and pulled Henry aside. “They’re not going to stand here much longer,” I said, over the growing din.

  “I can see that,” he said.

  “What’s the plan if Martin doesn’t show?”

  “He’ll show. Abernathy went to pick him up two hours ago.”

  Abernathy. Dr. Ralph Abernathy, who had given a speech to the troops the night before, a speech I had forgotten about after my confrontation with Laura.

  “It doesn’t take two hours to get from the airport downtown.”

  “I know,” Henry said.

  “Then figure out what you’re going to do, or you’ll lose control of this crowd.”

  He nodded at me and walked to the circle of COME members. His hands flailed. Reverend Lawson shook his head, and Reverend Kyle, whom I hadn’t seen until that point, pointed at the crowd.

  Not even the leaders could agree. The queasiness that had lived at the base of my stomach since Monday grew.

  I saw more young people mingling in the crowd. Some of them were carrying beer bottles and others were carrying bricks. Many were wearing berets and leather jackets, like the Black Panthers. I thought I saw Joe’s rangy form. I hurried toward it, only to lose it in the growing crowd.

  Finally, a dark sedan pulled up beside the Temple, and I thought I caught a glimpse of Ralph Abernathy inside before a group of teenagers surrounded the car. The driver moved it forward, but he couldn’t seem to shake them. I raised my hand above the crowd and tried to catch Roscoe’s attention. He waved, showing he’d seen me. Somehow it only took him a second to show up at my side.

  We went to the car. The kids had their faces pressed up against the windows. They were saying courteous things to the men inside—

  “We really respect you, Dr. King.”

  “Nonviolence is our way too.”

  —but they weren’t moving. They were pressing their bodies against the sides of the car so hard they were rocking it.

  Roscoe grabbed the nearest kid and flung him back. I grabbed another, taking his arm too tightly and not caring. I had a lot of anger I’d been storing and I was going to use it on this kind of stupidity. It gave me strength. I pulled the kid back, then another and another.

  Somehow James Lawson had made his way to the car. He shouted at the window, “The only way we’ll get away from them is get out and start the march.”

  I pulled another boy away, only to have him run back toward the car. But his movement freed up the door, and it opened.

  Martin got out. His face was rounder than it had been the last time I’d seen him, and he looked like he hadn’t slept for days. His gaze swung past me, then came back to me.

  “Billy.”

  “Martin”

  “I didn’t expect to see you.”

  “I was hoping to see you.”

  And then he grinned at me like the boy I had once known, as Dr. Abernathy linked arms with him in that familiar marching style that had worked so well for so many years. One of the march organizers shoved people away. Roscoe and I took to the sides, and we tried to get Martin to the front of the group.

  But the crowd had seen him, and from all sides, the shouting started:

  “Dr. King!”

  “We’re glad you came to Memphis!”

  “You’re the hope of America!”

  Sometimes the shouts differed, but not much. They were warm and complimentary, and they were orchestrated, designed to distract from the march. Reverend Lawson carried a bullhorn, and he shouted at people to get in behind Martin but most were not doing it. I stayed a few paces to Martin’s right, Roscoe to his left, and we watched. We watched everything.

  I knew when the Beale Street Professionals peeled off, when a young man grabbed the remaining signs and pulled off their handles, and when the other signs appeared. The new signs sent shivers through me: “Damn Loeb,” and “Black Power is Here!”

  The police were getting nervous. I could see it in their movements. Most of them had tactical gear I hadn’t seen in Memphis before but which I recognized from television: white helmets with chin straps, bullet proof vests, and cattle prods. They were expecting trouble, just as we were, but once they got involved, they would add to it.

  The crowd was too big. The inexperienced parade marshals, with their whistles and their horns, couldn’t keep the crowd in line. More and more people ran along the sides, screaming at Martin He focused ahead, trying to lead, and his associates stayed beside him.

  Until we heard the popping behind us.

  At first I thought it was gunshots, and so did several others, for we all hurried to Martin. Then the sound came again, and I recognized it for what it was—breaking glass. People were screaming and shouting, and the police started to move in. Barricades were going up.

  It only took Martin a second to realize what was going on as well. “Jim!” he shouted to Lawson.

  Behind us, sirens were going off. I saw three officers grab gas masks and pull them over their faces. Other officers were starting to stop and reroute cars.

  “Jim!” Martin shouted again. “There’s violence breaking out and I can’t lead a violent march. Call it off!”

  Lawson stared at him as if he couldn’t comprehend what Martin had said.

  “Call it off!”

  I started to reach for the bullhorn when Lawson brought it up to his lips.

  “The march is off!” he shouted. “The march is off! Everybody go home! The march is off!”

  But no one seemed to be listening. Police whistles sounded over the screams, and then more sirens started.

  “We have to get out of here,” Martin said.

  His associates scanned the area. We were too far from his car. To take him back the three blocks was to take him into the worst of the violence.

  A chain of state troopers was starting to form ahead of us, and I cursed under my breath. They had planned for this. The cops had thought this was going to happen and they pulled out all the stops. More people ran by, bricks in hand. Again I thought I saw Joe, but I couldn’t get to him.

  Abernathy was pointing at a car near the corner. A woman was driving it, and it looked as if she would be allowed through the police barricades.

  “Get Martin there!” he shouted at me.

  Roscoe and I used our bodies to get all of the leaders there. When we reached the car, the woman took a look, recognized Martin, and motioned him to get in. One of his assistants opened the door, and as they were sliding in, I shouted to Martin, “You’ll be all right?”

  He nodded, the door closed, and they shot off so fast it was like they hadn’t been there. I turned around. The crowd had turned into a mob. They were running along several streets. Windows were breaking. Police were using gas a block back.

  I headed in the direction I thought I saw Joe go, toward my office. But as I got onto Beale, things got worse.

  We were on Third, near my office. Looters were ransacking the display window at Paul’s Tailoring Shop across the street and breaking windows in the loan office in the Gallina Building. Police were chasing them with nightsticks, hitting anyone who moved. People were running with goods, shouting epithets. A teenage boy stumbled on the curb, got clubbed and thrown backwards, only to get trampled by others. I couldn’t get close enough to help. I was being moved forward by the crowd, against my wishes, into the worst of the rioting.

  Teenagers were standing the street, throwing bricks and beer bottles and
anything they could get their hands on. One man with a black beret had wrested a baton away from an officer and was clubbing him with it. Young boys were jumping on cars, denting the hoods and trying to shatter parking meters.

  A young girl, her hose ripped, her shoe missing, was running from a policeman who was chasing her, club raised. Others were in Handy Park, trying to get away. The screaming was fierce.

  I reached down, grabbed a boy about Jimmy’s age off the sidewalk and pulled him to his feet. He shoved me away and went back toward the tailor shop.

  An officer took a club to the face and went down as the crowd cheered. Someone kicked him, and he put his hands up. I tried to pull people back and away. I’d lost Roscoe and I no longer saw Joe, if I ever had, but one of the Panthers, his beret gone but his sunglasses still on, continued to kick the fallen policeman.

  The crowd was moving me onto Beale proper, and I tried to break out of the flow. As I did, two state troopers and a cop headed toward me, shouting at me, spittle flying through the air. I couldn’t understand them and as I put out my hands to show I meant no harm, one of them shoved his nightstick in my stomach.

  I doubled over, reaching for something, anything, to keep me up, but it didn’t work. I was dizzy and out of breath. If I fell, I would be trampled. I reached out, grabbed nothing, and used my remaining strength in an attempt to force myself upright.

  As I lifted my head, the cop before me called me a filthy robbing fucking nigger and slammed his billy club into my skull.

  TWENTY

  ROSCOE FOUND ME. Roscoe dragged me out, half carrying, half coaxing me. He got us to my car, and he drove me to the emergency room. There he found a resident who knew us both and stitched me up quickly and neatly. The resident didn’t log us in or out because, he said, the cops were arresting anyone who arrived with what looked like riot-related injuries. The emergency room was so chaotic and so full of people who were shot or bleeding that no one noticed when we snuck out the back.