Dark Town Redemption

by Gary Hardwick

  “We got him!” said Ned into the radio. “He’s headed east!”

  “Copy,” said Brady. “We’ll try to cut him off.

  “We’ll never get him in the car,” said Thomas.

  “Okay,” said Ned. “You go after him. “I’ll keep circling so that he won’t know you’re after him. Brady and Reid will back you up.

  Thomas got out of the car and ran after the suspect. He felt the wind curl around his face as he hit his stride. He’d never catch a man as fast as the one he’d just seen fly off. His only chance was to outsmart him.

  Thomas cut through the yard he’d seen the Black man go in then headed for the next street.

  **********

  Marcus moved to a house with a big yard but found no place that would hide him. He thought about ducking under a car but that was no good either, too easy to figure out if he just disappeared. Most of the garages were locked and if he broke in, he might be heard.

  Marcus stopped in the side doorway of a house whose lights were all turned off and caught his breath. He was in the shadows but only partially hidden. He cursed his bad luck.

  Suddenly, his heart leapt into his throat. He saw a man move down the street. He only saw him for a second and ducked back into the doorway. When Marcus looked back out to the street in the other direction, he saw a White uniformed cop.

  “Damn,” he muttered under his breath.

  Marcus backed into the yard of the house and jumped over the fence landing in an alley. At the end of the alley, he saw a patrol car roll by slowly at the cross street.

  Panic gripped him and for a second, he was frozen, paralyzed by fear. There were two cops who had split up or worse there were two patrols and they were all after him.

  Dread filled him and he had visions of being caught by the officers, beaten, tortured and killed. The fact that they were even after him when he had done nothing told him that it would not be pleasant if he were caught. He vowed that they wouldn’t catch him; that the forces of fate would fall to his side of the struggle.

  “Move,” he said to himself. “Move, dammit.”

  **********

  Thomas had lost the man. He could be hiding in any of these yards, he thought. He suddenly felt that it was not worth it. He was just some guy who went out for liquor and lost track of time.

  And then he remembered that there were no liquor stores close by and there had still been incidents of violence against

  Whites. Okay, he told himself. The man was probably up to no good and so they had to find him.

  Thomas got to the corner and moved over to the next block. As he passed by the alley, he saw a figure standing there. It was a man. Thomas only saw him for a second before he ran off, jumping a fence into another yard.

  Thomas took off and followed the man’s path. He ran down the alley after him. His feet pounded the gravely ground and his vision jumped with each stride. This man was quick and smart but he didn’t know this neighborhood. If they didn’t get him soon, he’d make it to a main street and once he did, he’d blend in with the other Negroes who were bound to be out.

  Then he saw something else move. It looked like another shape following the first one but he couldn’t be sure.

  Thomas got to the place where the man or men had been and saw a figure running into the next street.

  He checked his gun and then went after him.

  **********

  Matt Reid and his partner got out of their patrol car and ran after the Black man they had seen. He had darted across the street and was moving east as they had been told.

  He was fast, they thought. They each pulled their service revolvers and began to search. This man, Reid mused, was the unluckiest man in Detroit.

  **********

  Marcus was panicked beyond all reason. If he didn’t lose them soon, they’d close in on him and there was no telling what might happen after that. He’d heard horror stories of Black men disappearing or being held in secret locations and beaten or worse.

  Marcus crouched behind a parked car. He took out the knife Robert had given him. He thought about tossing it away to avoid a weapons charge but what if he needed it? Even though the riot was over, the cops still thought they had license to do whatever they wanted to any Black man caught in a compromising situation and this definitely qualified as one. Marcus put the weapon back into his pocket.

  Marcus looked at the next street from behind the automobile. It looked clear. He walked from behind the car and into the street. By his calculations, he was close to safety. All he had to do was avoid them a little longer.

  Marcus ran out and up the street. He made it to the corner, which was blessedly dark. He moved into the welcome shadow then stopped short.

  Someone was already there.

  The gunshot sounded like thunder. Flesh and muscle were torn and shock pushed the eyes of the young boy open. Warm blood flowed from the wound in his neck and he felt the dominion over his body slip away.

  He descended.

  His body moved backwards the short distance between himself and the sidewalk.

  And then he fell again. He fell from his mother and her giant hugs and unconditional love. He fell from his father whose emotion was guarded but always present behind his strength. He fell from friends, love, sex and hope of the future-- and he fell from Robert; his brother who had always been in his life in more than body.

  Marcus hit the hard pavement, bounced off the concrete and then crumpled into itself.

  And the last picture of his life, the last thing he saw was the blanket of the night sky filled with stars.

  11

  CAIN’S MOURNING

  Robert had seen death. He’d held it and looked it in its eternally pitch eyes. Death could do terrible things and one of its worse acts was to pass you by and take someone you love.

  Marcus’ murder hit the Jackson family like a stroke from God himself. Theresa had passed out twice, once when the police came to tell them the bad news and again at the wake.

  Friends embraced the family in their grief and everyone understood the irony that one son had returned from the war unhurt and the other was killed by an enemy at home.

  Denise had cried a river and did not eat for two days. Finally, Robert had to force her to eat for fear she would make herself sick.

  The family sat at the gravesite on the day of the funeral. Marcus’ coffin was perched on a platform like an unwatchable apparition. Robert could barely look at it. He sat there like a child trying to will it away. This had not happened. No one killed his kid brother, shot him down at seventeen and snatched him from a bright future and the love of his family. No, that thing, that box was empty, a container filled with a bad joke.

  The official report said that Marcus was out after dark and had been shot by persons unknown. It was surmised that he’d gotten into a fight with someone using a knife and was shot in the neck, tearing his jugular vein apart. He’d bled to death in a matter of moments.

  Three White policemen were at the scene of the death and a fourth had arrived later. None of their weapons were discharged or matched the slug that was taken from Marcus’ corpse.

  Had there not been a riot, these circumstances would have aroused suspicion and anger. There would have been investigations, accusations, and blustery Black ministers wailing about injustice in that soul-stirring cadence, telling the world that this boy’s death was another injustice born of hatred. Marcus’ face would be plastered all over the newspapers and TV. He’d be a symbol for lost youth, innocence and tragedy.

  But so many were already dead. Many lives had been lost in the days of rage and Marcus’ death was not an official riot casualty. So, no one seemed to care. There were no stories, no angry preachers and no murals painted on the walls of vacant buildings. There was nothing but the deep silence of personal anguish.

  What people were still angry about was the child that was killed by police and the unarmed men who were shot to death in the Algiers Motel for being with two White women. T
he latter was the perfect story. It had sex, violence and the taboo of miscegenation.

  Abraham had taken the death hard but as usual went through it with quiet resolve. There were times when Robert was amazed at his father’s strength. The prejudice Abraham had suffered in the south and then later in Detroit would have broken weaker men. Abraham faced a parent’s worst nightmare speaking only of faith and eternal salvation.

  “... God practices forgiveness,” the Minister said over Marcus’ coffin.

  “In these troubled times, we must remember the lessons of the Son who paid the ultimate price and his Father, our Lord, who sacrificed Him so young men like Marcus Jackson could know the Kingdom of Heaven.”

  Abraham nodded silently as if the Minister had read from his heart. Theresa was crying and just shaking her head, unable to look at the awful coffin.

  Guilt gnawed deeply at Robert. He had given Marcus the knife and he had driven his brother out into the streets, filled with anger.

  He felt like Cain after he slew his brother. Robert turned his eyes away from God, not wanting to pray or call on Him for help.

  Surely God would ask him where his brother was and unlike Cain, he could not say he was not Marcus’ keeper. He’d tried to protect Marcus but had let his anger get the better of him.

  There were so many other ways he could have handled the fight, but hindsight was a cruel companion that never understood the realities of the heart.

  He couldn’t remember if the Bible said anything about Cain’s mourning but Robert was sure that Cain did mourn and that his lament was soiled with self-contempt and radiated a power that could move Heaven and Earth.

  The Minister finished his eulogy and the family stayed while the coffin was lowered into the ground then covered with earth.

  The small crowd of immediate family that was left broke up and moved away, leaving the funeral.

  Robert noticed a young Black girl wearing a black scarf. She was looking at the family. Other people milled about her but she just stood there, staring at them.

  The girl was pretty and had big, beautiful eyes that were moist with tears. They were an unusual shade of light brown and jumped out from her dark face. She covered them with a pair of dark sunglasses and walked off.

  Robert helped his mother leave. She was still crying and Denise was starting to cry as well. Abraham took Theresa’s other arm and nodded to Robert to go to his wife. He did and Denise managed a half smile at his touch.

  Robert moved toward the funeral home’s car, a black caddy that gleamed on a hillside near the street. He noticed the headstones that dotted the area and wondered how many families had made this walk recently.

  And then he saw him.

  It was just a moment and Robert was sure that the man did not know he had been spotted. He was behind a tree on the hill. The interloper stood out because there had been none like him at the funeral.

  A White man.

  He was tall and wore casual clothes. Definitely not invited, he reasoned. Robert caught his full face as he turned and walked quickly away.

  Robert stopped walking as the image of the White man kicked his mind into a higher gear. Why was he spying on the gathering? Did he work at the cemetery? Or was he one of those weird guys who were fascinated by death?

  “Are you okay, baby?” He heard Denise voice rise beside him.

  Robert turned to her and saw the sad and concerned look on her face. He tried to look comforting, as he did not want his wife to hurt anymore than she already did.

  “I’m fine,” he said and started moving again.

  Robert took a few steps and then turned in the direction of the White man he’d seen but the man had moved on. He was far away from them now; a dark shape against the bright morning.

  The police ruled Marcus’ death an unsolved homicide, a case whose file would eventually be put on a shelf and forgotten.

  Robert had made it his business to find out the names of the officers who were at the scene. Officers Donald Brady, Matthew Reid and Thomas Riley. The fourth officer, Ned Young, had reportedly arrived to the scene late.

  Robert wanted more information on the cops but he didn’t know where to begin. He needed an inside man but he didn’t know any cops. But he did know vets, he quickly reasoned.

  He went to the VA and set about finding a Black cop who’d been in Vietnam. It didn’t take long to find one, a guy his age named Levi Underhill. Levi had been in combat and was lucky enough to get wounded and returned stateside.

  They met on the eastside in at a little Polish café near the Martha Washington movie theaters. They were in Hamtramck, a little city within the city of Detroit, an enclave for residents of Polish ancestry.

  Levi had heard about Marcus and was more than happy to assist. The Black cops in the department were still treated unfairly and Levi was sure that there had been foul play.

  “They ain’t never had no heart in this department,” Levi said in his smooth voice. He had been a singer once and you could still hear the lilting tenor in his tones. “DPD is getting’ better but we still got some bad apples, you know”

  “I’m just tryin’ to find out who killed my brother,” said Robert.

  “Well, be careful. They would not blink before killing another brother, you know.”

  “I ain’t that easy to kill.”

  “So, I heard,” said Levi, laughing a little. “I hear you was a real badass in the Corps.”

  “I got the job done.” Robert smiled a little.

  It took Levi only a week to come back to Robert with the info he needed on the police officers.

  Levi had come to Robert on his day off and they both went downtown together. They waited until the shift change and camped outside headquarters and waited.

  One by one they walked up. Brady and Reid came by first together. They looked thick as thieves as they glad-handed people on their way in. They were treated like two minor celebrities, these two.

  Robert burned their faces into his memory.

  And then he saw Thomas Riley, the same man who had invaded Marcus’ funeral.

  Something exploded inside of him; an anger and rage that he’d never known. His muscles tightened and his fists curled into hard weapons.

  Levi asked him something about being okay but all Robert heard was white noise.

  The man was guilty, he thought. So guilty, that he had come to the funeral and risked being seen. So guilty, that he had waited to watch the body lowered into the earth.

  He did it, Robert thought. He killed Marcus and couldn’t bear the strain of the remorse he felt.

  “You okay, man?” asked Levi.

  “Huh? Yeah, I’m cool, “ said Robert

  Robert said nothing to Levi of what he knew. He liked the man and didn’t want what he was about to do to involve him.

  Robert thanked Levi. He offered him money but Levi seemed to be insulted by the gesture. They shook hands and went their separate ways.

  Robert let the anger course through him. It felt good, like redemption. If the war had followed him home, then he would engage it with everything he had.

  Robert Jackson walked away from police headquarters, putting his pledge of nonviolence into the grave with his brother.

  PART TWO

  MAN’S REDEMPTION

  January 1968 – May 1968

  “A revolution is coming... we can affect its

  character; we cannot alter its inevitability.”

  - Robert F. Kennedy

  12

  THE DEAD CLUB

  The gun was slippery with blood in Thomas’ hand. It felt heavy and his finger could not settle on the trigger without sliding. He wiped his hand but the blood was constant.

  Whose blood stained him he did not know. Either it was someone else’s or it was his own blood and he was dying.

  He moved along the darkened street, his legs heavy with effort. His footfalls sounded like wet crashes. He saw dim light in the distance but it wasn’t real; it was a shimmer, a mocking brig
htness that suggested hope.

  “I am dreaming,” he told himself. “This is not real. I’ve been here before. I need to wake up now. Now!”

  Another step.

  He could sense the room he was in, the bed, the sunlight from the window, Sarah’s warm body next to him, still he could not awaken.

  He kept moving. He was after something he thought, yes he was chasing something but it was elusive, a notion just outside of his perception.

  He tightened his grip on the weapon as he moved faster and somehow he knew there was only one round left in the chamber, one chance to save his life.

  Thomas headed toward the scornful light. As he approached, he saw it expand. Voices rose on all sides and he felt the wail of the riot’s victims, the roar of fire uncontained, the scream of a woman, the bass grunt of a man struck with a nightstick and the tiny , screech of a child shot by a bullet.

  He entered the light and felt his already tired legs begin to buckle as he saw his beloved Cahan lying next to the bloody body of Dennis, the cousin who they’d lost in the ’43 riot. His face was a mass of swollen flesh and one eye sat milky and colorless in a socket.

  More startling was the gun Cahan held to the head of Shaun. Cahan’s face was filled with hatred. Thomas knew he meant to do it, kill Shaun again. And then he saw Shaun’s face contort into an angry glare as he raised his hand. In it was another gun and Shaun leveled this at the head of Marcus Jackson whose bloody neck gushed a steady stream of red.

  Marcus smiled.

  Thomas wanted to run because in that smile was malevolence that struck clear to the bone. But it was too late. He tried to turn but he was in that thick dream haze; that state that froze you until you saw the end of the apparition.