He walked down 7th at Q. An apartment house over a clothing store was burning. A man was screaming at firemen, telling them that his mother, too slow to get down the stairs, was trapped in the blaze. Newspapers would later report that the woman, who died of smoke inhalation, had weighed over four hundred pounds. Her son had begged arsonists not to set the building afire, but they had ignored his pleas.
Strange passed a small furniture store with a plate-glass display window that had not been looted or burned. A white man sat in a rocking chair in the window with a double-barreled shotgun cradled in his arms, a cigar wedged between his lips. The man winked at Strange.
Strange walked by a black man wearing fatigues and shades, pleading with a group of young men to get off the streets, invoking the teachings of Dr. King. Strange knew this was an undercover officer, a man trained in counterrioting techniques. He was not having much success today.
Strange wiped tears from his face. His throat was raw and his eyes stung mercilessly from the gas. His exposed skin felt seared from the heat. Seventh Street was burning down all around him.
Third Infantry soldiers had arrived on 7th and begun to teargas and pursue looters. They protected firemen whose hoses had been cut as they were shelled by bricks and beer bottles from all directions. The soldiers had also begun to make massive arrests. The worst appeared to be over. But there was little left of the street.
“Young man,” said a voice behind Strange.
He turned. It was Vaughn. His face was smudged, and his hair had darkened from the soot drifting in the air.
“Detective,” said Strange.
“I went to Ronnie Moses’s place,” said Vaughn, “looking for Alvin Jones.”
“And?”
“Jones is staying there, I think,” said Vaughn. “He’s not in… yet.”
“So?”
“You want him, don’t you?”
Strange nodded tightly.
“I just spoke to a lieutenant down here,” said Vaughn. “The powers that be are about to announce a curfew. They’re gonna have this under control eventually. All these folks out here, they’re gonna have to get back to where they live.”
“What are you sayin’?” said Strange, raising his voice above the burglar alarms and shouts around him.
“Let’s get outta here for a minute,” said Vaughn. “All this bullshit, I can’t hear myself think.”
Vaughn and Strange cut down P, stepping around a steel girder that was glowing red in the street.
MAYOR WASHINGTON, in consultation with Police Chief John Layton, Director of Public Safety Patrick Murphy, and President Johnson, imposed a strict curfew on the District of Columbia to be in effect from 5:30 p.m. Friday evening to 6:30 a.m. the following morning. Police, firemen, doctors, nurses, and sanitation workers were excepted. Beer, wine, and liquor sales were forbidden. Gas would only be sold to motorists who were dispensing it directly into their cars.
Sixth Cavalry troops had arrived late in the afternoon on 14th Street. They assembled down at S and moved north in columns, chanting “March, march, march,” in cadence. They threw tear gas canisters liberally and, with police, made sweeping arrests. They secured the top and lower ends of the corridor with two 700-man battalions.
As on 7th and H Streets, there was little left to protect.
Lydell Blue sat on the bed of a four-ton army truck, eating a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich and drinking water from a canteen. A woman from the neighborhood had come with sandwiches to feed police and soldiers on a needed break.
Blue’s uniform had taken on the color of charcoal. His back ached, and he could have slept where he sat. He had coughed up blood into his hands moments earlier.
With all of that, he felt good.
In the middle of it, at its worst, as he was protecting his city and his people, he had come to the realization of who he was and what he would always be. He was a black man, through and through. And he was police. The one didn’t cancel out the other. He could be both, and be both with pride.
A BROTHER ON the street warned Jones about the curfew. Now Jones knew that he would have to travel with extra care across the city. His plan was to stay below Massachusetts Avenue, keeping close to the downtown buildings, in the shadows, out of sight of the soldiers and police. Then head east to 6th and up to his cousin’s crib. Grab his duffel bag, which held his few possessions, and reverse his path. He could do it, the darker it got. All he had to do was reach his Buick, over there on 15th, and he’d be southern bound and stone free.
It took a while, but he reached 6th without incident and went north and east until he came to the block of Ronnie’s apartment. He went by the gutted market on the corner, keeping his head low, and crossed the street. He entered the row house where his cousin had his place on the second floor.
Back in the depths of the market, looking through the space where the front window had been, Frank Vaughn stroked the wheel of his Zippo, got flame, and lit a cigarette. He snapped the lid shut.
Little black man with light, almost yellow-colored skin. Just as Strange had said, he was wearing a black hat with a gold band. Now all Vaughn had to do was look up at the window of Ronnie Moses’s apartment. Watch for Strange’s sign and wait.
Vaughn hit his L amp;M. Its ember flared, faintly illuminating the ruined market. The only light in there now was the dying light of dusk. There was little inventory remaining on the shelves. Paperback novels, boxes of cake mix and flour strewn about the tiles. Water dripped loudly from a busted pipe. A heap of half-burned newspapers sat piled in the middle of the shop. Someone had set the papers on fire, but the fire had not spread. The smell of carbon was strong in the shell of the store.
Vaughn stepped forward, close to the doorway. From here he could see Ronnie Moses’s apartment on the second floor.
“Make him talk and let him go,” Vaughn had told Strange. “Flash a light in the window if he confesses. I’ll do the rest.”
“Do what?” Strange had said.
Vaughn hadn’t needed to spell it out for the rookie. He would let the young man make the decision himself.
Vaughn dragged deeply on his cigarette.
SOON AS HE had got to the landing, Jones could tell someone had busted through his cousin’s apartment door. It opened, too, with just a little push. Someone had broke into his cousin’s crib, that was plain, ’cause he remembered clearly that he’d locked the door. But Jones reasoned that the break-in was just part of the general mayhem of the day. Kids being kids.