1959 October 07 Wednesday 21:54
“Where Preacher at? We supposed to go, man!”
“How many times I gotta say it?” a round-faced youth with a shaven skull said. “Preacher gonna meet us at the corner. He say he got a surprise for those motherfucking Hawks. One they never gonna forget.”
“It don’t seem right, Buddha,” another youth protested.
“You see this?” the round-faced youth said, getting to his feet, and pointing to an embroidered orange thunderbolt on the sleeve of his long black coat. “This says I’m the Warlord of the South Side Kings. Preacher called this meet, but I’m the one who set it up. And you know what? Me, I’m going down on the Golden Hawks if I got to do it by my motherfucking self.”
Buddha opened his coat, to display a heavy chain draped through his belt. From his pocket, he took a switchblade. As the others watched, he thumbed it into life.
“South Side! South Side Kings!” he chanted.
“South Side, do or die!” another youth picked up the cry.
“Walk with me,” Buddha commanded.
1959 October 07 Wednesday 21:56
“After tonight, everything changes,” Ace said. He held the pistol aloft, like a torch. “And this, this is what changes it.”
“What about the Gladiators?” Larry said, tapping a length of lead pipe into his open palm.
“We don’t need them,” Ace said, quietly. “But I hope they show. I want them all to see this.”
Hog took a final swig of blackberry wine, tossed the empty bottle onto the ratty couch, and stood up. “Hawks!” he shouted to the waiting gang. “Mighty, mighty Hawks! Tonight’s our night. Pick up your weapons, men. Time to roll.”
1959 October 07 Wednesday 22:03
“They’re moving,” Sunglasses said to Lacy. “Looks like… maybe twenty men. More than we thought.”
“Cut across Davenport, so we can come in from the side,” Lacy told the driver, from the back seat. “We’re not driving through nigger territory. Not tonight.”
1959 October 07 Wednesday 22:05
A battered silver truck with RELIABLE MOVERS stenciled in black letters on its sides slowed to a stop underneath a streetlight whose bulb had been shattered earlier that same evening. Inside the back of the truck, Rufus spoke urgently to Preacher.
“We got a ramp all ready, walk you down nice and easy. Four men going to go with you, right up to the lot, just to make sure you get there all right. But then it’s all you, young brother. Be the boss!”
“I’m ready,” Preacher said, grim-voiced.
“After tonight, nobody be calling you Preacher no more,” Rufus said. “You going to be the Magic Man. And people, they going to follow you, son. Understand?”
“Yes, sir!”
“All right. Now, remember what we went over. You just stay there when it’s done. Don’t even try and get up. Everyone else’s going to be running away, but we going to be running at you, get that stuff off, and bring you with us, just like we planned.”
“It’s hotter than a damn oven in all this,” Preacher said, sweat pouring down his face and into his voice.
1959 October 07 Wednesday 22:10
“Spread out!” Hog ordered the bunched-up Hawks. “Corner to corner. Don’t let any of them past the line, no matter what. Long as we keep them in front of us, we got control, no matter how many of them there are.”
“Here they come!” the acne-scarred boy hissed.
The Hawks moved to meet their enemies, shuffling forward in a ragged line. Some carried sawed-down baseball bats. Others had lengths of lead pipe, bicycle chains, tire irons, car antennas. One brandished a glass whip-a length of rope coated in white glue, rolled in broken glass, and allowed to harden. Two held zip guns. Every youth had a knife of some kind, from cane-cutters to switchblades.
1959 October 07 Wednesday 22:11
“There’s Preacher!” one of the Kings yelled.
“Fuck, he walking slow,” another said. “You think he hurt?”
“No, man. Remember what Buddha told us?”
“Behind me,” Preacher called out, as he joined the Kings and merged with the night.
1959 October 07 Wednesday 22:12
“He’s doing it,” Darryl said, quietly. “Boy got himself a ton of heart.”
“Ton of trust, too,” Rufus said. “And he brought it to the right people.”
1959 October 07 Wednesday 22:14
The gangs closed the ground between them, moving in a silence so deep it vibrated, their wine-and-reefer courage already starting to fade.
“Rush!” shouted Hog, breaking into a run.
The Kings immediately fell back a few paces, creating an arrow formation, with Preacher at its apex. As the Hawks charged in, one of the Kings screamed “Ahhhhh!” and leaped ahead of Preacher, swinging a chain over his head like a mace.
In seconds, the vacant lot was a swirling vortex of violence, punctuated by the sounds of blunt objects against flesh, screams when knife blades found homes, the popping of zip guns.
Ace and Preacher stood apart, in the center of the chaos, seeing only each other.
Ace pulled his pistol.
Preacher walked directly toward him, hands in his pockets, moving stiffly.
“Die, nigger!” Ace screamed.
Preacher kept coming.
Ace leveled his pistol and fired.
Preacher dropped. His black-coated body disappeared into the deeper darkness of the ground.
Ace stood frozen, his hand locked to the salvation-promising pistol. His mouth opened like a hinge. A shock wave hit his stomach. He closed his eyes and fired again.
“They got cannons!” one of the Kings shouted.
Sirens ripped the night. Closing fast.
“Rollers!” someone screamed.
Like contestants hearing a referee’s whistle, both gangs immediately started back the way they had come, dragging off their wounded.
Ace was rooted in place. He tried to sight down the barrel of his pistol, but his hands were in spasm. Suddenly, Buddha loomed out of the blackness, arms spread wide as if embracing whatever was to come. He dived to the ground, flinging his body over Preacher. Startled, Ace turned and ran, firing randomly over his shoulder. I was the last to go! blazed through his mind. They all saw it.
From the far side of the lot, Rufus, Darryl, Kendall, and Garfield raced toward where they had seen Preacher go down.
Buddha saw them coming, struggled to his feet. “Come on, motherfuckers!” he shrieked his war cry, standing over the body of his fallen leader, twirling his chain in one hand. “I got something for all of you!”
“Back up, fool!” Rufus snarled at him as they closed in. “We look like white boys to you?”
Buddha staggered backward. He watched in stunned amazement as the four men skillfully turned Preacher over on his stomach. Garfield used an industrial shears to cut Preacher’s long black coat off, then quickly unbuckled a series of straps. The other men gripped together and pulled in unison, rolling Preacher out of his wrappings.
“You all right, son?” Rufus said, bending down.
“Got my… rib, I think,” the young man gasped. “Like I was hit with a sledgehammer.”
“Let me see,” Darryl said. He felt with his fingers. “There?”
“Yeah!” Preacher grunted in pain.
“Never got in,” Darryl said, triumphantly. “You got to walk a little now, brother. Going to hurt, but you can do it.” He draped Preacher’s arm over his neck, helped the young man to his feet.
“What about…?” Garfield said, gesturing in Buddha’s direction with the shears. The round-faced youth hadn’t moved.
“Got to take him with us now,” Rufus said. “We used our own sirens to get them all to run, but the real cops’ll be here any minute now. You!” he snapped at Buddha. “Come on!”
1959 October 07 Wednesday 22:18