Black Water Rising

“Like I told them,” he says, nodding toward the cops. “The ILA been calling my house all week, man, talking about I bet­ ter not vote to strike. And I’m not the only one neither. Other brothers been getting the same phone calls, all time of the day and night. They trying to shut us down, Mr. Porter.”

Reverend Boykins and the two police officers step inside the house. The bare bulbs on the ceiling catch them in a harsh light, throwing deep shadows beneath their eyes, lighting up the greasy sweat running down their necks. The reverend wipes at his face with a handkerchief. “Come on, now,” he says, waving a hand out across the room, trying to get the men’s attention. “Let’s let the gentlemen talk now.” He steps to the side, giving the cops the floor.

“All right, all right,” the white cop says.

Kwame Mackalvy and the brothers outside crowd onto the front porch, trying to listen in through the open front door. June bugs and mosquitoes wiggle past them, into the funk and sweat and feast of human flesh in the house.

“We got a lot of information tonight,” the cop says. “I want you to know we take seriously what’s happened here.”

“Then what you gon’ do about it?” one of the men on the porch asks.

“Let the man finish now,” the Rev says.

“We’ll take the information we have here and file a report at the station.”

“A report?” the man on the porch says.

“That’s it?” Donnie asks.

“You gon’ have to do better than that, brother,” Kwame says, looking at the black cop, holding him, especially, accountable.

“There’s no eyewitness to the shooting,” the white cop says. “We told you who did this,” Donnie says.

“ILA motherfuckers, that’s who,” somebody in the room says. “They beat up a kid last week.”

“The ILA is a big union with a lot of members, some of whom support you boys,” the white cop says. “Now, you want to tell me specifically who shot a gun through this house, who’s been call­ ing you . . . I’ll go talk to ’em myself.”

“What if we got you a list of names?” Donnie says, turning to the other men. “Come on, y’all, we all at the same meetings. We know the ones that get up in front of everybody, trashing the strike, saying what they gon’ do to stop it.”

“Now I want to be clear here,” the white cop says. “I’m not gon’ go around accusing folks without some kind of real evidence.”

“Isn’t that your job, to find the evidence?” Kwame says.

“You get us a list, we’ll be sure to put it in the file,” the cop says.

“That’s it?” one of the men asks.

“Man, get the hell out of my house with that shit.”

“Donnie, that’s enough,” Reverend Boykins says.

“Hey, we’re just trying to do a job here,” the black cop says.

Kwame clucks his teeth, shaking his head at the kid.

The white cop passes his business card to Reverend Boykins, who passes it to Jay, who doesn’t know why he’s the one suddenly in charge of the thing.

“Call us if something changes,” the white cop says to Jay.

By four o’clock in the morning, the men are still working on their list, calling out names to each other across the room, going over any beef they’ve ever had with any member of the ILA. Donnie’s wife is in the back room now, trying to get the kids down for what’s left of the night.

Jay turns down the third cup of coffee he’s been offered. He stands alone by the door. He doesn’t know what more they need from him, why he even got out of bed for this. He pulls the cop’s card from his pants pocket and turns it over to Donnie. “You tell your wife I’m real sorry,” he says on his way out.

“Wait a minute now.” Donnie looks at the Rev and the other men in the room. “We’re ready to move on to the next step with this thing . . . right?”

Jay turns to his father-in-law. “What’s he talking about?” The Rev takes a deep breath and a step toward Jay. “We think Kwame was right, son. We think a lawsuit may be our best chance to be heard.”

Kwame, on the other side of the room, stands with his hands clasped behind his back, firing up a speech. “The police depart­ ment is not doing enough to protect these men. As we move for­ ward with a strike, we need to know that the city and the mayor back their right to peaceably assemble.”

Jay sighs to himself. He’s been here before. The late-night strategy session, the caffeinated rhetoric. He is suddenly very tired and wants to go home to his wife. “Lloyd,” he says to the man Kwame used to be, “the cops came, they did their job. You know who did this, it’s a different story, but—”

“Not this. Forget this,” Kwame says. “We’re going with the kid.”

Jay looks around the room, not immediately understanding.

“Darren Hayworth, son,” Reverend Boykins says. “The young man with the busted arm. You met him and his father at the church.”

“They beat the shit out of that kid,” one of the men says.

“He was coming home from a meeting, you remember,” the Rev explains. “He was headed to a second job when they cornered him out Canal Street, near the tracks. After they left him out there, bleeding all over, the boy drove himself to the north side station, not even half a mile from the ILA headquarters on Har­ risburg. The cops there wouldn’t even take his statement.”