'You notice how out of place you look here,' McCann said.
I was the only white person in the room. 'I do,' I said.
'That is how it feels for us, much of the time.'
'I thought of that,' I said.
'So how's it make you feel?' McCann said.
'Like clinging to Hawk, but I'm too proud.'
Hawk grinned. McCann's face never changed. 'Well,' he said. 'At least you don't apologize for being white.'
'Not my fault,' I said.
'Sawyer know something about the Dread Scott Brigade,' Hawk said.
I nodded and looked at McCann and waited. The waitress came and refilled our coffee cups and poured one for McCann. McCann stirred in six spoonfuls of sugar, pouring it from the old-fashioned glass container into his spoon to measure, and then into the coffee.
McCann sipped some of his coffee, watching me as he did. 'I might help you,' he said. 'But if I do, it's because Hawk ask me.'
'Okay.'
'I never met a white man I could trust,' McCann said.
I waited.
'I never met one I liked.'
I let that slide.
'I never met one wasn't a racist motherfucker,' McCann said. 'You a racist?'
Hawk watched quietly, his eyes bright with pleasant amusement.
'Not till now,' I said.
McCann's tight face got tighter. 'You fucking with me?' he said.
'I am,' I said.
McCann sat back in the booth a little and put his coffee mug down. 'You ain't scared of me,' he said. 'Are you.'
'Nope.'
'Most white people you get in their face they get scared.'
'That's a racist reaction,' I said.
Hawk didn't say anything, but there was still a hint of amusement around his eyes.
'I usually count on it,' McCann said.
'Sorry,' I said.
'Okay,' McCann said.
He drank some more coffee.
' 'Bout 1972,' he said. 'They having a lotta problems between the black prisoners and the white prisoners in the various prison systems. So they invite a bunch of radical white kids from a bunch of, ah, liberal universities to come in and promote racial harmony. Workshops, seminars, that shit. You remember what it was like in 1972.'
I nodded.
'And it don't work so well,' McCann almost smiled. 'Kids decide the black prisoners are victims of white racism and they stir up more trouble than there was before.'
'You think the kids were right?' I said.
McCann had decided to accept me, for the moment at least, and most of the hard-case manner had sloughed off, though it hadn't been replaced by anything resembling soft.
'Some of the brothers in jail were political prisoners,' McCann said. 'Still are. Some of them were rapists and murderers and thieves and bullies, and the kids' problem was they couldn't tell which was which.'
'Because they were all black,' I said.
'Uh-huh.'
'Racism works in mysterious ways,' I said. 'It's wonders to perform.'
'So these kids decide to form the Dread Scott Brigade, which a sort of loose national network to help victims of white fascist oppression,' McCann said. 'Kind of name college kids would think up. And they going to work for the freedom of the prisoners.'
'How'd that go?' I said.
'Couple of the prisoners escaped. Don't know if the kids helped them or not.'
I waited. McCann looked thoughtful. The waitress came by and filled our coffee cups. I watched McCann go
