Hard Revolution

They were on a single-digit street off Rhode Island Avenue, in LeDroit Park. The market was just like many others serving the residential areas of the city. It catered to the needs of the immediate neighborhood in the absence of a large grocery store. A green-and-gold sign hung over the door. The door was tied open with a piece of rope. The lights were on inside.

“Go on in your own self, then,” said Dennis.

“Can’t do that,” said Jones. “It would ruin the surprise we got planned for later on.”

“Well, you gonna have to find someone else to do it,” said Dennis Strange. “’Cause this kind of thing, it ain’t me.”

“You could use the money, right?” Jones, on the passenger side, looked in the rearview at Dennis, alone in the backseat, his book in his hand. Jones’s eyes smiled. “You damn sure look like you could.”

Dennis ignored the cut. He flashed on his father and mother, his brother in his uniform. He said, “It ain’t me.”

Jones adjusted himself in his seat, looked at Willis behind the wheel, looked back in the mirror at Dennis. “So you all talk, then.”

“What’d you say?”

“All the time I been knowin’ you, been hearin’ you talk. How the white man be exploitatin’ the black man, all that. How these crackers come into where we live and open their businesses. Suck all the money out of our people and never put anything back into the community.”

“You got a point?”

“I bet you walk in there, you gonna see some Jew motherfucker behind that counter, doin’ just what you claim. All I’m tellin’ you is, me and Kenneth, we just gonna go and take back what motherfuckers like that been takin’ from all of us all our lives. But you go on ahead and keep talkin’ about it. Meanwhile, me and Kenneth here? We gonna do somethin’.”

“Yeah,” said Dennis, shaking his head, “y’all are a couple of real revolutionaries.”

“More than you.”

“And what you gonna do with all those pennies you get, huh? Put ’em toward the cause?”

“Gonna be a whole lot more than pennies,” said Jones.

“I heard that,” said Willis.

“Let me ask you somethin’, man,” said Jones, still eyeing Dennis. “What’s the date today?”

“Last day of March,” said Dennis.

“And what happens on the first of the month in these places, all over town? I bet you have a market just like this one over in Park View, so you must know.”

“The owner collects,” said Dennis, answering without having to think on it, knowing then what this was about.

“What I’m sayin’. People in the neighborhood got to pay their debt on that day, otherwise they gonna lose their credit. So we ain’t talkin’ about no pennies. We get it done before the man goes to the bank, late in the afternoon, we could walk away with, shit, I don’t know, a thousand dollars. You do this thing for us, you gonna get yourself a cut.”

“And you ain’t have to do nothin’ but look around,” said Willis.

“Be a different kind of thing for you,” said Jones. “A little bit somethin’ more than talk.”

Dennis shook his head. “I ain’t robbin’ no-motherfuckin’- body.”

“Ain’t nobody asked you to,” said Jones. “What I been tryin’ to tell you this whole time.”

“Go on, bro,” said Willis. “We keep lippin’ out here, they gonna close the place up.”

Dennis laid his book down on the seat beside him. He put his hand on the door release and pulled up on it. He was tired of hearing their voices. His high was gone and so was the low, steady feeling from the down he’d taken earlier in the day. He wanted to get away from these two and clear his head.

“Get me a pack of double-Os while you in there, too,” said Jones.

“You got money?” said Dennis.

Jones waved him away. “I’ll get you at my girl’s.”

Dennis got out of the car and crossed the street, a slight limp in his walk. Jones and Willis watched him pass through the market’s open door.

“Damn,” said Willis, “you are good. All that shit about exploitatin’ our people, him bein’ nothin’ but talk… you lit a fire in his ass.”

“I can talk some shit, can’t I?”

“What if he has a change of mind?”

“He walked in there, didn’t he?” said Jones. “Ain’t no way he can change up now.”

Upon entering the market, Dennis Strange found that it was as he had imagined it would be. Several rows of canned and dry goods, a cooler for sodas and dairy products, a limited selection of fresh vegetables and fruits, a freezer for ice cream tubs and bars, penny-candy bins, a whole mess of nickel candy, and paperbacks on a stand-up carousel rack. A white man, who would be the owner, and a black man, who would be the employee, sat behind the long counter that ran in front of one wall of the store. The white man sat on a stool in front of the register. The black man, also on a stool, sat tight against the counter, a newspaper open before him.

A twelve-inch Philco black-and-white TV, its rabbit ears wrapped in foil, sat on the far end of the counter, the tuxedoed image on its screen flickering amid the snow. Even through the poor reception, Dennis recognized the hunched shoulders, fishlike face, and the old-time-radio sound of the host’s voice.

“We have a big show for you tonight… Charleton Heston, Peter Genarro, popular singing group the Young Americans, Frankie Laine, Lana Cantrell, funnyman Myron Cohen, Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, and a young comedian I think you’re going to like, Richard Pryor!”

The white man nodded to Dennis. “How you doing this evening, friend?”

“I’m doin’ all right,” said Dennis.

The black man, who Dennis guessed was the stock shelver, hand trucker, general physical laborer, and muscle for the place if it was needed, looked him over but did not nod or greet him in any way. He was not being unfriendly, but simply doing his job. This was the kind of place where the employees recognized damn near every person who came through the door. Dennis reasoned that he would check a young man like him out, too, if that were what he was being paid to do.

Dennis went to the paperbacks and casually spun the carousel, inspecting the imprints, titles, and authors of the books racked on it. There were several Coffin Ed-Gravedigger Jones novels by Chester Himes, a couple of Harold Robbinses, The Autobiography of Malcolm X, and a copy of Nigger, by Dick Gregory. Also, books by John D. MacDonald, all with colors in their titles, Avon-edition Ian Flemings, a few Matt Helms, Valley of the Dolls, and a ninety-five-cent Dell version of Rosemary’s Baby. The cover of this one claimed that it was “America’s #1 Bestseller.” Dennis’s mother said that all her friends had read it, but she was going to pass, as she had already raised two devil children of her own. Her eyes had sparkled some when she said it, though. She had been in the kitchen, washing dishes and looking at her baby birds, while she was talking. Dennis smiled a little, thinking of her there.

“We help you?” said the black man from behind the counter. “Gettin’ about ready to close up.”

“Just checking out these books,” said Dennis, moving away from the rack and walking toward the register, where the white man sat. He saw the black man casually slip his hand beneath the counter. “I will take a pack of menthols, though.”

“What flavor?” said the white man, getting up off his stool and putting his hand up to a