through the fog he imagines that he is in danger'—John paused for a deep breath—'because it cannot be possible that what's on the news is not directly related to him.'
'Isn't he just alarmed?'
'I've known him a lot longer than you have,' John said. 'He's going to keep on calling until I go over there.' He looked up at me with a speculative gleam. 'Unless you go. He adores you.'
'I don't mind visiting Alan,' I said.
'You must be some kind of frustrated nurse,' John grumbled. 'Anyhow, what do you say? If we're going to take a look inside Fontaine's house, this is the night.' He made a third attempt at eating the home fry on his fork, and this time got it into his mouth. Chewing, he challenged me with a look. I did not respond. He shook his head in disgust and polished off the last of the veal. Then he slugged down a mouthful of wine and kept his eyes on me, trying to provoke me into agreement.
'God, Tim, I hate to say this, but I seem to be the only guy around here who's willing to see a little action.'
I stared at him, and then I began to laugh.
'Okay, okay,' he said. 'I spoke out of turn. Let's see how bad it is before we make up our minds.'
We settled onto the couch in the living room, and John flicked on the television with the remote. Looking more distressed than I had ever seen him, his hair slightly rumpled, his conservative tie out of plumb, Jimbo appeared on the screen, announcing for the hundredth time that the members of the Committee for a Just Millhaven had appeared at City Hall, led by the Reverend Clement Moore and accompanied by several hundred demonstrators, demanding a meeting with Merlin Waterford and a reconsideration of their demands. The mayor had sent out his deputy with the message that unscheduled appointments had never been and never would be permitted. The delegation had refused to leave the building. Arden Vass had sent in police to disperse the crowd, and after demands, counterdemands, and speeches, a teenage boy had been shot and killed by an officer who thought he had seen a pistol in the boy's hand. From a jail cell, the Reverend Clement Moore had issued the statement that 'Decades of racial injustice, racial insensitivity, and economic oppression had finally come home to roost, and the fires of rage will not be banked.'
A police car had been overturned and set on fire on North Sixteenth Street. Homemade incendiary bombs thrown into two white-owned businesses on Messmer Avenue had spread through the neighboring buildings, and fire fighters responding to the emergency had been fired upon from rooftops across the street.
Behind Jimbo's face, a camera showed figures running through the fog carrying television sets, piles of suits and dresses, armloads of groceries, mufflers, running shoes tied together by their laces. People trotted out of the fog, waved steaks and halogen lamps and cane-backed chairs at the camera, and disappeared again into the haze.
'Damage is presently estimated at the five-million-dollar level,' Jimbo said. 'For a report on some other disturbing aspects of the situation, here is Isobel Archer, live from Armory Place.' Isobel appeared on the near side of a solid line of policemen separating her from a chaotic mob. She raised her voice to be heard over chants and howls. 'Reports of isolated fires and incidents of shooting have begun to come in from other sections of the city,' she said. A faint but distinct noise of breaking glass made her look over her shoulder. 'There have been several accounts of drivers being dragged from their cars on Central Divide and Illinois Avenue, and several downtown merchants have hired private security firms to protect their stores. I'm told that gangs of armed rioters are traveling in cars and shooting at other vehicles. Lone pedestrians have been attacked and beaten on Livermore Avenue and Fifteenth Street Avenue.' She winced at loud gunshots from somewhere on the far side of the line of police. 'At this point, I'm told that we are moving to the top of police headquarters, where we may be able to show you something of the scale of the destruction.'
The anchor's stolid face appeared again on a split screen. 'On a personal note, Isobel, do you feel in danger yourself?'
'I believe that's why we're going to try to get to the roof,' she said.
Jimbo filled the entire screen again. 'While Isobel moves to a safer location, we advise all residents to draw their curtains, stay away from their windows, and refrain from leaving the house. Now. This just in. There are unconfirmed reports of arson and random gunfire in the fifteen hundred block of Western Boulevard, the twelve hundred block of Fifteenth Street Avenue, and sections of the near west side near the Galaxy Shopping Center. And now, Joe Ruddier with a commentary.'
Mouth already open, eyes flaring, cheeks blazing, Joe Ruddler's irate, balloonlike visage zoomed onto the screen. He looked as if he had just charged out of a cage.
'This is the ideal time to take Fontaine's house apart,' John said. He went into the kitchen and came back with his glass and the rest of the wine. A little windblown and out of breath, Isobel Archer appeared on top of police headquarters to point at the places where we would be able to see fires, had we been able to see them.
'This place is going to look like San Francisco after the great quake,' John said.
'The fog won't last that long,' I said. 'It'll be gone by about midnight.'
'Oh, yeah,' John said. 'And Paul Fontaine will turn up at the front door, tell us he found Jesus too, and apologize for all the trouble he caused me.'
Alan Brookner called back around ten o'clock and held John on the phone for twenty minutes, ten of which John spent with the receiver a foot away from his head. When he hung up, he went straight into the kitchen and made a fresh drink.
A smiling young black face filled the screen as Jimbo announced that the teenager killed by a police bullet in City Hall was now identified as Lamar White, a seventeen-year-old honor student at John F. Kennedy High School. 'White seems to have been unarmed at the time of his shooting, and the incident will be under departmental investigation.'
The telephone rang again.
'John, John, John, John, John, John,' Alan said through the answering machine. 'John, John, John, John, John, John.'
'You ever notice how they always turn into honor students as soon as they're dead?' John asked me.
'John, John, John, John, John…'
John got up and went to the telephone.
Jimbo said that Ted Koppel would be hosting a special edition of 'Nightline' from the Performing Arts Auditorium tomorrow night. A police spokesman announced that all roads and highways in and out of Millhaven were to be blocked by state troopers.
Clutching one hand to the side of his head, John wandered back into the living room. 'I have to go over there and get him,' he said. 'Do you think it's safe?'
'I don't think there's been any trouble up here,' I said.
'I'm not going out without that gun.' John looked at me as if he expected me to protest, and when I did not, he went upstairs and came back down buttoning the linen jacket over a lump at his waistband. I said I'd hold the fort. 'You think this is all a joke,' he said.
'I think it'd be better for Alan to spend the night here.'
John went to the door, opened it carefully, looked both ways, gave me a last mournful glance, and went outside.
I sat watching pictures of fire lapping up entire blocks while men and women trotted past the camera carrying what they had looted. Stocks must have been getting low—their arms were full of toilet paper and light bulbs and bottles of mineral water. When the phone rang again, I got up to answer it.
Alan was hiding in a closet. Alan was sitting in a pile of feces on his kitchen floor. Whatever the crisis was, John had given up.
