By the end of September their movement in and out the building had become
fairly routine. The noise nuisance from the streets had diminished, or so it seemed;
sometimes they could hear the rumble and clatter of the trains on the overhead
tracks many blocks away. The cold weather deterred much hanging about late hours
at night, and the horrible children who skipped rope on the sidewalk long after
midnight had gone back to school.
Amarelle insisted on keeping the bedroom windows at the back open. This made
sense during the hot sticky summer nights; but she wanted them open in the fall,
too, just a crack. Radix could not understand this island habit, just a crack, to let in
fresh air. There was a gas station on the street behind their buiding. The open
window let in not just fresh air but the fumes of pumped gas.
One night he was roused from bed – they had turned in late though not at the
same hour – by the sound of boots tramping violently on the galvanized shed
outside. He thought it might have been neighborhood kids up to mischief.
Peering through the slats of the blinds he saw flashlights… the figure of a police
officer standing on the shed… shouting to another officer… his right hand on the
gun holster at his hip, the left holding the flashlight just above his shoulder… two
hatless white cops seemingly impervious to the cold… one with a fresh haircut, it
seemed… white tee shirt visible under the collars of their tunics… "He must have
gone over that wall" … responding to a call of an intruder, or chasing a suspect.
Conceivably the man they were looking for had run across the vacant lot nearby
onto Blackwelder's shed; then must have climbed the concrete wall, jumping down
at the back of the apartment building and running up the alleyway into the next
street. It looked that way to the cops. It looked that way, too, to Radix who hadn't
heard the first commotion as the man passed through; just the sound of boots in
pursuit tramping on the galvanized sheets.
This was the first time police officers had shown up on the block, the first incident
requiring police intervention since they'd moved there.
The cops were about to give up. They stood about at the back of the yard
conferring. One of them turned his flashlight on Radix's car, checking perhaps for
signs of attempted entry; though to Radix it looked as if he was doing much more,
inspecting the stickers on the windshield. The nerve of these guys! Off the streets,
in his own backyard!
Long minutes after they'd gone he stood at the window half expecting the
suspect to pop up somewhere in the dark; he listened for the sound of gunfire,
hurried shots squeezed off, the man finally cornered and cut down.
"You goin' stand there all night?" he heard Amarelle say. He thought she was fast
asleep. "Is time you ask the landlord to put burglar bars on the windows."
She sounded more annoyed than worried.
(from Ah Mikhail, O Fidel! by N.D.Williams, 2001)
FARJOURNEY CARIBBEAN 