145th Street Read Free Page B

rest of us were down on the floor on our bellies and he was telling us to get down.
    “What’s going on out there?” Mamie asked.
    “We got a report of a man with an automatic weapon,” this cop said. “Anybody here know anything about it?”
    We all said no and then the cop eased out.
    “What they mean about some automatic weapon?” Pedro asked.
    “It means when it hits your butt you’re automatically dead,” Mamie said, and she got a good laugh out of that.
    That laugh that Mamie got lasted about a good ten seconds when all of a sudden we heard another one of them big-eyed kids saying something about seeing somebody at a window.
    We stuck our heads up a little so we could see what was going on. One of the cops started running around the front of the car and slipped on some dog doo. When he hit the ground his gun went off and a shot came through the window of the restaurant. There was glass all over the floor and Willie let out a scream. By this time the cops were shooting away at that window.
    They must have shot maybe a hundred shots and people was running and screaming. One cop went down behind a car and when Mamie looked she said he was bleeding.
    “They got him in the head!” she called out.
    The mess was getting serious. Willie was bleeding right next to me and now the cop was shot in the head. I slid over to the counter and started to get behind it.
    “We don’t allow nobody behind the counter,” Flood said. “You know that!”
    Outside the shooting started again and I squinched under the counter the best I could. Mamie got down next to me and I put my arm around her and she snuggled up.
    After a while the shooting stopped and I heard somebody outside say, “They got the guy with the automatic weapon and it was some Arab!”
    We waited for a while and then started getting up from the floor. I stayed behind the counter in case it broke out again. Then we all kind of edged around outside to see what we could see. I looked around. No cops had been shot, but the guy who had slipped in the dog doo was having his elbow looked at. We heard somebody shout and everybody hit the ground again. But then we saw that it was just Mary Brown. Mary is one of those smart sisters who has a good job downtown.
    She pointed up to the window that the cops had shot out.
    “You shot up my new drapes! I don’t work all day for you fools to be up here shooting up my drapes!”
    “Who lives in that apartment with you?” this cop with some gold braid on his hat said.
    “Nobody!” Mary say.
    “Where’s your boyfriend?” the cop asked.
    “I don’t know where he is,” Mary said. “But wherever he is, he’s not messing up my new drapes!”
    “If he’s up there they just killed him,” somebody said.
    “Let’s go, lady,” this cop said. Then he went to take Mary by the arm.
    She snatched it away from him and said she wasn’t going anywhere with them unless she had a black man with her. She started looking around for somebody to go with her when a cop grabbed me by the arm and said, “You come with us.”
    “Hey, why I got to go?” I asked. “I don’t know anything and I don’t want to see no dead people.”
    Didn’t do a bit of good because they made me go up there with them. My knees were shaking and I had to pee so bad I didn’t know what to do. Mary was going up the stairs like she was in a hurry to get somewhere. The cops made us go up first and they came behind. I tried to turn around and they gave me a push in the small of the back but I saw they had their guns out and they were looking more tense with every step. They had one cop who was a brother but he was trailing behind and looked like he was fixing to run any minute.
    When we got to the floor where Mary lived I held my breath and closed my eyes. If I was going to die I sure didn’t want to see it coming.
    Mary went to her door and started fishing out her keys and the cops stood on either side of the door. She unlocked the door and then the cops