had shone on the braids that fell around her face and had made her dark skin gleam. Imagine knowing that if you walk in that store, you’re going to be followed and watched and treated like a thief. Imagine seeing your father and your brothers getting pulled over, getting arrested, getting locked up for nothing, trying to find jobs, trying to hold jobs, with everyone assuming they are criminals. Imagine every day you go to a school where the building’s run-down and the textbooks are outdated and there’s forty kids in every class, and you put your hand over your heart for the pledge—one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all—but you know it’s a lie, and there’s no liberty for you, no justice for you. She’d widened her eyes, looking at the women and men who sat in a circle around her. Wouldn’t you feel like burning something, too?
“I’d been arrested at demonstrations a few times by then, and it turns out the FBI had been watching me,” Harold said. “They sent an agent to talk to me when I was locked up, and they gave me a deal. They wanted to plant me with the Black Panthers. Told me that for every person I helped them bring in, they’d pay me a few thousand dollars. I said no.” He shook his head. “I hated the war.”
Bethie shook her head, hoping her expression could adequately convey how much she, too, had despised the war.
“But I wouldn’t inform, so they gave me a choice: the army or prison. I didn’t want to fight, but I sure didn’t want to get locked up, either. I knew I’d never be able to get a job once they let me out, and I figured, if I enlist, at least I’ll get to be outside. Breathing fresh air, reading whatever books I wanted. You know? And my pops would be proud of me.” He lifted his wineglass and took a long swallow. “I did my basic training in Fort Gordon, Georgia. First time I was ever on a plane. By January 1970, I was in Cam Ranh Bay, on the Cambodian border.” He tapped his fingers on the tablecloth. His eyes were far away. “I don’t know if you ever saw a picture, but it was all sand and palm trees. If you put up a resort there, you’d have rich people paying to stay.” He reached across the table to top off Bethie’s wineglass and to refill his own. “I started off as an armorer, in the Fourth Infantry Division. We repaired small arms, and we patrolled Highway 19 from Cambodia to Qui Nhon, trying to find caches of enemy food and weapons. They’d send us out. Clear this village, clear that one. When there was nothing else to do, we loaded sandbags.”
“Were you . . .” Bethie licked her lips. Her mouth was dry, and her mind was churning. There were so many things she wanted to ask—what he’d done to get arrested prior to the riots, what had happened to him once they’d begun, and if he’d gotten hurt. How his parents and brothers and sisters had felt when he’d gone to Georgia, then to Vietnam. Was it as bad as she’d heard, was it as unfair, were the black soldiers given the worst assignments and put on the front lines, and if he’d had a girlfriend, or even a wife; a woman who’d loved him and who’d worried while he was gone. She wanted to tell him that she, too, saw the unfairness, that she was committed to trying to change things. She cleared her throat, sipped her wine, and finally managed, “What was it like, being a soldier over there?”
“You mean, did I kill anyone?” Harold’s face was very still. “I never shot anyone face-to-face.” He snorted. “You like that answer?” He lifted his glass, looked into it, and set it down without drinking. “I was afraid. That’s what I remember most. Waking up scared, going to sleep scared, and being scared every minute in between.” He pressed his palms against his face and moved them from his cheeks to his ears, back and forth, like he was washing his face. “My last month there, I was driving an amtrac—an amphibious tractor, like a tank. It wasn’t technically my job, but they said they didn’t have anyone else to do it. We hit a mine. Got blown straight up in the air. It was . . .” He