Free Strivers Row by Kevin Baker

heard, somewhere, even though most of what the little man said was no more than gibberish to him. The assembly-line sidewalk didn’t slow down just because he did, the people bumping into him as they passed, cursing and tsking at him. Malcolm paid them no mind—recalling now where it was that he had heard such language before, back in his father’s Garvey meetings. So struck by his realization that he didn’t even notice at first that his friends had moved on, or the menacing-looking figures in dark suits, and red fezzes, who had quietly ringed themselves around the man on the stepladder.
    â€œRemember—white man’s Jesus is a false god!” the little man cried out now, holding up some thick, leather-bound book that Malcolm assumed was a Bible. “W. D. Fard is God, and Elijah Muhammad is his Prophet! Elijah Muhammad is God! All others are from the devil!”
    â€œSacrilege!” one of the men who had surrounded the ladder yelled back. “Blasphemer! Murderer! Elijah Muhammad is a murderer and a false prophet! Brown Eel is the true heir of Fard!”
    â€œNo! It is Elijah, who is also One Much, and Ghulam Bogans, and Robert Takis, and Black Moses—”
    But at that moment, the other men in fezzes rushed the step-ladder. Shoving past Malcolm, jostling the beige little man in the magician’s skullcap off its top step. He flailed away at them with his fist and the holy book in his hands before the whole ladder teetered, and went down, entangling the flag with them. A woman screamed, and there were a few muffled shouts and curses. The whole brawl quickly submerged behind the continuing, fast-paced mobs of people moving along the sidewalks, most of them not pausing to give it a second look.
    â€œC’mon, Nome, we almost there!”
    Lionel and Willard, who had doubled back, each grabbed an arm, pulling him onward. Clustered at the next corner there were two separate crowds of servicemen, one black, one white, eyeing each other warily. A cordon of MPs with armbands, and mounted police with hooded eyes and high-crowned hats stood before them—reluctantly letting most of the black soldiers and sailors pass through. Stopping the white servicemen, many of whom tried to double back and get past them anyway, ducking around the legs of the skittish, weaving horses.
    â€œOh, what I wouldn’t give for a black skin right now!” he heard a white sailor exclaim as he sauntered off down the street.
    The edges of the crowd kept flaring up, like a fire curling the edge of a page. The colored people in the crowd trying to get through, cursing and throwing up their hands as the cops turned their horses obliviously into them, trying to cut off the white soldiers and sailors. Staring into their angry, contorted faces Malcolm was amazed by how furious they seemed. The cops finally winching their horses grudgingly out of the way to let them by—their haughty, mounted-policeman eyes following Malcolm in his shark-skin zoot.
    â€œHe must be vital to the war effort!” one of them said, and spat past his horse’s left ear. But by then they were already stepping up to a door with a long, glittering marquee above it that read SMALL’S PARADISE .
    â€œNow don’t be actin’ the fool in here, boy!” Sandy whispered to him, though the moment Malcolm set eyes on the place there was no need to warn him again.
    Inside, everything was instantly cool and dark. A wall of glimmering bottles and glasses rose up before them, with red-and-black-leathered booths and stools surrounding the elegantly curved bar. It was so quiet that Malcolm could hear the panting of the air conditioner, and he thought at first that they must be alone in the place. Only when he had taken a second look around did he realize that the bar was in fact dotted with men—leaning over their drinks, speaking in low, deliberate voices when they spoke at all. Some of them already looking him