dropped into the yard. The grass was neatly-mowed and well-kept. He walked into the garage and found a gallon can of turpentine. His father used it to clean his paint brushes in. Pete took the can in through the back porch. Then he opened it and let the liquid run in under the door and into the kitchen. He emptied a remainder of the can about the back porch. Then he took a loose piece of newspaper, slightly rolled, and lit it with a match. He threw it into the center of the back porch. He saw the flames rise up, he saw the flames run under the door and light up the kitchen.
Then he walked up the driveway and out onto the street. He walked north along the street and up the long hill to the boulevard. Then he turned and looked back. He could see the flames, the flames were very high down there. Then he walked east. He walked three blocks east until he got to the movie. He looked in his pockets. He had enough for a movie. It was a Western. A real good shoot-’em-up. Pete loved Westerns. He paid the girl and walked in. He had enough for a bag of popcorn. He bought a bag of popcorn and walked down the dark aisle. He found a seat about three-fourths of the way in the back, near the center, sat down and began to eat the popcorn. Two guys were about to shoot it out, right in front of a saloon. They were good actors. Pete liked popcorn, popcorn with plenty of salt. At last, he was happy.
Robert had 29 cans of food in the closet and a five gallon jug of Sparkletts. Also, candles and a .32 with plenty of shells. The water had been cut off the second day but the power was still on.
What had started as a series of spontaneous riots had evolved into something that nobody quite understood. All stores, gas stations—supplies of every sort had been looted in the first days.
In a sense, it was a nationwide revolution but exactly who was revolting and who wasn’t—the matter wasn’t clear. The fire department, after numerous casualties, had ceased to put out fires. Half of Los Angeles was on fire—people were homeless—men, women, children—hiding where they could. They were not roaming, but hiding, trying to hide, trying to exist.
The police, the National Guard and the U.S. Army attempted to control the streets—and control meant killing all others who were upon them. Basically it had become a war between the uniformed and the non-uniformed; and worse, through fear, had evolved into a war between black and white and a war between white and white and black and black and all the colors in between. Each man seemed a unit divided until something happened. The revolution had no central leadership, and so its demands and ambitions were hazy. There seemed no way it could surrender; there also seemed no way it could win.
Robert could understand neither the revolutionaries or the government; both left him with more than a bad taste. But he had always been an odd guy, not fitting anywhere. Now it had broken down into Man against Man, which it had always been, but now it was clear—they were back to the caves, and every man, beast, every weather was the enemy. The centuries had burned back down.
Luckily, Robert had three fifths of Scotch and three-fourths of a lid of grass and ten packs of Bull Durham and plenty of Zig Zag, all of which helped the spirit. Also, he was a natural loner and, all in all, the situation which existed was not far from the one he had existed in before the revolution. His greatest joy had always been solitude, albeit cut with an occasional piece of ass, a bit of Mahler or Stravinsky, a joint or two and a good night’s drunk.
The gas and water were shut off and he had all the windows nailed closed and kept the night latch on the door. Late at night he would open the door and throw out his excretia and urine, all the garbage. It was more dangerous to go out and attempt to bury it.
Constant firing was heard in the streets. Bodies were left where they fell. Rats, dogs, cats prowled the streets, ripping pieces of
William Manchester, Paul Reid