Free Leaving: A Novel by Richard Dry Page A

you can’t block the entrance. I know that for a fact.”
    “Mrs. Usher,” he said.
    She stared at him with narrowed eyes, as if he were a ghost come to haunt her. “Yes?”
    “I’m Ruby’s little brother, Easton. Love E.”
    “Oh.” Her face changed, first to recognition and relief and then to confusion. “Oh yes. I see now.”
    “How are you? How’s your husband?”
    “Why are you doing this? Why are you doing this to me?”
    “Oh, no. It’s not like that—”
    She pulled the door shut before he could explain. He thought he might say that it wasn’t personal, that he wasn’t trying to get back at her for what she had done, that he hoped she’d forgive him.
    “You have to clear the sidewalk,” a voice blared from a police megaphone. “You are blocking pedestrian traffic.”
    “You’re blocking the street!” Charles yelled at the cops. “How come you can do anything you want? If we were picketing for an increase of police wages, you would let us march all day!”
    Ken walked over to the police car and talked into the open window. The police officers glanced at Charles and nodded. Charles waved to them and yelled at Ken, “Sell me out, brother. That’s what they want. You sell me out and then you can smile because the real enemy has been locked up and you can keep your job, holding a sign for the White oppressor that reads, ‘Don’t worry about me, I’m just going to sing a song if you spit in my face.’”
    Ken walked back into the circle and Easton came up to him.
    “What did you tell him?”
    “I told him we are a nonviolent group, but we won’t leave until the store changes its policy.”
    “What about Charles?”
    “I said we couldn’t be responsible for what he might do, that he wasn’t part of our group anymore.”
    Easton looked at Charles leaning against the brick building, a pick in his natural and his arms folded across his black turtleneck. Easton walked over to him with his sign down.
    “You know they’re probably going to single you out,” he said to Charles.
    “How come you’re over here? Did Uncle Ken tell you to come over here? Because you can save your breath.”
    “I don’t think you should let yourself get beat up. I know you, you’re just asking for a beating, but this isn’t like high school.”
    “Man, I don’t want to be beat up. What I want is to be able to stand here and exercise my First Amendment right to say this place stinks and to close it down because it violates the law and watch them blue boys over there shut the place down. But they aren’t going to do it, man. Don’t you get it? We’ve been picketing outside this store almost every weekend for six months, and all they’ve done is hire one colored elevator man for two dollars an hour, right in the middle of the store where everyone can see him and say, ‘Oh deary, what are these radicals complaining about, colored people do work here.’ I’m not the one out here starting a fight. I’m defending my right to earn a living. It’s self-defense. They’re the ones telling you to clear out. I’m just not going to let them clear me out when I have a right to be here.”
    Two policemen got out of the lead car and slammed their doors. They walked toward Charles and Easton with their clubs out.
    “You’re going to start a riot if you touch me,” Charles said to them. The policemen looked over at Ken, who shrugged. Easton brushed his cheek and then put his hands in his pockets. He smiled at the officers.
    “He won’t do anything if you leave him alone,” Easton said.
    “What’s your name?” the first officer asked him.
    “Who, me?” Easton asked.
    “See how it works?” Charles said. “You’re going to be in the system now.”
    “What’s your name?” the officer asked again. Easton looked at Ken. Ken shook his head.
    “I take my Fifth Amendment right not to say anything.” This was part of the training they’d gone through, including the mock beatings and arrests. The rest of