Free Devil's Night by Ze'ev Chafets Page B

from Asia and North Africa. She believed this despite the evidence of her own eyes—most of Detroit’s Arabs are unquestionably not black-skinned. But it soon emerged that we were talking about different things. “To me,” she said, “a white man is somebody like George Bush.”
    The longer I stayed in Detroit, the more accustomed I became to the local habit of immediately classifying everyone by color; and I also began to see the world through the race-conditioned eyes of the people I met. Once, watching
Nightline
, I asked a friend what she thought about the discussion, which had to do with the economy. “You notice that there are never any black people on these interview programs,” she said. “They don’t think our opinions matter, or that we even have any opinions.” Of course she was right; and from then on I watched American television with a new sensibility.
    Constant daily contact with black people was enlightening; and it was also reassuring. I began to think about moving into town, and one day, in the midst of a discussion about the violence on the streets of Detroit, I surprised myself by asking a black auto executive if he thought it would be safe. “Nobody’s totally safe here,” he said. “But you won’t be in any special danger because you’re white. And onething’s for sure, it’s a hell of a lot more interesting than in Bloomfield Hills.”
    And so I left the suburbs and moved into Detroit. At first, I rented a room from a black woman who lived on the east side, not far from downtown. Later, feeling more independent, I moved into one of Detroit’s few high-rise apartment buildings, a short walk from City Hall and the river. The manager proudly pointed out the building’s security features, which included a special service: residents returning at night could call ahead, and an armed guard would escort them from the parking lot into the lobby.
    I never used the service, because I didn’t feel threatened. But from time to time I got intimations of danger. One of them arrived at my apartment in the person of Floyd.
    Floyd was a young man with a passive ferocity and yellow, malign eyes that peered out of a hard dark skull. When he walked into my living room, in the midst of a small cocktail party, he suddenly made some comfortable people very nervous.
    Floyd was brought by Gerald, a heavyset black man who lives in the Brewster projects. We met in the course of my research; Gerald was trying, unsuccessfully, to promote music concerts at one of the downtown theaters, and I went to talk to him about the difficulties faced by a small entrepreneur. We soon discovered that we shared a love of fifties rhythm and blues, and struck up a friendship.
    An inveterate do-gooder, Gerald met Floyd in the projects shortly after Floyd had been released from Jackson Penitentiary, at the end of a six-year term for armed robbery, and decided to rehabilitate him. “You got to learn how to interface with white people,” he told Floyd, and brought him to the party.
    Actually we were an integrated group that evening, but to Floyd, one of ten children born to an unwed mother, the blacks must have seemed as white as the whites. All the guests were middle-class and well educated. They sipped white wine and looked out at the city through wide glass windows and tried to act like they weren’t scared stiff of Floyd. He drank a gin and orange juice and looked at his redtennis shoes. After a few moments he took them off and stretched out, uninvited, on the couch. Everyone pretended not to notice.
    â€œFeel good layin’ back,” said Floyd sociably. “Up to Jackson, they ain’t got no soft mattress.” A halfhearted chuckle went up, and I thought, How in the hell do I get him out of here?
    Gerald believed that it would be therapeutic for Floyd to talk about his past. “I come from Memphis,” Floyd said. “Got some