HARLEM!

The late afternoon light shimmered in the stifling heat. It was almost supper time, and shops were closing, locking up their doors and turning over signs that read 'CLOSED' in hand-painted letters. The craggy brick and scuffed wood buildings echoed with camaraderie and joyful shouts as children packed up toys, comics, and games to rush home before an older sibling or irate mother came looking. Very few people remained outside, most were hurrying home as quickly as possible to avoid the heat or foot traffic.

That Hotbed of Haute Couture

In front of a store specializing in stuffy, fancy clothes that mothers loved and children despised, an older man whistled quietly to himself. He was walking slowly, his gait marred by a limp. He was holding a paper sack filled with vegetables and dry goods, balancing them as best he could. He had black hair that circled his dark-skinned head in a horseshoe. In spite of the warm weather he was dressed to the nines in a black suit and felt fedora which he would tip at passersby with his free hand.

Nexus of New York City

Coming up fast upon him, unseen from across the street was a group of four men. They wore white undershirts and slacks, not a sleeve to be shared among them. Their pale, ruddy faces shone with sweat, their bared arms showed off naval tattoos. With harsh words, they grabbed the old man's attention, and with harsher threats, forced him into the alley to his left.

Artistic Apex of the Big Apple!

In an attempt to pacify his attackers, the old man offered first the bag of food he held, but the men laughed cruelly and knocked the bag away. Shaking with fear, he then pulled out his hand-stitched leather wallet, holding it out and praying that they would leave him be. But that only made them laugh harder as they threw the wallet aside without so much as a glance at its contents.

From 155th to 96th

The old man opened his mouth, stuttering out a plea for mercy before the biggest of the four men punched him hard in his jaw. Crying out, the old man fell backwards into the overflowing trash cans behind him. The almighty crash drowned out the laughter of the four men, but the cruel gleam in their eyes did not go unnoticed. Yanking the man to his feet, he was sent down again. Only this time the group did not allow him time to breathe before they unleashed hell on him. Kicking, punching, and spitting without mercy.

from the Hudson to the East

Cocking his arm back for another blow, one man was grabbed suddenly from behind, bearlike hands in sueded gloves squeezed the wind from his lungs.

extends that melting pot of men of myriad mainsprings

Just as quickly, he was in the air, hurtling with a sickening thud into the brick wall of the alleyway behind. He crumpled to the ground.

that village of voluminous variety

His nearest compatriot, seeing the movement out of the corner of his eye, turned swiftly, only to be felled by a blow like a blast of dynamite to his face, bone and cartilage crunching beneath the fist of his assailant.

where kids of all kinds and colors can caper

From up above two children decked out in masks and tunics dropped down from a fire escape with all of the intensity of wild animals. They hooted and hollered as they pulled hair and poked at eyes, laughing while their victims struggled to shake them off.

Cavort

The child attackers continued their onslaught, now using their small fists to beat their two men about the temples.

and clown about to their heart's' content!

The children's shrieks of laughter echoed throughout the alley, the joy they took in their work more than evident.

Should racism ever rear its repulsive regiments

The gloved stranger stepped out of the shadows, sunlight glinting off of a polished metal pot that fit snugly on their head. Wasting no time, they threw another hearty jab at the man one child was attacking. The kid giggled mercilessly as she gave an acrobatic leap from his shoulder onto the shoulders of the vigilante beside her.

The Red Tornado and the Cyclone Kids

The other child back-flipped to the ground just as the mystery man put the top of the helmet into his man's chest, sending him over the little boy and onto the hard ground.

(really mild-mannered Ma Hunkel

The eyes behind the steel pot-helmet scanned about, seeing if any of the white men were still in fighting form, as she placed her sidekick on the ground.

her daughter Sisty

The young girl ran over to one of the groaning forms upon the ground and began kicking him repeatedly in the ribs.

and their friend Dinky Jibbet)

The masked boy was jumping in place from sheer over-excitement.

are there to rap 'em on the head!

The Red Tornado walked then over to the pile of trash bags, where the hurt man lay, and attempted to help him up.

She had only just extended her hand when the man's eye (the one that wasn't swollen shut) became huge as a saucer. Despite his injuries he pulled away with purpose. He was afraid, more afraid of her than he had been at the thugs just moments before.

"HELP!" he screamed, scrambling to further enmesh himself in the bags of trash he lay atop, "POLICE! MURDER!". Red Tornado stopped dead in her tracks at this.

The man screamed as he hit the steps with a sickening crunch, his bones audibly snapping. He shouted out then, as she and the kids ran past him into the casino. The Cyclone Kids cackled gleefully as they skipped past the man's prone form. Too caught up in their adventure to notice or care. Red Tornado followed suit, the man's cries of pain disappearing behind her.

Dinky and Sisty were pulling at her sleeves, their eyes wide with confusion and anxiety. How long had she been standing there, staring at this screaming, cowering man? She turned her helmeted head, and saw a small crowd had begun to gather at the end of the alley, pointing and conversing heatedly.

"Ma!" Sisty whispered urgently.

Abigail looked down at her daughter, feeling suddenly out of place. She shook her head, trying to focus. A familiar voice, a woman in the crowd, was shouting at her now, she realized.

"What the hell are you doin to Mr. Philips?!"

Abigail's mouth hung open. She had no words. Instead, she lifted the children, one in each arm, and began running toward the short brick wall at the end of the alleyway. After placing each on top of it, she climbed over herself. As they fled from the scene, she heard the same woman asking the man if he was okay.

Abigail was glad for the weekend, as any sleep she had been intending on having that night was long gone. It had been quite the effort, ducking her daughter's questions until she could get her off to bed. It took all the effort her little self could muster not to spill the beans about their secret life during dinner, and as soon as she was alone with her again, in lieu of a more thorough explanation, she had to promise Sisty they weren't bad guys ten or twenty times before she was able to sleep. Dinky, who was fast outgrowing his nickname at seven years old and already four-and-a-half feet tall, had been just the opposite, saying he was pretty sure the man thought they were monsters and leaving it at that before wandering off home for supper.

She sat at the kitchen table, sipping her coffee. She didn't normally take it black, but with the rationing for the war, both cream and sugar were at a premium. She winced at the drink's bitterness with every mouthful, but it fortified her and sent a jolt of energy to her tired, overwrought brain. Abigail wasn't much for ruminating, she had too many regrets and too many mistakes in her past, and dwelling on them accomplished nothing. But tonight it seemed inevitable as memories crept up from the shadowy edges of her mind. God, she could remember every battle, every punch, every bruise. She traced the scars on her large hands from knuckles connecting with teeth, gangsters' flashy jewelry and baubles, police batons.

The Radiola whined softly, a tin-throated lady cooing out quiet words of wisdom into the warm night air. The distant crash of far-off refuse bins clattering to the ground, and the faint cries of a child awoken by the sound were all that floated in through the half-opened kitchen window, the city having at last gone down for its rest. The coffee wasn't doing much good in keeping her awake. She was getting weary from her nerves being so strung out. She knew she had to try and sleep eventually, Sisty and Huey would be up with the sun, and Gus and Herman would be sniffing around for breakfast soon after.

"War bonds," she muttered into her cup, the words coming unbidden and with no audience save the coffee. She could still hear it, if hearing were the right word. Or maybe more like, she could feel the sound of it, in her head, in her bones.

SNAP

The yellow booties muffled her footsteps as she crept down the stairs into the seedy back alley where the damn casino was hidden. The Oddfellows' Pool and Poker was the talk of the neighborhood amongst the men. Gus and Herman spent most of their free time there, gambling away their meager savings like a couple of knuckleheads. Normally she wouldn't put on her costume for something like this, but Herman, the louse, had lied about his money. She scrimped and saved while he was down here in this mess, doing nothing for his family or his country, lining the pockets of whatever scuzzy gangster ran this joint instead of paying his fair share.

'Guess family don't mean nothin' no more' She grumbled under her breath as she pounded the heavy wooden door, putting all of her displaced aggression into her clenched fist. She tapped her foot angrily as they waited the half second for someone to answer. Whoever was in charge of the door was gonna get it harder than anyone.

A creak of hinges in desperate need of oiling later, and a short, older man answered her knocking. Black and balding, he was dressed in an ill-fitted tuxedo with tails a bit too long and a striped cummerbund. His posture was stiff and formal, as befitted his assigned station as a doorman.

He cleared his throat, straightening his already pin straight back, not even blinking at her odd clothes or the kids tagging close behind. Abigail was sure stranger things and people had crept into this establishment before.

"Yes, sir?"

She replied with something terse and intentionally rude.

"I'm sorry, sir" he had a deep, sonorous voice that was far from unpleasant "but there isn't anybody allowed in this club, unless they've got a membership card."

First, the Kids ran through his legs, knocking him over into her arms. With a shout of "Here I come" Red Tornado tossed him bodily at the stairwell. Running inside, she heard a sickening SNAP, The screams of agony were drowned out by the kids' laughter and the roaring sounds of the casino.

As she chased off the patrons inside, as she chastised her brothers, as she lectured on patriotism and as she waited for the Kids to run her errand, his screams turned to pained moans, and finally to sobs that she pretended not to hear. Nobody ever did come to his aid, the cops paid off not to interfere with the establishment, the people too afraid of its owners. When she left, two hours later, he was still there, lying broken on the stairs. She simply walked over his unconscious form, and off into the night.

'War bonds' she thought to herself bitterly 'Goddamn war bonds.'

Abigail pressed the rivet gun into the side of the large metal sheet before her, and pulled the trigger. With a "KA-CHOOM" the rivet was forced into its assigned place. Again, and again, she performed her task, only stopping to wipe the sweat from her face whenever it built up unbearably. Her kerchief kept it from her eyes, but did nothing for the rest of her. On either side were women working the same job, rivet guns firing in rhythm, from 9am to 5pm every day, silent only for an hour between the two lunch whistles that sounded throughout the factory. When the first such whistle went off, all the ladies would set down their various tools and instruments and collect their pails, then head to their separate places for lunch. Instead of following along with her friends today, however, Abigail passed them by, collecting not a few odd looks in the doing, and headed for the area where the black women gathered.

There was no law, or even fast rule, which said the whites and blacks couldn't mingle during lunch, nonetheless there was a hard tension in the room as she approached the table where the woman sat whom she sought. She had recognized her voice days before, having met her in passing many times.

"Heya Sal" she began, as friendly as she could, but she still felt like a fraud.

The woman raised an eyebrow, and lowered the sandwich she held in front of herself "Mrs. Hunkel" she said stiffly

"Nonsense!" Ma laughed, clapping the other woman on the back, wincing at how stiff and uncomfortable the other woman was and sitting down beside her at the table "It's Abby!" She opened up her lunch box and pulled out her own sandwich, unwrapping it and taking a bite. Sally did not follow likewise. She cleared her throat.

"What, um, brings you over here?"

Abigail took another bite. "Can't a neighbor say hi to a neighbor? You live just across the street from us, right? I see you in the store sometimes."

"Oh. Um, hi Abby." she replied, still not eating. Abby realized none of the other women at the table were eating either. The quiet somehow louder than when the machines were on. She tried not to show her discomfort as she went on eating and talking.

"So, uh, you go to the same church as uh…" she trailed off, suddenly realizing she didn't know the man's first name.

Looking genuinely curious now, Sally responded with a "yes?"

"Old Mister Philips? I uh, I been tryin to find him he uh...left his wallet in the store last week."

A look of relief fell over Sally's face, and the other women gave a collective sigh as they returned to their lunches, the tension evaporating in the wake of the lie.

"Oh! Yes, I can give it to him for you if you-"

Thinking as fast as she could, Abigail blurted out "No, I uh, didn't bring it with me, I figured I'd just bring it to his place tonight or somethin. You happen to know where that is?"

Ma wore her best flowered dress and the stockings without any runs in them to go see Mr. Phillips (George, it turned out his first name was). She left Huey and Gus in charge of the store, which meant Huey was running the place while her good-for-nothing in-law likely went out gambling, or worse. No matter, she would only be gone an hour or so, she thought.

She made her way up the old, decaying wood stairs to the third floor of the building, and looked for door seven, as Sally had instructed her. The pressboard had been water damaged at some point, and the door didn't sit right in its frame. She knocked, praying it wouldn't fall off its hinges when she did so. There was silence, then the creak of worn out springs. It took a long minute, and she adjusted her fascinator and smoothed out her skirt for lack of something better to do. Eventually she heard someone shuffling toward the door from the other side.

"Who's there?" The sound of his baritone voice hitting her like a truck. She remembered him much too well now.

"Er, Abigail Hunkel, from the grocery store?" She shifted her weight from foot to foot awkwardly.

"I didn't order no groceries, sorry" came the reply from inside the apartment.

"Oh no, that's not why- can I come in please?"

The door strained against its frame for a moment, bending slightly at the middle before it thunked open. Across the threshold stood George Philips, his face a mass of swelling and bruises, a wooden cane in his right hand. He was dressed in an old, frayed blue robe, a white undershirt, striped bottoms and brown slippers. She half-expected him to recognize her, but little showed on his battered face other than mild annoyance.

"What seems to be the problem, ma'am?" he asked, his shoulders slumped.

"I, uh...would it be alright if I sat down, my dogs are barkin somethin awful"

He seemed reticent, but after a few moments' hesitation, the man gave a scarcely noticeable shrug and shuffled aside, gesturing toward the room to his left, where a couple armchairs sat around an old radio. Ma brushed past him, and sat in the less nice-looking of the two seats, leaving the other for him. She set her bag down beside her, and noticed the radio wasn't off, just turned down low. A band was playing softly, the horns the only audible part, as George forced the door shut and crossed the room slowly, taking the other of the two chairs.

"So what can I do for you, ma'am?" he asked with an air that said he wanted nothing more than for her to leave.

"Well, see, I'm here cause I saw what happened Friday, with them-"

"Oh you mean that Tornado and his boys beatin on me."

The phrasing took her aback. She sputtered slightly. "I- I, er, that is to say, the, the Red Tornado beat you up?"

He looked at her suspiciously as he could with one non-swollen eye. "You said you saw it happen, didn't you?"

"Yeah but I mean, I think he was tryin to stop them guys what was-"

He cut her off again "No, trust me, it was him that did it, or caused it to be did, either way don't matter much now. What's done's done."

"But, but, how do you know he was…?"

"It ain't the first time that Tornado come for me. Like won't be the last, neither. He got a real hate in him for me, I just wish I knew what I done to cause it."

"You mean this happened before?"

"Listen, you're a nice lady. I see you givin out candy to the kids and such. I hear you're not too strict on bills at your store. You don't wanna be hearin about such evilness as this."

"No, no, I...I think I can help, is what I'm sayin."

"What kinda help you mean?"

"What happened the first time you met him? When he, uh... came for you I mean."

He sighed audibly, but started talking, like it wasn't the first time someone had asked him to tell this story.

"He come for me while I was workin the door over at the Oddfellows'. Now, a nice lady like you probably don't know what that is, but it's somethin like a speakeasy, you might say. Private club for gentleman and such. My job was to check who's a member and who ain't. Weren't the best work, but it also weren't the worst, if you take my meaning. Hours was long but the pay was suitable. First job I ever had where there wasn't no labor to be done, nor danger to be had. Leastways, that's what I thought until the night He showed up."

"The Red Tornado?"

"Yeah, that Tornado come down the stairs and he demands I let him in, no hey hi hello or nothin. He's got no membership though, least far as I know what with that big pot up on his head, so my job's to send him on his way. He wasn't havin none of it. Calls me Nigger, straight to my face. Then him and them two little hims, they broke my leg, cracked my back, and ran off like it was nothin."

Ma struggled to not visibly recoil "I...don't know what to say. How...how have you been since?"

"That was six months ago last week. They fired me from the job, I guess I'm lucky they didn't break the other leg too, bein who they are."

"Gangsters?"

"I won't say no more on that. But yeah, without my health, I couldn't get no other jobs, and without no job, I can't afford to pay for nothin. Folks at church've been helpin me out, but honestly, I don't know how I'm to make rent this month. Then this happens." he gestured to his face. "I dunno what I done to him, but man, that Tornado hates me."

"What did you do?"

Maxine "Cyclone" Hunkel ruffled her long hair (fire engine red, just like Ma's was in her youth) with a soft blue towel. She was dressed in comfortable pajamas that her grandmother had handed her as soon as she arrived back at the brownstone that served as the JSA's headquarters and museum. Maxine had been put through the wringer in her fight with Solomon Grundy, and seeing her muddy and disheveled instantly concerned Ma. So her costume went to the wash for cleaning and mending and she was now sitting at the kitchen island with a hot mug of coffee and a platter of warm sugar cookies. A treat that no one could find anywhere, no barista made the stuff like Ma. Enough sugar you might lose a foot, but well worth it.

Abigail wiped her strong hands, still scarred after all these years, on her starched yellow apron. She reached for a cookie, then thought the better of it.

"I listened. Probably for the first time in my life, I really listened to someone else's needs, and I tried my damnedest to help. I paid his rent out of the till, that month and the next. I had the kids bring him groceries every week until the store closed. The Red Tornado paid a visit to a doctor, who agreed to look after Mr. Philips for free. None if it's really enough to make up for what I did to him."

Maxine chewed her cookie nervously, using the drink to wash down her anxiety and swallowed hard. There were questions churning through her guts that she wasn't sure she wanted the answer to.

"You...you didn't really call him the...the N-Word, did you? He was just misremembering?"

Ma took off her glasses then, neatly folding and hooking them on the front of her apron. She placed her hands together and looked Maxine hard in the eyes. This was her usual way of telling Maxine some harsh truths. Ugly truths.

"I thought long an' hard about that Maxie. And what I come to is this: it don't much matter what I called him, cause I had that same feelin in my heart. In that moment, he weren't a man to me, he was just an obstacle to be dealt with, and I literally tossed him aside like so much trash. I don't know if I called him that hateful word. I don't think I did. I don't remember it that way anyways. But I sure as shit treated him like one. And that's what matters. That's what I gotta deal with."

"Did he ever forgive you?"

There was an earnestness in her voice that seldom showed itself to Maxine. "You're still not understandin, hon. It ain't about me, or my feelins. What I did to that man, I can't ever undo it. All I could ever do is help him out, which is what I ought've done in the first place. Forgive, not forgive, it don't make no difference. What matters is doin the right thing. Everything else is just selfishness."

Cyclone set her cup down, and stood up from her kitchen stool. She circled the island and wrapped her arms around her grandmother. Ma smelled like cookies and furniture polish, and she was warm. She didn't say a word then, only reaching up to pat her arm. The two held there for a moment, until the sound of the big front doors crashing open broke their reverie.

"That'll be the rest of the gang" Ma said, standing, clapping her hands together, and moving toward the refrigerator, "they'll be needing a supper soon enough."