Magic City by Jewell Parker Rhodes

“Henry!”
    He reached an alleyway just as an angry crowd exploded from the Ambrose. “Nigger took him a white woman!”
    Joe nearly tripped as he skated around the corner into the alley.
    â€œCatch him.”
    â€œThere he goes!”
    Joe ran harder, dodging a delivery van coming up the alley, seeing the driver’s surprised expression, just managing to slip between the van and the building’s brick wall. The van’s brakes squealed as he flew down another alley.
    A song started running through his head:
    Run, nigger, run
    The paterrollers come .
    Run, nigger, run .
    The paterrollers come .
    Before his stroke, Tyler would circle the garden, singing: “ Run, nigger, run. The paterrollers come .” Generations of slaves had escaped from the white man. Running from patrols of men and dogs. Tyler had done it—run through cotton fields, swamps, just like Joe was running. His shadow stretched like tar; clouds glowed yellow. Joe remembered celebrating Juneteenth, marching behind Tyler in the yard, chanting, “ Run, nigger, run. Run, nigger, run .” Just ten, his voice mimicked Tyler’s bass:
    Dis nigger run, he run his best ,
    Stuck his head in a hornet’s nest ,
    Jumped de fence and run fru de paster ;
    white man run, but nigger run faster .
    Father had stripped his pants and beat him with his belt.
    Joe exited the alley onto Main, drawing stares from pedestrians as he ran past the courthouse. He ran in the street, outpacing a carriage and its horse. He skirted round cars. Dodged produce trucks. Let himself fly.
    â€œOver there. He’s over there. Near the courthouse.”
    Joe looked back, seeing shadows of men pointing, hearing a steady pounding, feeling tremors beneath his feet. A car horn blared. “Damn nigger. Get out the way.”
    He cut across Courthouse Square leaping over a bench, frightening a Negro woman feeding crackers to a white baby. He flew over the grass, smacking his hand against the oak trunks, darting left, right. He ran past fashionable women, avoiding any men. Even old men resting their joints on benches. The wind carried voices: “What’s that nigger doing running?”
    He’d been taught to fear this moment. Never be a colored boy hunted. Never have cause to run from a white man.
    â€œYou are Joseph David Samuels,” Father hollered between belt swings. “No paterrollers here.” Slap. “You are…” Slap. “Joseph David Samuels.” Slap. Slap. Welts grew on his back .
    Joseph David Samuels. Like his brother was Henry Martin Samuels. They were supposed to be safe. Safe because they weren’t ordinary colored boys. They were Douglass Abraham Samuels’ sons.
    Joe laughed harshly, his breath exploding in bursts. His side ached. What would Father think now? His brother dead, killed by pale-faced Germans, and him running for his life.
    Suddenly Joe wasn’t afraid. Being hunted, running like Tyler had, like so many others had from slavery, released him from his dread.
    Joe stumbled, his hand scraped the ground. “Run,” he told himself. “Run.”
    Maybe Henry had felt this too, the sheer exhilaration of knowing there was nothing left to dread. Joe felt free.
    He cut left at the Square’s edge, heading northeast, away from the business district, toward Greenwood. He breathed, deep and even. He could feel the pain in his side easing. He could do this. Relax. Breathe like Houdini . He felt powerful, strong.
    He’d escaped the Ambrose Building, outrun the crowd. He’d escape from Tulsa. Nothing bound him now. Not even his father.
    His gait stretched. Inhale. Exhale. His arms swung free and easy. He was the center of a blur of motion. He left the main roads, avoiding Greenwood and Archer, cutting across the railroad tracks, down Tulsa’s back alleys. He was heading home.
    Sweat dusted his neck and back.
    He wanted to tell Tyler he’d heard the paterrollers.