Read White Death for Free Online Page B

or events. These athletes are often the only male role models for these children. In addition, I’m working with Social Services to help find and fund alternatives to juvenile detentionfor first or non-violent offenders. If you tell a boy often enough that he is bad or delinquent, it becomes his self-image. I am a big believer in labeling theory. They need positive goals and aspirations while they are still malleable, not a label limiting their future to a life of crime. Some can’t be helped. They graduate to become problems for Jake and Mike. If they’re shooting hoops, they’re not shooting drugs. What do you think?”
    “I think it’s a great idea,” said Mike. “Too many of these kids come from families with no fathers. The police can’t be male role models for them. The city still looks burned out after the race riots last year, and too many kids are taught that police are their enemies.”
    After telling the story of how we met yet another time, with a few more embellishments, the banter was light over drinks and dinner. Both ladies gently admonished Mike and me about our morbid interest in visiting the scores of civil-war battlefields from Gettysburg south into central Virginia.
    Karen and Lily drifted toward the kitchen, and we headed into the living room. The picture window was stunning and kept so clean that birds routinely flew into it and broke their necks. The gardener disposed of them quickly to minimize Karen’s knowledge of the problem. Although Karen lived in a world with little pain, she understood life outside the bubble. She had a tough streak alongside her humanity, which helped me stay grounded in a daily routine where the radio ensured we stayed focused on human cruelty.

Chapter 7
Steelworkers in Paradise
    Washington, D.C., June 1969
    Sergeant Townsen put Brinson and me on the power shift from 6:00 p.m. to 2:00 a.m., walking beats three and four. Beat two ends at the Zombies where beat three begins, heading north on Georgia Avenue. We stopped briefly in the Zombies, said a few “hellos,” and headed north. We passed one of the few Chinese restaurants in the area. Cops in uniform who wanted a free meal could enter on the side and be served whatever food they brought out – no menu. Those wanting to choose their meal entered the front door, received a menu, and paid like any other patron.
    It seemed unusually quiet. Brinson remarked, “Welfare checks don’t arrive for another few days. So, they’re short on liquor and don’t feel much like fighting yet.” I smiled at his cynical analysis, but there was some truth in it.
    We had pulled the top box and turned to walk south when Brinson announced, “I’m bored. This is supposed to be the power shift.”
    “Well,” I countered, “it proves we’ve done our job. Stopped crime along our beat.”
    Brinson smiled.
    “Brinson, did you notice that table of rough-looking guys who were still in the Zombies when we made our social call at the beginning of the shift?”
    We exchanged glances.
    “Yeah I did. Are we thinking the same thing?”
    “Uh huh. Let’s pick up the pace a little to see if they have left quietly. If not, we may need back up.”
    We heard raised voices as we walked in the door. The manager, Susan, and Big Carol were in a heated discussion. Susan, a bear dyke with a jagged scar down one cheek and two missing front teeth, chain-smoked and served liquor, always trying to stay out of the bar’s internal politics. She was civil, but brusque with the cops who came in after hours to drink. The argument centered on how to handle the roughnecks, the steel-workers from Pittsburgh. All of the dykes and a few femmes had gathered around the back table to make their views clear. One femme seethed that the, “Motherfucker pulled me into his chair, ripped open my blouse, and fondled my breasts.”
    Susan wanted to call the cops. Carol countered that they needed to settle these troubles themselves. “If we call the cops, it sends the