Riot

My high school had quite a basketball tradition. We were the powerhouse of our conference, having won it for the entirety of the 60s. We had gone to the state championship back in 62, only to lose in the final game. When I was in 8th Grade we would go to the games in the gym, not being satisfied with a victory, but instead chanting We Want a Hundred, which, we sometimes got.

We had great teams in the mid 60s but some bad luck. In 65 a new school, Bridgewater Raritan Regional, had a kid named Mike Grasso who was 6-8, and altho our team had overall more talent, the new school with the big kid beat us in the regional final. And 66 and 67 should have been our years as well, except for a Weequahic team from Newark that sported a front line of 6-11, 6-10 and 6-9 and was No 1 in the country. It was said that the only team that could beat them was UCLA.

Nonetheless there was no reason to suspect that we would capture what we felt was our birthright again this year, 1968, the Shore Conference Championship.

But stuff went wrong.

First of all, our "new" school was built in 1959, and we had never lost a game there. But in 1968 it happened. The fact that it was an afternoon game, made necessary by the riots and fights in the football season, gave it a surrealistic air.

Then we lost in the Shore Conference tournament. For the first time in recent memory, some other school was the champ.

By the time the state tournament rolled around, no one thought we'd last very long.

But we won the first round game, then the sectional semi-final, and lo and behold, there we were, going to play Trenton, the team that surprisingly knocked us out in the sectional final the year before, for the sectional championship.

The bad news was, we were going to have to play them in Trenton. The state tournament, especially in the later rounds, was supposed to hold its games at neutral sites, but it so happened that the neutral site for the sectional final that year had been chosen as the Trenton Armory. We'd have to travel 40 miles, they'd have to roll out of bed.

In order to make things more supportive of our team, the school decided to run some buses of students to the game. There were going to be something like 5 or 6 buses of students going. The JV team got to go in the same bus as the varsity and cheerleaders, but we lowly freshman on the freshman team had to go with the general school population. I decided to go with a couple of friends.

The Sixties was an odd time in the sense that many places were in transition - economic transition, social transition, racial transition. Trenton, and old Revolutionary town cum old manufacturing town, was losing its European ethnic immigrant character and becoming more and more black. But right at that moment in time, Trenton Central was somewhat of a mirror image of the racial character of our HS - half black, half white.

Trenton was favored and had a top notch, all state player named something like Sandy Smith, but the game was close throughout. Smith had a great game, but it came down to the last minute. Ultimately and improbably, we prevailed.

Fans rushed the court in celebration, but off to my left, before I could get involved in the celebration, and ugly roar started up. As I mentioned earlier, riots have a way of spontaneously and suddenly materializing. You could see in the stands at midcourt a sort of movement of energy, compressing and then expanding. Heads turned in that direction. Adults started moving in that direction. Cops started moving in that direction. The riot, like a storm, suddenly defined its vortex, and it was as if bodies were being drawn involuntarily toward it, like debris in a tornado. Ironically, Trenton's team's nickname was the Tornadoes.

The times being the times, black kids sat with black kids and white kids with white, even tho we all came up on the same bus. So there were four blocks of student sections - white Neptune, white Trenton, black Neptune, black Trenton. At this point the movement was centered around the interstice of the two black sections, so it was not racial at all.

But then, even closer to me on my left, another roar went up. Where a moment ago the two white sections were stunned and silent on-lookers at the black on black fracas, now a louder, uglier roar went up in the white area. Pushing and shoving occurred. A second vortex developed, replete with shouting and flailing arms.

A wall of cops came rushing now at us. Whether it was instintual or the residue of my father's sage advice - when you see a cop, run the other way - I started scrambling down the stands and away from the centers of the storms. Since both rumbles were happening to my left, my friends and I started moving to our right. Actually, one of my friends, a friendly, likable but crazy guy, decided to go towards the center of the white storm, but the rest of us were beating a path to the exits on the right, onto the street and into the buses.

Since all available cops had converged on one or another of the fracases there were none by the exits. Nonetheless, all of "the old guys", ie, the adults who had come to see the game, were moving in an orderly fashion out of the doors and that helped move everyone who wanted to to get out without a fuss. There was some white on white shouting and instigation going on right outside the door, but the "guys in hats", as the adults were known as, were in greater number and succeeding in keeping the kids apart and moving along.

I looked over my shoulder back at the Armory floor. Cops were holding kids of both races, moving them involuntarily out of the center of the mess. In the black rumble it appeared that both sides were starting to unify against the police, at least verbally, while the white rumble still seemed all about fighting each other.

Fairly soon and without much incident, we were out of the Armory and onto the street. Our buses were lined up on the curb. Before we got out when we arrived we were told to remember the number of our bus so that we could get back on the same bus at the end, expediting and simplifying things. We walked quickly past bus after bus. Ours was the last one in the line.

By now things were kinda quiet and orderly, but while other kids were getting on their buses, ours had its door closed. This was odd, and one of the black students started banging calmly on the door to have the bus driver open it.

The energy of the riot inside the building may not have had much presence outside initially, but after waiting outside the bus for the doors to open all of a sudden one of those waves of energy passed thru and by us. Suddenly kids are racing by and the adults have started jogging. There is palpable tension in the air.

The black student in our crowd sees this and begins banging on the doors of the bus with greater urgency. Then the doors on the buses ahead of us close and they start pulling away. The kid is really upset at this, slamming the doors with his fists and banging against them with the full force of his body.

As I watch this suddenly many of the kids lined up to get into our bus start screaming and running the other way. I turn to see what they were so upset about. A wave of angry unknown kids is running towards us. I can see out of the corner of my eye that they have caught up with some of our guys and fighting has begun. But my eyes are by now focused on the immediate threat to me, a kid with a big afro coming right at me.

Stuff happens fast in riots. That's all I can say. You sit back in hindsight and ask yourself, why didn't you run away when the other kids did? Why did you turn around to see what was happening? Why did you just stand there when that kid was coming directly at you? All good questions, but they don't occur to you because stuff is happening lightning quick and you are drinking up, if unknowingly, the ambient tension and panic and violent energy in the air.

I was by now standing in the gutter in front of our bus, off the curb. The kid was coming at me from the side walk. I had no idea what I was going to do, what I could do. But here he came, lunging at me.

I don't know if he tripped or if the step down from the curb along with his velocity made him go lower than he had hoped, or whether he was trying to tackle me. But what I did was grab his hair on either side and kneed him in the face.

This was a good move in the sense that it immobilized him. I can't tell you if he was knocked out or what. I don't remember him saying anything or screaming or making any other kind of noise. I don't know if I recoiled or not. What I DO know is that I did not lose my balance. I was mobile and not in danger of an immediate counter attack.

For some reason, at that exact moment, the doors of the bus opened. I was one of the first to clamber up the stairs and into the bus. Fairly soon thereafter the other kids started running frantically onto the bus as well. The kid who had been banging on the doors and who looked like he might have been in a fight was shouting at the bus driver - Shut the doors! Shut the damn doors!

A wave of cops had swooped by, allowing our people to get onto the bus without being seriously accosted. All the seats were filled. The other buses had left awhile ago. Shut the door! Shut the damn door!

Finally, after what seemed to be hours, the driver shut the doors. But he didn't move the bus. What the hell are you waiting for?? For the first time the bus driver, a white guy with frizzy red hair and glasses in his 30s perhaps, spoke - I haven't been given the order to leave yet.

What?? While the black kid yelled at him, both for not leaving and for not opening the doors while "niggers' hearts are being cut out", a new threat arose. Out of the darkness a new wave of unknown kids rushed our bus, slamming into it and banging open handed on the windows. The bus driver began to open the doors but we shouted that they were not our kids, they were Trenton kids.

Next thing you know, the bus is rocking side to side as the Trenton kids start pushing on it. Move, damn it! But the bus driver is not moving! It's incredible, but here we are, the bus going to get tipped at any moment and this asshole is not popping the sucker in gear and getting out of there!

Panic spread, like the scene in Ben Hur when the ship is rammed and the galley slaves are trying to pull their chains out of the wood to escape drowning. I began thinking about whether it would be better to lean towards the side that was likely to hit the ground first, or towards the other side where the kids who were pushing us were so that when the bus tipped I'd be towards the top, able maybe to crawl out the window if only into the arms of our assailants.

Then yet another sudden surprising thing happened - a new wave of cops came, this time with dogs! The cops wailed away on the people pushing the bus with nightsticks while the dogs literally chewed some of the others off the bus. One cop rapped the windshield with his stick, gesturing vociferously for the bus driver to pull away and get moving. Finally, with dogs and nightsticks in our wake, our bus moved away and into the night.

The black kid who had been most vocal yelled and screamed at the bus driver for most of the hour long trip back. All of the kids joined in, white and black. We had no other adults on our bus - apparently the chapperones had gotten on other buses when ours wouldn't open up.

When we rolled back into town, still yelling and screaming at the bus driver, a lot of people had lined the main drag with their cars, beeping and cheering and giving our bus the thumbs up. Apparently they thought we were the team bus since we were rolling in long after the other student buses. This distracted us and kids started leaning out the windows, responding to the cheers.

When we got back to the HS I tried to stand up but my knee wouldn't bend. I had apparently injured it in some way and it had blown up to twice its normal size. Two of my friends (including the one crazy guy who had run TOWARDS the action) lifted me, one under each arm and helped me off the bus. It was clear that I could not walk the mile or so home, so they continued to help me along, all the way home.

Both of my parents were home when I got back. I remember how shocked they were when my friends carried me in. Don't worry, he's all right. Yeah, I'm all right. So what happened? WE WON! My father chatted with my friends about the game and the prospects of going to Atlantic City for the finals. My mother continued to fret that I might have broken something. I assured her that until I tried to stand up I didn't even know it was swollen.

The next day the swelling was gone but there was a bodacious bruise on my kneecap. I was ready for the finals.

But here it was, freshman year, and I had already been in two more riots than all my children, altogether have so far and hopefully would ever have. And still 3 years to go!

OH - !

So there it was, last practice of the season, in that dingy girls gym, where the white kids looked green and the black kids looked greener. Shooting around. We had a mediocre year, 13-9, very disappointing. I hadn't played in several games.

Shooting around...

So I'm just standing there, on the line, dribbling mindlessly while talking to some kid, and OH-!

It was like someone had stabbed me, in the mid back, on the right hand side. It literally took my breath away.

I felt like I couldn't breathe in, and since I had been inhaling, I couldn't breathe out. I tried, very tentatively, to sip in some more air. OH-!

I began to get a little worried, and clutched my side. Tried a small breath again - OH-!

The kid say, Hey, you all right, man?

I bent over, slightly panicked. You get that flight response, like, hey, you're in danger! Rather than just stand there, I let out what little air I could, and straightened out again, trying to gingerly inhale as I did so. This time no pain.

Yeah, yeah, I'm okay, just got a twinge or something. I resumed dribbling, but I'm sure I wasn't smiling. I pushed myself a bit, ran after my own rebound, went up to get it. Fine. Shot around some more. Fine.

I went thru the rest of the practice, wherein I played my now usual role as opponent straw man, without a hitch. Fine.

I more or less forgot about it. One of them things that just happens. Once, when I was 12, I was walking from the livingroom to the kitchen when I just felt my body let go - I just collapsed to the floor like a pile of bones. My mother, whom I was speaking to, came over, concerned. I was all right and got up, and went on with my day, and my life. Never happened again. So there was reason to believe that this was just one of those things.

Then, a few days later, I was walking down the hall to class and OH-! Again, I could not inhale without feeling like I was being stabbed. I did what had worked in the gym - I bent over, exhaling, and inhaled as I straightened up. No problem.

But I was shaken.

The season was over and the drinking continued. Everything was cool, except that during one CYO dance I did feel like my whole insides, towards the back of my body cavity, were seizing up. I could breathe fine, but bending over wasn't helping. I had learned that the best way to deal with being drunk was to focus all my remaining attentive powers at self control, to not let myself just "go with it". I was drunk, but I was now focused on what was happening. I was not nauseous or about to pass out - on the contrary, I was almost shocked into sobriety.

But something was up.

You're 15, nothing's ever happened that won't pass, so you figure, aah, just some weird shit...

But I knew, something was up.