Chapter 17.

Frank retreated to his cubbyhole and pulled out a map, his gaze flitting between it, the cityscape, and his guard assignment. After estimating their location as precisely as he could sans surveyor’s equipment, he powered up the large, heavy hand radio. After Cent Com verified his identity from the daily codebook, Frank summoned close air support and tanks to their location: forty-one degrees, thirty-four minutes north, eighty-one degrees, thirty-eight minutes west. He cautioned the signaler about how close the Partisans were to the Maquis—um, Vandals.

The signaler gave Frank a seven-minute ETA for the flyboys, and ten to fifteen for the mechanized calvary. “We heard Hough’s hotter than hell tonight. You and the boys, hold tight, soldier, and stay alive. That’s an order. Over and out.”

Laughing, Frank cut the juice, holstered the bulky radio, leaned forward, catching Zac’s eye, and signaled thumbs up, flashing seven fingers. Zac nodded, understanding, and disappeared behind the bar’s front facade, passing the word.

A few seconds later, Zac returned and Frank settled in. The bar’s rear remained silent. But chanting Vandals surged across Hough, storming the club’s far side. Zac rushed into the fray, ordering Frank to stay, abandoning him to watch both sides of the alley.

Not smart.

A flash caught Frank’s eye, and his heart skipped a beat. He steeled as a dozen colored men rushed his position. Heart pounding, Frank raised his gun, reckoning he couldn’t hold them off with his pea-shooter, but he aimed, doing his duty, protecting Club Seventy-Nine.

The Maquis—um, Vandals—evidently couldn’t distinguish a twenty-two from a carbine, because they turned tail, hands raised in surrender. But one threw a lit Molotov cocktail in a high, arcing spiral worthy of Terry ‘Fucking’ Bradshaw.

The firebomb crashed into the front edifice, the glass bottle shattering. The bomb proved a dud, though, its gasoline splattering unlit across the wall, front windows, and sidewalk, its pungent chemical scent scorching Frank’s nostrils. He dashed after the retreating Vandals, stopping as he hit the edge of the sidewalk, wavering between pursuit and manning his post, protecting this vital interest.

A soldier to the end, he stopped. Orders were orders. No sense losing his head, rushing off to leave an exposed flank.

He drifted back towards Club Seventy-Nine because Zac deployed Frank to protect their flank, and he vowed to follow through, though what made a dive bar a “vital interested” eluded Frank. His brow furled, he hunkered down, watching the alley, and wondered about the muckety-muck’s so-called strategy.

Zac once again changed course, dashing across the street after Terry ‘Fucking’ Bradshaw and his crew, the slovenly Private behind him. As they ran, they emptied their rifle clips, luckily hitting no Maquis—um, Vandals.

Frank groaned. What was it with him getting loopy?

Anyway, the guerillas had disappeared behind a narrow brownstone triplex and melted into the nearby alleys and backyards. Frank thanked God Zac’s crew had shot no one.

I mean, firing like blind fools….

Frank gulped, knitting his brow, and his heart leaped in his chest.

But wait. They were firing on the Enemy, right?…

The battle’s heated action cut short his reflections, though. He had no time, with an enemy storming their stronghold, so he held his post. Zac leaped back into the fray, again abandoning Frank to guard the alley alone.

Frank sucked his teeth in disgust. Despite outranking him, Zac was no soldier. He didn’t stand pat but ran from fray to fray like a decapitated chicken.

Idiot.

Something scorched Frank’s cheek. He leaped back, his eyes bugging.

Fire!

The Molotov had worked, after all.

Frank plowed through the door, fishing a hefty red fire extinguisher from behind the bar, and returned, blasting the burning wall with foam, suppressing the blaze. The bartender Jon trailed behind, his eyes wild with rage, saying, “Fucking animals.”

With a roar of engines, the fly-boys zoomed over the horizon, raining bombs on the enemy position. The alleys and residential area bordering Hough Avenue exploded into balls of flame. Vandal guerillas retreated. As the explosions knocked houses and apartment buildings askew, unarmed civilians flooded from the burning buildings: men, women, and children, some cradling babies or aiding elderly and handicapped people.

With another, quieter pop, the lights flickered and went dark.

Gazing at the damage, Frank’s heart fell. Dozens of poor, working people watched their life’s paltry possessions going up in flames. He felt their pain.

Though he’d been lucky, surviving okay, he remembered the Depression. The O’Brien clan had diddly squat for five years, which was the pits. His father dug ditches for farmers in rural Perry when the construction trades dried up, earning pennies instead of dollars, and his mother cleaned houses for Shaker Heights muckety-mucks: doctors, lawyers, and whatnot. And he remembered Uncle Sheamus, the Teamster, dumping bundles of Cleveland Press papers for Frank to deliver on a semi-official route he’d somehow pilfered from the company. Unlike other paperboys, Frank and his uncle split all the money: nothing for the company, nothing for the union, every cent going to feed their families.

A scam, maybe. Illegal, probably. But Frank didn't care. They had grumbling bellies that needed filling. Period. That's all that mattered.

These folks milling like zombies, dazed by the flames, were like his folks. Hardworking regular people trying their best to raise, feed, clothe and house their families.

But….

He shook his head, thinking of the burning Caddie, the graffiti, and the firebomb he’d put out. Vandals were guilty of these crimes, and the citizens pouring from the rubble provided them aid and succor. He hadn’t, his folks hadn’t, but these animals had, deserving every dessert the Partisans served them, cold.

Fuck them. Friends of my enemy are my enemies.

Next, the calvary rolled in. Twelve Sherman tanks, decorated with the Cleveland Police Department’s insignia and promise to ‘PROTECT AND SERVE’, thundered up Hough Avenue. With mechanical precision, they fanned out between Club Seventy-Nine and the torched grocery, forming a border between the violent Vandal mob and valiant Partisan heroes. As if a single machine, they turned their turrets towards the fleeing people and opened fire. The people scrambled for cover behind cars, rubble, or even inside burning buildings, weighing danger against danger.

As if enraptured by the destruction, Zac drifted towards Frank and clapped him on the back. In the orange glow of the flames, Zac resembled a demonic jack-o’-lantern, from rictus grin to hollow eyes. He said, “That showed them Goddamned firebombers what we’re made of, eh soldier? Kill ‘em all, let God sort ‘em out is what I say.”

Frank pulled back, mortified. “But they’re women, children, and old people... And they’re Americans…” Frank drifted off, his head and heart swirling cyclones of conflicting thoughts and emotions.

Zac scoffed. “Subhuman scum. Look at the squalor they live in. Americans my ass, they’re animals.”

Before Frank could respond, a raging wind almost knocked him on his ass. Zac wasn’t so lucky and fell, the gale pushing him into the alley. Frank covered his ears as a roar louder than a hundred thunderclaps boomed.