Mama Black Widow by Iceberg Slim Read Free Book Online

while.
    Then a newscaster started a recap of the day’s news. I couldn’t believe his words. I leaped off the bed and stood holding my breath.
    He said it again loud and clear, “Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. has been murdered by a sniper on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis.”
    I understood why the streets were so quiet and black faces were so solemn and angry. The shock of the terrible news was just too much for my already chaotic mind. I cried and ran blindly in the darkness crashing myself into the furniture like a stricken animal.
    I listened to the radio pouring out the sorrow and anger of America. Dozens of times during the lonely night I went to the window and tried to argue myself across the sill to the concrete four stories down. Each time I could feel some frightful force inside me pulling to propel me through the window. It was a deadly struggle to snatch myself away. I knew that if I didn’t stop going to that window I would certainly give in to the horrible impulse that got stronger and stronger.
    Finally at daybreak I took two sleeping pills. I certainly had a desperate need for sleep because it was late afternoon when I woke up to a news bulletin that burning and looting had started on the Westside.
    I was no longer confused. Mama was alone over there. It was true that she could become unbearable with her possessiveness, but she needed me, and I loved her. The least I could do was stay with her until the rioting was over. Besides, I knew I’d be better off with Mama than keeping company with that magnetized window.
    I called Mama twice, but her line was busy. It was dusk when I checked out. As I drove toward the Westside, I thought how heartless and stupid it was for the rioters to dishonor the philosophy and death of our leader.
    I drove slowly along the 3200 block of West Madison Street. The keening scream of distant fire engines and the hoarse ecstasy of the looters and burners was like baleful music.
    Twisting fat flames hula-danced from the tops of gutted buildings. Uneasy policemen stood in the bursts of red light with phony indifference on their faces as the looters crawled through the black window frames into the murky interiors of stores and came out with stacks of flashy finery.
    Kinky-topped infants, some no more than five years old, skipped merrily from the sacked stores with their parents. Their tiny black faces lit up in the excitement and joy of the shiny baubles they clutched.
    Just ahead in the 3300 block, I saw a fire engine straddling the street pumping streams of water into a flaming building and heard the pop of rioters’ pistols sniping at firemen.
    I turned off Madison Street into an alley. I came out on Spaulding Avenue, and there, twenty feet away, was a lone white policeman in the middle of the street.
    I parked and walked to the outer edge of a crowd spotlighted by the headlights of a police car. The cop was in the center of the horde cut off from his cruiser.
    The revolving red dome light flashed eerily on the cop’s starch white face paralyzed in fear and shock. His mouth gaped open stupidly, and his sea blue eyes spun crazily.
    The leader of the cursing mob was larger than Big Lovell, and his kinky hair seemed to stand on end as he thrust his angry black face to within inches of the cop’s face. The whites of his black eyes glowed in released madness, and his wide nostrils dilated in hatred.
    I goose pimpled and stood there fascinated.
    The heavy blue black lips pulled back from the brown teeth in a grinning snarl. He slapped the slack mouth and shouted into the face of his enemy. “You got a gun, chickenhearted motherfucker. Use it. All you bastards are cunts when the odds ain’t in your favor.”
    The cop just stood there with that awed look of fear on his face. Then the black giant in a deft rapid stroke snaked the cop’s gun from its holster. He palmed it in his massive right hand. He twisted his wrist to a