You Could Tell He Was a Man Who Didn T Let Fear Get to Him

You could tell he was a man who didn’t let fear get to him.

A man who always had hope.

Men like him, they went down fighting. Even though I was a soldier too, I wasn’t like
him. Fought for my country in World War Two and expected that to mean something. I thought being black, at some point wouldn't matter, back when I didn't understand what people would do to you for such trivial reasons.

I was never like him because I could fight that urge to resist. A real soldier never stops
fighting, no matter the threat to his life, no matter how great the enemy.

After World War Two I returned to being a shell of myself. Funny, how I felt more human surrounded by the dank smell of weak old corpses.

Returning back, seeing the colored water fountains
and the children I had to call sir while they called me boy, that strength I found left me. It
almost made me miss the fear of war.

This man, though, this man was a soldier, through and through. His eyes shined with a
defiance I hadn’t seen in myself for a long time.

This man - I was going to call him Steel Eyes, because that was his most defining
characteristic - looked like he was going to do something dangerous. Steel Eyes was less
steel and more explosion right now, ready to go supernova on everyone surrounding him.

Deftly and carefully, I maneuvered myself through the large crowd, getting closer and
closer to Steel Eyes to see what he was up to. His eyes were hyper focused on a sign right
in front of him, posted on the fancy bathroom near this train station. “No Coloreds Allowed.”

He couldn’t possibly - they would- I had to stop him. Half run, half walking through the
pavilion I reached him just before his hand was able to tear off the sign from above.

“Do you know what they’ll do to you?” I was sweating profusely, pleading the man to move so we looked less suspicious.

"Do you know what's already been done to me?" He whispered, fiercer than I ever thought possible.
"There’s always something to live for,” I stuttered. “Think about-"

"I am thinking. Thinking more than I ever have. Thinking more than I'm allowed to think."
"Don't do this."
"Why not?" Steel Eyes looked more murderous than ever.
"I fought so hard. I watched my friends, the people I worried about, the people I loved, die. I watched as everything I ever believed in about my country shattered. You want me to act like nothing happened. You want me to become a shell of myself, for a country that doesn't care about me. Look around. Do you think in the end this will actually change anything?"
The people milling around us, white black, brown, seemed focused on their own lives. Too busy for anything else.
"But I will go down fighting. It's how I was born. It's who I am. The war may be be over for America, but the war for my rights is not. It may never be. What are you going to do about it?"
"I'm sorry." Steel Eyes was livid now. "Fight for me."
He simultaneously pushed me away and pulled off the sign. I ran as quickly as possible in the opposite direction, hearing screams and shouts of surprise from afar. I begin to see policemen rush in that direction, wondering what the disturbance was.

It wasn't until later that I heard the gunshots.
Even later then that when someone recounted to me what had happened.
A man standing by the bathroom had unloaded an entire clip of bullets inside Steel Eyes.
When Steel Eyes tried to get away, the police hunted him down. Apparently the chief of police placed a bullet in his head and set him to peace, and a small riot ensued. The black members of it were quickly executed or lynched.
But even knowing all that, that is not what I remember. I don't remember the fear of running away or the anger in Steel Eyes. I don't remember the sweat or the bathroom sign or even the sound of the final bullet.
I remember what his eyes looked like. Black ovals with more color than blue eyes could possibly have. In his eyes, I saw hope.
That's all I needed.