screaming accusations of city-wide racism. Darnel Watts’ death was but a single match that lit the great fire of misplaced discontent – discontent that had turned violent and now attempted to make its way into the Phan family store.
One of the store windows was now exposed as the plywood that had covered it was finally torn away. The crowd outside roared its excited approval as a large rock burst through the glass, the cacophony of their oddly screeching cheers resembling something far more animalistic than human.
Once the rest of the glass had been broken away from the window frame the dark face of a teenaged boy emerged from outside to peer into the gloom of the store’s interior.
“Please…don’t come in here.”
Linh Phan held his pistol in front of the young man’s face.
“Tell them all to go away and leave us alone.”
The face withdrew as suddenly as it had appeared.
“There’s some old man in there with a gun! Say he’s gonna kill us all!”
The gathered mob howled its disapproval and then pummeled the side of the store with more rocks. Then the chaos outside suddenly grew quiet as Lu watched his father turn to him with an expression he had never before seen on the old war veteran – fear.
“Lu, get down!”
The unmistakable sound of semi-automatic gunfire erupted around both father and son as they fell to the floor of the shoe store. This was followed by yet more aggressive cheering from outside.
Another face looked inside the store and then another. Lu scrambled to stand so he could face the open window with the shotgun raised. Linh Phan was slower to get up, but as he did so he made certain to intentionally put himself between his son and the window.
“Father, get out of the way!”
Linh looked back at his son and motioned with his left hand for Lu to lower the weapon. Lu had no choice but to do so, knowing that if he was to fire he would hit his father.
The same face that had first looked through the broken window into the store had returned. The young man’s eyes were shining with drug and alcohol-fueled excitement. When those eyes fell upon the elderly Vietnamese store owner they widened noticeably, surprised to see the old man still standing guard even after the gunfire.
“You got a death wish, old man? We gonna come in here and take what we wanna take!”
Linh Phan stood his ground, his gun once again pointed at the younger man’s head.
“I said don’t come in here. Please leave.”
The black man’s eyes narrowed as he considered Linh’s implied threat and then his mouth widened into a wolfish grin.
“You ain’t gonna do shit, old man.”
Linh Phan again pleaded with the would-be trespasser as the young man began to pull himself through the open window.
“Please don’t do that. Please go back outside.”
The black man pointed at the old man and snarled his response.
“I’m gonna kill you.”
A single gunshot reverberated inside the shoe store’s interior. The bullet entered the upper half of the teenager’s skull, sending blood-wet fragments of bone and brain matter spraying behind him.
Tears formed at the corners of Linh Phan’s eyes as he looked down at the motionless body of the young man he had just killed that lay partway inside the store window. Lu stood in shocked silence behind his father as he struggled to comprehend the finality of a life just ended.
And then the screams outside began again though this time all semblance of humanity and understanding had left them.
“They killed him! They killed him!”
Linh Phan shuffled backwards away from the window as several hands grasped the dead man’s legs and pulled the body back outside. The old man turned to his son with eyes that held the truth of what he knew would be the inevitable reaction of the mob outside.
“Lu, go upstairs and lock the door. Keep yourself and your mother safe for as long as you can.”
Lu Phan moved out from behind the counter as he shook his head.
“No, I’m staying here with you, Father. You had to kill that man! You had no choice!”
The war veteran knew there was little time for argument. His eyes flared with anger and fear as he pointed to the stairs in the back of the store that led to the apartment on the second floor.
“Lu, I am not asking. Go upstairs NOW! You must try and keep your mother safe.”
Linh watched Lu wipe tears from his eyes as he ran to the back of the store while holding the shotgun at his side. Before Lu began to climb the stairs he paused to look back at his father. Linh Phan offered his son a faint, sad smile, and then realizing it would likely be the last time Lu saw him alive, the former military officer straightened his posture as any remnants of fear left his face, replaced by the proud and calm assurance of a man fully prepared to die so that his family might yet live.
“I could not be more proud of you, my son. I love you.”
Lu climbed the stairs three at a time, ran into the apartment and locked the door behind him. Then he waited.
His father’s gun fired eight more times followed by a brief and terrible silence and then the sound of a single gunshot from a weapon Lu knew was not from his father’s weapon.
The triumphant, savage shouts of the mob re-emerged as the sounds of looting echoed from the first floor below as he recalled his father’s final request.
You must try and keep your mother safe.
Lu Phan heard footsteps coming up the stairs to the apartment. He glanced behind him toward his parent’s bedroom where his cancer-weakened mother remained in bed.
Voices could be heard muttering at the top of the stairs. The door handle turned slowly and then rattled as someone suddenly grasped it violently from the other side.
And then the entire door frame shook from being hit by a shoulder attempting to break it down. Lu could hear more cheering from the street below as the sounds of breaking glass from another nearby building echoed across the warm Chicago summer night.
The apartment door groaned as it was hit again and then again. Lu heard the sickening sound of wood splintering. The door wouldn’t hold. Soon they would be inside the home.
Lu pointed the shotgun in front of him just a few feet from the apartment entrance and waited, surprised and grateful for how calm he felt in the presence of such terrible danger.
He knew those on the other side of the door had just killed his father and he was fully prepared to make them pay for having done so.
The left side of the door frame broke apart. Lu’s right pointer finger felt the cool metallic touch of the shotgun trigger as he decided then the time had come.
America’s race wars had begun.
He fired.
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