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was broken. His right ankle was swollen so that both hands wouldn’t go around it. The worst pain was in his left eye. It was searing with pain and, when he felt it, the flesh was swollen like half an orange resting on his cheek. When he breathed through his nose, red bolts of hot torment cut through his eye. When he breathed through his mouth, the air over the exposed nerve of broken teeth sent different pain to his brain. Still, the mouth was better when he kept his tongue over the teeth.
    Hours passed before he began to focus on where he was and what had happened. He was hurt bad, but even worse was the knowledge that the beating and the hole were simply the down payment. In California he might be safe from lynching, but in 1927 a colored man who broke any white man’s jaw, much less a deputy sheriff, was in a serious mess. He remembered being eleven and asking his mother why white men were so cruel to colored people, especially to colored men. The reply surprised him: “They’re afraid of colored men. Lord God I wish they weren’t… ‘cause when somebody be ‘fraid, that’s when they hate and be vicious… out of fear. Don’t be scarin’ people, boy, an’ ‘specially don’ be scarin’ white men.” She’d told him that in Tennessee, and several times since he’d seen her words confirmed. He’d seen the white man’s fear, and the aftermath of that fear, the burned and blistered body tied to the tree. Booker knew the body was Big Luke’s, but not because the carcass was recognizable. The white men had feared Big Luke, all 6'4" and 240 pounds of him, and he showed his contempt of them. Even before he had left school, Luke stared at white women, and later began making lewd sounds. As Luke got bigger, he grew bolder – and scared them more. Until they were too scared and came for him at night in white robes. Mama told Booker: “Nigga’ was sayin’ ‘kill me, kill me’ his whole life, not in words, maybe, but in how he be actin’. You best take the lesson, boy.” Booker later wondered if that was really what she thought, or if the words were meant more to protect her only son from the danger of the rural South in the ‘20s. Luke’s lynching was one reason they moved to Los Angeles, a city without lynchings and with less prejudice, the term used for racism at the time.
    For six days Booker remained on the cold concrete in utter darkness. Every hour a jailer banged a big key on the outside of the steel door. He had to call out: “Okay in here, boss. “If he didn’t, they would open the door to check on him, and that was cause to stomp him some more. When he had missed the first time, they let it go with a threat; he never again failed to answer.
    For three days they opened the steel door before dawn and handed in six slices of soft white bread (the Sheriff’s wife owned the bakery that sold the bread to the County Jail) and a cardboard container with a quart of water. Off in the corner was a hole in the floor. It was hard to hit when he relieved himself in the darkness. The stench was awful until he became accustomed to it; by then he smelled it not at all. At first, when he heard scratching sounds, he had no idea what they might be; then something brushed against his foot and he jumped and yelled. It took a minute to realize it was a rat that had entered from the shit-hole in the floor.
    On the third day they brought the water but not the bread. At noon they opened the door and handed in a paper plate of macaroni.
    Mashed down on top was the ration of white bread, which he used to make sandwiches of the leftover macaroni, wrapping it in toilet paper.
    He heard nothing, but hours later when he reached for a sandwich he found it had been attacked by the rats. He ate what was left anyway.
    The next morning was back to the bread and water ration.
    In total blackness, seconds stretched out. He had no idea if it was noon or midnight. He tried to do pushups, but the bolt of pain was too great as it