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Some of the younger men fought back. Half a dozen real policemen moved into the crowd. They did nothing to restrain the factory police, but began to arrest anyone fighting back.
The guard who had started the fracas fell to the ground, and two demonstrators started kicking him.
Woody took a picture.
Joanne was screaming with fury. She threw herself at a guard and scratched his face. He put out a hand to shove her away. Accidentally or otherwise, the heel of his hand connected sharply with her nose. She fell back with blood coming from her nostrils. The guard raised his nightstick. Woody grabbed her by the waist and jerked her back. The stick missed her. "Come on!" Woody yelled at her. "We have to get out of here!"
The blow to her face had deflated her fury, and she offered no resistance as he half-pulled, half-carried her away from the gates as fast as he could, his camera swinging on the strap around his neck. The crowd was panicking now, people falling over and others trampling them as everyone tried to flee.
Woody was taller than most and he managed to keep himself and Joanne upright. They fought their way through the crush, staying just ahead of the nightsticks. At last the crowd thinned out. Joanne detached herself from his grasp and they both began to run.
The noise of the fight receded behind them. They turned a couple of corners and, a minute later, found themselves on a deserted street of factories and warehouses, all closed on Sunday. They slowed to a walk, catching their breath. Joanne began to laugh. "That was so exciting!" she said.
Woody could not share her enthusiasm. "It was nasty," he said. "And it could have gotten worse." He had rescued her, and he half hoped that might cause her to change her mind about dating him.
But she did not feel she owed him much. "Oh, come on," she said in a tone of disparagement. "Nobody died."
"Those guards deliberately provoked a riot!"
"Of course they did! Peshkov wants to make union members look bad."
"Well, we know the truth." Woody tapped his camera. "And I can prove it."
They walked half a mile, then Woody saw a cruising cab and hailed it. He gave the driver the address of the Rouzrokh family home.
Sitting in the back of the taxi, he took a handkerchief from his pocket. "I don't want to bring you home to your father looking like this," he said. He unfolded the white cotton square and gently dabbed at the blood on her upper lip.
It was an intimate act, and he found it sexy, but she did not indulge him for long. After a second she said: "I've got it." She took the handkerchief from his grasp and cleaned herself up. "How's that?"
"You've missed a bit," he lied. He took the handkerchief back. Her mouth was wide, she had even white teeth, and her lips were enchantingly full. He pretended there was something under her lower lip. He wiped it gently, then said: "Better."
"Thanks." She looked at him with an odd expression, half fond, half annoyed. She knew he had been lying about the blood on her chin, he guessed, and she was not sure whether to be cross with him or not.
The cab halted outside her house. "Don't come in," she said. "I'm going to lie to my parents about where I've been, and I don't want you blabbing the truth."
Woody reckoned he was probably the more discreet of the two of them, but he did not say so. "I'll call you later."
"Okay." She got out of the taxi and walked up the driveway with a perfunctory wave.
"She's a doll," said the driver. "Too old for you, though."
"Take me to Delaware Avenue," Woody said. He gave the number and the cross street. He was not going to talk about Joanne to a goddamn cabby.
He pondered his rejection. He should not have been surprised: everyone from his brother to the taxi driver said he was too young for her. All the same it hurt. He felt as if he did not know what to do with his life now. How would he get through the rest of the day?
Back at home, his parents were taking their ritual Sunday afternoon nap. Chuck believed that was when they had sex. Chuck himself had gone swimming with a bunch of friends, according to Betty.
Woody went into the darkroom and developed the film from his camera. He ran warm water into the basin to bring the chemicals to the ideal temperature, then put the film into a black bag to transfer it into a light-trap tank.
It was a lengthy process that required patience, but he was happy to sit in the dark and think about Joanne. Their being together during a riot had not made her fall in love with him, but it had certainly brought them closer. He felt sure she was at least growing to like him more and more. Maybe her rejection was not final. Perhaps he should keep trying. He certainly had no interest in any other girls.
When his timer rang he transferred the film into a stop bath to halt the chemical reaction, then to a bath of fixer to make the image permanent. Finally he washed and dried his film and looked at the negative black-and-white images on the reel.
He thought they were pretty good.
He cut the film into frames, then put the first into the enlarger. He laid a sheet of ten-by-eight photographic paper on the base of the enlarger, turned on the light, and exposed the paper to the negative image while he counted seconds. Then he put the paper into an open bath of developer.
This was the best part of the process. Slowly the white paper began to show patches of gray, and the image he had photographed began to appear. It always seemed to him like a miracle. The first print showed a Negro and a white man, both in Sunday suits and hats, holding a banner that said BROTHERHOOD in large letters. When the image was clear he moved the paper to a bath of fixer, then washed it and dried it.
