Prologue

The Chase

    
“Get ‘em!” growled a gravelly voice over a squawking radio.  A cop car swung toward me and two exploding headlights blinded me in the gray-black night. Rubber burned and screeched on the pavement and the monster jumped the curb.  Blazing fireballs blotted out the darkness. 

    
I was standing near Bruce and we took off across the lawn.  I  slipped on a patch of ice, quickly regained my balance, and dashed between a clump of nearby trees, hoping the car would crash into them.  I glanced over my shoulder and saw the wild beast swerve around the barriers and charge us again.  They’re trying to run us over!

    
My heart was screaming as we tore toward Main Street. We veered left onto the sidewalk and raced in front of a small building to a driveway.  Bruce, and then I, hooked our arms around a pole and boomeranged ourselves 90 degrees up the narrow lane. 

    
I immediately saw a solid wall of buildings on each side of us and a building in front. We’re trapped on a dead-end road!  Tires squealed so loudly behind me I thought I felt the bumper hit the back of my legs.  I leaped between two parked cars on my right and hit the ground.  It was pitch black around me.

    
Bruce was gone.  I was alone and had no where to run.  I clutched the baseball-sized rock that I pulled from my pocket and turned to face my attackers.  If they slammed on their brakes where I ducked in, I would throw the rock at the first cop as hard as I could, and try to escape down the alley to Main Street.  If I missed, they could kill me right there. 

    
Two cones of light raced along the pavement in front of me, the roaring engine reverberated off the nearby walls, and the front of their car zoomed into sight.  And kept going.  I couldn’t believe it!  I raced down the pavement to Main Street into the glare of the city lights.  Beads of steaming sweat rolled down my neck – even in the cold winter night air, and my throat was burning.  I looked around quickly and saw no one, felt a moment of relief, and then disappeared into the night.  It was March 1970 at the height of the Buffalo riots.  It was my closest call yet, but I had escaped again.

     
Four weeks later the snow had melted.  Little green buds appeared on the bony fingers of trees, and red, blue and yellow dollops popped up in nearby fields.  Life was reborn.  It was quiet and peaceful, as women and girls got out their finest dresses and bonnets for Easter.  But it was a calm before a much bigger storm.  Spring 1970.  It changed my life forever.