Kid Sheik ran over to the other side of the street as soon as he had heard the noise. He knew exactly what it was. I was right behind him. "Shit!" he said after we had crouched behind a car. "Seem like every parade there's some dude wants to play cowboy!"

Just then the shocked silence was broken by screams and everyone started to stampede away from the spot, as if the killer had gone beserk. A thousand people were running down the street at full speed. I heard another shot. Two. Three. More screams. Then the stampede stopped and people were beginning to gather around the wounded woman again. No one else had been hit. From the gestures of the people around the scene, I supposed that the gunman had run down a side street that angled off of Rampart St.

Suddenly a police car sped up to the crowd and jerked to a halt. A plump, middle-aged sergeant hopped out with his gun drawn and ran toward the crowd. Then another car drove up. Two officers got out and started running in the same direction. Then came two motorcycles, sirens wailing, two more cars, another motorcycle. Ten or fifteen policemen were running down the alley that the policemen disappeared into.

By now the crowd had recovered from the initial shock and was buzzing with excited chatter.

"Name was Shorty. I knows him."

"He just been got out of jail las' month."

"He always been mean, too. They got him, now. Back to jail."

"That girl hurt bad?"

"Got her in the leg!"

The band had moved down the street and started playing again to get the crowd away from the scene. I tried to catch up with them, but I was too exhausted to run. Then I saw a black parade cap just in front of me. It was Sammy Alcorn, calmly oiling the valves of his trumpet.

"Hey, man," I said. "I think I'm going to quit this parade. I don't like this stuff one bit."

"Don't worry 'bout that, man. They never bother with musicians."

"Yeah, but it's different with me. You know what I'm talking about."

"I know what you means, but I don't think it's that way. It ain't that way at all. I mean, this is just people fighting among themselves, you know? They get into arguments and all that foolishness. See, they got these little gangs, they always fighting one another. The guys from the ninth ward got their gang and they always splitting' skulls with the cats in this housin' project here, you know? Now, prob'ly the dude that did all the shootin' was from the projects and seen one of these ninth ward cats who'd just beat him to a pulp last week, something like that. So he goes home and gets his gun. Look like he missed, though. I don't think he meant to hit that girl."

"Yeah, and he could have hit me or you just as easily."

"Well, me, I'm used to this shit. You'll prob'ly see two or three more shootin's before this parade's over. But I grew up with this, man. It's just part of my life. There's always been shit like that going on around me. Cats gettin' cut to ribbons with knives, razors, guns, fightin.'"

"I'm not used to it at all. And I feel like a target. If some cat wants to shoot an ofey, I happen to be the only one around here. And I'm right in the middle of the parade the whole way."

"Well, I don't think it's like that at all. Besides, you just got to accept these things. For me, gettin' shot is a chance I got to take every day, the way my neighborhood is. It's a chance you got to take."

We had caught up with the band by then. Sammy started to blow his trumpet again, and the music went on. Everybody was so cool about the whole thing. It really was an everyday occurrence. Run your tail out of the way of the man with the gun, make sure he's not coming after you, then go on about your business. Today, their business was music, dancing and good times, and they went rolling right on. The second line reformed. They shouted, they danced, they bumped and ground. The trumpets blared, the clarinet soared, the bass drum throbbed, the trombones moaned. All like human voices--fine, rich human voices, singing out their eternal song of life and death as they marched on down the narrow brick street