I wasn’t good when the trouble started. Wasn’t particularly bad, either, but I had potential. See, Tulsa in 1921 was a town where boys like me roamed wild. Prohibition made Choctaw beer and corn whiskey more tempting than ever, and booze wasn’t near the worst vice available.

My friend Cletus Hayes grew up in a house two doors down from mine. His father was a bank executive muckety-muck with a brand-new Cadillac automobile and friends on the city council. For that reason alone, Mama and Pop generally let Clete’s knack for mischief slide. He and I got along fine eighty percent of the time, and kept each other’s company accordingly.

One thing we always did agree on was that misbehaving was best done in pairs. Plenty of the roustabout gangs running Tulsa’s streets would have taken us in, but I always figured the two of us were spoiled enough and maybe even smart enough to know the difference between hell-raising and causing real harm. Those gangs were chock-full of unemployed young men back from the Great War who’d come to Oklahoma looking for oilfield work down at the Glenn Pool strike. They’d seen bad things, done a few themselves, and liked showing off for locals. Problem was, the locals would try to one-up ’em, the roustabouts would take things a step further, and in the end, someone always spent the night in jail. That’s why Clete and me kept to ourselves. We weren’t angels, but we weren’t hardened or hollow, either. Of course, even fair-to-middling boys like us veered off the righteous path from time to time. Some worse than others.

I was only seventeen, but had the shoulders and five-o’clock shadow of a full-grown man. More than one girl at Tulsa Central High School had her eye on me, and that’s the truth. None of them stood a chance, though; Adeline Dobbs had stolen my heart way back in second grade, and the fact that she was a year older and the prettiest girl in school didn’t dampen my hopes of winning her in the least.

She was a beauty, Addie was; slim and graceful as prairie grass, with black hair and eyes like a summer sky. I dreamed about that girl, about her clean smell and the peek of her lashes underneath her hat brim. And I loved her for her kindness, too. Boys followed her about like pups, but she always managed to deflect their affections without wounding their pride.

For years I loved her from afar, and spent no small amount of energy convincing myself it was only a matter of time before she started loving me back. Maybe that’s why what happened at the Two-Knock Inn that cool March night tore me up so bad.

I was on my third glass of Choc and feeling fine when Addie arrived. Clete was there, too, dancing with a pretty, brown-skinned girl. For when it came to the fairer sex, a sweet smile and a pair of shapely legs were all it took to turn him colorblind. Not that it mattered at the Two-Knock. Jim Crow laws may have kept Negroes and whites separated in proper Tulsa establishments, but in juke joints and speakeasies out on the edge of town, folks didn’t care about your skin color near so much as they did the contents of your wallet.

The Two-Knock was a rough place, though. A place where girls like Addie didn’t belong. Even so, the sight of her coming through that door took my breath away. She was a vision: crimson dress, lips painted to match, eyes all wild and bright. Clete saw her, too, and made his way to my side after the song ended and poked me in the ribs, saying, “Lookee who just walked in!”

I didn’t have breath enough to respond, so Clete jabbed me again. Said, “What’re you waiting for, Will? Go talk to her!”

I wanted to. Lord, how I wanted to. But Addie was too good for the Two-Knock, and I couldn’t quite reconcile myself with her being there.

When I didn’t move, Clete rolled his eyes and socked me on the shoulder. Said, “This is it, dummy! If you don’t go over and buy her a drink, you’re the biggest jackass I know.”

To which I replied that Addie didn’t drink. And Clete snorted, “We’re in a speakeasy, knucklehead. She didn’t come for tea.”

I shrugged. Signaled the bartender for another glass of Choc and slugged most of it down soon as it arrived. Then I looked back at Addie and asked Clete if he really thought I should go over.

“Hell yes!” he said.

So I puffed up my chest like the big dumb pigeon I was and got to my feet. Which was when the front door opened, and everything changed.

The man who walked in was tall and handsome, muscled all over, and browner than boot leather. Something about him shone. Drew your eyes like he was the one thing in the world worth looking at. He only had eyes for Addie, though, and she gave him a smile like sunrise when he sat down beside her.

I dropped back onto the barstool.

“You better chase him off,” Clete said. But my throat was tight, and I only just managed to mumble, “Nothin’ I can do.”

“You kiddin’ me?” he said. “That boy’s out of line!”

I stayed quiet and stared at Addie’s pale hand perched atop the table. She and the man were talking. Smiling. Laughing. With every word, his fingers moved closer to hers.

Hate balled up inside me like a brass-knuckled fist. And when he slowly, slowly ran his fingertip across her skin, every foul emotion in the world churned deep down in the depths of my belly. Glancing sideways at a white woman was near enough to get Negroes lynched in Tulsa. Shot, even, in the middle of Main Street at noon, and with no more consequence than a wink and a nudge and a slap on the back. And God help me, that’s exactly what I wanted for the man touching my Addie.

I wanted him dead.