THE NEXT DAY, FATHER FLEW TO ATLANTA to attend the real funeral service, the one with the coffin and the crowd. Mama and I watched it on television. Mama’s hands twisted against each other as we watched. She was going to get wrinkles from all that wringing.
Stick was out.
I couldn’t stand being in the house either, so I went looking for Maxie. The streets were still a mess. A lot of stores were closed. Others had nailed sheets of plywood or metal in place of missing windows. The gutters, a mess of glass and garbage. If anything beautiful had ever existed here, it was long gone. Gone from people’s eyes, and from the very air they breathed. Only the ugliness remained. The only tangible mood was as a swirling drain, sucking away any remnants of hope. The stink of ashes lingered in the humid air. People moved like shadows. The rain-cloud sky painted everything an uncertain gray.
An elderly couple swept up broken glass and debris along the sidewalk in front of their barbershop/beauty parlor. The woman dragged the thin broom with slow, deliberate strokes. The man bent low, holding a sheet of cardboard as a dustpan for her. I slowed, because I felt sure he would crumple to the ground. But he straightened, balancing the cardboard long enough to dump the load into a trash bin. He sighed with accomplishment while she readied a new pile, then he bent again into their slow waltz of sorrow. I should have stopped to help them, but I couldn’t let myself do more than see.
I found Maxie sitting with a group of girls in front of her building. She leaped to her feet when she saw me, breaking away from her friends.
“I have to get away from here,” she said, gazing up at me with eyes that were holding back tears. I hugged her, partly because I didn’t want her to see the shame I suddenly felt. I was glad I’d come, but I’d been selfish, thinking only that Maxie would make me feel better. Things must have been even worse for her. I hated seeing the neighborhood in shambles, but it wasn’t my home.
Maxie and I went down to the park near the school. She took my hand as we walked, her soft fingers gripping the edges of my palm. Neither of us had much to say. We sat on a thin metal bench and watched squirrels dart between the budding trees.
“Raheem is with the Panthers now,” she said at last.
“I thought he always was.”
“It’s different now.” She pushed her hair over her shoulders, her fingers twisting through the curled black strands. “It’s just different.”
“Yeah.” Stick had been gone more than ever lately. The house was quiet, everything in it a reminder of things now lost.
Maxie rolled her lips in and out. “I’m really afraid now, Sam,” she whispered. “Are you?”
“A little,” I admitted. She leaned her head against my chest and I laid my arm over her shoulders. “I don’t know what’s going to happen.”
“What does your dad say?”
I sighed. “He thinks nothing’s changed. ‘All the more reason to press forward.’ ‘We shall—’” I couldn’t say it.
The top of Maxie’s head brushed against my chin. “We shall overcome?”
“Yeah, that.”
Maxie pulled away from me. “There’s a meeting on Wednesday.”
The thousand thoughts swarming inside me cried out in unison at her soft words. I took her hands. “I’ll be there.”
Right away, I regretted walking into the house. Father and Stick stood at opposite sides of the dining table, heaving deep breaths and glowering at each other. Stick wore his black jacket, his shades resting on top of his head. Mama was in the kitchen, not slicing the vegetables laid out on the counter. She looked through the doorway at me as I came into the living room.
“How can you not be angry?” Stick shouted.
“Of course I’m angry. You know how I feel—felt—about Martin. What’s been done is utterly reprehensible. But we have to go on.”
“Go on with what?” Stick cried out.
“You’ve got to hold on to that anger, son.” Father leaned forward, hands balled in fists at his chest. “Let it burn, let it fan the flames of your will, your determination. The movement is bigger than one man, Steven. Martin would tell you that.”
Stick took off his shades and slung them onto the table. They clattered along the wood and came to rest against Father’s newspaper.
“It’s over,” Stick said. “Everyone knows it.”
“You don’t stop fighting because of a setback, even this one. If anything, it’s a reason to keep going.” Father’s voice vibrated with intensity.
“I’m not saying stop; no one is saying stop,” Stick cried, throwing out his arms. “I’m talking about putting up a real fight.”
“We are fighting, son. It’s a long road.”
Stick grabbed the sides of his head, digging his fingers into his hair. “It’s not happening. Dr. King tried the peaceful way. They came back at him with bullets. They brought this war on us! It’s time to fight back.”
Father shook his head. “No son of mine is getting mixed up in that.”
Stick leaned forward, planting his fists on the tabletop. His eyes bored into Father’s. “Then I ain’t your son.” The words dropped from his lips like boulders.
“Don’t talk back to me,” Father said, his voice rising. “I don’t want to hear—”
“I’m a Panther.” Stick broke through Father’s tirade with a calm breath.
Father sucked in his belly, sucked back the words that would have come next. “Not in my house,” he said instead.
Stick lifted his fists from the table and stepped back. Father lowered himself back into his chair. They stared at each other. The clock didn’t tick. My heart didn’t beat. Mama pressed her hips against the counter.
Stick lifted his shades from the dining table and slid them over his eyes. Father sat still, a carved, immovable statue. Stick crossed the living room without a sound and without a glance in my direction. I tried to call his name, but my voice caught in my throat.
Stick slammed the door, and I knew what forever sounded like.
I let go of the couch and raced after him. I caught him at the end of the driveway and ran in front, stopping him with my hand against his chest.
“What are you doing?” I yanked the glasses off his face. Stick glared at me as he lifted them right back out of my hand. He held out his arms, the shades dangling from his fingers.
“I’m leaving. It’s about time, anyway. Get back inside before he kicks you out too.”
“He’s not kicking you out. You can’t leave. Where you gonna go?”
“I got places.” Stick pushed forward, past me.
I grabbed his arm. “What about me? You can’t do this.”
“I don’t have a choice anymore, Sam.”
“You always have a choice.” Father’s words, coming out of my mouth.
“We both know that’s a lie.” He tugged out of my grip. “The truth is, you do what you have to do.” Stick slipped on his shades, tapped the side of my arm with his fist, then walked away.
I didn’t know how to follow him this time. I’d been standing too still for too long. Stick didn’t look back. Once he turned the corner, I backed up the driveway, my eyes locked on the place I’d last seen him before he disappeared.
I walked back into a different house. I pushed through the stillness, like a blur in a slow-motion picture.
Mama stood in the kitchen doorway, arms at her sides, loosely clutching a vegetable knife in her fingers. She stared at me with dry eyes. Father and Mama watched me come in alone, but neither of them asked after Stick. The silence seemed unbreakable. As I closed the door, the soft click of the latch exploded in the air. Mama jumped as if it had been a gunshot. The knife slid to the ground with a sharp ping against the tile.
Without another word, Father laid his head down on the table and wept. The sound of it shook every part of me. I clutched the doorknob in my fist, leaned my back against the cool wood. The order of the universe had changed.