WHAT HAPPENED?” I SAID, KNEELING in front of the screen.
“They’re replaying it,” Mama said.
“Why do they do that?”
I stared at the television. I couldn’t see Father, but people in the crowd were screaming. They pressed closer, jostling the camera. Then the picture broke away and returned to a sound stage, where a reporter began droning. I listened, disbelieving. The man had had a knife, had stabbed Father, he said. His condition was unknown. The assailant had simply walked away in the confusion of the crowd. Hundreds of people around, dozens of police, and they let him walk away.
The law would not protect Father. They would always find a reason to strike down a black man, especially one with a sharp mind and a dangerous tongue. A man people listened to.
I touched the screen with my fingertips. Mama began to weep.
I went back to sit beside her. “Mama, we have to go to the hospital,” I said. “Let’s go.”
“Your father has the car,” she said, blotting her cheeks. “I thought you were with him. When I didn’t see you there”—she motioned at the screen—“I thought…” She dissolved into tears again.
I put my hands on her shoulders. “I’m here, Mama. I’m fine. We have to go.”
“Yes. We’ll take the bus,” she said. But she remained frozen in place, staring at the television. I brushed my hand over her hair. Mama was in no shape for public transportation, and I felt rather shaky myself.
“No, I’ll find someone to drive us,” I said.
I ran next door, but it didn’t look like anyone was home. I banged on the door, anyway. No answer. Two doors down, no answer. Why should there be? It was the middle of the day in the middle of the week. I scanned the driveways along the street, then dashed across the road to a house with a car parked out front.
I pounded on the door, but no one came. A curtain fluttered, or maybe it was my imagination, but no one answered. I thought about going around back, but the sound of cars behind me made me stop.
Two media vans sped down the street, pulled up in front of our house. They took cameras from the back and went up onto our porch. I abandoned my search and ran home. I dodged the reporters, ducked beneath their cameras, ignoring the questions they fired at me. I slammed the door in their faces.
“Mama?”
She stood just inside the door, waiting with her purse in hand. “Who’s here?” she said, looking over my shoulder. “Reporters?”
“No one’s home. We have to ride the bus after all.”
Mama went to the front window and looked out. A third press group had arrived. “No,” she said. “They’ll follow us.” The bus stop was three blocks away, and who knew how long we’d have to wait there.
“So? We have to go.”
“No.” She glanced over her shoulder, a fierce protective light in her eyes. “I’m not taking you out there.”
“But, Father—”
“Your father will be fine.”
I walked toward her. “He will? Did someone call? From the hospital?”
“I know my husband,” she said lifting her chin. “I know what he would want me to do.”
The doorbell startled me. It had buzzed nonstop for the last hour, but each ring made me jump. I wouldn’t answer. What did they want with us? Everyone knew Father’s face, of course, knew what had happened. If I opened the door, we would be on the evening news. I didn’t want Mama’s tears on television. Every time the phone rang, someone wanted a statement. I took it off the hook.
There had been no word of Father since the television said they’d taken him away in the ambulance. I tried to call the hospital, but they wouldn’t tell me anything over the phone. We had no car, no way to get there. Fred and Leon and Father’s other friends had been out at the demonstration. I had no way to reach anyone, not even Stick.
Mama sat beside me on the sofa, clinging to my hand. She leaned her head on my shoulder. The television hummed, a jingly ad for laundry soap.
“I’m going to turn it off,” I said, trying to pull away.
“We have to hear,” she murmured. I got chills. She’d said those words before.
A key turned in the lock and the door swung open. The voices from outside grew louder. I turned around, my heart pounding.
Stick stepped into the hall. He gave me a long stare, and something tugged inside me.
“Let’s go,” he said.
Mama blinked at the sound of his voice, but she didn’t raise her head.
“Stick’s home, Mama,” I said, shaking her off my shoulder. “He’s come to get us.”
We stepped outside, and my eyes opened wide. There was a whole line of brothers out there. Brothers in black leather jackets. Brothers with guns. They stood facing away from one another in two long rows stretching from the house to the street, where Leroy’s car was waiting. I held Mama’s hand as we walked.
The reporters were outside the rows of Panthers, photographing us and shouting questions, but they didn’t try to break through. I ignored them, helping Mama into the backseat.
Father’s friend Leon Betterly drove up and stopped behind Leroy’s car. He looked at the Panthers, the reporters, then me. I climbed into Leroy’s car beside Mama and closed the door.
The hospital corridor stretched, long and white, in front of me. It felt too familiar. Nothing but white, all around. There was no place for me to stand.
The day Stick got his head cut, I’d stood in this same room, with its uncomfortable rows of chairs and the bitter smell of blood and medicine mixing in the air. My head swam with the swish-swish of nurses’ skirts as they hurried from room to room, and the squeak-squeak of gurney wheels echoing along the tile halls. It was the kind of waiting room that sucked away all hope, sent it swirling down a drain far out of reach. I felt as though I wasn’t really there. I was someplace else.
Father’s hand on my shoulder brought me back.
“What?” I said, blinking toward him. His face stood out, dark, against the waiting room walls.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
It wasn’t Father, it was Stick. Everyone said they looked alike. I had never seen it for myself.
Stick led me to a seat beside Mama. His hand rested against my back as we walked, and I wondered where it came from, his ability to be strong and gentle at the same time. He sat down in the row of white chairs across from me. “They said he’s stable. He’ll be out of surgery soon.”
“Praise the Lord,” Leon said, raising his eyes to the ceiling.
Mama took my hands, and looked Stick straight in the eye. “It’s those Panther kids that caused this,” she said. “They’ve got everybody on edge.”
Stick stood up and moved close to Mama. He touched the side of her face with the tips of his fingers, then, without a word, he walked away.
I couldn’t let him leave that way. I placed Mama’s hands back in her lap and followed Stick. He was standing by the window, apart from us. His hands were in his pockets, his back to the room.
I stood beside him. The wide blue of Lake Michigan stretched out in front of us. The color of the water blended with the sky at the horizon as if there was no opposite shore.
“He was just giving a speech,” I said, closing my fist around a wad of curtain. I leaned my forehead against the cold glass. “It’s so wrong.”
“People like that guy don’t know right from wrong,” Stick said. “Just black from white.”
“They think they’re better for being white, but they’re worse,” I said. “I hate them all.”
“No,” Stick said. “Just the ones who do this.”
“It’s so messed up,” I said. My eyes started to water, not from being sad, but from being mad. My head hurt, as if pieces of my brain had fallen out of place. I couldn’t put them back. I couldn’t put any of it back. Nothing I could do would fix what I’d made happen. “I don’t know what to do,” I whispered.
Stick nodded. He wasn’t like Father. He wouldn’t try to explain how I should feel or tell me what to think. Anyway, Stick knew all about being mad.
Leroy and Raheem stood near us. I hadn’t noticed them come inside.
“We have to take off if we’re going to make it before they wrap up for the day.” Leroy said.
Stick went over and spoke quietly to Leroy. I strained to catch what they were saying.
“He needs to understand,” Leroy said, looking at me.
“I’ll meet you outside in a minute,” Stick told him.
“I’m coming too,” I said.
“No,” Mama said, coming up behind me. “This family is broken bad enough.” She glared at Raheem and Leroy, then turned her eyes on Stick.
“He’s not going anywhere, Mama,” Stick said. “Neither am I. I don’t have to go anywhere.”
Mama’s voice rose. “You did this. And now you think you can walk back in and pick up the pieces?”
“Don’t yell at him,” I said.
Mama ignored me, focusing on Stick as she pointed down the hall with a shaking hand. “Your father got hurt without you by his side. He’ll pick himself back up without you there, if that’s what has to happen. But you are not going to take Sam away too.”
“Stop it, Mama! It’s not his fault. It’s my fault.” The words had been boiling inside me, filling me up. Now they were out, and I felt myself crumpling inward. “It’s my fault.” My hands shook. I twisted up the curtain in my fingers and held on.
“Sam.” Stick’s hand on my arm. “Come sit down.”
I couldn’t breathe. Mama pushed Stick aside. She touched my face, my chest.
“Look what this is doing to your brother.”
She didn’t know. She didn’t understand. “I did it! Tell her it was me,” I screamed.
Stick watched me with an expression I’d never seen and didn’t understand. I looked to Leroy. “Tell her!”
Leroy shrugged. “I don’t see it that way.”
“Enough,” Mama said. “All of you, go.”
Stick stuffed his hands in his pockets. “Mama.”
“Go,” she shouted. “Get on. Leave Sam alone!” She grabbed me around the neck and yanked my head down onto her chest, clutched me to her. Her chest heaved against my cheek, and the sound of her weeping cut into me. Her tears, heavy with fear, fell against my neck.
“Mama, let go,” I said. She slowly withdrew her arms. I raised my head and kissed her cheek. “I love you, Mama.”
Seeing her cry made my stomach ache. I didn’t want to walk away.
I turned to follow Stick and the others. Leon Betterly stepped in front of me, said something to me, but I didn’t hear him.
I rushed into the parking lot and stopped short. There was a whole crowd there, holding signs and candles and singing. It was as if half of Bucky’s demonstration had shifted over a couple of blocks. People in the crowd tried to touch me as I passed, calling out good wishes. A tearful woman whispered, “We’re praying for him,” as her fingernails scratched against my sleeve.
Stick, Leroy and Raheem headed toward Leroy’s car. I caught up with them at the edge of the parking lot. “You’re wrong,” I said, as I came up beside Leroy.
“Not often,” he said, giving me half a smile.
“This wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t—”
“Sam,” he interrupted. He stopped walking and leaned toward me as if to hug me, but simply put his hand near the base of my neck and spoke into my ear. “You’re only responsible for your own actions. You can’t control how someone else reacts to what you do. You made a choice. Stand by it.” He moved toward Stick and Raheem, who were waiting beside his car.
“I want to come with you,” I said.
“Go back inside, Sam.” Raheem put his hand on my shoulder. “You be with your mama right now. She needs you.”
“Stick?” I said. His back was to me. “Stick, don’t leave me here.”
He didn’t turn or even act like he’d heard me. He got into the car without a second glance. It was the worst thing he could have done to hurt me.
“Tomorrow,” Raheem said. “He’ll come get you in the morning.”
They got in the car and drove off, leaving me standing alone. I didn’t want to be there, didn’t want to be anywhere except where they were going, but I couldn’t follow. Even if I knew where to go, the part of me that was burned by Stick’s betrayal wouldn’t let me chase after him.
The crowd hummed a low, sad spiritual. I knew the words, but I didn’t sing along. I waded through the soft-tugging rhythms of hope and desperation, and as I moved among the people, I couldn’t help wondering, if Father wasn’t there anymore, who would lead them? I erased the thought. Father would always be there. I pushed past everyone and returned to the waiting room.