“If you girls want breakfast, go’n down to the People’s Center.”
We said all together, “The People’s Center?”
Without skipping a beat Cecile said, “Next to the library on Orchard. Just keep walking till you see kids and old people lined up.”
“You’re not going to take us?” I didn’t mean it to worm out as a question and was mad at myself for asking instead of stating.
“You don’t need me to walk down the street. The park is on the other side. Y’all can run around after breakfast or stay for the program at the Center. It don’t make me no difference.”
Cecile pointed a fountain pen at me. Two more pens were stuck in her hair. “You the oldest. You can read street signs.”
Vonetta, indignant, said, “I can read street signs too.”
“Me too.”
Instead of saying “I didn’t ask for all of that” like I expected, Cecile smacked her palm against her thigh and said, “Then that settles it. Step out this door, cross the street, keep going a block till you get to Orchard. If you can read, you can’t miss the O in ‘Orchard.’ Turn left. Keep walking till you see the library. Center’s on the same block. Can’t miss it. Nothing but black folks in black clothes rapping revolution and a line of hungry black kids.”
Then she cut herself off from us, tapped her fountain pen, and repeated, “Black folks, in black clothes, rapping revolution.”
We had Black Panthers in Brooklyn. Black Panther posters with SEIZE THE TIME stapled onto telephone poles. We just never had any Black Panthers marching down Herkimer Street, knocking on our door demanding that we give to the cause or calling us some kind of Sister name we had never heard of.
My sisters and I didn’t make a move toward the door. We couldn’t believe our ears. Our crazy mother was sending us outside to find militant strangers if we wanted to eat.
She said, “Wait.” I hoped she had changed her mind about us going to the Center. She went into the kitchen and came out with a cardboard box, a little smaller than the shoe box for Papa’s work boots. “Here,” she said. “Take this to the Center. Give it to the Panthers. Tell them it’s from Inzilla.” That’s what I thought she said. Inzilla.
She put the box in my hands.
“Who do I—”
“Just find a black beret. Any black beret will do. Make sure you tell them I gave to the cause. You tell them, ‘Don’t come knocking on my door asking for my materials.’”
I knew I wouldn’t be telling no Black Panthers what Cecile said. That she gave to the cause and not to come knocking on her door for her stuff. I just took the box and nodded, because that’s how you treat crazy people. You nod and count down twenty-seven days for crazy to come to an end.
Vonetta and Fern looked to me for what to do next, and Cecile noticed this. There was no lip smile from Cecile, but her eyes found it funny that they always looked to me first.
“Come on,” I said. “Let’s go get breakfast.”
We were about to leave, but Fern stopped cold. Her eyes bugged out and she balled her fists. “Wait! Wait!”
Vonetta and I waited while she ran into the back room, her steps all buffalo stomps. I didn’t mind Fern’s stomping because it annoyed Cecile that her house had been invaded by our mouths, wants, and feet. It served her right.
Both Vonetta and I knew why Fern ran back to the room. We’d been seeing this go on for years. Fern returned with Miss Patty Cake in tow. From her look of disgust, I believed Cecile would have spat on her own floor if she wouldn’t have had to clean it up.
“Aren’t you too big to be dragging that thing with you?”
As far as I was concerned, Cecile had nothing to say about Fern and Miss Patty Cake. Miss Patty Cake was there when Cecile wasn’t.
Now I smiled. I’d understood that Fern and Miss Patty Cake were like that Nat King Cole song “Unforgettable.” When I’d first heard his satiny smooth voice sing “Like a song of love that clings to me,” I knew Miss Patty Cake was like that song of love to Fern.
Cecile thought Fern would buckle under a seven-year-old’s shame. When Fern didn’t answer, she asked again, “Aren’t you too big for alla that?”
Fern shook four braids and barrettes and said, “No,” taking delight in answering no for no’s sake. No, because Cecile didn’t have a hug and a kiss that Fern expected. No, because Cecile didn’t leap up and get that cold glass of water. No, because Cecile had yet to call Fern, Fern.
Vonetta groaned. She had fought enough name-callers on behalf of Miss Patty Cake. I had fought my share too, but so what. It was for Fern and her doll. Except for going to school and church, Fern and Miss Patty Cake had been inseparable for as long as Fern or anyone else could remember.
Cecile shook like we had given her the willies. She probably asked herself, Who are these kids?
There was no use in standing around for a long farewell and a list of dos and don’ts. We weren’t leaving Big Ma. We were leaving Cecile with her kitchen and her palm tree. And just as I felt we had gotten the last lick by turning and going, Cecile said, “Don’t kill yourself to get back here. Stay out till sundown.”
We walked along the street, a moving triangle. Me in the front. Vonetta and Fern with Miss Patty Cake behind me at both sides.
“I wanna go home.”
“Me too.”
I knew which home they meant. I said, “We’re going back home in twenty-seven days.”
“Let’s call Papa,” Vonetta said.
“And Big Ma.”
I said, “Not yet. Big Ma hasn’t gotten over the collect call from yesterday. We gotta get up enough dimes to make a real call across the country.”
Vonetta said, “We should call Papa. Tell him she’s mean.”
“And she don’t want us.”
“And she won’t cook or let us in the kitchen.”
“To get a cold glass of water.”
“In her kitchen.”
“In her house.”
I said, “We will. Just not yet.”
Vonetta said, “If Big Ma knew…”
“And Papa.”
“They’d be here lightning quick to get us.”
“Yeah. Quick like lightning.”
I said, “We’ll need a lot of dimes.”