POLITICAL EDUCATION CLASS IS CROWDED this week. I’m sure Leroy, up at the front, is happy about that. The room is hot as a boiler, so it’s surprising that people are staying.
After the stifling air, and the crowd, the first thing that gets my attention is Sam. Of course he’s here, he’s always here. He raises a hand to wave at me. I wave back. Patrice grabs my elbow. “Oh, no, no, no,” she says. “Don’t start.”
“Don’t make us read you the list,” Emmalee whispers.
“Read it to me,” I say, because I see empty chairs near where Sam is sitting.
“You have to give him time to be sad,” Patrice says. But it’s been four months.
“When you were seeing him every day, you always came home crying,” Emmalee says. That’s because I was sad, too, over Steve. I still am.
“When you got too close he just got mad,” Patrice adds. It’s true. There were some very bad days between us. Days when he yelled at me or ran away. He was no kind of boyfriend for a while there.
“There are lots of better boys out there.” That one is just not true. I have a feeling it will never be true.
But I let the girls win me over with the list. We sit at the opposite side of the room from Sam, an unfortunate by-product of which is I can still see him. Sitting there folded into his jacket, despite the heat, with his head bowed, listening.
Leroy takes the stage, which really just means he stands at the front of the community room, but this presence comes over him right when he’s about to speak that makes wherever he’s standing seem like a stage.
First he talks about membership, for anyone who’s new. “The rules for membership are posted in the back,” he begins.
I’ve read the rules. It took me a long time, because there are twenty-six of them. Things like: Panthers cannot drink on duty, or while armed. People who use drugs will be expelled from the party. Panthers cannot harm or take anything from members of the community. Panthers must participate in political education classes. Panthers must never resist arrest, but must know their rights under the law so the police can’t take advantage.
“When you join, you will be trained to load, handle, and fire weapons,” Leroy says. “This is a serious responsibility of membership—to defend your home and family, as well as the community, against assault from the police. It’s an executive mandate from our minister of defense, Huey, remember.”
The crowd is listening, but rumbles go up at different points throughout his speech. At the mention of Huey there is a bit of a swell. I find my glance cutting over to Sam, again and again.
“You will swear an oath of commitment to the party and to the people. This means promising to live a life of service and sacrifice, pushing past personal considerations for the benefit of all. Whether you die tomorrow or a hundred years from now, this is a lifelong oath.” Leroy pauses, letting the weight of that pronouncement settle over the room. I’ve heard him say it before, and you can tell by the completeness of the silence that follows that everyone is thinking hard about what it all means.
“Also, the neighborhood free health clinic is now up and running,” Leroy announces. People clap and cheer. “Get your checkups there. Get your kids tested for sickle-cell. Get your medicine there. If you’re sick, go there.
“Everything’s free, but if and when you can chip in, do that so we can keep it going, you dig?”
“All right, let’s get started with the class. Tonight we’ll talk about freeing our minds from the way white people have trained us to think since slavery. We’ll talk about different ways of seeing the world, and how we as a community can start to change the way we are viewed as Americans, as black citizens, as Panthers. . . .”
I’m supposed to be listening, but what I’m thinking about is Sam. And the girls’ list. And how all the points on it seem to grow less and less important every day.