LEROY ENTERS THE OFFICE. EVERYONE breathes in as if to speak, starts hurrying toward him with news, questions, updates. But then no one says anything at all. The solemn look on his face freezes everything, leaves it all hanging unsaid in the air above us.
“Bad news,” he says.
We hold our breaths, waiting for whatever it is to drop.
“Bobby Seale’s been indicted. He’s charged with conspiracy to incite the riots during the convention last summer.”
Everyone groans.
“They’re really blaming all that on us?” Lester says. “We were barely even there.”
“Not entirely,” Leroy says. “Bobby’s one of eight who’ve been charged. The others are white guys from the anti-war movement.”
“It was a white protest,” Hamlin says. “No way to spin it any other way.”
“They’re saying Bobby’s speeches helped inflame the crowd.”
“That’s a load of hogwash,” Gumbo blurts out. “We were the only ones there not trying to start something.”
The mood in the room is sizzling. Tense. Everyone’s struggling to take in the news; I’m struggling with it myself.
“We’re going to take care of this,” Leroy declares. “I just wanted everyone to be informed.” His face drawn tight, he retreats to the rear room.
“Bobby was barely at the convention,” Emmalee says. “They think he caused the riots?” We’re sprawled on the floor in the back room, where Little Betty’s play pad is set up. It’s just a blanket on the floor ringed in with boxes so she can’t crawl all over the room, now that she’s started trying to do that. Emmalee lies on her back inside the circle.
“It’s stupid,” I tell her. “They’re just out to get him.” I’m sitting on the boxes, letting Little Betty hold my fingers as she pulls herself up and tries to balance. Her short legs wobble, and one after the other she sort of waves her chubby feet; it’s like she knows they’re supposed to take her somewhere, but she can’t quite make it happen yet. She’s growing. She grins up at me with her two tiny front teeth.
We don’t have that many photographs at home, but we have one of me with two front teeth, and we have one of Raheem a little bit older that was probably taken at the same time. Now Mama gets the pictures out most days. She sits with Raheem’s picture and cries. I haven’t told her the truth of why he left, just that Raheem is doing what he has to. For us. She can’t understand why he didn’t say a real good-bye, and I have no answers.
“Why did it take so long for this to happen?” Emmalee wonders. “The convention was months ago.”
I’m only partly thinking about Bobby’s case. My mind is going in all different directions. “Um, Leroy said the grand jury had to review the facts and decide if there was enough evidence to have a trial. Apparently that takes a long time sometimes. I think it’s weird too.” I feel proud to know the answer to her question. Usually Emmalee is the one who knows it all.
Little Betty places her fat feet on top of mine. Grins. Those two teeth can just break your heart. If it isn’t already broken.
Jolene comes by and scoops up the baby. She cuddles and kisses her. I look away while it happens. It’s just too sweet.
“Maxie, I want you here this afternoon,” Jolene says. “Bobby Seale’s lawyers are coming by and we need some people to sit in. Listen to what they’re planning and what they need from us.”
“Me?”
“Yes,” Jolene says. “We’ll be helping them with any research we can in preparation for the trial. Maybe reviewing notes and paperwork. I’m not sure what all. We’ll find out this afternoon.”
“You want me?” It doesn’t really register. The sole thought in my head is that I have to get better at reading.
“You’ll be great,” Jolene says. She brushes the hair away from my face as she sometimes does. The touch makes me realize how bad I want her to go ahead and hug me, the way Mama won’t do anymore now that worry over Raheem has driven her closer to the edge.
“Really? You think so?”
Jolene rests a hand on my shoulder. “Someone was always telling me you ought to be a lawyer.” Her soft tone holds no bitterness, even though the only someone who would ever say something like that has got to be Raheem.
“Don’t you want some firsthand experience?” Jolene says. I’ve been quiet too long.
I sit up straighter. This is my chance.
“You’ll have to alternate it with school and PE classes and your weapons training,” she continues. “So it’ll be a lot of work.”
My mind snaps into focus. “Weapons training?”
Jolene smiles. “It’s about time, don’t you think?”
“Yes.” My eyes tear up. “I want to do it. Thank you for picking me.”
“We’ll see you tomorrow morning. Six a.m., for the lineup,” she says, walking away.
For a while I’m just sitting there, gazing at the sandbags up against the windows. Thinking about things like bullets. Tiny pieces of flying metal. Broken shards of glass. Thinking about things like secrets. Bits of information, floating in the ether. Thinking about how one thing leads to another, and every day there are new bullets, new shards. New things to watch out for.
But it’s happening. Everything I dreamed of, though not at all in the way I dreamed it. Maxie Brown, Black Panther.
I feel a hand on my shoulder. “Come outside with me,” Sam says. “I just heard.”
He leads me out to the sidewalk, just beyond the sandbagged windows.
“Congratulations,” he says. Grinning, he breaks into a little refrain: “For she’s a jolly good Panther, for she’s a jolly good Panther.”
I smile. Not so much at the song but at the fact that he’s singing. Making a joke. It has been a while since things felt light between us. I kiss him on the cheek. Can’t help it. He’s so darn cute.
“I have something for you,” he tells me. He has a small paper bag with him.
“Is it mittens?” I tease, reminding him of the first gift he ever gave me, back when he was trying to win my heart. He won that particular battle a long while ago, but I can’t say I lost in the process.
His face remains semiserious.
“What, then?”
He opens the bag and lets me look inside. I blink at the contents, confused. “It’s Raheem’s,” Sam says. “Before he left he made me promise to keep it for you.” He tips the bag, bringing the object nearer to the opening. Not revealing it to the whole street, but just to me.
I stare at the silver handgun resting against Sam’s palm. Raheem’s gun. Handed down to me.
“He said to give it to you when you seemed ready. Do you feel ready?” Sam says uncertainly.
It’s everything I’ve wanted. Everything my whole life has been building toward. A way to make sense of it all, a way to do something. I’m thinking ahead, toward the six a.m. lineup and how loud I’m going to shout when Leroy says “Who we gonna be? How we gonna live?”
“The Black Panther Party. Gonna live for the people.” I practice it in my mind, like I’ve done a thousand times. It makes me excited, gives me the first inkling of happiness I’ve had since I found Raheem in that alley.
Raheem is ever present in my mind. He always finds ways to look out for me, even from a distance. I suppose he means to be passing a torch to me, and I wonder if he’s really never coming back. If he can feel me from a distance, the way I feel him—in my memory and in my heart—I know I will make him proud.
“Maxie?”
Sam watches me carefully. I smile at him. My fingers fold around the edges of the bag, taking back what is rightfully mine. Maybe it’s always been mine, I just needed to reach out and take it.