“I’m serious,” he said, his hand warming mine in the nighttime breeze. “Come to Oakland. We’ve got plenty of friends you can stay with.”
“No,” I said. “There’s no way I could do that.” But the thought burrowed right into my mind, deep into the place of dreams and visions.
6.
Panthers sprawled, asleep, on our couches. Our rugs. Panthers in our barn, huddled around a blaze of sticks in a bucket.
All the things on TV felt closer now. I could feel their presence, sleeping beneath me.
I was not afraid of the guys themselves, but of everything they represented. The world, and all the shadow things about it.
I got out of bed and stood at the window, looking out over the fields and the trees and the lane.
Why don’t I go past the end of that lane? I never really gave it any thought before.
Maybe because it’s not safe out there.
7.
Gunshots ringing through the fields startled me awake. I scrambled out of bed and flew into the hallway. I made it halfway down the stairs before I remembered we had houseguests. Couldn’t go running outside in only my nightie.
I dressed quickly and ran out back. The Panthers were gathered in formation, doing target practice in the middle of our field. Tin cans were lined up on the rail fence. Bull’s-eyes were buttoned to trees.
Daddy was out there, talking them through it. He had his coveralls on, but no chaw grass in his mouth, which was unusual. Apparently he had a lot to say to the Panthers, which was also unusual. I crept closer to try to hear, but in the open field, I couldn’t get too close without him seeing.
This is why they had come, I realized. You couldn’t go around playing target practice in downtown Oakland. The Panthers needed guns to protect people in their community, and we had the space to learn to use them. Daddy moved along the line, helping some of them with their stance and hand position. Torry helped the others. He had served, I got the feeling, like Daddy, long ago.
I got closer than I thought I might. Daddy was absorbed in talking through the proper function of a rifle. About half the guys had rifles. The guys holding shotguns and pistols were waiting their turn to try. Bobby pulled away from the pack and came toward me. “Hey, Sandy.” He had a shotgun in his hand.
Daddy looked up over the rifle, through the crowd of boys, and met my eye. He didn’t say anything. Didn’t have to. I took two steps back, and I was grateful he didn’t call me out in front of the guys.
“I can’t stay,” I told Bobby. “I’ll get in trouble.”
He shrugged. “Can’t help trouble. When you’re a Panther, trouble finds you.” His voice contained so much right then. Sadness, resignation, excitement, terror, hope. I hugged my arms against my chest and tried to smile.
“You wanna hold it?” he said, flipping the rifle around vertical and holding the barrel out to me. “It ain’t loaded yet.”
“No, no,” I stammered, choking my way toward a reason. I already knew how to hold and fire a rifle, but that was beside the point. I settled for the basic truth. “Then I’ll really get in trouble.”
8.
I moved through the kitchen to a sound track of guns being fired. After an hour or so, it cooled from constant discharge to occasional. I fired up the griddle.
Bobby came in while I was stirring pancake batter. I’d just cracked the eggs, so my hands were a mess. He saw me working the faucet with the edge of my palm and he reached around me. The water flowed cold. I scrubbed quickly, but not too quickly, seeing as his arm was still around my back.
“Thanks.”
“You got something I can eat?” he said.
“I’m making breakfast.”
He peered into my bowl and frowned. The batter looked, at the moment, like a lumpy white soup. “That’s gonna be a thing?” he asked.
I gave him the look he deserved for that comment. “Haven’t you ever been in a kitchen before?”
He scratched his head. “I brung in some groceries for a girl one time.”
I couldn’t help but smile at that one.
9.
Bobby held the platter while I stacked up pancakes. He ran his mouth about a mile a minute, talking up the Panthers and all the things he was learning. Every other sentence was “Huey says this,” or “Bobby says that.”
“You’ve got the same name as one of the founders?” I asked. Huey Newton and Bobby Seale were the founders of the Black Panther Party. Since the movement had started in Oakland, this Bobby knew them personally.
“Yeah, but I’m way cooler,” he said. Then he laughed. The sound splashed through the air like a ripe berry bursts on your tongue, with something sharp as rhubarb behind it. “Nah, I’m not. Bobby and Huey, man —” He shook his head. “Doesn’t get cooler than them.”
“Why are you in the Panthers?” I wondered if he would think me stupid for asking. We were black. There were enough reasons.
He shook his head. “A hundred reasons, you know?”
“What’s one?”
It was strange. I could ask these things and he’d answer.
“My best friend got beat down,” he said. “Oakland pigs.”