The Rock and the River (18 page)

T
HE SUN STUNG MY EYES AS I STARED OUT
the car window at the cemetery lawn. The car had stopped, but we sat waiting for Mama to compose herself a little so we could walk to the graveside.

As Mama wept against him, Father looked across the car at me. He was surely thinking about how I'd disappointed him, how I'd ruined everything for all of us. I wasn't as good as he thought I was. The stunned look on his face when I'd come out of my room this morning wearing Stick's jacket had said it all.

I got out of the car. Maxie was standing with Raheem and Bucky at the edge of the crowd. They turned as I walked up.

I looked straight at Raheem. No words necessary.

He nodded once. “Name. Address.”

The fist in my gut knotted tighter. He'd found the cop.

Maxie touched my sleeve. “Steve's jacket?” she whispered. I turned away from her without answering. She'd come by the house, they told me, but I didn't come out of my room to see her. I hadn't come out to see anybody, actually, but especially not Maxie.

“It's too big for you,” Raheem said, straightening the jacket shoulders.

“He'll grow into it.” I turned to see Leroy standing behind me. He pulled me aside. “Are you sure you want to do this?” he said quietly. “Have you thought about it?” His tone said he knew what Raheem was planning.

“I have to,” I said.

Leroy shifted his gaze to Raheem. “A word, please.” They walked away from us. I steadily ignored Maxie, facing Bucky instead. Maxie touched my arm again, then left us alone.

Bucky shook my hand. “I'm real sorry, Sam,” he said. “I wish—” He shrugged and stared at the ground. “I guess you know.”

I moved closer to him. “Later, I'm going with Raheem to get the cop. You could come.”

Bucky's eyes widened. “That's not my scene,” he said. He paused. “It wasn't Steve's either, Sam.”

Yes, it was. It was. “After everything, you don't care about fighting back?”

“You know that's not it.”

“He gave up his life fighting for you, and you won't do anything to repay that?”

“That's between me and Steve.”

I made myself as tall as I could. “Well, he's not here, so now it's between you and me.”

Bucky shook his head. I followed his gaze over my shoulder to the group of Panthers heading toward us from the front gate. “I go to work every day, Sam. I bring home some cash so my family can eat, so we can live. I'm not stuck up in jail because of what they did. I had a job to come back to.” Tears shone in his eyes, and he brushed a few off his cheeks. “You think I'm not grateful? Look again.”

Bucky pulled back his shoulders. “I'm sorry that he's gone. I can't bring him back. But I'm not going to blow this.” He turned and walked away, joining the other mourners at the graveside. I let him go. I didn't need his help, or anyone's.

I went toward Leroy and Raheem. They were speaking in low tones, but gesturing loudly at each other. They didn't notice me.

“This is not what we're about,” Leroy said as I approached.

“I'm not talking about ‘us.' I'm talking about me. And Sam. We're doing it.”

“Don't twist Sam up in your mess. He's got enough to deal with. Anyway, the cops won't see the distinction between you and us. You're opening us up for real trouble. Don't go out looking for a fight.”

“We're already in real trouble,” Raheem said. “They come after us, we go after them. How many times have you said it? It's time for the world to know that we're not gonna cower in fear when they put a gun to our heads, because we've got one pointing back at them!”

“Yes, and you'll hear me say it again. They're getting the message. But not like this.”

“Stop,” I said. They turned to me. “It's decided.”

Father and Mama had gotten out of the car and were coming over. Raheem and Leroy joined Maxie and the others at the far side of the grave. A lot of the Panthers had come out for the funeral. My eyes roamed the sea of black leather.

Father and Mama put their arms around each other as Reverend Downe began his eulogy for Stick. I stood a little apart from them. The Reverend's words were no doubt thoughtful, but I couldn't stand to listen to them.

I gazed across the open grave at Maxie. She stared
back. I couldn't remember what she had done that I was supposed to be mad at her for. It suddenly didn't matter. I moved through the crowd around the edge of the grave until I reached her. The other Panthers stood nearby. Several of them touched my shoulder as I passed. At the other side, Father turned his face into the side of Mama's head and closed his eyes.

When Reverend Downe finished speaking, Leroy stepped forward. “Mr. Childs asked me to say a few words,” he said. I looked at Father. He was watching Leroy.

Leroy spoke for a while, but I couldn't concentrate on his words. People cried as he shared his thoughts, but my mind raced far from the graveside. There was a heaviness in my chest and stomach that I couldn't breathe out or digest.

Maxie pulled away from me, taking a tissue from her skirt pocket. I hadn't realized I was leaning on her until she moved. Suddenly, it was hard to stand.

A strong arm wrapped around my neck from behind. Raheem pulled me back against him. I was grateful not to have fallen. He breathed against my ear. “Steady, there. You okay?”

“Yes.”

Raheem tucked something along my spine into the
waist of my pants. I didn't have to reach for it to know what it was. Raheem patted my shoulder then withdrew his arm, his jaw set at a decisive angle. I moved my own jaw side to side until it relaxed.

I stared at the coffin and the square pit of earth. I brought my arms close against my chest as another chill coursed through me. Stick. I didn't want to think of him in a box. In a hole.

Mindless of the crowds, the service going on, I knelt beside the coffin, putting my hands on the smooth wood. I lowered my head and stared at my knees. My black suit pants stood out against the white tarp stretched beneath the coffin. I pinched my eyes shut.

When I lifted my head, Father was looking down at me from the other side of the coffin. He stood so still, so quiet, so sure that one might mistake him for a statue if not for the tears rushing unheeded over his face. For just the second time, in all my life, I watched my father cry. I hated with every ounce of my being the force that had caused him such pain. Even more, I despised my part in bringing it.

But now, I could put everything right.

I rose to my feet, and a calm swept over me. I caught my breath to keep from crying out loud. Stick was with
me. I felt his whisper in the echo of my heartbeat.
Sam. It's all up to you now.

I nodded, drying my eyes on the sleeve of Stick's jacket. My jacket. I couldn't let him down. I knew what I had to do.

I touched the side of the coffin one last time and returned to stand by Raheem. “Let's go,” I said. “Right now.”

T
HINGS INSIDE ME BEGAN TO MOVE VERY
fast. Raheem and I emerged from the cemetery and headed for Leroy's car.

I rounded the car to the passenger seat. Along the grassy slope of the cemetery I saw my father approaching. And of all the things I felt capable of in that moment, facing him was not one. “Let's go,” I said to Raheem. In the side mirror I watched Leroy meet Father in the street. He put his hand on Father's arm and led him back toward the funeral.

Raheem drove intently, hands tight upon the steering wheel. I didn't ask where we were going, where the cop lived. I didn't want to know his name. Even holding the gun, I didn't feel tough.

My fingers tightened around Stick's gun. It was more mine than his, anyway. He hadn't meant to, but he'd given it to me.

Raheem slammed on the brakes for a red light. The gun slid off my lap onto the floor. By reflex, I braced my hand against the glove compartment. That's when it hit me.

I was sitting where Stick had sat when he died. With no more warning than that, I felt him there. With me, inside me. A sensation so strong that I nearly screamed aloud.

You said I couldn't follow through on anything, Stick. You'll see. You said I ought to make up my mind, then do what I set out to do.

This isn't what I meant.

No? Well, this is what you get, Stick. This is what you get for leaving me.

Here again, that gut-gnawing sensation. Full to brimming with rage and no outlet. None except the one at my feet. I bent forward and retrieved the gun.

The motion triggered a sharp memory, one that was never far from me anymore. Stick, shot and bleeding. Stick, looking to me for help—something he never, ever did. When he'd needed me most, I couldn't be there. I drowned in recollection of the cop's hateful look, the way he'd shoved my face into the ground. The fact that the handcuffs and his boot on my shoulder had kept me from reaching Stick in his last living moments.

The thought twisted my core into hopeless knots, tight enough to carry me to a place where I could see only action,
no consequences. Where I could feel myself pull the trigger and things could still turn out okay. I saw myself, gun in hand, standing tall over the cop. Killing his power.

The deep intention separated me from every other thing in existence. Me and my rage, alone. Nothing to weigh me down, to make me think, to make me ache. I hit some other plane, a space of no pain, no future, no consequence, no next moment, no regret, only this: a gun and a score to settle. I felt free.

Then the air around me broke. It had lasted long, so long, that the return of conscience shook me. I actually trembled in my seat. I had touched a place previously unimaginable to me.

“Stop the car,” I said. Raheem looked over at me. We were still at the red light. I opened the door and got out, closing it behind me. I lodged the gun under my belt and leaned against the car, trying to clear my head.

Raheem's door popped too. “What?”

“We have to stop,” I said. But the feeling lingered, loose inside me. The promise of something able to free me from this guilt. Revenge.

I turned away from the car, battling the urge to get back in and keep going. I scanned the street, not certain what I was even looking for. Then I realized where we were.

The light was green. Several cars honked at us, but
Raheem waved them around. He stood in the V of the open car door, watching as I went up on the sidewalk.

“This is it,” I called to him. “The clinic Stick was telling me about.” It was a wide, two-story building, one lot away from the corner. The windows were covered in newspaper and the door with a smattering of work permits and construction bills. Stretched across three upstairs windows was a huge red and black banner stamped with the Party's panther logo, proclaiming:

 

Neighborhood
Free
Health Clinic Opening Soon!

 

“Yeah. So what?” Raheem said.

I studied the building for a long moment. Would it become everything Stick had wanted it to be? If it did, I wanted to be there to see. More than that, I wanted to make sure it happened.

“So what?” Raheem repeated. “Let's go already.”

I came back to the car. Raheem seemed to know I'd changed my mind before I even opened my mouth. He pounded the roof as I got closer. “Steve was my friend. That cop is going to pay.”

“He was my brother.” I felt the tears coming back. I pulled the gun from my waistband and stared at it. “What
does it mean if we go after the cop? If we—kill him.”

“He deserves it.”

“Because he killed Stick. Because he's a cop. Because he's white.”

“Yes.” Raheem practically trembled with readiness. I recognized it because the same tremor still ran within me.

I fingered the cool metal. Raheem stood silent, waiting.

“I can't do it.” I slid the gun across the car roof. Raheem caught it with one hand. “Stick wouldn't want me to.”

“Come on, man, don't be soft.”

“I'm not doing it.” I opened the car door, but it wasn't that easy. The gun in Raheem's hand now pointed at me.

“Steve would want justice,” he shouted. “We can give him that!”

“He wanted the clinic opened,” I countered. “He wanted safe streets, and a bigger breakfast program. We can give him that.”

The gun remained steady in Raheem's hand, but his voice wavered. “It's not enough.”

It wasn't. Nothing ever would be.

I stared over the barrel at Raheem. “You gonna shoot me, or what?”

Raheem blinked. He stuck the gun in his jacket and got behind the wheel. He leaned his head forward, resting it on the backs of his hands. I sat, leaning against
the headrest, eyes closed. Me, in Stick's place. Now and forever.

“Take me back, please. I'm missing my brother's funeral.”

Raheem didn't speak to me at all on the ride back. I didn't care. He pulled onto the street by the cemetery, parking among a long row of cars, then strode off down the street, a determined look in his eyes. I called after him, but he didn't look back.

 

The service had ended. People were leaving, trailing in small clusters toward parked cars and bus stops. I walked up onto the grass, staying rather apart from the crowds. A few departing people came up and shook my hand or hugged me, but I didn't really pay attention to them. Father walked Mama to the car, his arm around her shoulders. He helped her get seated, then turned and headed back toward me. He crossed the grass slowly, weaving among the headstones, his eyes fixed on me as he approached.

The weight inside me was no lighter for my recent change of heart. My chest felt closed. No relief yet for the knots lurking within. Father and I stood without speaking for a while. Baby birds chirped from within the budding trees like nothing was out of the ordinary. Their sweet voices pricked my ears, and the sun that warmed
them stung my eyes until they began to overflow.

“Go on with Mama. I'll be home later,” I said. “I want to stay here a while.” I brushed my wrist over my eyes so he wouldn't see me crying. But Father wasn't so easily fooled.

“I'll wait,” he said. “I'm not leaving you here alone.”

“I'll drive him home, Roland,” Leroy said, walking over to us. He placed one arm around my shoulder, and extended the other to Father, who shook it. They exchanged a long glance. Finally, Father nodded.

“All right then. I'll see you soon, Sam.” He held my arm for a moment, then walked away. I glanced up at Leroy with new respect. He'd gotten Father to change his mind. No argument, no discussion. I'd rarely seen that happen.

“You want to talk?” Leroy said, the words so gentle, I wanted to lean into them.

I squared my shoulders. “I didn't do what you think.”

“I hope,” Leroy said, “you did exactly what I think. And that there are still six bullets in that gun.”

For the second time in as many minutes, I looked at him anew. “There were when I left it,” I said. “But Raheem was pretty upset.”

Leroy nodded sagely. “He'll be okay.”

“How did you know I wouldn't do it?”

“There's a lot of your brother in you.”

At that, I had to walk away. I turned up the hill,
approaching Stick's coffin, now sitting alone on the grass. Leroy would wait.

I lingered for a while at the graveside, trying to burn this spot into my mind as Stick's new place in the world. It was hard, but for once in my life, I didn't want to walk away.

I could have said the things that had never been said between us before—I love you, I understand now—but words didn't matter anymore. Somehow, I knew Stick could feel what I felt.

The cemetery workers began rolling up the tarp, preparing to put the coffin in the ground. I couldn't stand to watch that part, and anyway, it was time to go home. I let my heart say the last good-bye because I couldn't manage it with my breath.

Leroy was waiting patiently at his car. He nodded when he saw me coming. “Ready to go?”

“Raheem's gonna do it, isn't he?”

“I don't think so. He'll cool off.” Leroy tapped my arm. “Come on. I'll drive you home.” He climbed into the driver's seat. I hesitated before opening the passenger door.

“I wanted to do it,” I said, getting in. “I still do.”

“I hear you.”

Leroy drove in silence for a while, resting his elbow on the door and gripping the wheel lightly with his fingertips.
“Your father would be proud of you, though.”

I shook my head. “I'm not sure he would be.”

“He is, Sam. Says it all the time.”

“Not lately.” I looked over as I registered what he had said. Father and Leroy? “He told you that? When?”

Leroy's mouth curved gently, as if he knew a secret that he wasn't going to tell. “I'm not sure. I talk to him a lot.”

“About what?”

Leroy shrugged. “Anything. My ideas. His ideas. The movement.”

“He listens to you talk about the Panthers?”

“Yeah.” Leroy looked at me out the corner of his eye.

“Then you know he doesn't get it.”

“He's a smart man, Sam. He gets it. He just doesn't agree with our methods.”

“
I
can't talk to him about it.”

“It's different,” Leroy said. “I'm not his son. Though, I've known your father since I was your age, about. He's a great leader. This whole community looks up to him. I got involved in the movement because of him. The first time I heard him speak—” He shook his head. “I'm telling you, Sam. This fire started inside me, and I thought,
There really is something I can do.
It's a gift, to be able to make people feel that.”

I thought about how many times I'd seen Father shake
entire crowds with his words. I remembered too, Leroy's passionate speech at the first political education class I'd attended.

“I think you have it too,” I said.

Leroy looked pleased, but thoughtful. “Maybe. I hope so.”

The car slowed for a traffic light.

“Turn left,” I said when the light changed. Leroy maneuvered the car onto the adjacent street as if it had been his plan to turn all along, but it hadn't. He didn't comment as he pulled up in front of the Panthers' apartment building. We walked inside together.

Maxie was sitting with Lester on the couch. She jumped up when she saw me. I started toward her.

“Hold on. We're not finished.” Leroy held my sleeve and led me toward the back room. He closed the door behind us, then eased into one of the armchairs. “What changed your mind?”

I walked to the window. My fingers traced the edge of the sill, chasing shadows. Would I ever look out a window and not think of Stick?

I moved along the bookcase, toward the center of the room, so I was facing Leroy. “It's hard to explain,” I told him.

“What are you going to tell your father?” Leroy had
a knack for getting to the heart of the matter. It made me think hard about things. I could dig that.

“Nothing. I don't want to hurt him.”

“You can't be the rock and the river, Sam.”

The pain behind my eyes returned so suddenly, I lost my breath. “Why did you say that?”

“I'm sorry,” Leroy said, rubbing his forehead with his fingertips. “Steve used to say that a lot.

“He told me the story, once,” he said. “About a rock and a river, and a guy trying to make up his mind.”

I returned to the window, putting my back to Leroy. The memories came then, in a sweet and sorrowful rush. Sitting curled up on Stick's bed when I was little, when he used to read me stories from his books before we went to sleep. How he let me turn the pages, and how he'd read my favorite parts over and over again, 'cause they were his favorite parts too.

I rested my forehead on the windowpane. Leroy's voice broke through my thoughts.

“At the end of his life, a man went to the riverside and tried to bargain with the gods for immortality. To teach him a lesson, they granted his wish, telling him he could live forever on that spot, either as the river, or the rock by the water's edge.

“The rock is high ground,” he went on. “Solid. Immovable.
Sure.” I let him tell me, but I knew the story. It was a part of me.

“The river is motion, turmoil, rage.

“As the river flows, it wonders what it would be like to be so still, to take a breath, to rest. But the rock will always wonder what lies around the bend in the stream.”

“I want to be both,” I whispered.

“So did he,” Leroy said, suddenly behind me. “But when the story ends—”

“I know how it ends.”

“Hmm,” Leroy said. “And you're here now.”

“Yes.” Stick was gone, but his work remained. He'd left it up to me. I owed him that much, but more than that, I wanted it for myself. Not Stick's way, exactly. Tonight, I would go home, eat dinner with Father and Mama, and sleep in my own bed. In the morning, I would go to school. But from now on I would be with the Panthers.