Free Buck by M.K. Asante

nigger.” The guard is coming for Uzi.
    “We have no clout … just each other,” she says.
    Time’s up.
    Uzi puts his fist on the glass. I do too.
    “One love.” I swear I can feel his knuckles through the glass.
    “One.”
    In the car on our way back to the hotel, the radio plays holiday hits. My mom hums along to “Whose Child Is This?” The speakers tremble.
    “I wish he was in a Philly jail,” I say to my mom.
    “Whether he’s here or in Philly,” she says, “jail is jail. Chains are chains.”
    Some fortunate, some less fortunate
    Some get it, some get acquitted †
    Uzi’s day in court.
    “The plan is for him to come back to Philadelphia with us,” my mom tells me on our way into the courtroom. “Dodds said the court can transfer his probation to Philly. That’s what I spent all that money I didn’t have for—to bring Daudi home. I want you to pray on it.”
    “Okay, I will.” I don’t pray a lot, but I’m down to try anything. I close my eyes and see the face of Emmett Till.
    I try not to think about Till now as I sit in the courtroom. The cold benches remind me of the Meeting for Worship benches at Foes. Mom’s got her hair pulled back tight. I can see all the tiny veins swimming across her temple.
    They bring my brother out in handcuffs and shackles like O.J. His light blue button-up tucked into khakis. He looks like he’s on a job interview. He sees me, nods. I give him a strong nod that says,
Everything’s going to be all right
. Then a smile that says,
You’re still my hero, everybody makes mistakes
.
    The judge has a face that looks like old, low-hanging fruit. His voice sounds distant, like he’s a hundred miles away.
    My dad’s friend Bobby Seale is one of the founders of the Black Panthers. One day in the hallway at Temple University Bobby told me about how the Panthers, strapped with Kalashnikovs and rocking cold black shades, cocked berets, and leather trenches, used to take over courtrooms. He told me that the only justice you get is the justice you take.
    “So the concept is this, basically,” Bobby once said in a speech. “The whole black nation has to be put together as a black army. And we gon’ walk on this nation, we gon’ walk on this racist power structure, and we gon’ say to the whole damn government: Stick ’em up, motherfucker! This is a holdup! We come for what’s ours!”
    I wish I was a Black Panther right now.
    We come for what’s ours … and his name is Uzi
, I’d say.
    I strike America like a case of heart disease
    Panther power is running through my arteries ‡
    “Will the defendant approach …”
    I pray the only prayer I know, one my parents taught me when I was little:
We call upon the Most High and the ancestors, far and near …
    “Young man …”
    Mothers of our mothers, fathers of our fathers …
    “Menace to society … burden to this community …”
    To render us mercy and to bear witness …
    “By the power … Arizona …”
    For the liberation and victory of all oppressed people
.
    “Hereby … guilty!… Ten years …”
    Amen
.
    I carry my mom out of the courtroom, onto the plane, and back to Philly. We don’t talk, we can’t speak.
    Dear Carole,
    Chaka is always saying he needs space. I know what that means. He needs space away from me. And the more space the better.
    Space so as not to be reminded that I am broken,space so as not to be reminded Daudi is broken. Malo is breaking.
    I’m broken. “Fix Me, Jesus” is the spiritual that I loved so much when I was a little girl in Brooklyn. “Fix me, Jesus, Fix me.” That’s what sanatoriums were for. Places that “fixed” people with problems. Twice I’ve been committed and twice I’ve returned home feeling the same and seeing the same. The visits were remarkable in their inability to even scratch the surface of what’s wrong, if anything was wrong. If you say something is wrong enough times, everyone begins to believe it, including me. Okay,