by Mark Oshiro
He pulled out his phone and said, “Damn, I should probably get home. Anyone else headin’ out?”
It was like falling dominoes. Within a few minutes, they had all helped clear the table, Rebecca urging them not to stay and try to help with the dishes. “I’ve got it, I promise,” she said, shooing them toward the front door. But she lingered as they gathered their belongings, and Moss caught her gazing at him. “Thank you,” she said, quiet enough that he knew it wasn’t to the whole group.
He stepped up to her. “For what?”
“Letting us help,” she said. “You know, we try to get involved in the community, but it gets hard to fit it in with my schedule and my husband’s.”
“No problem. I’m just stoked y’all want to help.”
“And I really am sorry about your friend Reg. Give him my regards and tell him he’s welcome here any time.”
He offered Rebecca a thankful smile. It was times like these that he appreciated how gracious she could be.
They all bid the Millers goodbye and began to separate at the end of the walkway from the front stoop. Bits and Rawiya left together to catch a bus, but Kaisha and Njemile hung back.
“Well, that was not a complete disaster,” said Javier. “Y’all have the Facebook plan set up, and it sounds like you got the details worked out. You mind if I send some people from my school your way?”
“Come to the meeting,” said Kaisha. “On Friday. Listen to what we plan. If you’re in, I say we go for it.”
“You really want to help out?” Moss said. “Honestly?”
“Of course, dude! I wouldn’t dream of missing it.”
“Uh-oh,” said Njemile. “They’re gonna do cute stuff. Everyone run away.”
The nervous laughter rang out on the street, and Javier pulled Moss toward him and kissed him, hard, deep. “To planning your own little rebellion,” he said.
Moss kissed him back for just a little bit longer, pushing back against the awkwardness that tried to conquer him. He had never kissed anyone in front of his friends, but he focused on how it made him feel. Warm. Secure. Admired.
“I’m leaving before y’all get cuter,” said Kaisha.
Moss waved goodbye to his friends, then swung a leg over the top bar of his bike. “You ready?”
Javier nodded. “I was born for this,” he said. “Race you down to Grand?”
Javier kicked off before Moss could agree, and Moss chased him down the street, a joy in his heart.
17
Moss’s family had never really been a religious one; they’d attended church a few times when his father was still alive, though even then it was out of obligation to his papa’s side of the family more than anything else. So it was always a strange experience to step inside a church to begin with, but that wasn’t why he was so bewildered. He had pulled the tall wooden door of Blessed Way Church toward him and was greeted by a wave of noise, all of it echoing off the high ceilings. Marvin Gaye was blaring out of the speakers on the stage. He stepped inside, his eyes jumping from one thing to another. The dirty stained glass, still colorful but muted by dust; the arches stretching across the space of the church, eager to greet the walls; the concrete pillars that supported the weight of the cobwebbed ceiling above; the flickering light off to the left that caused shadows to dance upon the opposite wall.
And the room was utterly full of people.
He thought he might have heard someone shout a greeting at him over the din, but the moment passed. He saw Njemile talking to someone he didn’t recognize, both of them animated and expressive. There were people standing about in the rows of pews, some off to the side, nearly all of them engaged in some sort of conversation. He heard pockets of laughter and thought he heard Esperanza’s voice, but upon rushing toward it, he realized it was from an older Chinese woman, gray streaked in her hair like a stripe, her voice an eerie resemblance to his best friend’s.
He knew a lot of the faces in this room: People who had been to rallies and marches over the years. People who had protested his father’s death. People who kept this community alive. The very man who had accosted him in the West Oakland station raised his hand to Moss, and he lifted his chin quickly, a silent hello. Shamika rushed up to him and grabbed him into a hug, but before he could say anything, Mrs. Torrance sidled up to him.
“Nice to see you here, Mr. Jeffries,” she said. “Have you met my partner, Walter?” She gestured to a tall black man who stood next to her. He wore relatively conservative clothing on his stocky frame, at least relative to what Mrs. Torrance normally wore. She had on a white dashiki etched in purple, blue, and black designs over white pants, and she looked stunning.
Moss shook her partner’s hand. “Nice to meet you,” he said, but he leaned over to Mrs. Torrance. “What are you doing here? Aren’t you worried about being seen?”
She raised an eyebrow and laughed at him. “Not at all, Moss. Your mother asked me to show up, and I didn’t hesitate.”
“Well, I won’t tell anyone you’re here to break the rules,” he teased.
She just laughed at him.
Behind Walter, Moss spotted Shawna, who stood next to her parents. He excused himself and darted over. He’d seen Shawna’s parents before, but hadn’t actually met them. Her father raised a hand to Moss. Well, he recognizes me, Moss thought tightly, but he still went to shake hands with Mr. Meyers.
“Nice to see your mother still has a pull,” the man said. “I don’t know that we’ve formally met before. Franklin Meyers. This is my wife, Teresa.” He paused and he pursed his lips. “Thank you. For my daughter. You know her well?”
“A little,” said Moss, shaking Franklin’s hand. He glanced at Shawna and smiled. “And it’s no problem. I didn’t even do anything.”
“Sorry to hear about your friend,” Shawna said. “I guess we’re both in the same boat.”
Moss sighed. “Yeah, it’s … unfortunate.” The word still felt wrong. He directed his next question to Franklin. “How’d you find out about this? My mom?”
“Most definitely,” he replied. “My wife knows her, too.”
“From what?”
Teresa laughed. “Too many things,” she said. “We actually went to high school together. West Oakland High, too. Solidarity is important,” Teresa said. Her eyes sparkled when she said it. In her, he saw the same eagerness that he’d witnessed in his mother, a hunger that he was beginning to understand, too.
Filled with excitement, Moss pushed past them, brushing up against other people in the crowded space, and then he cut through the pews back to the center of the church. He looked toward the front and caught sight of his mother, but only briefly. He ducked under someone’s outstretched hand, quickly gave Dawit a fist bump, shouted at Rawiya, and stumbled up to the stage where his mother was standing, helping someone with a tangled mass of electrical cords and cables.
“Mama, what are you doing?” Moss said, out of breath as he came up beside her.
She reached out and pulled him close, planting a kiss on top of his head. “Pretty good turnout, no?”
“That’s an understatement,” he said. “I guess I didn’t expect you to still have the same pull as you used to.”
“To be honest, neither did I,” she said, uncoiling another knot in the cable she held. “It’s been years since I did any organizing.”
“Clearly you’re still good at it,” he said. He walked to the edge of the stage and looked out at the crowd again, saw his friends and many of his classmates chatting with people he hadn’t seen since his father had been killed. Two worlds colliding, he thought. He never imagined a reality where these two groups of people would ever meet, but here they were, all to support Shawna and Reg and the kids at West Oakland High.
Wanda came to stand beside Moss, her face dancing with mischief. “I told you I was gonna help,” she said.
“Help?” he said. “This is beyond helping, Mama.” He looped his arm around her. “Thank you. Honestly.”
She kissed
him on the forehead. “We won’t let them get away with it,” she said.
And with that, she walked away and down the steps, stopping to chat with Reverend David Okonjo, who had managed Blessed Way for as long as Moss knew the place existed. Both he and Wanda had roots in Nigeria, and many of Moss’s mother’s friends joked that Reverend Okonjo could have been her father in another life. As Reverend Okonjo and Wanda walked off into the crowd, an energy zapped Moss. This is really happening.
He hopped off the stage, hoping to find anyone else he knew. Reverend Okonjo held out a hand and Moss gratefully took it. He then moved past the reverend toward someone he thought looked like Reg. But before he could cross the length of the church to greet him, he felt a hand on his arm stop him. “Moss!” Esperanza said excitedly. “Look how many people are here!” She pulled him into a hug as so many others had.
“Seriously, my mom really came through,” he said, and saying it out loud again made him feel a bit better about the future. “You sure you’re okay doing this?”
“Don’t worry about me,” she said, waving a hand to dismiss him. “So we need to thank Kaisha and your mom, cause I’m pretty sure we couldn’t have done this without them.”
“Oh, I will,” he said. “Where are your parents?”
She gestured behind her. “Somewhere in the back, chatting with someone. Turns out they do have friends outside of Cal Berkeley!”
“You’re not worried?” he said, struggling to be loud enough for Esperanza to hear him.
“Worried about what?” she asked.
“Well … your parents being here. Them getting involved.”
“Maybe a little bit. I had a talk with them on the way over, and I think they understand that they’re here to support y’all, not turn this into some crusade.”
“I just hope we can count on everyone here,” he said, scratching his head out of nervousness. “I mean, how can we be sure that these people want to help?”
“We don’t, I suppose. But that’s the whole point of this, right?”
“I guess,” Moss said, “but I still don’t even know what we’re planning to do. I mean, most of the people here don’t even go to school anymore, so how are they supposed to help?”
Esperanza ran her hand up and down Moss’s arm, trying to comfort him. “Look, I think you’re asking good questions, but you are nervous a lot. I don’t want to tell you that you worried for nothing, but I’m hoping that your mom can help direct all this chaos. She did volunteer, didn’t she?”
“True,” he conceded. Moss led her back to where he’d last seen his mother. “I guess I just don’t want us to lose again,” he added, more to himself than to Esperanza. She didn’t hear him over the noise, though. She had rushed to Wanda’s side, her voice cheery and carefree, and Moss took a moment to give a long look to the church hall. The door opened and more people squeezed in, filling the space around the pews and at the back of the room.
Javier shouted a greeting, and Moss couldn’t help the wide smile that grew on his face. A joy washed over him, a spark without the other complications he felt in that room. He planted a kiss on Javier’s cheek when they hugged. “Hurry up,” Moss said, and he guided Javier to a spot on the edge of stage right. “It’s about to start.”
“Glad I got here when I did,” he said. “Hey, before this gets all out of control…” He paused, looked down, then back up. “You busy Sunday morning?”
“I don’t think so. Why?”
“Come to breakfast with me. You ever been to Brown Sugar Kitchen?”
Moss scoffed at him. “I’ll put aside the offense for the moment,” he said, “because how dare you assume I haven’t been.” He kissed him on the cheek again. “But yes. Lemme ask my mom if it’s okay first, but I’d love to.”
He wanted to say more, but his mother ascended the short set of steps to the stage, Reverend Okonjo behind her. She allowed Reverend Okonjo to pass by her and step up to the pulpit, and as he did so, the room hushed almost immediately. The electricity of that transition sent a chill through Moss, and he watched as the whole room changed. People sat down quickly and quietly. The joking stopped. The laughter ceased. The entire crowd was now focused on the man on the stage. Moss stood off stage right so he didn’t block anyone’s view, and Javier locked his fingers with his. This feels right, he thought, and he gripped that hand with purpose, with happiness.
“Thank y’all for coming out tonight,” Reverend Okonjo said, his voice booming in the church. “I know we got a lot to talk about. I’ve had Jermaine there”—he gestured to the middle aisle, toward a lanky black man adjusting a stand—“put up a microphone so y’all can talk with Miss Jeffries here. So we can have a conversation about our community.” He looked toward Moss’s mother and smiled. “Now, Miss Jeffries here has been a longtime resident of Oakland, born and raised here, and she chose to raise her son here, too. Me and her, we go way back,” he said, which elicited a soft laugh from the crowd. “We been in this community, trying to make it better, for a long, long time.
“So when she came to me with a story about one of our own—Mr. Reginald Phillips, a bright young man who goes to this very church—I knew I had to help. Now, the Phillips family could not make it tonight; they’re taking care of their son right now, making sure he is loved. It’s our job, my friends, to take the burden on ourselves when they cannot. It is our duty to lift them on our shoulders and raise them above their circumstances.”
A few people hollered and clapped. Moss was fixated.
“I see a lot of familiar faces tonight,” Reverend Okonjo continued. “I see Martin Tremaine, who was responsible for the food drive last year to help feed those who could not afford a holiday dinner.” A sizable portion of the crowd clapped after that one. “I see Tenaya back there!” He waved to her. “She was responsible for helping the city council pass that domestic-violence initiative in the spring.” More applause. “I see a community that cares about those around them, so I am asking y’all to listen to Miss Jeffries. Listen to her, and ask her questions. Speak your mind. Honesty and integrity shall guide us, as it always has.”
He raised his hands up, and most of those in attendance lowered their heads. Moss kept his raised, his eyes open. “Lord, please guide us today as we seek the truth,” the reverend said. “Help us to know your ways. Teach us your paths. Lead us in your truth and teach us, for you are the Lord of our salvation, and for you, we shall wait. Amen.”
The crowd echoed the amen, and Reverend Okonjo stepped aside, offering the pulpit to Moss’s mother. She looked over at Moss before speaking, and a wave of affection swept over him as she smiled. He knew that smile was for him alone.
“Good evening, y’all,” Wanda said, and a few people muttered a response or waved to her, some shifting in the pews, and the rustling echoed loudly in the otherwise silent church. His mother continued and introduced herself, spoke of all the years she’d spent in Oakland, and Moss’s gaze drifted to the crowd itself. His mama had always been so good at this stuff. She never seemed to hesitate, as if she always had the right words waiting on the tip of her tongue. But a prickling ran over his skin as he watched the people in the church, their attention focused on his mother, all of them awaiting whatever it was she was going to say.
They would nod their heads on cue when she spoke of the problems this neighborhood had gone through before. When she mentioned how they’d defeated the last fare raise on AC Transit a couple of years back, a group of people whooped and cheered in response. No one seemed bored or disinterested in what she had to say. He was so used to the wandering attention of his fellow classmates that the phenomenon here thrilled him. He felt nothing like Esperanza must have felt toward her own parents; he was glad his mother was as involved in his life as she was. That creeping doubt, that deadly fear, began to slide away.
He turned his gaze back to his mother as she continued.
“I’d like to take a moment here to pass things along to someone who is better qualified to tell thi
s story,” she said, looking to her right. Moss glanced behind himself and did a double take when he saw that Kaisha was standing off to the side. He let go of Javier’s hand and moved up next to her.
“How’s Reg?” he whispered after hugging her.
“Okay,” she said into his ear. “He’s back home now. He was gonna come to speak, but his doc didn’t want him using his energy tonight.”
“So who’s gonna speak for him?”
It was then that Moss felt the silence in the room, aware that his mother was staring in his direction. “I am,” Kaisha said, moving away from him after squeezing his arm. She walked up the steps to the stage to scattered applause, each step purposeful. It was clear that the attendees didn’t know whether or not they should be clapping at this moment, and so it petered out rapidly as Kaisha approached the mic. She embraced Wanda, then pulled out her phone, propping it up in front of her, sucking in a deep breath before looking up at the crowd. Moss could see her gripping the edge of the pulpit, her fingers tense and rigid, and he moved back to stand next to Javier.
“My name is Kaisha Gordon,” she said, her voice quavering on her last name. She took another deep breath, and Wanda came up behind her, a hand on her back. Moss saw his mother whisper something to her, and she nodded her head. “I’m sorry, I’m just a little nervous,” she said, leaning in to the mic. “I’m used to doing this online, and no one is actually staring at you when you’re typing stuff up.”
A few people laughed, and the nervous energy seemed to comfort her. You can do it, Moss thought.
“I was at West Oakland High when my boyfriend, Reginald Phillips, was brutally harmed by the recently installed metal detectors.” She said this with clarity as her quavering voice began to even out. “He is currently at home with his family, and wishes he could be here. He did write something that he’d like me to read to y’all, and I hope you’ll listen.”
She paused again, her eyes drifting over to Moss, who nodded to her in encouragement. The only time he had ever seen Kaisha speak in front of a group was for a presentation in an English class the year before. She had spent the entire time with her eyes glued to a piece of paper, her voice monotone and rushed, and she had later confessed to Moss that she felt miserable about it. He could see her gaze keep falling down to her phone, and he knew she was trying. A woman from the back of the crowd shouted up at her, “Go ’head, baby!” This was followed by a number of shouts and some applause, and she smiled briefly in response, then returned her focus to the phone.