The Heart of a Woman - Maya Angelou [74]
I said, “Let's find the stairs.”
Around the corner we saw the exit sign.
“Buddy, you go through and let the door close, then see if you can open it again.”
He walked out onto the landing and waited until the door slammed shut. I stepped back as he turned the knob and opened the door from his side.
“Come on. Let's get up there.”
We raced up the steps to the eleventh floor. He grabbed the knob, but the door wouldn't open.
“That cracker cop. He beat us to it. Stay here.”
He turned and trotted up another flight. I heard him mutter. “This damn door is locked too.”
He came down the steps heavily.
“What you wanna do now?”
I couldn't think at the moment. I had only a vague plan to reach the eleventh floor and “see about Carlos.” My mind had not budged beyond the possibility of achieving that feat. I looked stupidly at Buddy who was waiting for an answer. After a few seconds, my voice surfaced. “I guess there's nothing else to do but go back to the street. I'm sorry.”
I expected to see disgust or at least derision on my accomplice's face, but he displayed no emotion.
“All right, sister. Let's go.”
We walked back down to the tenth floor and I pushed the door, but it resisted. I must have gasped, because he pushed me aside and grabbed the knob. “Let me do it.” He took the knob and leaned his body against the metal panel, but the door wouldn't give. Panic accelerated my blood. Like an idiot I had given myself to death. The cops could open the door any minute and blow my brains out. No one would see and no one would be able to protect me. I saw an image of my son in his classroom. Who would tell him, and how would he handle the news? My new husband would receive a telegram in India. What would he think of a wife so frivolous as to commit suicide? My poor mother … The man beside me, whom fear had caused me to forget, took my shoulders in his hands.
“Sister. Sister. You ain't got nothin' to worry about. I'm here.”
He released me and stood on the landing's edge. “They'll have to walk over my dead body to get to you.”
Buddy ran down the steps. I heard him stop on the ninth floor, then his footsteps descended and stopped again and again. In a few seconds he called, “Sister Maya, come on. I got a door. Come on.” I met him on the sixth-floor landing. My heart was fluttering so I could hardly catch my breath. The hallway and the elevator looked to me like Canada must have to escaping slaves. We were in the lobby before my embarrassment returned. My hand on his arm turned him around. “Buddy, I apologize for panicking a while ago. I'm going to tell my husband about you.”
He looked at me, and shook his head. “Sister, in this country a Negro is always about to get killed, so that ain't nothing. But you tell your husband that a black man was ready to lay down his life for you. That's all.”
He took my elbow and guided me past the still-waiting police and to the door. I walked right into Rosa's arms.
“Girl, what happened? Carlos came out just after you went in. A bunch of us were getting ready to go get you.” We hugged tightly. I said, “Rosa, you've got to meet this brother,” but when I turned to introduce Buddy, he had disappeared into the thinning crowd.
Rosa continued, “You were in there nearly twenty minutes.” That was astounding news. I had been bold, blatant and audacious. I had been silly, irresponsible and unprepared. My body had been enclosed with panic and my mind immobilized with fear. A stranger had shown the courage of Vivian Baxter and the generosity of Jesus. And all that had happened in twenty minutes.
Television and radio reporters were walking among the remaining protesters seeking interviews.
One woman spoke into a microphone. “Yes, we're mad. You people pick us off like we're jack rabbits. You dadgummed right, we're mad.” A man walking behind her added, “Lumumba was in the Congo. The Congo is in Africa and we're Africans. You get that?”
CAWAH members had agreed to make no public statements, so we turned our faces when the journalists approached. The line of marchers was exhausted. People