“What?” Tamia turned back to her desk, where the voice, knowing and a bit detached, maybe arrogant, was coming from.
The chair swiveled around and inside there was this man. A dark man with dark eyes and long, dark dreadlocks that because of his complexion seemed more a part of him than not. He was sitting back and wearing a military jacket with a thin T-shirt beneath. He looked like he was about to pitch a tent or start a war. She couldn’t decide which one, but knew neither activity seemed right for her office—not in her seat either.
“Are you looking for Tamia Dinkins? This is my office.”
Flat out, Tamia was put off. And she didn’t know if it was because of what she was looking at or where it was seated. She stepped in from the doorway and saw a tan knapsack on the floor beside the desk. Buttons and patches with little sayings crowded every side. It seemed like the perfect accessory for him. She’d seen men like this before. In undergrad at Howard at poetry readings and selling incense at the student center. They were always angry and usually high. Well, she’d never spoken to one but that was how they looked.
“Yeah, they told me to come see you.”
“They?”
“I’m Malik. I’m from the Freedom Project.” Malik stood up and his 6'5" frame seemed to erase every available square foot of space around Tamia. He was on the other side of the desk, but everywhere at the same time. She tried to find her breath. Looked at the wooden beads around his neck. Stood there.
“I apologize, sister.” Malik looked confused. He held his hands out defensively. “Did I do something wrong?”
“Oh,” Tamia tried, breathing again. “I’m just not used to people—you know…” She gestured toward the desk.
“I’m sorry. My bad,” Malik said, stepping back from the desk and walking toward Tamia. They had the awkward moment of trading positions in the small space, their bodies nearly brushing against each other. “I just wanted to see the view. See what the real people look like walking by the tower.”
“It’s okay really. I just…” Sitting down, Tamia looked at her schedule on the computer screen. “I’m sorry, my notes say I’m working with a man named Richard…”
“That’s me. But I go by Malik.” He sat down.
“Oh, well…then,” Tamia said slowly, and had her mother not died when she was just a little girl Tamia would’ve known that she sounded just like her at that moment. “That’s fine…Mal-ik.” She was trying to sound welcoming, but she never understood the concept of black people with perfectly good names “going by” something else. Gerard became Little G and Taylor became Tee Tee. And then everyone in the ’hood was complaining about why they couldn’t get out. It was a sad state of affairs where being unique meant being held back, and while Tamia would never let anyone hear her admit it, she always thought her own name was a little too unique.
Malik, having sized Tamia up in an equal way, felt the opposite. Tamia wasn’t unique enough. The card he was given said “Da-Asia Moshanique Jones,” and while he wasn’t excited about taking the hookup one of his father’s former employers arranged, he thought at least “Da-Asia” sounded like a sister—a real sister, who was probably coming from where he was from and could understand his situation. But what was before him, in Tamia, was a sister but not what he’d call a “real” sister. Her monkey suit was the color of the wallpaper, her hair was processed, and what was up with the way she’d said “Malik”? On her mouth it sounded like a lock or illness.
“Weren’t we supposed to meet later this afternoon with Attorney Jones?”
“I was in the neighborhood and figured I’
d come by earlier. Is that a problem?”
“Well, we have a pretty orderly way of running things around here,” Tamia said, and while she certainly wasn’t trying to sound patronizing, there was little way out of it because inside she was really thinking who doesn’t know you can’t show up at a corporate office unannounced…or anywhere these days? Hell, even the tiniest of downtown restaurants now took reservations.
There was silence now as the accidental adversaries sat on either side of Tamia’s desk thinking things about each other they’d later share with other people. While Tamia was thinking about how clear and shiny his eyes were, big like a little boy’s, she’d tell Troy about how ridiculous it was that he’d shown up for a meeting with his attorney dressed like a storm trooper, and while he was thinking of how soft and silken her wrists looked he’d complain to his neighbor about how he knew this would be a waste of his time and he’d probably be better off with some white boy than this bourgeoisie wannabe. But that would be all of the talk later. Now Malik was looking at the degrees on the wall and Tamia was swallowing spit she’d gathered from beneath her tongue. They could hear the pendulum on the clock in Maria’s office next door ticking.
“Do you have any questions for me?” Malik asked. “This is an interview, right?”
“Yeah.” Tamia took a pad from her desk and tried to remember what she’d read in the folder that morning on the treadmill. While she was usually prepared to meet a new client with a list of questions, a recorder, and sometimes Naudia taking additional notes, she’d planned on letting Jones lead Malik’s questioning and only half read the first few pages. “Let’s see…” She flipped open the case file.
“I’m just gonna come out and say this so there’s no confusion,” Malik said. “I did what they said I did. It’s not what they’re calling it but I did do it. And I’ll do it again.”
“What?” Tamia looked at Malik like he was crazy and this time she did nothing to hide what she was thinking. “I don’t think you need to say that right now. Not here.” Her voice was hushed. “My job is to maintain your innocence. You tell me what happened and I’ll decide what you did and didn’t do and until then I don’t want to hear you say anything like that again.”
“I know the game you’re playing, but I’m saying I don’t want to play games. They say I enslaved my own brother. I say I freed him. I’m a conscious brother and I can’t lie about something I did that I knew was right just because a bunch of unconscious people said it’s unethical. Have you ever had to do that, sister? Put your head out there to do something that was right, even though the law said it was unethical?”
Tamia nervously swallowed what was inside of her mouth again and nodded.
“Sister, are you conscious?” Malik leaned in toward the desk as if he was saying a secret, but his voice was still loud enough for someone walking past the office to hear.
“Excuse me?”
“Conscious? Are you conscious?”
“As opposed to unconscious?” Tamia smiled uneasily. “Sure I am.”
“That’s not what I mean. I’m asking if you’re conscious about the war against African people in this world. About how white supremacy threatens the very existence of blackness”—his voice was getting louder with each word and Tamia wanted to close the door to her office but she was afraid if she got up she would have to walk farther away and he’d only get louder still—“That whiteness is a genetic mutation and—”