"Say It Loud!"

Mrs. Dominics was sitting on the front porch fanning herself with a folded-up October issue of Life magazine.  Her son, Reggie, burst out of the front door, leaped over the steps, and began running alongside Leo’s silver Plymouth, where Sukie and Leslie sat happily in the backseat, ensconced in their pajamas and cardigan sweaters.  Leo drove with one hand guiding the steering wheel while smoking a Pall Mall cigarette with the other. Too small to view anything below where the windshield began, the sisters could hear Reggie’s sneakers slapping pavement and caught glimpses of bright green shirt sleeve as his arms whisked the air.  Squealing, they got up on their knees to get a better look at the way Reggie’s jaws trembled with the speed of his fierce sprint.  He was panting.  Leo turned to gauge Reggie’s distance from the car and and then gunned the accelerator in challenge.  Mrs. Dominics had risen from her seat and was shading her eyes with the magazine.
“Boy....!”  she shouted after him, but he wasn’t paying her any mind.  Ever since the opening of the year’s Olympic games in Mexico City, Reggie had been dashing everywhere:  toppling out of the house and running to the bus stop at Oakland and Mt. Vernon or zooming around the corner at Kinglsey Court to pump his body down the middle of Melbourne where he thought his mother wouldn’t see.  So far he had managed to dodge cars as people backed-out of their driveways, though there had been a few close calls at the intersections where Beaubien broke the east-west streets.
“Catch up, Reggie!” Leslie clapped her hands and cheered.  Sukie followed suit.
“Is he keeping-up?” Leo asked, his eyes stayed glued to the street where, up ahead, about five or six teenagers were spilling out from the sidewalk.
“Yeah!” yelled Sukie.  She and Leslie resumed cheering:  “Catch-up-Re-Gee! Catch-up-Re-Gee!”
Reggie’s face grimaced with effort.  All of sixteen years old, he was trying to teach himself to push hard beyond the point where he felt he had exerted the most energy.  As the Plymouth approached the corner, the teenagers’ four-part harmonizing and finger-snapping drowned-out the sound of Reggie’s heavy breathing.
Baby, baby!
Don’tcha treat me!
Baby, baby!
Don’tcha treat me!
Baby, baby!
Don’tcha treat me SO BAAAAAD!

“Hey! You all sound gooood!”  Leslie stopped cheering for Reggie and stuck her hand out of the window hoping that one of the teenagers would give her some skin.  Sukie clamored to do the same.
“Hey!” shouted Leo.  “Get your hands back in the car and sit down!”  He brought the car to a halt at the stop sign.  Just as Leo threw his arm over the back of the seat to give the girls a warning gesture ---BAM!---they all jumped when something hit the side of the car.  It was Reggie’s fist!
“See you later, Mr. Tompkins!” he shouted as he ran away from the car and around the corner.  Leo waved and began to drive the car straightaway as Reggie turned to raise his fist in an exuberant Black Power salute.