“Dade would have made all the difference in the world against Auburn,” Clan says, staring out my window into the street below. Each Monday he comes into my office and dissects the Hogs’ performance from the previous Saturday.
“They knew we didn’t have anybody who could get open long without Dade.”
The Razorbacks kept it close (21 to 14), but it was painfully obvious how much they missed Dade. Only five completions in twenty attempts and none more than ten yards.
“It serves them right,” I say, still angry about the administration’s decision to uphold the “J” Board.
“If they lose the rest of their games, you might see some heads roll.”
Clan lets out his belt a notch, even though it is only nine in the morning.
“People have been fired for less.”
He was almost absurdly pleased that I got the dependency-neglect petition against Gina dismissed on Friday. I noticed he took off the rest of the day. Surely he isn’t still sleeping with her. If he is, he deserves what he gets.
“It pisses me that Carter didn’t even mention Dade on his TV show Sunday. It’s like the Soviet Union when they used to rewrite their history. Dade never existed. I wanted him to be a character witness at Dade’s hearing, but he wouldn’t do it.”
“The pressure on coaches must be enormous,” Clan says, taking up for him.
“He probably had done all he could do for Dade.”
“Shit! If they’re winning, they can get away with murder.”
My phone rings. Julia tells me it is Binkie Cross, calling from Fayetteville. I give Clan the thumbs-up sign, and pushing the button on the speakerphone, I tell Julia to put him through. This could be good news.
“Binkie Cross, Gideon,” Binkie says, wasting no time on pleasantries.
“I’d like Dade to take a polygraph. If he passes, I really might be able to see my way to a dismissal.”
Polygraph tests aren’t admissible in court in Arkansas unless both sides agree. Yet, law enforcement types use them frequently to weed out suspects. Clan nods. What does Dade have to lose? I ask, “Has Robin taken one?”
“Her parents are balking at it,” Binkie admits.
“They think it’s an insult. I understand their feelings, but if your client were to pass with flying colors, and she still won’t take it, it’d be a lot easier to justify a dismissal.”
Damn right it would, Clan mouths the words.
“Let me talk to him,” I say, “and get back to you. It might take a couple of days. I’ll have to talk to his parents, too.”
“No big rush,” Binkie says.
“Just give me a call, and I’ll set it up.”
“I’ll do it.” Before he gets off the phone, he tells me he has subpoenaed the tape of the “J” Board hearing and will provide me a copy of the transcript when it has been typed. I look down at the calendar on my desk. Though it promises to be a gorgeous, mild Indian summer day, we are into the second week of November. Still, the trial is almost two months away. I thank him and hang up, thinking this is about as good an offer as Dade is going to get “If he dismisses charges, the school might reverse itself and put Dade back on the team,” Clan points out.
“It’d be worth a shot.”
I pick up the phone and call Dade but as usual get his answering machine. I leave a message for him to call me as soon as he gets in. Because he has only been suspended for the rest of the season, he is still being allowed to keep his athletic scholarship and live in the dorm. Actually, the university could have been a lot tougher on him. Before Clan leaves, I ask, “You’re not still screwing Gina, are you?”
Standing at my door, he nods like some three-mont hold puppy who has been caught standing in his water dish.
“It’s not really like you think,” he says.
“She’s fun to be around. I’m crazy about her.”
How foolish and pathetic we are!
“She’ll give you AIDS, goddamn it, ClanI” I yell at him.
“You may be exposing Brenda, too! Are you crazy?”
Embarrassed, Clan mutters something under his breath and scurries out the door. I shake my head at his back. I don’t think he and Gina are spending their time trying to figure out ways to solve the national debt. Yet, if I were married to Brenda, I’d have trouble going home, too.
At noon, as I am about to go downstairs to lunch, I get a coquettish call from Julia telling me I have a visitor.
She won’t say more, and I go out to the waiting room fully expecting to see Amy. Instead, it is my old girl friend Rainey McCorkle.
“Gideon, I wouldn’t be asking you to help this client,” Rainey says, two minutes later, leaning against my desk on her elbows, “if it weren’t so terrible where she is required to stay right now. Confederate Gardens is driving her crazy.”
Though we haven’t seen each other in months, we still talk occasionally. I notice, not without satisfaction, there is more gray in her red hair. She has lost weight, too, and even seems a little gaunt, her skin tight against her jaw. I can’t help comparing her to Amy, who usually can’t help flirting even if she is discussing the weather. Rainey is far more serious. There is something to be said for youth.
“I take it she is crazy,” I comment. Confederate Gardens is a big boardinghouse-like facility that provides care for individuals released from the state hospital.
“She’s in good shape,” Rainey says, sounding like a car salesman.
“She’s got a fixed delusion that Bill Clin ton owes her some money, but that’s all. She doesn’t act on it, and other than that, she’s as normal as you are.”
That’s not saying much. I resist drumming my fingers on my desk.
“Wonderful. She’s threatened the President of the United States. She’s lucky to be out of the state hospital. The Secret Service has a file on her the size of a telephone book.”
Rainey, persistent as a bad cold, shakes her head.
“The incident happened when he was governor. All she did was show up at the Mansion and try to speak to him.” She looks down at some notes in her lap.
“She was arrested and found not guilty by reason of insanity and was conditionally released by Judge Blake last November and ordered to live in Confederate Gardens. I just want you to go out there with me, and you’ll see why it’s so inappropriate for her.”
While she talks, it is hard to keep certain memories at bay. Though in all the time that we dated we never made love, we had some delicious make-out sessions on her couch. It seemed as if we had regressed to being teenagers but the desire I felt I remember more than actual intercourse with other women before her.
“So you want me to go to court with her,” I ask, “and try to get her conditional release amended to let her move?”
“Not just that. Amended to allow her to try to get a job, too. Her conditional release says she has to go to a day treatment program every day. They sit and stare at each other all day. It’s a total waste,” Rainey says bitterly.
I smile at this familiar refrain. I first met Rainey when I was with the public defender’s office, which had the job of representing patients in involuntary commitment proceedings She thought the Blackwell County community mental health center was a joke and never hesitated to tell me so. Instead of helping persons with mental illness to find decent places to live and jobs, they wasted millions of dollars pushing paper around.
“Does she have a job history?” I ask.
“She was a respiratory therapist at St. Thomas for five years.”
I never even saw Rainey nude. The day she found out she had a lump in her breast she spent the night in my bed, but with me on the couch. How strange our relation ship was! I thought she was perfect for me. So did Sarah.
“I suppose she had a big pension plan,” I say sarcastically.
Rainey says, “I’ll pay her fee.”
“I’ll do it for nothing,” I say grudgingly.
“You don’t have any money.” I remember the day Mays amp; Burton fired me, and she, with her modest state salary and a kid in college, offered to loan me money. Rainey would have done anything for me except make love.
For the first time Rainey smiles.
“I’ll buy you a yogurt if you get her out of Confederate Gardens.”
“Whoopee,” I say, and twirl the index finger of my right hand in the air. Rainey was never much of a drinker, and her idea of a hot date was to drive to Turbo’s for a kiddie cup of sorbet and white chocolate mousse swirled together.
“Can you go see her now with me?” Rainey asks. She never stops pushing when she wants something.
“You can follow me to the hospital and drive us over. It’s only a few minutes from there.”
I look at my watch.
“Sure,” I say. Maybe we can go to lunch afterward. I don’t have a client coming in until four.
“You don’t come out here by yourself?” I ask Rainey, when we pull up front. Confederate Gardens is not going to be featured in the real estate section of the paper featuring choice residential areas anytime soon. An adult video arcade, a liquor store, and an auto parts store make perfect neighbors for a former motel whose occupants now consist entirely of persons with all manner of disabilities, ranging from retardation to mental illness.
“You’re such a baby,” my old girlfriend says, shrugging
“Nothing will happen,” she adds, indicating a parking space in front of the sign that announces this dump as a retirement center.
Rainey seems overdressed for the occasion in a straw berry tunic and skirt set that matches her hair. When I picked her up at the hospital it seemed like old times.
Loosening up a bit, she has teased me ever since she got in the Blazer. Rainey has always been able to puncture any illusions I have about my importance and make me laugh at the same time.
“This place gives me the creeps,” I confess, “and I haven’t been here two seconds. What happened to the zoning laws?”
Rainey gives me a familiar smirk as if to say that some smart lawyer thought he knew what he was doing. I have been around persons with mental illness at the state hospital, but it has always been in such a clean, safe environment that I never felt the slightest uneasiness. As we pass one buff-colored brick unit after another, I look around for security but don’t see any. Instead, we encounter several men and women some of whom are angrily muttering to themselves. One black guy, who looks as if he might weight three hundred pounds, yells something in comprehensible at me. I smile brightly and nod as if he is welcoming me as the newest resident.
“They make sure they take their medication,” Rainey whispers, “but other wise the residents can leave during the day. Of course, they don’t have any money to spend. Confederate Gardens is allowed to get all of their disability checks except fifty dollars a month.”
After years of representing patients at involuntary civil commitment hearings at the Blackwell County public de fender’s office, I had convinced myself that I had been doing something noble. Institutionalization by the state was bad, I thought. Confederate Gardens looks like more of the same thing, but definitely more seedy. Rainey stops at number 114 and knocks at the door. I feel relieved to be going inside.
After thirty seconds, the door opens a crack, and Rainey says gently across the chain, “Delores, it’s Rainey. Are you dressed?”
The door opens, and a pleasant-looking woman in her mid-thirties emerges into the warm sunlight.
“I was taking a nap,” she says, looking at me.
She is wearing baggy gray shorts, no shoes, and a rum pled T-shirt that advertises Michael Bolton’s Love and Tenderness Tour. Her shiny black hair could stand to be combed, but with a little work she could be attractive.
Rainey explains, “This is Gideon Page, the lawyer I was telling you about. Can we come in for a moment?”
Delores seems a little overwhelmed, but says, “Sure.”
As I follow Rainey into the room, I realize Delores has a roommate. A black woman I would estimate to be at least seventy lies on top of the bed, fully clothed, watching us. She works her lips but no sound emerges. Rainey says in her most cheery social worker voice, “How are you?”
“Don’t mind Betty,” Delores says, giving me a good once-over.
“I’d send her out for a little bit, but sometimes she gets lost and it’s too hot today.”
“We can go to that Wendy’s on the corner,” I say quickly, feeling claustrophobic. It is only a standard sized motel room with two twin beds. There is a wooden chair at a desk, where Delores motions me to sit.
“This is all right,” Delores says.
“It’s close to lunch. I don’t mind if she hears.”
The woman, who has long white hair, mutters under her breath and turns on her side facing away from us. I say, “Rainey says you’d like to leave here and try to get a job” Delores nods eagerly.
“I’d like to have a place by myself.”
I can’t imagine why. Before judges are allowed to order someone to stay in conditions like this, they ought to have to live here themselves. The room is picked up, even neat, but it must be fifty years old and smells of bug spray.
“How long have you lived here?” Rainey asks, apparently testing her for me.
“Almost a year,” Delores answers promptly.
“I came here last November.” She sits down on her bed beside Rainey.
Thanksgiving, I think, wondering if Delores sees the irony. How can she have managed to stay here for an entire year without shooting herself? If I don’t get out of here in a minute, I am going to start screaming.
“Have you got your conditional release papers signed by the judge?”
Delores hops off the bed and opens a drawer on the table in front of me. She points at a piece of paper.
“That’s it.”
I unfold the creased paper and read the boilerplate language. She is ordered to take her medication as directed.
She can’t leave Blackwell County. She has to attend a day treatment program. She is required to live at Confederate Gardens. The order is good for five years.
“Do you mind if we all go sit in my car?” I almost beg. I feel suddenly depressed. If this is the best the law can do, why bother with it?
“Okay,” Delores says.
“But I have to go for a med check in ten minutes.”
Before leaving, I glance around the room. The sole possessions consist of a black-and-white TV that must be at least twenty years old, a clock radio, and a picture of Bill Clinton. As I stand up to leave, I ask, “How much does President Clinton owe you?”
Delores stares at his picture.
“Five hundred seventeen dollars and eighty-five cents.”
The recitation of this precise amount is unnerving. I wish she had picked anyone but Clinton, but I am not surprised. Delusions of grandeur can come with the territory of schizophrenia. I once represented a man at an involuntary civil commitment hearing who was convinced that he had written the words to “Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain” and was owed half a million dollars. I walk out the door ahead of Rainey and Delores and look across the street at another row of identical motel rooms. How can anyone call this place a residential care facility? It even looks like a warehouse. As we walk toward my car, I ask, “Delores, how do you figure Clinton owes you money?”
She is wearing a cheap pair of sandals that she has trouble keeping on her feet and she reaches down to ad just a strap. Rainey and I stop to wait for her. She looks up at me.
“One day he came jogging into McDonald’s downtown and needed a loan. He didn’t say why. I figured he was just hungry.”
It is hard to resist smiling. With that skimpy little pair of shorts he wears, he couldn’t have been carrying a lot of money. But even he couldn’t eat five hundred bucks’ worth of Big Macs. I ask, “When you tried to collect, did you threaten him or have a gun or anything like that?”
“No!” she says emphatically.
“I hate guns. I just wanted my money. I kept going to the Governor’s Mansion and finally they arrested me.”
“You don’t have any plans to go to Washington to try to collect, do you?” I ask. I have learned from experience it does no good to argue with people who suffer from this form of mental illness.
She looks at me as though I am one who is sick.
“It’s not worth all the hassle.”
“Good idea,” I tell her. Her attitude will be important.
If the judge is satisfied that she is no threat, we shouldn’t have any trouble getting her order amended. We sit in my car for ten minutes talking, until she tells us she has to leave. I am reasonably satisfied that she has no more delusions, and I drive Rainey back to the state hospital, optimistic I can help her. Rainey has declined my offer for lunch, pleading work. She had always been too conscientious for her own good.
As I pull up in front of the administration building, Rainey thanks me profusely and asks me to turn off the motor for a minute because she has something to tell me.
I do, knowing that she wants to start dating again. I have missed her. Amy, as cute as she is, can’t hold a candle to her. Rainey is solid gold and is worth whatever effort it costs to get her.
“I’m glad to help,” I say, wondering if I could get away with kissing her in front of the state hospital.
“What’s up?”
She pauses for a moment and holds up her left hand.
“I’m getting married!”
Finally, I see the ring. What an idiot I am! She practically rubbed my nose in it. My mouth goes dry, and there is no concealing my shock.
“You are?” I say, unable to utter anything intelligent.
Her blue eyes round and serious, she nods.
“December twenty-sixth.”
My mind is racing. I can’t seem to focus. Shit, why not make it Christmas Day? Kill two birds with one stone.
All these months I have assumed she hasn’t been seeing anyone in particular. When years ago we first began to date and had become serious, Rainey broke it off temporarily because an old boyfriend had resurfaced a big, hairy psychologist at the state hospital by the name of Norris Kelsey. Then, within weeks, she had ditched him and resumed our relationship, until one thing after an other seemed to kill it. The hard part is that I didn’t even realize she was seeing a guy. I feel utterly devastated. She and I have talked occasionally, but too late I realize that none of the conversations have been about her. Numb, I ask, “Do I know the guy?”
She smiles and reaches over and pats my hand.
“I don’t think so. Dennis Stanley. He’s never heard of you.”
About to explode in the heat, I unroll the window and rack my brain in vain for the name. The only Stanley I’ve ever heard of is the explorer. Dr. Livingston, I presume?
“What does he do?”
Rainey twists the ring on her finger. It is huge, now that I look at it.
“He’s a pediatrician. He’s five years younger. Never been married. He doesn’t care about having kids.”
A doctor who is younger! I could picture her with a guy that much older. This is too weird. It won’t last six months. She’ll go nuts worrying that she won’t be able to hold on to him.
“How long have you known him?” I can’t bring myself to congratulate her.
“Only for a couple of months,” she says, smiling.
“But I’ve never been surer of anything in my life.”
This is outrageous! Nothing could be more out of character Rainey agonizes over things.
“Did you meet him at Christian Life?” I ask, knowing I sound childish. Her conversion to fundamentalist Christianity was the final straw as far as I was concerned. I could never understand how she could close her eyes to reality.
“He’s a Presbyterian,” she says, with just a trace of irony.
“He’s very tolerant.”
“You’ll never see each other,” I say, knowing I sound like an old curmudgeon.
“Gideon,” she commands, “be happy for me!”
I try to get a grip.
“It’s a little difficult at the moment since until two minutes ago I was thinking that you and I might try to get back together.” I know this is not the cool tiling to say, but I feel as if I had been kicked in the stomach by a mule.
“I’ve got to go,” she says, and puts her hand on the door.
I summon my best fake smile. I don’t want the whole damn staff of the state hospital feeling sorry for me.
“I’m real happy for you, Rainey. We’ll always be friends.”
Whether she believes me or not, she pretends that she does. Her lips come back from her teeth, and she says, “I know we will.”
I drive off, and get to the corner before I let myself feel anything. Damn her! On again, off again, on again, off again. She jerked me around like a yo-yo. I wipe my eyes and decide to go home instead of back to the office. I could stand a drink.
At the house, after getting into some shorts and taking Woogie out, I call the office and without any explanation tell Julia to see if she can postpone my four o’clock appointment.
I ice down a twelve-pack, and Woogie and I go into the backyard. It is delightfully warm. If I start drinking bourbon, I will be sick tomorrow, and I don’t want anyone to think I am bothered by this. I can hear Julia reminding Clan when she hears I’ve been dumped:
“He was a no-show the day after she told him.” Fuck all women, I think. I haven’t met a decent one since Rosa.
What made her so special? Guts. She had guts. Left her mother, learned English, came to Arkansas, passed the state nursing exam, got a job. Rosa was a class act. Instead of putting the empties back in the box, I drop them in the yard by my chair. To hell with what the neighbors think.
“Come here, boy,” I say to Woogie, who is sitting in the shade staring at me. Reluctantly, he gets up and ambles over toward me. I stroke his warm back. So warm. I take off my shirt. It is wonderful out here today.
In the eighties, a record for this time of year. Rosa never would have finked out like Rainey. When things got tough, Rosa didn’t run. I know I am getting drunk, but so what? It’s easier to remember Rosa when I’ve had a few…. I wake up and look at my watch. Almost four-thirty. I have been out here almost three hours. My face and chest feel on fire. I look down and see my stomach is pink as the inside of a salmon. Woogie, seeing I am awake, comes over to me and licks my hand. I must be a total idiot I will look like a lobster tomorrow. I count six empties, glad I have a six-pack left. Inside, I can hear the phone ringing and push myself up out of the cheap nylon webbing and lurch toward the house, Woogie at my heels. Rainey, I think stupidly, calling to say she has changed her mind.
“Hello,” I say, grabbing the phone in the kitchen and trying not to sound drunk.
“Dad?” Sarah says.
“Are you okay? I tried to get you at your office.”
“Rainey’s getting married!” I blurt.
“She is?” Sarah asks, her voice sounding far away.
“Dad, you must feel terrible. Who is she marrying?”
“Some doctor whose last name is Stanley,” I say, un able to keep tears from sliding down my face.
“I don’t know him.”
“Promise me you won’t drive anywhere tonight,” Sarah says.
“Get something to eat and go on to bed, okay? It will be all right.”
Do I sound that bad? I sigh, “I’m fine.”
“Check and see if there is a pizza in the freezer and fix that,” Sarah says.
“I’ll be home in two weeks. Remember, we’re going to Bear Creek, okay?”
Why? I think. I can’t wake up.
“Okay,” I say.
“Remember to feed Woogie and make sure he has water before you go to bed.”
Bed? It’s not even dark.
“I will,” I say irritably. It seems as if all the women I know treat me like a child. I hang up and look for Woogie’s dog food.
At six, after trying to get through a few bites of some stuff that tastes like frozen glue (it doesn’t seem cooked enough), I decide to call Amy. I know I shouldn’t, but damn it, I want to.
“You sound skunked,” Amy says cheerfully.
“Does it take that much nerve just to call and say you’re wrong?”
I try to choose my words carefully.
“You remember saying that you were jealous of Rainey McCorkle?”
There is silence on the other end for a moment.
“Yes?”
Amy asks, her voice no longer so friendly.
“She’s getting married,” I say casually, “next month.”
“Poor Gideon!” Amy says instantly.
“No wonder you’re shit-faced. Who’s she marrying?”
“I’m not shit-faced,” I say shakily.
“A doctor who is five years younger. Some guy named Dennis Stanley.”
“I know Dennis!” Amy says.
“He’s a wonderful man and a fantastic doctor. A hunk, too! God, I’m impressed with your old girlfriend. She’s getting a real prize. Cheer up. It’s not like you lost her to a vacuum cleaner salesman.”
“Was he your boyfriend, too?” I ask sourly. If he’s so great, why doesn’t he have a better name?
Amy laughs.
“You sound so pitiful! He was the head resident at St. Thomas and testified in a couple of rape cases when I was at the prosecutor’s. He didn’t go to medical school until he was in his thirties.”
I crumple me empty beer can I am holding. I couldn’t have gotten into med school even if I owned it.
“A late bloomer,” I say, as though this were a terrible indictment.
“Gideon, would you like for me to come over and spend the night?” Amy asks.
“Yes,” I say.
“That would be very nice.”
Amy laughs again.
“I’ll be there in an hour.”
“I’ll time you,” I say, looking at the clock over the kitchen sink.
“That won’t be necessary,” Amy giggles.
“Why don’t you take a shower?”
The idea of anything touching my skin, even if it is cold water, makes me wince.
“Do you have some ointment for sunburn?” I ask, bringing my left hand to my chest. It feels like pie crust.
“I fell asleep for a little while outside.”
Amy’s reaction is swift.
“Oh, Gideon, you didn’t pass out in this sun, did you?”
“Just took a little nap,” I whimper. I feel terribly thirsty.
“Have you got some juice or something like that?
All I’ve got is beer.”
“I can tell,” Amy says.
“You’re probably so dehydrated that you’re about to go into shock. Drink as much water as you can. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
She hangs up before I can answer her. I ease over to the sink and rinse out a glass and fill it up with tap water.
Good of’ Amy. I haven’t been very nice to her lately. I should have called her when I wasn’t drunk. Poor women. They’re such suckers for us. They deserve to be in a better species. The water tastes good. I wish I had thought of it a couple of hours ago. I look through the kitchen window and see the beer cans scattered around the lawn chair. They look terrible. Get that white guy out of the neighborhood before he turns it into a slum. I laugh at my little joke and look at Woogie, who is lapping up his own water.
“Hey, boy, are we having fun or what?”
He won’t even look at me and goes off to the couch after he finishes. At least he had enough sense to lie in the shade.
Amy arrives about thirty minutes later with a quart of orange juice and an overnight bag.
“Oh, Gideon!” she wails.
“You look like you’ve been electrocuted!”
“Damn, it’s November! It shouldn’t be this hot.” I look down at myself again. My knees look like stoplights.
While I take off my clothes, Amy runs the tub full of water and helps me get into it.
“This is what it must be like to be old,” I complain.
“If you keep this up,” she says, taking my arm, “you’ll never find out.”
The water feels good. It is cool but not freezing. I lie back against the porcelain and sigh.
“Maybe we can make love later.”
Amy looks down at my shriveled penis which is limply floating in the water.
“Unless you can think of a way to detach it,” she says, giggling, “I don’t think you’re going to be terribly interested.”
Thirty minutes later Amy turns down the sheet and helps me into bed. Amy has rubbed so much Benadryl cream and Aloe into my skin that I feel like a greased pig.
Grateful beyond words, I watch her while she arranges the water and juice on my nightstand. Why is she here?
This hasn’t exactly been my finest hour. If the situation were reversed, I don’t think I would be playing her nursemaid. I sink back onto my pillow.
“This Florence Nightingale business is a side I haven’t seen before, Gilchrist. I think I like it.”
She sits down on the bed beside me and rubs cream into my feet. Even the soles are tender.
“I have a masochistic side. Most women do. I think it must be genetic.
Here I am doing everything but changing your diapers while you’re trying to turn yourself into a brisket because of another woman.”
What do I say? She is correct, of course. If I had a decent bone in my body, I would have called anybody except her.
“I could have called Clan, but I don’t think he would have been of much use.”
Amy laughs at the thought. From long acquaintance, she knows Clan is as helpless as I am.
“He might have brought you a gun, so you could have done the job right.”
I look down at my cooked flesh and wonder if I’m the one who has the masochistic streak. Rainey and I haven’t had a real romantic relationship in more than a year. Still, true feeling dies hard. I admit it to myself outright for the first time: I did love her. Yet, we could never make a commitment.
To her credit, she has moved on to another man who obviously inspires more confidence.
“What bothers me,” I admit to Amy, “is that I didn’t really even know she was seriously dating somebody. I just kind of figured everything would finally fall into place some day, and we’d end up together.”
A melancholy expression comes over Amy’s face.
“You miss the boat mat way. Even the dumbest dog will leave if you won’t feed it.”
“I know,” I say, growing more sober by the moment. I know she is telling me that she isn’t going to take care of me indefinitely. I don’t even know if I want her to try.
“You don’t know shit,” she says, putting away the Benadryl. She bends down and searches through her bag and withdraws a pink nightie with poodles on it.
“Don’t even think about saying a word about this gown. I grabbed the first thing I saw.”
I grin. Poodles aren’t Amy’s style. Yet, how do I know?
I haven’t given her a chance. For all I know she may sleep with a security blanket and her thumb in her mouth.
I seem to be floating through life more and more these days. Why? It is as if when Rosa died, I quit trying. She made everything so simple, or at least it seemed that way.
Something tells me that it probably wasn’t, and I just don’t want to remember how life really was. I watch as Amy pulls her T-shirt over her head. As unselfconscious as a two-year-old child, she slips out of her sandals, shorts, and bra and pulls the gown over her head. I feel a stir between my legs but it flickers and dies. As the old saying goes, tonight, at least, my eyes are bigger than my stomach. She eases into bed beside me, and watches me sleep.
“Good Lord!” Julia exclaims when I walk in the next morning.
“Did you fall asleep in your oven?”
“Just got a little too much sun” I say, checking for my messages.
“Shit!” she whistles.
“It looks like you laid out drunk all afternoon.”
As usual, Julia is revealing more of her own skin than is appropriate in a law office. Behind the counter that separates her from our clients, her lime sherbet colored skirt has crept up almost to her panty line, revealing two nicely tanned legs. I’ve seen belts wider than her skirt.
“I get to take off occasionally,” I mutter as I walk down the hall.
In my office I dial Dade’s number, waking him up. Instantly I wish I had called his parents first.
“I don’t want to take a lie detector test,” he tells me after I have explained why I called.
“I had a friend who took one and flunked it. I know he was telling the truth.”
My head still throbbing from yesterday’s fiasco, I go ballistic.
“This is your chance to get your charges dropped!
You might even get back on the team! Damn it, you’ve got to take it.”
“I don’t have to do anything!” he says.
“A white bitch says that I raped her, a white dude kicks me off the team, and now I’m supposed to let a white cop or lawyer hook me up to a machine and say whether I’m lying or not?
Get real, man!”
I back off and lower my voice. This is the first outburst of racism I’ve seen from Dade, but from his point of view, he makes sense. The only white person who has stood up for him was Carter, and he folded like he was holding a pair of deuces. I explain the test isn’t admissible in court and that he has nothing to lose, but it is like trying to convince a child not to be afraid of the dark. It occurs to me that Dade may be lying after all. Maybe he’s into drugs, too, or is trying to protect someone. I tell him I want him to think about it some, and that I will be calling him back.
As soon as I get off, I call his parents and get Roy, who doesn’t react much better.
“Why can’t the prosecutor make the girl take the test, and if she flunks, or won’t take it, dismiss the charges?”
“Cross doesn’t have to do anything,” I explain.
“But there’s no way Dade can lose by taking it.”
“Yeah, he can,” Roy says.
“If he takes it and don’t pass, you’ll figure he’s lying and won’t do anything else on his case. Let me hand you over to Lucy.”
This pisses me royally. In the last few weeks I might as well have closed my practice and moved to Payetteville.
“What have I done to give you the idea that I’m going to lie down on this case?” I ask, close to losing my temper.
I’m getting peanuts, and I’ve worried about this case until it’s about all I think about. I explain to her how important it is for Dade to cooperate with the prosecutor but get only a little further with her.
“Gideon, notice it’s always the black person who has to do the accommodating. Robin won’t take the test, but Dade has to. It gets old.”
“Well” I state the obvious “he is the one accused of rape.”
“If someone had made her take a test before the charges were filed,” Lucy complains, “Dade wouldn’t be in this mess.”
At least she has conceded that a polygraph test has some validity.
“I don’t doubt that for a moment,” I say, encouraging her, “but we didn’t have any control over that. Now we do.”
In the background I hear a customer complaining about the price of a jar of Maxwell House coffee, and Roy’s voice as he commiserates with her. They must be together twenty-four hours a day. The joys of small business. Finally, Lucy says, “I’ll talk to him, but it may take a while. He’s got his father’s stubbornness.”
“This would be far and away the best way to handle it,” I assure her.
“I don’t want to try this case in front of a Washington County jury if we can avoid it.”
“I know that,” she says.
Convinced she can bring Dade around, I tell her to call me back when she’s talked to him but that she doesn’t have to rush him. With the passage of a little time, Dade will begin to feel the pressure. Before I get off the phone, I decide to ask her, “Is your grandmother still alive?
Sarah and I are thinking of driving over Thanksgiving weekend to Bear Creek, and I thought maybe I’d go by and talk to her if you think that’d be all right.”
Lucy resists gloating.
“Certainly. I’ll call her and tell her you may be coming by. Let me give you her address.”
As she talks and waits on a customer at the same time, I wonder what my motives are. I still don’t believe there is any family connection. Am I sucking up to Lucy so I can be her son’s agent? Or am I doing this just to pacify Sarah? Unlike myself, she seems determined to know the truth. As a criminal defense lawyer, I realize most of the time I’d rather not know.