December 21 the shortest day of the year, I realize, looking at the calendar behind Judge Blake’s head. He doesn’t look sympathetic. For Rainey’s sake, I hope it isn’t the year’s shortest hearing.
“Ms. McCorkle,” I say, “would you tell the court about Ms. Alvarez’s ability to live more independently?”
Rainey smiles at Delores, who is sitting next to me and proceeds to testify about my client’s management of routine household skills. It is nothing short of bizarre to be calling as a witness the woman I would have married, but Rainey acts as though we have perfected a dog and pony show that we’ve been taking on the road for years. She turns to Judge Blake and tells him that Delores is a better shopper than she is.
“Your Honor, I went to Megamarket with Ms. Alvarez, and she not only picked out the food but did comparison shopping by using a pocket calculator and then cooked a full dinner on my stove. I have no doubt she can live very well independently.”
Judge Blake massages the temple of his large, bald head as if he is hearing a complicated tax case involving millions of dollars instead of a two-page petition to modify a mental patient’s conditional release. He interrupts, “How can I be certain she will take her medication each day?”
Prepared for the question, Rainey barely lets him finish
“She takes a Prolixin injection at the Community Mental Health Center every two weeks. If she doesn’t come in, the case manager can call her to find out what happened, and if she’s not satisfied with her answer, she can ask the court for an emergency pickup order.”
Judge Blake comes dangerously close to picking his nose in front of us.
“Now what is so wrong with where Ms. Alvarez is right now?”
Rainey launches into a passionate denunciation of the Confederate Gardens. After describing physical conditions that make even the judge wince, she says, “It’s especially inappropriate for a woman who can manage as well as Ms. Alvarez, Your Honor. The Blackwell County Community Mental Health Center is supposed to be acting as an advocate to help people like Ms. Alvarez live in the community as independently as possible. In this woman’s case it means helping her find an apartment and a job. Instead, the case managers do the easiest thing possible find them a place like Confederate Gardens, which lumps all persons with mental illness together in what amounts to a hellhole and takes their Social Security Disability checks. With just a little help from BCCMHC Ms. Alvarez can be a productive, taxpaying citizen…”
As I listen to Rainey sing a song whose verses are all the same (she has sung it to me more than once), I realize again how much I will be missing. Her spunk alone is worth the price of admission. As a social worker at the state hospital, she is deliberately courting criticism by daring to attack publicly a community mental health center for not doing its job. The rule in the mental health bureaucracy is: Don’t break my rice bowl and I won’t break yours. The beautiful thing about Rainey is mat she doesn’t give a shit. I realize belatedly how much she is like Rosa, who never thought twice about telling a doctor to his face that he needed to call in a specialist.
Judge Blake finally cuts Rainey off.
“I understand your point, Ms. McCorkle, but my concern with Ms. Alvarez is that she has threatened the life of the President of the United States. I’m surprised to hear that she has as much freedom as she does.”
The old fraud, I think. He ordered her placed there himself. He’s either stupid or dishonest. Rainey speaks to him as if they were the only ones in the courtroom.
“She didn’t threaten him. Your Honor. She just went to the Mansion to try to collect money she thought she was owed.”
“She went three times until she was arrested,” the judge says, his tone becoming frosty.
“As I’m sure you know, just a month or so ago, a mental patient killed an innocent person here in Blackwell County. We need more confinement, not less.”
“You’re not listening. Your Honor,” Rainey says, near tears.
“This woman is not dangerous to anybody!”
Judge Blake is not the type of jurist who likes to be told he is nothing short of perfect. A vein bulging in his forehead, he says to me, “Call your next witness!”
The attorney from the prosecution coordinator’s office, Diana Bateman, giggles, “No questions. Your Honor.”
She is too chickenshit to point out that she isn’t being al lowed to cross-examine Rainey. Of course, she doesn’t need to. Since the community mental health psychiatrist, the case manager, and Ms. Alvarez have already testified, I have no choice but to rest my case, and the judge rules before Rainey has even gotten back to her seat that he is refusing to modify the order requiring Ms. Alvarez to live at the Confederate Gardens. As a sop to me, he grants my motion to review her case in six months.
Once we are outside in the hall, Rainey begins to cry.
“You tried as hard as you could,” Ms. Alvarez says, pat ting Rainey’s shoulder as if she were the social worker trying to ease the pain of a dejected client.
“That judge wouldn’t have let Hillary Clinton out today. He was scared.”
I marvel at the accuracy of the remark. As the old saying goes, Ms. Alvarez may be crazy, but she isn’t stupid.
“We’ll try again in six months,” I volunteer, relieved I haven’t wasted more than a couple of hours.
“If there hasn’t been any recent negative publicity, Blake might change his mind.”
“Can’t we appeal?” Rainey asks, biting her lip.
“The state doesn’t pay for an appeal on this kind of case,” I say quickly to discourage her.
“It’s better just to come back.” I am not willing to pay for a transcript out of my own pocket and then waste my time by writing a brief. The court of appeals is elected, too.
“We’re better off waiting until the headlines shrink a little.”
“It just makes me so angry!” Rainey says, wiping her eyes.
“They’re all so lazy, and the judge is such a coward
I look around uneasily, hoping there is nobody to re peat this comment. Rainey is in enough trouble as it is.
Why should I care, I think irritably. In a few days, she’ll never have to work again.
“I’ve got to go,” I tell Rainey.
“Sorry it didn’t go better.”
Preoccupied, she nods perfunctorily.
“Thanks, Gideon.”
She’ll be married the next time I see her. Resisting the temptation to hug her, I say, “Sure.”
As I turn to go, she reaches in her purse and pulls out a small box wrapped in Christmas paper. How odd that she should get me a present.
“This is for Sarah,” she says, be fore I can make a fool of myself.
“How nice!” I reply, trying to smile. Amy is coming over on Christmas Day. For the last three years it has been Rainey who has come by.
Before I know it, Rainey reaches up and kisses me on the cheek.
“I won’t see you again before I’m married,” she whispers.
“Be good!”
I nod, and turn away, not trusting myself to speak. I drive back downtown to get back to a case that has begun to seem more promising.
From my office I call Lucy and Roy Cunningham to let them know that I will be driving down to Texarkana late this afternoon to drop in on the parents of Robin Perry. If this case is dismissed, I want them to realize who is responsible
It is Roy who answers the phone, and as I explain to him what is going on, he becomes more communicative than he has been since this case began.
“I figured she was setting him up!” he says in a loud voice.
I tell him that yesterday I filed a motion with the court that is a prerequisite to introducing evidence at the trial of Robin’s sex life. The judge has scheduled the hearing to take place January 3, four days before the trial begins.
“If Robin tells the prosecutor that she doesn’t want to go through with the trial, he’ll ask the judge to dismiss it.”
Roy listens quietly.
“Why wouldn’t she wait to make a decision until the hearing is over to see what the judge does?” he asks, his voice booming. I can’t hear any noise in the background. It must be a slow day.
“She might,” I concede, “but her family surely knows by now that this is a boat that is beginning to spring some real bad leaks. The less people know, the better. Despite the fact that this will be a closed hearing, they can assume correctly that word will get out, and it’ll be all over Fayetteville and the university in no time. This is the kind of scandal that people like to head off as much as possible.
All I want to do is emphasize to them how much better it would be for everyone concerned if Robin drops the case right now.”
“Do you want to speak to Dade? He’s home. I can have him call you,” Roy says, a tone of respect coming into his voice for the first time since the night I took the case in his brother’s living room.
I look at my watch and tell him that I’ll call tomorrow with a report. I’m ready to get on the road. I ask him to keep this within their family and hang up, thinking Roy may yet end up wanting me for his son’s agent.
As I am getting Up to head out the door, Clan comes in, his double chin nearly to the floor. He looks like a child who has had his toys ripped away from him by another kid.
“Heading south, huh?” he says without enthusiasm. I have told him everything that has been going on.
“Yep,” I say, reaching for my briefcase. I shouldn’t need anything, but I want to look the part. He looks so pitiful that I can’t avoid asking, “Did you just get run over by a truck?”
Clan sighs and leans back against my door, prohibiting me from leaving.
“Gina wants me to leave Brenda and move in with her. She’s in love with me.”
God, the holidays! They make everybody weird.
“That would give the legal community a juicy little nut for their Christmas stockings,” I say, not taking him seriously.
“I love her, Gideon,” Clan says miserably.
“She makes me happier than I’ve ever been in my life.”
What a screwball Dan’s become!
“She’s a hooker, for God’s sake!” I say for what must be the tenth time.
“You don’t understand,” Clan answers softly, looking down at the argyle socks in which he pads around the office more and more.
“Gina’s a good person. She’s crazy about her little girl. She makes me feel alive in a way that I haven’t for years! It isn’t just the sex; the truth is, I’m so scared of getting AIDS from her I don’t even enjoy it. We just have fun together. Brenda hasn’t cracked a smile since I choked and nearly died on a piece of her meatloaf nearly two years ago.”
I shake my head as I visualize the dismal little duplex Gina calls home.
“Have you thought about going to marriage counseling?”
Clan wipes his eyes.
“The last one we went to admitted she had been divorced three times. Brenda said she wouldn’t pay someone to watch us fight. We can do that for free.”
I laugh despite myself.
“You can’t really be thinking about moving in with her.”
“I won’t,” Clan sighs.
“I don’t have the guts. I’m too middle class. As pathetic a human being as I am, I’m still enough of a snob to care about what other people think.
There goes fat Clan. He lives with a whore dog who nearly cooked her baby. Nan, I couldn’t handle that.”
Poor guy. He seems about to cry.
“I couldn’t either,” I say sympathetically.
“Just hang on until January. Things will seem better then.”
With a blank expression on his face, Clan turns and wanders down the hall, and I follow him out, realizing I have a grudging admiration for him. The difference between me and Clan is that I wouldn’t have the integrity to admit that I had fallen in love with a whore. Clan is pitiful, but at least he is honest about it. I ride the elevator down to the street thinking that the evolution of the species may be more of a short-term proposition than scientists think.
I point the Blazer south on 1-30 to Texarkana, and two and a half hours later, after stopping for gas in Arkadelphia, I exit at a service station just before crossing the Texas line to ask for directions. I walk into the office hugging myself and wishing I had brought my overcoat.
A cold front has moved across the state. An attendant wearing a New York Yankees baseball cap points east on a city map, and five minutes later I am shivering in front of Robin’s parents’ ranch-style home, which occupies two lots, and trying to recall what I know about this family. All I remember is that the husband gives or gave a shitload of money to the Razorback scholarship fund and is a conservative Baptist, a profile that could fit any number of Arkansans.
Though I’ve never seen her, I’d know Mrs. Perry any where. An older, more voluptuous version of the daughter, she comes to the door wearing a red knit outfit that suggests they may have dinner plans. It is almost six o’clock, and two cars, a Buick sedan and a Cherokee, sit in the driveway. If they brush me off, there will be nothing I can do except to head back in the other direction.
“Mrs. Perry, I’m Gideon Page, Dade Cunningham’s lawyer,” I begin, as gently as I can.
“I’d like to visit just a very few minutes with you and your husband. I’m sorry to be disturbing you, but it’s important that we talk be fore the hearing.”
There is no effort to conceal the shock that is apparent on her carefully made-up face. It is as if Dade himself had appeared on their doorstep. I look past her to see if I can get a glimpse of Robin, but she is nowhere to be seen. I do not want her to be present for this conversation, if it takes place. They will feel too protective of her if she is sitting there.
“Just a moment,” Mrs. Perry says frostily through the screen door in an accent even more Southern than her daughter’s. She turns and is gone. I feel as though I am a representative of the Mormons, a long way from Utah. At least she didn’t slam the door in my face.
A full three minutes later a tall, athletic-looking man in his early forties opens the door and the screen and says, “Come in.” He does not offer to shake hands, and not wanting to wear out my welcome in the first five seconds, I don’t extend mine. Gerald Perry leads me into a living room, which even to my unobservant eye comes together in an elegant, understated way. Whoever decorated it had a flair for color. Royal blues, golds, and muted reds give the room a regal holiday look. Holly, mistletoe, and a creche crowd together on a mantle above a hearth in which a fire is roaring. A twelve-foot Christmas tree winking with lights, colored balls, and ribbons and surrounded by presents stands in a far corner. Gerald Perry points to the least comfortable-looking chair in the room.
As if I were a child whose baseball had crashed into his picture window, I perch on the edge and wait for him to give me a lecture about dropping in without calling beforehand.
Less formally dressed than his wife, he is wearing a white shirt, no tie, and pleated slacks. This may be about as relaxed as they ever get.
“What do you want?” he asks, sitting down by his wife on an enormous beige sofa.
I look into their faces and realize they must despise me. If I am to succeed here, I must somehow humanize the cause I represent.
“I have a daughter Robin’s age at Fayetteville. Whether you can imagine it or not, I am truly sorry for what I’m putting you through” I tell myself I see the flicker of a response in the father’s eyes, but it is Mrs. Perry who answers.
“If our feelings made any difference to you,” she says, “you wouldn’t have taken the case.”
Though her words come out soft as honeysuckle, her expression is eerie in its sudden ferocity.
“My job is to represent Dade Cunningham, but the last thing I want to do in this case is embarrass you or your daughter,” I say, hoping sincerity counts for something with this couple.
Goaded by his wife’s anger, Mr. Perry says, in a wounded tone, “How can you possibly even imply that Robin isn’t telling the truth? You have no idea what it is costing her to go through this.”
The male is the one I have to approach. He seems more hurt than actively hostile. On the other hand, his wife seems, in her home at least, like a time bomb. I say, “As presumptuous as this may sound, I think I do. Whatever happens, she will bear scars that will never heal, and so will you, and so will Dade Cunningham.”
“I hope your client rots in hell after he dies in prison,” Mrs. Perry says quietly, her feet flat on the carpet as her blue eyes bore into me.
Her fury is making me nervous. I know I must not anger this woman any more than necessary, or she will explode.
“I don’t think I could put my own daughter,” I say, feeling the weight of my words, “through a trial like this one is going to be, Mrs. Perry.”
She answers as I have hoped.
“She’s done it once!” she says, her jaw firm with determination.
“The second time won’t be any worse.”
“It’s going to be much worse,” I reply quickly.
“I don’t have any choice but to try to bring out in court the relationship with her history professor. Right now, it’s just a rumor among a few sorority girls in Fayetteville. If this goes any further, it will be discussed in every house in the state.”
Mrs. Perry’s face flushes crimson.
“He seduced her. I grant you that he isn’t any higher on the human scale than your client. But let me tell you something about my daughter, Mr. Page. She’s not afraid of anything.”
“People underestimate Robin,” Gerald Perry adds, feeling he needs to support his wife.
“They assume that because she’s beautiful she doesn’t have a backbone.
They find out real quick they’re wrong.”
The only way to endure this chair is to sit up straight, and I’m not capable of it. I lean forward with my hands on my knees.
“I know she’ll make an excellent witness,” I say, focusing on Gerald Perry.
“I heard her testify at the university disciplinary hearing. But Joe Hofstra will be fighting for his job. You can bet that he’s going to tell an entirely different story than Robin does about their relationship.”
For the first time Mrs. Perry seems uneasy. Her eyes begin to flutter.
“Robin has told us everything,” she counters.
“You can imagine what kind of picture he will paint of your daughter, Mrs. Perry,” I say, deciding I have to meet her head on.
“He’ll say that Robin started showing up in his office, and though he tried to keep it on a professor student basis, she wouldn’t leave him alone. You can bet the farm that he’ll say and do whatever is necessary to keep it from appearing that he sexually harassed her. Has he contacted you or your daughter?”
“That’s none of your business,” she says, her face reddening.
Mr. Perry is listening. He begins to press the bridge of his broad nose as if what I am saying is finally getting through. He may not be smarter than his wife, but he isn’t slobbering like an attack dog either. If Robin had innerited his looks, we probably wouldn’t be here now.
“The press would write about this anyway if Robin doesn’t go through with it,” he says, but his voice is tentative.
“Reporters won’t know the reason unless Robin tells them,” I say, my eyes on Mrs. Perry’s face.
“Hofstra certainly isn’t going to respond to questions, and they won’t report any gossip for fear of a libel suit.” Blanche Perry seems about to burst, and I speak as fast as I can. I want her husband to hear me even if she doesn’t.
“Assume this goes to trial, and the judge allows evidence of your daughter’s affair with her professor. If we were in a more liberal state, perhaps the prosecutor could get away with characterizing both Dade and Hofstra as rapists who differ only in degree, but even in a best-case scenario for you, what people will remember here twenty years later is your daughter was carrying on with her professor, and somehow got raped by a black football player as a consequence. I know how cruel and unfair that is, but you have to think about the future.”
Gerald Perry is so quiet that I know he has to be thinking about what I have said, but as soon as I have finished, Blanche Perry explodes.
“Get out of my house!” she shouts.
“What gall you have coming here and telling us what people will think in twenty years. I wouldn’t let my daughter give in to somebody like you in a million years.
That nigger you represent is scum, and you’re even worse. My daughter has held up her head, and she’s not about to start hiding now. Now get out!”
Her face is terrible, her features twisted by hatred and rage. I scramble to my feet and head for the door, afraid she might actually try to attack me. I manage to keep my mouth shut, conscious that Gerald is not echoing his wife’s sentiments. I resent the hell out of his wife’s behavior but it won’t do any good to say anything now. As I reach the foyer, I see Robin, who has appeared, obviously in response to her mother’s outburst. Dressed to go out in dark slacks and a white frilly blouse, she has a frightened look on her face. I have no idea whether or not she has been listening the entire time. If her mother can lose it this badly, perhaps on crossexamination Robin will, too. I go through the two doors as quickly as possible, hoping to avoid any further confrontation, and don’t look back until I reach the Blazer. From the door Gerald holds up my briefcase and trots out to the curb with it.
Wordlessly, he hands it to me, but for a fleeting second, I detect the slightest sign of an apology as his eyes meet mine in recognition. Though I have incensed his wife, he does not hate me for what I have done.
I take the briefcase and through the window murmur, “Thanks,” knowing his wife and daughter are at the door watching this final moment of what has turned into a humiliating debacle. He nods, and I pull away slowly, hoping to retain some of my dignity. I begin to settle down by the time I get on the interstate. I am soaked in sweat. I must have been out of my mind to think that I could talk them out of going to court. I can imagine the stories that will make their way back to Fayetteville. Page was in Texarkana trying to intimidate the family and they kicked his ass out. I wonder if I have done anything unethical.
The last thing I need to do is lose my license over this. I get off the interstate in Arkadelphia and order a chocolate milkshake from the drive-through at McDonald’s. I’m glad Sarah wasn’t along. She would have been appalled by what happened. The girl who hands me my change can’t be more than sixteen. She smiles as if she doesn’t have a care in the world. I wish I could trade places with her.
I get back home around eight-thirty to find Woogie hiding in Sarah’s old room and discover he has pissed on the rug in the living room. Poor guy. He couldn’t hold it.
This is the third time in the last month. His bladder is in no better shape than his master’s. He can’t stand being cooped up in the backyard, howling day and night. I have spoiled him beyond belief and now I’m paying for it. I let him outside, and he doesn’t make it out of the yard before he is squatting. He trots back in, thoroughly hacked at me.
“My fault, boy,” I tell him as he watches from the door that leads into the kitchen as I clean up. My eyes water and I start to gag. If I get disbarred, I don’t think I’ll become a nurse.
Christmas morning I receive a call from Gordon Dyson, who tells me that he will put his wife on a plane for New Zealand in two days. Flabbergasted that a client would call me at my home on Christmas, I rack my brain, and it finally comes to me that Dyson is the ex-cop who wants to evict his son. Irritated, I ask, “Couldn’t this have waited until tomorrow?”
Dyson whispers into the phone, “I’m sorry, but this is the only present I’m getting that I’ve ever wanted, and it didn’t seem real unless I called you.”
Good God in heaven! What people will do to make themselves happy on Christmas.
“It’s okay,” I say, managing to remember our plan.
“I’ll prepare a power of attorney for your wife to sign tomorrow morning. You can drop by and pick it up from my secretary and then bring it back after she leaves. We’ll file an unlawful detainer action immediately.”
“If this works,” he says fervently, “I’ll install a security system in your house for free in addition to paying your fee.”
I look around the living room. Most of the furniture is so ratty I couldn’t pay a thief to carry anything off.
“That’d be great.”
After giving me his wife’s name (Dora Lou), Dyson begins to tell me about how his son set a new personal record by sleeping until two in the afternoon on Christmas Eve. Fortunately, we are interrupted by the doorbell, and even though Sarah could get it, I take this opportunity to tell Mr. Dyson good-bye.
“Ho! Ho! Ho!” Amy says merrily as I let her in the door the same time as Woogie scampers past me into the yard.
“Merry Christmas!” I take her coat and escort her over to the tree to speak to Sarah who hasn’t mentioned Amy’s name once since she’s been home. She had wanted to miss this visit, but I have insisted that she stick around for a while before she goes off this afternoon to visit her friends.
Dressed comfortably in pleated jeans and a bulky white sweater, Amy has a large package for me and an envelope for Sarah who looks at me as if to say, what is this? She’s hardly met me. I watch my daughter’s face as she rips open the paper to find a subscription to Ms. magazine. She scans the enclosed brochure and smiles.
“You shouldn’t have gotten me anything,” she says, but I can tell by her expression she is pleased. The way to her heart these days is to take her as seriously as a brain tumor.
“I don’t read every article, but it helps me keep up,” Amy says, as I hand my present to her. It is in a small box that I had gift-wrapped at Dillard’s. She winks at Sarah and says, “My adoption papers at last!”
Totally disarmed by Amy’s outrageousness, Sarah laughs and says candidly, “I was afraid it was a ring.”
“No, no,” Amy says, tearing open the paper.
“He’s too cheap for that. If I wanted a ring, I’d have to go get one myself.”
Sarah grins, but looks at me to see how I am taking it. I laugh gamely. Presents, in my opinion, are a waste of money.
“If I could find one that would go through your nose …” I say to Amy, not bothering to finish.
“They’re sweet!” Amy says holding up a pair of silver earrings. She stands on her toes and kisses me on the cheek.
“Thank you!”
“You’re welcome,” I say, giving her a hug. I already gave her my real present two nights ago, a red teddy I got for her at Victoria’s Secret. She modeled it for me fifteen minutes later in her bedroom. It wasn’t the kind of gift that I felt comfortable presenting in front of Sarah.
“Dad’s so original,” Sarah says, pointing to her own ears. The earrings I got for her are turquoise.
“Well, they were having this two-for-one sale at Ster ling’s,” I say, winking.
Amy rolls her eyes.
“I thought these looked familiar.”
It is my turn to open Amy’s present. I can tell by the box it must be clothes, but I have no idea what. Amy has been ridiculously secretive, not even giving me a hint. I open the box and find a dark blue pinstriped suit in a box from Bachrach’s, a men’s clothing store in the mall. I’ve been by it a dozen times, but the clothes always cost an arm and a leg.
“Good Lord, Amy, this is expensive!”
“It’s for his trial,” Amy says to Sarah.
“I’m tired of him looking so tacky. He’s been wearing the same suits since law school.” To me, she says, “Don’t worry I waited until it got marked down twice.”
I try on the coat and find it is my size, a 40 regular. She must have looked through my closet.
“You still spent too much,” I chide her gently.
“It’s beautiful.”
“You’ve got time to get the pants altered,” she says, getting in a slight dig at my waistline.
I hug her anyway.
“Thanks a lot,” I say. Damn, I feel cheap. Sarah has given me a new briefcase, which probably cost twice as much as her earrings. Her mother al ways went overboard on presents, too. As I go back into the kitchen to pour me and Amy a cup of coffee, I promise myself I won’t be so tight if this case works out and I get Dade signed to a pro contract. I have already called this morning to wish him and his family a Merry Christmas. But even with the commotion and excitement of four other children opening presents, Lucy sounded depressed. She knows that this time next year she may be loading up the car to go visit their oldest child at the state prison in Grady. Though I tried to minimize it in my call the day after I returned, she could tell I was shaken by the reaction of Blanche Perry to my suggestion that the case be dropped. I’ve had a fantasy that this case wouldn’t go to trial. As January 7 approaches, it is fading fast.
Sarah serves the coffee cake we made earlier today.
Amy, who isn’t much of a cook herself, pronounces it excellent, prompting Sarah to tell her about the time we went through three boxes of Jiffy cake mix before we gave up and went out for doughnuts.
“First we undercooked it; then we burned it; then the last time it looked like we had made a pan of corn bread
Amy has a way of drawing my daughter out and gets Sarah to talk about WAR. I learn that WAR is planning to hold demonstrations outside the courthouse during Dade’s trial. The difficulty is that students won’t be back on campus until the next week.
“It sounds like the judge outsmarted you,” Amy says to Sarah, her voice sympathetic.
I swallow a mouthful of cake and shake my head.
“The trial was set long before WAR was even more than a gleam in Paula Crawford’s eye. The trial date comes, not so coincidentally, after all the bowl games are played.”
“But Dade was suspended from playing,” Amy says, missing the point.
“The judge didn’t know the university would take any action. At the time he was just doing what he could to cooperate.”
“So he’s biased!” Sarah exclaims. She is seated on the couch beside Amy. As usual, I am being ganged up against by the women in my life.
“Not at all,” I explain.
“He’s just a true Hog fan. He probably assumed that the university wouldn’t do anything to Dade during the season. That’s usually what happens.
This was a bigger victory for WAR than you realized.”
My daughter puts down her fork, protesting, “That’s so cynical! They just would have used Dade and then put him on trial.”
“That’s one way to look at it,” I concede. Another way is that Dade would be using the university to show how good he was.
We are interrupted by a knock at the front door, and I open it, realizing that Woogie has not returned. I should have taken him out and walked him.
“Your dog just ate one of our newborn kittens,” Fred Mosely, who lives across the street and four doors down toward the school tells me, “and if I find him, I’m going to kill him.”
Shocked into silence by this totally bizarre allegation, I try to look around Fred, who easily weighs three hundred pounds, to see if Woogie is hiding somewhere across the street. Fred, one of the few remaining whites on the street, is not the most stable guy in the neighborhood.
Chronically out of work, alcoholic, and abusive toward his wife, he is more than capable of doing what he says.
Still, this is so ridiculous I’m tempted to make a joke out of it and tell Fred that after twelve years of dog food, Woogie probably thought it was time for a little variety in his diet, but Fred doesn’t seem in the mood.
“Are you sure?” I say weakly.
“Maybe the mother ate it.”
“You’re damn right I’m sure!” Fred thunders.
“My wife saw him do it! You get rid of that dog, or I’ll do it for you!”
Candice, Fred’s wife, isn’t nearly as loony as her husband, but still I can’t believe it. Woogie has his faults, but eating kittens has never been one of them. I catch a strong whiff of Christmas cheer on Fred’s breath and decide that he might not appreciate any crossexamination right now. What does he want me to say that I’ll have a talk with Woogie? I can hear that conversation. Woogie, I know cats are a dime a dozen, but you’ve got to quit eating them. Sarah comes up behind me and asks, “What’s wrong. Dad?”
I say hastily to Fred, “I’ll do what’s necessary. Thanks for letting me know.” I shut the door before Sarah can find out what is going on. She would want to argue Woogie’s case to the Supreme Court, but this isn’t the time to doit.
I tell her and Amy that Woogie may be lost, and we need to go search for him. Before we can get our coats on, however, there is a familiar scratching at the door, and Sarah lets him in. The little murderer prances in as if he didn’t have a care in the world. As we watch Woogie lap water at his bowl in the kitchen, I tell Sarah and Amy about my conversation with Fred.
“That’s crazy. Dad!” Sarah exclaims.
“Woogie wouldn’t eat a kitten!”
I am not so sure. We need to keep in mind that Woogie is not Sarah’s ugly little brother who couldn’t find any sugar cookies lying around and went outside looking for a snack.
“He is a dog,” I say, bending down to check him for signs of cat hair.
Woogie coughs suspiciously as Sarah strokes his head.
Amy, who has followed us into the kitchen, giggles.
“Move over, Sherlock. Gideon Page is on the case.”
Annoyed, I say, “I’ll call Candice tonight. She wouldn’t make something like this up.”
“Dad!” Sarah shrieks.
“You can’t just take her word for it.”
“Well, for God’s sake! What are we supposed to do?” I ask.
“Look for hair balls? We can’t cut his stomach open.”
Woogie yawns as if he had just finished a big meal and ambles over to his favorite corner in the living room and closes his eyes. The phone rings, and I pick it up, fearful that we have a serial cat killer asleep on our rug. It is my sister Marty, calling to wish us a Merry Christmas. I haven’t talked to her since I went out to her house almost two months ago.
“Marty,” I say, without preliminaries, “how’s Olaf these days? I didn’t see him around when I was out there last time.” Olaf was a big-chested boxer whose only trick was to pretend to devour your hand.
“Olaf?” my sister says, accustomed to my rudeness.
“Since he’s been dead for three months, I’d have to say he’s been pretty quiet.”
Have I got a dog for you, sister.
“I’m sorry to hear that,” I say politely.
“Listen, we may need to find Woogie a new home….”
The next morning, after drawing up a power of attorney for Gordon Dyson’s wife, I drive north on Highway 5 to Heber Springs, passing through towns with such wonderful names as Romance and Rose Bud, on my way to interview Jenny Taylor, Sarah’s other source of information about Robin’s affair with her professor. I feel depressed and edgy, knowing today is Rainey’s wedding day. How can she be marrying someone else?
Tonight will be sad, too. Sarah and I are taking Woogie to live with Marty. His dark deed has been confirmed by Fred’s wife, and Woogie will be the newest canine resident of Hutto, the dog capital of the western hemisphere, according to my sister. Last night after the arrangements were made I could hear Sarah talking to Woogie in her room, next to mine. Woogie has been her only brother for twelve years, but it is for the best, I told her. With his bladder going the way of all flesh, Woogie needs open spaces. Fred, when he is boozed up, is fully capable of killing him, too.
Without Amy, the day would have been a complete disaster. Usually, part of each Christmas Day has been spent with Rainey for the past three years. Amy filled in nicely. Nothing stays the same forever, I told my daughter, before we went to bed, whether we want change or not. With that truism out of the way, I went to sleep and dreamed about the day Rosa, Sarah, and I got Woogie as a puppy from the animal shelter. It served me right for trying to be so stoical.
In little more than an hour I am standing on the wraparound porch of Jenny Taylor’s home, a three-story red brick structure only two blocks from the Clebume County Court House. I rap hard on the door, hoping Jenny is home by herself, but it is her mother who opens it. Mrs. Taylor, who looks remarkably like my own mother with her prematurely gray hair and straight Ro man nose, invites me in and calls her daughter from up stairs.
“She should never have gone to the university,” Mrs. Taylor says, leading me into her living room.
“I shouldn’t let her go back next semester. That school is nothing but trouble.” She points to a chair and sits on a sofa across from me.
I sit down and look around the living room and notice a water stain on the ceiling. Though the house is large, it is not in good condition and could stand a paint job. The Christmas tree, in the process of being taken down, is a small and scraggly spruce. There may be another reason why Jenny should transfer. By the time you pay for all the extras at the University of Arkansas, the family bud get has been depleted.
“Ma’am, I’ve got a daughter up there, too,” I say, trying to ingratiate myself.
“I know exactly what you mean. All I’m trying to do is find out what your daughter knows about Robin’s relationship with her professor. If my client is guilty of rape, he’ll be punished.
But if he isn’t, that should come out.”
“Of course, he’s guilty!” Mrs. Taylor shouts.
“What girl is going to lie about being raped? It’s not worth the hassle. What upsets me is that if the damn state didn’t care so much about sports, there wouldn’t be any blacks up there in the first place. They’re not up there to get an education, and don’t you try to tell me any different. My husband and I moved from Forrest City to get away from them, but there’s only so much you can do.”
Eastern Arkansas. I can’t seem to get away from it either. If this is the kind of racism that Dade is going to face from his jury. God help him. I wonder if Jenny is sit ting on the stairs listening.
“Ma’am, the more I know now about what happened, the better I can advise my client. If I find out he doesn’t have a chance, I might ad vise him to plead guilty in the hope he’ll get a lighter sentence
Mrs. Taylor gives her head a vigorous shake.
“They damn well better have a trial. I know how you lawyers do. You want to sweep this under the rug like everything else that happens up there. A jury ought to string that boy up by his you-know-what.”
At this moment Jenny Taylor comes down the stairs and pleads, “Mom, please.” Jenny Taylor looks so much like her parent that I have the feeling I am looking at my own mother as a college girl. She must have been pretty.
Jenny is a brunette with big gray eyes and a full mouth. I introduce myself, and she smiles. Sarah must have been kind. She sits down by her mother on the sofa and says tentatively, “I don’t know much about this at all.”
“I’m sure you don’t,” I say, wishing her mother would go clean the bathroom or something.
“I just need to hear what you know about Robin’s relationship with Dr. Hofstra. I understand you’re in the same sorority house with her.”
“Not much,” Jenny says, nervously running her hands up and down her jeans.
“Robin told me during the summer that she was having an affair with him, but she broke it off before she came back this fall. I asked her about it after she had been raped, and she said he didn’t even call.
That’s all I know.”
Damn. This is what I was afraid would happen.
“What if I told you,” I say, before Mrs. Taylor can get in her two cents, “one of the cheerleaders said that Robin was still having an affair with him as recently as a week before the incident with Dade.”
“Who was it?” Jenny asks, her gray eyes narrowing.
“Lauren Denney,” I answer, thinking it must not be easy to be a girl.
Her young face becomes hard.
“Lauren’s the biggest liar at the university. She hates Robin and every girl up there who is as pretty as she is. Robin wouldn’t tell her that anyway. She couldn’t stand Lauren after this summer.
I’d be surprised if she said two words to her this fall.
Lauren was lying if she said that.”
I try not to sigh. Her mother gives me a look that makes me feel as if I were out scouting for guests to be on Geraldo Rivera. Sorority girls who lie. We talk a few more minutes, but I get nothing I can use. I tell her that I won’t be needing her as a witness and leave.
To keep the trip from being a total waste of time I drive across Greers Perry Dam and get out of the Blazer at the overlook to stare at the massive structure and think about the hearing next week. If Binkie Cross knows about Jenny Taylor, I’ll have no chance. As it stands now, I have no idea what the judge will do. If he doesn’t let Lauren testify, Dade is going to have an uphill battle. If it comes down to a question of nothing more than whom the jury believes-Dade or Robin-I can’t imagine an acquittal.
If I couldn’t believe that my grandfather had sex with a black girl from my hometown, how can I expect twelve men and women to believe Dade Cunningham when he tells them that he didn’t rape a white girl? Why didn’t I believe Lucy that day when she told me?
A few yards from the overlook I come upon a bronze plaque bearing a likeness of John IF. Kennedy, who I learn dedicated the dam on October 3, 1963. It is sobering to realize that this man, who was such a hero of mine, had stood in this same spot, and was murdered only a little over a month later. By joining the Peace Corps and working in the rural areas of the northern coast of Colombia, where most people had a mixed racial background, I thought I had overcome my racial prejudices, but maybe I didn’t. Why did I join? For years I have told myself it was some form of youthful idealism, a manifestation of the hubris that came with being American during our golden age of seemingly unlimited power before Vietnam so rudely interrupted our global fantasies. I remember seeing an American propaganda film ostensibly about Kennedy’s South American foreign policy, the Alliance for Progress, that was shown before the regular feature in the outdoor theater in the town where I worked on the Magdalena River. Actually, the film had been a testament to Jack Kennedy. God, how the Colombians had loved him. Only the Pope inspired more adoration.
“Ask not what your country can do for you,” his words had implored my generation of college students, “but what you can do for your country.” I remember tears coming to my eyes as he thundered, over Spanish subtitles, “Ich bin ein Berliner!”
Bear Creek was, in relative terms, as poor as Plato, Magdalena. If I was so hell-bent on saving the world, why didn’t I start at home in the thirteenth-poorest county in the United States? Perhaps the truth was that by joining the Peace Corps I was staging a mini-rebellion against the status quo. But if I had wanted to stand on my two feet and tell my mother and Bear Creek, Arkansas, to go to hell, why didn’t I have the guts to do so directly in stead of trying to organize in my hideously accented Spanish unbelievably poor communities to build out houses, schools, and health centers?
I stop to have lunch in a diner on the outskirts of Heber Springs and stare at the middle-aged waitress, a delight fully saucy confection of a woman with dyed blond hair and big breasts under a T-shirt that advertises her employer business: Leo’s Eats. Lewdly, I think of the message as a profoundly self-satisfied sexual communi cation. The feeling that I have been telling lies to myself for a long time is as inescapable as my own libido. I didn’t have the guts to stay in Bear Creek and say what I thought. I smile at the woman who, paid to please, or at least to bring the food out, grins as if she knows exactly what I’m thinking.
What did I think back then? Nothing remarkable for a twenty-one year old. That God was probably dead or at least sleeping and that east Arkansas was a pretty crappy place for treating blacks so badly. Yet, if I didn’t have the emotional wherewithal to come back to Bear Creek with my mixed-blood wife from Colombia and preach this un original coming-of-age sermon to my mother and her friends, what else have I been kidding myself about? Obviously my psyche and I have some unfinished business.
As I contemplate myself as a newly married ex-Peace Corps volunteer, I’ve always realized that Sarah is much more direct and assertive than I am, even though I’m al most fifty. She was the one who insisted that we return to Bear Creek to confront my past. She is like her mother not only physically but emotionally. Rosa was the realist in our family of three: she confronted her own breast cancer and mortality and insisted that I face it. My good intentions, I’ve always thought until now, were enough. I sip at the glass of weak tea in front of me and watch my waitress banter with the regulars. Enough for what? To call what I do living, I suppose. The women in my life have been grittier than I have and consequently have often dominated me. Should that come as a shock? Oddly, it does. Thinking I should be in control, I have tried to bully them with guilt, the coward’s ultimate weapon.
Rosa, when I brought her to Arkansas, accepted my decision not to move back to Bear Creek as my unquestioned right to decide where we should live. Later, when I offered the explanation that I had not returned home out of consideration for how she would have been treated, she wouldn’t buy. it
“You didn’t want to go! I did. She was to madre, no?” Leaving her own mother, Rosa expected to find another one. Not able to screw up my courage, I pretended I couldn’t have found a job and moved us to the center of the state.
I pay the check and point the Blazer south toward Blackwell County, thinking I’d go out to eat more often if all the help flirted with me like the waitress at Leo’s just did. As I settle in behind a Dodge Caravan on the winding road, almost obsessively my thoughts return to my mother and Bear Creek. Guilt and sarcasm. She was a master of both. She was stronger, too.
“Are you trying to kill me, son?” she asked when I had said I wanted to come home to live with my new bride.
“First, you leave me and go to South America, then you marry a nigra, and now you want to bring her home to live next to me. Was I that terrible as a mother? With your father sick all the time, maybe I was.” Weak. That’s what I was. Buying into all that. I should have told her that, by God, this is my wife and you’ll accept her and love her. Instead, for a quarter of a century from a safe distance of a hundred miles, I told myself that mother did learn to love her, but we just didn’t have the opportunity to visit much. Bullshit!
I stop in Rose Bud to get gas and see on the wall in the service station a six-month-old notice of a parade and a barbecue sponsored by the Rose Bud volunteer fire department and ladies’ auxiliary. A parade of a single fire truck? Bear Creek was too small. We were better off not going home. After all these years, it is the reason I can’t abide. As I drive on, I wonder why has it taken so long to come to terms with my past? No wonder I am so afraid of a jury in this case.
“You can come see Woogie anytime you want to,” Marty tells Sarah as we say good-bye. We have been invited for dinner, and though the reason for our coming is a sad one, we have had a good visit. With some trepidation I told Marty about our visit to eastern Arkansas over Thanksgiving, but instead of lecturing me again, Marty listened for a change and said little in response. She is not interested in the past, her demeanor says. If I am nutty enough to put myself through that meat grinder, it’s my problem.
Woogie, knowing something is up, won’t leave Sarah long enough for us to slip out the door. Sarah wipes away her tears and gently nuzzles his battle-scarred ears.
“Be good, Woogie!” she whispers and kisses him on his graying muzzle.
Marty’s husband. Sweetness, holds out a dog biscuit in the shape of a bone.
“Come here, boy,” he coaxes.
“You’ll like it here” I like Sweetness better all the time. He can’t help hating Bill Clinton any more than I could help liking the looks of that waitress in Heber Springs this afternoon. If he loves my sister and likes dogs, he can’t be all bad. A sucker for food, Woogie trots over to Sweetness, who grabs his collar and gives him the biscuit to distract him.
I wave at my sister and brother-in-law, and nudge Sarah, and we go out into the cold night air.
“We’ll never see him again!” Sarah wails as we get into the Blazer.
“We never come out here.”
“We will, more and more,” I say, grinding the Blazer’s starter in the darkness.
“As Nazis go. Sweetness isn’t so terrible.”
“He was a good dog!” she pronounces, as if we had carried Woogie to his grave.
“A wonderful dog,” I concur, no longer feeling the need to play the strong, silent type. I will miss him more than Sarah will. I’m the one who will be alone.