A Southern Girl (16 page)

I would do anything for parents I had just wounded deeply for reasons less comprehensible to me with each passing day. That also did not fit. I measured my family by a yardstick graduated into the most traditional increments, yet here I was, about to introduce into that family, or suffer its introduction, a component beyond measurement or assessment. I grew up in Charleston, a timeless city which I believed had imbued me with every truth it offered, only to settle in New Hampton, a city of profound enigma. Nothing fit. How did I get here?

Through my passenger window, the huge industrial expanse of the shipyard sprawled out toward the river. I opted for this blue-collar environment during my last year in The Marshall Wythe School of Law at William & Mary, and in recent days had tried to reconstruct the logic that led me from the Old World charms of Charleston to New Hampton. The beginning salary here had been attractive, I remembered. Also, remaining in Virginia maximized my contacts from the University of Virginia, where I sang “the Good Old Song” in the rain at Scott Stadium, arm in drunken arm with many of the same guys I regularly see now at meetings of the bar association. I recall liking the lawyers at Mahoney, Cauthen; recall being flattered by the deference they gave my resume and the lengths to which they went to lure Elizabeth and me to their city. And, I remember acknowledging at the time to Elizabeth during our discussions over coffee, New Hampton exerted an indefinable pull; a pull somehow grounded in ambiance remotely related to pioneering or exploration, although of what,
I could not say. Maybe Charleston was too easy. Maybe the frontier was the place to test myself.

The shipyard defines New Hampton, but the essence of the city continued to elude me. A “beer and hamburger town” was a typical tag. But beyond this obvious and irrefutable trait lurked an obscure soul. The city has a trading post feel about it, as if everyone here expects to be somewhere else this time next year. Yet we had settled here, our sons were born here, and we had made a home and life with good friends. Perhaps it was not the city’s soul but my own that was obscure. Did I plan to be somewhere else next year?

At the turn of the century, when the shipyard was a raw-boned pup of an enterprise and three-masted schooners still plied the river, it reared up as promising and pugnacious as any port in the South. From the brawling, fecund tenements of “Hell’s Half Acre” came whores and knife fights and shot houses and voodoo, but with them came legends worth retelling.

World War I saw brave troops embark for the death trenches of Flanders in ships built at the yard. Later, those same ships returned the glorious survivors to New Hampton. The Depression tested the town’s character, but Pearl Harbor assured a job for any man willing to do a man’s work. The yard bought more land, built more ships, and put meat and potatoes on the plates of virtually everyone in New Hampton. During the wars, and for a few boom years following them, the stout heartiness of honest work at common purpose, spiced by dashes of hot, urban tawdriness, produced a rich hunter’s gumbo of a city, gamy and pungent and memorable.

But the dramatic expansion of the yard to meet the demands of a postwar defense made what happened next inevitable, and in the 1950s the town lost much of its savor. The original municipality annexed Wainwright County, a bucolic assemblage of Mennonite farms systematically waffled by developers into track subdivisions larded with embellished names like “Oaks” and “Glens” and “Meadows” and “Chases”; names brimming with a romance no longer to be found in New Hampton. With the suburbs came numbing regularity, nerve-testing traffic, and crabgrass. The rugged stew which had once been New Hampton diluted into a bland gruel utterly indistinguishable from a dozen industrial centers. To me, what began as an intriguing alternative to the inevitability of Charleston had come to represent little more than a place to live and work. I had begun to sense the anonymity of the city defining me, and a growing awareness that
my magnetic pull toward New Hampton may have been nothing more than an antipolar repulsion from the city of my birth.

I arrived at my office just as the shipyard’s 4:00 whistle blew. Two of my partners, exiting the elevator, spoke to me as I entered, but I merely nodded absently, causing them to stare momentarily, as did my secretary as I passed without acknowledgment. My mind was back at the house, on that photograph.

At my desk, I turned my chair toward the window and looked out onto the city. Cars making their daily exodus from the yard jammed Tyler Avenue as hard-hatted workers dodged among them. I had witnessed this tableau a hundred times from above, but today I felt part of it, as though I was locked in the congestion below, leaning impatiently on my horn and cursing the men whose last-second dash in front of me caused me to idle through another stoplight cycle. I wanted to move. I wanted things to fit.

A day or two later, at the midwinter ball, I was privy to a conversation that crystallized something that had been on my mind since our Charleston trip. Ross and I had pushed through the crowd toward the bar, a long, cherry wood affair accommodating four bartenders. Drinks in hand, we returned to Elizabeth and Carol. I knew Elizabeth brought the photo. She carried it everywhere. I got to them too late to see Carol’s reaction, but in time to hear, “She’s so adorable. Congratulations,” which honestly sounded forced to me.

Elizabeth and I separated to circulate, as we often do at these things, but met up to dance later in the evening. That was when I overheard the conversation. Don Mahoney, my senior partner and our host for the evening, stood talking with a plump, balding man whom I recognized as Richard Coughter, a local attorney recently endorsed by the bar association for a judgeship. Mahoney, seeing me in his peripheral vision, beckoned me over. The three of us exchanged handshakes accompanied by “good to see you’s.”

Don continued speaking to Coughter as though I was not present. He does that sometimes at the office as well, when I sit in on meetings with his clients. Don’s an able lawyer. His voice, by its very weight and depth, commands jurors’ attention. His reputation as a trial attorney had been made by that voice; an ominous, sepulchral resonance that seemed to emanate from a volcanic oracle, like the slow grinding of faults at the earth’s core. The rare jury returning an adverse verdict left the courthouse
shadowed by guilt, having defied the wishes of what sounded, for all the world, like a rumbling deity. At five-ten he stood eye level with Coughter, tapping lightly with his free hand the other man’s lapel. Coughter’s concentration bordered on entrancement, produced not only by the speaker’s mesmerizing voice but by the subject matter: Coughter’s impending confirmation hearing before the Courts of Justice Committee in the General Assembly, a legislative body wherein Mahoney enjoyed considerable influence both as sage advisor and campaign financial contributor.

“It’ll all blow over,” Don assured Coughter. “Nobody with any influence on that committee makes decisions based on a newspaper editorial by some snotty-nosed do-gooder. Bill and Ed are both looking out for you in the Committee, and the full House will bring out the rubber stamp. It’s not a done deal, but you’ll get through. You have my word on it.”

Coughter’s face, until now cloudy with concern, brightened visibly. “That’s mighty good to hear, coming from you.” Then doubt again tightened its grip. “It just don’t seem fair,” he said. “If they disqualified every judge in this state who belongs to a segregated private club, there would be one hell of a lot of empty benches.”

With the hand holding his drink, Mahoney gave a dismissive wave, almost spilling his bourbon onto Coughter. “I’m telling you, it’s all hot air. You think those good old boys in Richmond give a damn about your membership here? They’ve got a political problem and you’re going to have to sit there at the big long table and nod understandingly and assure them that you are sensitive to all their minority concerns and that you’ve put us on notice back here in the boondocks that unless we change our membership policies, why, you just might have to consider resigning. Then you’ll have to listen to them talk about how it’s incumbent on judges in the Commonwealth to be free from discrimination and all the rest of it. It’s a game. Just play along.”

Coughter took a pull on his drink. “I’ll sure be glad when it’s over,” he said, taking a handkerchief from his pocket and mopping his forehead. “Yes, sir. Mighty glad.”

“Well, hell, Richard,” scoffed Mahoney in his rich bass. “For what amounts to a lifetime appointment, you can take a few minutes on the hot seat, can’t you? The worst that can happen, the absolute worst, is that someone gunning for statewide office next year will demand you resign as a condition of appointment.”

“But I like this club. My wife likes it. All our friends are here.”

“So Susan keeps her membership and you become her permanent guest. Or do what that fellow in Staunton did last year—resign and rejoin after you’re appointed. They can’t touch you after you’re in. You worry too much.”

“Susan tells me the same thing. I guess I do. Still, it means financial security and you can’t beat the pension, so I would hate to see something go wrong.”

Don turned to me. “What do you think, counselor? Think ‘Judge Coughter’ has a ring to it?”

“By all means,” I answered, raising my glass in an informal toast.

“You’re very kind,” said Coughter. “I hope you’re right. Both of you. Still, I doubt this flap is going to disappear. Wouldn’t it be easier on everyone to recruit some minority so we could say we have one?”

Mahoney nodded. “Sure it would. We’re working on it. You know Reggie Page, the black dentist?” Coughter narrowed his eyes as if to place Page. “Anyway, he’s a good fellow; reserved, soft spoken. He’s agreed to apply if we can assure him he’ll be admitted and that it won’t turn into a newspaper circus.”

Coughter gave a short chortle. “Well, I don’t know Page but I know most of the membership committee. That’s going to be a tough sell.” He shook his head doubtfully.

“Maybe,” agreed Mahoney. “But we need one. You’re a case in point. We’ll have to twist some arms, but I think we can get there with a commitment from Reggie Page.”

Coughter looked surprised before a slow grin spread his lips. “What kind of commitment. Is he going to agree to turn white?” He guffawed at his cleverness and Mahoney joined in, tilting his head back to laugh.

“Not exactly,” Mahoney said. “We want his promise that once he’s in he won’t put up a bunch of his friends for membership and put us all in a sticky bind.”

“Makes sense,” said Coughter, still grinning. “Thanks for the reassurance. Oh, and thanks also for your help with the legislators. I’m mighty grateful and I won’t forget it.” They shook hands and Coughter retreated toward the men’s room.

Mahoney turned to me. “How are you and your lovely wife enjoying the party?”

“We’ve had a great time,” I said. “Speaking of my lovely wife, I’d better go find her before she gets a better offer.”

“Be sure to make the rounds with the membership committee. They have on small blue ribbons. Hell, you know most of them but it never hurts to kiss a little ass.” I knew the significance of the ribbons, but thanked Don anyway.

The next day, Elizabeth paid the price for the wine she drank, blaming it on Sandra Hallet who I find as insufferable as does Elizabeth. I really did not want to have this conversation when she was nursing a hangover, but it couldn’t be put off. After the boys and I returned from soccer, I told her about the Mahoney-Coughter conversation.

“Don Mahoney and Richard Coughter were discussing his appointment to the bench.” I paused.

“And?”

“And there was a lot of talk about his membership in Riverside; you know, the fact that he’ll be a judge and belongs to a segregated club. Hearing them talk strategy firmed up a thought that has been running through my mind since we started this adoption process, but I never put a finger on it until last night.”

“I told you they were all a bunch of bigots, your senior partner included.” She looked vexed.

“Will you let me finish?”

“Go ahead, I’m listening.”

“It’s the subtle stuff that you have to worry about; that we’ll have to worry about for her. She won’t have doors slammed in her face. She won’t be told directly, ‘No, you can’t go here’ or ‘No, you can’t participate in that.’ That’s illegal, and besides, we’re a civilized country. But her life with us would be affected in a thousand ways by the kind of thing I overheard last night; lip service while you hold on to the old days. Poor Reggie Page. I wouldn’t be in his shoes for anything.”

“Why Reggie Page?”

“You know him?”

“Yes. He’s a dentist. Nice guy.”

“They’re thinking of asking him to join the club if he’ll promise not to try to drag any of his friends with him.”

“How humiliating. But if Reggie is stupid enough to agree to be their token, he deserves what he gets.”

“Exactly. Reggie’s lived here all his life. He understands all this. But a young Asian growing up in our family isn’t going to understand. When sides are chosen and she isn’t picked, she won’t know why. When the prom arrives and she’s not asked, she won’t understand. And if she wins some award, we’ll never know whether she earned it or two people like Mahoney and Coughter got together and decided it would be good for appearances.”

“So what are you saying?”

“I’m saying I don’t want to put a child through that. I think we should call this off.”

Tears welled immediately in Elizabeth’s eyes. “No. I want this child. You promised.”

“That was four years ago. I’ve thought it through.”

She fought for control as I leaned back, my arms folded across my chest, ready for what I knew would be a furious assault. The color drained from her face as she said, “You don’t want to put yourself through it. It has nothing to do with the child.”

“That’s not true. You have a totally unrealistic view of what she will face, and every time I point it out you attack me as a selfish racist.”

“You are selfish. You only care about angering your parents and alienating people like Don Mahoney. I know she will face problems. But if we don’t adopt her she may face life in an institution, which has to be worse than anything she will confront here. But that will be her problem, won’t it? You won’t be inconvenienced, your career won’t be jeopardized, and that makes all the difference, doesn’t it?”