Small Great Things (29 page)

“What did the cardiologist say?”

“He never got a chance to diagnose it. The baby died before that.” I frown. “Where are the results of the heel stick?”

“What's that?”

“Routine testing.”

“I'll subpoena it,” Kennedy says absently. She starts tossing around papers and files until she finds one labeled with the seal of the medical examiner. “Ah, look at this…
Cause of death: hypoglycemia leading to hypoglycemic seizure leading to respiratory arrest and cardiac arrest,
” Kennedy says. “Cardiac arrest? As in: a congenital heart defect?”

She hands me the report. “Well, I was right, for what it's worth,” I say. “The baby had a grade-one patent ductus.”

“Is that life-threatening?”

“No. It usually closes up by itself the first year of life.”

“Usually,” she repeats. “But not
always
.”

I shake my head, confused. “We can't say the baby was sick if he wasn't.”

“The defense doesn't have the burden of proof. We can say anything—that the baby was exposed to Ebola, that a distant cousin of his died of heart disease, that he was the first kid to be born with a chromosomal abnormality inconsistent with life—we just have to lay out a trail of bread crumbs for the jury and hope they're hungry enough to follow.”

I sift through the medical file again until I find the photocopy of the Post-it note. “We could always show them this.”

“That does not create doubt,” Kennedy says flatly. “That, in fact, makes the jury think you might have a reason for being pissed off in the first place. Let it go, Ruth. What really matters here? The pain from just a little bruise to your ego? Or the guillotine hanging over your head?”

My hand tightens on the paper, and I feel the sting of a paper cut. “It was not a little bruise to my ego.”

“Great. Then we're in agreement. You want to win this case? Help me find a medical issue that shows the baby might still have died, even if you'd taken every single measure possible to save it.”

I almost tell her, then. I almost say that I tried to resuscitate that child. But then I would have to admit that I had lied to Kennedy in the first place, when here I stand, telling her it's wrong to lie about a cardiac anomaly. So instead, I stick my finger in my mouth and suck at the wound. In the kitchen, I find a box of Band-Aids and carry them back to the table, wrap one around my middle finger.

This is not a case about a heart murmur. She knows it, and I know it.

I look down at my kitchen table, and run my thumbnail against the grain of the wood. “You ever make your little girl peanut butter and jelly sandwiches?”

“What?” Kennedy glances up. “Yes. Sure.”

“Edison, he was a picky eater when he was little. Sometimes he decided he didn't want the jelly, and I'd have to try to scrape it off. But you know, you can't ever really take the jelly off a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, once it's there. You can still taste it.”

My lawyer is looking at me as if I've lost my mind.

“You told me this lawsuit isn't about race. But that's what started it. And it doesn't matter if you can convince the jury I'm the reincarnation of Florence Nightingale—you can't take away the fact that I am Black. The truth is, if I looked like you, this would not be happening to me.”

Something shutters in her eyes. “First,” Kennedy says evenly, “you might very well have been indicted no matter what race you were. Grieving parents and hospitals that are trying to keep their insurance premiums from going through the roof create a perfect recipe for finding a fall guy. Second, I am not disagreeing with you. There are definite racial overtones in this case. But in my professional opinion, bringing them up in court is more likely to hinder than to help you secure an acquittal, and I don't think that's a risk you should take just to make yourself feel better about a perceived slight.”

“A perceived slight,” I say. I turn the words over in my mouth, running my tongue across the sharp edges. “A
perceived
slight.” I lift my chin and stare at Kennedy. “What do you think about being white?”

She shakes her head, her face blank. “I
don't
think about being white. I told you the first time we sat down—I don't see color.”

“Not all of us have that privilege.” I reach for the Band-Aids and shake them across all her charts and folders and files. “Flesh color,” I read on the box. “Tell me, which one of these is flesh color?
My
flesh color?”

Two bright spots bloom on Kennedy's cheeks. “You can't blame me for that.”

“Can't I?”

She straightens her spine. “I am not a racist, Ruth. And I understand that you're upset, but it's a little unfair of you to take it out on me, when I'm just trying to do my best—my professional best—to help you. For God's sake, if I'm walking down a street and a Black man is coming toward me and I realize I'm going the wrong way, I keep going the wrong direction instead of turning around so he won't automatically think I'm afraid of him.”

“That's overcompensating, and that's just as bad,” I say. “You say you don't see color…but that's
all
you see. You're so hyperaware of it, and of trying to look like you aren't prejudiced, you can't even understand that when you say
race doesn't matter
all I hear is you dismissing what
I've
felt, what
I've
lived, what it's like to be put down because of the color of my skin.”

I don't know which one of us is more surprised by my outburst. Kennedy, for being confronted by a client she thought was grateful to bask in the glow of her professional advice, or I, for letting loose a beast that must have been hiding inside me all these years. It had been lurking, just waiting for something to shake my unshakable optimism, and free it.

Tight-lipped, Kennedy nods. “You're right. I don't know what it's like to be Black. But I do know what it's like to be in a courtroom. If you bring up race in court, you will lose. Juries like clarity. They like being able to say,
Because A, therefore B.
Sprinkle racism over that, and everything gets cloudy.” She starts gathering up her files and reports, jamming them back in her briefcase. “I'm not trying to make it seem like your feelings don't matter to me, or that I don't believe racism is real. I'm just trying to get you acquitted.”

Doubt is like frostbite, shivering at the edges of my mind.

“Maybe we both need to cool down,” Kennedy says diplomatically. She gets to her feet and walks to the door. “I promise you, Ruth. We can win this case, without bringing any of that up.”

After the door closes behind her, I sit, my hands folded in my lap.
How,
I think,
is that winning?

I pick at the edge of the Band-Aid on my finger. Then I walk to the vase on the shelf near the television. I pull out the manila envelope and rummage through the checks until I find what I'm looking for.

Wallace Mercy's business card.

F
RANCIS LIKES TO OPEN UP
his home to guys in the Movement every other Sunday afternoon. Once the crews stopped roaming the streets looking for people to mess up, we hardly ever saw each other. You can reach a lot of people through the World Wide Web, but it's a cold, impersonal community. Francis recognizes that, which is why twice a month the street is packed with cars with license plates from as far away as New Jersey and New Hampshire, enjoying an afternoon of hospitality. I'll put on the football game for the guys, and the women congregate in the kitchen with Brit, organizing the potluck dishes and trading gossip like baseball cards. Francis takes it upon himself to entertain the older kids with colorful lectures. You can stand at a distance and almost see words blazing from his mouth, like he is a dragon, as the boys sit mesmerized at his feet.

It's been almost three months since we've had a Sunday session. We haven't seen these people since Davis's funeral. To be honest, I haven't really thought about it, since I'm still stumbling through the days like a zombie. But when Francis tells me to post an invitation on Lonewolf.org, I do it. You just don't say no to Francis.

And so, the house is full again. The tone, though, is a little different. Everyone wants to seek me out, ask how I'm doing. Brit is in our bedroom with a headache; she didn't even want to pretend to be social.

But Francis is still the happy host, pulling the caps off beers and complimenting the ladies on their haircuts or blue-eyed babies or the deliciousness of their brownies. He finds me sitting by myself near the garage, where I've gone to dump a bag of trash. “People seem to be having a good time,” he says.

I nod. “People like free beer.”

“It's only free if you're not me,” Francis replies, and then he looks at me shrewdly. “Everything all right?” he asks, and by
everything
he means
Brit
. When I shrug, he purses his lips. “You know, when Brit's mama left, I didn't understand why I was still here. Thought about checking out, if you know what I mean. I was taking care of my six-month-old, and I still couldn't find the will to stick around. And then one day, I just
got
it: the reason we lose people we care about is so we're more grateful for the ones we still have. It's the only possible explanation. Otherwise, God's a sorry son of a bitch.”

He claps me on the back and walks into the tiny fenced backyard. The young teens who've been dragged here by their parents are suddenly alert, awakened to his magnetism. He sits down on a stump and starts his version of Sunday School. “Who likes mysteries?” There is nodding, a general buzz of assent. “Good. Who can tell me who Israel is?”

“That's a pretty crappy mystery,” someone mutters and is elbowed by the boy beside him.

Another boy calls out, “A country filled with Jews.”

“Raise your hand,” Francis says. “And I didn't ask
what
Israel is. I asked
who.
”

A kid who's just getting fuzz over his upper lip waves and is pointed to. “Jacob. He started being called that after he fought the angel at Peniel.”

“And we have a winner,” Francis says. “Israel went on to have twelve sons—that's where the twelve tribes of Israel come from, you follow…”

I walk back into the kitchen, where a few women are talking. One of them is holding a baby who's fussing. “All's I know is she doesn't sleep through the night anymore and I'm so tired I actually walked out the front door in my pajamas yesterday headed to work before I realized what I was doing.”

“I'm telling you,” one girl says. “I used whiskey, rubbed on the gums.”

“Can't start them too early,” says an older woman, and everyone laughs.

Then they see me standing there, and the conversation drops like a stone from a cliff. “Turk,” says the older woman. I don't know her name, but I recognize her face; she's been here before. “Didn't see you come in.”

I don't respond. My eyes are glued to the baby, who is red-faced, waving her fists. She is crying so hard she can't catch her breath.

My arms are reaching out before I can stop myself. “Can I…?”

The women glance at each other, and then the baby's mother places her into my arms. I can't get over how light the baby is, rigid arms and legs kicking as she shrieks. “Shh,” I say, patting her. “Quiet, now.”

I rub my hand on her back. I let her curl like a comma over my shoulder. Her cries become hiccups. “Look at you, the Baby Whisperer,” her mother says, smiling.

This is how it could have been.

This is how it
should
have been.

Suddenly I realize that the ladies are not looking at the baby anymore. They are staring at something behind me. I turn around, the baby fast asleep, tiny bubbles of spit on the seam of her lips.

“Jesus,” Brit says, an accusation. She turns and runs out of the kitchen. I hear the door to the bedroom slam behind her. “Excuse me,” I say, trying to juggle the baby back to her mother as gently and as quickly as possible. Then I run to Brit.

She's lying on our bed, facing away from me. “I fucking hate them. I hate them for being in my house.”

“Brit. They're just trying to be nice.”

“That's what I hate the most,” she says, her voice a blade. “I hate the way they look at me
.
”

“That's not what—”

“All I wanted was a fucking drink of water from my own sink. Is that too much to ask?”

“I'll get you water…”

“That's not the point, Turk.”

“What
is
the point?” I whisper.

Brit rolls over. Her eyes are swimming with tears. “Exactly,” she says, and she starts to cry, just as hard as that baby was crying, but even after I gather her into my arms and hold her tight and rub her back she doesn't stop.

It feels just as foreign to be soothing Brit while she sobs as it was for me to cradle an infant. This is not the woman I married. I wonder if I buried that fierce spirit along with the body of my son.

We stay there, in the cocoon of the bedroom, long after the sun sets and the cars drive away and the house is empty again.

T
HE NEXT NIGHT
we are all sitting in the living room watching television. My laptop is open; I'm writing a post for Lonewolf.org about something that happened in Cincinnati. Brit brings me a beer and curls up against me, the first contact she's initiated since, well, I can't even remember. “What are you working on?” she asks, craning her neck so that she can read what's on my screen.

“White kid got body-slammed by two niggers at school,” I say. “They broke his back, but they didn't get charged. You can bet if it were the other way around, the White kids would have been charged with assault.”

Francis points the remote at the television and grunts. “That's because Cincinnati is in the ninety-ninth percentile of shit schools,” he adds. “It's an all-black administration. What do we
really
want for our kids?”

“That's good,” I say, typing in his words. “I'm gonna end with that.”

Francis flips through the cable stations. “How come there's Black Entertainment TV but no White Entertainment TV?” he asks. “And people say there's no reverse racism.” He turns off the television and stands up. “I'm headed to bed.”

He kisses Brit on the forehead and leaves for the night, headed to his side of the duplex. I expect her to get up, too, but she makes no move to leave.

“Doesn't it kill you?” Brit asks. “The waiting?”

I glance up. “How do you mean?”

“It's like there's nothing
immediate
anymore. You don't know who's reading the stuff you post.” She pivots to face me, sitting cross-legged. “Things used to be so much clearer. I learned my colors by looking at the shoelaces of the guys my dad was meeting up with. White Power and neo-Nazis had red or white laces. SHARPs were blue or green.”

I smirk. “I have a hard time imagining your father meeting with SHARPs.” Skinheads Against Racial Prejudice are the biggest race traitors you'll ever meet; they target those of us who are fighting the good fight by trying to get rid of lesser races. They think they're fucking Batman, every one of them.

“I didn't say it was a…friendly meeting,” Brit replies. “But actually, sometimes he did. You did what you had to do—even if it seemed to go against all reason—because you were seeing the big picture.” She glances up at me. “You know Uncle Richard?”

Not personally, but Brit did. He was Richard Butler, the head of Aryan Nations. He died when Brit was about seventeen.

“Uncle Richard was friends with Louis Farrakhan.”

The leader of the Nation of Islam? This was news to me. “But…he's…”

“Black? Yeah. But he hates Jews and the federal government as much as we do. Daddy always says the enemy of my enemy is my friend.” Brit shrugs. “It was kind of an unspoken understanding: after we worked together to bring down the system, then we'd fight each other.”

We'd win, of that I have no doubt.

She looks at me carefully. “What do we
really
want for our kids?” Brit says, repeating Francis's earlier comment. “I know what I want for
my
kid. I want him to be remembered.”

“Baby, you know we won't forget him.”

“Not us,” Brit says, her words suddenly hard.
“Everyone.”

I look at her. I know what she's saying: that typing a blog may indeed crumble foundations, but it's far more dramatic—and faster—to blow the building up from the top down.

To some extent I'd been too late for the Skinhead Movement, which had its heyday ten years before I was born. I imagined a world where when people saw me coming, they ran away. I thought about how Francis and I had spent the past two years trying to convince crews that anonymity was more insidious—and terrifying—than overt threats. “Your father won't go along with this,” I say.

Brit leans down and kisses me, softly, pulling away so I am left wanting more. God, I've missed this. I missed
her.

“What my father doesn't know can't hurt him,” she answers.

R
AINE IS PUMPED
to get my phone call. It's been two years since I've seen him; he didn't make it to my wedding, because his wife had just had their second baby. When I tell him I'm in Brattleboro for the day, he invites me to his house for lunch. He's moved, so I jot the address down on a napkin.

At first I'm sure I'm in the wrong place. It's a little ranch on a cul-de-sac, with a mailbox that is shaped like a cat. There's a bright red plastic slide on the front lawn and a ticky-tacky wooden snowman hanging near the front door. The welcome mat says
HI! WE'RE THE TESCOS!

Then a slow grin spreads over my face. The smart bastard. He's taking hiding in plain sight to a whole new level. I mean, who would ever expect that the dad living next door who power-washes his porch and lets his kid ride a bike with training wheels up and down the driveway is actually a White Supremacist?

Raine opens the door before I even get a chance to knock. He's holding a chunky toddler in his arms, and poking out from between the towers of his legs is a shy little girl wearing a tutu and a princess crown. He grins, reaching out to embrace me. I can't help but notice he is wearing sparkling pink nail polish.

“Bro,” I say, glancing at his fingers. “Nice fashion statement.”

“You should see how good I am at tea parties. Come in! Man, it's good to see you.”

I walk inside, and the little girl ducks behind Raine's legs. “Mira,” he says, crouching down, “this is Turk, Daddy's friend.”

She sticks her thumb into her mouth, like she's sizing me up.

“She's not great with strangers,” Raine says. He juggles the baby in his arms. “This bruiser here is Isaac.”