The Laws of our Fathers (32 page)

    'That makes sense,' he says.

    'Do you remember that?'

    'It rings a bell.'

    'So you knew Hardcore had turned. And that you were going to this girl for corroboration, right?'

    Lubitsch takes a long time to make sure there aren't any snares before he agrees.

    'Now, Hardcore's in the gang, in BSD? Hardcore's what they call Top Rank, correct?'

    'So I understand.'

    'The younger ones carry out his orders?'

    'They sell his dope. Yeah, he's important. What's the point?' asks Lubitsch, clearly out of sorts, as many coppers become when they lose control of the situation. Hobie takes advantage to move a few steps closer.

    'Here's the point, Officer. Do you know of witnesses in gang cases being threatened and in fact even hurt or killed?'

    'I've heard of it.'

    'Often?'

    'Probably.'

    'And in your experience isn't that even more likely to occur when someone is offering testimony against a gang leader?'

    Lubitsch sees the point then. He ponders what is coming next before saying simply, 'Yes.'

    'Now, Officer, recognizing you came here on short notice,

    recognizing you didn't have much chance to look at your reports or to think about the events of September 12, recognizing that you
ordinarily
wouldn't tell a witness what another witness said, recognizing all of that, I ask you if it wouldn't have been a whole lot easier to get a homegirl to roll if she knew her shot-caller had already done the same thing, and if she wasn't going to hurt him by talking?'

    Lubitsch's shoulders are sunk down and he is stewing in all of it, getting caught by this defense lawyer and having to tell him the truth. Again, his eyes, almost involuntarily, move in my direction before he answers.

    'That makes sense.'

    'And in order to convince her, you'd have
had
to reveal the details of what he had said. You'd want her to be sure you already knew the story she was going to tell you, right?'

    ‘I would have told her, I guess, some things. I'd have tried to hold back a little, you know, for a test. But I'd have to give her enough for her to know he'd turned over.'

    'And if she says one of the things you revealed to her was that Hardcore had accused Nile of engineering the shooting of his father, you can't, as you sit here today, you can't say that's wrong, can you?'

    Lubitsch actually makes a face. He winces in reflection. He waits one more second, his full weight taken on both ponderous forearms, which rest on the witness box.

    'I can't completely remember. All right? That's the truth. She could be right, she could be wrong.'

    'She could be right?' asks Hobie.

    Lubitsch doesn't bother to respond. At the prosecution table, Molto is unconsciously probing his temple, staring vacantly at the oak rods that are mounted on the wall in front of him to baffle sound. Hobie has the center of the courtroom to himself. He smiles circumspectly at the witness, careful not to show Lubitsch up for telling the truth. But we all know he's had another high moment of lawyerly achievement. Bug's statements to the police now have to be regarded as no more than a loyal imitation of Hardcore. Core himself may prove a persuasive witness. There may be good corroboration for him, or other evidence of Nile's guilt. But for the moment, Hobie's done his job. Lovinia Campbell is gone from the state's case.

    In the sheriff's office there are dressing rooms and showers. Basic fare. Rusted lockers, concrete floors, the reek of disinfectant. The judges, who have free access, refer to this area in irony as The Club. As a former cancer patient who has read all of the studies about the ancillary routes to health, I skip lunch at least twice a week and, in a raveled sweatshirt and leggings of Spandex - time-defying miracle fiber of the nineties - lumber off from the courthouse down Cushing Boulevard for forty minutes of intermittent power-walking and jogging. Rosario, the gatekeeper at the Judges' Entrance, a tiny fellow in the blue sheriff deputy's uniform, speeds me on my way, with his standard farewell. 'Go get em, Judge.' When I return, he will sweep the door aside and say, 'Welcome to Fen-tasy Island.' I have never been certain if he is mocking himself or the eerie atmosphere of the courthouse, where we are always rubbing shoulders with people whom, in other circumstances, you would cross the street to avoid - boys who shout too loud, who strut about with an abject, thuggish glower, surrounded by menace like a dark halo. The federal building was full of officious clerks and marshals, pumped up with the majesty of the United States. But in the Kindle County courthouse there is a humble geniality among the lawyers, the deputies, the clerks, a quiet need to reassure ourselves that we belong together to a community of decent folk.

    I race along with Mahler on my headset, my heart kicking as I twist down the pavement to avoid the jurors, attorneys, and families on their way to lunch. A couple of the lawyers, whose names I don't recall or never knew, wave to me in an eager way as I shoot by. 'Hiya, Your Honor.' It's one of the last decent days of the year. The light is weakening and dismal winter clouds, heavy as quilting, move randomly from remote quarters of the sky to momentarily darken the day with the awesome suddenness of a primitive curse. But the sun returns periodically and the air is bearable, pushing 40. Soon Mother Nature will prove she is at heart an angry witch. Winter in the Middle West. You're never quite ready.

    Not far from the exit, I hear my name, 'Sonny,' more or less yodeled, carried to me on the sharp wind. Pushing back the earphones, I expect to greet another judge, but it is, instead, Seth, trotting to catch up. 'Oh, for Chrissake,' I mutter beneath my breath. I'm the one who started this yesterday, who crossed the moat, but this is starting to feel like junior high school. In the same blue sport coat and scuffed shoes he's worn each day, Seth arrives with a self-aggrandizing smile. The fringe of hair above his ears, going colorless, is fluffed up by the wind.

    ‘I was afraid I missed you. Your secretary, Marian? She said you'd come out here.'

    'Marietta?' Slow death, I think, Chinese tortures - I am
truly
going to kill her. I stand there, jogging in place, toe dancing in my Sauconys and sweatshirt, and give him my loftiest judicial manner, all walls. 'What can I do for you, Seth?' He draws back, with a wet-eyed, wounded look that seems somehow typical of him these days.

    'I'm holding you up,' he says at last. 'Come on, I'll run with you.' He moves a few paces ahead and motions for me to join him. In his street shoes and blazer, he leads the way along the avenue with a practiced gait. 'I'm only going to bother you for a second. I just wanted you to know something. You asked me yesterday about Hobie and Dubinsky? And I thought about that all night. And I think I get it? I think I know why you asked?'

    'Forget it, Seth.' I see what's coming. He had dinner with Hobie and they planned a response. Seth's here as a guided missile. This is just the reason I vowed to have nothing to do with him. 'We're not having this discussion.'

    'No, I want you to understand. I don't know what Hobie's doing. I love him, but take it from me, Hobie T. Tuttle can be a treacherous fellow. So whatever he cooked up, it's with Stew, not me. I'm not part of it. Hobie and Nile, neither of them are even talking to me. Okay? That's all.'

    'That's enough.' One more line, one more word, and I'll have to do something, stop and shout for the police. But he allows me to proceed in silence, galloping heavy-footed down the walk. We have reached Homer Park, which boasts a circular tarred walkway. In times past, the Park District was a notorious tub of grease, with patronage jobs and no-bid contracts, the haven for no-nose politicians like Toots Nuccio, who sometimes carried his tommy gun to city council meetings in his clarinet case. These days, as the city grows poorer, so do the parks. The programs that brightened my life as a child, the crafts classes and summer camps, are gone. Even routine maintenance has failed. In this park, for reasons I have never figured out, the trees have all been topped. They ring the tarmac path like amputees, barkless, knotted. The lawn, dying in the early winter, is bare in many patches, strewn with trash and leaves. It is a safe haven though in the daylight hours. Latino moms in their cloth coats wheel their bundled babies. Pedestrians bound for Center City cross the park to transfer bus lines. Like a river running through a canyon, U S 843, with its thrum and fumes, is a block away and 200 feet down.

    As Seth remains beside me, easily keeping pace, I am engaged in reassessment. 'Hobie T. Tuttle can be treacherous.' 'He and Dubinsky cooked something up.' It's hard to imagine Seth as Hobie's emissary and bringing those messages. I'm even briefly tempted to ask what he thinks Hobie's up to, but better sense prevails. With Seth, I have to maintain a firm grip.

    'Jesus, it's cold out here.' He's attempting to ease the silence with a joke and rubs the open expanse of his scalp. 'No natural protection,' he says.

    'Seth, am I supposed to feel sorry for you because you're bald?'

    'Going,' he says. 'Going bald. Forehead-challenged.'

    'Let me tell you the truth, Seth. A woman after forty has to worry about everything. Top to bottom. Her chest sagging. The onset of menopause. Bones going soft. If she's had kids, her back end isn't likely to fit the jeans from twenty years ago, and maybe her bladder's weak, too. So it doesn't really break my heart that men go bald. In fact - and I'm not usually like this - I'm
glad
they have something to worry about. And to top it off, the truth is I don't think it looks all that bad. It makes a guy appear mature, which, frankly, is a rare quality in a lot of men. So I'm not sorry for you, Seth.'

    'Holy smokes,' he says. 'What's got you so cranky?'

    'Come on, Seth. You're following me down the street, on one of my two free hours in the week. And frankly, every time I talk to you, there's this lament. As if I'm supposed to pity you, when the fact is I've got a job to do. Which I've already explained.'

    Oddly, he does not offer the defenses I would have expected. 'Right,' he says instead and his eyes fall to his shoes. I realize suddenly - guiltily - that I've been trying to drive him off by picking a fight. His face, in the interval, remains buffeted by strong feeling.

    'My son died,' he says then. 'You asked what was dramatic for me. Yesterday? That was dramatic'

    He has tried, it seems, to strike the tone of historical distance we maintained about our lives a day ago. But the edges of his voice do not hold up. I stop at once while he flies on another twenty paces, so completely unable to look at me that it's that long before he notices I'm not beside him. We've reached the tarred oval and he trudges back to me, against the backdrop of the tortured amputee elms, his posture withered by the questions he knows are coming next.

    How long ago? I ask. Almost two years, he answers.

    'My God. Was he sick? Was he chronic?'

    'He was just a little boy. Seven years old. I mean, kind of a difficult little boy if I'm completely honest. He died in a traffic accident.' He waits a moment and searches the pewter sky for the sun, where the dark accumulation of clouds has temporarily milked the daylight of everything vital. ‘I was driving.' 'Oh God.'

    'It wasn't my fault. That's what everybody says. This guy was drunk - just out of his mind, four times the legal limit, and he ran a light. He hit a curb and came careening right at us. I saw him, you know, maybe out of the corner of my eye, I was trying to move the car forward, it had started forward, but he had the angle on us. It like sheared the car in half. One second I'm sitting there telling Isaac to mind his fingers in his nose, and - Afterwards, the one thing I was grateful for was that I didn't have to hear him scream, and yet, Jesus, how can your child
die
without even making a sound?'

    By now, my arms have closed around my sides to cope with the rampant pain. I try a few words of consolation, but his palm rises at once, and I realize this must be one of the worst parts, listening to people grope for words, in hopes of expressing an agony so much his, not theirs. Even then, I can't help saying the same thing again and again. I'm sorry. So sorry.

    ‘I had no idea, Seth. Your life seems so exposed in your column. There hasn't been a word, has there?'

    ‘I hate talking about it. I'm rotten with self-pity, as it is. You see it. Everybody sees it. I'm just a running sore.'

    I find I have taken his hand. Sweat has trailed down beneath his watchband and the sleeve of his dress shirt. His other hand is against the bridge of his nose, in an effort at self-control.

    'And the guy who hit you? Is he in prison?' Dumb question, I think at once, stupid, trying to press the whole thing within my own horizons, because the thought of what he's been through so frightens me.

    'Oh, sure. He got fifteen years. He had a record, a big record. Some poor fucked-up black guy. Stolen car. The whole shot. He pled guilty. I never even had to look at him again. Lucy went to court for the sentencing. I guess she cried and carried on. I just -

    I mean, what's the point? I never think about him, the guy. I think, you know, if I'd moved faster, if I'd pressed the accelerator harder. If, if, if.' He scans the park. A thirteen-year-old, hat on backwards and smoking a cigarette, whizzes by us on roller blades. 'We're going to freeze out here,' he says. He starts to jog then and I follow, walking fast. He slows to keep my pace.

    'And Lucy? Is Lucy crazy with it? Is she -'

    'She's crazy. Not that I'm in any position to talk. We're both out of our minds. But in different ways.' This is what's between Lucy and him, I realize. It must be. We travel half the oval without words, but he can tell what I've been thinking. 'It's not like she blames me,' he says. 'At least, not the way I blame myself. But like this? Running? Six months ago, we started jogging together before dinner. We'd take the dog. We bought these lights you wear on your elbows? We had matching suits. But how can you enjoy it? You can't. You think this is not how our life is supposed to be. We're supposed to be at home. We're supposed to be tied down. We're supposed to be yelling at Isaac to turn off the TV, to start on his homework. It's not bitter with us. We just can't find a way to move on.'