Small Great Things (51 page)

My mother puts a hand on her hip. “One man's curse is another's boon, you know. Lefties are supposed to be more creative. Weren't Michelangelo and da Vinci and Bach all left-handed? And back in medieval times you were lucky to be a lefty, because the majority of men fought with a sword in their right hand and a shield in their left, which meant you could pull off a sneak attack”—she reaches toward me with a spatula, poking me on the right side of my chest—“like this.”

I laugh. “Why do you even know that?”

“I read romance novels, sugar,” she says. “Don't worry about Violet. If she really wants to, you know, she can always teach herself to be ambidextrous. Your father,
he
was just as good with his right hand as with his left one—writing, hammering, even getting to second base.” She grins. “And I am
not
talking about batting practice.”

“Ew,”
I say. “Stop.” But meanwhile, my brain is spinning: What if the puzzle of the world was a shape you didn't fit into? And the only way to survive was to mutilate yourself, carve away your corners, sand yourself down, modify yourself to fit?

How come we haven't been able to change the puzzle instead?

“Mom?” I ask. “Can you stay with Vi for a few more hours?”

I
REMEMBER READING
a novel once that said the native Alaskans who came in contact with white missionaries thought, at first, they were ghosts. And why shouldn't they have thought that? Like ghosts, white people move effortlessly through boundaries and borders. Like ghosts, we can be anywhere we want to be.

I decide it's time to feel the walls around me.

The first thing I do is leave my car in the driveway and walk a mile to a bus stop. Chilled to the bone, I duck into a CVS to warm up. I stop in front of a display I've never paused at before and take down a purple box. Dark and Lovely Healthy-Gloss relaxer. I look at the pretty woman in the picture.
For medium hair textures,
I read.
Straight, sleek, and shiny hair.
I scan the instructions, the multiple-step process needed to get hair that looks like mine after I blow it dry.

Next I reach for a bottle, Luster's Pink oil moisturizer hair lotion. A black tub of Ampro Pro Styl. A satin bonnet that claims to minimize frizz and breakage at night.

These products are foreign to me. I have no idea what they do, why they're necessary for black people, or how to use them. But I bet Ruth could name five shampoos white people use, just off the top of her head, thanks to ubiquitous television commercials.

I walk downtown, where for a little while I sit on a bench for another bus and watch two homeless people soliciting strangers on the street. They target mostly well-dressed white people in business suits, or college students plugged into their headphones, and maybe one in six or seven reaches into his or her pocket for change. Of the two homeless people, one routinely gets a donation more often than the other. She's elderly, and white. The other one—a young black man—is given a wider berth.

The Hill neighborhood of New Haven is among the most notorious in the city. I've had dozens of clients from there—mostly involved in selling drugs near the Church Street South low-income housing. That's also where Adisa, Ruth's sister, lives.

I wander the streets. There are kids running, chasing each other. Girls huddled together, speaking a flurry of Spanish. Men stand on street corners, arms folded, silent sentries. I am the only white face in the vicinity. It is already starting to get dark out when I duck into a bodega. The cashier at the counter stares at me as I walk through the aisles. I can feel her gaze like lightning between my shoulder blades. “Can I help you?” she asks finally, and I shake my head and walk out.

It's unsettling, not seeing someone who looks like me. People I pass don't make eye contact. I am the stranger in their midst, the sore thumb, the one that is not like the others. And yet, at the very same instant, I have become invisible.

When I get to Church Street South, I walk around the buildings. Some of the apartments, I know, have been condemned for mold, for structural damage. It is like a ghost town: curtains pulled tight, residents holed up inside. Beneath a stairwell, I see two young men, passing cash. An old lady tries to haul her oxygen tank up the stairs above them. “Excuse me,” I call out. “Can I give you a hand?”

All three of them stare at me, frozen. The men glance up, and one puts a hand on the waistband of his jeans, from which I think I see the hilt of a gun protruding. My legs are jelly. Before I can back away, the old woman says,
“No hablo inglés,”
and climbs the steps double time.

I had wanted to live like Ruth did, just for an afternoon, but not if it meant I'd be in danger. Yet danger, it's relative. I have a husband with a good job and a house that's paid off, and I don't have to worry that something I say or do is going to threaten my ability to put food on the table or pay my bills. For me, danger looks different: it's whatever can separate me from Violet, from Micah. But no matter what face you put on your own personal bogeyman, it gives you nightmares. It has the power to terrify, and to make you do things you wouldn't normally think you'd do, all in an effort to stay safe.

For me, that means running through a night that's tunneling tighter around me, until I can be sure I'm not being followed. Several blocks away, I slow down at an intersection. By now, my pulse isn't racing, the sweat has cooled beneath my arms. A man about my age approaches, pushing the same pedestrian walk button, waiting. His dark skin is pocked on the cheeks, a road map of his life. His hands hold a thick book, but I cannot make out the title.

I decide to try one more time. I nod down toward the book. “Is it good? I'm looking for something to read.”

He glances at me, and lets his gaze slide away. He doesn't respond.

I feel my cheeks burning as the walk signal illuminates. We cross the street side by side in silence, and then he turns away, ducking down a street.

I wonder if he was really intending to go down that street, or if he just wanted to put distance between us. My feet hurt, my whole body is shaking with the cold, and I'm feeling utterly defeated. I realize it was a short-lived experiment, but at least I tried to understand what Ruth was saying. I tried.

I.

As I trudge up to the hospital where Micah works, I think about that pronoun. I consider the hundreds of years that a black man could have gotten into trouble for talking to a white woman. In some places in this country, it's still the case, and the repercussions are vigilante justice. For me, the dire consequence of that stoplight conversation was feeling snubbed. For him, it was something else entirely. It was two centuries of history.

Micah's office is on the third floor. It's remarkable how, the minute I walk through the doors of that hospital, I am in my element again. I know the healthcare system; I know how I will be treated; I know the rituals and the responses. I can stride past the information desk without anyone questioning where I'm going or why I am there. I can wave to the staff in Micah's department and let myself into his office.

Today is a surgery day for him. I sit in his desk chair, my coat unbuttoned, my shoes off. I stare at the model of the human eye on his desk, a three-dimensional puzzle, as my thoughts speed like a cyclone. Every time I close my eyes, I see the old woman at Church Street South, shrinking away from my offer of help. I hear Ruth's voice, telling me I am fired.

Maybe I deserve to be.

Maybe I'm wrong.

I've spent months so focused on getting an acquittal for Ruth, but if I'm really going to be honest, the acquittal was for
me
. For my first murder trial.

I've spent months telling Ruth that a criminal lawsuit is no place to bring up race. If you do, you can't win. But if you don't, there are still costs—because you are perpetuating a flawed system, instead of trying to change it.

That's what Ruth has been trying to say, but I haven't listened. She's brave enough to risk losing her job, her livelihood, her
freedom
to tell the truth, and I'm the liar. I'd told her race isn't welcome in the courtroom, when deep down I know it's already there. It always
has
been. And just because I close my eyes doesn't mean it's gone away.

Witnesses swear on Bibles in court to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. But lies of omission are just as damning as any other falsehood. And to finish out Ruth Jefferson's case without stating, overtly, that what happened to her happened because of the color of her skin might be an even bigger loss than a conviction.

Maybe if there were lawyers more courageous than I am, we wouldn't be so scared to talk about race in places where it matters the most.

Maybe if there were lawyers more courageous than I am, there would not be another Ruth somewhere down the line, being indicted as the result of another racially motivated incident that no one wants to admit is a racially motivated incident.

Maybe if there were lawyers more courageous than I am, fixing the system would be as important as acquitting the client.

Maybe I should be more courageous.

Ruth accused me of wanting to save her, and perhaps that was a fair assessment. But she doesn't need saving. She doesn't need my advice, because really, who am I to give it, when I haven't lived her life? She just needs a chance to speak. To be heard.

I am really not sure how much time passes before Micah enters. He is wearing scrubs, which I've always thought were sexy, and Crocs, which totally
aren't
. His face lights up when he sees me. “This is a nice surprise.”

“I was in the neighborhood,” I tell him. “Can you give me a ride home?”

“Where's your car?”

I shake my head. “Long story.”

He gathers up some files and checks a stack of messages, then reaches for his coat. “Everything all right? You were a million miles away when I walked in.”

I lift the eye model and turn it over in my hands. “I feel like I've been standing underneath an open window, just as a baby gets tossed out. I grab the baby, right, because who wouldn't? But then another baby gets tossed out, so I pass the baby to someone else, and I make the catch. This keeps happening. And before you know it there are a whole bunch of people who are getting really good at passing along babies, just like I'm good at catching them, but no one ever asks who the fuck is throwing the babies out the window in the first place.”

“Um.” Micah tilts his head. “What baby are we talking about?”

“It's not a baby, it's a metaphor,” I say, irritated. “I've been doing my job, but who cares, if the system keeps on creating situations where my job is necessary? Shouldn't we focus on the big picture, instead of just catching whatever falls out the window at any given moment?”

Micah's staring at me like I've lost my mind. Behind his shoulder a poster hangs on the wall: the anatomy of the human eye. There is the optic nerve, the aqueous humor, the conjunctiva. The ciliary body, the retina, the choroid. “For a living,” I murmur, “you make people see.”

“Well,” he says. “Yeah.”

I look directly at him. “That's what I need to do too.”

E
DISON ISN'T AT HOME, AND
my car is gone.

I wait for him, text him, call him, pray, but there is no response. I imagine him walking the streets, hearing my voice ring out in his ears. He is wondering if he has it in him, too, the capacity for rage. If nature or nurture matters more; if he is doubly damned.

Yes, I hated that racist father for belittling me. Yes, I hated the hospital for sticking by his side. I don't know if that bled over into my ability to care for a patient. I can't tell you that for a moment, it didn't cross my mind. That I didn't look down at that innocent baby and think of the monster he would grow up to be.

Does that make me the villain here? Or does that just make me human?

And Kennedy. What I said wasn't in my mind, it was in my heart. I do not regret a syllable. Every time I think about what it felt like to be the one who walked out of that room—who had that
privilege,
for once—I feel dizzy, like I'm flying.

When I hear steps outside, I fly to the door and open it, but it is not my son—just my sister. Adisa stands with her arms crossed. “Figured you'd be home,” she says, pushing her way into my living room. “After that, I didn't imagine you'd be sticking around the courthouse.”

She makes herself comfortable, draping her coat over a kitchen chair, sitting down on the couch, putting her feet up on the coffee table.

“Have you seen Edison? Is he with Tabari?” I ask.

She shakes her head. “Tabari's home babysitting.”

“I'm worried, A.”

“About Edison?”

“Among other things.”

Adisa pats the couch beside her. I sit down, and she reaches for my hand and squeezes it. “Edison's a smart boy. He'll wind up on his feet.”

I swallow. “Will you…watch him for me? Make sure that he doesn't just, you know, give up?”

“If you making out your will, I always liked those black leather boots of yours.” She shakes her head. “Ruth, relax.”

“I can't relax. I can't sit here and think that my son is going to throw away his whole future and it's my fault.”

She looks me in the eye. “Then you're just gonna have to make sure you're here to monitor him.”

But we both know that's not in my hands. Before I know it, I am bent at the waist, punched in the gut by a truth so raw and so frightening that I can't breathe: I have lost control of my future. And it's my own damn fault.

I didn't play by the rules. I did what Kennedy told me not to. And now I'm paying the price for using my voice.

Adisa's arm goes around me, pressing my face against her shoulder. It isn't until she does that that I realize I'm sobbing. “I'm scared,” I gasp.

“I know. But you always got me,” Adisa vows. “I will bake you a cake with a file in it.”

That makes me hiccup on a laugh. “No you won't.”

“You're right,” she says, reconsidering. “I can't bake for shit.” Suddenly she pushes off the couch and reaches into the pocket of her coat. “I thought you should have this.”

I know by the smell—a hint of perfume, with the sharp scent of laundry soap—what she is giving me. Adisa tosses the coil of my mother's lucky scarf into my lap, where it unfurls like a rose. “
You
took this? I looked everywhere for it.”

“Yeah, because I figured you'd either take it for yourself or bury Mama in it, and she didn't need luck anymore, but God knows I do.” Adisa shrugs. “And so do you.”

She sits down next to me again. This week her fingernails are bright yellow. Mine are chewed down to the flesh. She takes the scarf and wraps it around my neck, tucking in the ends the way I used to for Edison, her hands coming to rest on my shoulders. “There,” she says, like I am ready to be sent into the storm.

A
FTER MIDNIGHT,
E
DISON
returns. He is wild-eyed and fidgety, his clothes damp with sweat. “Where have you been?” I demand.

“Running.” But who runs carrying a knapsack?

“We have to talk…”

“I have nothing to say to you,” he tells me, and he slams the door to his bedroom.

I know he must be disgusted by what he saw in me today: my anger, my admission that I am a liar. I walk up to the door, press my palms to the particleboard, ball my hand into a fist to knock, to force this conversation, but I can't. There is nothing left in me.

I don't make up my bed; instead I fall asleep fitfully on the couch. I dream about Mama's funeral, again. This time, she is sitting beside me in the church, and we are the only people present. There is a coffin on the altar.
It's a shame, isn't it?
Mama says.

I look at her, and then I look at the coffin. I cannot see over the lip. So I get to my feet heavily, only to realize that they are rooted to the church floor. Vines have grown up around the ankles, and through the wooden boards on the ground. I try to move, but I am bound.

Straining in my shoes, I manage to peer over the edge of the open coffin so that I can see the deceased.

From the neck down, it's a skeleton, flesh melted from the bones.

From the neck up, it has my face.

I wake up, my heart hammering, only to realize that the pounding is coming from somewhere else.
Déjà vu,
I think, as I swivel toward the door, shaking from the force of the knocks. I leap up and reach the knob, and the moment I do, the door flies back on its hinges, nearly throwing me down in the process. But the police that flood my home push me out of the way. They dump out drawers, they knock over chairs. “Edison Jefferson?” one of them yells, and my son steps out, sleepy and tousled.

He is immediately grabbed, handcuffed, dragged toward the door. “You're under arrest for a Class C felony hate crime,” the officer says.

What?

“Edison,” I cry. “Wait! This is a mistake!”

Another cop comes out of Edison's bedroom carrying his knapsack, unzipped, in one hand, and a can of red spray paint in the other. “Bingo,” he says.

Edison turns toward me as best he can. “I'm sorry, Mama, I
had
to,” he says, and then he is yanked out the door.

“You have the right to remain silent…” I hear, and just as quickly as the police entered, they are gone.

The stillness paralyzes me, presses in on my temples, my throat. I am suffocating, I am being crushed. I manage to scrabble my hands over the coffee table to find my cellphone, which is charging. Yanking it out of the wall, I dial, even though it is the middle of the night. “I need your help.”

Kennedy's voice is sure and strong, as if she's been expecting me. “What's wrong?” she asks.