The Castle Cross the Magnet Carter (45 page)

As he hits the second-floor landing, the outside door now visible below, he stops short. Just inside by the entrance stands a middle-aged white man Eliot has never seen before, sporting a healthy gray head of hair and beard. His mailbox door is open, and he peruses the envelopes in his left hand. In his right he holds a leash connected to a German shepherd. Eliot takes in the tableau a second before the dog looks up to see him and goes insane, its spine-tingling gnarl all too familiar, teeth gnashing, a desperate frenzied attempt to snap the cord and fly to Eliot's jugular. But it is almost as if Eliot had seen this coming, and he regards this part of the picture with a strange calm. It is rather the next moment that causes his legs to buckle, falling to sit on the steps, his hands trembling. The eyes of the beast's master—the Boston Yankee glowering up at Eliot, a violent loathing of the stranger before him, the black trespasser—which eclipses any malevolence on the part of his dog by light-years.

 

 

 

10

Diana sits on a braided throw rug covering a section of the mercifully cool cement floor. Behind her is the coffee table and couch, a living area situated in the middle of the Rubin basement, dubbed the “rec room” by virtue of the ping-pong table off to the side. This space, two floors separating it from the bedrooms so as not to disturb her sleeping parents, the curtains drawn against nosy neighbors, had become the de facto office of Max and Jordan's legal team.

She wears a long white shirt and black stretch pants, her legs spread in a V and between them the index cards she meticulously arranges and a large pink mug of coffee. She jots notes on a new card regarding a recent incident involving little Ginny Dodgson, one of the two alleged victims. Last Wednesday, the first day of the new school year, one of Ginny's classmates sat too close to her and she screamed rape. She appeared to be angry rather than frightened, the event having everything to do with an ongoing feud from the previous year between herself and the culprit, a boy who considered Ginny bossy and, to take her down a peg, occasionally pulled her pigtails. Apparently he had decided to let her know on Day One that this year would be no different than the last, and the frustration of it, undoubtedly coupled with the scrutiny she had been under since the spring, caused her fuse to be short. The teacher was at a loss, called upon not only to quell the confrontation but then to face twenty-three second graders all wanting to know the definition of rape. Ginny the expert jumped in to explain that kissing was rape, which resulted in her nemesis making it clear that he
in no way
raped her, that he raped no one but his mother. As the teacher desperately worked on damage control, the dismissal bell rang. The next day, the boy's parents walked into the classroom wanting to know what the hell went on the day before and what their son was being accused of. Diana had relayed the anecdote to her partners, and they had all held their stomachs, the ache of laughter, a welcome release after their long hot mostly humorless summer. The episode had not been raised among them since, but it had come back to her at this very late hour, wondering how these misunderstandings by
all
the children might be capitalized upon tomorrow: The Hearing. She looks up at Eliot.

He sits at the desk in a low lit corner beyond the couch, writing on a legal pad. His coffee mug is navy. She observes his concentration, the dark circles under his eyes. There was a moment way back in May when she had begun to worry, this vague panic in his irises, a distance. He had never said anything to the effect, but after leading them down this
habeas
path, she was terribly afraid he might just quit. Whatever she was reading in him, it all had abruptly vanished, and she had forgotten about it until now.

Their fears that they would suddenly be assigned a fast-approaching hearing date had proven absurdly groundless: with officials of the court vacating sultry Georgia for more pleasant summer climes, the scheduling of the date had been repeatedly postponed. Given the controversial nature of the case and the publicity it had generated, the defense team suspected the delays were also related to some closed-door meetings between the governor and the court, and thus the hearing to address an incident that had occurred on March 31st, was disposed by Judge Sawyer on April 6th, and granted a
habeas
on April 29th was at last set for 9 a.m. Wednesday, September 14th—ten hours from now. The attorneys had relaxed into their routine and seen the children regularly, each visit ending either with the boys crying to come home or, even more heartbreaking, fighting their tears in an effort to be brave. What exactly was happening to two innocent children in the unprotected company of bigger boys, and in the unprotected company of reformatory guards, the lawyers shuddered to think, but the staggering guilt would newly energize the legal trio in its pursuits. Over the oppressive summer, their output of hundreds of pages would seem to render them, if anything,
overly
ready. They narrowed their thoughts to a thirty-seven-page brief which was now in the hands of Judge Farn. It had been decided, to the relief of the defenders, that the
other
county Superior Court adjudicator would preside over the case, and thus the little boys' fate would not once again be in the hands of Sawyer. It would be Farn's first juvenile case, and the defense team held out hope that this bode well, intimating a more open mind.

One evening in the grocery store, purchasing TV dinners and snacks in anticipation of a long night, Diana had tapped Steven next to her in line, and had winked at Eliot near the door. (The latter had given them the money for his frozen meat and potatoes since his presence in the queue would only hold things up, as every single white customer would be served before he could pay for his own provisions.) Diana's subtle signals had called attention to the fact that Judge Farn was two places ahead in line. He seemed formidably stern, a fiftyish white-haired slim man, setting his collards and lima beans on the conveyor belt. At that moment he looked up. Recognizing Steven, he broke into a guarded smile. “Afternoon, Colonel.”

“Afternoon, Judge.” The polite acknowledgment had been the extent of the conversation. Steven and Diana later explained to Eliot the tradition in the local legal world of Georgian lawyers being referred to as “colonel,” something rumored to have started during the War Between the States, or by some other historical state militia, when lawyers were conscripted as colonels.

Beyond the predictable commendations for the children (well liked in school and in church, never before in trouble with the law) and their parents (reputable hard-working Negroes), the brief went radically further in challenging the juvenile justice system with its presumption of paternalism as a substitute for due process: the lack of a court record (citing
Griffin v. Illinois,
351 US 12 [1956]); the children being subject to self-incrimination (citing the Fifth Amendment); the parents being informed of the hearing only the day before, allowing them no time to secure a lawyer (general right to counsel in
Uveges v. Pennsylvania,
335 US 437 [1948], and the incompetence of children to waive their right to counsel in
Williams v. Huff,
142 F.2d 91 [1944]); the case wholly resting upon unsworn hearsay testimony as the juvenile alleged victim would never be subject to cross-examination (the Sixth Amendment); the confessions by the children having been coerced by psychological means (
Watts v. Indiana,
338 US 49 [1949]) and very likely physical means (
Brown v. Mississippi,
297 US 278 [1936]); the conflict of interest given that the probation officer was simultaneously charged with making the case against the children while serving as the boys' only legal advocate (the tenets of our entire American adversarial system of justice, stipulating two opposing sides in order to, presumably, arrive at the truth).

The document concluded with an emphasis on the boys' extreme youth, too immature to begin to understand the infractions they had been accused of, and contrasted a return to their well-respected parents with the ominous ramifications of a prolonged stint in the reformatory. The oral presentation tomorrow would reflect all these particulars, while the lawyers had made a decision to avoid mention of the crosses locals had burned in the children's families' yards, of the Klan visitation to the boys. After much discussion, they had agreed to conduct their argument as if Max and Jordan were white children, tabooing anything racial that might incite the judge or his constituency.

Eliot had sought Winston's advice on the brief, Diana and Didi had stayed in close contact with their law school professor. They were assured by those with decades of experience that they had done the work and their case was strong, that now it depended on 1) driving it all home in the oral argument and 2) the judge. And yet in their hours together this last day, Eliot, Diana, and Steven had all experienced the nagging sense of a missing piece, the link that would reach a Georgia adjudicator, to have him reconsider the conventional wisdom. Steven had made the suggestion, since their discourse had begun to go around in circles, that they break for a couple of hours to clear their heads and rendezvous back at “headquarters,” as Steven referred to Diana's basement, at nine. Following the brief recess, Eliot had gently rapped on Diana's door at 8:55. They waited fifteen minutes for Steven before going downstairs, assuming their senior partner would show up sooner or later.

He and Diana had bounced around ideas for two hours, and for the last forty-five minutes had ceased the jabber to work independently. Now from their subterranean lair, they hear the drawing room grandfather clock striking twelve tolls. The official marking of
the
day of
has not caused Eliot to break in his writing.

“Just in case,” she begins. There is no response from across the room. “Just in case, we should be prepared to go this alone. The two of us.”

“What do you think I'm doing.” He still doesn't look up from his task, remarkably successful at keeping the testiness out of his tone if not out of his words.

“He'll come. I believe he—Well, midnight, you know that's still quite early for Steven.”

“You or me?” He is looking at her now.

She turns away. “I don't know, Eliot. Men around here call elderly colored men ‘boys' and forty-year-old women ‘girls,' so I honestly can't say which of us stands a better chance.” She moves a card from one column to another. “Maybe you. If Farn walks in the courtroom with suspicion in his heart, at least he wouldn't see you as a traitor to the South.”

“No, he'd just think all niggers stick together.” He stares at his pad a few moments. “We'll split it.”

“But who will go second?”

Eliot's pencil tapping the desk.

“I think it should be you. The lasting impression. I honestly worry he'll see me as some little girl.”

“Maybe, but—”

“Eliot, we could just as soon toss a coin. Instead I'm going to make an executive decision. You'll conclude. Okay?”

He considers, then nods. She turns back to her cards. “In the future, I want children. I was thinking. I can speak from the viewpoint of a potential mother.”

“That's good. And maybe a compelling reason you should go last.”

“We'll see.” Eliot turns back to his notes.

“I couldn't believe.” She bites her lip. “Do you think we were too hard on him yesterday?”

“Are you
kidding?
He was plastered in court!”

“We were just turning in the brief, we weren't really ‘
in
court.' And I don't think the clerk knew, no one could tell but you and me. Steven
does
know how to hold his liquor.”

He gives her a look.

“He
does!
”

“I could smell the alcohol from five feet away, Diana, and he was right up in that clerk's face muttering some damn Steven joke the guy clearly did not find funny.”

“Well! It happened, it was over and done with. What good did it do for us to chew him out all the way to the reformatory?”

Silence.

“I
know!
I just— He's
not here!
We
need
him! He seemed fine today but how can anyone guess what's going through the mind of Steven Netherton. Perhaps he was acting civil just to fool us.” She sighs. “I don't even want to think about the expressions on Claudette and Minnie's faces if we walk in without him tomorrow. They'll look at us, then they'll look at their little boys,
God!
He
never
comes to court drunk! He has his failings but they never affect his work, that's what I was told. I never would have suggested him if—” She picks up a card and moves it to another column. Picks it up and moves it to another. Picks it up and moves it to another, snatches it and rips it in two. “Dammit!”

“It's not your fault.” His voice is soft. She turns, gazing at him.

“It's a whole new world, isn't it? Just this summer, how many African countries won their independence? And Woolworth's! I wish I could have been in Greensboro when they served their first Negro. And have you read
To Kill a Mockingbird
?”

“Not yet.”

“You must! I went out and got it as soon as it hit the bookstores, I'll loan you my copy. Everything is changing!”

“Too quickly, your neighbors would say.”

“But we don't want to be
completely
left behind.”

He looks at his notes, momentarily considering before quietly replying. “You know that's not the direction we decided to go in.”

“I know, I know.” She sighs again. “Everyone around here would happily lag into the twenty-first century,
Segregation Forever
. No colored child sitting next to a white in kindergarten, no colored man buried next to a white in the graveyard.” Eliot goes back to writing. “To celebrate V-E Day we had an all-school party. The pictures from the death camps hadn't come out yet, but the rumors. While the sixth graders all sat at our desks with our pieces of cake, Clay Hummer to my right just stared at me. ‘What did the krauts have for dessert?'” Eliot is looking at her. “I knew not to engage him, I looked away, but he answered anyway. ‘Cherries Jew-bilee, fresh out of the oven.'”

“What made you think of that?”

She swallows. “The picture in the
Sentinel,
those picketers outside the courthouse, the fury in their faces.
They're
not afraid to raise the race issue. The judge's constituency. They think of me as an outsider nearly as much as you.” She turns to him. “His mind is already made up. It has been, from the beginning. Right?”