Dying Declaration (29 page)

45

NIKKI PLANTED HERSELF
in the back of the crowd, hiding behind a few brawny guys and her own Ray-Bans. She wanted to listen for a few minutes without being seen.
He really believes this stuff,
Nikki thought.
If only life were really this simple.

His preaching is awesome, but I can’t give him the satisfaction of knowing
that. He owes me an apology. He’s lucky I came.

She put on a scowl and stepped from behind the men. Her hand shot up in the air, the same way it had in his classroom.

“Are you open to questions here, or is this a monologue?” she wondered loud enough for Charles to hear.

He stopped in his tracks and looked at her, his own shades masking any hint of surprise. “I see the beautiful lady in the back has a question,” the preacher said. All heads turned as Charles walked toward Nikki.

“Aren’t you the lawyer I saw on TV defending that drug dealer the other day, trying to get him off on a technicality?”

Charles smiled broadly, catching on to the game. “I am a lawyer,” he confessed. He heard a gasp or two from his crowd. “But I don’t do technicalities. I think you must be referring to a case where I defended a man based on the United States Constitution. Hardly a technicality.”

“I see,” Nikki said, holding her chin high as she stared him down. “Well, let me ask you this: how does a man of the cloth,
a religious man like yourself, justify trying to get a client off if you know he’s guilty?”

“Great question,” Charles announced. “You ought to be a lawyer yourself.”

Spare me the sarcasm,
Nikki thought. Then Charles repeated the question into the mike so everyone could hear it. She had to hand it to him: he didn’t back away from controversy.

“I ask myself,” Charles said, “what would Jesus do? And I think the answer is pretty clear from Scripture.” Then the preacher started pacing, took a deep breath, and launched into his story.

“There was a woman during Christ’s time who was caught in the act of adultery. I’m talkin’ in the act here. No defense. No reasonable doubt. In the very act. The Pharisees, the religious leaders of the day, dragged her before Christ to make an example of her. They said that the law required her to be executed—capital punishment, death by stoning.” Charles looked around. “Aren’t some of you glad that’s not the law today?” No response. “So the Pharisees asked Christ what He was going to do about it.

“And Christ, calmly, while they were accusing her, stooped down and wrote with his finger in the dirt.” Charles knelt down,
pretending to write on the sidewalk. Nikki and the others in the back strained to see. “And then Christ raised Himself up—” Charles stood as well, raising his voice—“and said, ‘If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her.’ Then Christ just stooped down again and kept writing on the ground. And one by one, the Pharisees were convicted by their own consciences and left.” Charles lowered his voice to a soothing level, barely audible where Nikki stood. “Then Christ said to this woman, ‘Neither do I condemn you. Go now and leave your life of sin.’”

Charles paused for a long time, looking from one audience member to another. “What in the world was Christ doing?” No response.
“I’ll tell you what He was doing. He was acting as this guilty woman’s defense lawyer.

“You see, the Mosaic law required that the first stone be thrown by someone who was faultless. And here Christ was using that critical procedural requirement, that technicality, if you will, to defend this woman. He was doing it as an example for those of us who tend to be judgmental . . .”

Nikki could have sworn he looked right at her as he said those words, but with those shades it was hard to tell.

“He was showing that we should have the spirit of mercy, not judgment. For Scripture says, ‘Judgment without mercy will be shown to anyone who has not been merciful. Mercy triumphs over judgment!’”

Now he turned to Nikki and even took a few steps in her direction.

“And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why I defend those who our system says might be guilty. I’m not condoning what they’ve done, but I’m making sure they get judged fairly, and I’m making sure that mercy does not get overwhelmed by judgment.”

A few murmured their agreement. Others looked down, thinking. Nikki maintained her stoic pose. She reminded herself she was angry with this man.

“Any more questions?” the preacher asked. “’Cause if not, it’s time to get our praise on.” He popped a CD into the boom box,
pushing his sunglasses on top of his head while he chose the track for the song he wanted.

A little girl in the front blurted out a question before the music started. “What did He write in the dirt?”

Charles put the mike under her mouth. “Another excellent question,” he said. “Could you please repeat it so everyone could hear?”

The girl looked around, intimidated at all the big folks listening. “What did He write in the dirt?”

Charles smiled at the young girl, that broad smile of his—all teeth. “You’ve done it. You’ve stumped the preacher!” He held out his hand, and she gave him five. “’Cause nobody knows what Christ wrote in the dirt. But I, for one, intend to ask Him as soon as I get to heaven.”

“Me too,” the girl said.

Charles stood again and looked around. “Some say He wrote the names of all the women these Pharisees had been having affairs with. Wouldn’t that be cool?” This thought brought laughter from the crowd. “Some say He was just doodling in the dirt. But I’ve got to think He wrote something simple yet profound, something that turned judgment into forgiveness.”

Then Nikki saw it—that telltale spark in Charles’s eyes that signaled inspiration had hit. She had seen it in court. She had seen it in his class. She had seen it with the kids at Busch Gardens. She had learned not to be surprised by what came next.

And so she watched with keen anticipation as Charles knelt down again, this time talking to the young girl’s sister. He was looking at a clear plastic bag in her hand that contained a few items her mom had apparently just bought at one of the many stores lining the boardwalk.

“Is that sidewalk chalk?” he asked, still speaking into the mike.

“Yes, sir,” the little girl said. “I use it for playing four square.”

“Can I buy a piece?” Charles asked. The crowd started pushing in a little closer, piqued with curiosity, blocking Nikki’s view.

“What color?” she heard the little girl say.

“Let’s try purple.”

Then Charles put down the mike and changed the CDs again in his boom box. He gave the little girl some money—it must have been a lot because Nikki heard a squeal of delight—then he squatted down and started writing something on the boardwalk. As he wrote, the mellow sounds of Kenny G’s saxophone filled the evening air, capturing the mood of the soft beach sunset.

The crowd of forty or so who had been listening to Charles moved tighter around him, anxious to see what he was writing. But Nikki, skeptical and tired of these preaching gimmicks, held back. If the truth were known, she was curious too, but she wasn’t about to get sucked in with the rest of these gullible folks. She would see soon enough, after the crowd dispersed.

It was a moment she would never forget.

The crowd started moving gradually, then almost in unison. It was as if they split right down the middle and peeled away on both sides, leaving an aisle lined by human bodies between Nikki and a squatting Charles. He had his back to her, hunched over his work, sunglasses propped on top of his head. He was just putting the finishing flourish on it. He stood and went to the other side of what he had written, and gingerly, tenderly, held out his hand with the piece of purple chalk resting in his open palm.

As Nikki read the message, at once juvenile and sweet, she couldn’t stop a smile from invading her face. Right there on the boardwalk, for all to see, Charles the street preacher, Charles the law professor, Charles the romantic, had written a very personal note just to her:

Dear Nikki,

I am so sorry. Will you forgive me?

Please check one:

______Yes ______No _____ Maybe

Love,

Charles

Maybe it was the Kenny G music, maybe it was the sunset, or maybe it was the pleading look on his face, but some kind of emotion overwhelmed Nikki, forcing her to step forward, hesitate for an instant, and then throw her arms around his neck.

“You’re too cute for your own good,” she whispered in his ear.

“I guess that means yes,” someone shouted.

His congregation broke out in spontaneous applause.

46

FOR CHARLES,
the rest of the night flew by. They packed up his sound equipment, took it to his car, then headed back to the boardwalk. They stopped for ice cream at a sidewalk café. Then they took their shoes off and headed to the beach. The smell of the salty ocean air had always relaxed Charles, and the feel of wet sand under his feet invigorated him.

Nikki, of course, insisted on walking in the water, kicking some at Charles, running from the waves. She wore short shorts and a sleeveless T-shirt. Stray strands of hair fell from the bun on top of her head—the ocean breeze blowing it out of her eyes. Charles found himself looking too long at the sculpted lines of her face . . . and wondering about that tattoo on her shoulder.

“So what’s up with the tattoo?” he asked nonchalantly. “Is that you?”

“Nope.” She bent down and picked up a shell, turned it over in her hand, then threw it into the surf.

Now she really had him curious. “And?”

“And what? You asked me if the tattoo is me. It’s not.” A large wave chased her up the beach. Then she came back to his side and started walking again.

“You want to tell me who it is?”

“Nope.”

He paused, calculating how hard to push. “Your sister?”

“Okay,” Nikki said, stopping and facing him. “You and I have a real communication problem here. I say no. You hear yes. Read my lips.” She reached out and playfully grabbed his face, focusing it on her. “
N-o
. No. Nada. Huh-uh. No way. Forget about it.”

Charles nodded his head as if he understood until Nikki let go. When they had both started walking again, he looked out into the distance. “Your mother?”

She kicked water toward him, and he jumped back. “Must be your mother as a young girl,” he said when they started walking again.

A few couples passed in the opposite direction on the dimly lit beach. Seemed to Charles that everyone was holding hands but them.

They walked on in silence; then Nikki quietly said, “Actually, it’s got something to do with my father.”

“My next guess,” Charles responded, but Nikki didn’t smile. He had hit a nerve, and he suddenly felt like a jerk.
Man,
Nikki kept him off-balance. “I’m sorry. I’ll drop it.”

“You don’t have to.” Nikki turned toward the ocean, then took several steps back up the beach. She sat down on the dry sand and patted a spot next to her. He sat down and leaned back on his hands. She leaned forward and let the sand filter through her fingers as she talked.

“My mom died in a car accident when I was just four years old. Left me with an alcoholic father who hated my guts. He’d use me to get food stamps, social security checks, whatever. Then he’d leave me at some friend’s house for a few days and go get drunk. When the money ran out, he’d come and get me, beat me around a little, get some more money, then drop me off somewhere else.”

Nikki told the story with a soft detachment. Charles detected no bitterness in her voice, not even a trace of self-pity. Just the cold, hard facts of a tough childhood.

“I didn’t realize it at the time, but the only reason he even kept me around was because he smelled some serious money. The guy who caused the car accident with my mom supposedly had big bucks, and my dad figured he could get more if a jury sympathized with him as a single father raising a young girl. Well, that backfired when the suit got thrown out before it ever went to court.

“When I was nine, one of the families he left me with turned him in to Child Protective Services. Next thing I know, I’m bouncing around some pretty bad foster homes and wishing I could go back with my dad. Like all foster kids, I prayed for an adoption. But nobody wants a gangly, sulking ten-year-old who hates the world.” Nikki paused and looked out at the ocean as if her story were written there, being drawn in to her on the crests of the waves.

Charles had a hard time picturing her as gangly and sulking.

“Then one day when I was about eleven, some widower about fifty years old takes me to live with him and his live-in housekeeper. Great guy—fun, kind, everything my real father wasn’t. This was different than anything I’d experienced before, and I knew the guy must have pulled some strings to get me. His wife had died years before. Not exactly your typical foster-home scenario. I didn’t realize it at the time, but he wasn’t even in the system. At the same time, the guy had bucks and, you know, money talks . . . that type of thing.”

Nikki suddenly turned to Charles, as if she had just come out of her trance. “I’m rambling. . . . I don’t usually talk about myself like this. . . .” She started to rise, but Charles grabbed her arm and pulled her gently back down.

“No,” he said. “Please . . . don’t stop. I want to hear all about it.”

Nikki shrugged.

“Really, I do.”

“Okay, but can we walk again? Helps me think better.”

They walked for about five minutes in silence, Charles sensing she would continue when she was ready. Sure enough, Nikki took a deep breath.

“This guy gives me everything I need, becomes my adopted father . . . and he basically raises me. I mean, he was a developer,
so we went through our ups and downs. I didn’t realize it at the time, but when I was fifteen, we almost went bankrupt. We moved to a smaller house, fired the housekeeper. He made me wait till I was eighteen to get my own car—that’s the main thing I remember about the tough financial times. By the time I graduated from high school at nineteen—” Nikki smiled at the thought,
seeming a little embarrassed—“I had such a good time, I took an extra year to finish school. . . . Anyway, by then he was getting back on top. Celebrated my graduation by going to New York City.”

“Sounds like a great guy, your dad,” Charles said, sensing that Nikki needed some affirmation.

“Yeah . . . well, he takes me to Broadway. First time ever. And we see
Les Misérables
. Ever seen it?”

Broadway. It brought back memories of Denita. And sudden pangs of guilt at the way he felt right now toward Nikki. “Yeah.
Les Miz
. Victor Hugo. When it ended last year, it was the longest running Broadway play ever. Great story. . . . Everybody dies.”

Nikki chuckled. Then she took on a nostalgic look. “Just like real life sometimes.”

Charles sensed how hard this was for Nikki to talk about. All the bluster that he had seen on prior occasions was gone now. She looked almost like that gangly little girl again, kicking the shallow water, head bent forward.

“It’s really a morality play, you know,” Nikki mused. “A play about redemption. Second chances. This convicted felon gets released from jail . . . ends up running a factory and then allows a woman who works for him to be fired without cause. That woman was supporting her little girl who lived with this horrible drunken innkeeper and his wife. Well, when the woman loses her job, she starts selling her body on the street so she can still send money to her little girl. She eventually dies. The reformed felon—the guy who fired her—finds out what he did and goes to this mom on her deathbed. He promises to take care of her child, Cosette. He eventually dies too, during the 1832 revolution, but not until after he has raised Cosette and loved her into adulthood. He also saved Cosette’s future husband during the revolution . . . remember that part?”

Charles nodded. “Sure. Great play. Loved the music.” Then it dawned on him. The tattoo on Nikki’s shoulder—the picture of the dirty face of the little girl—he had almost forgotten about it. It was the trademark for the play
Les Miz
—a picture of the young Cosette that appeared on all the playbills, all the advertisements for the musical.

“You must have really liked the musical.”

Nikki’s lips formed a thin smile, her eyes lighting up just a little. Until that moment, Charles had not realized how somber the mood had become, how the lines of sadness had etched themselves on her face. The reflection of the moon on the water and the dim shadows from the lights on the boardwalk combined to give Nikki’s face a captivating luminescence as her smile chased the lines away. He wondered how he had ever become so upset at this woman just a few short days ago.

“The day after the show, while my dad attended some business meetings in New York, I got the tattoo done. I thought he was going to kill me.” She paused, her smile disappearing as quickly as it came. “That night, my dad told me something he had kept secret all those years.” She lowered her voice until it was barely audible above the gentle roar of the ocean. “He was the man who killed my mother. He was the driver of the other vehicle.”

Nikki stopped again and faced Charles straight on. Her face was now shrouded in darkness, his own shadow blocking the remnants of light from the boardwalk. “
Les Miz
was our story, Charles.” A pause, and Charles thought he detected a slight catch in her voice. “I couldn’t decide whether to love him or hate him.” Nikki looked down and subconsciously drew a little line in the sand with her toe. A line between them? Was it symbolic? “Eighteen months later, he died from a heart attack.”

He felt the wind leave his lungs. And then another feeling: a sense of sudden and complete sympathy for this woman. So different from the audacious woman in the courtroom, the bravado in the classroom, the Nikki Moreno who played the wild and carefree woman in her own Broadway play. He saw the child in her now, and he wanted to comfort her. He stepped sideways, just a half step, as he reached out and gently took her hand. She was no longer in his shadow, and the dim light seemed to mellow her even more.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

She hesitated. When she spoke, the strength was back her in her voice. “You don’t need to be,” she said, her chin held high.
“I survived it. And I knew the love of a father.” She placed her other hand on his, just for a second, and then released it. Reading it as a signal, he let go too.

They stood there for a few more seconds in silence; then Nikki turned toward the direction they had come from and gave Charles a sideways glance. “See that lifeguard chair?”

Charles nodded.

“Bet you’re pretty slow for a black guy.” Before he knew it, Nikki was off and running, kicking up sand behind her.

He passed her less than halfway to the chair.