The Castle Cross the Magnet Carter (51 page)

As Eliot concludes a brief cry erupts from his client. Everyone in the room turns to the defendant, Eliot especially unnerved by the outburst. Sam Daughtery, who initially seemed wildly confused when his attorney had handed him the book, gaping between Eliot and the paperback, now clutches his new, whole, unblemished copy of
Invisible Man,
holding it tight against his chest, nodding, nodding, a single tear rolling down his cheek.

 

15

Andi pours the champagne.

“So Winston Douglas and Associates finally
wins
a case!” She laughs.

“Hey,
I've
won a time or two.” But Will is grinning. They stand around Andi's desk.

“I was shaking.”

“From what I hear,” Will tells Eliot, “no one could tell.”

“I was shaking! But I just kept my hands in my pockets. About ten minutes in, guess I calmed down. Good thing I didn't plan to pick up
Invisible Man
till late in the argument, any earlier it might have trembled out of my fingers and hit a juror in the face!” Eliot giggles. Giddy as if he were six years old again, all he can do not to cry out: I love Andi! I love Will! I love champagne! Hahahaha!

The summation had happened yesterday, Thursday, the deliberation lasting two and a half hours, and Eliot is still incredulous. Not guilty. Not guilty. Not guilty. The verdict on each of the three charges pronounced separately by the foreman, a white construction worker. Sam Daughtery's mother had run over to embrace her son long and firm, and in his weakened physical condition, Sam's attempts to return her hold were poignant in their awkwardness.

Eliot is glad Beau's a little late this morning as he might be a bit of a wet blanket, though he wonders when Winston will get in. But too embarrassed to ask, a kid wanting to know when Daddy will get home to show him his straight A's. Serendipitously, Andi answers the unspoken question. “Mr. Douglas called first thing. He sounded thrilled. He had meetings but'll be back after lunch.” Her smile is radiant. Andi and Eliot, friends again, at least for today.

“So what do you think?” asks Will. “Sue the city?”

Eliot grins and doesn't reply. The district attorney's office had made it clear it would not indict the police officers so that avenue was unavailable, but after this verdict. It would be an audacious long shot but this is what he'd dreamed about after that tort law course. The damages in a civil suit would not only be a godsend to Sam Daughtery, whose medical bills continue to drain his and his mother's meager resources, but, in arriving at a pecuniary amount far beyond a paltry slap on the wrist, the city might actually be jolted into learning a lesson or two: to start keeping better tabs on its police officers, to start training those officers to respect their Negro citizens as well as their white.

The elevator sounds. Beau pulls open the gate and steps out.

“What's all this?”

“Eliot's victory party,” Will replies. “Have a glass?”

“Oh yes, many congrats, Eliot,” smiles Beau. “Shame Mr. Daughtery's in that wheelchair or he could be here dancing too.” He strolls into his office as the others stare silently after him. So socially oblivious, it's very possible Beau hadn't intended to spoil the party, yet Eliot and Will now find themselves quietly retreating to their own lairs.

But behind his closed door, Eliot can't wipe off the smile. Half an hour later, a probate case open, he gazes at the telephone, thinking of how he would like to share this happiness with her. But he doesn't want Didi's same tired, distant voice to dampen his mood. He pulls out two other files, accident claims, to provide himself with a vaguely pressured feeling of being backed up in his work, and his concentration partially returns.

His first
tête
-
à-tête with Beau regarding the voter registration case happens at 10:30 as scheduled
, in Beau's office, naturally. As with refraining to contact Didi, Eliot decides he is not going to let Beau's condescension get a rise out of him. As the meeting progresses, he becomes pleased to learn that Beau has good ideas, and is stunned to see that yesterday's triumph in court—Eliot's first opportunity to present closing statements—must have impressed Beau, who seems almost humble and very much interested in Eliot's thoughts, all of which the senior attorney takes seriously. Encouraged that they are starting off on the right foot, Eliot allows himself a rare luxury, leaving the office for his full lunch hour rather than munching at his desk while working.

He eats his packed sandwich on a park bench, gazing at two pigeons in conversation. He
will
call Didi when he gets back to the office. Her excuses for disregarding him as of late may be all true, perhaps she is just very busy at work. If so, he's sure she'd gladly take two minutes away to enjoy this day with him, to be happy for Sam Daughtery. And if something else is going on. Well. It's time he knew for certain. If she wants it all to be over, at least his present euphoria would provide some bit of emotional cushion from the blow of romantic heartbreak.

When he returns, Andi, seated at her desk, is staring at him. “Your brother phoned. He said you need to call home
immediately.
” In that instant, Eliot sees in her face the sense of full betrayal, the artifice of their so-called relationship wherein even the most basic information, her assumption that he was an only child, had been a lie.

But he has no time to worry about that now. Dwight has
never
called him.

He emerges from his office twenty minutes later. The look on his face and his reddened eyes are enough for the hurt in Andi's eyes to change instantly to alarm.

“My mother died.”

Her mouth opens. “Oh. Eliot.” His breath is quickening. “What happened?”

“I don't know. She was alive today. Dwight said she was alive today, he called her today. And then she died.” His fedora trembles in his hand. “I think I have to go home.”

“Yes.”

“I have to go home now.”

“Yes, I'll tell Mr. Douglas.”

He goes back to his office, retrieves his briefcase, and walks out to the elevator. He wears his hat but no other outerwear. Andi hurries to his office to snatch his trench coat, then runs it out to him. He stares wildly at a blank corner of the corridor. She notices he has pushed the Up button. She hands him his coat and pushes Down.

“You're driving right from here to Maryland?”

“I have to go to my apartment and pick up some things, my black suit. Oh! I should give you my number there.”

“We have it. Your paperwork—” She stops herself. When he was hired, for life insurance purposes he had listed his mother as next of kin.

“Okay.” The elevator arrives. Eliot starts to open the gate but Andi gently blocks him. He is confused. The lift continues going up.

“Don't worry about anything, Eliot. I'll tell Mr. Douglas you've gone, it'll be fine.”

“Okay.” Then a panic.
“My briefcase!”

“You have it.”

“Oh. Okay.” The elevator arrives. A Negro businessman stands in it. Eliot steps in. As Andi pulls the gate closed Eliot suddenly snatches it, his eyes crazed. “
Will you tell Winston I've gone?
”

“Yes, I'll tell him.”

“Okay. See you Monday,” the words automatic, as if this were any other Friday.

He makes several wrong turns, increasing the nine-hour drive time. He pulls over and begins convulsively bawling twenty minutes straight, and when it's over he is glad to have gotten it out of his system before he has to deal with the family dynamics.

He arrives half past midnight. The house is full of relations, and he is polite but avoids their comforting touches for fear of unleashing a sob or two that might still be left in him. Everyone knew there was heart disease on his mother's side, but the family concern had always been his father's high blood pressure. Claris's sudden death at fifty-four was astonishing, absurd. She had been sitting at the kitchen table going over the bills, and had apparently simply slumped over. Lon happened to have had the day off from the glass factory, but was at the hardware store buying items to repair a leak in the roof. By the time he returned she was already cold. Dwight tells his brother that Didi had called, looking at Eliot curiously, and that she had said Eliot could call her back as late as he wished. Eliot says nothing. How did she know?

Over the next three-quarters of an hour the house clears, as if they had all been waiting for Eliot to arrive before they could leave. Only Aunt Beck remains, and Dwight pulls out the couch-bed and makes it up for her. He had given his own house keys to Aunt Peg-Peg so that she and her brood could stay at his place in Lewis, much closer than their home in Bear, while he sleeps here in the boys' old bedroom. Dwight tells Eliot he doesn't know if any other family will come into town and need the guestroom but, for tonight, Eliot is welcome to sleep there. Eliot brings his suitcase to the middle bedroom. It is past 1:30, the rest of the house dark, when he makes the call.

“Hello?”

“I woke you?”

“Of course not.” A pause. “I called the office to say hi, and Andi told me. She gave me your family's number. She thought you might need someone to talk to.” Another pause, Didi waiting for a response. “It was thoughtful of her.”

“Hmm.” His eyes are fixed on the afghan his mother crocheted for the guest bed while he was away at college, to help her sift through the reality that both her boys were grown and gone. He gently taps a tassel to watch it sway. Vaguely he has a sense of significance, Didi finally calling after a silence of so long.

“I'm so sorry, Eliot.”

“Thank you.” The tassel, a soft pendulum.

“Listen. Do you need me to come?”

There is a universe of difference between Do you want me to come? which is I am there for you, and Do you need me to come? which is I will if I have to. Eliot understands the distinction and is surprised that he is relieved to hear it. To know that she would come but would rather not. Because, he realizes, while he truly appreciates the offer, he also would rather she not.

“No, I'm fine.”

“Sure?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Do you want to talk?”

“No. I mean I'm tired. It was a long drive.”

“Of course.” On the lower wall behind the dresser, an expertly rendered sketch of Little Orphan Annie and Daddy Warbucks, now faded. You would have to be sitting in this precise spot and looking from this precise angle to notice it. Eliot remembers coming home from school when he was still very small and finding it: a surprise gift from Dwight. He didn't thank him. At some point, Claris had apparently moved the bureau to cover her firstborn's wistful vandalism for the sake of guests, but Eliot sees that she never painted over it. “When is the funeral?”

“Monday morning.”

“What church?”

“No, a funeral parlor. My brother and I have to go pick out the casket in the morning.”

“Uh-huh. What's the name and address of the funeral parlor?”

“Waverly's. I forget? I forget—”

“That's okay, I'll find out the street.” A brief lonely cry from his father in the next room. Eliot had thought he was asleep.

“Alright. Well I'm going to call to check on you again tomorrow. If you want to talk that's fine, and if you don't want to talk that's fine too. Okay?”

“Okay.”

A silence. “Okay. Well I'll call tomorrow. Maybe early in the afternoon, after you get back from the funeral parlor.”

“Okay.”

“You get some sleep.”

“Okay.”

“Okay. Okay. Good night, Eliot.”

“Good night, Didi.”

He has not eaten since lunch, and after all the admonitions from his aunts to put something into his stomach, and with a refrigerator already stuffed with food from just the first day of bereavement visitors, he goes downstairs to see if he can tempt his appetite. He opens the fridge and stares for several minutes before giving up.

Back in the guestroom he dials a number.

“Hello?” Her voice sleepy.

“Sorry! I woke you. What time is it?”

“Eliot! Don't worry about it. How are you?”

He swallows. “I'm fine. Andi?”

And Eliot tells her about his earliest memory, still a toddler, his mother giving him a bath in the kitchen sink. Her smile. And about being wrapped in a blanket on her lap, with his brother on the floor with the Sunday funnies, and her uttering “lynching,” the first time he'd ever heard the word. About sitting on the front porch sliding chair with his mother and brother, his mother saying that the heavy raindrops smashing against the pavement were people dancing in the streets. And then he speaks about Miss Onnie and her cats, and feeding the birds with her, and Parker. Miss Onnie saving Parker, and Ramonlee's puppy, and Eliot trying to teach Parker tricks. About Colored Street and Mixed Street, about being cross-eyed and getting his first pair of glasses, and earning the Perfect Attendance certificate. About his father the porter and A. Philip Randolph's visit and his father's Baltimore defense job and the coal mountain in the basement and his disappointment at the canceling of the March on Washington. About the Bartons and the little baby girl Barton who drowned and Roof Barton becoming a kid miner. About being in trouble with Miss McAfee for coloring the white schoolbook children brown. About Jeanine almost getting hit by the car driven in the snow by the white man, and the new used twin beds, and the long ride on the school bus to visit Helen and Ellen Brown and their big family. About that Memorial Day at Aunt Beck's, and the Dream Man, Uncle Sam and his lynched mother Tiny. About Jeanine's rabbit in the box. About his father getting the glass factory job and the time he brought home two prisms from work, one for each of his sons to hang in their windows and watch the rainbows dance around their rooms. About Dwight. His big brother, always chasing after Dwight. Tarzan movies with Dwight, Dwight teaching him to make snow angels. Dwight the artist, Dwight's cartoons, Dwight's chalk lynch drawings. Dwight always letting Carl run over him, and Dwight was
better
than Carl. Dwight's dog Rex, and Parker's tragic end. Eliot talks about being chosen class valedictorian, and his high school moments of shame: the time he refused to dance with a heavy girl at the Valentine's Day hop, the days he watched an outcast boy being bullied and did nothing in his defense. His high school sweetheart Jeanine over junior and senior years, wholly innocent and his longest relationship, as each of the four girls from college never stuck around, or he didn't, longer than a month. His undergrad sick drunk night that permanently terminated his taste for hard liquor, his antisocial law school days. And Miss Onnie's passing. And Christmas, walking Liddie's twins and meeting the little girls next door and that black doll. And Dwight's job with the postal service. And Dwight's underground comic, and Dwight and his friends. When Eliot is finished, he yawns. He looks at the clock: almost four.