“Well—”
“It’s a real privilege, and an honor, to meet you at last, Dr. Greene. Those awful days of the trial, when poor Ava-Rose couldn’t hardly sleep, and cried her eyes out, being so shamed in public, and so insulted by that nasty-minded lawyer—and you saw how cruel he was to my poor little nephew Chick, who was picked up falsely for that trouble some other boys got him into, when he was only twelve!—all those days, Ava-Rose would tell us, ‘There’s one man on the jury, I look at him, and see a real gentleman. He knows.’”
“Really!” Terence murmured. His heart gave a sickening lurch in his chest. “Is that so!”
“It sure is so, Dr. Greene,” Holly Mae Loomis said, her eyes damp with tears, and her voice suddenly quavering, “—it’s all that kept us going, through that bitter ordeal.”
As if Buster sensed the change of mood, he ceased barking and began to sniff about Terence’s legs, and lick at his hands. His eyes, strikingly human in appeal, in aspect if not in hue very like poor Tuffi’s, snatched at Terence’s.
Terence too was deeply moved, suddenly. He patted the dog’s bony head. He whispered, “Buster. Good dog.”
Holly Mae Loomis, seeing that Terence Greene so admired her garden, invited him to walk through it; and around to the side, and rear, of the house. He flattered her by asking questions—one would not have known, hearing Terence’s questions, that he too was a suburban gardener, on a modest scale. Clearly, Holly Mae Loomis took pride in her garden even as she disparaged it for being weedy and out of control. “Well!—all these are trumpet vines, Dr. Greene,” she said, pointing at a profusion of vines with sticky, trumpet-shaped orange flowers, growing up the side of the house, “and these you recognize, eh?—morning glories—that attract hummingbirds, damndest pretty tiny things! All that growing there is bamboo—yes, bamboo—my great-uncle who lives here with us, Cap’n-Uncle Riff he’s called, he planted it, just a few stalks, brought back from Borneo or one of them jungle-places, and now, goodness—you see how it’s taking over. And these are hollyhocks, that the damn Jap’nese beetles have been eating; and these, you know, are sunflowers, going to seed. These are dahlias, of course. These, day lilies. Oh, this cute thing”—pointing to a lawn ornament, a bluntly rendered flamingo standing on one leg, painted a fading pink—“my li’l nieces Dara and Dana did with a fret saw; and that deer, there. Mostly, the girls sell them, they’re real popular. Maybe you’d like one, Dr. Greene, for your garden? Eh?” Terence murmured something ambiguous. “All that is wild rose that grows like weed, so watch out for the thorns. It’s real pretty when it blossoms, in June; but that’s the only time. What I love best are the tea roses—aren’t they beautiful?” Terence nodded emphatically, yes the roses were beautiful, and this he could acknowledge without ambiguity; for roses were his favorite flowers, though he had little luck growing them on his shaded property. “—the yellow climber’s been hard hit by black spot, but the red’s been blossoming like that all summer. These white ones always do well, it’s a good, healthy bush. This is a hybrid, ‘The Widow’”—pointing to a lavender-blue rose—“and this, my favorite, is ‘Double Delight.’”
Terence, a bit dazzled by the beauty of the roses, found himself staring at the hybrid “Double Delight.” Had he ever seen this rose before?—he could not remember, yet it seemed to him that if he had, he would not have forgotten. The blossoms were large, multipetaled, exquisitely shaded in white, creamy-pink, and faint crimson; each flower differed from the others in gradations of crimson, so that you looked from one to another, and to another, half-consciously seeking the flower. “How gorgeous,” Terence said, bringing a forefinger close to, but not touching, one of the flowers, “they’re like watercolors, so subtle. What did you say they’re called, Mrs. Loomis?”
“Double Delight, Dr. Greene. But, my goodness, you can call me Holly Mae.” She laughed, drawing off her straw hat and fanning her ruddy, creased face. “It’s been a long time since I was anybody’s missus!”
Terence laughed, too; but shyly. “Then, Holly Mae, you must call me Terence, or, better yet, Terry, and not Dr. Greene.”
“But you are a doctor, aren’t you?—that’s the difference between us.”
“I’m not a medical doctor, I—”
“But you have that degree, eh?—‘Doctor of—whatever’?”
Terence laughed, a bit loudly. “Yes—‘whatever.’”
Doctor of Philosophy, History, Harvard University. How far he’d come, Hettie’s scrawny little boy. Yet, the day before, at a meeting at the Feinemann Foundation, the ex-Poet Laureate Quincy Ryder had referred to him as “Dr. Greene” in a heavily sarcastic voice—and Terence had felt the sting of insult.
“You’re real lucky, a man like you—people see it in your eyes that you’re special: Nobody better mess with you,” Holly Mae Loomis said, sighing. Terence saw that, though she must have been a quite attractive woman once, Holly Mae was aging, and, close up, did not appear so healthy; there were myriad broken capillaries in her cheeks and nose, which accounted for her warm, ruddy look; there was even what appeared to be a deep curving scar, amid the wrinkles and creases of her face, running from her left ear nearly to the left corner of her mouth. He was reminded of her niece Ava-Rose’s subtly scarred face, and wondered suddenly whether he would ever see that face again. Holly Mae laughed, with an air of appeal—“Gosh! I do wish you were a lawyer, Dr. Greene, I sure could use one. I hurt my back bad, slipping on a wet step, last winter, getting off a city bus, and d’you know the bus driver started the bus right up, not minding that an old woman like me was falling!” Holly Mae rubbed the top several vertebrae of her backbone, with a pained expression. “And when we tried to make the Transit Company acknowledge it, or even pay my medical bills—!” She shook her head fiercely.
“Do you mean,” Terence asked, incensed, “that the Transit Company has ignored you?—after such a clear case of negligence?”
“‘Negli-gence’—that’s what it is, eh?”
“It certainly sounds like it, Holly Mae. Were there witnesses?”
Holly Mae smiled, ironically. “Sure! But—who? I fell on the pavement, this was at 11th Street and Broad, a nasty sleety day, on my way to work at the WDC—Women’s Detention Center—in the cafeteria—where I had a steady job, I thought—and the bus driver just drove on. Lord, I thought I’d broke my back, just laying there too stunned to cry, till some nice colored woman comes along and helps me. Ava-Rose was real scared, and took me to the doctor, and they make you wait forever, you know—at the welfare clinic—so we gave up there, and tried another doctor, he said it was lucky I wasn’t crippled for life—he seemed nice, but oh, goodness, what they charge you!” Terence listened with growing indignation to Holly Mae Loomis’s account, which went on for some minutes, involving, inevitably, the loss of her job at the cafeteria, prescribed medicine and physical therapy sessions she could not afford, yet-unpaid medical bills, countless telephone calls from Ava-Rose to the Transit Company, a visit to the office, and indifference on the part of the city, or outright rebuffs—“They have this ‘legal staff’ that lets you know nobody’s going to listen to you, so why bother?”
Terence, struck by pity, asked, “But is nothing being done now?”
Holly Mae Loomis shrugged. “What’s to be done, Dr. Greene? Ava-Rose doesn’t think we should give up, she’s tried to get a lawyer, but—”
“Of course you must have a lawyer, and a good lawyer,” Terence said. “I’d be happy to help you out—if you’d allow me.”
As if not hearing, Holly Mae Loomis shut her eyes, and continued to rub the top several vertebrae of her back. “Seems life is closing in on me, sometimes! And I ain’t that old: I’m seventy-four. Lord, lord. The way a life can turn out, eh?”
Terence said, firmly, “Not at all, Holly Mae. I’m sure something can be done.”
“Well, lawyers are expensive—”
“Let me worry about that, Holly Mae, will you?—you and your niece?” Terence was embarrassed by his own impulsive m
agnanimity, and changed the subject, pointing to, and marveling at, a wild, weedy bed of zinnias; he was thinking, excitedly, that he would redress the terrible injustice being done to this powerless woman, he would help. They would not accept any cash gift, of course, but, perhaps—a loan?
By this time, Holly Mae Loomis had led Terence around to the rear of the house, where there were fewer cultivated beds; many weeds; and, in the tall grass, discarded debris—lumber, broken household utensils, even the rusted skeletal hulk of a car. The driveway led past the house, rutted, bumpy, and became an access road, to a landfill beyond a stretch of scrubby trees; beyond that, there was a glittering strip, like a piece of tinsel—all that could be seen, from this perspective, of the Delaware River. The September afternoon was warm as summer, and there was a fragrance as of numerous mingled smells—of the earth, of the scented flowers, of the tall grasses in the sun, even of the river. Terence said, almost shyly, “How beautiful it is here!—how private! Why is this part of Trenton called Chimney Point? Is there a point of land, down there, that juts out into the river?”
Holly Mae shook her head, with a vague look. “Maybe so, Dr. Greene. I guess that’s it.”
“And have you and your family lived here very long?”
“‘Very long’—that depends. Seems like I been here forever—but Cap’n-Uncle Riff, who’s eighty-two, he’s only been living here a few years, since he retired from seafaring. Ava-Rose, her and her sister were brought here by their momma, who couldn’t keep them, when they were real little, so Ava-Rose has lived here most of her life, anyway off and on she has; her sister, well”—Holly Mae’s face darkened—“she wasn’t a good girl, I guess, she’s long run off. And their momma, too—” Holly Mae shrugged. Terence would have liked to ask more about Ava-Rose, but dared not; he did not want to seem overly inquisitive.
Buster had been trotting about in the tall grasses, sniffing and making the motions of urination; he lunged clumsily at a golden-winged butterfly, then turned, as if Terence had called him, and hurried back to Terence, nudging his damp muzzle beneath Terence’s hand. How shivery, the dog’s touch! yet how good it felt, since Tuffi was no longer living. He seems to trust me, and so will the others.
Impulsively, wanting to keep the topic of conversation closely related to Ava-Rose Renfrew (who was not, surely, at home—not peering out a window at the tall handsome well-dressed “Mr. Foreman” being shown about by her aunt), Terence asked Holly Mae if she’d heard any further news about T. W. Binder. “I assume he was sentenced to prison—for how long?”
Holly Mae, who had been smiling at the way Terence and the dog were getting on, now frowned, severely. “Oh—the judge called T.W. ‘dangerous’ and a ‘threat to society,’ like other judges have done with that boy in the past; then, she gives him three-to-seven.”
“Years?”
“Yessir! But it don’t mean a thing, even so. That brute will be eligible for parole in one year.”
“What? One year?”
Terence was astounded. Somehow, he had assumed that the violent young man might be behind bars for as long as twenty years. Hadn’t he tried to kill Ava-Rose Renfrew? Hadn’t he been convicted of “aggravated assault”?
“Well!” he murmured, crestfallen. “I thought we jurors had done better than that, for you and Miss Renfrew.”
Holly Mae shook her head, disgusted. “Some people, ‘incorrigibles’ they call them, there’s no protection against them unless—well, you take the law in your own hands. They steal, and pillage, and murder, and destroy lives, and there’s no stopping them. Right now in the state of New Jersey, on death row, there’s vicious murderers who have been saved from execution time and time again,” she said passionately. “There’s no justice anymore, Dr. Greene!”
“Of course,” Terence said, awkwardly, “—capital punishment itself is barbaric. We can’t really condone—”
“So when T.W. is paroled, and murders my niece, and maybe us all, and burns down the house like he threatened, then what? Some human beings, they are barbaric.”
“My God, do you think—? Is there a chance that—”
“Poor Ava-Rose! She has had such ill luck, with men! And that girl is so sweet—so innocent! What we’re worried sick about, Dr. Greene,” Holly Mae said, lowering her voice, and pulling at Terence’s sleeve to draw him nearer, “—is that one of T.W.’s friends will do harm to my niece. Now T.W. is in Rahway Prison, he can’t do it, but there’s a friend of his—Eldrick Gill is his name—who has been talking about getting even with Ava-Rose. Cap’n-Uncle Riff and I think he has already threatened her, but Ava-Rose never wants to scare us. The other night she came home from evening services at this church she attends—The Church of the Holy Apocalypse it is: I don’t belong—sort of white-faced, and quiet, and not herself, and Darling leapt at her head—Darling is our parrot, Dr. Greene: a big beautiful African gray—to say ‘Greetings!’ like he does, landing on your head if he can, and Ava-Rose panicked, and screamed, covering her head with her arms, like she didn’t know where she was.” Holly Mae paused, breathing hard. Her flushed face sparkled with perspiration. “Then, later, I went up to her room, where she was sitting in the dark, and I asked, ‘Honey, did something happen?’ and she said, ‘No, Auntie, please don’t worry’—so quick, I knew there must be trouble.”
“What about the police? Aren’t they supposed to—”
“The police! Them!” Holly Mae made a spitting gesture. “You sure can’t depend upon them. Everybody knew that T.W. had a terrible temper, he’d done injury to many people, men and women both, before the police could make a charge stick, in court; even so, he won’t be in prison long. Up at Rahway, there’s all kinds of connections with criminals on the outside—they all know one another, they’re buddies. This Eldrick Gill, he rides one of them big black motorcycles, just like T.W. They’re the same breed. Oh, yes!”
“And you think your niece might be in danger?”
“Dr. Greene, I know.”
Terence wondered if he should speak with Ava-Rose Renfrew himself. Or if the young woman might misconstrue his motives.
A question occurred to him—“Who was ‘Wineapple’? Was he one of Binder’s victims?”
Holly Mae Loomis leaned forward, cupping her hand to her ear. “Who—?”
“‘Wineapple,’ the name was—or was it ‘Applewine’? At the trial, the name came up, and the witness was silenced.”
Holly Mae Loomis’s brow furrowed as she tried to recall the name. She fanned her face vigorously with her straw hat. Then, “I never knew this party, nor much of him, Dr. Greene. Nor did Ava-Rose, anything more than a passing acquaintance. He was one of the deacons at that church of hers—I think. Rumor was, T.W. plotted injury against Apple-wine, or Wineapple, ’cause he believed this party was courting my niece; in fact, there was no truth to that rumor, as far as I know.” Holly Mae smiled, with an air of bemused perplexity. “When you get my age, Dr. Greene, there’s lots of things people shield from you, so you don’t truly know what you think you know.”
“But the man is dead? Drowned, I believe?”
Holly Mae blinked, frightened. “Oh my God. That’s news to me.”
Terence saw that he should change the subject; he did not want to upset the old woman any more than he had.
Terence saw too that it was probably time for him to leave. She isn’t here, won’t be home for hours.
They had circled the house, crossing a patch of marshy, dank-smelling wild grass, as Buster trotted affably in their wake, leaping and snapping playfully at butterflies. Holly Mae led Terence up the badly rutted driveway, toward the street where his car was parked; she walked with some difficulty, favoring her right leg, and seemed short of breath, but continued to speak in her candid, friendly way. “I’d invite you inside, Dr. Greene, for a cup of coffee, or some herbal tea,—that’s Ava-Rose’s specialty: rosehips—or, maybe, some of Cap’n-Uncle Riff’s stout, but, shame to say, the housekeeping’s sort of behind, there’s likely no pla
ce to sit. But you come back another time, eh?”
Terence said, shyly, “I’d like that, Mrs. Loomis. I mean—Holly Mae.” And, after a pause, “I hope you will allow me to lend you the funds to retain a good lawyer, to bring suit against the city for that bus driver’s behavior? It’s really quite outrageous, what you’ve told me.”
Holly Mae said, humbly, “Long as it’s a loan, Dr. Greene, and not, you know—charity.”
“Certainly not.”
“Cap’n-Uncle Riff would never countenance that, nor would Ava-Rose. Nor would I.”
They discussed this matter for some minutes, deciding that the Renfrews would locate a good, trustworthy Trenton lawyer (Terence had to admit, he knew no one in Trenton); and that the lawyer would then contact Terence, and financial arrangements would be worked out between them. “My family, oh goodness!—we’re not very practical-minded when it comes to money!” Holly Mae said. She waved her arm at the rundown house, the overgrown garden, with a wistful laugh. “As I guess anybody with eyes can see.”
Terence laughed. He felt quite giddy, as if he had in fact sipped some of Cap’n-Uncle Riff’s stout. “There are other virtues in life, Holly Mae, beyond being practical-minded about money.”
Before leaving, Terence admired the old woman’s garden another time. He was thinking that, in Queenston (but he had not thought of Queenston for the past hour), every lawn of every residence was perfectly landscaped. Shrubbery was planted with an eye for symmetry, flowers were color-coordinated. There were no scrawny bushes, no trees in need of pruning, and certainly no weeds. Were any Queenston resident to let his property go as the Renfrews had done, his neighbors would convene to take action against him.
“Yes,” Terence said, a bit gravely, “—there are other virtues.”
Holly Mae was reluctant to let her visitor go without cutting him some roses from her garden to take home, but Terence declined, saying that he wasn’t going directly home; he might not return for hours. His eye alighted upon one of the clumsily executed wooden lawn ornaments, however, and he remembered that these were for sale. Who had made them?—those teasing little girls who’d sunbathed on the roof? He asked Holly Mae if he could buy one or two of these for his own garden, and, flushed with pleasure, Holly Mae said yes, of course—“Dara and Dana made up a bunch of ’em over the summer.”
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