by Daniel Black
“I know. You’ve said this before.”
“But I need you to understand! You didn’t waste your love on me! It’s kept me going all these years, and kept me from believing I’ve been a total failure.”
“Well, I’m not the one you have to worry about. God saved me. I’m covered with the blood. Quad’s gonna be a fight though. I don’t know if he’ll ever forgive you.”
Lazarus relaxed and huffed. “Maybe not, but I’m gonna work on him. I owe him the fight.”
“Yes, you do.”
“I owe it to you, too.”
Lizzie sneered. “No need. Jesus fights my battles. And anyway, I never stopped loving you. It’s been the curse of my life.”
Lazarus wiped tears from Lizzie’s high cheekbones and touched the bun of her hair. She lost herself in his eyes, her daddy’s eyes, those funny-colored golden eyes that a black man wasn’t supposed to have. But Lazarus had them, and they had always made him special to her. She’d wanted to inherit his eyes, so others would call her beautiful, too, but she hadn’t. Neither had Quad. Only her father had topaz eyes, shimmering in the midst of his face like dazzling jewels. She used to tell her mother that they were the eyes of God. “Chile, please!” Deborah retorted, but Lizzie believed there was something unique about eyes that glittered bronze. Perhaps he saw the world differently. Maybe everything was tinted gold. Of course she knew better now, but as a little girl she’d thought of her father as her personal superhero—a kind of black, dreadlocked superman—whose eyes exuded supernatural power. Even now, staring into them, she dreamed of being lifted from the earth and flying through the air, rising above the weight of the world. Maybe that’s what he’d been looking for—something supernatural, something humans couldn’t take from him or destroy. And maybe, somewhere on the streets, he’d found it.
Chapter 36
Quad returned with four foot-long Subway sandwiches and four Cokes. Junior rejoined them.
“What about the others?” Lazarus asked, frowning.
“What about them?” Quad said.
“They’re family, too! They gotta eat. I can’t let them starve while we eat.”
“That’s up to you.”
Quad and Lizzie sat on the backless bench and began unwrapping tuna subs. Lazarus and Junior, however, took their sandwiches down the hallway.
“Go ahead and eat,” Cinderella pleaded with Lazarus. “You need your strength.” To Junior she said, “You’re the guest of honor,” and smiled.
“I ate a sandwich on the bus,” he explained, “just before I got here. I ain’t even hungry. Please, one of y’all take it.”
Having not eaten in days, Elisha reached for the offering and handed half of it to Cinderella. The Comforter accepted Lazarus’s sub and divided it with Legion. “I can’t eat right now,” Lazarus said. “Too nervous.”
Junior touched his back and winked. “Just hang in there, Son. You gon’ be all right. We’re all fighting for you. We’re here together now.” They nodded vigorously. He added, “Your children, too. They just gotta get used to sharing you. That’s all.”
Minutes later, the trial resumed. Aaron called Cinderella to the stand. She rose confidently and marched to the front in a semi-tattered floral-print dress and her shiny red shoes. A few pointed and whispered as she waltzed.
“In what capacity do you know the defendant?”
She squirmed slightly. “As a personal friend. We share living space sometimes.”
“So you two live together?”
“No, sir. Not exactly. Lazarus lives beneath one overpass; I live beneath another adjacent to it. We visit each other rather frequently.”
“I see. And would you say you two are intimate?”
Lizzie leaned forward. The courtroom hushed. Cinderella searched Lazarus’s face for a clue as to what to say, but he stared back as if he didn’t know her.
“I … um … suppose so.”
Aaron nodded, pacing the floor.
“But that doesn’t mean sexual, right?”
He stopped and turned.
“Right. It simply means intimate. We’re friends who share much of our lives together, but we don’t sleep together.”
Murmuring erupted. Aaron gestured for Cinderella to relax. No one saw her hands trembling.
“On the evening of April 4th, do you recall seeing Mr. Love?”
“Yessir, I do.”
“And what was he like? Did you notice anything different about his demeanor?”
Cinderella’s eyes rolled to the top of her head. “No, sir, I didn’t. He was dirty, I remember that, and I wondered where he’d been, but his disposition wasn’t different. And when I asked him, he told me the story.”
“He told it to you exactly as you’ve heard today?”
“Yessir. Pretty much.” She thought of the scarf.
“Pretty much? Not exactly?”
“Well, I mean pretty exactly. I just didn’t know little stuff like what time he got there and the tools he used, but all the important details are the same.”
From the back of the room The Comforter tried to get Cinderella’s attention, to warn her to watch her words, but Cinderella never noticed.
“And what kind of man do you know Mr. Love to be?”
She smiled and The Family exhaled. “A kind, caring, sensitive, loving man. He’d do anything for anyone. Some days, I eat only because of him. I remember one night when a man attacked me and I screamed and Lazarus was there in a flash. He ran the man off and stayed with me until the sun rose. I probably would’ve died if he hadn’t come.”
Lizzie grunted.
“Has he ever been violent, as far as you know?”
“No. Not as far as I know. Even when he ran the man off, he never hit him. He just screamed and scared him away.”
“You’ve never seen Lazarus fight or lose his temper or—”
“No, sir! He’s a better man than that!”
“Have you ever seen him angry?”
She thought for a second. “Yes, I have.”
“What does his anger look like?”
“He speaks loudly. Like any man. But mostly he walks away.”
Aaron paused, hoping this new image of Lazarus was taking shape in jurors’ minds
“Does he give you gifts or buy you things?”
Cinderella swallowed hard. “Not usually.”
“But sometimes?”
“Sometimes.”
“And what sort of gifts has he given you?”
“Food mostly. Books occasionally. I love to read.”
“Nothing else?”
She knew if she looked at Lazarus she’d give them away, so she kept her eyes on Aaron. It was the best she could do.
“No, nothing else.”
Aaron blinked several times before moving on. “And where does Mr. Love get food from?”
“I don’t know. He works odd jobs whenever he can. That’s all I know. I don’t ask questions.”
“Do you think he steals it?”
“I do not! He’s not that kind of person!”
Suddenly Cinderella shouted, “He’s not a thief, and he’s not a liar! He’s a man of character. Anyone who knows him will tell you that!”
“Control yourself, ma’am!” the judge admonished. “Answer only the questions posed to you.”
Aaron concluded with, “Do you think Mr. Love has the capacity to murder?”
“Certainly not!”
“No further questions, Your Honor.”
The prosecutor rose with venom in her eyes. Cinderella’s clear blue consciousness blackened with impending doom.
“Miss … um…?”
Cinderella cleared her voice and overenunciated, “Cinderella.”
“Cinderella. You say you and Mr. Love are not lovers, is that correct?”
“That is correct.”
“And you’re intimate, but not sexual. Is that correct?”
“Yes, yes,” she fumbled. “That’s … that’s correct.”
&nbs
p; The prosecutor frowned, “Are you sure?”
The Family gazed at one another, then at Cinderella. They knew of the attraction—that was obvious—but they didn’t know if it had gone further.
“I’m sure,” Cinderella said, then offered a fake smile.
The prosecutor proceeded. “You say you saw Mr. Love the evening after he completed the work at the Duponts’. Is that correct?”
“Yes.”
“And you say he seemed normal, regular. Is that correct?”
“Yes. That’s correct.”
“And when he came … ‘home’”—she did the invisible quotation marks—“did he have anything in his possession? Anything you hadn’t seen before?”
“No, ma’am.” Cinderella tucked strands of limp hair behind her ears. She had begun to fidget, and the prosecutor saw it.
“Nothing?”
“Nothing.”
The prosecutor extracted the scarf from her pocket and dangled it before the jury. “You’ve never seen this?” She walked to the front of the witness stand and gazed into Cinderella’s eyes.
“Um … well … no.”
“No? You’ve never seen anything like this?”
Lazarus began to pray. The Comforter mumbled inaudibly. Legion and Elisha grabbed hands.
The prosecutor laid the cloth on the banister before Cinderella, who touched it, then burst into tears. “Okay! Okay! I’ve seen it! I have the other one.”
Aaron leapt. “What!”
“It’s here. Right here.” Slowly, sadly, she pulled the twin scarf from her bra.
Then Lazarus heard the lambs. Unlike other times, it wasn’t a song of woe. It was more like chimes swinging in the wind. There was joy in the tone, like the melody of a pipe organ on Easter Sunday morning. The courtroom spiraled into chaos. Cinderella lay limp across the witness stand, relieved of the weight of truth yet clearly aware that she had indicted her lover. The Comforter vanished. Legion and Elisha looked for her, but she was gone. Lizzie and Quad shook their heads. Of course they didn’t prefer any of these homeless bums, but now they didn’t trust them, either. The judge’s gavel went unheard as screaming echoed throughout the room.
“No further questions, Your Honor!”
“I didn’t mean to lie! I didn’t! I just…” Cinderella’s sobbing confused jurors. They didn’t sympathize with her as a forlorn lover rejected; they frowned and wondered why she hadn’t told the truth. Several pondered what else she might be hiding.
“Order in the court! Order in the court!”
“I need a recess, Your Honor!” Aaron cried. “Please!”
Lazarus’s head rested upon folded arms. The cacophony in the courtroom buzzed around him, but the song of the lambs rang clear in his head. Junior dashed to Lazarus’s side and murmured in his ear, “It’s gon’ be all right, Son! It’s still gon’ be all right! Don’t give up!”
Lazarus hardly heard him. The timbre of the lambs, however, was distinct. It was a melody of joy and celebration in the midst of turmoil. Across the room, mouths hung open and heads shook with shock. Lazarus didn’t see this. All he heard was the song of the lambs. He reached for Junior’s hand and Junior gave it, although the old man didn’t understand. Suddenly Lazarus’s head rose. His eyes widened. For the first time, finally, he recognized a song:
I got a crown up inna that kingdom,
Ain’t a that good news?
I got a crown up inna that kingdom,
Ain’t a that good news?
Gonna lay down this world, shoulder up my cross, take it home to my Jesus,
Ain’t a that good news?
The melody faded as courtroom voices intensified. “What the hell is this bullshit!” Aaron screeched into Lazarus’s left ear. “Let’s go!” Aaron stuffed papers and legal pads into his expensive briefcase and stormed out of the courtroom. Lazarus followed.
Down the hall where The Family had gathered earlier, Aaron turned abruptly and slurred, “How dare you do something like this to me! Do you understand the impact of this case on my career? And now you’ve perjured yourself! Your credibility is shot to hell! Not to mention the fact that obviously you’re a liar!”
Lazarus bit his bottom lip. “I wanted to tell you who had it, I really did, but I didn’t want to take it away from her. She’s never had anything. I didn’t think it would hurt. And I didn’t steal it! The woman gave it to me.”
“What!”
“She did! I was sweating so hard, I wiped my brow with my sleeve, and when she went to get me a drink of water, she returned with the scarf. I handed it back, but she told me I could keep it. So I did.”
“And you gave it to Cinderella.”
“Yes. I thought she’d appreciate it more than me. And she did. There was a sparkle in her eye, a glow, I’d never seen before. And I didn’t want her to lose it.”
Aaron’s teeth chattered with fury. “Is this woman your girlfriend or not?”
Lazarus sighed. “She’s not—I don’t think. I don’t know. We’ve never called each other that but there’s something between us. I can’t name it. She’s never been loved and she deserves to be.”
“Then love her!”
“It’s not that simple.”
Aaron huffed. “I don’t know if we’ll survive this, Lazarus. I really don’t. I have a mind to quit the whole thing, to tell you the truth. Shit.”
“I understand. I can’t be mad. It’s a huge setback.”
“Setback?” Aaron chuckled with derision. “Man, this is a major fuckup!”
They stared in opposite directions until Aaron cooled a bit. “Come on. Let’s salvage what we can of this mess.”
Outside, Legion and Elisha held Cinderella’s hands, encouraging her to forgive herself. After all, she’d told the truth, they said, and that’s what she’d sworn to do. Yet Cinderella was inconsolable.
“I’ve ruined everything! They’ll never believe anything he says! I’ve destroyed the man I love!” They fell silent. She hadn’t meant to say that. She’d only meant to confess it to her own heart, but somehow words had formed and slithered through her throat and came out before she could restrain them.
“It’s not your fault,” Elisha whispered.
“But it is! Don’t you see? It is!” Tears streaked her pale, gray face. Strands of limp hair dangled before her eyes. “I just couldn’t hold it anymore. She knew I was lying. I could tell! So I just said it! I didn’t know what else to do!”
“You did the right thing, girl,” Legion affirmed. “It had to come out, one way or the other. A lie is always looking for a way of escape.”
Cinderella ignored both voices. “Now I don’t have anything. I’ve lost Lazarus, the scarf, his trust … everything.”
“Don’t go jumping to conclusions, Cinderella. We don’t know how this is going to turn out,” Legion said. “Get yourself together”—he handed her a wrinkled napkin—“and let’s get back in there and support Lazarus. Miracles happen all the time. We just need one.”
Chapter 37
After a brief recess, Aaron called Lazarus back to the stand, and Lazarus told the court what he’d told Aaron. The jury was visibly suspicious, but Lazarus didn’t look at them. He was afraid that, in their eyes, he’d see himself strapped to an electric chair. Yet his demeanor bore the signs of truth. He even explained that giving the scarf to Cinderella meant more than returning it to Mr. Dupont. “After all, he’s a man, of course, and a man would never cherish it the way a woman would.” Lazarus went on to say that he had no idea of the scarf’s monetary or sentimental value. “If it meant that much, why’d she give it to me in the first place?” he asked.
During cross-examination, the prosecutor alleged that Mrs. Dupont never gave it to Lazarus, but that, in fact, he stole it when he entered the house and murdered her.
“But I never entered the house.”
“How do we know that?”
Lazarus looked to Junior, who nodded confidently. “Because it’s true! I would never have gone into that
house! I wasn’t raised that way!”
“Calm yourself, Mr. Love,” the judge warned. “Or I’ll hold you in contempt.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Lazarus surrendered.
But the prosecutor didn’t give up.
“You say Mrs. Dupont gave you the scarf after she offered you a drink of water?”
“Yes. That’s right.”
“And you put it in your pocket and took it home. Is that what you’re saying?”
“Yes. That’s what I’m saying. I didn’t think any more about it. It just looked like a regular handkerchief to me.”
“Were you impressed by the beauty or size of the kitchen, Mr. Love?”
“Objection! Leading the witness, Your Honor. He already said he never entered the house.”
“That’s what he said, Your Honor. Yet no truth has been established.”
“Overruled. Witness will answer the question.”
“I never went into the house, so I never saw the kitchen, ma’am. I already told you that.”
Aaron nodded.
“Did the scarf have a scent? Did you happen to smell it?”
“Yes, I did. It smelled like perfume.”
“And did you like the smell?”
“I did. It smelled like flowers in springtime.”
“And why do you think Mrs. Dupont would gift you something so rare and valuable?”
Aaron slammed the table. “Objection, Your Honor! Mr. Love is not a mind reader. The question calls for speculation.”
“Sustained.”
“I withdraw the question.” She returned to the table and glanced at a legal pad. “You used to work for Deloitte and Touche, didn’t you?”
“Yes, I did.”
“And while working there, you attended dinners and evening affairs, I suppose?”
“I did.”
“So you know something about business attire and professional protocol, is that right?”
“I suppose so. At least I did once.”
“You once did. Right. But you want this jury to believe that you had no idea of the worth or value of a hand-woven scarf?”
“That’s right. I didn’t know.”