Listen to the Lambs

by Daniel Black

  Only the sadness in Junior’s eyes tempered Quad’s sadistic pleasure. The old man sat next to Quad, shaking and smearing tears. He wasn’t sure what Junior felt, but Quad sensed a connection between the second and third Lazaruses that had been a long time coming. For some reason, Quad trusted the authenticity of his grandfather’s pain over his father’s and thus calmed the revelry in his heart when he glanced at Junior. There’s something different about an old man’s tears, Quad thought. They don’t pour like those of young men. They first gather in and glaze the eyes, like a misty shield, forcing a man to confront himself and his past. Then, in full military regalia, they stand beneath those gray, seasoned pupils prepared to defend one’s impossible choices. One by one, they trickle crevices of the face, filling empty craters and creating, just below the eyes, mirrors of salty water that invite a man to see himself. Young men cry because of what happened to them. Old men cry because of what they made happen.

  Quad wanted to touch Junior’s hand, but decided against it. They didn’t have that depth of connection he thought, and if the man turned to sob on Quad’s shoulder, he was sure he’d get up and leave. So he held a straight face, trying to appear oblivious, wishing the whole trial thing were over.

  “Was he ever violent with you as a child?”

  “No. Never. He didn’t whip us or anything like that. He didn’t beat my mother. I don’t think I remember ever hearing him raise his voice. He and my mother certainly argued, but he didn’t scream.”

  “Once he left, do you recall hearing about him being in any kind of trouble or breaking the law in any way?”

  “No, sir. I don’t think Dad’s ever even had a speeding ticket.”

  “So you know your father to be a man of integrity?”

  “When I was a little girl, I would’ve said so. Absolutely. Now the best thing I can say is I think so. I’ve not observed his behavior in many years, but if he’s anything like he used to be he’s an incredible man.”

  “And how did he used to be?”

  The prosecutor stood. “Objection. Relevance. What he used to be is not the point. The question is what he is now. That’s our only concern.”

  “Sustained.”

  Aaron licked his lips and redirected, “Do you believe your father murdered Mrs. Dupont?”

  Lizzie’s eyes narrowed. She looked at Lazarus long and hard. “No, sir. He did not murder Mrs. Dupont. I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life.”

  Aaron walked back to his table. “Nothing further, Your Honor.”

  The prosecutor rose. “Would you say your father’s word is reliable?”

  Lizzie closed her eyes, then opened them to a desperate, pleading Lazarus. “I’m not sure how to answer that question.”

  “Just say what you feel, please.”

  Of course she couldn’t do that. Not if she meant to help save her father. “He has a heart of gold. I know that much.”

  The prosecutor moved toward her. “My question was whether or not you think his word is reliable?”

  Lizzie blinked and swallowed hard. “I don’t know. I haven’t depended on his word in a very long time.”

  “But what do you think?” The prosecutor stood directly before Lizzie now, glancing between her and the jury.

  Lizzie sighed heavily. “I think that if he says something he means it. That’s what I think.”

  Aaron began to breathe again. The prosecutor’s disappointment shone through her smirk, but she wasn’t finished yet.

  “Do you trust your father, Lizzie?”

  Quad shook his head slightly, giving his sister permission to tell the truth.

  “Yes. I’ve always trusted him.”

  She shifted uneasily in the witness seat. If Lazarus was going to be destroyed, Lizzie finally decided, she or Quad was going to do it—not some strangers who didn’t even know Lazarus.

  “Always?”

  “Yes. Always. It’s the reason I’ve been hurt all these years. I trusted that he’d come home but he didn’t.”

  “So would you say your father is a liar?”

  “I would say my father has commitments beyond me. That’s what I would say.”

  “But does he tell the truth?”

  “Yes. As he understands it.”

  “Ma’am, you’re being intentionally vague here.”

  “These are the only answers I have. If you want me to incriminate my father, that’s not going to happen.”

  “Miss Love, the court would appreciate direct answers, if at all possible,” the judge intervened, “without engaging the prosecutor directly.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Lizzie said. “I’m doing the best I can.”

  The judge nodded, instructing the prosecutor to continue.

  “Do you think your father stole Mrs. Dupont’s scarf?”

  Lizzie shook her head. “No, ma’am. She definitely gave it to him. He would never have taken it. Never. He’s one of the proudest people I’ve ever known. Stealing is out of the question.”

  “Is it? Did you know about his history of theft back in New York City?”

  “Objection, Your Honor! There is no history of theft. That was one incident, and it happened when he was a kid!”

  “He was not a kid! He was eighteen, which, according to the law, makes him a grown man!”

  “He had just turned eighteen, and he was with other boys who—”

  “Okay! All right! I’ve heard enough. Objection overruled. Witness will answer the question.”

  “No, I didn’t know about that.”

  “No. So isn’t it fair to say that your father isn’t as pristine as you’d like for this court to believe?”

  “Objection!”

  “I’m done. No further questions.”

  Aaron rose. “Defense rests, Your Honor.”

  The judge looked at her watch, then said, “Very well. Then we’ll resume tomorrow morning at nine. Prosecutors, prepare to call your first witness. This court is adjourned.”

  Aaron told Lazarus to get a good night’s rest and meet him at 8:00 A.M. He rushed away as if he’d forgotten something important. Outside, Quad, Lizzie, and Junior stood to the left of the central doors and The Family stood to the right. When Lazarus exited, he reassured Lizzie she’d done fine on the stand. She’d told the truth—well, her truth—and that’s all she could do. In his heart, Lazarus had wanted Lizzie to say that he was a remarkable man who had left home because of a spiritual yearning, but he saw, finally, that she’d never see things his way. And he had to accept that. His father’s words—“children don’t never understand”—had proved true, and all Lazarus could do was believe in his heart he’d done the right thing. Perhaps he hadn’t. But can’t a man do the wrong thing for the right reason?

  Lazarus went to find Cinderella. He told Quad to take Junior and Lizzie home and he’d be by after a while. He had unfinished business to handle.

  “She’ll survive this,” Elisha uttered as Lazarus approached. “Just give her some time. She thinks she’s ruined you. And that’s ruined her.” He touched Lazarus’s shoulder as if expressing sympathy for a loss. Legion rolled es eyes playfully, then winked at Lazarus. Of course he supported them, and they knew it. Yet Cinderella’s dramatics, as he called it, sent him over the edge. The Comforter took each, Lazarus and Cinderella, by the hand and began walking away from the courthouse. “You shall have your time after this.” She didn’t look at either of them. “Love is always on trial. It hurts sometimes, and people don’t always get it, but it always survives.” Both kept their heads down. “If you don’t abandon it.” She glanced at one, then the other. “The heart knows what it needs. Let it be. There is no disappointment there.” She stopped talking and rubbed each hand sensually. Lazarus and Cinderella looked everywhere except into each other’s eyes. The Comforter dropped their hands and said, “Time rewards the patient heart,” and waltzed away.

  Cinderella couldn’t think of words beyond I’m really sorry and Can you forgive me?, so she tried facial contortions
as a means to relay the sentiments of her aching heart. Lazarus held nothing against her, but he knew her self-flagellation would destroy her if he didn’t do something.

  “You did the right thing, Cinderella. You really did. I was wrong to give it to you in the first place. I was also wrong to ask you to lie about it.”

  “Don’t say that!” She sobbed. “Do not say that! It was the most beautiful thing I’ve ever received. Besides my red shoes. Please don’t be sorry.”

  “Okay. I won’t be. I just hate I put you in that position. That’s all.”

  “I tried to stay calm up there, but when she walked toward me, I could tell she knew something, and I thought that if I continued to lie, I’d make things worse, so…” She shrugged. “I broke. I just broke. And I don’t know how to fix it.”

  “There’s nothing to fix, Cinderella.” Lazarus held her hand lovingly, softly. “You didn’t ruin anything. Actually, you relieved me. Now I don’t have to deceive my lawyer and everybody else. It’s fine, trust me.”

  Still she cried as if Lazarus hadn’t said a thing. “Guess I’m not as strong as I thought.”

  “Are you crazy? Of course you are! Who else could’ve told the truth when lying was easier? Plus, you’ve led a protest with people who don’t even know me! I owe you my life.”

  “No, you don’t. If you simply decide to be my friend again, that’ll be more than I deserve.” She stopped crying as if having suddenly run out of tears.

  “We’ll always be friends,” Lazarus said. “I don’t know what the future holds, and I guess you don’t, either, but we’re pretty much stuck with each other, I think.”

  She tried to smile but couldn’t. “I guess I’ve been living a dream, huh?”

  “Probably. But that’s a good thing.”

  Lazarus hadn’t understood what she meant, so she let it go. He had been her dream, the hope of her heart, and if he didn’t know that, the dream was already over.

  “I made you look like a liar, and that’s not what I meant.”

  “I know.”

  “And there’s no way to take it back.”

  “I know that, too. It’s okay.”

  “It just all happened so fast. I think I got scared.”

  “I understand. I was scared up there, too.”

  “And then I remembered I had the scarf with me, and I thought someone might find it, and that would implicate you even more, so I just … gave it up.”

  Lazarus squeezed her small white hands in his large brown ones. “It’s over now. Let it go. Like I said, you did the right thing. That’s all that matters. And I’m not mad at you. I’m actually proud of you.”

  “Why?” Her eyes begged for assurance.

  “Because you can’t lie. It makes you trustworthy. That’s the best trait a person can have.”

  Cinderella gazed into his golden eyes. “Do you mean that?”

  Lazarus chuckled slightly. “Do you know me to say things I don’t mean?”

  “Guess not.”

  They smiled together.

  “I need to go see my father. You gon’ be all right?”

  “Oh sure! I’ll be fine. I’m gonna walk over to Pryor Street and check on the marchers. Then I’ll go home. I’m exhausted.”

  “Go to my place if you like. I’ll probably spend the night at my son’s house. I don’t know.”

  “Okay. I probably will. Some of the others might be around. I don’t think I want to be alone tonight.”

  They hugged, more formally than usual, and both left with a sense that things had changed. Cinderella assumed Lazarus was unable to forgive her, and Lazarus assumed Cinderella was unable to forgive herself. There was no chance for them now, she thought. He’d be kind; he’d always been kind. But he wouldn’t be invested, and that’s what hurt so badly. She’d seen it in his eyes, she believed—the glazed look of indifference—and nothing she could do would remove it. Even Lazarus was unaware of the shift, she told herself, but it was there, and all chances of her romantic paradise were gone. She stared across the street at the tops of trees waving in the invisible breeze and realized that, like a leaf, a woman’s heart is subject to the invisible whims of men. The moment a man’s feelings change, a woman becomes troubled, trembling with uncertainty, and if ever he vanishes altogether she shivers in a vacuum of doubt. For the first time, Cinderella questioned her desire for a prince, wondering what would happen if, someday, he decided against a princess. Perhaps she needed to get her own kingdom, she pondered, or at least be content with her little space beneath the bridge.

  Chapter 39

  Lazarus took a bus to Buckhead and walked the extra mile down W. Wesley Road as dusk settled. A burnt-orange sky wafted above him until, moments later, streaks of red and purple usurped the heavens and bid the sun adieu. Junior and Quad, laughing uproariously, sat in the front yard in fold-up chairs as if the house and everything around it were simply fake background props. Lazarus approached slowly, choosing not to disturb the obvious revelry between Lazaruses, but when they noticed him they quieted like unruly students upon a teacher’s entrance. An empty chair sat next to Junior, so Lazarus took it. It was practically dark now, so they were mere figures in the universe, black and unidentifiable, similar in ways even they didn’t recognize—head gestures, pitch of voice, slapping of thighs when they laughed—and Lazarus thought how wonderful it would be if Granddaddy could see them now. Then Lazarus realized that one granddaddy had been replaced by another.

  Once Lazarus sat, Junior and Quad resumed cackling. They were reenacting Legion on the witness stand, and although they weren’t demeaning him, Lazarus didn’t appreciate the performance. Quad didn’t care, but Junior sensed his son’s discomfort, so he segued to another topic.

  “Daddy used to sit in the dark like this. Practically every night. I’d hear him from my bedroom window, singin’ and cryin’ ’bout stuff I didn’t understand. Sometimes I’d sneak to the front door and listen. He’d be on the porch, just a-rockin’ and a-hummin,’ and Momma’d be in the living room knitting or reading her Bible. I asked Daddy why he sat on that old porch every night, cryin’ and singin,’ and he told me to mind my own business. So that’s what I did.”

  Lazarus looked first at the silhouette of his father, then his son. And instantly he heard the lambs. The melody was sad as usual, but this time there were words:

  Were you there when they crucified my Lord?

  Junior went on to describe the house, the land, the rocking chair, and the solitude of the lambs. His job had been to feed them, morning and night, and what he remembered most was their obsequious nature, their silent curiosity, every time he approached. At first they withdrew when they saw him coming, but after a while they met him at the trough, having learned to trust him. He petted them softly, he said, rubbing thick white wool as if massaging clouds of glory, and they’d stand still, hypnotized. He couldn’t tell them apart like his father could, except for Elijah, who was bigger than the others, but sometimes when they cried at night Junior would imagine them gathered in the barn like a church choir with heads lifted and mouths trembling.

  “Daddy said Jesus was the lamb slain for our transgressions. Whatever the hell that means!”

  All three Lazaruses laughed identically. They could’ve been the three wise men, anxiously awaiting a far-overdue savior.

  “I didn’t care about Jesus. Not if he was okay with what Daddy did to me.”

  Lazarus leaned forward. He never dreamed this moment would come. Quad waited, unaware of what was happening yet sure it was something significant.

  “He said he did it because he loved me. That they had done the same thing to Jesus.”

  Lazarus cringed. In Junior’s voice Lazarus heard longing for the grandfather he loved so dearly.

  “Boy, sometimes it takes a lifetime to figure a man out,” Junior muttered. “I ain’t sure I understand him yet, but I got a pretty good idea.”

  They knew he referred to the first Lazarus, but neither knew exactly what he meant.


  “He probably did what his daddy did to him. I guess he dreamed of me like I dreamed of you.” Junior and Lazarus turned toward each other. “But the problem ain’t the dream. It’s the dreamer. When a man starts shaping his boy’s life, he puts his own failings in the mix, and usually that means he fucks things up. But it ain’t what he meant.”

  Lazarus stared into a star-studded sky. Quad studied the earth beneath.

  “The first time it happened, I was ’bout ten years old. It was report card day. Guess they don’t do that anymore, but once upon a time, they gave out little index cards with your class and attendance and grades on them. Report cards came out at midterm and the end of the year. Well, I always had good marks, but this time I had a B. I knew Daddy wouldn’t like it. He wanted me to go to school, especially since he didn’t, and he said I had to keep my grades up to earn a scholarship. I think he feared that if I slipped, even a little bit, I’d ruin my future, so the day I brought home the B he beat me so bad Momma took me to the hospital.”

  “Just ’cause you got a B?” Quad said.

  “That’s right. Hadn’t never had one in my life. Guess he didn’t know you could still get into college with a B.”

  “Granddaddy didn’t know a lot of things, Daddy,” Lazarus offered.

  “But he should’ve!” Junior shouted. “He should’ve!” Then Junior fell silent a long time. Finally he continued, “At least that’s what I thought as a child. I mean, who can beat his own son and think it’s right?”

  Quad’s front yard teemed with crickets, bullfrogs, worms, mosquitoes, and gnats. Each man swatted at invisible things, but no one chose to leave.

  “So after that first whipping, he beat me for anything he could think of. But it wasn’t the beatings that were bad. It was how he did it.”

  Oh, sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble …