I know what you mean, one woman said, and others nodded and said, yes, they also knew what she meant.
Did y’all hear about what those couple of old ladies over at the Glendale Retirement Home said about Pew? one woman asked the rest of them. They think he’s an archangel. Ain’t that something?
The room grew busy with their voices—Ain’t that something—I thought Pew was a she—Shh—They’re even taking bets about it—
Well, couldn’t it be! one of the women said as she carved slices of bright pink meat. Happened in the Bible. Happened in the Bible all the time.
Well. Kitty cleared her throat and exchanged a look with another woman who raised her eyebrows and pinched her mouth in a strange smile. I suppose that is true. Kitty’s back was still turned to the woman with the ham.
The voices coming from the other room had quieted a little and for a moment I could hear the oven groan with heat. The woman with the ham was looking at me the way a mechanic looks down at an engine, quietly laying down years of knowledge.
Well, ain’t this so much fun? Kitty said. I don’t hardly ever get into this kitchen anymore, but I ought to just fire my girl and invite all of y’all over every night—how about that?
A small crash came from the other side of the room. The child at the tiny kitchen was lying on the floor, grinning, surrounded by a splay of wooden blocks.
Jill! You’ve wrinkled up your dress, honey. Kitty rushed to the child and lifted her to her feet. And we’ve got company. Darlin’, the whole church is practically here and we don’t have time to iron it back out, so everyone is going to see you in a wrinkled dress.
The whole church? Jill asked.
What do we do when company’s over? What did I tell you?
Act nice.
That’s right, honey, and what else?
Look nice.
And is a wrinkled-up dress nice?
Jill swayed, looked at the floor with a vague sadness.
Is it nice, honey?
No, the child said, soft as a bird speaking on the other side of a window.
And now you have to wear a wrinkled dress in front of everyone. Now how does that suit you?
Jill looked toward me as if looking through a glass dome.
WHEN I WAS BROUGHT into the other room, voices halted and throats cleared. I kept my eyes down, but felt the gaze of some eyes and the reluctant stare of others.
Three couches and a few armchairs had been pushed against the sides of the room and the center was filled with folding chairs, most of which held people with little plates of food in their laps and hands.
A woman with a great pile of hair gave me a crowded plate—two slices of pie, a thick sandwich, a mess of fruits—then pointed me toward a chair beside a large potted fern. I sat there. Across the room a man carefully chewed the roasted leg of what was once a bird.
Kitty stood at the front of the room clanging an empty wineglass with a knife.
I want to thank you all for coming all sudden like this. Now I know the idea for a meeting was a little, well—there has been some disagreement about what to do about the situation—but I want to thank you all for believing in us, for making it possible for us to take action as a community. To start us out, Harold Grimshaw is going to say a few words.
A short man wearing a pale gray suit stood up, his hands gathered in a large fist just held to his chest.
Now, I think I know pretty much everyone in the room, but for those of you I haven’t had the pleasure to get to know yet, my name is Harold H. Grimshaw the fifth. My father was Harold H. Grimshaw the fourth and my grandfather was Harold H. Grimshaw the third and my great-grandfather was Harold H. Grimshaw the second and we were all named after my great-great-grandfather Harold H. Grimshaw, and he was one of the people who founded this town, brought the railway here, was mayor for a time, did all sorts of good for our community, and my family—the Grimshaws—we still believe in this community—as we’ve always believed in this community—and we work hard to serve our community every day, all of us.
Harold began to pace in the little area he had at the front of the room.
And me in particular—well, anyone can know anything about me—I’ve got nothing to hide. I can tell you where I went to college, what I studied, where I’ve traveled. I can tell you the first time I laid my eyes on Birdie Lee and I can tell you the story of how I proposed to her and the day she became my wife. I can tell you about our children. I could tell you with certainty that I’ve been on the fifth pew back on the west side of the sanctuary every Sunday except for days I was sick and the days my children were born—all of them on Sundays, and ain’t that something?
Amen, a voice in the crowd shouted.
And I would show anyone my calendars, tell you whom I met with on which days, which cases I’ve worked on and how I’ve spent every day of my life. And I would—I would happily share any of this information with anyone in our community who wanted it. This is all because I love this town and I trust you all and I don’t have anything to hide.
A large man in the back of the room said, Attaboy, Harry! Everyone in the room applauded, some whistling, some clapping, and at once it felt like a real place, a real thing, this room, this feeling in this room. Everyone knew everyone and they all belonged to one another. There was a certainty, a clarity, a real joy, that fused them all into one, into one massive entity, the weight of their years all pressed together, thousands of years in the room, all together like that, entwined with one another, no distance between any of them, no loneliness, no solitude—and it was easy to see, just then, how intensely one could want to belong here.
And since I really trust and respect my community, I’m willing to share anything with them. I like to think my community is worthy of trust and care, and though, of course, I do try to take heed of the least of those—care for those who have no one, those who are lost—I know that I have to first protect my community, my children, my family, above all else, which is my duty as a father and man of this community. But we have to hold everyone to the same standard, don’t we? Treating everybody equal. Be fair.
And so, we have a problem on our hands with the recent arrival of our new friend. You may already know that Pew, who hasn’t spoken a word since being found, got their nickname because they illegally broke into a church to have a night’s sleep. And what did we make of this, friends?
A few people shifted in their creaking folding chairs. Someone dropped a plate of food and there was a hushed scuffle to clean it up.
What did we make of this? Harold asked. No one answered. I could hear jaws chewing crackers and people putting soft little cakes in their mouths. We ask Pew where they’ve come from—nothing. What he needs—nothing. What happened to him—or her. Quite frankly we still don’t know if Pew is a boy or girl, we don’t know Pew’s age, we don’t know Pew’s real name, or if anyone out there might be missing Pew—and even if we ask any of these things, we get nothing. And there’s not even any agreement about Pew’s heritage, his nationality, her race—everyone’s in disagreement about where Pew might be from and it’s troubling, ain’t it? I, for one, have never seen nobody that looks quite like our guest here—
Someone at the back of the room stood up to say, Harry, this isn’t what we agreed upon, this isn’t the way you said you’d—
Hold on now, I’m getting to it, Harold said.
Hilda crept up beside Harold and whispered something into his ear.
All right—all right, I’ve been told to stick to the script! Our women sure do keep us in line, don’t they? Everyone laughed. The whole room laughed. Even the furniture and floor seemed to be laughing.
All I’m trying to say is that the timing is peculiar, ain’t it? And we are all a little on edge because of the situation in Almose and I think we should be on edge, that is, we should have our eyes out here for anything … unusual. And it’s rather unusual to be silent, ain’t it? To refuse to speak. After all, I sure like to talk. Everyone I know likes to talk. We
all talk together, don’t we? We all discuss things out loud, as that is the way our culture has taught us, isn’t it now? Storytelling. Sharing. Of course, I don’t want to jump to any conclusions. And I’m certainly not jumping to any conclusions. I have my hunches, of course, but then we have the judicial process for a reason, don’t we? We don’t want to stoop to the level of trying this person in the court of public opinion, now do we? There’s a due process. So what I figure the next logical step is, is for us to consider the reasons a person might go silent—
Harold, Kitty said from the side of the room, waving her hand a little, can we just go back to what we planned—
For instance, in the news recently you may have heard about how a little girl showed up down in Greenville, and she couldn’t seem to speak but the police figured that probably what happened was—well, the same thing that makes a lot of little girls go quiet for a while, which is that someone must have roughed her up a bit and she’s just scared is all. It happens. Things happen. But everyone in Greenville that saw this girl could agree that she was a girl of about seven years old and she was very obviously American, white, and they easily found the documents for her—birth certificate, fingerprints from her Girl Scouts—I think most importantly, her silence, her being mute—it didn’t cause anyone any trouble because—I think—it was obvious that she wasn’t trying to cause trouble. She wasn’t trying to hide anything because she didn’t have anything to hide, and they took her to a hospital and let her settle down for a while and after a few days she did end up telling the authorities what she remembered, what happened to her—an awful story, I don’t need to go over it here. But she’s doing all right now, recovering. And you know why? Because she’s talking. Because she wanted to get better.
I looked at the plate in my hands. The pie bled dark syrup into the sandwich bread.
You know, it’s stories like that—and I have to read a lot of them being a lawyer and all—it’s stories like that one that can really depress you if you let them, but I always remind myself they are outliers. And like everyone in this room, I want justice to prevail, for the good side to win. And in order for that to happen we have got to know who people are. Who they really are.
It’s what makes us civilized—we can identify ourselves and we can identify each other! That’s how we keep track of things, hold people accountable. That’s how we know who we’re related to and who’s related to us. That’s how we know who is our wife and who is our neighbor’s wife … so that, well …
Laughter burst in the room, a pressure released.
Sorry, Birdie Lee! Harold shouted.
They laughed like a herd of something running.
It’s good to hear us laughing together again, ain’t it?
Harold looked around the room and nodded. I could feel people nodding with him, then the laughter gave way to applause, and the air in the room—human, humid—churned around me.
OK! Thank you, Harold, Kitty said, chiming her wineglass with a knife again. Now, at this point, we’re going to hear from a few others about their experiences with Pew and their ideas about how we should move forward. Now I think Hilda Bonner was going to speak a little. Hilda?
Yes. Hilda stood, smoothed out her dress and touched her hair, and turned toward the room, her hands clasping each other in a fist over her chest.
Now speak up, Hilda, my dear, Harold shouted.
Yes, it’s just that, I wasn’t—I didn’t know that … Hilda leaned over to whisper something into the ear of Kitty, who nodded to her.
All right, Hilda said. Well. Thank you all for coming out this afternoon. It’s just so nice to see all your faces. And thank you to Kitty and Butch for hosting us in their beautiful home. And to all the ladies who helped put the refreshments together.
A breeze of claps swept through. Hilda nodded and looked around and smiled, then looked at me, her smile bending a little.
So I was just going to tell everyone what happened, though Harold said a little of it—anyway, I just wanted to tell you what happened on Sunday, so everyone has their stories straight and we can figure out what to do.
When we got to our pew on Sunday, we found this young person sleeping there and I didn’t know what to do—honestly, it frightened me a little, the situation did, but Steven was calm about it—
A good man, your husband, Steven Bonner, Harold said, a very good man.
Thank you. So—Steven thought we should just sit there as usual and wait for Pew to wake up and then we’d take them out for lunch with the boys. So we did that, and Steven and I decided that we could let, um, Pew stay at our house for a little while, because our son Jack—
An extraordinary young man, Harold said. I had him in Scouts three years in a row and he is truly a fine, strong young man.
Thank you. Well—Jack had been setting up his own room in the attic, so we moved him back down to his brothers’ room and let Pew stay up there. The Reverend, he came over for supper that night and he was the one who came up with Pew’s name. Well … our boys took Pew in like another member of the family, they really did. Which made it sad when my husband caught Pew trying to sneak out one night. After all that we were trying to do and everything. I’ll admit that I was suspicious after that, and, well, it was the next day that Pew refused to be examined at Monroe Medical—
Yes, tell us about what happened at Monroe, Harold said.
Well, I drove Pew out there early on Wednesday morning, but when they told Pew it was time to do the examination, well, each time they came back to the room to start the examination, Pew hadn’t put on the paper gown like the doctor had asked.
So, Harold interrupted, you drove Pew all the way out to Monroe Medical and an examination didn’t even happen?
That’s right.
And it didn’t happen because Pew wouldn’t undress?
Yes, that’s right.
And what was it that made you think that Pew needed to be examined?
Well, for one, we just wanted to make sure Pew was healthy. We don’t know where she—or he—had been, you know, or whether … or whether their nutrition had been all right, things like that. Mainly we wanted to do that for Pew’s sake, of course, because who knows how long it had been since Pew had been to a doctor. And also we wanted to make sure Pew didn’t have anything that might be … contagious or something.
Like taking a stray in to the vet, Harold said, to get their shots.
Oh, I suppose so, Hilda said. I hadn’t thought of it exactly like that, but I guess so.
In the middle of the room Dr. Winslow stood up and Hilda shut her mouth.
Buddy, Harold said, would you like to say something?
Yes, well, I’d just like to clear up one little item here. Part of the reason we couldn’t complete the examination—that is, in addition to Pew’s refusal to cooperate—was that we were incredibly short-staffed, and all of the equipment we use for an uncooperative patient was in use elsewhere in the facility. It was a particularly busy morning—as is usually the case the week before the festival as people tend to have more heart attacks and accidents and such around this time of year—but we’re also badly in need of some new equipment and supplies, and our budget requests have gone unanswered for so long that Betty has been thinking about doing a fund-raiser—maybe a cakewalk or a raffle. I’d just like to point out that otherwise our success rate at Monroe Medical is really tremendous—and I’m proud of my whole team of nurses, remarkable girls—so I don’t want anyone to get the wrong idea about us. We do very good work.
Excellent, yes, Harold said.
Absolutely the best work, the best rehabilitation and trauma care in the whole state, probably the whole country, Hilda said.
A few people began to applaud, then everyone joined, cheering and clapping until they seemed to grow tired.
Speaking of fund-raisers, now, that’s an idea, ain’t it? That we could do some kind of fund-raiser for Pew to get the right services or help?
Oh, that’s a good one, Kitty said
.
I have an idea, a person in the front row said. Why can’t we have Dr. Winslow try to do an examination again? It seems to me that it’s an issue of the security and safety of our community—ain’t it?
A small voice came from the back of the room, somewhere within the crowd, from a face I couldn’t see. But what if—if Pew, that is, what if Pew won’t get undressed again? I’m just very concerned …
The voice went soft and pale.
All right now, Harold shouted, just speak up if you will.
Well, the pale voice said, I’m just concerned that … well … It seems like Pew should have the right to—
Well, of course no one likes going to the doctor, a louder voice shouted. But we all have to go from time to time. We all have to cooperate, you know.
That’s not quite what I mean, the pale voice said. I just think, well, I don’t want Pew to be in a situation where someone is forcing them—against their will. It makes me uncomfortable to think—
Yes, Harold said, I think we all understand that there are a lot of things about this whole situation that make people uncomfortable. And that’s why we’re having this meeting. To decide, as a community, how to proceed with the maximum amount of people comfortable with what is going on.
It’s all a bunch of horseshit, someone said. Excuse me, but I’m the only one old enough to say it like it is, to spell it out—but we all know it’s true. It’s horseshit. This is about public health! And we all know what you’re implying and we all know it’s horseshit.
Strong opinions there. Harold stood again and took a kind of control of the room. But let’s table that one for now and move on to other concerns. Do we have any other concerns at the moment?
Kitty raised her hand.
Mrs. Goodson, do you have an idea?
She stood, taking her time, comfortable in the gaze of her guests.
Now, as I understand it, Pew did some drawings with Roger Smith that might be revealing about where Pew came from and what we can do to help Pew. I know that his work with my adopted son, Nelson, who is a childhood refugee and orphan of a horrific war—well, his work with Nelson was very helpful. Maybe we can have some experts analyze the drawings that Pew made with Roger.
Pew Page 10