When he thought it appeared safe to do so, he stopped and called home from a pay phone.
“Get Cheryl home!” Paula shrieked. “God, I knew letting her ride with you was a stupid idea. I’ve been called in on emergency duty. But my brother is here with a few of his friends.”
It took Elias another two hours to make it back to Eastern Ave. At one point, he had Cheryl Halia duck down under the dashboard when the neighborhood seemed dangerous. He’d traveled roads even a taxi driver like himself had never been on.
When he got to the intersection of Eastern and Washington Street, several large cars were parked, blocking access to Eastern. He approached cautiously, brought the taxi’s speed down to a crawl, and was met by two men in plain clothes carrying guns. They motioned to him to roll down the window.
“My home, I live there.” He pointed to Paula’s house. Then he recognized one of the Javetski men, a neighbor, a block away.
“I am Elias, Paula Kabelevsky’s husband. Here is our daughter, Cheryl Halia.”
“Ah, thank God you’re safe. Go ahead. And after you get your daughter home, we could use some reinforcements. The Joliet cops are tied up in riot control. It’s up to us to protect the neighborhoods. We’re standing vigil all night.”
“Yes, OK. I will return.”
When he got home, Paula’s brother was sitting at the dinner table, on break from his vigilante duties, watching the television.
“Can you believe it? The niggers are rioting everywhere. Newark is burning. Detroit, too. Did you have problems getting home? I hear the drawbridges are all up to keep them penned in.”
“We did not cross Jefferson Street Bridge. But trouble was beginning when we got stuck. We turn around and go a different way. But I drive halfway around the city to come back in with the gas gage near empty. Thanks to God. We come home safe.”
Halia ran for comfort into her grandmother’s arms while the men discussed the trouble. Within thirty minutes, she was asleep after she had told her the story of the evening. Elias went back out to where the barricades had been erected. He took over for his other brother-in-law, who thrust a gun into his hands. Elias looked at it, puzzled. Did these people expect him to shoot someone?
34
December, 2010
Kathy Veranda woke in a blissful mood. It was Sunday morning, the sun was rising in a cloudless sky, and she’d spent all day Saturday decorating the house with Christmas memorabilia, wreaths, garlands, and lights collected by three generations of Verandas. She’d lined the stairs with Santa Claus dolls and antique toys, wrapped each stairway post with red and green ribbons and garlands, lined one fireplace mantle with festive candles and stocking hangers, set up the heirloom nativity scene on the other, and placed miniature light-up Christmas trees, reindeer, sleighs, and elves in her favorite nooks and crannies, just like she’d done every year since she and John got married.
All that remained was to buy and trim the Christmas tree when the boys got home. And even though John always complained about the place looking like a Chevy Chase Christmas movie, he had once again grudgingly done his part, hanging dozens of light strings around the outside of the property. Everything was perfect.
John didn’t often crawl out of bed until after seven on Sundays so, like usual, she left him asleep, retrieved her rifle and pistol cases from the laundry room, threw on her worn camouflage jacket, the one she always wore when hunting with her father, and set out for the drive to the Saluki Sporting Club at the opposite end of town. She’d taken to driving the more circuitous route—hopping on the interstate and then the state highway, instead of driving through town. It pained her to see the unkempt homes and household junk strewn across the lawns of the neighborhood she had grown up in, the crooked shutters, flowers and shrubs crying for attention, kids on bicycles often taunting drivers passing through, whole neighborhoods where residents didn’t even speak English.
Hers was the first car in the parking lot, and early morning frost still hung off exposed tree roots and clung to the sod up the embankment as she made her way to the outdoor range. Marksmanship did not come easy to her, but Kathy had learned that the mental preparation, the concentration, was a lot like praying. Empty your mind of everything else and focus. She’d needed to empty her mind quite frequently these days. She didn’t want to think about her parents getting older, her boys never moving back to Saluki, her marriage falling apart in slow motion. She didn’t want to think about any of that.
A few minutes after she got set up, Braxton, the young manager drove through the gate, waving at her as he passed. As a long-time member, she appreciated that he often arrived early to make coffee and tidy up the clubhouse from the day before. Especially since, if they both got there early enough, he’d help her on the skeet range before anyone else required his attention.
She started with her pistol and, after practicing with targets at different distances, moved to the skeet range on the far side of the property. As she began to unpack her rifle, she heard Braxton call her name.
“Mrs. Veranda, you ready?”
She turned to see the young man striding up the path from the clubhouse. “Good morning, Braxton. I was just going to come get you.”
“Well, here I am. At your service.”
“I can’t spend too much time today,” Kathy said. “It’s my turn to get the treats for Sunday School.”
“We’ll get you out of here in no time. After you do your part in keeping the local clay pigeon population at bay,” he said with a laugh.
Half an hour later, after she’d obliterated a whole flock of clay pigeons, Kathy checked her watch and started packing up.
“Mrs. Veranda, you’re accuracy is awesome,” Braxton said, coming over to help. “You just keep getting better and better.”
“Not everything has to deteriorate with age, I suppose.”
“You should consider entering some contests. You outshoot most of the men. Speaking of, how’s the mister these days? I haven’t seen him here in ages.”
“Oh, same old, same old,” she said absently, watching another car pull in and park next to her van. “You know, he’s disappointed about his medical center.” She’d seen the car around town. And at town council meetings.
“Rumor is we’re gonna have some unwanted residents instead.”
“That’s the talk. But they haven’t broken ground yet.”
“I’m expecting it’ll boost business. Not that we’re hurting. What with people all fired up that the president is going to take guns away from law-abiding citizens, our membership just keeps growing. We’re contemplating a major expansion. Well, you’ve seen the notices.”
Kathy watched Holly Chicago—what a ridiculous name—get out of her Mustang, and her eyes flicked to her own minivan. Why hadn’t she traded that in yet? She wasn’t hauling around a bunch of boys with giant bags of sports gear anymore.
She said her goodbyes to Braxton and headed toward the parking lot as Holly fired off her first round on the shooting range. Kathy unlocked her van to load her guns in the back. She’d always wanted a Mustang, but there was no way she’d get one now. Maybe she’d look at a Lexus. She’d seen a little Lexus convertible in St. Louis one time. She wondered how much they cost. She climbed into the van and looked into the rear view mirror. Holly Chicago’s blonde hair shone in the sunlight. Kathy looked at her own hair. Maybe it was finally time to start covering up some of the gray. She put the van in reverse and pulled out, wanting to hesitate and watch to see just how good a markswoman Holly Chicago was. But there was no time. Not only did she have to stop by and pick up a dozen donuts, but she needed to review her notes. It was her turn to lead the Sunday School lesson.
Before pulling out onto to the highway, Kathy glanced once more in the mirror. Whatever was going on between John and that woman, a professional relationship that turned into a friendship or something more than that, she wasn’t sure she wanted to know. She didn’t want to dwell on how she and John had changed, how their lives had
diverged, or when they’d started running on parallel tracks. She sighed and headed for home. Maybe she’d take her parents out to lunch and then help them get their Christmas decorations out. John would probably work all afternoon anyway.
35
January, 1963
Pulling the door to the World’s Fair Diner & Donut Shop against the wind was like opening an industrial refrigerator door sealed by its rubber strips. Even layers of clothing couldn’t protect Paula from the frigid air blasting off the lake or the snow swirling around the building like a Tastee-Freeze commercial. The temperature had dropped twenty degrees between the beginning and end of her shift.
She knocked the remaining snow from her boots. Against the whiteness of the outside, the warm interior seemed drab as grease streaks on a wall.
The lone patron sat at a far table, gazing at her with wondrous interest. After five years with the Chicago Police Department, she was used to people staring at a woman in a cop’s uniform. After what happened today, she was pretty sure she wasn’t going to make it to six. She wished the clock hanging on the wall above the solitary patron was counting the days until her last day at work, instead of the minutes to 11:00 p.m.
She figured getting along with a bunch of men would be a cinch, having grown up with four brothers, two of them already on the force. She’d been hell bent on becoming a cop after she first saw her oldest brother show up at the house in uniform. She was sixteen at the time. Her brothers’ objections couldn’t dissuade her. Only her mother favored her chosen career path to law enforcement.
“Kabelevsky women break the mold,” she’d said, proudly.
She didn’t mind her initial assignments, mostly clerical, then juvenile and family services, but the attitudes of her fellow officers frustrated her at first, then demoralized her. If she complained about how they treated her, she’d be branded a whiner seeking special treatment. If she filed a grievance, she’d be ostracized.
Veterans harassed new male recruits, too. They were the butt of the senior officers’ practical jokes, some of which were anything but pranks, good fun in the spirit of camaraderie. That’s what the superiors called it if anyone complained. Sometimes new recruits were downright terrorized. But when it was all over, the men were considered part of the team. Ritualistic initiation would end. Not so for Paula. She never could figure out whether having two brothers on the force made things worse or better.
Occasionally, she’d be directed out as part of a larger detail when the situation wasn’t deemed too dangerous, like crowd control during events in Washington Park. So she primarily did deskwork until another woman cop was assigned to her precinct. None of the men wanted a woman for a partner.
Male cops had a spacious locker room to change in, clean up, and hang out. No such space existed for a woman officer. She and her partner changed in the women’s rest room, alongside the primping prostitutes, hysterical housewives, female district attorneys, and female felons taking a potty break once their paperwork was completed.
Earlier in the day, she and her new partner were called on an assignment described as a crazy guy making threats to his neighbors. Paula was excited. They’d be handling this one on their own, and she’d be the senior officer on the call.
When they knocked on the door at the designated address, an elderly man, butt naked from the waist down, greeted them in a thin white undershirt, corrugations stretched over his bulging midsection. Attempting to appear unfazed, the two officers questioned him, talked to the neighbor who had filed the complaint, wrote up a report, and returned to the precinct.
The desk sergeant looked bored when Paula handed him the paperwork. He looked at the address and chuckled. “So you ladies finally met Mr. Thomas. Was he at least wearing shoes this time?”
“Shit!” Paula muttered. “I need to wise up, don’t I?”
The desk sargeant shook his head and shrugged. “Maybe you need to toughen up first.”
Toughen up. Shit. When were these assholes going to grow up? Hopefully, before she gave up.
Elias Haddad’s day had been worse. He’d taken a call from his dispatcher for a pickup in Plainfield, the next town over, a guy heading to the train station in Joliet. It was a rush job. The customer needed to catch the last train into Chicago. He found the address, parked out front of the house, honked his horn, and waited. It was policy not to get out of the car to knock on doors after dark. Minutes passed and Elias wondered whether the guy truly was in a hurry.
He had been on shift twelve hours. He began to nod off, but a car pulling up next to startled him. His window was already partly rolled down, easier to regulate the heat in the car. The window of the other car was rolled down to reveal a driver with a sidekick in the passenger seat.
“You got a reason for being here?” The tone was menacing. Elias didn’t understand.
“Please. Say again.”
I said, “You got a good reason to be loitering in this neighborhood?”
“To be here?” He used his hand to point downward with his index finger.
“What, you deaf? If you don’t live here, you don’t belong here, pal.”
“Am taxi. Waiting. On customer.”
“You’ve been waiting ten minutes. Don’t you think your customer would have been here by now?”
Elias didn’t respond. He didn’t want to drive back to Joliet without a fare.
“Now, look, Mohamed, you hustle your ass on outta here. We got strict laws in this town against loitering, vagrant vehicles, and breaking curfew.”
Elias didn’t understand most of what was said, but he did understand the meaning of the pistol the driver of the other car now brandished.
“Yes sir! Am to leave.”
His arms shook on the steering wheel all the way back to Joliet. The night grew darker and darker as he replayed the scene in his head. He had never seen a gun before in real life.
When he calmed down, surprisingly, he was overcome by a ravenous appetite. He usually didn’t need anything to eat at the end of his shift, but sometimes only had a craving for something sweet, so he often stopped in at World’s Fair before returning home. A sweet at the end of the night was a habit he associated with his mother. Before she died giving birth to another sibling, she used to bring the kids a small bowl of yogurt mixed with a healthy drizzle of honey before they went to bed.
Sitting in his booth, a lumpy vinyl-covered bench seat, much like the front of his taxi, powdered sugar spreading beyond the napkin onto the table, and into his lap, Elias started into one of his frequent rituals, to think through, to listen in his head, to concentrate on the music he heard those days traveling with his father, the classical music from Europe so rarely played or heard in his country. It was like meditation. He hoped it would calm him down after his ordeal, in between bites of his donuts.
Then the policewoman walked in.
One bite into his second, apple spice donut, he stopped chewing and slowly did a double-take toward her, as she kicked the thick snow off her boots. He’d never seen a woman wearing the familiar dark blue uniform, the silver five-pointed star of a badge, the gun resting in her holster, the thick leather backing on the pad of paper attached to the other side of her hips, the flat-topped cap with the shining black bill, the checkered insignia of the Chicago police. It all made up for her unimposing height.
Paula always swelled with pride when gawkers stared at her. It made up for the validation she couldn’t get from inside the force.
“How’s it goin’, Irv,” she said, when he came from behind the glass. “I’ll have four glazed and an éclair tonight. Take a few home to my mom.”
“Were the streets safe tonight?” Irv inquired.
“Well, if you call being asked to investigate a complaint of a half-naked crazy roaming a neighborhood safe….”
“I won’t ask,” Irv said in his eastern European accent.
“Yeah. Don’t.”
Paula wished there were other patrons in the joint so she wouldn’t have to keep
noticing the man in the far corner staring at her. This was going beyond admiration. She waited for the order that would give sweet respite after the prank they’d endured hours earlier. She thought she might have to engage this dope in a staring contest or pull rank on him and play officer.
Irv handed her the bag of donuts with a soda in a paper cup. She thanked him, reached into her pocket for some bills. Irv, as usual, waved her off. She turned around and walked towards the door, then stopped, turned around, and took a few steps towards the man in the booth.
“Yes, I really am a police officer,” she said, leaning towards Elias. “I promise. Can you please stop staring?”
She turned again towards the door. She could see in the big mirror facing her she was still being watched. This time the man was smiling, as if he’d discovered something wonderful.
“I can still see you staring,” she said, as if they were playing a game. After she left, Elias asked Irv in his fractured English whether the police lady would come in again.
“Don’t waste your time,” was his reply, less fractured by a different native language, the edges of his syllables rounded from more time in the country. Elias looked crushed. Irv spoke again. “She comes often when her shift is over, around this time.”
Elias credited mind-music for bringing the good fortune of this woman into his presence. The music had not only warded off the bad feelings from the earlier situation when he was threatened with a gun, but gave him a beautiful woman to think about. It was like saying a prayer and having it answered.
Elias wondered what he could wear to make himself more presentable the next time he would see this policewoman, something he was certain would happen. It wasn’t a question of if, but when. He knew this in his heart.
The Moment Before Page 26