He had delight in his eyes, she added after a long silence.
Light in his eyes?
Delight. The guy with the whip.
Fuck. I don’t need to hear that. I really don’t need to hear that. Charlie hunkered as he had for the last hour, elbows on knees, head on hands.
You mean he looked happy? Daron asked. Really?
My memory . . . maybe you should have . . . whatever.
Daron grunted.
I thought he was okay. It looked like he was laughing. When he was kicking, it looked like he was having fun.
Please. Fuck! Charlie rapped his fingers against his head. Enough. It’s not our fault they wouldn’t let you see him at the hospital.
Candice stood and walked to the edge of the yard. At the hospital, she had asked to see him. Demanded to see him. Said that she more than they deserved at least a final silent moment with him. It was forbidden. It was against the rules, the cops had told her. You’re not family, their answer sounding, according to her, rehearsed. She seemed to think there was a conspiracy against her.
We should have gone, D.
I showed him how to tie the knots. I showed him three times. Over Charlie’s head, Daron could see Candice sit on the hard ground next to the pagoda and turn her back to them.
We should have gone, Daron. People would have recognized you.
Daron knew they should have gone, but every time someone said it, his body rejected it like a toxic organ. He saw this happening to himself, yet was unable to stop it. Unable to stop himself from saying, Maybe you should have, but then you would feel like Candice. Louder: Maybe I would feel like Candice. Louder even: Maybe that’s why she’s angry. Because she was there and couldn’t stop it. She was there and he is still dead.
Candice’s head dipped lower with each sentence, until he couldn’t see it at all, only her one hand ripping up grass, the opposite elbow cocked as if she were covering her mouth.
Charlie curled with rage. If this weren’t your home, I’d light your ass six ways to Sunday. You think you’re a man because you have some guns, because you wanted to shoot some—what are they called here—Gulls? Do you know what it’s like to shoot someone? Have you ever seen someone shot? Have you ever seen a dead body?
Daron choked on his answer; Charlie on his apology.
FINALLY CANDICE ASKED, Why won’t they let me see him? Because I’m a woman?
No answer.
Cut the bullshit. You know why.
Candice looked as if she had been slapped, her right cheek running crimson up to her temple and down to her neck.
Don’t get cryatica and dramatica about that, really, Candy. I know you feel like shit because you were there and still couldn’t prevent it, so your only choice is to jump on everyone else. Us for not being there, anyone who uses the wrong word, whatever. But that’s not going to guarantee justice. It’s only now getting started, so we’ve got to get our shit together, and get fucking serious, or what’s going to happen when the real accusations fly? Charlie raised his brow in challenge. What’s going to happen when they accuse you, Candyland, of being a clueless white girl who watched her friend asphyxiate because she was too frightened to move, or act, or call for help? That’s what they’re going to say. That . . . that you’re making this up and you’re an atheist liberal nutcase. The pressure is going to be on Daron’s folks, too.
My folks aren’t involved.
Charlie continued as if he hadn’t heard him. They might get laid off, anything. It’s going to get pretty ugly, and maybe the most we can hope for is that there is no civil suit. The Changs could get this house. Yours too, Candice.
Daron hadn’t thought of that.
But we were being ironic when we posted those bumper stickers, protested Candice. Everyone knows we were joking.
Everyone who is our age, probably white, and a college student at a hella liberal school. Don’t you get it? This never made any fucking sense to anyone but us, and there aren’t as many of us as we fucking thought.
Everyone knows we were joking. They could even ask the girls in that Lou Davis’s Cash and Copy store.
Of course! Charlie yelled. Independent verification by associate agents of the white girl brigade. It’s always sunny in Candyland. You walked into an RV parking lot, without a word, expecting someone to let you into their home, on wheels, but a home, to use the bathroom. And they did, and they fed us. Because of you. Don’t you get it? Both of you are playing games that you can’t lose. I should have stayed out of this from the beginning. I should have listened to my father. When he sent me off to that school he said, Do your best, be your best, ignore the ignorant. Sometimes ignorance goes into remission and can be cured. Often it’s metastasized, like my cancer, and nothing can be done about it. So that’s why you have to ignore it, no matter what anyone says to you. Racism is white peoples’ problem. They made it and they’ll have to fix it.
I’m sorry.
Me, too.
Me, too.
They carried the somber mood to the bedroom, where they argued again. Candice still upset that she had not seen him one last time, Charlie repeating that they should have gone, Daron yelling that he would have gone had Charlie gone and then the knots would have been tied correctly. So Louis’s death is my fault, stammered Charlie, ending the discussion, for at last they had said aloud their friend’s name.
Chapter Eighteen
Adam Turing Hirschfield III moved like a ninja, light and quiet on his toes, on which he often stood. Daron would not have been surprised had Hirschfield opened his leather briefcase to reveal a collection of sparkling silver shuriken carefully nestled in fitted Styrofoam. He was diminutive, but when he spoke, his voice filled the room like a perfect gas, and he dressed impeccably. His suits must have been expensive, the sleeves seeming to anticipate his every move, the cuffs and collar starched so white, bleached to blind. If a superhero wore a suit, he would dress like Hirschfield. And he hit the courthouse like a superhero, at least in voice. His exact physical manner there was harder to describe. How he had confronted Sheriff in a matter-of-fact way—offering only half his attention, offering Sheriff the opportunity to share the transcripts or find himself buried under some arcane laws he would get a hernia lifting. And, were a superhero subpoenaed, he would retain a Hirschfield to represent him. His firm was a marquee name in Los Angeles and New York, that breed of old-school attorney that rarely appeared on television because they represented studios more frequently than stars.
When Charlie was in ninth grade, and that school offered him that academic scholarship with the matching tie and helmet, his father said, This is the end zone, son. This may be as far as football takes you. Your friends now are good kids, a few of them, that is. But most of them won’t amount to shit. I know that. You know that. His father had then steered him by the elbow to the window, where he pointed at Charlie’s friends, who had appeared as if on his father’s payroll: Rock and T-bone were posted up on the corner spitting freestyle, each with one thumb hooked on his belt loops, behind them the busted windows and the barbed wire around the school. Hell, they know that. But your friends at this new school, well, they’ll be somebodies. One might even be president one day. (Charlie had been scouted, courted, but felt like Rumpelstiltskin. When the recruiter made that home visit, he felt like a daughter being married off, like a bride-to-be who, in sight of three aunts, two grandparents, and in-laws, had agreed to marry her high school beau with whom she hadn’t even slept, not for love but only because a tour of duty felt impossibly long and probably terminal. What would he do in a school of white people? Plenty, as it turned out. As he admitted to Daron, Chase and Hunter and Preston were quick to befriend, slow to know, in short, the opposite of Cassius and Hovante and Tyrone. Charlie soon grew to like companionship without the burdens of intimacy, to no longer wonder whether to tease Hovante to cheer him up when his father was bending corners again, or to avoid teasing Cassius because it was his mother this time. And his teachers, Christ. They kn
ew, how he didn’t know, but they knew that his father was wasting away, swarmed him with compliments, one had even said, You’re not going to be a statistic.)
It was too soon to know if a classmate would be president, but one of them, Alexander, the starting quarterback for three years, was the son of the third generation of Golds in Hoffman, Gold, and Sons. He was also the great-nephew of the original Hoffman. This was no accident, and Alexander’s father, who wore that same school tie, never neglected to remind his son and his son’s friends how lucky they were to grow up in the Midwest. The coast is good for some things, but a successful man must have values, and those start here, in the heartland.
Alexander heard about the Incident at Braggsville, as the media was referring to it the morning after, and next thing they knew, the now 3 Little Indians were seated at the Davenport kitchen table with a man whose tailored suit cost more than the refrigerator and who may have been the one to keep Lindsay Lohan and Robert Downey Jr. on the road for so long, on the studio’s behalf, of course.
Here sat Daron in the same kitchen where he’d once made homemade costumes under his mother’s tutelage: a knight, a crusader, an astronaut. On the side of the refrigerator hung one crayon pig wearing the blue Nikes D’aron so treasured in elementary school. That was the first pig he ever drew, and it had been in that same spot for years, protected by plastic wrap. The magnet that now held it was from a photo booth at the California State Fair: Daron, Candice, Charlie, and Louis wearing face paint and feathers costing ten dollars a go, but the money was for charity, and the opportunity too good to pass up. Beside that was a photo of Big Quint, his uncle who had died in Desert Storm, making two Vs with his hands. Beneath that was a photo of D’aron geared up for his first hunt, age eight, making the same Vs that his uncle, and, he realized, his roommate used to. Louis had only been there for a day, but the house already felt haunted by his absence, and the presence of the lawyer who filled the room, who—Daron at last figured out—had the manner not of a superhero, but of an undertaker, one possessing that rare and certain confidence in the inevitable necessity of his services.
Daron, his parents, and his friends sat at the table stirring cold coffee. Hirschfield had declined a beverage. Occasionally, Candice moaned and readjusted her position. Her foot kept falling asleep, and she couldn’t scratch or flex it, poor thing.
Hirschfield paced the room, scanning the transcripts, running his finger along the page until he found what he was looking for. Ah, here it is. He read slowly, Ten kids in white suits with red dots on their butts run through communion. No. Just, no. He looked at each of them in turn. I am charged with advising all of you until you secure individual representation. That comes from the top, so for efficiency’s sake, we’re holding this joint meeting. And Charlie, Mister-Race-Is-a-Performance, Mister-Sir-Every-Other-Minute? Adaptive testing transforms the examination into an assessment of strategy? Fortifies enduring social asymmetry? Enactments of concretized ideologies? That’s a no-no. Open wide—let me see your teeth. Hirschfield enacted a dentist, continued speaking only when satisfied all enamel was present and accounted for. Charlie, your mom wanted you home if there was any uppity-Plessy, so you’re flying out tomorrow with me. Daron, you better well figure out what this performative intervention is because whether you were there or not, you’re the mastermind based on the sole fact that this is your hometown. Hirschfield paused, apparently waiting for Daron to indicate his understanding.
He reminded Daron of his professors who liked to hear themselves talk, the type who stopped midsentence to relish the sound of their voice. Daron nodded.
Candice, as the witness, the only witness here, you tried damned hard to do the right thing, but don’t talk to anyone else without representation. This could be manslaughter, murder, or a hate crime, which is a federal offense. And it’s definitely a hot mess as they say out your way, up in Norcal, that is. The papers are on it, the bloggers, and the news media will be here next. Candice, the town wants you to vindicate them for having rendered aid in an attempt to rescue you and the deceased from the ill-fated performative intervention being manipulated from offstage by this one here—he pointed to Daron. So, talk to no one else.
Louis.
Excuse me?
His name was Louis.
Of course, Louis.
Deceased makes him sound sick. He was murdered.
She’s right. His father flashed him a look and Daron immediately regretted saying it, but she’d sounded so mournful, so true.
The attorney rubbed his hands together like he was washing them. I am sensitive to the issues at hand, but I will not abide some Left-Coast, hyperliberal deconstruction from a child who aided her good friend in hanging himself. I am here to help you. God has spoken. Not exactly God, but close—Gold, of Hoffman and Gold, has spoken, and I am here, in the South, which is actually a model for civil reform compared to the Bay Area, marked as it is by savagely persistent inequities amidst unimaginably abundant resources. You do not lecture me. He pointed at Candice. You do not know where you are. He pointed again, palm facing Candice, fingers curled, index and thumb up, like a Shaolin monk. This is not Berkeley, everyone does not have a voice, and in my informed opinion, you wouldn’t be in trouble if you’d attended a school with a more traditional political climate, instead of a university that prides itself on being a hotbed of liberal activity and the center of free speech and progressive values, when, in actuality, their minority recruitment is abysmal as of late—excepting athletes—and what they have mostly given the world is an abundance of advancements in the sciences, most of which have been used for weapons. I know all about it. My brother attended Cal, until my father saved him from himself. Oppenheimer was at Berkeley, as were some of his other cronies. Keep up. Since 1943, a UC-managed weapons lab has overseen the design of every single nuclear weapon built for our national arsenal. I live in L.A., and I vote Democrat, but I pick my teeth with liberals after breakfast. So, you do not lecture me. May I continue?
Everyone nodded, Daron most vigorously, now aware that the senior citizens always protesting at the campus’s West Gate had a legitimate complaint. Hirschfield certainly had some kung fu. Very strong.
Thank you. It’s necessary to understand who is in charge. You need to work on these descriptions, especially of the man with the cross tattoo. Keep a notebook. Of course the entire town will render assistance, and necessarily so, when the entire town has convened on the site where said incident occurred. There is also the question of the bearded officer you mentioned, but he was off duty that day. I suspect, though, that had a crime, such as a robbery, happened to have occurred elsewhere, or perhaps a fire, or an automobile collision or other life-threatening medical emergency, there would have been a significant, perhaps life-altering delay, because the individuals in charge of providing the necessary services were all in costume, ardent adherents as they are to the cult of Southern victimization. The public safety officials were derelict in their responsibilities if they—and I suspect they had—indeed abandoned all public posts to participate in a role-playing game. He paused. Was mail delivered that day?
Daron’s dad whistled long and low. Excuse me, but you’re making it sound like a conspiracy. Do you want to know where I was? And my wife as well?
Forgive me, Mr. Davenport, if you took that to be a broad accusation of the entire town. Understand, though, that if firemen, local law enforcement, paramedics, and the rest were indeed present, they would be bound to intervene. If that is the case, it means that the sheriff’s questions about who helped and who did what may be little more than an attempt to conceal an abject dereliction of duty. If they intend to put pressure on your son, you need to have something to come back with. Fire with fire, sir, you must understand that. This is like a boxing match, and the bell has sounded. The fight is under way and we may have lost the first round. If nothing else, we are against the ropes.
Daron looked at his father, who looked at his wife.
Janice, we get any mai
l yesterday?
She shook her head. I don’t know. I don’t think so.
One last piece of advice: the Internet is your enemy. Your Facebook pages can be introduced as evidence in court, as can your tweets. Even your e-mails can be subpoenaed. There is no privacy in the digital age, so type with caution.
Expect also to hear from the FBI, if you haven’t already. They’ll want to look into this lashing as a hate crime. It will be tough to prove because the muscle suit absorbed the force of the whip, meaning that the . . . Louis . . . alas . . . shows no sign of being beaten. I regret our meeting under these circumstances. Charlie, I’ll pick you up at eight A.M. Good night.
THAT EVENING AFTER HIRSCHFIELD’S VISIT, when Candice called dinner their Last Supper, no one laughed, not even her. That evening after Hirschfield’s visit, when Charlie called the front yard their Trail of Tears, no one laughed, not even him. Daron didn’t even attempt a joke. In the hours since Charlie’s departure was announced, their jokes were failed benedictions. After Charlie packed, they sat again in the backyard. For a long time, there were more fireflies than words between them. Daron counted. Doing so took his mind from the more disturbing question of why it was so hard to talk. At moments he felt the words pressing against his throat like sprinters neatly arranged at the starting block waiting only for him to fire the pistol. And when he didn’t they would stand, stretch their legs, and cloud about in frustration as his thoughts went rogue, nebular. Again he would gather them together, line them up, but still couldn’t even draw the starter, let alone fire it.
Candice’s parents were professors. Was that like having an English teacher for a mother, but twice as bad? Did that make it impossible to talk about anything without being constantly corrected? Louis was a natural. Charlie, though, was even more of an outsider than Daron. Why was it so easy for him to speak his piece, to share his mind? When they walked home after the dot party, Charlie had told Daron’s life story, or may as well have. His mother wanted him to go to Howard or Morehouse or Tuskegee, he fled instead as far west as Greyhound traveled. And, like Daron, he also had what Mrs. Brooks called survivor’s guilt, but Charlie’s was more tangible, as Daron learned that evening under the gazebo.
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