“I’m tryin’ to get there,” Lemuel replied.
“Just the events as they occurred leading up to the attack.”
“Mr. Sutter,” Judge Lowell interrupted. “It seems to me that the witness is trying to give us a full picture of himself and the defendants.”
“But, Your Honor, we’re only concerned with the crime.”
“You may continue, Mr. Johnson,” Lowell said.
“Your Honor,” Alva protested.
“Sit down, Mr. Sutter.”
When the assistant district attorney obeyed the judge, she turned to Lemuel and said, “Please continue, Mr. Johnson.”
“She was thirteen and I was twenty-four,” the witness said again. “She was young but still almost a woman even way back then.”
Sovereign realized that Lemuel had been thinking very deeply about his testimony. The statement was etched in his mind and he spoke almost as if he were unaware of the words.
“… I was crazy about her and told her,” Lemuel continued. “She told me that I was too old but I bought her a name bracelet and ice cream.…”
Toni’s grip on Sovereign’s arm eased.
“… I was like her father and brother and lover all rolled up into one. We’d fight and shit, I mean, stuff. We broke up a few times but we always come back together. I was crazy about her and proud of her and, you know …”
Lemuel’s hands were clasped together in his lap and his head was lowered. He looked to the world like a poor penitent in the back row of a wealthy church.
He looked up then and stared directly at Toni Loam.
She gasped and let go of Sovereign.
“I took her down to the West Village lookin’ for some teenager to rob,” Lemuel Johnson testified. “When I saw that man there he was blind. I hit him with my baton. I hit him once and Toni screamed. I hit him again and Toni screamed some more. I ripped out his pockets and took his money.”
“How long ago was that?” the judge asked.
“Four months. Somethin’ like that.”
“And he was blind?”
“Musta been. He turned right at me and didn’t see me swingin’.”
“And what happened in the defendant’s apartment?” the judge asked.
“Toni left me after I hit a blind man. She said that I wasn’t the person she thought I was. She was right about that. I knew it even then but I was too proud. And when I heard that she was at the blind man’s house every day I got mad. Here he was, rich and could pay her to be with him, and he couldn’t even see.
“So I got me a job and made some money, got me an apartment and went over her house. I told her that I was a new man and that I could be who she wanted me to be. It would’a been fine but then we celebrated and I got drunk.…”
Sovereign was suddenly aware of a new conflict between him and the mugger. Lemuel came out of his coma with the intention of taking Toni back. He understood that he couldn’t hurt her or Sovereign and so he would testify to that love under oath, exonerating both of them.
“… I told her to take me to the rich blind man’s house,” Lemuel went on. “I told her to let me take something of his and for her to kiss me there where she worked. We didn’t expect him to come in.”
“Was he still blind?” Judge Lowell stayed on point.
“He walked into the room, face pointed right at me, but his eyes didn’t see.”
“And did you attack him?”
“When I saw him just walk into that house as easy as you please and I knew he had been there every day with my girl I just went crazy. I lifted up my baton—that’s when Toni screamed again. The blind man could suddenly see me and we started to fight. I tried to put him down and then I tried to run. But he was real strong and … and he come after me like in one of those dreams where the giant is on your trail you runnin’ in mud.
“I really don’t remember what happened after that until I woke up in the hospital. They told me about the trial and I wanted to come here and set the records straight.”
Sovereign had the unsettling feeling that if he were alone in a room with Lemuel again, he might take up where he had left off in the street in front of his apartment building.
Sutter and Altuna questioned and cross-questioned the witness but he told the same tale over and over. He was the child molester, mugger, thief. Sovereign was blind and then he could see. Toni’s only crime was believing in him.
Somewhere near five o’clock both sides rested their arguments.
“I will consider the evidence and render my verdict by Monday,” Judge Lowell informed them.
In the hallway outside of the makeshift courtroom Lemuel was waiting with his stern-faced nurse. He limped up to Toni and said, “I’ll be in the hospital for another week. You can call me there if you want.”
On Lafayette Toni told Sovereign that she was going to her mother’s apartment for a few days.
“She been sayin’ that she missed me,” the woman-child lied. “I just need some space.”
“Are you leaving me?” Sovereign asked.
“For a few days.”
“And beyond that?”
“I’m just goin’ home to see my mother.”
“And your boyfriend?”
A feral look spread across the young woman’s face. She sneered and shivered. Before her expression could turn into words she turned quickly and ran.
Sovereign then remembered chasing Lemuel down the hall to the stairs, toward the front door of the building and out to the street. As he stood on Lafayette, his big fists hung at his sides, Sovereign’s breath came in shallow gusts. This reminded him of the desert out around Palm Springs, where his family went for vacation once a year. He wasn’t quite clear about why the desert came to mind, but the memory felt good in his mind—slow and dry.
PART THREE
Sovereign James walked toward his apartment from the temporary courtroom that late afternoon. On his way he wondered what would have happened if he and Toni had run away together. Their love was overwhelming and insufficient, unexpected and doomed. Their love was like his life had been. It wasn’t a new thing but a repetition of the old in a new configuration. If he had run with her, sooner or later she would have drifted off to the life she needed. That was the pattern he’d created for himself.
The big bronze doorman, Jolly, was behind the reception desk at Sovereign’s building.
“Mr. James,” the young man hailed. “Haven’t seen you in weeks.”
“Been on trial for attempted murder. The feds were after me too but that stopped.”
“What about the trial?” Jolly asked, his seemingly unsinkable mirth receding behind squinty eyes.
“Judge said she’ll give the verdict on Monday.”
“I remember now,” the young man said. “Axel said that they called him and Geoffrey to testify. I thought they meant in some kind of lawsuit.”
“No.”
“You think they’re gonna find you guilty?”
“Maybe. Probably not completely … but who knows?”
Sovereign walked through the front door of his apartment, closing it behind him. He shut his eyes and stood there—waiting for inspiration. But the feeling of blindness had gone. He no longer knew how to move in darkness.
His sun-flooded living room with its red chair and white sofa held the silent echo of Toni’s scream and the straining of the life-and-death struggle with Lemuel Fister Johnson. His whole life, it seemed, had been in preparation for that fight, when he now knew he should have been training for some other goal.
He sat in the red chair for a while and then moved to the sofa. Three hours later he went to the bedroom and lay down on the big bed. The room had been cleaned multiple times by Galeta and so the scent of Toni’s floral perfume was absent. He closed his eyes but sleep didn’t come. He imagined the dizzying swirl blindness had foisted upon him, but that too had abandoned him.
On Saturday he exercised, fried pork chops, and read Treasure Island, a favorite novel of boyhood.
On Sunday he exercised, fried pork chops, and read Treasure Island again.
No one called that weekend. There was no one to call.
Late Sunday night Sovereign called Seth Offeran’s office phone.
“This is Dr. Offeran’s line,” Seth Offeran’s voice said. “Please leave a message and a number and I will get back to you.”
“It’s Sovereign James, Doctor. I’d like to see you early next week if I’m not in prison. Can you call back and tell me if that’s possible? I can make it any time except Monday at nine. That’s when the judge renders her verdict.”
There were no dreams, because Sovereign did not sleep that weekend. He lay in bed with his eyes shut but was aware of the light, and the possibility of sight, just beyond those closed lids.
Toni hadn’t called but he wasn’t surprised by this. He hadn’t called her. He didn’t know what to say. His birthday was next week. He’d be fifty—exactly half a century old. There was a spider crawling up the wall as Monday’s sun rose to illuminate the opposite end of his bedroom. He was still in shadow but the light was there before him.
The phone rang and the voice-mail message engaged but there was only silence. A few minutes later the phone rang again.
“Hello?”
“Sovereign?”
“Lena.”
“Judge Lowell’s secretary called me this morning.…”
“What time is it?”
“A little after seven.”
“She had him call you this early?”
“She said that there’s no case without Lemuel’s corroboration. Even if he’s lying there’s no basis for a conviction. So she’s vacating the case.”
Sovereign looked down and saw that his digital message machine had logged one hundred and forty-seven voice mails.
“Sovereign?”
“Yeah, Lena?”
“Did you hear me?”
“Do I have to go down to Lafayette today?”
“You’re free, Sovy. The case is dismissed.”
“I see.” He was wondering about all those messages.
“Are you all right, Sovereign? Is there somebody I should call?”
“I’m the only one,” he said. “Thank you, Lena. Just send me a bill and I’ll put the check in the mail.”
“… most of the calls,” Sovereign was saying, “came from businesses and salespeople. Most of those were trying to sell me insurance or wanting me to take out loans. There were four wrong numbers and one call from Lemuel Johnson—”
“What did he have to say?” Seth Offeran asked.
“He started off trying to apologize for attacking me twice. He said he shouldn’t have done it but the beating I gave him more than made it equal. It was almost as if he was saying that he allowed me to beat him like that. And then he started talking about Toni, about how much he loved her and how they were supposed to be together.”
“When did he leave this message?”
“The first day he was conscious.”
“How did he get the number?”
“Toni probably used his phone to call me or something. Maybe he got it from her mother.”
“That call sounds crazy.”
“Drugged. He sounded high on the line. Probably some kind of opiate for the pain.”
“Have you heard from Toni?”
“No.”
“Have you called her?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Valentina Holman left me a message about three weeks past.”
“And?”
“She and Verso broke up again. They called off the wedding.”
“Why?”
“She told him about me.”
“Why did she say she did that?”
“It was just a short message and I didn’t call her yet. I probably won’t call. But as far as her telling him is concerned—I figure it’s better that they get it out before the wedding. I mean, if he’s gonna be jealous she should know it before they have kids.”
“I thought you said that she didn’t want children?”
“With me. That doesn’t mean she wouldn’t have Verso’s kids.”
“Why did you call me, Sovereign?”
“Things happen, Doctor. They happen and we respond but the world keeps on going anyway. Not matter what happens, that’s not the end.”
“What happened with you?”
“The judge found me innocent and Lemuel Johnson won our contest. I went home and there was nothing there. I don’t have a job anymore and with that went my only real purpose—the secret revolution that I no longer believe in. I’ll be fifty years old next week, and probably the most fertile time of my life was when I was a blind man.”
“You lament the return of your vision?”
“My mother died last week.”
“What?”
“My sister called. She said that Mama lost strength after my visit. She said that Mama was just holding on to see me one last time.”
“But didn’t you just see your brother a few days ago? Why didn’t he tell you about your mother?”
“He must’ve been in the country for the funeral,” Sovereign said. “Probably didn’t tell me because I was still on trial. Maybe he thought I’d run out of state to go to the funeral.”
“How do you feel about your mother’s passing?”
“I miss Toni,” Sovereign said, as if this answered the doctor’s question. “Not the Toni who needs to run off and go with her old boyfriend but the girl who for a little while thought that she was in love with the man I was.”
“The man you were? What does that mean?”
“I was on a road,” he said. “I was blind of eye but still moving forward. In here, with you, I brought up the questions that mark my life. I was going somewhere but now I’ve hit a dead end.”
“Your life isn’t over.”
“Isn’t our time up, Doctor?”
“We can stay a few more minutes.”
“No. I need to go.”
“Can we talk about medication first?”
“Next time.”
“Shall we meet this time tomorrow?”
“I’ll call you to set up the next appointment.”
“Sovereign.”
“Yes, Seth?”
“I think we should keep up this dialogue.”
“I’ll call you.”
Sovereign had accrued more than a million dollars in his years of employment. Interest and sensible investment had augmented his savings. And so he was in no hurry to go out looking for a new job.
He sat in his Village apartment waiting for the dark mood to break. But as the days went by he failed to locate hope.
Three weeks and two days after the judge had found him not guilty the phone rang. He picked up the receiver but didn’t say anything.
“Sovereign,” Toni Loam said.
“Hey.”
“Can I come ovah?”
“All right.”
Geoffrey LaMott called from downstairs announcing that Toni was asking for him.
“You want me to send her away, Mr. J?”
“No, Geoff, send her on up.”
He went to the door of his apartment, threw it open, and waited.
He stood in the crack of the door, half in and half out of the hall. A young woman in jeans and a pink T-shirt walked by with a small Tibetan spaniel on a rhinestone leash. The long-haired little blond dog pranced up to Sovereign and curtsied in dog fashion. Sovereign knelt down, holding out his left hand.
At first the spaniel backed away but then it moved forward and licked his knuckle.
“She likes you,” the woman said.
Looking up, Sovereign saw that his new neighbor had limp brown hair and a pretty pale face.
“What’s her name?” he asked.
“Hi, Sovereign,” Toni said. She had walked up while he was making friends with the dog and its mistress.
“Come on, Astrid,” the new neighbor said to her little dog. They went o
n down the hall, leaving Toni and Sovereign.
“Come on in.”
She followed him through the L-shaped inner hall to the deep living room. He waved at the red chair and she sat down.
“Drink?”
“No, thanks.”
“How’ve you been?”
“Could you sit down?” she asked.
Sovereign lowered himself onto the white sofa and clasped his hands.
“How have you been, Toni?”
“Okay.”
“It’s been a while.”
“I’m back together with Lem.”
Sovereign’s nod was almost imperceptible.
“You not surprised?” she asked.
“He was making his play on the witness stand. Are they going to try him for the attacks on me?”
“Only if you make a complaint.”
“Is that why you’re here, to keep me from putting him in the crosshairs?”
“I’m sorry, Sovereign, but you know I been with him what seems like my whole life. And he’s really tryin’ this time.”
They sat in silence for a while then.
“I’m not after your man, Toni. If the DA comes to me I might testify, but they haven’t called yet.”
“Lem’s sorry for what he did.”
“Is that all?”
“Do you want to go to bed?”
“Um.”
“I still like you,” she said almost dispassionately. “And I owe you at least that much.”
“What would Lemuel think about that?”
“He the one send me here to talk to you. I don’t have to tell him nuthin’.”
They sat for at least five minutes before rising at the same moment.
“I’m pregnant,” Toni said, fifteen seconds after Sovereign had come.
“That’s kinda quick, isn’t it?”
“I’m not jokin’,” she said. “All that foolin’ around we did when we thought we was goin’ to prison.”
“Does Lemuel know?”
“I’m’a tell him it’s his.”
Sovereign thought about his grandmother then, the woman he never met. Maybe Eagle wanted a child and she realized he’d never make one. Maybe this was the only way Toni could give Sovereign her love.
Odyssey Page 20