Until

by Timmothy B. Mccann

  An hour after the departure of R. Raymond, George O’Shaughnessy tapped on the door. Betty, who was dressed in her sorority red and white sweat suit, had her white Keds perched on top of the desk. As she reviewed the Henderson Electric file, she was not in the mood for company.

  “How are you doing, Betty?”

  “Fine,” she said, and peered over the top of the reading glasses she wore as a result of studying for hours in badly lit dormitories and coffeehouses. “And yourself?”

  “I can’t complain, can’t complain,” he said, and looked at a chair with her attaché on it. “May I?”

  “Sure.”

  “So what do you think about what’s going on in this place?”

  After she took a breath, Betty put her feet on the floor, rested her elbows on her desk, and tugged softly at the brim of her cap. “I just hope he pulls through,” she said, trying to camouflage her pain.

  “Hey, don’t you worry, little darling. Jack Murphy is one of the toughest kids on the block,” he said, with his Brooklyn accent somehow preserved after all the years in the sun belt. “I’ve known da man twenty, thirty years, and it’ll take more than a li’l cramp in his ticker to take him out, believe you me.”

  “I hope so,” she said, and made eye contact with him. “The only reason I came to this firm and decided to stay in this godforsaken town was because of Murphy. He wasn’t like the others who talked to me. I could have done better with several firms in Atlanta, Dallas, or New York. In fact, I even had a firm here in town offer me more. It was never just about money with Jack. I guess—” her voice lowered—“that’s why he has so much of it now. He once told me that money was a great servant but a terrible master. He spoke of the honor of this profession. About something called ethics. Even after I graduated, I debated if one could be ethical and still be a successful attorney. I found out the answer to that question by watching Jack Murphy. No one else, and I mean no one I spoke to, talked like that. Those were the reasons I initially wanted to practice instead of going into medicine,” she said as she stared through George O’Shaughnessy. “He spoke of the law in such, I don’t know, in such eloquent terms. He has such a passion for what we do.” And then she added in a whisper as she thought about the words she’d said, “Mr. Murphy is what I wanted, I mean, would like to be.”

  “Well,” O’Shaughnessy said in a consoling tone, “he’ll be okay, darling. You know,” he said, and tried to change the subject with the tact of a hungry pit bull in a butcher shop, “I was talking to Pete Sampkins last night about a case he’s preparing a motion of dismissal on and it reminded me of you.”

  Betty, who’d taken another tissue from her box for her nose, looked at O’Shaughnessy.

  “It appears this African-American kid is being denied a promotion with a Subaru distribution center and he’s saying it’s because of racism. He has no evidence as such. They have no other legal precedence for making the claim, yet because he is black, I mean African-American, it’s discriminatory. He wants a promotion based solely on affirmative action, and that’s just not right. Call me crazy, but I just don’t understand it,” he said with a smile and shake of his Nixonion jowls. “I hate it when people use racism as an excuse for anything and everything that happens. When you cry wolf like that, the next time someone comes with a valid claim, they’ll be ignored. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’ve been around. My father couldn’t get work in the union because of our last name. So I understand where you’re coming from with the racism thing there. But you can’t always blame it on race.” As he spoke, Betty sat poker-faced. “Which is why I thought about you. Because you are the perfect example of what is wrong with affirmative action.”

  Betty tilted forward in her chair and removed her glasses. “Oh really?”

  “Hell yeah!” he replied with a raised voice. “Look at you! You’re black, I mean African-American, as well as a woman. I’ve worked with you on a couple of cases and you’re a pretty good lawyer. I don’t know what type of upbringing you’ve had, but you have had every reason in the world to give up. Every time I see Jesse Jackson or that Fair-a-con, yelling about quotas and affirmative action—I tell you, I think about you. Because,” he said, and thumped his fist on the edge of her desk, causing Betty to look at the ripples in her tea, “it’s people like you who show black folk that you can pull yourself up by your bootstraps in this country. In America,” he finished, and thumped his fist with every syllable, “the opportunity is there for anybody if they want it, by golly. But some people—and I’m not just talking about the black people, there’s some sorry-assed white folks out there too—would starve to death with a ham under each arm.”

  Betty was insulted, but almost laughed as he made the ludicrous comments and ended with the words “by golly.”

  O’Shaughnessy added, with a cock of the head and a gap-toothed grin, “You see, darling, the only thing America owes any of us is an opportunity. This is the land of opportunity. If you work hard in America, you can accomplish anything you want. I’m living proof of that. I never noticed that plaque over there. Did you just get it?”

  “No. I mean yes,” Betty said. “It’s the Charlotte Rae award given each year by BALSA.”

  “I know her. She’s from New York, I think. Queens to be exact. She used to play in that sitcom with the cute little col—I mean African-American kid. ‘Diff’rent Strokes’ or something. Did she give them some money or something?”

  With a quiet sigh Betty said, “No. She’s the first female African-American attorney in the United States. She was a corporate litigator and had to close her doors because she could not get work, but I want to go back to what you said earlier.” Betty had to decide quickly, Do I rip his heart out and leave him for dead or do I take out a scalpel and delicately remove his organs, one by one? She chose the latter as the waves dissipated in her tea. O’Shaughnessy leaned back and crossed his long legs with a condescending smile on his lips.

  Betty leaned to the side in her chair, swiveled silently between the ten- and two-o’clock positions, and said, “You know, I really do appreciate the compliment you gave me, George.” Her mind moved quickly for the words, the right words.

  O’Shaughnessy smiled and tipped his head as if to say thank you, but unbeknownst to him, he had walked into the abyss.

  “But I can’t believe you could sit here, with a straight face, and tell me you do not see the need for affirmative action. You’re an educated man, George.” She rose from her chair, turned her back on him, and looked down on the city below. “Do you know about the forty-acres-and-a-mule agreement made with the former so-called slaves after they were freed? It was referred to at the time as ‘special order fifteen.’”

  “Now, Betty, with all due respect, that stuff happened—what—two, three hundred years ago by people—”

  “So you are aware of it?” She turned to look at him. “You know that a parcel of land which extended from South Carolina down to Jacksonville was given to the freed slaves and that President Andrew Johnson not only took it away from them, he gave it back to the Confederacy? The same army who months earlier killed his sons in battle? He gave it back to the army he had just defeated. And I am sure, George, you would say since it happened so long ago by people who have long since left this earth, we should forget about it, correct?”

  “No, I was just—”

  “But,” she said, and cut him off again with a thrust of her hand into the air, “allow me to tell you, there are some things people should never forget. Imagine, if you would, a marathon. Now, imagine the gun going off and one runner being set free to run, while the other is held back. Imagine the runner running seven, eight, or nine miles before the other runner is set free. He is already behind nine miles. Don’t you think it would be easy for this runner to just give up? Would you look at this race at the halfway mark and say, oh well, he was held back, but that is out of our hands now? We have no responsibility for the injustices he experienced at the starting gate? Of course you wouldn’t, Ge
orge, because I know you, and I know you to be both a fair and learned man.”

  O’Shaughnessy smiled and sunk lower in his chair.

  “So you see, African-Americans will catch up, don’t get me wrong. And African-Americans will not quit. We are too strong a people for that. The race is not over for us. It will take time, George, but African-Americans, as a whole, will catch up. And you know something else?” she continued with a slight twinkle in her eye as she smiled. “There are just some things we will never forget.”

  “I follow. But look at you, Betty,” O’Shaughnessy said as he sat forward with his arms folded tight across his barrel chest. “You are a perfect example, because with your background, whatever it is, and with me and where I come from, we are both associates in one of the top firms in the country. Look at Clay Bancroft, or better yet, Raymond. Everybody knows that R. Raymond Patterson’s family has more money than God Almighty, and yet we are all equals. We make practically the same money. You’re Black, I mean an African-American girl, and R. Raymond and I are white. So obviously,” he said with his palms held open to Betty, “it can be done without quotas and with good old-fashioned American hard work. See where I’m coming from? Did you need a quota to get into the law school at UF?”

  “George,” she said, and stood in front of her chair as she ignored yet another sexist and obtuse comment delivered with a chuckle. “First of all, like I said, African-Americans as a whole will catch up.” And then she paused, as if to shift gears, and continued, “Secondly, George, if all things were fair and equal, no, I wouldn’t be here.”

  A question mark appeared on O’Shaughnessy’s wrinkled brow.

  “With my education and dollars generated to this firm, I’d be a partner now and on my way to the governor’s mansion.” She plopped down in her chair on the word mansion, to drive home the point with a smile.

  After a thorny silence, O’Shaughnessy flashed his toothy grin. “Point taken. Well,” he said as he stood and brushed the wrinkles from his jeans before he reached for the doorknob, “I think I’ll leave a note in Sampkins’s box. We need to get started on that Subaru case.”

  “Ahh, George? Is that why you wanted to get together for lunch Monday?”

  “Oh. Oh no,” he said as he looked at the pink slip of paper between her fingers. “No, no, we were going to ask you a couple of questions about a civil case that was similar to that Biradial Foods case you worked on a few years ago. That’s all. But Phillip Sheridan answered our questions last night.”

  Betty crumpled the memo, put on her glasses, and skipped the opportunity to comer him with a lie.

  “I’ll tell Sampkins to thank his lucky stars he’s not going to go against you in court, sugar,” O’Shaughnessy said, and laughed as he closed her door.

  Betty thought as she shook her head, So you wanted me to be the token Negro attorney in the Subaru case, huh? Oh, you tried my natural soul that time.

  Betty and Carol searched for files and related documents for an hour to prepare for a large lawsuit filed against a hardware store by the parents of a kid who’d been hit by a truck driven by one of their delivery men who had been drinking on the job. After she located all of the files, Betty got a fresh cup of cocoa and settled in to finally get some work done. Fifteen minutes into her reading of a motion appeal filed by the company’s attorney, there was yet another knock on her door.

  “Yes!” she said in her driest, most frustrated voice. This time she removed her spectacles and leaned back on the desk she sat in front of Indian style.

  “It’s me, girl; calm down,” Jacqui said as she opened the door and dropped her bag on Betty’s antique oak desk.

  “Thank goodness.”

  “Why? What the hell’s going on here today? I’ve never seen that many cars outside this place on the weekend.”

  “Child, let me tell you; this place has been beyond crazy. Murphy is in the hospital, apparently with a heart attack. You know he was always in perfect health.”

  “I know,” Jacqui replied with her mouth open. “I used to see him jogging every Saturday morning when I came by here from Books for Thought. As a matter of fact, I looked for him this morning. Where is he?”

  “North Florida General. Apparently he’s still in ICU and they’re only allowing his immediate family to see him. I just found out about it this morning.”

  “Oh, snap. It happened yesterday? But we were in here. You mean to tell me these jerks didn’t tell you?”

  “No, no. Remember, we were in and out so fast we didn’t see anyone. There was no one at the reception counter when we came in or when we left.”

  “Oh yeah. That’s right.”

  “Carol tried to call me, but what with the move, the answering machine didn’t pick up. But this morning,” Betty said as she cupped her mouth and spoke lower, “she told me that the vultures are already circling for position.”

  Jacqui got up to close the door so they could speak without being overheard and sat on the edge of Betty’s desk. “So what does this do to the partnership opportunities here for you?”

  “Well, really, Jac, I haven’t thought about it. I mean, I’m just hoping the man survives.”

  “Yada, yada, yada. Whatever, whatever. I understand all that, girl, but you better watch out for yourself in a place like this. I don’t trust none of them here. You’re working in a den of straight-up thieves. I bet you there’re more than a few of these assholes praying the man—”

  “Jacqui!”

  “Well, it’s true, girl. You got a good heart and all, and I admire you for that. I couldn’t put up with them. A job like this is like spandex, it’s just not for everybody. But Jack Murphy, God bless him and all, got your head all full of this money-as-a-servant stuff, and that’s nice. But this is the real deal. Welcome to reality. You better watch your back before one of them starts greasing the skids for you.”

  “But, Jac, Murphy is one of the top attorneys in the country. And this man has taken me under his wing. I know his wife, his kids, and you can’t put a value on that. I mean, I know Renfro has his issues to deal with, and believe me, that whole good-ole-boy system they play here gets old. But there is a method to my madness.”

  Picking at her fingernails, Jacqui said, “As Billie Holiday said, ‘Mother may have and Murphy may have, but God bless the child that has his own, and I am through with that.’”

  “Oh well,” Betty said as she got up and sat on the edge of her desk beside Jacqui’s Fendi purse. “You make a good point. Trust me, I understand where you are coming from, especially with what happened yesterday.”

  “Got an idea for you. Let’s eat.”

  “I thought you’d never ask,” Betty said, happy to end the conversation. As she dropped her files, cut off her reading lamp, and grabbed her purse, she said, “Maybe getting away awhile will clear my head a little. Oh yeah, child, don’t let me forget to tell you about the discussion I just had with O’Shaughnessy. That fool is a trip.”

  Chapter 8

  As they walked into Jacquetta’s, Betty waved and spoke to the family members she knew. Jacqui was greeted at the door by her cousin with a handful of receipts and messages from the night before. Apparently the cash drawer was off, and Jacqui had informed them that if the register was over or under by even one cent, she wanted to know about it. While it was a family business, she drove home the point that this was a business first and foremost. It was not personal. She’d even had to fire a cousin who she thought was on drugs, which made an uncle upset, but she’d felt that was a price she would have to pay in such an undertaking.

  Jacqui finally joined Betty, who was seated at a booth stirring a beverage and watching people come in and out of the restaurant. “They were off again last night.”

  “How much?”

  “That’s not important. The receipts should always balance. What are you drinking?”

  “Iced tea.”

  “Willie Mae,” Jacqui shouted, and looked over her shoulder. “Bring me some tea, sweetheart
.” Willie Mae was another cousin of Jacqui’s and about ten years older then she, but she jumped to attention as if she were a child at the beck and call of a parent.

  “Let’s go in my office where we can talk,” Jacqui said, getting out of the booth. “Willie Mae, bring it in the office honey, okay?”

  “Awright.”

  After she closed the door, Betty took off her shoes, sank into her usual spot on the sofa, and buried her toes in the cushions. “When you gonna hire somebody in this place unrelated to you? You know Isaac is still with the state’s attorney’s office. One call from me and he’ll bring you up on discriminatory hiring practices. Make you hire some white folk up in here.”

  “Please. I don’t need any problems. I’ll hire some white folk when those Chinese food joints on every corner in this neighborhood hire some black or white folk. Besides, I started to hire one little sister, but she had too many gotsnos,” Jacqui said, looking through her mail.

  “As in gotsno man and gotsno car? You told me that jacked-up joke two weeks ago.”

  “Shuddup. So you still stay in contact with Isaac?”

  “Yeah, he’s cool. He even sent me a few clients. He got married about a year ago, you know. Has a little girl named Rain.”

  “Damn,” Jacqui said as she looked down at the paperwork on her desk. “Isaac married a white girl, huh.”

  “Is it that obvious? Child named Rain Kadesah Holmes. Now, that’s jacked up. But guess who tried to talk to me in the grocery store last week. Billy Jefferson.”

  “Really. What does he look like now’days? I remember in college he used to look kinda rough. Ain’t never combed his hair. Always used to look tired. Like a runaway slave or something.”

  “He ain’t changed a bit,” Betty said, and shook her head in disgust as she slipped a peppermint candy from the nearby dish into her mouth. “Girl, he looked broker than the Ten Commandments, and believe it or not, remember how he used to smell kinda gamey? Well, he smells worse now. And he looked just as rusty as ever, like he needed a Jurgeons IV. Hey, I got a joke for you. Evander told me this one a couple of weeks ago. What do you have when you have twenty thousand attorneys at the bottom of the ocean?”