Throughout the ordeal, Judy and Rotea became closer than ever. When the gangrene spread to his fingers, they were amputated one by one. Judy, fearful of losing the man she loved so dearly, tried to express the love she had for him in words:
I didn’t want to marry. I didn’t share his vision of what or how it could be. But once I said yes, he went on to show me, really train me, just as he counseled so many others he took to his heart before and since. He taught me love of every sort, that between two people, that within our families, that for our community, state, and nation.
In holding me so close, he set me free. In being my first and best teacher, he set the standard so I could surround myself with teachers and guides to help me when he no longer could.
He was my radiant warrior hero and I am so very grateful.
He had a willing heart.
When Judy shared her words with Rotea, he said, “I want that to be my obituary.”
In expressing her love, she had captured the essence of the man who had helped so many.
On March 13, 1998, Rotea and Judy made the decision that there would be no more surgeries, no more dialysis. The next day, Rotea called the mayor and asked him to come over, informing Brown that he simply did not want to fight anymore. “I’m going to die,” he said. The mayor arrived around noon.
So did Earl Sanders. Rotea’s former partner had spent most of the past week at Rotea’s house, encouraging his friend, helping to care for him. Harold Butler, along with the others, recognizing that the end was near, hurried to the Gilford home to comfort his friend.
Rotea sat on the edge of the bed, doing what he had always done—telling exaggerated stories about his escapades that made everyone laugh. In the midst of great sadness, no one in the room shed a tear. Rotea wasn’t going to let that happen.
After his friends said their good-byes, Rotea went to sleep. Judy and Rotea’s ex-wife, Patricia, sat with him, quietly observing as his breathing became more labored. Other family members soon joined them, praying aloud for the man who had touched their lives so deeply. When they were finished, Rotea took his final breath.
And then he was gone.
“It was a beautiful and peaceful passage on the wings of love in two days’ time,” Judy would later write.
43
With Rotea gone, Judy didn’t quite know what to do with herself. She had spent four years nursing him through his illness, and suddenly there was nothing left to do. By that time, Chance and Terry were grown and pursuing their own lives. Sometimes when she walked through her home, she stopped by the bedrooms of her boys and cried softly as she reminisced. The house that had once been so full of life, so noisy, was now empty, and the silence overwhelmed her. Friends and family visited and tried to keep her busy, but it wasn’t the same. When they left, the silence returned to wrap around her as she stared longingly at old pictures of the man who had changed her life and the boys whose antics had filled her home with laughter. She filled her days with work and volunteering, but nothing could alter the fact that when she returned home each night, there were three empty chairs at the dinner table. For the first time in twenty-five years, Judy was alone.
With so much time to think, the memories that she had so carefully tucked away began to drift into her dreams. Years into their marriage, she had finally confessed to Rotea, revealing to her husband that she had a son he didn’t know about.
“Do you want to find him?” Rotea had asked.
“I don’t know if I should,” she replied. “All I know is that he grew up in the South. I don’t know how he would feel about learning he has a half-black brother. What if he rejects us when he finds out? They think differently there.”
Rotea agreed that was a concern and said that he would support her in whatever decision she made.
Judy let it drop, fearful of what might happen if she found me, afraid of the questions I might ask.
Afraid of what Rotea might find out.
She was not yet ready to relive that terrible time in her life.
With Rotea gone, things were different. The curiosity about what had happened to me began to override her fears. About a year after Rotea died, Judy made her decision. She would try to find me, and she’d deal with the consequences later.
In a way, Rotea helped her. All those nights she had sat at the dining room table and listened to her husband and Earl Sanders discuss their cases and the investigatory techniques they used would now pay off. She eventually discovered the names of twenty-seven men who had been born in Louisiana on February 12, 1963, and she began calling and writing letters to them, hoping one of them might be her son.
It took three years, the help of an adoption search group, and a state worker in Louisiana, but my mother, relentless now in her desire to find me, finally learned my adopted name.
And thirty-nine years after my aunt Margie had pulled me from her arms, we were finally reunited.
The morning after I arrived in San Francisco, I woke my son, Zach, and headed to the Unity Christ Church on Ocean Avenue, where Judy and her boyfriend, Frank, were already waiting for us in a quaint chapel surrounded by clusters of colorful flowers. I held Zach’s hand as we crossed the street and walked into the church. Judy had arranged for me to meet my grandmother, Verda, and my brother Chance there. Excited and nervous, I wasn’t quite sure what I would say to these strangers who were suddenly my family.
Verda had left Sacramento early that morning, around 7:00. As she dressed, she wondered what would happen when she met me, how she could explain why she had made the decision to force Judy to relinquish her son. There had been no time to prepare for the phone call she had received in 1963 in which she learned Judy had given birth to a baby boy, and that the man who had kidnapped and raped her was the father. Verda had cried when the social worker from Louisiana described me—“Reddish blond hair, blue eyes, looks just like his mama. He’s so sweet and innocent.”
But she already had several children of her own, one only eight months old. She couldn’t take on Judy’s baby, too. She knew that’s what would have happened. Judy had already shown that she could not be counted on to be responsible or listen to any kind of reason. Besides, there had been no way her husband, Vic, would have let her bring the baby into their home. She had done what was best for everyone.
But would the baby turned grown man understand? With a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach, she got in her car and drove to San Francisco.
When Zach and I walked into the church, Verda was already there, sitting alone on a pew with her hands folded across her purse, as if she had been praying. I noticed her immediately, somehow recognizing that the elderly lady was my grandmother.
I walked to the pew and stood there for a moment, not knowing what to say. I could see the uncertainty in her eyes.
“Well, I guess I ought to know you,” Verda said in a high, sweet voice. She pushed herself off the bench and wrapped her arms around me.
The hug was enough. I could not hate this woman whose actions had given me parents like Loyd and Leona.
“Don’t worry,” I reassured her. “You have no reason for regret or guilt. Thank you for the decision you made. I love you, Grandma.”
A few minutes later, Chance, his wife, Jasmine, and his daughter, Mia, found us in the church.
Everyone’s eyes filled with tears as I hugged my brother for the first time. Judy’s fear that my being raised in the South would be a problem had been unfounded. I could not have cared less that my brother was half-black. I had a brother, and that was all that mattered.
I spent much of 2002 getting to know my new family through phone calls and e-mails, and I was able to visit my mother four times that year. That Christmas, I went to California for a company meeting and our annual holiday party, excited because it would be my first Christmas with my mother. Frank recommended that Judy and I drive to Tahoe and Reno for a mini-vacation, to spend some time alone together.
It was in Reno, where Judy and Van had married so many ye
ars before, that the urge to know more about my father resurfaced. I had refrained from asking too many questions over the past six months, because I didn’t want to do anything to upset my mother and risk damaging our new relationship. By now, I knew she didn’t want to talk about my father.
But I had to know.
We spent the last day of our vacation in Tahoe, and as we drank coffee and watched the morning dawn over the snowcapped mountains, I made a confession. “I know I told you I didn’t want to know about my father, but I think I want to know who he was. I want to try to find him.”
Judy didn’t hesitate. “Well, honey. If that’s what your heart wants, then I will do everything I can to help you with your search.”
“Thank you, Mom,” I said, hugging her. “I just want to meet him.”
I realized that it was the last thing Judy wanted to do, but she gave me her word. After I returned to Baton Rouge, she started making calls. The first number she dialed was Earl Sanders.
“Earl, I need your help,” she said to San Francisco’s chief of police. Years before, Mayor Moscone had vowed that one day Rotea would make history by becoming San Francisco’s first black chief of police. The assassination of the mayor had prevented that from happening. Instead, Rotea’s partner Earl Sanders had broken that barrier in 2002.
But there had been problems.
Sanders and two of his chief deputies had recently been indicted by a grand jury on charges of obstruction of justice. Rookie officer Alex Fagan Jr., the son of Sanders’s top aide, had been involved in a bar brawl along with two other off-duty policemen. The incident, named “Fajitagate” by the media, began when the bartender refused to give the officers a doggie bag of steak fajitas as he was leaving work. A fight ensued, during which the bartender was injured. Sanders and Fagan’s father ran the department side by side, and when the offending officers were not arrested, District Attorney Terence Hallinan came for blood.
Scandal in the police department was as common as the fog that blankets San Francisco Bay, so Judy had not been overly concerned when she heard about Sanders’s most recent imbroglio.
“What’s the matter?” Sanders said, his voice sounding weak.
“Remember I told you about my son? Well, he wants to find his father, and I don’t know where to look. I’m not even sure of his full name.”
“I’d be happy to help, but I’m in the hospital. I had a heart attack,” Sanders said.
“Oh, my goodness, I’m so sorry,” Judy cried.
“Don’t worry. I’ll be okay,” the chief laughed. “Call Harold Butler. He should be able to help you.”
“Thanks, Earl. I’ll check in on you later,” Judy said, hanging up the phone, worried now that the scandal was affecting her friend’s health.
“Earl can’t help us,” she informed me. “He’s in the middle of a big scandal, and he had a heart attack. He suggested we talk to Harold Butler. Harold and Rotea were buddies, and he used to come over all the time. I know he’ll do anything for me.”
She dialed Butler’s number.
“Harold, Earl told me to call you,” she said, explaining that she wanted him to help her son from a previous marriage find his father.
“I wasn’t aware that you had another son,” Butler said.
“No one was,” Judy said. “It’s a long story, but I promised my son I would help him. Can you do some digging for me? I know there’s got to be a record of his father somewhere, but all I remember is that his name was Van.”
Butler asked her a lot of questions, trying to glean any information he could from Judy. “Don’t worry. If he has a criminal record, I’ll find him,” he reassured her.
It took a month, but Butler finally contacted my mother with his findings. On June 6, 2003, Judy e-mailed me. In the subject line she wrote, “Hold on to your hat, Harold came through . . .”
Butler reported that my father’s name was Earl Van Best Jr., and he had been born July 14, 1934, in Wilmore, Kentucky. “He said all the info in your father’s file is thirty years old. Last he was heard from here was August 15, 1967, but Harold didn’t say in what regard. Honey, there are things in the file Harold won’t reveal, so suffice to say we are warned. I hate it’s like that, but I appreciate Harold’s judgment, and after all, I was married to the guy. Why would he have chosen (or settled for) a 13-year-old girl if . . . you know what I mean,” Judy wrote.
She informed me that there was no current California driver’s license in my father’s name, but Butler had uncovered my father’s Social Security number and an old driver’s license photograph. He had promised to give them to Judy. The file had Van’s address listed on Haight Street, but it also included Gertrude’s address on Noe Street. “Harold wants to continue to work with us on this and wants to meet you. He invited you to write him directly.”
I stared at my computer, rereading the e-mail. A year after meeting my mother, I finally had some concrete information about my father. I knew his name. I knew my real last name.
Best.
Excited, I booked a flight for San Francisco, eager to meet the sergeant who had promised to help me find my father.
Judy arranged for us to meet Butler and his family for dinner at Valencia Pizza & Pasta, in the Mission District. Butler arrived before us and stood up as we approached the table, his stunned, cautious gaze fixed on me. “I’m amazed at how much you look like your father,” he said.
“I can’t wait to see the picture of him,” I said. “Thank you for finding it.”
But Butler had forgotten to bring it. I had difficulty hiding the frustration and disappointment I felt as we ordered dinner. I wondered why he had not brought the picture, when that had been the point of our meeting.
“Can you tell me anything else about what you found?” I asked him.
“No,” Butler replied. “Some things have to be kept confidential. It’s the law.”
“But it was forty years ago,” I countered. “Surely it wouldn’t make a difference now.”
“I’m sorry, Gary. I know you probably have lots of questions, but there’s nothing more I can tell you. I will send you the photograph, though.”
Several times during dinner, I became uncomfortable when I looked up to find Butler staring at me, watching my every move. I decided it was best to quit asking questions.
When we finished our meal, Butler invited us to his house for coffee. He had recently remodeled, and proudly gave me and Judy a tour. Zach had befriended his sons while we talked, and they asked him to spend the night.
“I’m sorry, but we have to get to the airport early tomorrow. Maybe next time,” I promised.
As we said our good-byes, I shook Butler’s hand and thanked him for helping us.
“I’ll e-mail you the picture and then mail an original,” he said.
I left his house feeling a little better.
When I got back to Baton Rouge, the e-mail was already in my inbox.
It seemed to take forever to download the large file, and I could feel my anxiety mounting as the seconds went by. I was about to see the face of my father for the first time since he had left me in the stairwell.
Finally, a head and shoulders appeared on the screen. I stared at the photo for a long time. It looked nothing like what my mother had described. She had said Van looked charming, that he had dimples. There were no dimples, and definitely no charm.
An emotionless face with dead eyes stared back at me.
Zach walked into the room and peered over my shoulder. “Dad, he looks like a serial killer,” he said.
“No, he doesn’t,” I admonished, but I could see what he meant. The man in the picture did not look like a nice person. But then I started noticing similarities—the hairline, the jaw, the cleft in his chin, the shape of his eyes.
As I looked into those eyes, I felt a chill run through my body and wondered if I was doing the right thing. Butler had said there were things in the file he couldn’t reveal.
What did that mean?
&n
bsp; I mulled over that question for the next few days, returning again and again to the picture I had saved on my desktop. I wondered if I should stop trying to find him now, but that burning desire to know who I was, the one that had plagued me all my life, pushed me onward.
The sergeant had also suggested that I contact the Social Security Administration to find out if my father was still alive. I decided to start my own search there.
On July 15, 2003, at 9:00 a.m., I walked into the Social Security Administration building in Baton Rouge, eager to learn what the clerk could tell me. I pulled a number from the dispenser and sat down, counting the minutes, then the hours, until my number was finally called.
A friendly woman smiled at me from behind the counter. “How may I help you?”
“My name is Gary Loyd Stewart, and I was adopted. I have discovered the Social Security number of my biological father, and I am trying to find out if he is deceased and was hoping you could tell me if any benefits have been paid on his behalf,” I said nervously.
Butler had told me that I would know if I had any siblings by learning whether death benefits had been paid.
“Can you give me the number?” the lady said.
“Yes, ma’am.” I read her the number and she entered the information into her computer, then studied the monitor for a few moments. “I am not allowed to tell you if he is living or deceased. I can tell you that no benefits have been paid on his behalf, but benefits are available.”
“So is my father dead or is he still alive?”
“Due to the Privacy Act, I am not at liberty to give you that information,” she said. Seeing the obvious disappointment on my face, she leaned closer and whispered, “But if he had been reported deceased, I would tell you that you were eligible for death benefits right now.”
I reached over the counter and gave this beautiful lady a hug.
The Most Dangerous Animal of All Page 21