She thinks about this. “No. But he’s not—a caretaker. Never was. He was a loving father, AJ. He did his best by us. I wouldn’t trade him for anyone. But did he ever throw a ball with you? Did he even bother to learn how to brush my hair? No, he just took me to the barbershop until I was almost nine.” At which point, she grew out her hair and wears it long to this day, despite the advice in women’s magazines that the style is aging. Her hair, loose, reaches almost to the small of her back. But it is seldom down in public. She wears it in a French knot, which helps make her look more authoritative. The first thing Bash does when she comes into their room is yank the pins from her hair.
“You know, maybe you should go on match.com. Or one of those places.” It’s as if AJ is misreading her mind.
“No. Thank. You. I don’t have anything leftover to give. When the kids go off to college, I’ll start stalking old men.”
“When your kids go off to college, you’ll be two years older than I am right now.”
“Like I said—old men.” She smiles at him, pats his hand. They are not touchers. The Brants do not hug upon coming and going. So this is a big gesture on her part. “If you do this, you’ll be a great dad. Costs an arm and a leg, but you can afford it.”
“Yeah, I can buy anything I want.”
The self-pity on you, she thinks, but doesn’t say.
TO EACH HIS SANCHO PANZA
In the spring of 1978, the all-county musical was Man of La Mancha. That is, the show was theoretically open to students throughout the county, yet the leads were taken by Davey, AJ, and Ariel, with Noel snagging one of the key supporting roles. There was some grumbling, but the director had no link to Wilde Lake High School, so the disgruntled parents had no reason to complain. If anyone deserved to be unhappy, it was Noel, who lost the role of Sancho Panza to AJ, who never played the clown. But the director glimpsed an untapped comedic talent in AJ’s earnestness and wanted to exploit his chemistry with Davey, the inevitable Quixote, even if he had to be coaxed into trying out. AJ, instead of playing this second banana role with wink-wink self-consciousness, approached Sancho as achingly sincere in his hero worship of Quixote. He did not avail himself of any curlicues of irony, not so much as a raised eyebrow to let the audience know he was in on the joke. He was his master’s servant to the end.
If Noel was disappointed not to be given the showy part that everyone assumed would be his, he hid it well. Maybe he enjoyed having a chance to play it straight. And he was wonderful as the padre, especially when he sang the tender ballad, “To Each His Dulcinea.” I attended the final performance, a Sunday matinee, and surprised myself by weeping over Davey/Quixote’s death. I then asked my father what, exactly, the muleteers did to Aldonza while singing “Little Bird.” They appeared to be beating her. Why were they beating her?
“Let’s make sure AJ has a ride to the cast party,” my father said. We went backstage and clapped him on the back, told him he was wonderful and that we would see him at the party.
The Sunday afternoon cast party was an attempt to start a new tradition while thwarting an old one. The year before when the county musical had been South Pacific—AJ and his friends had skipped this, in order to perform in the anniversary gala—there had been a notorious cast party after the Saturday night performance, which had resulted in a disastrous Sunday matinee. Nellie Forbush could not muster any perkiness; Lieutenant Cable had to leave the stage to vomit in a bucket. The director was adamant that this could never happen again; he would cancel the matinee rather than allow hungover students to perform. It was Davey’s parents who stepped forward and offered an alternative: they would have the cast party at their home, after the matinee, and the cast’s family members could attend as well if they so desired. It would be a catered affair and the students would even be allowed beer and wine—if their parents were there to grant permission. People did that then, allowed underage kids to drink a little, and no one thought much of it.
I was disappointed by my first sight of the Robinsons’ house, which AJ had described as luxurious and modern. From the front, it was a boxy one-story cedar bungalow, flat and pugnacious as a bulldog’s face. But when you entered, it was as if you were walking into the sky. The builder had taken advantage of the fact that the lot was on a steep slope that backed up to a thickly wooded area, providing optimal privacy even when the trees were bare. With the exception of the walk-out “basement,” the rear of the house was almost entirely glass. We were told the architect had been a student of Mies van der Rohe, although perhaps not his best one. Five years ago, the Robinson house, which they unloaded in 1980, was sold as a teardown. A few people protested halfheartedly that it was a historic structure, but the new owner had no problem getting permission to raze it. The replacement is surprisingly modest, a soft-green cottage that also blends into the landscape. I drove past there not long ago, trying to jog my memory of this particular day.
The May afternoon was perfect, the kind of weather that late spring was meant to have. And used to have more often then, I think. The weather was better when I was a child, I swear it, with unbroken strings of these amazing May days—temperatures in the seventies, breezes laden with complicated fragrances. The Robinsons had set out croquet wickets on the tiny level patch of lawn behind the house, and there was a Ping-Pong table inside the rec room. It quickly became apparent that the cast party was, in effect, two parties. The adults remained inside, on the upper floors, while the teenagers chose the rec room at the bottom of the house as their base of operations.
I wasn’t sure where I belonged. There were some other younger siblings, but none from my elementary school. Two boys began chucking croquet balls at each other’s heads, while I stood apart, pained by their childishness. As the sun disappeared behind the trees, the house seemed to glow. It was like watching a huge ant farm, only these ants were not particularly industrious. They milled about with drinks in their hands, availing themselves of tiny bites of food—miniquiches, quail eggs—passed by waiters. (On the bottom level, there were hamburgers and hot dogs coming nonstop off a grill, a refrigerator full of soda, even a keg of beer.) I realize now how expensive the Robinsons’ home must have been, how exquisite their taste. That was the point of the party, to let people observe their superior taste. I saw my father talking to the Robinsons. I wonder if he was remembering the first time Davey had come to our home, how he assumed Davey would be the first person in his family to attend college, that quiche would be exotic to him.
I could hear the teenagers—they were blasting the soundtrack of La Mancha and singing along, laughing as they changed the lyrics to private jokes about various cast members—but I couldn’t see them behind the curtained sliding doors of the rec room. They were in high spirits, largely natural ones. You’d have to work hard to get drunk at a party such as this. The one keg, positioned near the man working the grill, made it hard to overindulge, although it was pretty clear that the “rule” about drinking only if a parent were present was being flouted. The cast seemed to feel that the Sunday show was their best yet and were giddy with their sense of achievement. I couldn’t say that the matinee was their best, but it was hard for me to imagine something better than what I had seen. I was especially impressed by how Ariel, normally a tiny mouse, had been transformed into a powerful, big-voiced woman. It was strange to see her at the party, reduced to her usual self, not that much bigger than I was. The experience made me yearn to perform, but even then I knew I had no talent for acting or singing. AJ had gotten all those gifts. I sometimes think that was the beginning of wanting to be a lawyer—my desire to be the center of attention, combined with the knowledge that I could not sing, dance, or act. How else does one perform if one has no talent for playacting?
Suddenly, the curtains that hung across the basement entrance flared, as if from a sudden burst of wind, and two boys in polo shirts emerged, running at top speed, Davey and AJ in pursuit, girls screaming. I didn’t recognize the running boys. They probably weren’t from Wilde
Lake High School. Another boy, also a stranger to me, ran out after the others, but headed in the other direction, toward the woods behind the house.
“Assholes!” AJ shouted as he chased the boys up the steep hill to the street. “Why do you have to be such assholes?” The incline was so severe that the four boys, the pursued and the pursuers, were all but crawling up on their hands and knees, grabbing at trees and bushes to keep their balance. “Maybe you cow-tipping Howard High farmers act like that, but we don’t.”
“We’re from Glenelg,” one called back. “And you Wilde Lake people are white-trash hippies.”
Davey didn’t say anything. He was focused on the climb, his face grim. He would have no problem overtaking them.
I ran inside the house and climbed to the top floor, where I told my father breathlessly, if somewhat inaccurately, that AJ was in a fight. Alerted by this self-appointed and self-important town crier, all the adults streamed into the front yard, most still holding their drinks. By now, AJ and Davey had the two strangers cornered in an old-fashioned convertible parked along the curb. My brother and Davey stood on the outside, gripping the passenger-side door. The driver could have tried to pull away, I suppose, but the look on Davey’s face seemed to suggest that he would hold on to that door until it was wrenched from him.
“Okay, okay, let’s calm down, everyone,” my father said. “What’s going on? Davey, you start.”
He didn’t want to show favoritism by asking AJ to recount the story; I understood this somehow. Even as a child, I was acutely aware of my father’s methods.
“These ass—these guys grabbed some poor kid and pantsed him while he was chugging a beer, pulled his pants down in front of a bunch of girls. The guy’s totally humiliated. What did he ever do to you?”
“He’s a creepy little faggot, always spying on everyone. We told him to leave us alone and he didn’t,” the driver yelled.
“He’s the cast photographer,” AJ said. “That’s his job.”
“In the theater, when we’re performing. Not at the cast party. Little creep never puts his camera down.”
“You’re mad because he took a photo of you doing something you didn’t want photographed,” Davey said. “I saw you light up in my parents’ house. That was uncool.”
“Oh, who cares, you stupid nigger. You think you’re so fancy.”
In the deep, shocked silence that fell, I noticed how few black people were in attendance at the party. Davey and his parents, of course. The girl who had been Ariel’s understudy, whose skin and eyes were almost amber. Three of the waiters, and the man who had been tending the grill. Of the fifty or so people still at the party, maybe eight were black. Still, I don’t think you could have said a more shocking thing in Columbia, not at that time. We were good people. Our choice of Columbia was the ultimate proof of that. We were the people tree, sixty-six strong, indifferent to class and race.
Right. The one thing people are never indifferent to are differences. We may not mind them, we may glory in them, but we notice, don’t we? And congratulate ourselves on our tolerance and open-mindedness. But we are never indifferent.
I glimpsed Noel’s face in the crowd. I expected him to be beaming with excitement. Noel was always up for a scene, as he called it, the more dramatic the better. But his big green eyes were full of an unreadable emotion. He wasn’t enjoying this at all.
My father stepped forward and grasped the driver’s side of the car, mirroring Davey’s posture. I believed he needed to hold something to restrain himself from hitting the boy. I worried he might do something intemperate.
“You need to apologize to our hosts,” he said. “For your behavior, for your words. And then, yes, you need to leave. But not before I have your parents’ names. I will be calling them and telling them what transpired here.”
“You can’t make us tell our names,” said the boy in the driver’s seat.
“Do you honestly think I won’t learn them? Others here know who you are. The director knows. For goodness’ sake, son, I’m the state’s attorney of this county.”
“I can say whatever I want. Haven’t you ever heard of the First Amendment? And it’s not against the law to pants some faggot. It’s what they want, to be bare butt in front of a bunch of guys.”
My father seemed, for a moment, at a loss for words. Maybe that’s why I channeled the old schoolyard taunt: “Well, takes one to know one.”
There was a nervous silence, broken by the booming laugh of the grill man. He laughed much harder, I thought, than was warranted by any eight-year-old’s gibe. He bent over, holding himself. He slapped his knees, literally, wiped tears from his eyes. Others began to laugh as well. The two boys in the car blushed furiously. My father stepped away from the car, as did Davey, and the two disgraced boys drove away. They did not race off, as one might expect. They drove the speed limit, even signaled the left turn as they approached the stop sign at the end of the street.
“Our boys are good boys,” my father said to Davey’s parents. “I’m proud that they stood up for the underdog.” I expected the Robinsons to clap him on the back or send up a cheer. But they did nothing more than nod and smile tightly. Their party had been spoiled. People began making their excuses to leave, although there was plenty of light left in the May evening. My father stayed until the end, not something he usually did at social occasions.
At home that night, I asked AJ if I could borrow the Man of La Mancha cast album. But it wasn’t “The Impossible Dream” that I played over and over that night. I wanted to listen to one of Ariel’s songs: “What Does He Want of Me?” Quixote wanted Dulcinea, but not in the way other men did. She thought he was ridiculous, yet she could not laugh at him. The song stirred me in a way I could not explain. I yearned to be wanted. What would that feel like? My father and brother loved me. Even Teensy, in her cranky way, had undeniable affection for me. But what was this feeling that Dulcinea sang about, would I ever experience it? I knew it had something to do with kissing, and yet Quixote’s love was better somehow because he did not want to kiss her, which was what all the men on the soap operas wanted to do with the women they said they loved. Yet I wanted to be kissed, too. I thought I did. Maybe.
Also, what was a faggot? I had meant to ask my father on the drive home, but had forgotten in all the excitement.
JANUARY 30
Lu feels a strange frisson of nerves when she goes before the grand jury to obtain a formal indictment against Rudy Drysdale. As she predicted, Fred had failed in his attempt to obtain a bail reduction for Drysdale at a hearing earlier this week. And he put Arthur Drysdale on the stand, as Lu had hoped, which allowed her to ask if there were any violent episodes in his son’s past. The father had stammered and stuttered, even as Fred quickly objected, and Lu happily withdrew her question. They were on notice now, which was all she needed. She knew. Drysdale could take the Fifth if asked about the fake police report, a crime, if a small one. Either way, Fred has to realize now that she has something on Rudy Drysdale.
Still, she is uncharacteristically jittery. She’s gilding the lily, going for a grand jury indictment when he’s already been charged. What if the grand jury decides it’s not a murder one case? Maybe she shouldn’t have risked this.
But it’s a good trial run for the neighbor, Jonnie Forke, who can place Rudy Drysdale at the scene during the week that Mary McNally was killed. Lu has to be hard on her because she’s sure Fred is going to go after her in court. He’ll be right to do so. In her heart of hearts, Lu has trouble with anything that relies on a person’s ability to remember another person’s face. Maybe that’s her own personal bias, born of her particular inability to remember names and faces. But as the science on memory advances, she wonders how it will affect the future of criminal trials that rely on eyewitnesses. What if criminal attorneys start to use “memory experts,” the way, say, medical trials present experts on both sides of malpractice cases? Then again, the average person is reluctant to admit to a less-than-stellar memo
ry until a certain age, although Lu knows lots of women who will cop to “mom brain” during pregnancy and menopause. The fear of dementia is part of this culture of denial, Lu believes, but she also thinks memory is part of the holy trinity of self. Ask anyone and they’ll tell you: they have a good memory, good taste, and a good sense of humor. Oh, make it the holy quartet: everyone, everyone Lu has ever met, considers themselves superb judges of character.
Jonnie Forke hangs tough on the stand, though. Too tough. They need to sand down her edges a little bit before the trial. She looks fine—in fact, she’s more attractive than Lu realized—but her personality is spiky. She’s sort of the looking-glass version of the victim, according to Lu’s investigator. A waitress at a late-night restaurant at the casino at Arundel Mills, extremely outgoing, divorced, but with grown kids and a lot of family. The night Mary McNally was killed—assuming it was December thirty-first—Jonnie Forke was at her daughter’s house for a family party, seeing in the New Year with three generations. This woman’s death would never go undiscovered for a week.
Lu asks her: “The man you saw that week—was he clean-shaven?”
Trick question. Lu knows Drysdale did not have a beard at the time. But does Jonnie?
“He didn’t have a beard, if that’s what you mean,” she says. “I didn’t get close enough to see how recent his shave was, but he didn’t have a full beard.”
Oh, she’s good.
“How close did you get?”
“Maybe ten feet. He was on the edge of the parking lot, just standing there. I noticed him because he had a big puffy coat. And it wasn’t that kind of cold that day, it was in the forties.”
“So you noticed his coat?”
“And his face. He didn’t have the hood up. So I saw his face and his hair.” A pause. “His hair was longer then.”
She’s really good. Credit Andi, who helped prepare her. Rudy Drysdale does have a fresh haircut, although the suit he’s wearing is almost greenish with age. Fred probably told his parents they didn’t need to splurge on a new suit for a grand jury proceeding.
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