“Well, walk toward the green.”
I get my bearings, turning with Edison in tow. The courthouse stands a block away from the public park, and Kennedy has given me express directionsnotto approach from this direction, because I will be bombarded by press.
But surely it can’t hurt to see what’s going on from a distance.
I hear them before I see them, their strong voices braided together in harmony and climbing to the sky like Jack’s beanstalk, aimed for Heaven. It is a sea of faces, so many shades of brown, singing “Oh, Freedom.” In the front, on a small makeshift dais with a network logo backdrop behind him, is Wallace Mercy. Police form a human barrier, their arms outstretched, as if they are trying to cast a spell to prevent violence. Meanwhile, Elm Street itself is lined with news vans, their dishes craned to the sun, while reporters clutch their microphones with their backs to the green and cameramen film a stream of footage.
“My God,” I breathe.
“I didn’t have anything to do with it, but that’s for you,” Adisa says proudly. “You should march right up those front steps with your head held high.”
“I can’t.” Kennedy and I have a prearranged meeting spot.
“Okay,” Adisa says, but I can hear the disappointment in her voice.
“I’ll see you in there,” I tell her. “And, Adisa? Thanks for coming.”
She tsks. “Where else would I be?” she says, and then the line goes dead.
—
EDISON ANDIwander past oblivious Yale students, wearing backpacks like tortoise shells; past the Gothic buildings of the residential colleges that are safely walled off behind black gates; past the Poetry Lady—the homeless woman who will recite a few lines for a donation. When we reach the parish house on Wall Street, we slip behind the building unnoticed, into an empty lot.
“Now what?” Edison asks. He is wearing the suit he wore to Mama’s funeral. On any other day, he might be a boy going to a college interview.
“Now we wait,” I tell him. Kennedy has a plan to sneak me into the back entrance, where I won’t attract media attention. She’s asked me to trust her.
Fool that I am, I do.
LAST NIGHT, WHENICOULDN’Tfall asleep, I watched some cable show that was on at 3:00A.M.about how Indians used to live. They showed a reenactment, a dude in a loincloth, setting fire to a pile of leaves on the long line of a tree that had been split lengthwise. Then, after it burned, he scraped it out with what looked like a clamshell, repeating the process until the canoe was hollowed out. That’s what I feel like, today. Like someone has rubbed me raw from the inside, until I’m empty.
It’s kind of surprising, because I’ve been waiting so long for today. I thought for sure I’d have the energy of Superman. I was going to war for my son, and nothing was going to stop me.
But, strangely, I have a sense that I’ve reached the combat zone and found it deserted.
I’m tired. I’m twenty-five years old and I have lived enough for ten men.
Brit comes out of the bathroom. “All yours,” she says. She is wearing a bra and her panty hose, which the prosecutor told her to wear, so that she looks conservative.
“And you,” she suggested, “should wear a hat.”
Fuck that.
As far as I’m concerned, this is the memorial my son deserves: if I cannot have him back, I will make sure the people responsible for it are punished, and that others like them are left trembling with fear.
I run the hot water and hold my hands under the faucet. Then I lather up with shaving cream. I rub this all over my scalp and start to use my straightedge to scrape my head smooth.
Maybe it’s the fact that I could not sleep; or I suppose the crater that’s taken up residence inside me is making me shaky—for whatever reason, I nick myself just above the left ear. It stings like a mother as the soap runs into the cut.
I press a washcloth against my head, but scalp wounds take a little while to clot. After a minute I just let go, watch the streak of blood run down my neck, under my collar.
It looks like a red flag, coming from my swastika tattoo. I’m mesmerized by the combination: the white soap, the pale skin, the vivid stain.
—
FIRST WE DRIVEin the opposite direction of the courthouse. There’s frost on the front windshield of the pickup and it’s sunny, the kind of day that looks perfect until you realize how cold it is when you step outside. We are dressed up—me in the suit jacket that Francis and I share, and Brit in a black dress that used to hug her body and that now hangs on it.
We’re the only car in the lot. After I park, I get out and come around to Brit’s side. This is not because I’m such a gentleman but because she won’t get out. I kneel down beside her, put my hand on her knee. “It’s okay,” I say. “We can lean on each other.”
