The Hill neighborhood of New Haven is among the most notorious in the city. I’ve had dozens of clients from there—mostly involved in selling drugs near the Church Street South low-income housing. That’s also where Adisa, Ruth’s sister, lives.
I wander the streets. There are kids running, chasing each other. Girls huddled together, speaking a flurry of Spanish. Men stand on street corners, arms folded, silent sentries. I am the only white face in the vicinity. It is already starting to get dark out when I duck into a bodega. The cashier at the counter stares at me as I walk through the aisles. I can feel her gaze like lightning between my shoulder blades. “Can I help you?” she asks finally, and I shake my head and walk out.
It’s unsettling, not seeing someone who looks like me. People I pass don’t make eye contact. I am the stranger in their midst, the sore thumb, the one that is not like the others. And yet, at the very same instant, I have become invisible.
When I get to Church Street South, I walk around the buildings. Some of the apartments, I know, have been condemned for mold, for structural damage. It is like a ghost town: curtains pulled tight, residents holed up inside. Beneath a stairwell, I see two young men, passing cash. An old lady tries to haul her oxygen tank up the stairs above them. “Excuse me,” I call out. “Can I give you a hand?”
All three of them stare at me, frozen. The men glance up, and one puts a hand on the waistband of his jeans, from which I think I see the hilt of a gun protruding. My legs are jelly. Before I can back away, the old woman says,“No hablo inglés,”and climbs the steps double time.
I had wanted to live like Ruth did, just for an afternoon, but not if it meant I’d be in danger. Yet danger, it’s relative. I have a husband with a good job and a house that’s paid off, and I don’t have to worry that something I say or do is going to threaten my ability to put food on the table or pay my bills. For me, danger looks different: it’s whatever can separate me from Violet, from Micah. But no matter what face you put on your own personal bogeyman, it gives you nightmares. It has the power to terrify, and to make you do things you wouldn’t normally think you’d do, all in an effort to stay safe.
For me, that means running through a night that’s tunneling tighter around me, until I can be sure I’m not being followed. Several blocks away, I slow down at an intersection. By now, my pulse isn’t racing, the sweat has cooled beneath my arms. A man about my age approaches, pushing the same pedestrian walk button, waiting. His dark skin is pocked on the cheeks, a road map of his life. His hands hold a thick book, but I cannot make out the title.
I decide to try one more time. I nod down toward the book. “Is it good? I’m looking for something to read.”
He glances at me, and lets his gaze slide away. He doesn’t respond.
I feel my cheeks burning as the walk signal illuminates. We cross the street side by side in silence, and then he turns away, ducking down a street.
I wonder if he was really intending to go down that street, or if he just wanted to put distance between us. My feet hurt, my whole body is shaking with the cold, and I’m feeling utterly defeated. I realize it was a short-lived experiment, but at least I tried to understand what Ruth was saying. I tried.
I.
As I trudge up to the hospital where Micah works, I think about that pronoun. I consider the hundreds of years that a black man could have gotten into trouble for talking to a white woman. In some places in this country, it’s still the case, and the repercussions are vigilante justice. For me, the dire consequence of that stoplight conversation was feeling snubbed. For him, it was something else entirely. It was two centuries of history.
Micah’s office is on the third floor. It’s remarkable how, the minute I walk through the doors of that hospital, I am in my element again. I know the healthcare system; I know how I will be treated; I know the rituals and the responses. I can stride past the information desk without anyone questioning where I’m going or why I am there. I can wave to the staff in Micah’s department and let myself into his office.
Today is a surgery day for him. I sit in his desk chair, my coat unbuttoned, my shoes off. I stare at the model of the human eye on his desk, a three-dimensional puzzle, as my thoughts speed like a cyclone. Every time I close my eyes, I see the old woman at Church Street South, shrinking away from my offer of help. I hear Ruth’s voice, telling me I am fired.
Maybe I deserve to be.
Maybe I’m wrong.
I’ve spent months so focused on getting an acquittal for Ruth, but if I’m really going to be honest, the acquittal was forme. For my first murder trial.
I’ve spent months telling Ruth that a criminal lawsuit is no place to bring up race. If you do, you can’t win. But if you don’t, there are still costs—because you are perpetuating a flawed system, instead of trying to change it.
That’s what Ruth has been trying to say, but I haven’t listened. She’s brave enough to risk losing her job, her livelihood, herfreedomto tell the truth, and I’m the liar. I’d told her race isn’t welcome in the courtroom, when deep down I know it’s already there. It alwayshasbeen. And just because I close my eyes doesn’t mean it’s gone away.
Witnesses swear on Bibles in court to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. But lies of omission are just as damning as any other falsehood. And to finish out Ruth Jefferson’s case without stating, overtly, that what happened to her happened because of the color of her skin might be an even bigger loss than a conviction.
Maybe if there were lawyers more courageous than I am, we wouldn’t be so scared to talk about race in places where it matters the most.
Maybe if there were lawyers more courageous than I am, there would not be another Ruth somewhere down the line, being indicted as the result of another racially motivated incident that no one wants to admit is a racially motivated incident.
Maybe if there were lawyers more courageous than I am, fixing the system would be as important as acquitting the client.
Maybe I should be more courageous.
Ruth accused me of wanting to save her, and perhaps that was a fair assessment. But she doesn’t need saving. She doesn’t need my advice, because really, who am I to give it, when I haven’t lived her life? She just needs a chance to speak. To be heard.
I am really not sure how much time passes before Micah enters. He is wearing scrubs, which I’ve always thought were sexy, and Crocs, which totallyaren’t. His face lights up when he sees me. “This is a nice surprise.”
“I was in the neighborhood,” I tell him. “Can you give me a ride home?”
“Where’s your car?”
I shake my head. “Long story.”
