"This is the time," Kent said. "Now! Either make the changes, Arthur, or resign yourself to the fact that your play will never be done."
"I don't know," Arthur said.
"I'm being frank with you."
It's because I'm a Negro from Harlem, Norman Sheppard thought, and looked again at Ebie Driscoll and could not shake his feeling of discomfort. It's because I know the lady is from the Deep South, suh, and I am merely projecting her own discomfort onto myself. She is not used to dining with Nigras, suh, and this is why she constantly brushes that strand of blond hair away from her cheek, a gesture I have seen her perform a hundred times since this trial began, a nervous mannerism, that's all. And quite naturally, her nervousness has leaped across the table and I, being a sensitive person with a lot of natural rhythm, am reacting to it. I'll have to report this to Dr. Maloney on Monday, he'll find it very interesting. "What do you think about it, Mr. Sheppard?" he will ask, and I will then try to separate this extraordinary feeling of déjà vu from the very ordinary complicated feelings surrounding it, such as why I might feel uncomfortable in the presence of any beautiful, blond, white woman from Alabama even if I didn't think we'd met someplace before (a likely possibility, to be sure) even if I didn't think I knew her. Or, to be more exact, since Dr. Maloney insists on exactitude, not only do I feel I know Mrs. James Driscoll, but I further feel I know her exceptionally well. Or to be precise, Dr. Maloney, I feel the young lady and I have been intimate, yes, how about that for a clue to the Negro Revolution? I will bet you any amount of money, Dr. Maloney, that she has a small crescent-shaped scar on her thigh, and that she got it from a piece of broken glass at the base of a statue or something in her home town, what do you make of that, Dr. Maloney? "Well," he will reply, "what do you make of it, Mr. Sheppard?"
"You came over very well," he said to Driscoll. "I think McIntyre was impressed."
"I hope so," Driscoll answered.
Now how would I know about a crescent-shaped scar on the lady's thigh when I have never seen the lady's thigh? How did I know she was going to be left-handed even before I saw her pick up her utensils at lunch the other day, tell me that, Dr. Maloney. It is true, yes, Doctor, that I myself am left-handed and therefore am constantly on the alert for members of the race, human, who are similarly endowed, they being acknowledged leaders whatever their color or religion. Michelangelo was left-handed, did you know that? Kim Novak, as it happens, is left-handed. Mrs. James Driscoll is also left-handed, which fact I knew before I knew it, that's exactly what I mean about this déjà vu phenomenon, doctor. Am I making myself clear, or is it possible that all I want to do is lay Ebie Driscoll? "Well, let's examine that, Mr. Sheppard," he will say.
Ebie Driscoll brushed the same strand of hair away from her cheek. There it is again, Norman thought, and I knew she would do it even before she did it the first time we met, felt I had seen her do it a thousand times before that. Or the way she tilts her head, look, just before she's going to say something, look, telegraphing her words, here it comes, she is about to speak, "May I have the salt, please?" Ebie asked. Norman handed her the salt and pepper shakers together, and intuitively knew she would say exactly what she said next, "No, just the salt, please." He frowned and turned his attention back to Driscoll, convinced that he was possessed of extrasensory powers and determined to put them to better use, like perhaps opening his own numbers bank in Harlem and taking bets only on numbers he knew would lose, not a bad thought.
"I think Jonah's approach was the proper one," he said. "Tracing the creative process."
"Mmmm," Driscoll said.
"That's really his forte, you know, hitting on the right approach. That's not as easy as it may sound. A lot of lawyers commit themselves to the wrong strategy from the beginning. Jonah's never done that to my recollection, and he's certainly had some difficult cases over the years."
"Has he?"
"Oh, sure," Norman said. "I didn't join the firm until after the San Quentin case, of course, but even since…"
"What San Quentin case?"
"The one with the guard. Didn't you follow it?"
"No."
"It was in all the papers."
"I must have missed it somehow."
"Well," Norman said, plunging on despite a detected note of sarcasm in Driscoll's voice, "a prisoner there was serving a life term — an ax murderer no less, you can imagine the kind of sympathy he aroused — and one of the guards kept bothering him, so he picked up a fork in the dining room one day and stuck it in the guard's throat."
"He killed him?" Ebie asked.
"Yes."
"Illlfffff," she said, and pulled a face, and the expression and the grimace were both familiar, he knew them from somewhere, but where? How come I pay you thirty dollars an hour, Dr. Maloney, and all you can tell me is that I must adjust as a Negro in a hostile society? Why can't you explain all these inscrutable things that keep happening to me?
"It was a mess," Norman said, "horrible case, but Jonah took it on. He's had a lot of tough ones. Listen, this one isn't such a cream puff, either." On impulse, he turned to Ebie and said, "Have you ever been up to Harlem, Mrs. Driscoll?"
"Never," she replied.
"Well," he said, and cocked his head to one side, and thought She's never been to Harlem, Dr. Maloney, so it isn't even possible we met in Small's Paradise or any of those other quaint places. "You ought to take her up to Harlem sometime, Jimmy," he said, and smiled.
"Invite us," Ebie said.
"I will."
"Do."
"If you mean it, I will invite you."
"I mean it," Ebie said.
"Ebie always means what she says, isn't that true?" Driscoll said.
His wife did not answer. She busied herself with her plate instead, cutting another piece of steak, and then meticulously and carefully placed her knife at the rear of the plate, as if this simple act required all her concentration.
"She's straightforward and honest," Driscoll said, staring at her with a cold, pained smile on his face. "It would hurt Ebie to lie, wouldn't it, Ebie?"
"Shut up, Dris," she said flatly, without looking at him, and the table went silent. Norman saw the anger that flared in Driscoll's eyes, and suddenly wondered whether he had misinterpreted the Harlem invitation. Here we are at the crux again, Dr. Maloney, here we are getting right down to the heart of the old matter, which is: Can a Negro Boy from Harlem Find Happiness with a White Woman in a Small Mining Town? And the answer is No, not if Whitey thinks you are eventually going to corral all of his women, leaving him nary a soul to set his table or warm his bed. Understand, Jimmy, understand Mr. Driscoll, sun, that I did not intend my invitation for your wife alone, I intended it to include yourself, suh. "Well, let us examine that," Dr. Maloney will say, "especially in the light of your feeling that you and this woman have been intimate. Tell me again about this small scar on her thigh, crescent-shaped, did you say?"
Casually, and without looking at either Driscoll or his wife, Norman said, "In any case, Jonah's approach is the right one, and it's plain to both of us that you're holding your own with Brackman."