She makes a comment about my face and asks if I’m thirsty or hungry and roves through a maze of clutter into the kitchen. While she’s gone, I swipe a finger of dust from the table and lift my foot from a sticky patch on the floor. She’s got a pure heart, as my brother has said himself, but she can’t keep a clean house — period.
She carries out pops and snack bags of chips. So what’s the trouble? she says. You don’t seem yourself.
You know, I say, if it ain’t this it’s that.
Who you telling? she says. Your brother’s this and that combined.
I wish I could laugh but I can’t.
Is it money? she says. I don’t got much, but if you need it you can sure borrow. You family to me — brother or no brother.
Oh, girl, you know I couldn’t, I say, but can I use the phone? She hunts a cordless from under a pile of clothes and hands it to me and leaves the room. This first place I call — I used to call for Kenny, and you never forget the number — is the Justice Center and lo and behold my brother’s in the system, held on one count trespassing and one count menacing. Pat’s woman strolls back in chomping a mouthful of chips. She asks if I found him and forgive me God this once but I lie. I tell her, Thanks and sorry to rush, and hotfoot out, hoping to catch the county’s last visiting session. My nephews are in the front yard, and I say good-byes and kiss them on the cheeks.
It’s one bus and a second bus and a transfer, the everlasting story of my life.
It’s scarce at the county check-in — a woman stuffing clothes into a locker, an old man searching his wallet, another female checking the placard of contraband items. I stow my bag and stuff the state letter in a pocket and breeze through the detector about as fast as they let me and flit down the hall to the room. There’s a deputy outside the room and he waves me in and I find a booth beside a girl who, by the face, is at the end of a bad run. The girl and me trade a glance and she goes right back conversing with a baby-faced twenty-something with a head of messy braids and script across his neck.
Pat struts out as though all is right with the world. He plops in his seat and eyes me through the Plexiglas and leans back and leans forward and yanks the phone off the holster. Hey, sis, he says. Fancy seeing you here.
Look who’s in good spirits, I say.
Ain’t I always? he says.
What you do this time? I say.
Sis, you know how it is with us ladies’ men, he says. Either they can’t get enough or they’ve had too much, and it’s hard to know any given day which is which. They gave me a court date the day after tomorrow but she ain’t gone show, so this ain’t no big old whoop-de-do. Be back shooting cupid arrows by the end of the week.
Boy, you still a magnet for lightweight trouble, I say. You gone get enough of that.
Nah, I’m a heavyweight, he says. That’s why this don’t count. But I know you didn’t come to lecture me on spending a petty few days in the county.
What I came for is this, I say, and take out the letter and press it against the glass and leave it for him to read.
Well, I’ll be damned, sis. That’s serious, he says. How you plan on playing it?
That’s why I came, I say.
Right, right. Hmm, well, I’d say you need a lawyer, he says. You got some dollars set aside? They ain’t cheap.
Pat, I say. Let’s be real.
Best call Nephew, then. Have him shell out some bucks. The boy buying cars and whatnot, he should have it.
No, not Champ, I say. He’s not an option.
Not an option? Now look, who ain’t being realistic? he says. Allbullshitaside, you gone need references too. Law-abiding, tax-paying, God-fearing citizens to speak on your behalf. And if you still fooling around in the church, you should see about the pastor, if not him a deacon. Plus, call Pops. I know you lifetime pissy with him, but you know like I know that Pops still got clout with them white folks. He pushes his face closer to the glass and asks to see the letter again.
Okay, got it, got it. That date gone be here fore we know it. Barring any unforeseen female troubles, I’ll be free and present and ready if need be to speak on your behalf.
The tears come on, little reservoirs in the cup of my lids that I dab at with my fist. I hate for him or anyone else to see me falter.
Say, sis, keep your head up, he says. You got this. He presses his palm to the window and smiles. It’s Andrew’s smile, the smile of his sons, the smile from when he was a boy, those years the world tore us apart.
Chapter 30
I can only hope, beyond this, baby bro feels the same.
A courthouse is an omen for a nigger like me, but I’m four-flats down for baby bro, so here I am, here we are (the we being Ms. H, the rest of his knucklehead class). Our tour guide is a jolly twenty-something short-cropped blond that, by the face, ain’t got a criminogenic bone in his body. He meets us at the building’s entrance and welcomes our group to the Multnomah County Courthouse. We’re at the midway of a line that winds out the door. What must be the usual sorts filing in, filling in swift-like too, though soon as I think that, our good fortune dies a fast death at the hands of the slow-moving or slow-witted or both, stalling progress with over-metaled belts, pounds of jewelry, pocketfuls of change, and way too much electronic shit for an earthling. But today’s our day. Our guide escorts us to the head of the clog and holds it while we amble through the detectors, while, on the other side of the machines, we fall into an oblong circle under the semi-circumspect gaze of stout sheriffs. And let me say this right here, right now: Whoever designed the sheriffs’ puke-green uniforms gave a rat’s ass about the stain they’d leave on your eyes, my eyes, or anybody else’s.
Our chipper blond lodestar leads us to a conference room on the second floor and we pick seats at a massive oak desk that must be old as all of us added together. It takes a spate of shushing from Ms. H to coerce the boys out of fidgeting and talking and general unconcern, and in that tease of hush, our guide points at the enormous portraits of stern white men lining the walls and asks if anybody can name the name of a Supreme Court justice. Wouldn’t you know, the boys turn absolute mutes, search here and there for an innocuous spot to fix their eyes. I taunt baby bro into response. He guesses wrong, but give him credit. Not a single one of these nascent knuckleheads risks a next try.
Our guide stands at the head of the table and asks another question. He waits. He waits in vain. Okay, well, let’s get started, he says. Our court system has three basic functions. To interpret laws, settle disputes, and strike down laws that conflict with the Constitution. He stops and rakes his hair — you know, that patented spread-finger white-boy rake. There are four types of courts: trial courts of limited jurisdiction, trial courts of general jurisdiction, intermediate appellate courts, and courts of last resort. This courthouse is a court of general jurisdiction. He explains how criminal courts are the body of law that preserves a person’s basic rights, that anyone that violates those rights has committed a crime against the people.
And who the people posed to be? says one of the boys.
You are, I am, we all are, the guide says, and flashes one of those halcyon smiles that could only be a birthright. Felonies, he says, are the more serious crimes and punishable by a year or more, while sentences for misdemeanors seldom run more than a year. Later today, he says, you’ll see criminal proceedings. He goes on and, no lie, to say the least, old green eyes is loquacious as they come.