white against black; rich against poor; everybody against everybody and nobody for each other. We don’t even have large families anymore. I think it’s a pretty sterile mentality we have in the United States with all this never- ending individualism.”
I am surprised at the passion in her voice. Rainey doesn’t make many speeches; yet, I have heard this again recently.
Where? Sarah’s letter, of course. Us against society. Well, that’s how it looks to me. Yawning, I lean back on my elbows until I am almost horizontal on the concrete stoop.
“It’seas ier said than done,” I say, knowing I sound glib, but there is no quick cure for the national mind-set that is enshrined in so much patriotic nonsense.
Rainey takes my cup from my hand and places her smaller container inside it.
“You’re just scared that Sarah will go off to college and never come back.”
I nod. Scared to death.
15
For my first meeting with Andy in over a week I can tell him that it appears we have an expert witness. A psychologist in New Orleans has referred a colleague, who, in the spirit of the calling card of an old TV gunslinger, has implied that he “Has Electricity, Will Travel.” A series of phone calls has also produced a resume and a potential fee ($ 150 an hour, plus $300 an hour in court and travel and hotel expenses).
Dr. Kent Goza, a clinical psychologist with a private practice, in the suburbs of Jackson, Mississippi, has insisted to me that he successfully uses shock treatments to stop head banging and other self-destructive behaviors in retarded children and is sending me the research (as yet unpublished) to prove it. Once again, thank God for Mississippi.
In the main office on the grounds of the Human Development Center, I am told by the woman at the reception desk that Andy has just been called into a meeting and is not available at the moment. Even though I am still the enemy, this country woman is basically too friendly to be rude and confides, “He said to tell you he tried to call you but you had already left your office.” Separated by a dirty pane of glass (is there a fear the residents will steal a notepad or the visitor sign-in sheet?), we smile at each other for the first time. I notice her nameplate on her desk: Mattie Moss. With a name like that, she must be closer to sixty than to forty, though as it seemed to me the first time I came here, her emerald eyes appear ageless behind her indestructible-looking steel-frame glasses.
“That’s okay,” I assure her. I wasn’t looking forward to this meeting anyway.
“Is Yettie Lindsey in?”
As I say this, Yettie walks by and allows me to follow her to her office. I note that this view of her is as positively reinforcing as the front. She is wearing a pair of jeans whose snug fit would make the principal shareholders of Levi Strauss weep with happiness over the design of their product. Yettie is none too pleased to talk to me but has consented to give me ten minutes. I don’t need more than that; I just want to check in with her to make sure Jill or someone from her office hasn’t been snooping around. A male resident, an older man of thirty, whose ears and face seem to have been at one time caught in a vise, passes me and sniggers as if he knows what I am thinking. Irritated by Yettie’s coldness (though I under stand it), I give him a jaunty salute as if to say that all men, regardless of their mental age, think with their dicks, so what’s the big deal about a normal brain?
Yettie’s office, formerly lime green, is now the color of pumpkin pie. Though I’m hardly an artist, I think I would have taken a raise instead. On the wall behind her desk is an elaborate bright yellow God’s Eye, which I apparently didn’t notice before because I was too busy concentrating on her rather well-endowed chest. For all I know, the ornament on the wall may have been nailed into place five minutes ago, but her expression, sullen as a sulking child’s, as she orders me to sit, indicates she is not in the mood to suffer a fool gladly.
I sit down in the one seat available to me: an unpadded and corroding metal folding chair and instantly wish we were conducting this chat on our feet. It is as if I can feel bits of iron working into my butt. Since she hasn’t offered me coffee (I’m not going to have trouble staying awake in this chair), I resist making a snide comment and simply ask, “How are you doing?” I find that I mean it. Her honesty last time has produced in me a sympathy for her (despite her hostility) I wouldn’t believe existed. Maybe, though, it is that she looks as delicious as a chocolate ice cream cone would taste right about now. I have gotten in the habit of walking across the street with Clan to Beaumont Drugs for ice cream at about three in the afternoon. Hunger, as Clan points out almost on a daily basis, unlike sexual desire, can be satisfied any time and in public.
“I’ve been better,” she says abruptly, though examining her fingernails as if she had all the time in the world.
“What do you want now?”
I look up at the God’s Eye instead of her blue cotton knit sweater and try to think of a believable lie, but can’t and offer the truth instead.
“I was out here to see Andy, but he’s in a meeting, and so I just thought I’d stop by to see what you think of a co-worker.”
From beside her desk she picks up a ball of yarn and knitting needles and astonishes me by beginning to knit on what I take to be an orange sweater. I hadn’t seen a woman her age knit since Rosa and realize the God’s Eye is probably her handiwork.
“What’re you talking about?” she asks suspiciously, making tiny clicking noises with the ivory-colored needles.
Now that I’m out here, I might as well ask something that has been in the back of my mind since the probable cause hearing, but I’m not sure how to put the question. Leon Robinson, in some ways, is directly responsible for Pam’s death. He could help Andy enormously if he would cooperate.
“What do you think of Leon?” I ask lamely, my mind a desert. This girl, still hardly a woman to me at my age, is an oasis for my eyes, however, and I forsake the God’s Eye to stare shamelessly at her sensual fall mouth and oddly colored irises of green, yellow, and brown.
“I can’t stand him,” Yettie says, not missing a beat with the needles that she flashes and whirls like small swords. Two swift thrusts and she would have two more eyes for her collection.
My eyelids throb spastically at the thought of the damage the needles could do to them, while my mind goes back to the hearing. The sight of Leon’s crying suddenly has stayed with me. I was touched by his emotion and thought he could be brought around to testify if I knew how to handle him right. He was hostile, but I thought I understood the reason, since he had taken care of Pam for years. Maybe there are some feelings of guilt I can exploit.
“He didn’t seem so bad,” I say, rubbing my left eye to still it. Perhaps she will give me a clue to his personality.
“How come?”
“He hates blacks,” Yettie says flatly, not even bothering to look at me. Rosa wasn’t as dark as Yettie, but there is something that reminds me of her. Maybe her body.
I am fascinated by the needles: I can’t follow them at all.
God, she is bitter. Does she like anybody? For all I know, the sweater is for herself. “How do you know?” I ask, more urgently than I intend. “Has he ever said or done anything?”
Yettie shrugs, refusing to look at me. I could develop an ego problem around this woman. The needles click for what seems like a full minute. Finally she says, “You can just tell.”
I suppress a sigh and decide to leave. More female intuition.
It seems to me a lot of blacks think all whites are racists. It gets old after a while. I doubt if I would be too crazy about blacks if the only one around was Yettie Lindsey.
Still, I may need her.
“My wife used to knit,” I say, leaning forward to get a better look at her hands.
“She wasn’t as fast as you, though.”
Yettie puts down the needles and looks at her watch.
“Anything else?” she says.
