Unspeakable

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As she was going back down to the lobby, she met George Greyeyes coming up. 'George? I didn't know you were going to be here.'

George was wearing a smart navy blazer and smelled of Tommy Hilfiger. 'I want to keep an eye on this one, that's all. I don't want National Indian Child Welfare Association looking negligent in any respect? nor the Children's Welfare Department, either.'

'George, this is only going to be a formality.'

'Sure. But you know me: I don't like surprises. The last time the Indians took the white men at their word, they lost ninety percent of Oregon.'

They went downstairs to the coffee shop and took a table in the corner. On the other side of the room, four young lawyers and a woman paralegal were huddled over a heap of papers, obviously trying to hammer out a divorce settlement before their case came up in front of a judge.

'-maybe we can cut you some slack on the marital home. Maybe sixty-five, thirty-five. But that's as far as we can go.'

'What about the cabin?'

'Same deal.'

'My client won't accept that. She wants the cabin one hundred percent. What does he think he's going to do,time- share?'

George said, 'We need to learn some lessons from this Daniel business. Maybe we need to set up a regular interface between your people and my people, so that we can share any kind of suspicion about a child at risk, any kind of gut feeling, whether it's medical or cultural, whether it's substantiated by prima facie evidence or not. I mean, let's get in therebeforeit happens, not after.'

Holly said, 'Sure.' She was interested in what George had to say, but she knew that it would do very little good. All the interfaces in the world would never stop a parent from staggering home, drunk or high or simply angry, and thrashing a defenseless child. For some reason she couldn't take her attention away from the conversation on the other side of the coffee shop.

One of the lawyers was saying, 'It's seriously going to disorient the kids, isn't it, if they spend the first week in August with mom and her partner and then the second week in August with dad and whatever bit of fancy goods dad has decided to bring along with him, both in the same vacation environment? I mean, we're not just talking moral values here; we're talking bedroom farce.'

'Then maybe they should sell the cabin and split the proceeds.'

'No way. That cabin is an integral part of the children's recreational life. My client thinks that they've lost enough already, losing their father. She doesn't want to stunt their emotional development too.'

'Jesus. I didn't even have a treehouse when I was a kid, and do I look stunted?'

Two of the lawyers and the paralegal stood up and left the coffee shop, obviously off to consult with their client. The two remaining lawyers sprawled at their table, one of them breaking the corners off cookies and nibbling them like a chipmunk.

George said, 'It isn't easy for me to explain how important the spirits still are to most Native Americans. Spirits of water, spirits of wind, spirits of rocks and trees. In some ways they're more important than they ever were, because they're the only link we have left with the people we once used to be, and the country that once used to be ours.'

One of the lawyers nudged his friend. 'That Indian guy, do you know him?'

'I've seen him a couple of times. Big Chief In-Tray, from the Native American Children's Society, or something like that. Looks like a noble savage, but he's ani-dotter and at- crosser.'

'How about the tail?'

'Yeah? I was checking her out. I think she works for Children's Welfare. Great gazongas. That really lights my fire, you know: a tailored suit and great gazongas. Nice legs too. Seriously nice legs.'

'Hey? what do you think? She'd be great for one of the old man's parties, wouldn't she? I mean, take a look at those lips. She looks like she's permanently puckering up to give you a blow job.'

'Her?Are you shitting me?'

'No, it'd be a real challenge, wouldn't it, someone like that?'

The second lawyer grinned in disbelief and shook his head.

'No, I mean it. What a challenge. I'll tell you what I'm going to do: I'm going to find out who she is. I mean, that would be a gas, wouldn't it? A Children's Welfare officer for one of the old man's parties?'

George touched her arm. 'Holly? Holly, you're not listening to me.'

'Sorry, George. Guess I got a little distracted.'

'Lipreading again? Remember it's a gift, Holly. Not a right.'

'I know, George. Sorry. What were you saying about this interface?'

While George went to the bathroom, Holly made a performance of leafing through her court papers, but every now and then she glanced across at the two lawyers to try to work out what they were saying. She had often picked up compliments before, and sometimes she had picked up crude remarks about her figure, and once she had lip-read an assistant district attorney calling her 'a goddamned nit-picking nuisance with an ego as big as her tits,' but what did these two mean when they talked about 'a challenge'? And what were 'the old man's parties'?

The cookie-nibbling lawyer said emphatically, 'I can ask. If not, -- will know who she is.' He was swallowing at the time, and Holly couldn't quite catch the name.

'Yeah, you're right,' agreed the other one. 'He works with Children's Welfare, doesn't he?'

The cookie- nibbler nodded a few times and then started talking about his new Cadillac Escalade.

George came back, smelling of industrial soap. 'Are you all right?' he asked her.

'Why? Why shouldn't I be?'

'You look like your cat just died.'

'Do I? I don't have a cat.' She tidied up her papers. Then she said, 'If I said 'the old man's parties,' would that mean anything to you?'

George looked blank. ''The old man's parties'? Is this a riddle?'

'I don't know. I don't know what it means. I get the feeling that it's something unpleasant, that's all.'

Doug came down at 10:25 to tell them that the Joseph application was on. They followed him out of the coffee shop, and as they left, the two lawyers swiveled around in their chairs to watch her. She turned and one of them winked at her, while the other one said, 'Classy ass, too, I'm telling you.'

The Curse of Raven

The hearing took less than four minutes. Silver-haired and sharply pointed of nose, Judge Imogene Yelland immediately granted the application for Daniel Joseph to be made a ward of the court pending the prosecution of Elliot Joseph for child abuse and a full welfare report and psychiatric report on Mary Joseph.

Mary Joseph's attorney rose to protest that nobody had yet been convicted for beating up on Daniel, and that there was no proof that Mary Joseph was a neglectful mother. 'Accidents do happen in the home, and there are plenty of recorded instances in which parents have been erroneously blamed for childhood injuries.'

Judge Yelland stared at him as if he had exposed himself. 'I hope you're not trying to suggest that Daniel Joseph's injuries were in any respectselfinflicted,Mr. Leiderman?'

'I, ah-'

'Mr. Leiderman, if you are capable of pulling your pants down around your ankles and jumping on your own pelvis seven times, it would be most educational to see you do it.'

Nobody laughed. Mary Joseph's attorney reddened and sat down.

'Next application,' said the clerk. George turned to Holly and blew out his cheeks in relief. Judge Yelland had made no comments about the failure of the National Indian Child Welfare Association or the Portland Children's Welfare Department to foresee what had happened. All the same, that could well come later, when Elliot Joseph came up for trial.

'I'll catch you in a minute,' Holly mouthed, and patted George's shoulder. She left the juvenile division and walked across the echoing marble floor to the main court buildings. She found Detective Farrant outside Court Number 3, reading the sports pages and chewing gum with his mouth wide open.

'Mickey around?' she asked him.

He jerked his head toward the huge maplewood doors. 'He just went in for the Joseph indictment. By the way, what did youdoto him last night?'

'Me? Why?'

'The guy was like walking on air this morning. He actually bought me a doughnut.'

'He came around to my place for dinner, that's all. Maybe I reminded him what it's like to be a normal human being.'

'Mickey? I doubt it.'

An usher opened the door of Court Number 3 for her, and she slipped into one of the seats at the back. Mickey was sitting behind the assistant district attorney and doodling on his notepad while Elliot Joseph's court-appointed lawyer made a windy application for bail.

'This man has been the victim since childhood of relentless discrimination and pernicious ethnic prejudice that would have broken anybody's spirit. Day after day, week after week, year after year, he was treated as a misfit and an outcast in the land which once used to belong to his natural ancestors. Is it any surprise that he was brought to the point of madness-a point where he lashed out blindly at what he had understandably grown to believe was an evil spirit that had made his entire life purposeless and utterly miserable, and now seemed to be threatening to do the same to his only son?'

As Holly made her way to the front of the court, Elliot Joseph turned his head around to see who it was. He was wearing bright orange prison coveralls. His greasy gray hair was sticking up wildly, both of his eyes looked like split-open eggplants, and his mouth was puffed up. All the same, he managed a grotesque grin and stared at her all