“Clinic’s closed.”
“My name’s Easy Rawlins. I’m on a special visitors list.”
“Prove it.”
“Prove what? That I’m on the list or that I’m Easy Rawlins?”
The question flummoxed the late-night security guard. He sputtered and then used a key on the door to reception.
“Go on,” he told me.
I went in and he came after, flipping the light switch as he did.
I was halfway to the swinging door when he said “Hold it” again.
I swiveled on my heel, seeing the man for the first time, at least with my eyes. He was short and white-haired, in his sixties and unarmed except for that large flashlight. I chided myself for believing in my own deductions. Seeing that I was right about that guard might lull me into thinking that I could see in the dark. And all that meant was that one day I’d make a mistake, fall into a pit, and die.
“What?” I asked the security guard.
“I need to see some identification.”
I took out my wallet and produced my driver’s license. He scrutinized the document as if looking for counterfeits.
“What’s your business here?” he asked.
I snatched my license from his hands and turned away. As I went through the swinging door he cried, “Hey you,” but I kept on going.
There was no evidence that he was treating me like that because of my race. He was just a guard taking his job a little too seriously. But I had been asked those questions too many times in my life to shrug off the anger they raised in my heart. If I found myself in a situation where I could ignore a white man in authority I would, even though I might have been wrong.
As I quick-marched down the hall I could hear the guard’s slower steps behind me. He wasn’t about to let me get away with disregarding his authority.
I got to H-12 and opened the door without knocking. Geneva Landry was sitting up in her bed and a young black woman sat in the chair. A lamp glowed on a table in the corner, giving the white hospital room the feeling of home.
“Tommy, what’s going on?” a woman’s voice asked from down the hall behind me.
“An intruder, Nurse Brown,” the security guard said from the opposite end.
“Are you Tina Monroe?” I asked the young black woman sitting in the chair.
“Yes I am. And who are you?”
“I’m Easy Rawlins. I think Marianne Plump gave you my number.”
At that moment a huge white woman in a nurse’s uniform entered the room.
“If you are not off of these premises in one minute I will call the police.” There was a ragged timbre to her voice.
The little speech seemed rehearsed. I supposed that she’d sat around for many nights wondering what she could say to convince a trespasser to leave.
“Hello, Mr. Rawlins,” Geneva Landry said. She had bags under her eyes and her words were a little slurred.
“This is Mr. Rawlins, Nurse Brown,” Tina Monroe was saying. “He has permission from Dr. Dommer to visit Miss Landry at any time.”
“Why is Miss Landry awake?” was Brown’s answer. “Haven’t you given her her medicine?”
“Yes. But she was nervous so I’m sitting here with her for a while—until she relaxes a little more.”
“Give her another dose,” Brown said in an almost threatening tone.
“The charts don’t allow for that, Nurse Brown,” the serious black nurse replied.
“Excuse me,” I said then.
“What?” Nurse Brown said.
“I’m here on official police business. I have to speak to Miss Landry and Miss Monroe. So if you don’t mind, we need some privacy.”
The guard and the nurse didn’t want to obey but even they knew that it was a new world.
“Come on, Tommy,” Nurse Brown said. “Let’s go check Dr. Dommer’s instructions.”
They turned away slowly, looking for a way back in even as they exited.
“What are you doin’ here at this time’a night, Mr. Rawlins?” Geneva asked me. “Have you found that man?”
I perched myself at the foot of the high bed.
“I found out how I could find him,” I said. “But I can’t do anything about it until morning so I thought I’d drop by and make sure that you were fine. I just thought I’d look in and see you sleepin’. You know you do need your
