Those Bones Are Not My Child (100 page)

“We are too quiet. We fail our neighbors and we fail ourselves and our children too by going along without a mumbling word. For our silence we are patted on the head for not turning somebody with a bat or a gun into the Messiah. I don’t know how it was for you in the beginning, but I kept telling myself it wasn’t happening, not here. In Alabama or Mississippi maybe, but not here in Atlanta. Our own son was taken and we were being told to be quiet. We all were told that. I didn’t want to believe the worst, and so I was easily silenced. I was easy anyway,” she added, with a shy smile. “A lot of us, I imagine, were raised to be quiet, obedient, and dependent.”

“Tell it!” someone remarked, and a wave of heavy sighs worked its way up to the pulpit. The heaviest sigher was a pregnant woman who sat on one end of a pew, her feet in the aisle, her ankles swollen.

“We raise our children to have respect for the truth. We stress the importance of being honest, and honesty is right. In the law courts, that’s how they distinguish the sane from the insane—the ability to know right from wrong. But we’re lied to every day, from advertising to the government. And we know it. The government invented the term ‘credibility gap’ to cover the distance between what officials know and what they tell us. In other words, a lie. We say deceit is wrong. And we all think we believe it.”

A woman sitting behind some of the parents settled her scarf around her white eyelet dress. She wore an implacable expression that softened as Zala related the agony of days from “Went” to the Bowen Homes disaster to the ride to Miami.

“When we got our son back, there were no parades for him. Friends sent good wishes and gifts, but there was no hero’s welcome for our boy, who was a hostage for nearly a year. On the one hand, I was grateful that the police and the FBI didn’t come around. But on the other hand, think of it—‘No stone unturned’? They should have been lining up to question our son.”

Spence was thumbing his finger over his shoulder. Sonny had come in. He was standing behind Kofi and Kenti, his hands resting lightly on
their shoulders. When people began turning around to see what had caught Zala’s attention, she continued quickly.

“There’s something else I have to say about when our son came back to us: I didn’t care after that. The case, I mean—the children, the others. I didn’t care about anything but my family. All I wanted to do was close the door, because I did not care. That’s not how I put it for a long time, but that’s the truth of it. I had been privy to a great deal of information about the case that never made the papers. But I was no longer interested in getting to the roots of the murders. Maybe …” She searched the faces for Leah’s, but Leah, she remembered, was out on a mission. She hurried her eyes past Spence and buried her gaze in the empty air of the center aisle.

“Our son was stolen from us and from you and from the streets of our neighborhoods. And he was made to feel that he deserved it. That he deserved what happened to him. And the things that happened to him.”

“Take your time, sister.”

She saw Sonny back out of the doorway, saw Kenti go and bring him back. Her pink index card was useless to her now. Like Reverend Thomas that morning, she’d strayed far afield of the text. Several of the parents had their heads lowered. People behind them leaned forward to pat their shoulders.

“Worse happened to others. Death happened to others. Because we allow it. We allow ourselves to be manipulated by name calling—‘paranoids,’ ‘agitators.’ Our understanding of where we are and what is what led many of us to say ‘Klan’ and ‘cover-up’ under our breath. But we silence ourselves because we’re afraid of being called names like ‘traitor to the race.’ We swallow the line that security means secrecy and silence. How do we balance that?” she asked, holding her arms out to the side, her palms up. “Our children in danger on one hand, and our fear of being called names on the other? In a just order, crimes against children would be dealt with more seriously than crimes against the state. Because it is more serious. What could be more serious?”

“Tell the people.”

“It wouldn’t be right and it wouldn’t be fair if I left the impression that everybody sat back and left it up to the leaders, the police, and the media to define things for everybody. People from the community, not least the children’s parents, joined forces and voices to demand answers
that didn’t insult their intelligence or the memory of the children lost. We all know the official answer the authorities came up with is no answer at all. The children who escaped could have told us that much and a lot more. But maybe—” She looked to the rear of the church. “Maybe they feel why should they tell everything when nobody else does. And what right do we have to badger them when we don’t demand answers from the people we pay to run this city? What they’re hiding has tremendous importance for the well-being of hundreds of thousands. Doesn’t it?”

Sonny nodded from the rear. Mason held up his arm and tapped his watch.

“So. You won’t get what you came for, if you came looking for the enchanted box. We’re here today to put some facts together. To get some commitments to work. And yes, to pass the plate. The immediate purpose is to get signatures for a petition so that the parents can take it to Washington, D.C., and demand that United States Attorney General William French Smith reopen the case. I know that many of us here are split on the issue and call it a case of the fox and henhouse. But what we’re after is a congressional investigation spearheaded, perhaps, by the Black Caucus, with the parents calling the witnesses and asking the questions.”

Already Mason and Vernon were hefting the box containing the map and a sheaf of papers. Members of Preener’s neighborhood safety patrol were signaling those from Techwood to move up front to assist. Two of the brothers from the mosque leaned forward, their hands on the back of the pew in front, to see when Spence would move and signal them to join him.

“Before turning the program over to a number of people we’ve been taught to regard as troublemakers, I’d like to close with this reminder: coerced silence is terrorism.”

“Say it again, sister. Got some sleepers in here, God bless’m.”

Kenti leaned forward, her cheek on the back of Zala’s hand. “Were you scared?”

“When I actually heard myself talking, yeah. But the old folks in the choir would hum me along.” Zala leaned her legs against the hump of the gear box and turned to look at her children. “But wasn’t Miss
Kenti the hit of the day.” She kissed Kenti’s cheek just as Spence swerved around Griffin and pulled up short at the stop sign.

“We going to Paschal’s?” Kofi scooted forward to see how many men had gathered in the open shed at the side of the Pool Checkers Tournament Association building.

“You guys are,” Spence said, watching Sonny in the rearview. “Aunt Dee and Gloria and Uncle Bry are waiting for you in the dining room. We’ve got a run to make. Got to get this car back to Gaston’s.”

“You going to Gaston’s?”

“Yeah, Sonny. Want to tag along?” Spence’s hand slid from the wheel, but he refrained from reaching across the gear box to squeeze Zala’s.

“Where we going, Pop?”

“Ya know, Sonny,” Spence began, “if you were only a neighbor’s boy, I’d still find you special enough to want to get to know you.” He found he could not go on to say all he felt. A white Toyota was parked at the curb. Sonny’s eyes were straight ahead, Spence noted, stealing a glance in the rearview. Spence had been stealing glances at his son since the day he’d come home, and even more so since the day, unpacking pots, pans, and everyday dishes, books, balls, and a gadget that belonged to the sewing machine, Sonny had lashed out at Kofi for packing something Sonny had thrown away. By nightfall, Spence had in his possession the wax that bore a sweeter fragrance than the bees had ever intended. Sliced open like grapefruits, the molds had only to be turned over to Dowell for five sets.

“Recognize these?” Spence passed the keys over his shoulder to Sonny.

Her knees against the hump, Zala turned to read his expression. His face was muted. But his brain was revolving like a prayer wheel, nut and bolt on tight. Through his window she saw the green minibus half-parked on the sidewalk. A cluster of sunflowers hung over the windshield. Between two beds of sunflowers was a path that led to Cower Road. Birds plucked at the seeds and kept the flowers bobbing and swaying. The seeds were large enough to press for salad oil. She moved her eyes back to Sonny.

“Which house is it?”

“Whaddayamean?” He looked around the street from both side windows but not straight ahead or behind, she noticed. “I don’t even know where we are.”

Spence parked the car. He put his back against his door and slid his arm across the top of the seat.

“When I was growing up, your nana Cora and gram Wesley used to make big speeches about lying. Lies were sin and crime. There was nothing worse than a blue-gummed, bald-faced, bandy-legged liar. Though that didn’t prevent your nana Cora from painting a prettier picture of our status than the facts allowed. I guess the problem of lies stayed on their minds because they’d been lying to me. They wouldn’t tell me I was adopted. They fed me plenty of clues, though. They wanted me to know what they couldn’t bring themselves to simply tell me. Lies are like that. Or rather, the truth is like that. It leaks out, because, I think, we by nature want to be up front.”

Spence turned off the motor and turned his body more in Sonny’s direction. “Your mother has told you that you don’t owe anybody the truth, including us. I sort of agree with that. I like counting on your basic nature to help you spill whatever you really wanted us to know. So I don’t have to ask you where you’ve been going when you tell us you’re off to see Valerie Brooks. You’ve led us here.”

“Here? Where? I don’t even know where this is.”

“We’re here, Sonny, because you want us to be here. In various ways, you led us here.”

Sonny slammed his weight against the back of the seat and one of the speakers Gaston had installed in the back rattled. Zala got out and slammed her door. As she bent to open his, she caught a movement on the roof of a house they had passed. A one-and-a-half-story building, it had a louvered attic. There were plants in the large lower window and shiny blue drapes. The stoop was to the side of the window, a rain spout running down the bricks. Three big dogs were flopped on top of each other on the top step in front of the door. One looked like a grizzly bear. The yard was bushy. There was a gate.

“Come on,” she told him, prepared to lean in and pull Sonny out if he balked. Spence got out and came around to the sidewalk. He looked up and down the street, then caught her glance and began walking.

“Is that the house, Sonny?” She walked close on his heels, steering him toward the gate.

“Which house?” He stopped to look at the houses across the street so that she had to crowd him. “I’ve never been around here before. Where are we anyway?”

Zala walked him up to the gate. The grizzly dog lifted its head and bared its teeth. Its teeth were yellow, its eyes were milky. The other two scrambled up. When the grizzly started barking, head jutted forward, claws scratching the brick step, the other two joined in.

“Open it,” she said, “and go ring the bell.”

“Use the key,” Spence added, quietly unlatching the gate.

When the gate creaked open, the leanest dog, bowed like a starving greyhound, shot from the steps directly to the dirt. The grizzly came down the steps barking, strong jaws lined with thick white spit. The barrel-headed dog stayed on the steps, barking and snapping and backing his rump into the door.

“Go in? Are you crazy?! You seen them wild dogs!”

At the sound of Sonny’s voice, the bony dog flattened himself on the ground and inched toward Sonny, tossing his head like he had the catch of the day, a chewable slipper. Barrel Head nosed the grizzly out of the way and came through the yard. Dog tags clinked in excitement, rumps wagged. Spence pushed Sonny into the yard ahead of him, and the three dogs moved in to nuzzle Sonny’s hands, which he quickly withdrew and held up past his head. Barrel Head reached up on his hind legs, trying to bury his muzzle in Sonny’s hands, Grizzly aimed for the elbows, the greyhound mutt dove for Sonny’s pants leg.

The dogs shouldered each other out of the way to escort Sonny up the walk. They doubled back to sniff at Spence as he inched toward the steps. They eyed Zala, growling low in their throats, one sheepish eye on Sonny in case he swatted them for threatening company. They did not bark again until Lafayette slid down the drain in front of them and the gate creaked open behind Zala. The dogs were turning every which way as the front door opened.

She could hear Gittens telling the dogs to be quiet as he reached a hand out to greet Sonny, who recoiled—the greyhound mutt shot past Gittens and into the house over the tile as Spence pushed Sonny aside and rushed the door with Lafayette. Another voice from deep inside the house made Zala take the steps two at a time. It took both dogs to slow her down.

Y
ou’re at the keyboard trying to answer a letter. The TV is on, a summer rerun of baby-remember-my-name
Fame
. Your child, on her way out, flips the channel to your brand of drama, the news; then the porch light goes on. And you, on red alert now, swing your head up. The years swing up too, the room does at least, it’s three years older than the time on the page you’ve been typing. Moon or no, you become Larry Talbot each time your child no longer child goes through that door. Hair everywhere on your skin at attention, mouth muzzling out to match the menace beyond the house. Kneecaps and spine rearranging your line, you lope to the porch with a no. “No! Why?” Because of the washer worn in the bathroom faucet that drips all night wrecking your sleep and this that and the other, there are claws in your voice. She’s groaning but patient. Her friend on the porch asks how the project is going. With so many fangs in your mouth, a normal-toned answer is not easy. They’re only going next door to a VCR party,
Under the Cherry Moon
. Your daughter, by way of pulling your coat to the time, the hour and year, mostly the year, says, “Hey.” You still not caught up, or rather too much so, won’t relent. You escort them to check out the adults, your convoy sailing under the flag of what again did “Pass the Dutchie on the left-hand side” mean? It’s still ’83 on your hit parade, if not ’79. Your daughter, the soul of tried patience, warns you to get done with the project, eight years, enough is enough.