Those Bones Are Not My Child (88 page)

“She seemed to know me. I really thought she did.”

“I know what that’s like,” Zala said, glancing at the clock. “You were being polite. You thought any minute her name would come to you.”

“Then the door, you know, the other door, on my side, it like …”

“It opened.”

“Yeah. I should have known. I didn’t see nobody but her, and her hand was on top of the car. She kept knocking her knuckles on the top of the car and talking to me.”

“To keep your attention on her, Sonny, so you wouldn’t wonder too much about who was in the car with her, who opened the door.”

“But I should’ve known. You always told us to pay attention and not take rides.”

“Of course, Sonny. But they tricked you. You got in because you didn’t want to be rude, not because you were stupid.”

“And I was mad, don’t forget.”

“Yes, you were mad with me.”

“So I got in.”

“That’s not why you got in. You got in because those two were clever and tricky.”

“Yeah, but …”

“They tricked you. That’s why you got in. You weren’t looking for trouble. Being mad at your mama don’t make you bad. They tricked you.”

“Yeah. They tricked me. They tricked me.”

She stood up. He didn’t. He stared straight ahead. She’d hung the African poster on the wall. The zebra in the extreme foreground had his head turned toward the herd of gazelles. The eye on the side of the zebra’s head was bright. Animals with eyes on the sides had a broad range of vision. The bird in the baobab had eyes in front. Creatures with eyes in front had to keep them open or be eaten.

“It’s time,” she said. He wasn’t looking at the poster. He was tipping the chair forward, riding in the car. She sat back down.

When he started up again, he would probably concentrate on the man in back who told him not to move, not to yell, and to keep his eyes on the floor or he’d blow his head off. The woman scolding the man, laughing and talking, pleasant and friendly, shifting gears while Sonny watched her feet, memorizing the jewelry and the shoes, the luggage brown leather, the black scrollwork around the sides and the toe, the
light tan saddle stitching, the reddish brown stockings that wrinkled when she worked the pedals. She smelled of expensive perfume. She told Sonny her friend was a bit of a character, to pay him no attention. She would be dropping him off in a minute and would then take Sonny wherever he wished. He was able to keep his head down but lift his eyes enough to recognize the streets they shot through, speeding over the dips and mounds he used to take his bike throwing papers.

Sometimes, if he was tired, he skipped over that part of the ride and picked up the story on I-20 west heading past Hightower, then jumping lanes to the left to swing off onto 285 north into Cobb County. When he started seeing signs for Smyrna, he really got scared. He didn’t know anybody north of Bankhead, and it was clear by then anyway that the woman in the designer glasses and the man who spit when he talked were not his friends and he was in trouble.

“They played these tapes,” Sonny said, reaching through the rungs of the chair to show her where the tape deck had been. He drew his hand back and closed his eyes.

“Of course,” Zala said. “And they laughed at the nasty parts and tried to get you to laugh too.”

“I did laugh.”

“Because you were scared. You were hoping to disarm them, to keep them friendly.”

“I laughed and then he called me … he kept calling me names.”

“That was the plan. They tricked you into laughing so they could make you feel dirty. Make you feel like whatever happened, you deserved it ’cause you’re dirty.”

“He kept it up. But she said not to pay him no mind. She was trying to get him to shut up.”

“No, she wasn’t. They’re partners. Two against one. Two grown-ups against one child. He scared you and she acted friendly. That’s how they planned it. To keep you off balance. A trick, Sonny.”

“Yeah, but she was—”

“An evil bitch, Sonny. Don’t be stupid. She got you into the car in the first place.”

“Yeah.”

“They tricked you, him and her. Both of them. They’re friends to each other, not to you. You were the victim.”

He tilted his head away as though to look at the woman who was
not an ally. She’d said she would drop the man off at a friend’s house, and they might stop in for a minute, just for a minute. There was a party and they would be showing movies, the adult kind. And seeing as how he’d enjoyed the tapes and was a mature boy, not silly and giggly like some kids his age but grown-up and sensible, maybe he’d like to watch for a minute, just for a minute. And then she’d take him right back home if that’s what he wanted.

“I said okay, like a jerk.”

“You were playing along. There was nothing you could have done that would have been any better than what you did. You played for time, watching for a chance to get away.”

“I was hoping she’d keep her promise.”

“That’s only natural. You are not a crazy person. You don’t know crazy, evil, tricky people, so you can’t think the way they can.”

“But I was kinda …” He plucked at the skin on his neck, and his Adam’s apple disappeared for a minute. “I sort of wanted to see … you know, the movies.”

“Of course. They planned it that way. That says nothing about you. That’s about them, about Maisie and … what was his name?”

He kept pulling at the skin on his neck. She made herself look. He’d been so malnourished when brought to the hospital in Miami that the loose skin had sunk into the cartilage of his throat, blocking his esophagus. They’d had to surgically open it to feed him broth.

“Stop it,” she said.

He wheeled around and hit his elbow on the table. When she moved to comfort him, he turned away and hugged his arm.

“I kept thinking you’d come, you and Dad. I kept waiting for you to come get me. But it wasn’t you. It wasn’t you.”

A knocking at her heart, the police at the door. Always when she got close to the names, he’d accuse her and Spence. Concealment and distraction, twin ploys of deception. What had they threatened him with? And how could he be cured of deception in a place where his heroes, his leaders did it too? Concealment. Distraction. Atlanta heading for the open drain. Inquiry and STOP keeping the faith, theirs the solidarity of the shipwrecked.

“You didn’t come,” he said again.

She would not bite. He’d told Spence how he’d been sent to the door of the three-room prefab the following night when neighbors complained
about the noise and the likelihood of a lewd party. He’d told the police a story—no carousing, just a birthday party. The woman came up behind him to confirm it, to promise to bring the noisy children under control.

“They didn’t even come in to look, Ma.”

“Maisie was pretty convincing, I guess.”

“They didn’t even take a look around,” he said.

The nonchecking police, the nonarriving parents. But nothing about why he’d been trusted to go to the door. Why he’d put the police off with a story. Why he hadn’t run out. He’d known at that point that the children were being moved in the morning, but he did not tell the police.

“What happened to the other children, Sonny?”

“I told you, Ma. They weren’t the ones you showed me. I don’t know nothing about the ones that got killed.”

“Sonny. There’s a man in jail.”

He popped his fingers against the folio. He snapped the tie string till it came off. He poked his finger through a frayed corner and a paper clip slid out from her papers.

“Maybe it’s better to talk these things over with Mac on Saturday.”

“I knew you were mad. I can tell. You keep saying you’re not, but you are.”

“I’m mad. And I’m worried.”

“You worried about me?”

He could have been four years old, coming to the bed to tap her. “You glad about me, Ma?” She’d been glad about him. No matter what stories he’d heard about an unwanted pregnancy and his mama not finishing school on time, she’d been glad about him.

“I love you, and I’ve always been glad about you, Sonny.”

He smoothed out the creases in his prophet outfit and looked down at his socks and sandals, then shrugged.

“I don’t know anything about this stuff,” he said, smacking the folio with the back of his hand.

She didn’t, either. Not anymore. The ceremonial grounds the Innis caravan had found in September should have strengthened her belief, but didn’t. She had as many doubts now as she’d had the autumn before. Uncertain because once she looked at it with a cold eye, she no longer cared about the children’s case. It was this child’s case she had to crack.

“Sonny, it’s time we left.”

“I kept thinking Dad was going to kick the door down any minute, and you … you. But you didn’t come.”

“I am sorry that we didn’t know where you were. We did the best we could. And it worked. You’re here.”

“It didn’t. They beat me up and you didn’t come.”

“We came. You’re here. Stop telling us we didn’t come. I’m not going to spend my life apologizing because we didn’t know where the hell you were. When we found you, we came right away and got you, Sonny.”

“You didn’t find me. I got away. I got away on my own.”

“We’re going now.” She got up and opened the door.

“I knew you were mad.”

“Move.”

He got up slowly, adjusted the blanket, took up his jacket and the staff, and strode to the door like he meant to go out. But he pushed the door slightly into her for a last look at himself in the mirror.

The community center was a beehive gone mad. Small children changed into costumes in the lobby. Parents rushed about snatching up brochures and booklets. Guidance counselors herded students into the booths of IBM, Dow, Polaroid, and Union Carbide to hear how good marks, good attendance, and good conduct led to good prospects in science and industry. GE bulbs in the hands-on booth were buzzing. In halls PTA members were haranguing fathers for lackluster involvement. One of the cornered fathers was loudly protesting the decision to raise money for the children to hear Handel’s
Messiah
when no program for Black Month had been planned.

Zala left Sonny behind with Bestor Brooks and his sister and pushed through the halls in a bulldog frame of mind. From the tables under the banner
COMMUNITY SERVICE CAREERS
, she picked up an announcement for free legal-aid workshops and a brochure put out by Women for Economic Justice. She heard a few parents, members of the recently formed New Justice League, comparing strategies to organize for an independent party.

Up and down the halls, everywhere Spence turned was talk of ROTC, National Merit Scholarships, vocational schools, the seminary,
and performing-arts curricula. He broke through a group discussing a recent TV program about latchkey children—what a shame, working mothers; thank God for grandparents—and sidestepped a dietician explaining the importance of eating a good breakfast. He caught up with Zala, who let the coach—holding aloft a tape measure like a prized trophy—run interference. Twenty teenagers followed the coach to the penny-waist dance, sucking in and counting change as they ran.

“Did you get to the bank?” She could barely hear herself above the noise.

“Next time I’ll wear a ski mask,” Spence said. “They don’t pay worth a damn, Zala. But I got two applications.”

They followed a man carrying a window pole into the auditorium. The band was setting up on stage and that was all. She headed out into the hall again and he followed, waving to Kofi and Kenti, who were racing toward the cafeteria with their friends.

“Where are we going?”

“Careers in Science.” Zala pointed out to the upper corridor, where reps from the five magnet schools passed out literature.

“I’ll pick up the Benjamin Mayes School material for Kofi,” Spence started to say when he spotted one of Judge Webber’s friends. In the Law Careers booth was the attorney who worked for the Victims Aid Program out of the DA’s office.

“Remember the gunman who took over the FBI office in summer, took hostages? He lived across the street from Middlebrooks’s half-brother, a cop? I’m going to ask her about that. There’s been nothing in the news for months. And of course no connection.”

“Ask about Curtis Walker’s uncle too, murdered out there in Bowen Homes. That wasn’t in the papers, either.”

Zala cut through a stream of people going into Careers in the chemistry room. The demonstration she was after would be in the booth up ahead near the water fountain. The sign hung on the side of the panel said
GLASS
. She walked in. Six folding chairs were set up, two by two by two. Another chair was up front by the table. An asbestos cloth was thrown over the table; a footlocker rested on the floor underneath. She sat down to wait for Maisie and the man who’d threatened to blow her son’s head off.

A woman walked in, bumping Zala’s knees with a square metal box.

“I’m sorry.”

“Glass Design?”

“We start in five minutes.” The voice was small, pinched, and shy.

Zala could not see the woman driving a stick shift in a slim knitted dress saying, “I have to choke it when it threatens to stall.” This woman was shapeless inside a capelike brown coat with flecks of white and green. Her hair was hidden under a dark green tam with a stem. She sat down in the chair by the table and set the box on the arm. When Zala looked at her oxfords, the woman drew her feet in under the chair. She then set the box on the floor and got out of her coat. Brown-skinned and ashy, she drew her hands into the shapeless sleeves of her sweater. The blue-and-green plaid skirt, like the tam, smacked more of Catholic school than a three-room prefab and dirty movies. The woman was a disappointment. She got up to unpack the box and the locker and line things up on the table and began to assemble the parts of a torch.

“Haven’t I seen you at Herdon Elementary?”

“Me?” She turned slightly toward Zala with a timid smile. “No, I went to S. Agnes Scott.”

“May I help you off with your sweater? They’ve turned the heat on.”

“Oh no,” she said, clutching it to her. “I don’t have on anything but my slip.”

No trace of the perfume Sonny had mentioned. Zala watched as the woman lined up lengths of glass tubing, then hooked up what looked like a vacuum pump for inflating wading pools. Zala was making the woman nervous.