Where Nobody Dies (15 page)

“This was all five kids?”

“Not then. The first time it was only three—Tanika, Jomo, and Kamisha. The court gave me custody as soon as I came back that time. Then I had the twins, Kwame and Kwaku. Everything was cool for a while; they father was with me, you dig. But then he went south with his new woman, and I got restless again, so I left the kids with Mama and went to Philly with this dude I knew. When I came back, they was in foster care
again
. Damn!” She exploded, hitting the wall with her fist. Her face was distorted with rage; I was glad the other side wasn't there to witness her anger. “I was so mad at that woman, I done give her a black eye. What she mean puttin'
my
kids in foster homes?”

“What did she tell you about it?”

“She
said
she was too sick to keep 'em,” Arnette replied with narrow, suspicious eyes. “What kind of grandmamma gets too sick to care for her grandbabies? She did it to spite me, on account of she never like Jerome—that's the dude I be with, you dig. She just gettin' back at me for goin' off with him. That's all they was behind her puttin' the kids in foster care, is all.”

There were a lot of things I could have said to that, but the time was ripe for none of them. I wasn't sure, looking at my client's intransigent, outthrust jaw, that it ever would be.

“Then the social workers done started in on me,” she went on, “like they sittin' in judgment, callin' me a bad mother. They sayin' I ‘fail to plan.' Damn social-work bullshit is all that is. How'm I gonna plan when welfare won't give me the money for a bigger apartment without I got the kids home with me, and they won't give me the kids unless I got a place to keep 'em?”

“That's a problem, all right,” I agreed.

“
Thank
you,” she answered with satisfaction. “I don't know why them high-toned bitches at the agency can't see that, but it's true. True as I stand here. All I wanted was to take my kids home with me, but every time I went to that agency, all I got was more bullshit. I got so tired behind that, I stopped goin'. They was puttin' me through too many changes. Next thing I know, I was in court and they talkin' about permanent neglect and takin' my kids away forever. Now I can't even visit no more. Fuckin' bullshit social workers!”

There wasn't a tear anywhere near her eyes or her voice, and yet, somehow, the pain came through clearly. Her anger was palpable, but so was the sense of loss. “Do you want me to try to get your visitation rights back?” I asked.

“Damn straight,” came the reply. “And that's just for starters, you dig.”

Back in the courtroom, I noted that the Hon. Glenda was engaged in conversation with the agency's lawyer, another dress-for-success type who could have passed for an oversized Marcy Sheldon. I bet forty-hour workweeks were unknown to her too. She smiled a lipsticked smile and promised me full access to Arnette's copious records any time I cared to come to her office in Lower Manhattan. I thanked her and took her card. It was all very ladylike, and I hated to turn it into a street brawl, but as the great Mao said, a revolution is not a tea party. And for Arnette to have the slightest chance of winning her case, at least a revolution would be necessary.

I started right in on the visitation issue, painting to the court a picture of my client as a bereaved mother, deprived finally of the only solace she had since she had been unable to meet the agency's requirements for regaining custody. My touching portrait might have been helped by my client's looking less like somebody you wouldn't want to meet in a dark alley, but it was good for openers.

The agency lawyer's tone was more-in-sorrow-than-anger as she outlined to the court the reasons why Arnette's visits had been stopped. First there had been the time she showed up high. Then the time Jerome had accompanied her—armed with a loaded pistol. The words “disruptive,” “argumentative,” “disturbing influence on the children” began to creep into the conversation. On one memorable occasion, Arnette had punched a social worker during a visit. As if all that weren't enough, she finished with a clincher. “After each of her visits, Your Honor,” she purred, “one of the twins, Kwame, invariably wets his bed.”

“He always
had
that problem,” Arnette muttered. “It ain't
my
fault he still doin' it.”

“How old is he?” I whispered.

“Be nine next birthday.”

A topic better left undiscussed, I decided, and went back to the generalized platitudes about a mother's rights. I tried to point out the strain Arnette had been under during the visits, and the fact that she wasn't responsible for what Jerome brought to the agency. I knew none of it would impress Glenda; she and the agency lawyer were probably meeting for lunch after the court day, but I wanted Arnette to see me in there slugging.

The agency lawyer surprised me by pointing to several lengthy time periods—the longest fifteen months—during which Arnette didn't visit at all. “So much,” the lawyer concluded with a tartness that also surprised me, “for this mother's burning need to see her children.”

End of argument. An adjourned date was set, but no change in visitation was granted. It didn't mean the war was over, but it was a larger battle than I really wanted, or could afford, to lose.

Outside in the hall, I had a more antagonistic opponent to face. My client stood, feet apart, looking for all the world like a karate expert about to slice a board in two. Her mouth was set and her eyes burned. She wanted an explanation, and she wanted it fast.

She wasn't going to get it. We had to settle a few things between us, and one of them was that I wasn't afraid of her and I wasn't taking her orders any more than I was taking Glenda's. I had to shift the emphasis from my failure to get visitation to her failure to tell me the whole story.

“Well, that was a lot of fun,” I said sarcastically. “I always love getting bad news from the other side first. Especially in front of the judge. It makes my job so much easier.”

“What you talkin' about?”

“I'm talking about why you didn't visit for fifteen months! Do you think it looks good to tell the judge how much you care about your kids when you didn't even bother to see them for over a year?”

She opened her mouth to retort, but I cut her off. “And don't give me any bullshit about how they put you through changes. I know what they do, but anybody who really wants their kids puts up with it. At least they get to see their kids. They don't just walk away.”

“Easy for you to say,” she said sullenly. “You don't be sittin' there havin' them look at you like dirt. You don't be in the office lookin' at your own kids watchin' you like you was a stranger. With them so-call foster mothers right in the room and one of them be callin' to
my
child, ‘Come to Mama.' Ain't nobody say to
my
baby ‘Come to Mama' except me, you dig. That's why I hit that lady that time. It just hurt me so bad to see Kwaku callin' somebody else Mama like he done. He don't know no better, but that social-worker bitch did.”

“And that's why you stopped visiting?”

She ducked her head and something like shame crossed her face.

“I didn't mean to hit her,” she said. “I just got so crazy. I was afraid I might freak out again, and don't know what I'd do, you dig?”

I nodded. “I see your point,” I said. The truth was, the way she described the visitation shocked me. In an office, with the foster mother present. No wonder Kwame had wet the bed—torn between two “mothers,” each urging him to favor her over the other.

Arnette looked up, determination and anger back in their accustomed places on her face. “Talk's cheap, lawyer,” she said. “Next time, I want to see some action, you dig.” She turned and walked away, her dreadlocks bouncing, her stride masculine and intimidating.

For once I wasn't alone as I watched a client walk toward the courthouse elevators. I sensed Mickey Dechter's presence before either of us said a word.

“Some wonderful case you got me into,” I grumbled, looking at her out of the corner of my eye.

She shrugged. “Hey, you know how it is,” she answered in a mock-tough tone. Then she grinned. “It's a tough business,” we both said at once, and then shared the laugh that followed.

12

It's never too late to have a happy childhood. The words were in green, lettered in a calligraphic style I'd never seen before. Drawings of kids at play surrounded the words—kids jumping rope, kids swinging on trees, tossing colored balls, playing with a cocker spaniel. They were Lois Lenski-style drawings, very open and sweet but not cloying.

Just as I was deciding I liked the poster a lot, I thought of Dawn. Never too late to have a happy childhood? When you're passed from a self-centered mother to cold-fish aunt? When the alternatives are a smothering grandmother or a spoiled-brat father? I turned away; it was a nice picture, but that was all.

It would have been hard to imagine a less likely place to track down the murky past of Art Lucenti and Todd Lessek than the Friday's Child Day-Care Center. In the middle of the big room a group of toddlers sat wide-eyed as a bright-faced young black woman told a story with puppets. In the corner, two young men were changing diapers. In the other corner, babies too young for the story were crawling on blankets, watched by a middle-aged woman who cooed at them encouragingly.

When the diapering was done, one of the men came over. He was tall, with a thin face and lank blond hair, worn in a pony tail. “Hi,” he said, extending his hand. “I'm Chris Alter. Do you have a child you want to place here?”

It was a natural question, but it flustered me anyway. “No,” I replied, too quickly. “I'm not even married.” The absurdity of the remark struck us both at the same time. We smiled and he said, “Neither are the mothers of some of these kids. But I get the feeling you're here about something else.”

I nodded, then glanced around the child-filled room. “Is there somewhere we can talk?”

“Sure,” he said. “My office.” He led me into a tiny cubicle off the main room. Desk, two chairs, rusting metal gooseneck lamp. Very spartan, except for the wall posters, which were elaborate, fanciful renderings of classic children's book illustrations. Twisted trees, pre-Raphaelite fairies with long curly hair, and a wonderful
Alice in Wonderland
caterpillar.

He caught me looking at the posters. “Arthur Rackham,” he explained. “From the Green Tiger Press in California. My lady's an artist; she gave me those when we moved in here.”

“She did the drawing in the other room?”

“Yeah. It's great, isn't it?”

“It's pretty,” I replied. “It's not true, but it's pretty.”

His eyebrows went up, but he said nothing. Just sat back and waited for me to go on. He would have made a good shrink—or a good lawyer.

“For some people it
is
too late to have a happy childhood. What about abused kids, molested kids, kids whose parents are dead—not all kids' problems can be solved by an hour or two playing with a puppy.” I didn't know why my voice was taking on a hard vehement edge it sometimes got in court, why it suddenly seemed so important to convince Chris Alter of the rightness of my position. Some obscure honor demanded that he acknowledge the limits of his profession.

“Nobody said,” he replied gently, “that all kids have the same kind of happy childhood, or even that you have to be a child to have one. An adult who learns to play, to free the child within, to love without restrictions—that person is giving herself the happy childhood she couldn't get from her own parents.”

His use of the feminine pronouns was interesting, to say the least. “You mean,” I said warily, “that I'm taking the sign too literally?”

“Maybe.” He smiled the kind of sweet innocent smile I hadn't seen on an adult face since the days of flower power. “Although I suspect you have a particular child in mind. In which case, all I can say is I have seen abused, neglected, bereaved kids who can be helped to happiness. All it takes is a little extra love along the way.”

Welcome to Walton's Mountain, my mind retorted. That “little extra love” was just what Dawn wasn't getting from anyone. But I hadn't come to talk about Dawn and I was sorry I'd started the topic. I changed the subject.

“Why Friday's Child?” I hoped my tone was as light as I'd intended it to be. “What's wrong with Monday's or Tuesday's?”

He smiled as though the question was the bantering one it might have been if I'd asked it before we'd had the other conversation. “Monday's child is only ‘fair of face,'” he replied. “Friday's child is the one we're trying to encourage—‘loving and giving.'”

I hadn't changed the subject as far as I thought I had. “A noble sentiment,” I muttered, unable to shake the mood of cynicism that caused me to take a shot at anything Chris Alter said. I hoped getting down to business would dispel some of it, but considering the nature of my business, it wasn't likely.

“You used to occupy space in a different building, didn't you?” I asked. “One owned by Ira Bellfield?”

“Yes,” he answered, wariness tightening his face, closing it off just a fraction. I was interested; apparently Alter wasn't as childlike as he seemed at first blush.

“I'd like to ask you some questions about what happened between you and Art Lucenti over that building,” I began. “I promise it won't go any further. I'm doing some investigation into a different matter entirely, and I need a little background.”

“What makes you think I know anything you'd be interested in?” The wariness was on the front burner now. Apparently a happy childhood didn't necessarily preclude a cautious adult—or maybe Chris Alter's dealings with the real-estate crowd had taken its toll of his innocence.