by Roger Herst
Joel’s brother, Jacob, sought out Joel’s new congregation, Ohav Shalom, to plan the final rites of passage. Jacob was aware of his brother’s admiration for Gabby but, under the circumstances, did not expect her to conduct the funeral service. That duty fell upon Dov Shellenberg.
In his interview with the family, Dov did not mention that his personal contact with Joel had been anything but cordial. In the face of such tragedy, his old grievances seemed petty and irrelevant. He conducted himself with professional dignity and genuine compassion. The final rite of passage for Joel Fox was scheduled to begin at Danzansky Memorial Chapel. They would move to the King David Cemetery in Northern Virginia for the interment.
Gabby’s family argued over whether to inform her of these arrangements. Samuel Lewyn, always protective of his daughter’s health, believed that rest and isolation were more important. Terry strongly disagreed. Aware that Gabby’s relationship with Joel was far closer than her family knew, Chuck stayed out of the debate. But he knew the time had come to lift the protective curtain that shielded her.
On the day before the funeral, he remained in the hospital after visiting hours. At 9:00 p.m., when the nursing staff changed, he entered Gabby’s room without being seen by the staff. She was lying on her back, trying to exercise her vocal chords by singing. Her voice was so soft he could barely make out the tune or the words. He sat down silently beside the bed, taking her hand in his and studying her swollen eyes. Her bruised ribs ached when she rolled sideways to acknowledge his presence.
“Joel Fox hasn’t come to see me. Something has happened to him, hasn’t it?” she said in a weak voice.
“We need to talk,” he whispered, squeezing her hand.
“Tell me,” she said simply.
“None of us wanted to burden you, but a terrible thing has happened. Your family is still debating whether to tell you. I know you too well not to. Let me be the messenger.”
She struggled to sit up, her eyes suddenly alert and searching his. “The story Inspector Rose told me is bunk, isn’t it? It doesn’t make sense.”
He nodded, his tongue whetting his lips. “This is going to hurt,” he said, bending towards her to kiss her cheek. “It’s bad, Gabby. Real bad. Joel followed you to the park, where he ran into members of the tennis team in your Jeep. Horace Sklar gave him James Tee’s Saturday night special. Horace swore to the police that it was unloaded and that he didn’t have any ammunition. About that he and the other boys were emphatic. You must have fled from the men’s toilet. Hillary Jones came rushing out, prepared to shoot you. Joel got as close as he could and fired. Nobody knows where he got the bullet, but he killed her with a single shot only an instant before she would have killed you. The police said the bullet pierced her brain. They could hardly believe he could hit her from such a distance and in such poor light.”
A fragment of memory flashed though Gabby’s mind, but faded before she make sense of it. “Is he all right?” she asked.
“No, Gabby, that’s the tragedy. After he shot Jones, he rushed to you. He was on the ground beside you when Ersiline North, who had been standing guard outside, came around the bleachers and shot him. The police don’t think he suspected she was there. The rescue people put him into the ambulance next to you. He was in intensive care here until yesterday, when they couldn’t keep him alive any longer.”
His hand tightened around hers as her eyes closed, and she folded into the inner blackness. A long interval elapsed in which nothing was said. Then he noticed that her lips were moving and heard the familiar syllables of the Kaddish, “O-say sha-lom bim-roomav, hu ya-a-seh sha-lom a-lei-nu…” He kissed her again as she began to sob. Then he simply held her. At midnight, the duty nurse threatened to call the security staff if he didn’t leave.
“I’ll see you first thing in the morning, Gabby,” he whispered. “Dov will officiate at the funeral tomorrow afternoon. That’s why I needed to tell you now. If you want to attend, I’ll get you out of here. It won’t be easy, but I’ll do it by hook or by crook. Let me know in the morning.”
Gabby was determined to attend Joel’s funeral, but it took Chuck‘s ingenuity to make the necessary arrangements. First, he got Terry to enter her sister’s condo and fetch a dark suit and flat black shoes. Next, he coordinated an early release with the medical staff and that required permission from two of her three attending physicians. Finally, he improvised a scheme to elude the press hovering about the elevator banks. He and Dr. Lewyn donned green surgical scrub gowns and commandeered a gurney. An intern accepted the role of patient. They moved through the hospital corridors to an ambulance waiting outside and loaded the gurney into it. As they had hoped, the press followed the ambulance. Gabby, who had followed in a wheelchair, was then assisted into her sister’s car. Nobody believed, however, that the press would miss the funeral.
Before the funeral began, Joel’s family received condolences in a chamber adjacent to the chapel. Sam Lewyn and Chuck supported Gabby as she limped forward, the severe pain in her ribs palliated by a heavy dose of analgesics. Her injured gastroc still sent bursts of fire up her thigh. A restraining collar hid the contusions on her neck. A black beret, pulled down over her ears, covered the head wound. Her eyes were red and glassy, and she wore no makeup.
“Your father was a wonderful man,” she said to Ian Fox. He responded politely, but it was clear he did not recognize her from the tennis match in Los Angeles. Joel’s older son, Donald, was only slightly more responsive. Both boys were disorientated, with death’s mystery written on their young faces. Gabby was torn by pity; no child should lose a parent like this. And now, with Joel gone, they would remain in Los Angeles with their mother. They might never know what sacrifices their father had been prepared to make on their behalf, how much he had loved them. With Joel was gone, she had no place in their lives and no right to tell them.
A single bouquet of spring flowers rested atop Joel’s coffin. The chapel was filled to capacity with Joel’s family, members of the Olav Shalom congregation, members and officers of the National Rifle Association, members of the Izaak Walton League, fellow dentists, his patients, and his many friends.
Before the family took their seats in the first row, Gabby found a place with her own family, midway among the pews. Sam Lewyn, Mickey Charles, Terry, and her brother-in-law were there, with Lydia and Chuck beside them. As she sidled past the Browners, she was struck by Lydia’s beauty. Her golden hair set off her plain black dress. She wore no ornamentation—nothing to distract from what God had so perfectly fashioned. Her downcast eyes rested upon her lap and Gabby’s heart contracted. Here was Augustus Saint-Gauden’s Mourning Woman come to living, breathing life. An eternal figure, she mourned Joel’s death as she had Thomas Belmont’s. Beauty and death; joy and sorrow. God’s creatures drink always from a mixed cup.
Dov Shellenberg, in a dark blue suit and black yarmulke, entered through a side door to the pulpit and caught sight of Gabby. He moved to the open row in front of her, and bent forward with a kiss to signal that their antagonism had disappeared into history.
“I’m sorry, Gabby, “ he whispered. “You must know better than any of us what it is like to descend into gehenom.”
“No,” she said sadly. “No more than the other mourners I’ve consoled through the years. We all must grieve at one time or another. Today, it’s my turn. Thanks for helping. I couldn’t find the strength to do this. I’m so glad you’re here, Dov.”
His smile was friendly and tender, if a little uncertain. “That’s what colleagues are for, right?”
During the service, she let the sadness of Joel’s death wash over her. She let it fill her heart and root in her stomach. Were it not for his presence, she would be lying in the coffin before them. And he would be sitting in the pew mourning for her. Fate turned on tiny accidents of time and place. The police were confused by the details of the gun battle, and particularly by Horace Sklar’s testimony. He had repeatedly insisted there were no bullets for the handgun he
had entrusted to Joel, and his teammates corroborated his story. They insisted that Joel had inspected the weapon and recalled that all of them had laughed when he said that the dealer wouldn’t know the handgun wasn’t loaded. No one could figure out how Joel could have killed Hillary Jones with an empty .9 mm Glock. Or how he fired the fatal shot from 200 feet in dim light.
To Gabby there was no mystery. She intended to tell the police about the good luck charm Joel had carried in his pocket. She would let Steve Murray, secretary of the One Shot Club, testify to his marksmanship.
Dov Shellenberg’s eulogy was simple and sincere. He talked about Joel’s life and the man he had been to the people in his life—a loving father to his sons, a trusted professional to his patients, a servant to his community, an officer and activist with the National Rifle Association, a teacher and guide to inner city youths. And a courageous man who faced mortal danger to help a woman in trouble. He stood, Dov said, for gun safety and had died trying to stop criminals from peddling illegal guns to inner city youths. Gabby heard in Dov’s voice an apology for his earlier harshness and a tear slipped down her cheek. Tzedik, tzedik tirdof. Seek justice. And look first within the heart to find it.
After the burial, Gabby asked to be taken home but Chuck interceded. The hospital had agreed to her release for the funeral only if she returned immediately. There were still tests to complete and much healing to occur.
Gabby submitted reluctantly. She returned to the hospital and what seemed a sterile grave. Her dreams were troubled, but she could make no sense of them. The last thing she could remember clearly was her study at Olav Shalom. She knew that Marcel has called, though she could not remember their conversation. After that she had only flashes of memory, indistinct as images arising out of gray fog. But she remembered Joel’s voice. It seemed to her that he spoke from a great distance, and, no matter how hard she tried, she could not make out his words.
Two days later, in the middle of the afternoon, a nurse’s aide came into the room to ask if she felt like receiving visitors. After the funeral, the press had largely left and her security, though still present, was less stringent. There were four ladies to see her, the aide said. Gabby agreed to see them.
Reverend Claudine Henderson entered with Karlene Patrick-Hill, Daphne Styles, and Denise Crosby. They had not been implicated in the scandal at Mothers Against Guns. The ladies entered the room as if in formal procession and stood silently by her bed until Reverend Henderson spoke.
“Thank you for seeing us,” she said. “I wasn’t sure you would.”
“I think I needed to see you,” Gabby replied.
The reverend smiled. “I understand. Sometimes we need to know that everything wasn’t a lie. We’ve been feeling that ourselves. It’s why we came. We wanted you to know that we’ll go on. We’re not sure how quite yet, but we’ll go on. Maybe we’ll join another organization; maybe we’ll found one of our own. The work still needs to be done. Now more than ever our community needs healing. We need healing.”
“I’m glad,” said Gabby. “That takes courage.”
“I’m so sorry,” Daphne said. “This wasn’t your problem and you shouldn’t have gotten hurt. Your friends should not have died. I’m so sorry.”
“No,” said Gabby. “I think I came to see what Bart always knew. We are not separate. What wounds one of us, wounds all of us. In Hebrew we say Tzedik, tzedik tirdof.”
“What does that mean?” asked Karlene.
“Seek justice,” Gabby replied.
There was a moment of silence and then Karlene, the Biblical student, spoke. “But let judgment run down as waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream,” she said.
Together the women wept, and Gabby felt something in her heart ease. The gray fog did not seem so thick.
Terry was waiting to care for her sister when she returned to her condo the next day. Gabby was not required by Jewish law to sit shiva for seven days, but she did. It felt right to her, and it proved therapeutic. She let Joel’s love resonate inside her heart like the melodic strings of a cello. She let the tears fall when they came. And she took nourishment from the kindness and affection of family and friends.
In familiar surroundings and surrounded by her family, her memory of the events in Fort Stanton Park began to return. She remembered lying on the ground outside the restrooms and the woman standing over her. She remembered waiting to die and the peace that had come to her. Then the woman collapsed, and, for a time, everything went dark. Then she heard Joel’s voice. It still sounded far away, and she could not hear the words he said. But she knew, from Steve Murray’s testimony, that Joel had been with her moments before his own death.
She remembered that she had spoken to Joel on the way to the Park, though she could not remember what they said to one another. But now she knew why he had been there. She knew what she had done and the gift he had given her. When the sadness, the guilt, and the pain threatened to overwhelm her, she held onto the gift in her heart.
One night, in a quiet moment before they retired, Terry asked, “Were you and Joel together?” Gabby understood immediately. Terry wanted to understand the depth of her sister’s pain.
She swallowed to find her voice. “No,” she said. “We never got that far. We thought we had time and wanted to take our relationship slowly. Now, I wish we had, Terry. I would have liked to remember Joel as my lover.”
Bart Skulkin Tennis Center
The US Park Service and the District of Columbia Department of Recreation agreed to locate the Bart Skulkin Memorial Tennis Center on the existing Anacostia Tennis Courts. The final plan called for eleven hard courts. A twelfth, dedicated for tournament play, would be surrounded by grandstands for 300 spectators, locker rooms, and coaching facilities. The official groundbreaking was held on a Sunday afternoon, in conjunction with the award ceremony for an area-wide high school tournament Lydia Browner had organized. The mid-September sun was still warm, though a crisp breeze from the river, harbinger of autumn, provided refreshing coolness.
As in so many Washington events, politics played a role. The national media had seized on the story of the tennis center in Anacostia that grew out a tragic killing, and Vice President Arthur Giles claimed the opportunity to showcase his administration’s dedication to the needs of urban youth. Gabby voiced strong opposition to using the groundbreaking as a political forum. When word of her resistance reached Capitol Hill, she received a call from Dov Shellenberg in the Office of the Press Secretary for the President—where he was temporarily working as a newly appointed White House Fellow.
“The center is on federal land,” he said, “and it’s going to be pretty hard to stop a Vice President from visiting a project overseen by the National Park Service. You and I know he hasn’t lifted a finger for the center, but that’s the way things operate around here. Off the record, of course, we all know that the executive branch takes credit for everything that goes right, whether or not it played a role. And when a program fails, it blames others for what went wrong. That’s Washington. Swim against the current and you drown. Better let the vice president have his half hour before the cameras and be done with it.”
“Dov, he’s a windbag,” she retorted.
“He’ll attract a lot of publicity. I think Bart would be flattered to have him there. Besides, you’re going to need cooperation from the Park Service for ongoing maintenance. No use antagonizing your benefactors. That just doesn’t make sense.”
In the end she reluctantly accepted Dov’s logic. To create animosity over a Vice-Presidential speech was foolhardy. She owed that much to Bart.
After trophies had been awarded to the tournament winners, the formal groundbreaking took place at the location the architects had planned for the tournament court. Folding chairs had been arranged for individuals who had helped to make the memorial a reality. Included were the Zentner family, Dr. Caleb Shaboya, the athletic department of Anacostia High, Lydia Browner, and the tennis coaches and players. The Anacostia ten
nis team sat together, resplendent in their new yellow and white uniforms. Marcel Clipper, soon to enter the University of Virginia on a tennis scholarship, sat beside Gabby.
A tall black youth in an ill-fitting suit and crumpled necktie sat with the tennis team. Gabby had arranged a furlough for Daryl Bender so that he could share the day with his friends and honor the man who had given his life for him. His presence gave her hope for the young lives this center would shape. Some, like Marcel, might win tennis scholarships for college. All of them would learn important lessons to take with them for the rest of their lives.
“I want to work here,” Daryl told her in a quiet moment. “Few people knew Mr. Skulkin like I did. He died for me. You know what that feels like, Rabbi?”
A lump formed in her throat, and tears clouded her eyes. She wasn’t sure what he knew about the circumstances of Joel Fox’s death. “Yes, Daryl,” she said. “I know that feeling very well.” But she didn’t want to talk about Joel at the moment and turned the conversation. “Working here would be a wonderful thing. When you’ve completed your sentence, call me. I think I can help.”
“So when do we play tennis?” he surprised her by asking. “You promised to whip me. Remember?”
She smiled and said, “I remember. I’ll give you a chance to practice first, but we’ll have our game.”
“Gottcha covered, Rabbi. I’ll be out of Norbeck in seven months and you’ll be my first call.”
During their speeches at the ceremony, both Chief Noyas and Commissioner Jameson lauded the District police for shutting down Mothers Against Guns and arresting eleven members who sold guns to teenagers in their neighborhoods. What they didn’t mention was that the arrests had created a vacuum that was certain to be filled by new entrepreneurs. As long as people wanted to buy guns, there would be dealers to sell them.
The Secret Service swarmed about in preparation for the Vice President’s arrival. The groundbreaking was well underway when the master-of-ceremonies announced that Arthur Giles had arrived by helicopter to say a few words.
