Gods Go Begging

by Alfredo Vea

  “You don’t have to go so soon, do you?” Jesse called out in a mocking voice. “You forgot to take a copy of your IQ test with you. You didn’t do too badly, Bernard. The job-evaluation index says that you could get a good job as the personal valet to an out-of-work busboy.” Jesse watched as his cursing client was escorted to the bars that separated post eight from the mainline. “Y‘all come back now, y’hear?” he shouted to the departing figure of Bernard Skelley. Once again projectiles and curses filled the air between the bays. Back in the interview room, both Eddy and the doctor were sadly shaking their heads.

  “You shouldn’t let him get to you, Jesse. I always feel so disappointed when I allow myself to fall to his level,” said the doctor as he packed his briefcase to leave. Eddy, who was still seated, nodded his agreement. Even he had succumbed to his own anger. He reached out to touch Jesse’s arm.

  “Carolina says you’re not sleeping, that you’re drinking again,” said Eddy. There was a look of concern in his face. “She called last night and we talked for a while.”

  “What the hell does she know about me?” retorted Jesse angrily. “I haven’t seen her in weeks. What I do is none of her business. It’s over between us.”

  Jesse fell silent. He knew that these two men cared about him. He knew that Carolina cared even more.

  “We rise above Bernard Skelley by working the case,” said Jesse in a barely controlled voice. “We don’t have to like him in order to work the case. There’s no way I could ever like someone like that and I sure as hell won’t pretend otherwise. I can’t believe it, doc! Ten years ago you told me that I was going to explode if I didn’t let my emotions out, and now you’re saying that I’m too goddamn emotional. I wish you shrinks would make up your minds.”

  “Your pendulum,” said the doctor with a sigh, “has got to swing to the middle, Jesse. Ten years ago you barely spoke to anyone. You never smiled. You were almost as hateful as Bernard. This is not Vietnam, Jesse. Life is not a war.”

  “It’s not?” answered Jesse, a look of surprise on his face. “Don’t we live in a free-fire zone? There are seventy-five wars going on in this world right now, and only one of them matches the homicide rate in this country. Didn’t Skelley call himself a soldier? Listen, doc, I can’t stand the bastard, but I will do something that he and his kind could never do. I will stand up for him in a court of law, and I will do my best. Besides, I think I deserve a little anger. It’s certainly not like it used to be. I’m not like I used to be.”

  Jesse’s voice dropped as he remembered how it had once been. There had been years of silence and rage. He had transformed every disagreement into a battle, every act of intimacy into an invasion. Then he thought of Carolina. She made him want to succeed, but once again he had failed. Healthy, genuine love had presented itself and Jesse had been paralyzed by it.

  “You’re not like you used to be,” said the doctor, “but you’re a long way from where you could be. You’ve gone from hurting people to helping people, but you still can’t do anything for yourself.”

  “Now, I’m going to have the sheriff bring up Calvin Thibault.” Jesse extended his hand to the doctor, who reached out with his own. “Thanks for coming, doc.” He had heard the doctor’s words but did not acknowledge them.

  “That’s that double killing up on Potrero Hill, isn’t it?” said the doctor with a note of sadness. “What a shame that was. Such a terrible shame. My wife knew those two women. She used to bring home some of their famous spaghetti sauce. Best I’ve ever had. Such a shame. You’ve got a hard row to hoe on that one, Jesse. But call me if you need me. I can do a profile on the Biscuit Boy.”

  “The Biscuit Boy?”

  “That’s young Mr. Thibault’s street name,” said Dr. Wooden. “I don’t know where it comes from but I first heard the name up at Juvenile Hall. He was always getting picked up for truancy.”

  When the doctor was gone, Jesse returned to the interview table with his investigator. The tape machine was already set up and ready to go. Next to it was young Calvin’s confession on cassette tape. Jesse and Eddy sighed deeply in the calm interim between storms. Down the now darkened and silent hallway, Sykes and Porter had thrown Bernard back into his isolation cell and were now moving to C-block to secure their next prisoner.

  “Thibault!” The jailer was rousing the young man from his sleep. “Goddamn it, Biscuit Boy, this ain’t Juvenile Hall!” The deep voice reverberated down the hallway. “You can’t cry in here! You’re an adult now. You’re in adult jail. You done killed two women who never did you no harm. Time for crying is long past. Now, get your little raggedy ass up and go see your lawyer.”

  Calvin struggled to stand on his feet but the warped space around his bed kept sucking him back in. Calvin stretched, trying to break his gravitational bonds. He moved his lips and tongue, smacking them in order to stun them back to life. They had been numbed into senseless clay by their very first taste of dead time. Finally, he was able to pull himself up by grabbing the bunk just above his own. The occupant of the upper bunk cursed fitfully, then rolled over. Calvin yawned and eventually stepped cautiously away from his mattress for an hour or so of extravehicular activity.

  Jesse and Eddy waited in silence, the taint of Bernard’s presence still hovering in the room. Then the lawyer opened a binder to a certain page, closed the binder, and leaned toward his investigator.

  “The little girl Minnie Skelley said in her taped statement that the thing she remembers most about each episode of touching and of digital penetration was the eagle that flew above her head. She said that she saw that eagle every night for two years. It’s strange that she would say in the same taped statement that she was only molested one night a week. She indicated in her second statement that the actual acts of rape did not begin until just a few months ago. Minnie could not see an eagle during the rapes but she says it was the same man who molested her. Why couldn’t she see the eagle during the rapes? ”

  Jesse was silent and sat with his eyes closed as he thought about the seeming discrepancies. Had she seen her assailant every night? Had he left her in peace six nights of the week? Had there been only manual molestation on those six nights? Was the little girl having nightmares?

  “What is a ballet rose?” asked Eddy, recalling the phrase from Jesse’s outburst at the supreme being.

  “It’s a phrase I learned a long time ago, in Vietnam. Well, I didn’t learn the exact same phrase, but its counterpart. A ballet rose means lewd acts with an underage girl. Some dance, huh? Some dance.”

  Eddy shook his head sadly. He was a man who loved children and cats.

  “It doesn’t look good, Eddy. I can see the prosecutor right now, demanding that Bernard Skelley stand up in front of the jury and unbutton his shirt. Unless things change, the jury is going to see that eagle tattoo and spend more time picking a foreman than deliberating. But I happened to notice in the discovery package that Bernard’s brother Richard and his family moved to San Francisco about six months ago. That means that the rapes happened here but most of the molestations happened over in Oakland. I think you’ve got to go over there for a couple of days.”

  “Check out the old neighborhood?” asked Eddy.

  “Yeah. Talk to the neighbors. People of color might have something to say about a family like this one. There’s bound to be a lot of juicy gossip in the streets and over the back fences. They lived near the Acorn project, didn’t they? In the midst of the enemy? It’s pretty unusual for a white family to live in Ghost Town. I’m sure they rubbed a lot of people the wrong way. Talk to the little girl’s friends. Talk to her schoolteachers and the school nurse. They’ll have their suspicions. Who did Minnie confide in? Anything you can find.”

  “Workplace, acquaintances and habits, and a complete family tree,” added Eddy without requiring a response.

  “See if you can get into their old house. If they had to move in a hurry, they might have left their furniture and possessions with someone else. Get some pic
tures,” added Jesse. He turned to the laboratory analysis and forensics page. Bernard was a secretor: his blood type could be found in his semen and his spit. The lab tests looked bad, but they had only done A-B-O and P-G-M testing. Bernard had not been excluded by either method. Both tests had included him. He wondered why they hadn’t done DNA testing, then the image of the eagle reappeared in his mind’s eye. Perhaps it was best that they hadn’t. The defense would have to commission a DNA test to be done on the sly.

  “When you get back here, start working Potrero Hill,” said Jesse, turning to Calvin’s case. “Maybe we can go over the ground together. I’ll need everything.” Jesse sighed, pleased with the fact that he would not have to tell Eddy how to do his job. Eddy was independent and inquisitive and would overlook nothing. “I need everybody’s life story on Biscuit Boy’s case, too, especially the victims‘. Get me the 911 tapes and your synopsis of the evidence to date. Did you look at the autopsy photos when you picked them up?”

  Eddy Oasa nodded his head in the affirmative. “There is no justice in this life,” he muttered. The sight of the two women was still haunting him. It was the fervency of the embrace that had both enthralled and saddened him. In those color prints he had seen a double death grip that had spoken so much more eloquently about life … about their lives.

  At that moment Calvin Thibault walked slowly, sleepily into the interview room. He was about to say hello when Jesse gestured with a hand to silence him, then signaled sternly for him to sit down. Confused. Calvin started to speak when he was shouted into silence and into a seat by an angry lawyer.

  “Here are the rules for tonight, Mr. ‘I’hibaiilt,” said Jesse forcefully. “You will not say one single word tonight. Do you understand?”

  Calvin was about to answer when Jesse lifted his hand once again. “No! Just nod your head if your answer is yes and shake it ifyour answer is no. Do you understand?”

  Calvin nodded his head. There was fear and confusion in his young eyes. The residue of tears still clung to his cheeks.

  “Eddy, play the tape for the Biscuit Boy.”

  The investigator placed the cassette tape into the recorder, then pushed the play-button. The hard baritone voice of Inspector Normandie could be heard giving the date, time, and location and the identities of the parties present. Then the questions and answers began. After a few preliminary queries, Jesse sat up in his chair and told Calvin to pay close attention.

  Q: You know the shooter, don’t you? Don’t shake your head. The tape machine can’t see you shake your head.

  A: I don’t know who he be. He had on a mask. I swear, I don’t know who he he.

  Q: It was Little Reggie, wasn’t it? It was Little Reggie Harp?

  A: I don’t know no Little Reggie.

  Q: Funny, you were arrested with him less than a year ago. Don’t lie to me, Calvin.

  A: I was arrested with him? I been arrested with lots of guys. I never heard of him. I ain’t never been convicted of nothin‘.

  Q: You went to the Amazon Luncheonette with somebody, didn’t you?

  A: Yeah, but I ain’t never saw him before. I just met him on the hill. We was both going the same way. That’s all.

  Q: So you knew that person was goin’ up the hill to see the women?

  A: Yeah.

  Q: And you knew he had a gun, didn’t you?

  A: When? What you mean? I don’t know nothin’ ‘bout no gun.

  Q: You didn’t shoot the women, did you? We know you didn’t do that, Calvin, so don’t worry about that. You don’t have to worry about us callin’ you a shooter. You ain’t the shooter. You don’t have to worry about that at all. You ain’t the button man.

  A: I ain’t shot nobody. That’s right. Nobody.

  Q: That’s right. That’s right. But you did see somebody shoot those women, didn’t you?

  A: Yeah.

  Q: He did it with a gun, didn’t he?

  A: Yeah.

  Q: So you knew he had a gun, didn’t you?

  A: Yeah, I guess so.

  Q: You saw him aiming at those women, didn’t you, Calvin? And you knew that Little Reggie was crazy?

  A: Yeah. He always be shootin’ at shit, cats and dogs and passing cars and stuff. But I ain’t never saw Little Reggie or nobody do nothing. The man had on a mask.

  Q: So you knew he was gonna shoot them, didn’t you? And don’t give me any shit about a mask. Fifteen witnesses saw the shooter’s face.

  A: No. I ain’t knowin’ that!

  Q: He was aiming at them, wasn’t he?

  A: Yeah.

  Q: And he’s always shootin’ at shit. You said that yourself just a second ago. When you aim a gun at something, you shoot it, don’t you? You don’t aim a gun for nothing. So you knew he was gonna shoot, didn’t you?

  A: Yeah, I guess…

  Q: That makes you just like the shooter, doesn’t it? You knew what he was like and you knew he had a gun and you were with him. That makes you just like the shooter, doesn’t it?

  A: I guess.

  Q: In fact… in plain God’s truth, you were the shooter, weren’t you, Calvin? You just want us to believe that Reggie’s guilty, don’t you? You don’t want us to believe that you did it. Isn’t that true?

  A: I don’t understand. I guess.

  Q: You’ve seen that gun before, haven’t you? In fact you knew just where to hide it.

  A: (Inaudible)

  Q: Is that a yes? Is that a yes?

  A: Yeah.

  Q: Now, I want you to sign this statement, Calvin. It just says what we just agreed to here. It says you ain’t the shooter. By the way, that’s good for you. That’s real good for you. It says that you was with somebody that could be Little Reggie. It says that you knew this guy had the gun and that you knew he was gonna shoot them women. It says that you wanted us to believe that Reggie is that shooter and you aren’t. It says you hid the gun after the fact. Now, sign right over here. No, not there! Right here by that X.

  Jesse nodded toward his investigator, who reached over and turned of the cassette player. There was anger in Jesse’s eyes once again as he reached into his binder for a sheet of paper and handed it to the defendant.

  “Is that your signature? Just nod. Did you bother to read it before you signed it? I didn’t think so. When is the last time you read a book? One year ago? Two years? Just hold up one finger for each year.”

  The boy shrugged his shoulders, then held up all ten fingers.

  “Do you think your illiterate soul is worth saving, Calvin?”

  The boy shook his head, no.

  “You are going to do what I say, Biscuit Boy. Your puny little life, for whatever it’s worth, belongs to me now. Your ass belongs to me. Do you understand? You ain’t in the world no more. From this day forward I am your family, your mother and father. I am your best friend. Look around you. You are in the armpit of the world, the asshole of the world.”

  He was echoing the words of every drill sergeant from Fort Lewis to Parris Island.

  “Here’s a book.” Jesse reached into his briefcase, then threw a paperback book at his client. It was A Gathering of Old Men, by Enest J. Gaines.

  “Read it. Look carefully at the language. Read each word aloud. Feel each word on your tongue. Once a week you will copy one paragraph from that book and mail it to me. My address is inside the front cover. I also want a paragraph from you explaining why you picked that particular paragraph. When you’re done with that book, I’ll give you another one.

  “From this moment until the jury files back into the courtroom with a verdict, you will not say one cuss word. Not one ‘shit,’ ‘fuck,’ or ‘damn.’ Do you understand me? Not one cuss word to Eddy or to me or to any of those fools down on the mainline. I will give you three dollars a day for your commissary. Every cuss word will be one dollar less. The sheriffs will tell me if you’ve got a foul mouth. Do you understand?”

  Calvin nodded without lifting his eyes. He was staring downward at the book. Just turning its p
ages would require all of his strength. It would take all of his energy to fight off the lethargy of eighteen years in the projects and the seductive, soporific gravity of his bed. His universe had been the Potrero Hill dwellings. His was a world without clocks, without books, without schedules, without a reason to wake up or a good reason to go home at night. It was a world without the need for specificity.

  In his world, adverbs and similes had been allowed to wither and die and drop from the vine. Past tenses were all but extinct. Like the larger world around his projects, metaphor and symbol had already perished along with literary allusion.

  “You have to learn about words. Your fate will be decided by words, Calvin,” said Jesse pensively. He wondered how on earth an angry mute like himself had chosen a profession based on words.

  “The prosecutor and I will reconstruct the murders of Persephone Flyer and Mai Adrong using only words and a few pieces of hard evidence. He will prosecute you with words and I will defend you with them. He and I will jump up and down in the courtroom objecting to the use of words and to the words given in response to questions. Your fate will be rendered in words. You’re not on the street anymore, Calvin. The courtroom is a war of words, and you have almost none at your own disposal. The days back on the street corner, when a vocabulary of two hundred words could get you by, are long gone.”

  “Two hundred words are enough for a confession,” said Eddy.

  “Yes,” groaned Jesse, “enough for that, confession. One final thing, Calvin. You and I and Eddy are gonna have a secret sign language, just between us. It’s like the signals that soldiers use in the field. It’s like a code. We will begin using this sign language at our next interview. Now, look at me and pay close attention. There are five signs that you will have to recognize and learn to follow. I’ll write them down for you. When I fold my arms like this it means you are talking too much, shut up. That’s the first sign. And”—Jesse smiled—“it’s my favorite.

  “When I run my hand through my hair like this, it means that I want you to explain further, to elaborate. You will find out what that word means later. When I nib my nose with my left hand it means you are becoming too emotional, too angry. If I rub my nose with the right hand it means I want you to become emotional, I want you to cry.”