Reparations

by Stephen Kimber

  “But this is a limited-time offer, Mr. Carter. It lasts only for as long as we’re in this room. The moment you get up to leave, the moment you tell me, ‘No, Mr. Eagleson, I’m not interested in having twenty-five thousand dollars in my pocket,’ the offer is off the table, and the City will do whatever is necessary to achieve its objectives. Do you understand what I’m trying to tell you?”

  “Do I understand?” Carter repeated the question as if considering. “I understand you think I’m just an ole nigger you can sweet-talk, or bamboozle, or intimidate into doing whatever it is you want. So yes, you could say I understand.”

  Eagleson closed the lid on the suitcase, put it back on the bed, tried again. “I’m sorry if you got the impression I was trying to intimidate you, Mr. Carter. That certainly wasn’t my intention. I’m just looking for a solution that will work for everyone—”

  “The solution that would work for me, Mr. Eagleson, is for the City to rebuild all them houses they tore down, let the people come home again, give us all the services they been denying us for so long and then just leave us alone. That’s the solution that would work for me. Would that solution work for you?”

  “Now let’s just calm down and talk—”

  “I think we talked all the talk we need to talk.” Carter stood up then, picked up his grocery bag in his left hand and extended his right to Eagleson.

  “Nice meeting you, Mr. Eagleson. I guess you can tell whoever sent you that we agreed to disagree. No hard feelings?”

  Eagleson shook his hand without enthusiasm. “No hard feelings, Mr. Carter. But you do know you can’t win, don’t you? The City is going to win one way or the other, sooner or later. Why not just get the best deal you can and move on?”

  “Because it’s wrong, that’s why. Somebody gotta stand up and say so.”

  “But what can you really do about it? You know and I know nobody cares much what happens to a bunch of coloured folk living in tarpaper shacks on the shore by the dump. People are just going to think you’re ungrateful. Or crazy.”

  “Maybe. Maybe they will. We’ll see. Eagleson? E-A-G-L-E-S-O-N? That how you spell your name?”

  Eagleson looked puzzled.

  “For the paper,” Ray’s father continued. “Young reporter called me this morning. Donovan. From the Tribune. Says he wants to interview me for a feature on what it’s like to be the last person left living in Africville. I just want to make sure I spell your name right when I talk to him.”

  Eagleson was finally nonplussed. “This was a private conversation,” he sputtered. To Ward, it almost seemed as if he was pleading. “Just between the two of us.”

  “And young Ward here,” Carter replied, pointing at Ward. Ward couldn’t hold his gaze, looked down at the floor. “And, as for this being a private conversation between the two of us—like friends, maybe?—I don’t recall that, Mr. Eagleson. I think a lot of folks, even white folks, will be interested in this,” he said, pointing to the suitcase, “interested in knowing how the City negotiates with poor people using suitcases filled with cash. You did say twenty-five thousand dollars, didn’t you?”

  Eagleson said nothing.

  “Well,” Carter said finally. “Nice meeting you, Mr. Eagleson. Good to see you again, Ward. I’ll be sure and tell Raymond I ran into you. No need to see me out. I know where the door is.”

  And then he was gone.

  For a long time, Eagleson didn’t speak. Ward couldn’t think of anything to say. The silence between them seemed to hang in the room forever. Eagleson finally picked up the whisky from the floor and took a long swig straight from the bottle. “That is . . . one . . . stubborn . . . nigger,” he said, with what sounded to Ward like grudging admiration.

  Then, after another long silence, “You think you and Ray will ever be friends again?”

  Ward was startled. What did Mr. Eagleson know about his relationship with Ray? And how? Graduation? Perhaps, but there was something about the knowing way Eagleson asked the question, and something in the timing of it, too, that made Ward wonder if it wasn’t some sort of test. But what was he testing? And what was the answer?

  Eagleson picked up the two champagne glasses, filled them to the brim with the whisky and handed one to Ward. “Not much point in taking this back to the office. We’ll just have to stay here until we kill the rest of it. We’ll get good and drunk and you can tell me all about what you want to be when you grow up. Okay?”

  He reached over and clinked Ward’s glass. “To the Future Premier of Nova Scotia.”

  Chapter 5

  July 2002

  Uhuru Melesse watched the Mayor squint into the shimmering late-morning sun. “On behalf of the City of Halifax and all its citizens,” he began, standing behind an outdoor podium someone had placed incongruously in the middle of a grassy open field and addressing himself more to the TV cameramen crouched in front of him than to the dozen or so black faces ringing the podium behind them, “I am delighted to welcome you all here today to Seaview Park, to this beautiful National Historic Site, which was once the site of the proud community of Africville.” The Mayor did not mention, of course, how the once proud community of Africville had become simply the site of the once proud community of Africville. “Today is a milestone,” he continued, “the twentieth annual Africville Reunion Weekend.”

  The audience, which consisted mostly of the event’s organizing committee, was clearly eager to get this over with and get back to the outdoor party and fair, which had already begun in the parking lot on the other side of the field. The Mayor, dressed casually for this photo-op in khaki pants and an official green City of Halifax golf shirt, seemed just as anxious to get his speech over with. He had a Saturday morning golf game and he was already late for his tee-off.

  Uhuru Melesse was anxious, too. And hot. Standing at the edge of—but physically and psychically apart from—the audience of black men and women, he could feel the sweat pooling under his armpits, staining the front of his white shirt. He was wearing a suit, a dark-blue pinstriped banker’s suit. That was a stupid mistake. He loosened his tie. What had he been thinking?

  His excuse—he felt a need to explain, if only to himself—was that he’d forgotten just how casual this event was. The only other time he’d attended a Reunion Weekend was back in 1990 when he was still Raymond Carter, son of the recently departed Lawrence Carter, patron saint of Africville’s dispossessed.

  Reunion Weekend had begun in the early eighties when some of the grown-up children of displaced Africville residents met to plan an unpretentious get-together for themselves and their families. It was so successful it became an annual event, and was soon extended to a whole weekend instead of just a day. Reunion Weekend became the social event of black Nova Scotia’s summer season.

  Those who’d been ambitious enough—or whose parents had been smart enough—to take the money the City offered back in the sixties and head down the road to Toronto, or Boston, or New York, or anywhere industrious black people could find a better future for themselves and their children, came back to show off their good fortune. They drove up in their fancy Volvos and Mercedes, many hauling trailers or driving RV s bigger and certainly more luxurious than the shacks they’d left behind. With indoor plumbing! Uhuru was being unfair; he knew that. But he couldn’t help himself. The more prosperous they became, it seemed, the more likely they were to return every year to rub shoulders with each other and, of course, to rub the noses of those who’d stayed behind in their successes.

  The locals who came to the reunions were more mixed. There was the post-Africville generation of small businessmen and civil servants who could—and did—more than hold their middle-class own with those who’d found success elsewhere. There were also more than a few former residents whose lives had turned into one long disappointment after Africville, and who came to the reunions to wallow in shared nostalgia and pine for an idealized community that e
xisted, if it ever did, only in their imaginations.

  And then, of course, there were those who didn’t show up at all. Some, like Ray Carter, were eager to leave their pasts in the past. Others, like Ray’s father, were dead. And still others—like J. J. Howe, to cite the most obvious example—were in jail. Or strung out on drugs.

  The imprisoned and the addicted. Those were the ones Uhuru wanted to find out about today. For the case. Which was why he’d worn his suit, to make himself seem more official. Of course, none of the former residents had come here to talk about all the awful things that had happened to them or their children since the relocation. This was a family picnic, a chance to relax and celebrate the good times.

  Another tepid smattering of applause. The Mayor had finished speaking. Damn. Uhuru had hoped he would at least mention the case of the Africville Descendants’ Association v. Halifax Regional Municipality. Essentially, ADA—everyone called it Ada, as if the group were a person—had filed a civil suit seven years ago demanding the City give all Africville lands back to the former residents or their children and help them rebuild their community on its original site. With sewer and water services this time. Like most civil cases, it had quickly disappeared into lawyer limbo. But Uhuru had heard rumours there’d been a recent flurry of negotiations, and the two sides might be close to announcing an out-of-court settlement. Uhuru had tried to find out if that was true, but the Association’s counsel, a young white lawyer named Davis, hadn’t returned his phone calls.

  Uhuru had hoped the Mayor might take advantage of today’s friendly public occasion to announce that a deal had been reached. If the City said it was sorry, acknowledged it had screwed up when it expropriated properties and razed the community, Uhuru imagined—hoped against rational expectation—it might strengthen his own tenuous argument that J. J. Howe had simply been reclaiming what rightfully belonged to his community.

  Uhuru wasn’t convinced that laundry would wash.

  The City had spent the last thirty-odd years defending what it had done. Even after it had no longer been politically palatable to claim that relocation was the best, or even a reasonable way to improve life for Africville’s residents, City Fathers had continued to insist—probably on the advice of their lawyers—that their predecessors had made the best decision they could at the time. “You can’t judge the actions of yesterday by the standards of today,” as the current Mayor had put it almost pleadingly during a conference on Africville at one of the universities.

  Uhuru wasn’t sure he disagreed with that. He wouldn’t want anyone judging him now on things he’d said or done—or not done—twenty-five years ago. Especially not . . . best not to think of her now. Was she here? He doubted it.

  The Mayor was handshaking his way past the organizers, making haste in the direction of his car. Uhuru circled around the crowd and headed across the field toward the party. He wasn’t about to ask the Mayor about the negotiations and he had no desire to shake his hand.

  “Ray, Ray, wait up.” It was Calvin Johnstone, the Deacon’s oldest son and one of the leaders of the Descendants’ Association. Uhuru hadn’t seen Calvin since he was still Ray. Calvin’s once sharp face had been swallowed by pudge, but Uhuru recognized him immediately, partly because his photo was often in the newspaper, promoting this or that black cause, and partly because of his prominent harelip, which had frightened Ray when he was a child.

  “Good to see you, man,” Calvin said, catching up to Uhuru. His breathing was laboured. How old was he, anyway? Uhuru had heard he’d retired last year after forty years teaching high school history out in the County somewhere. He tried to do the math: Uhuru was fifty-three, five years older than Calvin’s sister Rosa, and Rosa was seventeen years younger than her oldest brother. So Calvin had to be sixty-five! He was grey-haired and balding, with a midsection that resembled an oversized spare tire. Like Eddie Murphy in The Nutty Professor. Calvin really did look his age. Uhuru didn’t. At least, he didn’t think he did.

  “Been a long time,” Uhuru said, warily shaking the hand Calvin extended. Calvin had never let on that he knew what had happened between Ray and Rosa. But he must have, Uhuru thought. How could he not?

  “Sorry to hear about your father,” Calvin said. Lawrence Carter had died twelve years ago.

  “Sorry about yours, too.” The Deacon had been gone at least half as many.

  Neither, truth be told, cared all that much about the other’s father. In life, their fathers had been rivals for the leadership of the Africville community. Though their sons were never directly involved in the rivalry and had, in fact, worked together at Black Pride, they carried the burden of their fathers’ enmity, even now.

  The competition between the two now equally dead men had been on relatively even terms until the provincial government had shut down the Africville School in the early fifties and Ray’s father had lost his job. That had given Mr. Johnstone, the most powerful figure in the Africville church, the other key pillar of the local establishment, the advantage. And he’d happily lorded it over his rival. Until the relocation destroyed him. The Deacon failed to comprehend the obvious: that plowing under Africville and scattering its residents would leave him with no constituency to lead. And, worse, it would make him the easy scapegoat when things turned out, as they did, so badly. To make that even worse for the Deacon, his sudden, precipitous fall from community grace coincided with Ray’s father’s equally sudden beatification for having stood up so publicly against the cynical white power structure, a.k.a. Jack Eagleson et al.

  After Ray’s father died of a heart attack in the spring of 1990, organizers dedicated that summer’s Reunion Weekend to the memory of “a true hero of Africville.” That he’d lost in the end—the City had expropriated his house six months after he went public with his story of the suitcase, punishing him for having challenged its plans by ultimately giving him less than half of what had been in the suitcase—mattered less than the fact that he’d done the right thing. That he’d been vilified for his obstinacy at the time by many of Africville’s community leaders, and not just by Deacon Johnstone, no longer mattered. Except to his son. Which is why Ray had felt obliged to attend the reunion that year. To see for himself how the community had come to terms with the reality of his father’s protests and its response to them.

  The Deacon himself had offered up a speech in praise of Ray’s father. By then, of course, the Deacon had been busy rehabilitating and reinventing himself as one of the leaders—“along with my good friend Lawrence Carter”—of the anti-relocation faction.

  The Deacon wasn’t the only one who’d had a sudden, Saul-like conversion on the road to that reunion. Seamus O’Sullivan, the former premier, who’d been an enthusiastic booster of relocation when he was the MLA for the district, spoke about “the Lawrence Carter I was privileged to call my friend.” His friend, Ray thought, who in turn had called him an “asshole.” “Lawrence Carter was a man who cared deeply about his community and his province,” O’Sullivan went on and on. But, like the Deacon, he managed not to mention anything at all about the suitcase full of cash O’Sullivan’s law partner had used to try to buy Lawrence Carter off.

  O’Sullivan, ever the politician even in retirement, came up to Ray after the “celebration service” to offer his condolences. “He was a fine man, your father, the finest,” he said, holding out his hand. Ray shook it. It was clammy. “We still miss you around the firm,” he added, as if he meant it, as if he’d forgotten that Ray had never been anything more than Jack’s gofer and that the firm hadn’t offered him a position after he graduated from law school.

  The Deacon didn’t shake Ray’s hand that day, didn’t even acknowledge his presence. But of course the Deacon hadn’t spoken to him in sixteen years. And not just because of who his father was.

  “I hear you’ve taken on young J. J.’s case,” Calvin Johnstone came to the point quickly. “How’s it going?”

  �
�W-e-l-l,” Uhuru dragged out the word, trying to decide how much he should share. “We’re still in the early stages.”

  “I read in the paper that you’re planning to use reparations as a defence.”

  “Thinking about it. That’s all. Just thinking.” Uhuru wanted to see where Calvin was going with this before he offered more information.

  “Well, I want you to know you can count on me and ADA,” he said. “J. J.’s a fine young man, a volunteer in the breakfast program at our church, a counsellor in the drug program. Hard to believe how well he turned out. Especially with his parents.”

  Uhuru already knew all about J. J.’s parents. His father—also a J. J., but standing for Jeffrey Jack—was currently serving time for armed robbery. Two years ago, desperate for money to score some crack cocaine, he’d tried to rob a convenience store. The convenience store turned out to be in the same building as the North End Community Policing Office.

  Unluckily for J. J. the Elder, two policemen had come into the store just before he did to buy snacks and shoot the breeze with its Korean owner. J. J. was either too high or too stupid to notice. Luckily for J. J., when he brandished his gun and began yelling at the owner that this was a robbery and he’d better hand over all his cash right away or he was a dead man, one of the cops casually grabbed the gun out of his hand and twisted his arms behind his back while the other cop just as casually handcuffed his wrists.

  The cops knew J. J. was a crackhead but they also knew he was too strung out to be more than accidentally dangerous, and then mostly to himself. Unfortunately, the judge didn’t understand that. He sentenced J. J. to seven years for pointing a firearm in the commission of a robbery.

  J. J. the Younger’s mother, Jaina, was a crack addict, too. Her addiction had only got worse since her husband and chief supplier had been packed off to jail. To support her habit, she’d become a street hooker, but she was too old and too emaciated to attract even the most desperate of ordinary johns, so she ended up trading blow jobs for crack with other addicts who were themselves too strung out to think about what they were doing.