He stepped into the Ben Kaplan Memorial Conference Room and eased the door shut behind him. It was a large, rectangular room with three sections of seats split by two aisles, the classic theater setup. Maybe three hundred seats, he guessed, with less than a third of them filled, but all of those were packed in the front five rows of cushioned seats. At the front of the room was a stage, where the attention of the assembled group was focused. Until, of course, they turned and saw who the latecomer was. Or, more correctly, what he wasn’t.
Darren saw all heads swing his way. He had expected it, in fact, just as the stares on his short walk to this place hadn’t surprised him. After all, as his father had told him when he was just a little black boy in a very white L.A., “Son, you is ten shades darker than dark. People will notice that. ‘Specially white folk.” And Darren was far darker than anyone in the room—except for the lady at the front.
“Sir, come on in.” Dr. Anne Preston smiled, knowing that her pearly whites would be seen from across the hall. It was her most striking feature, at least according to her boyfriend, and she hoped that it would serve as a quiet invitation to the man who had just entered to join the group. “We’re just getting to the good stuff.”
A few chuckles came from the crowd, and Darren forced a smile back to the speaker. Actually, he found, it wasn’t that hard to muster. Somewhat less than half of the eyes in the room followed him all the way to the seat he chose, in the row directly behind the main body of people. He avoided meeting their looks, instead focusing on the lady at the podium. Dr. Preston, he remembered from the flyer. A psychiatrist. A woman of color, standing before a sea of white. She would be his beacon in this room. His point of reference to block out the fear he felt from the stares.
Anne waited for the new arrival to be seated before moving on, putting the obvious questions as to why this man would put himself in this place at this time with these people. She figured that those musings would be answered when all was said and done.
“I want to talk a little about perception now,” Anne began. “How our perceptions, which are influenced by that old nature-nurture combination, affect everything we see, do, and most importantly, everything we feel.”
She pressed the projection button recessed in the lectern. The lights dimmed just a bit onstage as the slide projector hummed and painted the large white screen above and behind her with two images. One was of a black man, a close-up shot of an expressionless face and head. It was reminiscent of the famed Willie Horton mug shot, less the long hair. To the right of this was another picture, this one of a white man, dressed in blue jeans and a casual shirt, sitting peacefully on a park bench, smiling into the camera. The contrast was obvious. It also had a purpose.
“Jerome Wilkes was a thrice-convicted felon when he met Robert Foster one night two years ago, robbed him, and killed him. He shot him in the back of the head after making him get to his knees. We can only assume that Mr. Foster was begging for his life, but he had no way of knowing that the man who broke into his Atlanta home that night was on parole for another murder. Robbery, rape, murder.” Anne paused for effect. The grimaced faces were her cue to continue. “Jerome Wilkes did it all, and, unfortunately for Mr. Foster, he didn’t like leaving loose ends.”
Darren shifted his gaze between the faces on the screen, but found himself drawn to the man of his color. Why did he have to do that? he wondered. His actions were what white people saw when they looked at any black man. Killer. Rapist. Thief. Not all black people were like that, but the hate came anyway. Inside, Darren’s head was shaking with wonder.
“When you hear this story, and you see Jerome Wilkes and Mr. Foster, what do you think of?” Anne asked the audience.
“I see what I see all around us,” a man answered from his front-row seat, arms crossed tightly across a pudgy chest. Several seats to his right, the rabbi of the synagogue sponsoring the presentation leaned forward to listen. “All around our neighborhood. Look, no disrespect meant, Miss Preston...”
Of course not, but I stopped being “Miss” a long time ago. And earlier when you agreed with me, I recall being referred to as “Doctor Preston.” It was Anne’s job to read into what was said, and what wasn’t, and she was damned good at it, much to her boyfriend’s displeasure at times. Here, though, it would let her make a breakthrough...maybe.
“...but all we see are blacks committing these crimes. You see this all the time. You hear of it every day. They walk down our block and sell their crack.”
“Not anymore,” another man interjected. His face was a mask of hate. “Not on my block.”
“Fine, we clean up our own neighborhoods,” the first man continued, “but what about the rest of the city? Or the country. Look,” he said with added passion, pointing to the screen. “That’s in Atlanta. The blacks there are no different than here. No different than anywhere.”
“They can’t fit in,” a woman offered. “They don’t try.”
The first man’s head nodded emphatically, looking at Anne.
“That’s right. And so what do they do? They rob and kill white people because we tried to fit in, we worked hard, and we have things they want! Miss Preston, you show us these pictures and tell us this story and expect it to change our mind? It only reinforces it.”
Anne wanted to smile. She always wanted to smile at this point, more than her natural tendency to do so, but didn’t. “What reinforces it?”
“This!” the man half-yelled, standing and tossing his hand toward the screen. “You tell us a story about another black murderer taking a white man’s life because he wanted his things! That is what we live with every day!”
Darren swallowed hard. He hadn’t expected to hear the hate. Maybe feel it, but not hear it. Was this a mistake? Was coming here hoping for something to drive the hate out of his soul too much to ask? His eyes again looked to the screen. Why? Why did you have to fulfill their prophecy?
“You mean Jerome Wilkes?” Anne asked.
“Yes!” the man yelled fully now, pointing a spear-like finger at the black face over Anne’s right shoulder.
Anne glanced over her right shoulder, then over her left, holding her look there as she brought a hand up and casually pointed at the smiling white face staring down upon the audience. “This is Jerome Wilkes.”
It couldn’t be called a gasp, but there was a collective sound from the audience, including Darren.
“What made you think I meant this gentleman was the murderer?” Anne asked, pointing now at the black face above and to her right.
There was no answer. The man who had been standing looked to some of those near him, glancing briefly at the lone black face in the audience, and slowly sat back down.
“This, ladies and gentlemen, is Robert Foster. The picture you see is from his identification card. You see, Mr. Foster was an Atlanta firefighter when he was murdered by this man.” The direction shifted back to the man who, until a minute before, had been the victim in the eyes of the people in the room. “Jerome Wilkes is now awaiting execution for that crime.”
Silence. The hum of the slide projector’s cooling fan might as well have been thunder. The only member of the audience unaware of it was Darren, whose face was now downcast, his mind assaulting itself with torturous accusations. Racist! To your own people! The whites don’t need to hate us—you’re doing it for them! Black means bad! It means guilty! You’re no better than the animals that killed Tanya! He had come seeking understanding, and was now filled with confusion. The hate he had developed for those other than his own, a hate he wanted to destroy, was now targeted inward. He sat there, hearing nothing more, dreaming of ways to end this pain. To end it for good.
“This was a trick,” a faceless voice from the audience said.
“You’re right,” Anne responded. “Your perceptions tricked you into believing what you expected, rather than the reality. You see, preconceptions—even if somewhat validated by past experience—circumvent one of our most important abilities: the abil
ity to look critically at something. When I put those two pictures up there you immediately focused on the black face when I mentioned that a crime had been committed.” She heard no dispute from the audience; not even a Why is his head hung like that? “Many people have come to the point where they see black as the color of danger. Yet here we have an example of something quite different.”
This was a mistake. Darren wanted to just curl up in a ball and fade away. To just be gone. Gone like Tanya. His living family didn’t even matter at the moment, and he had come here in the hope of resurrecting the old Darren Griggs, the real Darren Griggs, in order to save them. Now that wasn’t even a possibility as he saw it. He was on a slippery slope sliding slowly toward a steep drop-off. Slowly but gaining speed.
“You all condemned the victim here,” Anne said with some accusation in her tone. “Your perceptions prevented you from ascertaining the truth. Your biases prevented understanding from developing.” She gestured to the smiling face of Jerome Wilkes. “You were prepared to offer sympathy to this man based upon the color of his skin.” And next to Robert Foster. “And to crucify this man because of his. Color is a color, people. A color. That’s all it is. If you condemn Robert Foster because of his, then you condemn me. You condemn all people with skin darker than yours to a life of explaining why they aren’t all bad. Think about it. Please. Thank you.”
Anne never expected applause at these presentations, but it did come, if slowly. First one person would politely clap—She did do this free, after all—before a few others—I did think it was the black man without knowing anything else—joined in. She stood appreciatively before them as Rabbi Samuel Levin came from his front row seat to stand beside her.
“Dr. Preston, thank you,” Levin said, hugging Anne. “I’m sure I speak for everyone here when I say we deeply appreciate your time, and your wise counsel.”
Some nods now, more applause. Anne guessed there were seventy-five minds in the audience that needed enlightening. Maybe she had reached five. Maybe ten. That would be a success.
But there appeared to be one mind that might need something more. Maybe something she could offer.
“There will be refreshments in the Weitzel Room, everyone,” Levin announced. He turned back to Anne as the audience began to filter toward the door. “Will you join us, Dr. Preston?”
The man hadn’t moved. He still sat there, looking downward. “I’d love to. But I may need a minute.”
Rabbi Levin saw what she was looking at. “Yes. Of course. I will see you down the hall.”
Anne walked off the stage to where Darren remained seated. “Hello.”
Darren’s head jerked up, his eyes glistening.
“I’m Anne Preston.” She stretched her hand out.
Darren looked at the hand. Somehow it seemed to be more than an appendage. Much more.
“Darren Griggs, Dr. Preston.” He took her hand, shook it, then let go when he really wanted to hold on for dear life.
Anne took the seat directly in front of Darren and swiveled her body to face him. “Thank you for coming.”
Darren held up the rolled flyer. “I thought...maybe...I thought I might...” The mist in his eyes became a single tear from each that streamed over his cheeks. “I don’t want to die...”
What? Anne might have expected a hundred reasons why this man would have come here this night, but that was not one of them. “Why do you think that’s a possibility?”
“Because everything I...everyone I love is dying, and...” The tears came fully now. “...and I can’t help them. I can’t help them. I can’t save my own family!”
Anne watched Darren bend forward, his head touching the seat as the sobs came in waves. She placed a hand on his shoulder, rubbing gently until the spasms ended and he sat back up.
“I’m...” Darren wiped his face on the sleeve of his jacket. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to...”
“Do you want to tell me about it? About your family?”
Darren felt the pressure in his chest build like the forces of a mighty river checked by a dam. The floodgates were closed, but not as tightly as a minute before. Before the question was asked. Do you want to tell me about your family? “Yes. Yes I do.”
And he did, talking almost without interruption for fifteen minutes. About Tanya’s murder. About his wife’s spiral into a bottomless depression. About Moises’ destructive behavior. About it all.
And Anne listened, wanting to cry at times. Remembering the news stories, how terrible it had seemed then, and now a living victim of that massacre was here with her, begging for salvation.
Then, as quickly as he began laying out the state of his life, Darren stopped. He was dry. The dam had burst and had let out all that was behind it. His desire for death was no longer there, but the aching he felt for his family was.
“I’m sorry,” Anne said, offering the first words one could after hearing Darren speak of his life, and of his loss.
“Thank you for listening.”
“I’m not done listening,” Anne said. She had to do this.
“What do you mean?” Darren asked.
“You need to talk more. Your family needs to talk. And you need someone to help you with that.”
She was right, Darren knew. But it all seemed so alien now—normalcy. How could they get that back from talking? And there were other considerations. “Thank you, Dr. Preston, but I can’t... I work hard as it is, and with the lawyer’s fees and my wife’s medication, I can’t...”
“Don’t worry about that,” Anne said. “We need to help your family first, and think about the other things later. I’ll make you a deal, though. If you want to do this, I’ll forget the fee if you and your family come to my house for dinner when we have everybody on the right track again. I’d consider that payment enough. You see, I love to cook, but my girl is grown and my boyfriend is into that health-food junk.” She made a face that translated plainly to Darren. It also elicited a smile. “Deal?”
Darren wanted to cry again, but for very different reasons than before. “Deal. Thank you, Dr. Preston.”
Anne handed him one of her cards. “Call me tomorrow. We’ll set up a first appointment.”
“Okay.” Darren put the card away and smiled again. How long had it been since he smiled twice in one day? He couldn’t remember. “I’ll call you in the morning.”
Anne watched Darren walk away, passing Rabbi Levin, who was entering.
“My God, Anne, what did you do to that man in fifteen minutes?” Levin asked. “When I left he looked like the world had fallen on him. Now he’s smiling.”
“The world did fall on him,” Anne said. “Remember the St. Anthony shooting?”
“The church on Crenshaw? Of course. How could anyone forget that? Four children killed.” Levin’s head shook. His grandparents had been dragged from a synagogue in Warsaw more than fifty years before and sent to their death. Now there was death in a place of worship. The senselessness of it.
“His daughter was one of them,” Anne said, hating the reality of it. “Tanya Griggs.”
“Oh dear God. No.”
Anne nodded. “After it happened he began feeling a deep hate for white people, something he’d never experienced. It scared him. He wanted it to stop, because he was starting to hate himself for hating others because of their color. Plus his family is in ruins.” She really shouldn’t say anymore, Anne knew. “I’m hoping I can help him, and his family.”
Levin felt ill thinking of the destruction that had been wrought upon this family. Hate. It was the worst of things. Combine it with ignorance and you had a very dangerous force. That was why he had arranged for Anne to speak to members of his flock. They were good people, but they were becoming less and less sensitive to the danger of misplaced hate. The evil they saw in the world was disproportionately of a darker hue, and they were beginning to transfer their fear of real violence to fear of anyone who looked like the criminals plastered on the news. Compassion was fading from their b
elief systems. That frightened Levin, because it was the same thing that had happened in Nazi Germany so long ago. Induced fear became hate. Then it became institutionalized bias. Then worse. That road had been traveled. No more. Never again, especially by his people.
“Anne, you are a good person,” Levin said. “Maybe I can ask Ellis to find you a spot in the Cabinet. They could use people like you.”
Anne chuckled at the complimentary suggestion. Levin was a major fund-raiser for the Democrats, and had an ear in the White House in the form of Chief of Staff Ellis Gonzales. Levin’s son had been a college classmate of his, and the bond stretched from family to family.
“I’m flying out for a meeting with him on Friday,” Levin said wryly. “Anne Preston in the White House. Heh?”
“You have pull with both big guys, huh, Rabbi?” Anne asked, laughing.
“Occasionally.”
“Well, I’ll stick to doctoring, if you don’t mind.”
“Of course. How could we get along without you.” Levin thought seriously for a moment. “Especially people like Mr. Griggs. I hope you can help fix what has happened to that family.”
“Me, too, Rabbi,” Anne said, knowing there was a starting point in any project. This one would be the father.
* * *
The son, however, had a very different concept of healing. Healing now held the converse of its dictionary meaning for Moises Griggs. Vengeance, strangely, carried the same definition.
There had been another presentation that night by someone purveying knowledge to an assembled group, though this one was much smaller in number than that attended by the elder Griggs. Twelve, including Moises, had come to this place to receive the offering, to receive the motivation. In church it would be called the gospel. Here, as told by Darian Brown, leader of the New Africa Liberation Front, it was a clarion call to battle.
The home of the NALF was a converted liquor store that had been looted to the rafters in the uprising of ‘92, and which the former Korean owners had decided to sell off so as not to have to return to a neighborhood they saw as rejecting them. And that it had, Darian Brown professed, and rightly so. Expulsion was a hallmark of the NALF doctrine, as was compensation to the sons and daughters of slaves. Compensation in the form of land, namely that of the slave states at the time of the Civil War. It was simple in Darian Brown’s mind. You move out the white people, and move in the black. Instant nation building. New Africa in this case. A homeland for the blacks robbed of their ancestral roots across an ocean. Returning to a continent ravaged by white colonialism was not an option. A piece of this pie—America—was the minimum payment acceptable on a bill long overdue.
Capitol Punishment (An Art Jefferson Thriller Book 3) Page 6
