“Hey, Betty, where’d Charlene go after she and Leon split?” Blondie calls to her.
The much older woman, whose hair is a peroxide platinum, picks up a burning cigarette from the corner of the bar and puffs on it as she contemplates. Her strong face, wrinkled by smoking and age, has an indestructible quality to it, as if nothing in the last forty years has come as a surprise. “I heard Hot Springs,” she says, exhaling, her voice a throaty contralto.
“Who wants to know?”
I remain motionless, since I don’t want to attract attention to myself, but I’d like to leap across the bar and kiss her.
Blondie nods at me with her chin.
I gulp my beer, ready to leave. I’d just as soon Leon not hear too much about this conversation if I can help it. Betty, who is wearing a pair of starched jeans and a man’s long sleeved blue work shirt, cocks her hip at me.
“Shit, he can do better than Charlene.”
I lean across the bar. This woman reminds me of women I occasionally picked up in bars after Rosa died. Big in the chest, brassy, horny.
“You don’t sound like,” I say, unable to resist opening my mouth, “Charlene’s best friend.”
Folding her arms across her breasts, Betty, friendly until now, gives me a hard stare, as if whatever signals she was putting out have suddenly been switched off.
“Charlene’s okay,” she says, her voice now scratchy and defensive.
“You old guys are something, you know it?”
Old? Thanks a lot. I turn to Blondie, but her eyes have turned cold, too. What is going on here? One minute we were getting along great, and the next I have become their worst nightmare. I turn and stare directly into the eyes of Leon Robinson.
“What are you doin’ here?” he says. It is not really so much a question as a demand. Leon is an inch or two shorter than I am, perhaps ten pounds lighter, but fifteen years younger. He is wearing a red Razorback cap jammed down over his eyes that proclaims “Woo Pig, Sooie!”
For some reason I look down at his cowboy boots, I suppose, hoping the toes aren’t reinforced by steel. I may not be on my feet much longer. Cover your balls, I think. Even if by some miracle I can take out Leon, I suspect he has a few friends here, and I don’t see any of mine. Discretion, every lawyer learns in his career, is sometimes the better part of valor. The odds of the women covering for me (assuming he hasn’t already overheard them) are abysmal, but if I want to be a good liar, I have to take a few risks in life.
“I was just visiting a friend in Benton and stopped by on my way home. Can I buy you a beer? I’d like to talk to you about the case you testified in almost two months ago,” I say, hoping I’m coming across like a friendly aluminum-siding salesman who is having more luck today than he can stand. I can feel a river of sweat pouring down my sides under my arms. The Bull Run must have air-conditioning problems, too.
Leon runs his right thumb past his nose, a gesture whose significance I can’t interpret. He puts his hands on his hips and makes a snorting sound as if he has caught the odor of fresh road kill.
“Randi, this is the son of a bitch who’s defending that nigger that killed Pam.” Although there was not much noise at the bar before, I can now hear all the way across the dance floor the sound of a cue ball kissing a break.
No more Tammy either. She and Little J-O-E have slipped out the back door.
I should throw a punch now (I ‘d like to salvage some honor if I can), but my fear that every male in here will kick me in the face is still too strong. I glance around me. The bar, which seemed fairly empty when I sat down, has attracted a nice crowd, or maybe it is that everyone just seems a little closer to me. Ever since I’ve been an adult I have owned only one weapon, and it’s suddenly stuck against the roof of my mouth. Which is Randi? The real blonde, I bet.
Blondie reaches across the bar and touches Leon’s bare arm.
“Take him outside, Leon,” she whispers.
“They’ll try to shut us down if there’s another fight in here.”
In no hurry now to leave, I pick up my mug and tilt it back as far as I can to get the last of the beer. “What’s your problem with blacks, Leon?”
Leon gives me a snotty grin and turns and crooks his finger at a man at the door. Either he wasn’t there when I came in or I was temporarily blind. By his size, I judge he can have only two possible occupations—a nose guard for the Cowboys or a bouncer.
Accepting the fact that my question will likely go unanswered for the moment, I try to remember precisely where I parked the Blazer and stride to the door with Leon and several others close behind me. Something just tells me that Leon may not be my only opponent. Don’t run, you chickenshit, I think, and manage to saunter past the doorman, who, as I pass by, helpfully takes my arm and shoves me through the door into the sweltering September night. If I can make it to the car quickly enough, maybe they will let me leave, In the few minutes I was in the bar, it has grown dark. The lights in the asphalt parking lot behind the Bull Run will win no security awards this year, but I have plenty of company as I head for the Blazer. I estimate seven men have come outside. As I stick my right hand into my pocket for my keys, Leon clouts me with a right to my jaw, sending me careening on top of the Blazer. Unable to free my hand, I roll off onto the pavement on the other side. For a moment I think of running. What prevents me is the fear that they have guns in their vehicles and I will be run down and shot.
The others are fanning out around me, so there is no escape.
If I had only Leon to fight, it might not be too bad. Furious at letting myself get pole axed without being in a position to defend myself, I come around the car and pop him directly in the nose as he lunges for me. I couldn’t hit him that square in the face if I fought him another ten years.
For perhaps three seconds Leon stops and feels his nose as if this wasn’t supposed to happen. I hope I have broken it.
Behind me, a hoarse voice commands, “Get the son of a bitch, Leon!”
I should plow into him, but I am hoping he won’t have the sense to realize how lucky my punch was. If he quits now, we’ll be even, like two small countries who have fired one missile each, and are thinking of declaring victory and announcing the end of the war. My hands are raised in the classic fighter pose, my right guarding my aching jaw, my left forward. Every boy pretends at one time to be a prize fighter, but in my case it is strictly for show. At various times Sarah and I have pretended to box. Even with my own daughter I have difficulty warding off blows before we collapse against each other laughing at the silliness of what we are doing. It is too dark to see Leon’s eyes, but I think he is afraid.
Another voice is more insistent.
“Get the fucker!” It is shrill, and I wonder if it is that of a woman, but I don’t dare take my eyes from Leon to search for the speaker. Leon’s hands are up in front of his face, but he looks as awkward and silly as I do. A coward, now, I’m convinced, he will be sure to attack if he thinks I’m not looking. The old saying pops into my head: “One’s afraid to fight, and the other is glad of it.”
Probably fearful of what will happen if he doesn’t, Leon comes for me, swinging furiously. As with Sarah, I block most of his wild blows, but a couple slip in, including a crisp chop on my right ear. In this kamikaze assault, I panic, for getting to swing at him. Instinctively, I try to wrestle him to the asphalt, hoping my weight and advantage will help me.
Caught off guard (he is no more a fighter than I am), Leon trips and I fall on top of him driving my elbow into his stomach as we go down. His head hits the parking lot with a sickening pop, and for a flash of an instant, I think I have knocked him out, but the asshole immediately tries to bite me while I pin his arms in the classic grade-school style. My last coherent thought before the others get to me is that I won.
Only when I am kicked in the balls and kidneys do I scream for help, thinking in a moment of extreme panic that I am being killed. The noise is frightening. One man is crying, “Kill the dumb shit
!” and there is yelling and snarling sounds that verge on the inhuman. After three blows to my mouth with somebody’s fist, a front tooth flies out across my face, and I wonder if I will lose consciousness but don’t. A beating takes energy, and apparently it is too hot for my attackers to really enjoy it, for after a couple of minutes (though it seems much longer), they suddenly stop.
Someone says, “Let’s get the shit out of here!”
Leon bends down and whispers, “Don’t you ever come back here, you motherfuckin’ bastard! You hear me?”
I raise a hand to signal that I do, and lie panting in the dim light, feeling my entire body begin to radiate pain. I wait until I hear cars pulling out of the lot, and stagger to my feet, dazed, but deeply grateful I am alive.
I lean back against the Blazer and fish out my keys. I can hear the band, which has begun to play. I don’t recognize the tune, but I don’t think I’ll go back inside to find out. The front of my light blue short-sleeved shirt is dark with blood, and I realize I must look like hell. Sarah has a friend spending the night, so I can’t go home looking like this. Poor Rainey, I think, as I drive away from the Bull Run. I need a nurse, not a social worker, but what are friends for?
“Good God, what happened?” Rainey cries as she opens her screen door. The expression on her face is alarming. Is one of my eyes hanging out? My entire face feels swollen.
In the thirty-minute ride to her house I have convinced myself that I have no broken bones, though my ribs on my right side feel as if someone had been trying to separate them with a pitchfork. At least I haven’t wakened her. It is still before ten, and she is dressed in her usual summer weekend attire:
shorts and a T-shirt.
Gingerly, I let myself in, and close the door behind me.
“You’re a sight for sore eyes,” I say, pleased I can still speak.
The power of speech is about all I have left.
“Believe it or not, I was winning a fight against Leon Robinson, when his friends decided I was too tough.”
Rainey, seeing I am not in too much pain to brag, yells, “Have you gone crazy? You’re a grown man, for God’s sake!
Follow me into the bathroom!”
What does being a grown man have to do with anything?
I think as I make my way through her living room. Grown men do a lot worse to each other than this. Yet for the first time in an hour I begin to relax, knowing Rainey will take care of me. Walking behind her, I notice how nice she looks in blue short shorts. Super legs to go with such a trim ass.
Wonderful! The last thought I will have before I bleed to death will be about sex.
She snaps on the light in her bedroom.
“Take off your shirt!” she commands, opening her medicine cabinet.
“It’s about to make me sick to my stomach.”
I look in the mirror and wince. The assholes. My face looks like mincemeat. At one point it was rubbed into the blacktop of the parking lot, not a beauty tip I would recommend.
Little black pieces of tar and dirt make my grimy cheeks look like a coal miner’s. Rainey says, “I’ll get some ice for your eye—stay right here!”
Not quite feeling up to a trip, I sit down on the seat of her commode and get out of my shirt and T-shirt. Both are soaked with blood. Even my right hand aches from the one punch I threw. A lover, not a fighter, I think, looking around Rainey’s bathroom. Unlike mine, it is sparkling clean. I inspect the sink—not even a single hair. Even the soap dish in the shower gleams. Each week Sarah and I take turns cleaning the bathroom, but this weekend it will be all I can do to keep my head from rolling off into the commode because even my neck aches. The body has only so much room for seven people to beat.
Rainey, it develops, isn’t the gentle nurse of my dreams.
“Ouch!” I mutter more than once when she washes my face.
The washrag is nice and warm, but it feels as if she has decided my chin is a silver tray that needs polishing.
“Hold still!” she orders, her left hand on the back of my head, presumably so she can dig in better.
“I have to do this or it’ll get infected. Is this tar or what?” “They kind of rubbed my face around on the parking lot,” I admit, trying to hold my head still. I’m beginning to think she is enjoying this.
“I feel like you’re mashing a hunk of Monterey Jack through a cheese grater. You’re not exactly Florence Nightingale at this, you know.”
She pushes the rag harder against my burning face.
“Why don’t you get up and go on to the emergency room? They probably have a room now just for you. Oh, for God’s sake, Gideon, they’ve knocked out a tooth!”
I nod miserably, running my tongue to the vacant spot and tasting congealed blood.
“What am I going to tell Sarah?
She’s got a friend spending the night with her. I’ll scare them to death.”
Rainey bobs her head in agreement as she throws the washrag into the sink and picks up the bag of ice from the porcelain ledge and hands it to me.
“Now, hold this against your eye while I dab on some hydrogen peroxide,” she says opening a cabinet drawer under the sink.
“Tell her the truth:
that you’re an idiot posing as a normal human being. She’ll forgive you. We always do.”
As she rubs my face with a square cotton pad soaked with the medication, I feel my flesh is being barbecued. If smoke begins to rise from my face, I won’t be surprised. I close my eyes. Poor Rainey. She deserves better. So far this friendship business has been a one-way street. Besides looking like a lawyer from hell, I stink from sweat, tar, smoke, and alcohol, but she hasn’t even wrinkled her nose. “I’m sorry I keep showing up,” I say, as she moves the cotton around my face, “when I ‘m in trouble.”
Sure I am. Rainey doesn’t even bother to protest this lie.
Finished, she screws the cap down onto the jar containing the medicine.
“Why on earth were you fighting Leon Robinson she asks, her green eyes flashing at me.
“Isn’t he the aide who was holding Pam?”
I nod and stand up to look into the mirror. It’s not a pretty sight. My right eye, now purplish in color, is almost shut;
parts of my face now resemble raw hamburger; my neck is abraded; and, of course, a tooth is gone. What do I tell her?
She hates lawyer games. Though I have told Rainey much about this case, I have avoided mentioning my idea to argue to the jury that Leon let go of Pam because he hates blacks and he wanted her to attack Andy. Why? Because I know, like Andy, she will object.
“It’s a long story,” I say wearily.
For the first time since I’ve known her, I notice strands of gray among the red hair that has always attracted me. She is still pretty at the age of forty-one, but her face, especially under the eyes, has lines that were not there when I met her.
I am aging this woman. What can she possibly see in me, even as a friend? I sigh, looking at my own torso in the mirror. Rainey, I realize, has never even seen me shirtless, and suddenly I am embarrassed by the roll of fat around my middle and the white patch of hair sprouting from my chest, an appetizing picture when my mutilated face is thrown into the bargain.
“I’ll tell you if you’ll let me use your bathroom to take a shower.”
Without a word she opens a cabinet and hands me a clean blue towel.
“Don’t wash your face again,” she commands as she closes the door behind her, “or I’ll have to put the hydrogen peroxide back on you.” Is there a hint of malice in her voice, or am I just imagining it?
When I emerge ten minutes later, I am feeling one him dred percent better. While I was in the shower behind the curtain, she opened the door and left a man’s V-necked T-shirt on the counter for me. Where did she get this? It’s none of my business, but because it looks old, I can resist asking not that I would get an answer. When I heard the door opening, for an instant I had thought she might get in the shower with me. Wishful thinkin
g, as usual. Instead of about sex, she’s probably thinking that it would be nice if somehow I could get a job in another state. She is waiting for me in her living room, curled up with her feet drawn up under her in her favorite chair across from the couch where in our courting days we necked like teenagers. An opened Miller Lite is sitting on the table by the couch. Underneath it is a napkin. I sit down, thinking what she would do for me if I were good to her.
“I thought you could use a beer,” Rainey says, staring at the T-shirt. It is a little large, but I’m not in a position to complain.
“Thanks,” I say, sincerely. My face feels as if it is glowing
“I’m not quite ready to go home and face my daughter yet.”
Rainey barely lifts a shoulder in reply. I know she thinks I worry too much about Sarah. She will be fine, Rainey has said, if I don’t smother her. Obviously, I’m the one who needs looking after. It isn’t Sarah who is dragging in with a black eye and a tooth knocked out. Yet I worry that she will worry. If the old man isn’t out chasing women, he’s off getting his face bashed in.
“You’re just about smooth nuts,” Rainey says, sipping at a glass of water she has picked up from the polished floor beside her chair. Her latest project, taking up the carpet in the living room and finishing the wood, has just been finished this week. She seems inexhaustible.
“Smooth nuts?” I ask. I never heard that one, but some how it fits. What was I doing in that bar by myself? For the next few minutes or so, I try to explain what I’ve been up to, but the mask of disapproval on Rainey’s face is in place be fore I get thirty seconds into my story, as I knew it would be.
“Even if you could show that Leon Robinson was the biggest racist in the entire state,” Rainey objects, cradling her empty glass in both hands between her knees, “what should it have to do with Andy’s case?”
Relevance. I sip at the beer and put it down. According to the Arkansas Uniform Rules of Evidence, relevant evidence is that evidence which tends to make a proposition at issue more or less true. “If I can make a jury believe that Leon deliberately let go of Pam I explain, “don’t you think that should have some bearing on Andy’s guilt or innocence?”
Gideon - 02 - Probable Cause Page 25
