Paper Gods

by Goldie Taylor

  The funeral was set for Wednesday at noon, enough time for the glitterati to descend upon Atlanta and, she imagined, enough for Marsh to come to his senses. The memorial service would be as elegant as the man. The president, First Lady, and House Speaker were all expected. Graça Machel, wife of the late Nelson Mandela, was due in on a chartered flight from South Africa along with Archbishop Makgoba, head of the Anglican Church, that afternoon. Victoria could hear Hawkins’s joyful baritone voice singing in her head.

  Oh Freedom, Oh Freedom,

  Oh Freedom,

  Freedom is coming, oh yes I know!

  It was decided, at her insistence, that the Medal of Freedom would be bestowed posthumously and placed on permanent display in the National Center for Civil and Human Rights in Centennial Park. Hawkins had been a founding board member and one of its largest benefactors. He’d circled the globe to shore up funding for the massive project.

  The federal investigators were likely right, Victoria thought. To kill Hawkins in such a public place, with more than twenty-five hundred people present, rather than in the driveway of his house or some random place, was a demonstration. Finding him would’ve been easy enough. His address on Somerset Trail was public record, after all, and he kept to a regular daily schedule. Hawkins had been a man of convention, coming and going at the same time, an imprudence that a man in his position might’ve avoided. He had no standing security team, and despite her pleading, these days he often drove himself whenever he was at home in Atlanta.

  The shooter, a man now identified as Caleb Vasquez, had no discernible ties to antigovernment groups, and he had no social media presence. Whether someone sent him or he committed the vile act of his own volition was yet unknown.

  “Domestic terrorism,” she said out loud to no one.

  Victoria uttered those words as she kneeled to unlace her running shoes.

  It had been nearly a week, and she had heard nothing from the governor’s office. Save for a three-line perfunctory public statement expressing sympathies for all of the dead that did not even mention Hawkins by name, Governor Elena Martinez could not be bothered with the pretense of ordering state flags lowered to half-staff until a scathing Times-Register editorial had been published. Even so, Victoria assumed the governor would not step foot into Ebenezer for the memorial service, and there was no way in hell Martinez would greet the president and First Lady on the tarmac at Hartsfield-Jackson Airport.

  Ironically born to migrant workers and growing up deep in the lower Chattahoochee River valley in the far southwest corner of the state, Elena Reyes-Martinez had once been the not-so-gentlewoman from Muscogee County, an ultraconservative ball of fire who was first sent to the Georgia statehouse in a special election.

  “When all else fails, vote from the rooftops!” she was caught on tape telling a pro-gun rally during the heated primary. Governor Martinez wrapped herself in the Bill of Rights, no amendment more tightly than the Second, and railed against illegal immigration.

  The governor’s disdain for “race baiters” and “hustlers” like Hawkins was not subject to dispute. Martinez was cooling her jets in the governor’s mansion these days, a half mile up the road in Tuxedo Park, and rumor had it that she had her eyes set on a U.S. Senate bid.

  Back when she was a member of the state legislature herself, Victoria had tested the waters for a run for governor. Virgil Loudermilk, a political kingmaker who controlled much of the money flowing out of Buckhead, personally urged her to run. He was a Republican, though for Virgil there was no partisan aisle wide enough not to cross if the stakes were high enough.

  Kitchen cabinet meetings were convened and conference calls with heavy-hitters representing big-name donors were held. However, the notion that a black Democrat from Atlanta could win a statewide election in Georgia was far-fetched. Hawkins had been courted too, but turned the offer down flat. While it was true that she now controlled the legendary Jackson Machine, that wasn’t worth a pinch of salt in Georgia’s 158 other counties. Then, too, there had been talk of a presidential appointment. Without a doubt, a bevy of white-shoe law firms would be eager to recruit her into their fold, if she ever decided to leave public life.

  Victoria stripped off her clothes, stepped into the master bath, and turned on a cool shower. She craned her neck and let the water rain down on her décolletage, massaging her breasts in the soothing wetness. Reflexively, her fingers swept past her abdomen, down to the top edge of her pubic bone and over her waxed-smooth labia. She stopped there, forgoing the impulse to surrender to another moment of indulgence.

  In a few weeks’ time, she could be taking a chair on the floor of the House, and the Speaker would see to it that she got plum committee appointments. That congressional seat was hers, just as Hampton Bridges had been so disrespectful as to suggest, if Victoria wanted it. It took nothing short of unmitigated gall for him to show up at the press briefing, and Victoria knew Bridges had plenty of it. And she expected he would be back, beating the bushes, at some point. She’d wished him dead a thousand times in her head. She’d been noticeably indifferent about his car accident, but blithely ordered her staff to send a floral arrangement.

  Bridges had written a rather nice story about her in last Monday’s paper, but an aide reported that he was snooping around in her campaign finance disclosures again. When it came down to it, Bridges had to know that she had both the money and the votes, she thought as she rinsed the suds away. It was widely known that she had every big-name campaign strategist from the Chattahoochee to the Anacostia River on speed dial. Her campaign operation could be fully staffed and running in a matter of hours. One call could set it in motion. Hiring Chip was another matter. Her mother wouldn’t like it, but she needed to keep some space between herself and her brother—at least publicly.

  The plans were swirling in her head when Marsh came into the bathroom. His silence said he was still stewing over their argument. He didn’t offer so much as a good morning. She’d missed him in their bed for the few fleeting hours that she actually slept last night, and she let herself admit that she needed him now, just as she always had. If only he would join her in the shower and finish the work that she’d left undone.

  “Marsh, honey, I’m sorry,” she said finally. “I was angry and hurt. I’m sorry.”

  There was no response. No “I love you.” No “Baby, we’ll get through this.” There was nothing. She heard the toilet flush and the sink water turn on and off.

  “You didn’t have to go to a hotel,” she said softly.

  “I didn’t.”

  “Then, where—” she started to ask.

  The door slammed shut.

  “—were you?” she whispered to herself.

  Gentle, knowing tears streamed down her face.

  NINE

  Hampton parked his minivan outside Lenox Mall near the food court entrance. It had been two full weeks since the carnage at Ebenezer, and Congressman Ezra Hawkins was now resting in his grave in some dusty small town Hampton had never heard of.

  For now, at least, Victoria Dobbs was still mayor. There was no doubt in his mind that she would file qualifying papers for the special election.

  Asking Dobbs about her political intentions—before the medical examiner even had the chance to inventory the crime scene, process the bodies, and pluck the bullets from their wounds—seemed rash now. Hampton wondered how much his indelicate, hasty approach would cost him. Surely, the mayor’s office had turned over that Georgia Open Records Act request to his publisher and triggered the fishing expedition into his work IT account. But pressing the question of her political fortunes out in the open gained him nothing but scorn from his colleagues and a predictable upbraiding from his mother, who stayed glued to Fox News. She’d seen the live press conference and watched her baby son make an ass of himself on national television.

  “You’re doing everything under the sun to prove your father right,” Florence Bridges said, reprimanding her grown son. “That husband of mine can
not wait to throw some fresh crow on the grill in honor of your downfall. Make him eat it by himself, gosh darn you!”

  No one walking the planet could dish out an expletive-free tongue-lashing like his mother. Florence, being a good Catholic and all, would never take the Lord’s name in vain, but she’d make you want to beg to see Jesus by the time she was finished with you. How she’d stomached his father all these years remained a mystery to Hampton.

  Hampton readily admitted that there was nothing he held sacred when it came down to chasing a story. Being a journalist, for him at least, still meant pounding the weeds until the truth ran out naked and screaming. He made no apologies for that. Though a wiser man might have eased back onto the beat and figured out a way to get at the story without having drawn the mayor’s wrath so quickly. Whether immediately or eventually, he figured, there would be a price to pay for his insolence.

  “I’ve always said you had more mouth than grace,” his mother often chided.

  The few friends he had left in the Atlanta press corps said little or nothing on the matter, not that he expected any of them to call or write. These days, he was less than interested in carousing at the weekly cocktail hour at Manuel’s Tavern, where local politicos and reporters chin-wagged over craft beers and stuffed their faces with loaded “dogzillas.”

  Hampton preferred to lick his wounded paws alone, and anyway, tripping over to Manny’s place was anything but a good idea. He’d been dry for months, and wheeling into the bar for a night of shoptalk over a virgin Arnold Palmer, with so much good liquor within arm’s reach, was a depressing thought.

  Thanks to Tucker Stovall, Hampton was back in the saddle now, on the political beat, working a story he couldn’t let go. Congressman Hawkins had been caught with a prostitute back in ’85, and Hampton knew exactly where to find her.

  Chanel Burris was now in her mid to late forties, he estimated, and living in a make-do apartment on the far Westside in the shadow of the Atlanta University Center. She was holding down a job in the men’s shoe department at Bloomingdale’s. Hampton decided to ring her up and pay a visit.

  He found an empty handicap spot, entered the lower level from the rear entrance, and situated himself next to Auntie Anne’s pretzel shop. Chanel would be going on break in a few minutes, leaving him a small stretch to look over his notes and scarf down a pretzel smothered in mustard. The first bite was thrilling. The second was interrupted by a hubbub on the escalator.

  “Hey, watch it!” a woman shouted.

  A fresh-faced brownish boy, no more than fourteen or so, broke through a string of startled shoppers on the descending step risers and flung his long, lanky body over the balustrade. He jumped a clean fifteen feet and hit the checkered marble flooring with a thud. Splayed out on the tiling, he quickly yanked up his slouching jeans, hoisted a North Face backpack onto his shoulder, and took off running again. He didn’t get far. A flank of security guards whizzed by.

  Moments later, the rent-a-cops had the kid’s face glued against the GameStop store display window. His caper spoiled, the knot below his eye already swelling and red as an apple, the boy was cuffed by a plainclothes store detective and led away. He didn’t go quietly.

  “Ayo! Somebody get this on camera!” he howled. “Anybody got that Periscope? Ayo! Tweet this shit! I got my receipts! Hit me at Babyboy404! Black lives matter! Believe that!”

  “Another one bites the dust,” a woman’s voice said from over Hampton’s shoulder. “They oughta know better than to come out here stealing from these white folk. I know he ain’t think he was gone hit that MARTA train before they got hold of his narrow behind.”

  She adjusted her pocketbook on her shoulder, a gently used Gucci bag that matched her peep-toe shoes.

  “Hey, Miss Burris. It’s good to see you.”

  “What do you want?”

  “Thanks for agreeing to see me.”

  “Yeah, well, I ain’t got but a minute. Unless you’re gonna make my sales quota, you gotta make this quick.”

  It had been several years since he last saw her in person, but Chanel hadn’t aged any that Hampton could see.

  “Well, you look great.”

  “Honey, you know black don’t crack. But I’m here to tell you that it shole do move around. These Spanx are so tight, they got my ass sweating and itching.”

  She’d put on a few pounds, in all the right places, as far as Hampton could see. He did wonder how she made it through double shifts wearing four-inch stilettos. The canary-yellow toenail polish, fake eyelashes, and curly blond-streaked weave were odd choices for a woman her age. He had half a mind to ask about the clownish getup, but for once, he resisted the impulse, and he just admired her rock-hard, smooth calf muscles and the way her spaghetti straps fell across her collarbones.

  Under the thick layers of makeup was a beautiful woman, the kind who would make you go searching in the daytime with a flashlight. Chanel was tall, just short of six feet, even without the come-fuck-me pumps. Hampton figured he wasn’t, never had been, and never would be man enough to play in her sandbox.

  Their meetings and phone calls over the years, eight of them in all, were a closely guarded secret between him, Chanel, and his dog, Inman. Even Tucker never knew that he’d kept tabs on her, and there was no need for him or anybody else to find out now. Tucker would blow his stack, and Hampton would be back plucking dandelions before he could whistle the first stanza of “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down.”

  He’d have a hard time explaining all of this to his probation officer.

  Hampton couldn’t begin to describe it, but something about Chanel’s story never sat right with him. Maybe it was the way she told the story to him one snippet at time. He listened to the recorded calls, wrestled with the details a dozen times or more, looking for the hole that had yet to expose itself.

  Something isn’t right, Hampton told himself as he followed her to an elevator and into the food court a floor below.

  They sipped on a pair of lemonades from Chick-fil-A. He lobbed a few gentle questions. She hadn’t asked him about the wheelchair or what might have caused his present predicament. She was hesitant, as always, and he couldn’t blame her for that. Being an inextricable footnote in somebody else’s life couldn’t feel good, especially when that somebody was now a martyred congressman—the target of a domestic terrorist attack, no less—and a world-renowned champion of human rights. He’d turned up an ugly Wikipedia page and a smattering of anonymous blog posts festooned with unflattering images of Chanel. Hawkins was an American hero, and from the looks of things, Chanel’s exquisite ass had proven disposable in his rise to power.

  It was 1985 when the firestorm erupted. Chanel was busted half-naked in a low-flung motel room on Spring Street with one Ezra Hawkins, who was then a sitting member of the Atlanta City Council. For weeks on end, reporters circled the run-down duplex off Sylvan Road where she lived with her mother. The local ABC affiliate filed daily live reports from the scene. Bill Wilfong was the only reporter to get Dorothy “Dot” Burris on camera. Searching the archives for the tape proved easy pickings since the station and the Atlanta Times-Register sat under the same corporate umbrella.

  “Get on outta here!” Dot Burris yelled as the camera zoomed in on her.

  She wagged her finger at Wilfong and said, “The Good Lord ain’t never gone bless this evil y’all doing outchear. Ya’oughta be down there on Trinity Avenue in them city council meetings. That’s where all the real crime happens. My child ain’t never done nothing to hurt nobody.”

  Chanel served a stint in jail on a misdemeanor possession charge, followed by another year of supervised probation. Curiously, Hampton could find no mention of a “Chanel Burris” in city or county detention records. He rechecked the court docket and repeatedly inspected the transcripts for clues. It was as if Chanel had disappeared the minute she stepped onto the prisoner transfer van.

  “Like I said, I don’t have anything to say on that. I was just a kid back then. I’v
e got a nice life now.”

  “No one will ever know we spoke,” Hampton said. “He’s gone now. You can talk to me.”

  Chanel eyed him suspiciously and said, “You know they set me up, right? Didn’t have no warrant or nothing. The next thing I know, they had me on the floor with guns cocked at my head like I was some kind of kingpin.”

  She shook the ice in her Styrofoam cup of lemonade and said, “I got pinched for a soggy bag of weed and a dry-ass crack pipe while the Honorable Mr. Hawkins went right on with his life, got himself elected to Congress, and left me sitting down there on Rice Street with a bond my mama couldn’t make. I sat in jail for damn near four months until the judge got around to giving me a public defender. He ain’t send no lawyer for me or nothing. He couldn’t even call me by my name.”

  “You still sound angry about that.”

  “Not really. My mama used to say I’ve been pissed off since the day I was born.”

  “Are you sure it was the Fulton County lockup? Rice Street?”

  “You ain’t ever been to jail, have you, Mr. Bridges?”

  Hampton didn’t answer. There was no sense in getting into it, he figured. The last thing he wanted was to relive those hours, handcuffed to a hospital bed.

  “Well, if you did, you’d remember er’thang from the time they said ‘all rise’ to ‘somebody made your bail.’ You’d damn sure never forget where they took you, even if it was thirty years ago. I was on lockdown for two hundred thirty-eight days, fifteen hours, and forty-seven minutes.”

  The official story was that then-nineteen-year-old Chanel was a low-dollar prostitute known as “Che-Che” in the streets and was caught trying to flush a ziplock bag of marijuana down the motel toilet. Hampton suspected that it ran deeper than that. Expecting a sitting city councilman to spring her from jail, even one who claimed to have been trying to rescue her from the streets, confirmed it for him.

  “Sometimes love doesn’t love us back,” he said, angling for something more.