Telegraph Avenue

by Michael Chabon

  And here the man showed up wearing brown Birkenstock sandals with his baggiest navy suit over black socks.

  “Good Lord,” Aviva said.

  “Whoa.”

  “What’s he doing here?”

  “I was trying for a certain intimidation factor,” Gwen said. “Frankly, I had not counted on the Birkenstocks.”

  “Gwen!”

  “It’s fine.”

  “It’s fine?”

  “He just needs to sit there. To be there, physically, taking up that much lawyer space in the room.”

  “Okay,” Aviva said, meaning it was not okay. “I’m confused. When Garth Newgrange threatens us with a multimillion-dollar lawsuit that not only could put us out of business but also could leave us both totally fucking bankrupt, you won’t even talk to a lawyer.”

  “Garth has no grounds for a suit. His baby was fine, Lydia was fine.”

  “Then for this thing,” deaf as Mr. Robert when she needed to be, “you bring in a guy, the venue of his last trial was SeaWorld.”

  “Ladies,” said Moby with the most terrible suavity imaginable. Gwen felt another tremor of uncertainty. On the way up in the elevator, however, Moby assumed a surprisingly professional demeanor, speaking low and fast, buoyant and aswim in his own expertise.

  “I spoke to the general counsel,” he told the partners. “She said that even though a formal complaint has been brought, it’s not like it’s, you know, can’t be expunged. Written in stone. The board has discretion, and they have authority to toss the thing out as long as we can satisfy Lazar and give them a reason to let it drop. Maybe they keep you, Gwen, on probation for six months, a year. Then everything goes back to normal.”

  “ ‘Give them a reason,’ ” Gwen said. “What kind of reason did legal affairs have in mind? How’m I supposed to ‘satisfy’ Lazar?”

  “Oh, for God’s sake, Gwen, you know what you have to do,” Aviva said.

  “What?”

  Aviva didn’t say anything, didn’t feel she needed to say anything, smug as ever in the telepathic power of her self-evident correctness. Gwen refused this time, knowing the secret word was “apologize,” but staring right back at Aviva as the elevator opened at the fourth floor for a ghost, closed, carried on.

  “Apologize,” Aviva said at last, giving it a slight hint of the imperative.

  “ ‘Apologize?’ ” Gwen feigned a degree of shock at the revelation. “To Lazar? For what?”

  “For nothing. It’s a meaningless, empty formula: ‘I’m sorry.’ Literally? It means you are in pain, you are sore. But nobody knows that, and nobody means to say that. They’re just words, Gwen. It’s a token, a little box on somebody else’s checklist, you take your pencil and you go . . .” She ticked off a little checkmark in midair. “You just mouth the words, take your medicine, and we can all—”

  “Take my medicine,” Gwen said, breaking out another package of ironizing quote marks, her supply maybe starting to run low. “Okay, sure, hey, they’re doctors, right? As long as they don’t try to administer it rectally—”

  The doors opened on the sixth floor, and Gwen shut up. They briefly became quite lost, looking for the conference room, wandering through an intricacy of corridors and sub-lobbies until they ran into Lazar himself, wiping his mouth on the back of his sleeve, turning from a drinking fountain halfway along a blue-carpeted branch corridor behind Personnel. He was in a light blue button-down shirt with a square-tip knit necktie and a pair of blue twill trousers so tight that his bicyclist thighs hoisted the cuffs to floodwater levels.

  “I’m sorry it got this far,” Aviva told him.

  “I’m sure you are,” he said, pointedly avoiding eye contact with Gwen. He opened the door to the conference room and stood aside to let them pass.

  As they made the introductions, Gwen saw that she had lucked out: the midwifery review board as currently constituted was three OBs, all of them men. She knew and had worked with all three over the years, and her relations with them, like Aviva’s, were in each case at least cordial and, in the case of Dr. Bernstein, who was chairing the proceedings, warm. Bernstein had referred dozens of patients to Birth Partners, and Gwen at various times had formed the distinct impression that old Aryeh Bernstein was macking, in that pass-the-time doctorly way, on Aviva. But none of that formed the basis of

  Gwen’s luck.

  3 WHITE MALE OBS, Aviva wrote on the topmost sheet of one of the legal pads that the hospital stenographer had distributed to the partners when they sat down. VS. 1 BLACK MIDWIFE = TOTALLY FAIR.

  “Totally,” Gwen said aloud, though she wasn’t entirely sure where to place Dr. Soleymanzadeh on the whiteness scale.

  The stenographer, a formidable older Filipina who was also tape-recording the proceedings, frowned, then typed seven letters into the transcript. Bernstein started, caught off guard by the tap of the keys, obviously fearing maybe that things were starting without him.

  “Okay, then,” he said, with a nod to Soleymanzadeh and Leery on his left and right. “Ms. Jaffe, Ms. Shanks. Gwen, Aviva. As you know, we’re here today to follow up on a complaint filed by Dr. Lazar, here, Paul Lazar, following from an incident that occurred in the ER back on the twentieth. At this point, the hearing is purely for the purpose of gathering information, trying to fill out a more complete picture of what transpired, which Doctors Soleymanzadeh, Leery, and I will use to come to some kind of recommendation about the status of your privileges here at Chimes General. Now, this is a serious complaint, and there’s no question it’s an important matter. Also, I should probably mention that whatever our recommendation should be, that is likely to become the action taken by the hospital. But—”

  “Or not taken,” Moby said as if helpfully.

  “But,” Bernstein resumed, “I’d like to begin by reminding you, Gwen, Aviva, that this hearing falls strictly within the purview of hospital and departmental policy regarding the conduct and status of nurse-midwives with privileges at Chimes. It is emphatically not a legal proceeding. You do not need a lawyer.”

  “Dr. . . . Bernstein. Here’s the thing, a lawyer is sort of like an umbrella,” Moby said, looking more relaxed and in his element than Gwen had ever seen him, not a trace of Boogaloo Shrimp in his manner or his voice. “You don’t bring it, it rains.”

  “I understand, Doctor,” Gwen said. “I’m just being careful. I hope you’ll be careful, too.”

  She saw how it landed, the way Joe Leery’s eyebrows shot skyward before parachuting back down to the ridge of his brow.

  “Okay,” Bernstein said, “and, well, you are certainly free to do so. Mr. Oberstein.”

  “Doctor.”

  “Before we get into the serious charges and issues that have been brought up in this case, I think we should all take a moment to remind ourselves of the most important thing, which is that the mother and the baby are both fine. That isn’t the issue here.”

  Seven different variations on the pious nod, everybody safely in agreement on that score.

  “Now, Dr. Lazar,” Bernstein said, “we’ve all got your complaint, and I think it’s pretty clear you feel that Ms. Shanks’s conduct not only lacked professionalism but diminished the quality of care—”

  “Look,” Lazar said, the man everlastingly an asshole, through and through, a common enough trait among doctors statistically and one not necessarily falling, therefore, under the heading of Gwen’s good luck. “I’m not going to get into a pissing match, okay? I’m not interested in who screwed up, or how they screwed up, or whether or not it makes sense for people to have babies in their bathtubs. To me, this all boils down to the fact that Ms. Shanks, here, when I confronted her, as I was well within my rights to do, was belligerent, threatening, and aggressive. Okay? And if that isn’t considered inappropriate conduct toward staff by somebody with privileges at this hospital, then, I mean, what the fuck is?”

  He glanced at the stenographer as if considering whether he ought to ask her to strike or let him rephrase his rheto
rical question.

  “Belligerent, aggressive, maybe,” said Dr. Soleymanzadeh, a handsome, hawk-faced man with preposterously beautiful brown eyes. He flipped through Lazar’s statement on the table before him, two double-spaced pages more or less free of specific detail or, for that matter, readerly interest. All of it heavily distorted but, in essence, Gwen supposed, true. “Threatening, I’m having a hard time, Paul.”

  “That’s the heart of the matter, isn’t it?” said Dr. Leery, an old guy, the sweetest and least competent of the doctors in the room. “Aggressivity, belligerence, it’s hard to know whether—”

  “You say Ms. Shanks threatened you,” Bernstein said, “but in your account, Paul, I can’t really say I—”

  “Not physically, okay.”

  “But she did threaten you.”

  “I guess it was more like she menaced me.”

  Gwen could feel Aviva and Moby watching her, waiting for her to interrupt, to deny, to argue. But she had not come here to argue with these motherfuckers. She waited, looking for her chance.

  “Okay,” Bernstein said. “That’s sounding pretty much like a semantic shading to me. Could you, could we get you to possibly be more specific?”

  It was weird; Lazar seemed abruptly to lose all interest in the proceedings that he had instigated. He sat under the humming CFL lights, looking wearier and more dead-eyed than ever. He shrugged, utterly bored by himself and all of them. “She got in my face,” he said, as if definitively, and though they waited for him to continue—even Gwen found herself perversely hoping for more—he seemed to have arrived at his conclusion.

  Bernstein turned to Gwen. “Ms. Shanks, would you like to respond?”

  Gwen made a show of checking with her attorney, who sat up straighter in his chair, mildly panicked. Patting his mental pockets as if he had left his wallet on some bus. His eyes reminding her, Silent and badass. Then, slowly, seeing she expected it, he nodded. Gwen rose as if obediently to her feet, knowing what she had to do and, worse, knowing how to do it, telling herself that it needed to be done.

  “Thank you, Dr. Bernstein,” Gwen said. “Yes, I would like to respond. Dr. Leery, Dr. Soleymanzadeh, I’m not going to lie. I was very angry at the time. I’m sure that I was standing pretty close to the man, maybe even ‘in his face.’ But look at me.”

  She stood up and completed one languid rotation on her own axis, reveling in her bulk. “First of all, I’d like to point out, I could plant my feet as appropriately far away from Dr. Lazar as he might want me to get. Large tracts of me would still be ‘in his face.’ ” A string of laughter cinched up the doctors; even the grim stenographer parted instantaneously with a smile. “Second,” Gwen went on, “do I look dangerous to you? Menacing?” No need, at this juncture, to go into her black belt, how, if she wanted to, even giving up a foot of height to Lazar and with all the litheness of a sandbag, she could snap any bone in the OB’s body. She glanced at Moby, the big man loving it, nodding, jowls shaking, as proud as if he had coached her every step of the way. “All that aside, fine, let’s give it to him. Let me concede his point.” Moby stopped nodding. “Aggressive. Belligerent. Menacing.” Old Moby wishing he had stuck to orcas. “Like I said, I was angry. Doctors, I had a right to be angry. I had just been subjected to the kind of vile, ugly treatment by that man, Paul Lazar, that I know, I would like to hope, would have made you angry, too.” She kept her gaze steady on the faces of the three inquisitors, fearing that if she glanced at Aviva, she might lose her nerve. “This man, Paul Lazar—I know you don’t want to hear this. And I didn’t want to tell you. I didn’t want to tell anyone, not even my lawyer, because I knew that if I did, he would advise me to file a complaint with the EEOC. But I can’t just stand by in the end and let the man get away with it. Not when he is guilty of the worst kind of racist—”

  “Ho,” Lazar said. “Whoa, hold on—”

  “The worst kind of derogatory racial remarks.”

  “Oh, come on, lady.”

  “He made a crack about my hair. About black people’s hair, about processed hair.”

  “I . . .”

  The memory, then; a pinprick, the air whistling out of him, while understanding, troubled and shifty-eyed, flowed into the faces of Leery, Bernstein, and Soleymanzadeh. Seeped like the stain from a teabag darkening a cup of hot water. Gwen turned to Aviva, daring her partner to back her up or back away. The doctors—Lazar, too—turned to see what she would say, Aviva Roth-Jaffe, the Alice Waters of midwives, the rock upon which modern East Bay midwifery had been founded.

  Aviva looked shocked; as shocked as Aviva ever looked. She hesitated for a long second, her full lips flatlined with unhappiness. Finally, she nodded. “That is true,” she said.

  “He called me a witch doctor.”

  “I never said that!”

  “He accused me of practicing voodoo.”

  “Ary, that’s not true,” Lazar said to Bernstein. Awake now, alive, working as much truthfulness into his voice as he could, more than was compatible with telling the truth. “I didn’t mean—”

  “There was a waiting room full of witnesses,” Gwen said. “They all heard what you said. These people checked in with the intake clerk, I’m sure they can be tracked down. They’ll all verify it. You said, ‘Five more minutes of burning that incense, or whatever voodoo you were up to, and that mom doesn’t make it.’ ”

  Lazar opened his mouth as if to protest, then closed it again.

  Bernstein turned to Aviva, who shot a look at Gwen, hoping and doubting and most of all, Gwen thought, fearing that her partner knew what she was doing.

  “I do remember that,” Aviva said. “I’m not sure those were the exact words, but Dr. Lazar did say something about us practicing voodoo.”

  Bernstein looked at Lazar. “Paul?”

  “How is voodoo racist?” Lazar said. “I just meant, like, you know, all that bullshit new age aromatherapy crap.”

  “If you meant ‘aromatherapy,’ ” said Moby, going with it, ready to help Gwen press the advantage, “why did you say ‘voodoo’?”

  “Why, indeed?” Gwen said.

  “Maybe we ought to get general counsel in here,” Moby said.

  “I really don’t think—” Bernstein began.

  “I wish I had done a better job of controlling my temper,” Gwen said. “I truly do. I have devoted my entire professional life, my entire life period, to maintaining a consistently calm demeanor. I have always fought successfully to rise above. But when people start getting into that kind of rhetoric, that kind of hate speech, I’m sorry—in my view, I have an obligation to stand up to it.”

  “We all do,” Moby said.

  “Of course,” Bernstein said. “Gwen, nobody expects you to put up with that kind of talk. Paul, I have to say, I’m very surprised by this.”

  “I’m sure,” said Leery, “that it was all a big misunderstanding of some kind. A misjudgment.”

  “It was the end of his shift,” Soleymanzadeh said. “Clearly, the man was tired.”

  Gwen saw that Aviva was chewing on a fingernail, a habit she reviled in herself and had struggled for years to defeat. She looked like she was feeling ill, about to get up and walk out of the room.

  “Okay, here’s what I’d like to propose,” Bernstein said. “I’m going to say we review this, in light of what we’ve just heard. Take the matter under advisement for the time being, and—”

  “I’m sorry,” said Lazar from behind his hands. “All right?” He lowered his hands, and the imprint they left in the sallow flesh of his cheeks glowed red for an instant like the residue of rage, then faded. “I was tired, just fried, and pissed off. I mean, you tell me I’m an asshole, okay, that’s not going to be news to me, right? Not to anybody in this room, maybe. But I’m an equal-opportunity asshole. I’m an asshole to everyone, black, white, blue, green.” Somehow, imperfectly, as if calling on rumor and hearsay and long-forgotten lore, he worked his features into something that meant to resemble a smile. “A
ry, help me out here.”

  “You have an edge,” Bernstein suggested.

  “That’s what I’m saying. I totally have an edge. And that’s why, look, Ms. Shanks. Gwen. I’m sorry for what I said. Okay?”

  Everyone turned to look at Gwen, ready for her to accept Lazar’s bullshit apology—that weary old dodge, I’m not a racist, I hate everybody equally!—and more important, ready for her to go on, break down, give in, and apologize right back. Just bat Aviva’s meaningless tennis ball of language over the net. Check the little box on Paul Lazar’s list.

  “Nice try,” Gwen said. She picked up the legal pad on which she had jotted not a single note. “Aryeh, Dr. Soleymanzadeh. Dr. Leery. I appreciate your time.”

  “Ms. Shanks,” Leery said, sounding woeful.

  “Gwen, for God’s sake,” Aviva said, and then, to the doctors, with remarkable sincerity and warmth of tone, “she’s sorry, too. We both are. Our good relationship with Chimes is important to us. Personally and professionally.” As she came out with the second adverb, she underscored it on her own pad with four scratched words: COST OF DOING BUSINESS!

  “No, Aviva,” Gwen said. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me, but I’m not sorry. Must be a black thing, huh, Paul?”

  “I wouldn’t know.”

  “Doctors, I look forward to hearing not only what you but also the EEOC have to say about all this. Now,” Gwen said with a wave to Moby, on a roll, talking mostly to herself, “if you’ll excuse me.”

  Thus, feeling something very close to fly, and doing what she had to do, Gwen went to see about taking back her house.

  “Mr. Stallings,” wrote A. O. Scott in his New York Times review of Strutter Kicks It Old-School, “has not only redeemed himself, he has also redeemed the genre of American cinema known so crudely as blaxploitation, and let us hope that this marvelous new film lays in its grave that ignoble moniker for all time.”

  That was only one of the clippings. There were positive reviews from Time, Ebony, and Entertainment Weekly. Cover stories in People and Esquire. Quotations from these articles and reviews had been excerpted to run in print ads and on the packaging of the DVD, useful exclamations like BOLD! and TERRIFIC! and A NONSTOP ACTION-PACKED THRILL RIDE! Across the film’s poster, above a full-length image of Candygirl Clark and Cleon Strutter leaning together, each of them three quarters turned to the camera, her left shoulder against his right shoulder, giant letters proclaimed TWO THUMBS UP!!! EBERT & ROEPER.