Testimony

by Paula Martinac

  “Very good, Margaret. I jotted it down because it was so completely relevant to what we’re studying today. And as an aside, I was forced to take a course in Gregg shorthand the summer I graduated from high school. My mother thought a girl having a career meant being a secretary.” Gen smiled at the absurdity, but she knew some of these girls likely agreed with her mother.

  “Senator Kennedy said, and these are his words, ‘In the election of 1860, Abraham Lincoln said the question was whether this nation could exist half slave and half free. In the election of 1960, the question is whether the world will exist half slave or half free, whether it will move in the direction of freedom, in the direction of the road that we are taking, or whether it will move in the direction of slavery.’”

  Lee-Anne’s hand shot up. “But there’s no slavery anymore.”

  “A fair point. But Kennedy went on to talk about Negroes not enjoying their full constitutional rights, how white children have a fairer shake in the country than black children, and he gave some startling statistics. For example, he noted that a Negro child has about one-half as much chance to get through high school as a white child.”

  “Is that really true, professor?” Susanna asked, when Gen called on her.

  Gen started. “About high school? Yes, it is.”

  “But couldn’t there be other reasons they don’t make it through?” the girl added. “Like, maybe they don’t try as hard?”

  “Or maybe school’s too hard for them?” Lee-Anne said.

  Gen set down her notes. These two girls, peas in a pod, were prime examples of students she wanted to shake until she loosened their narrow beliefs about race. Yet, with their well-connected families, she couldn’t afford to alienate them.

  “There is a legacy of slavery that we carry with us today. Negroes may no longer be literally enslaved, but the legacy means they don’t enjoy the same advantages in things like housing, jobs, and schooling. That is what Senator Kennedy was getting at with his statistics, and that is what I want you to remember as we learn about the Civil War and especially Reconstruction.”

  Her firm pronouncement silenced them, and then they all opened their textbooks as instructed. Gen wondered how long it would take for Susanna or Lee-Anne to let the class lesson slip to their parents or to Henry Thoms.

  ✥ ✥ ✥

  That week, Gen got a couple of hang-up calls at home—no one on the other end, just a dial tone. A likely prank, or someone who wanted to talk to her but couldn’t bring themselves to once they’d dialed. She’d hung up on Carolyn’s new number several times, so she was well aware the trick wasn’t limited to children.

  After her supper, Fenton phoned, asking to stop by. It didn’t sound like he had a casual chat in mind. He explained his lack of sleep since the police had brought him in, his nagging fear that they’d show up at Timmons Hall for him or his belongings, as they had for Mark.

  Then he arrived at the real reason for wanting to visit. The provost’s office had summoned him for a meeting the following day, with no specific subject mentioned.

  Gen gulped. Provost Lowndes Ramsey, just a rung below the president of the college in power, had been in his job only a year. She’d shaken his manicured hand at a welcome reception. As faculty members listened to his greeting, Fenton had remarked on the provost’s trim build. “I wouldn’t turn him out of bed,” he’d whispered to Gen.

  All that seemed ages ago now. Gen couldn’t deny Fenton the company he needed, even though she’d just cracked the spine on The Burden of Southern History and wanted to spend the evening alone with it.

  Fenton appeared at her doorstep in a wrinkled button-down shirt that looked like he’d dragged it from the laundry basket. Always so fastidious about his appearance, his dishevelment stood out. His mouth sagged in a way she hadn’t noticed before.

  “You look terrible,” she couldn’t help saying as she ushered him in.

  “Thanks, hon.”

  She splashed Jim Beam into his glass without asking if he wanted it.

  “Say, you didn’t call and hang up on me, did you? About an hour before we actually talked?”

  Fenton frowned, making the lines in his face more pronounced. “Why would I do that?”

  “Sorry, of course you wouldn’t. Probably a neighborhood kid.”

  Her friend belted back his drink while still standing up. Gen poured him another and watched as he polished that off, too. Fenton liked his bourbon, but he usually savored a glass or two over the course of a visit. As he placed the empty glass on Gen’s liquor cabinet, his hand trembled.

  “Have you had supper?” she asked.

  “I had a stale donut from the diner. Does that count?”

  Gen smiled and led him to the kitchen by the sleeve. She flicked on the overhead as moonlight spilled through the window facing the Carrs’ house.

  “I already ate but let me fix you something real fast.”

  Aside from the barbecue recipe she served on special occasions, Gen had never bothered to learn to cook. When she was growing up, she resisted her mother’s attempts to teach her daughters about “meals to please a man.” Since leaving home, her most likely quick meals consisted of scrambled eggs or tuna fish salad. On weekends, she might attempt a recipe from Betty Crocker that she could eat all week, a casserole or spaghetti.

  “How’s leftover meat loaf sound?”

  “Divine. Don’t fuss, though. I’ll eat it cold.”

  With its congealed tomato sauce, the meat loaf she plated for him looked unappetizing, but Fenton worked his way through it bite by bite.

  “That was delicious. I didn’t know I was hungry.”

  She’d brought the bottle of bourbon to the table, too, and he helped himself to a third round while she continued to nurse her first.

  “I might regret eating, though,” he added. “My stomach’s not in the best state these days. Worried I have an ulcer again.”

  “You might let up on the booze.”

  Fenton let the third shot stand in his glass. He reached into his pants pocket and withdrew a piece of folded paper. He smoothed it open, showing a check for five hundred dollars with no name in the Pay to the Order of line.

  Gen stared at the amount. “Hey, my meat loaf’s good, but it’s on the house.”

  He didn’t crack a smile. “I want you to hold onto this,” he instructed. “That’s how much Mark said his bail came to. I don’t want to be caught having to scrounge around and beg people for the money. I also don’t want anybody having to write the check and implicate themselves. Especially not you.”

  Gen’s pulse picked up speed. “Fenton, you’re not going to jail.” The statement rang hollow, said mostly to convince herself.

  “I’d rather not pretend,” he said. “If they arrest me, I’ll need you to bring this to the station.”

  “But what if—” She restrained her thought: What if the provost fires you? Won’t you need this?

  As if reading her mind, Fenton said, “I have more put by.” He motioned toward the check. “I cashed in some railroad stock my granddad left me. I was saving it for a rainy day, but it’s starting to look pretty cloudy.”

  The bourbon burned its way down her throat. They finished their drinks at the same time, and she glanced over the stove at the yellow Bakelite clock that read 8:34.

  She wondered how he had gotten himself to this point. Fenton hadn’t divulged anything about the police interview, and she hadn’t prodded him, as if not knowing the details could make it all go away. Yet here he was, asking her to make bail for him if necessary, and she deserved information.

  She poured herself a second shot, shorter than the first. Drinking emboldened her, though she sometimes regretted what came out of her mouth. “So what happened, Fen? Did Mark give the police your name?”

  “Don’t know.” His finger traced a mark on the cotton tablecloth, a phantom stain that hadn’t come out in the wash.

  “Didn’t you ask?” She didn’t mean it as a verbal slap, but it so
unded that way, even to her.

  “I was so flustered, hon, I was just trying to get it all over with. The police chief is a cool number, I’ll tell you that. The way those two looked at me—” He shivered at the memory.

  “Well, if Mark didn’t give them your name, how would they have landed on you? Surely, just being a bachelor isn’t enough, and you say you’re always safe, that you don’t do . . . what Mark did.”

  Her disapproval came through; she couldn’t hide it. She honestly didn’t understand the attraction of such a private matter like sex happening in a park or a public restroom. When Fenton didn’t respond, she added, “Or were you not telling me the truth?”

  Pain clouded Fenton’s face. She knew he thought of her not just as a friend, but as a big sister figure. In light moments, he called her “Sissy” as a joke.

  “I don’t lie to you,” he said slowly. “I may have . . . forgotten an incident with Mark. One time when I wasn’t quite as safe. Mark may have written about it. In a diary the police have.”

  Gen’s spine straightened. “Tell me this wasn’t on campus.”

  His eyes welled up and spilled over, a stream of tears that distorted his face. In her experience, men didn’t cry. Fenton had wept in front of her once before, several years back when his grandfather died, but that had been much more restrained and polite, a few drops he could wipe away with his pocket hanky. Then, she had patted his back in comfort. Now, she restrained the urge to smack him, keeping her hands securely on her glass and saying nothing.

  A few minutes ticked by rhythmically. When Fenton’s crying subsided, she asked, “What happens next?”

  He blew his nose, and the trumpeting echoed off the walls. “I should look for a lawyer. Lord, I can’t believe I just said that. You know anyone besides Darrell?”

  “Just Frank Johnson at the NAACP.” Negro lawyers didn’t defend white men in their part of the country—or likely anywhere. “I could ask him about white lawyers.”

  She thought for a few more moments, then continued, “How about men you know in Richmond? Could you ask around?”

  Fenton scowled. “I need to keep my distance from those fellas,” he said. “They’re not going to want to see me anyway. Some of them have wives and families.”

  They faced each other in silence as the second hand of the clock ticked and ticked. The weight of her uselessness sat heavily on Gen’s chest. “I’ve been no help,” she said finally.

  “You let me come over. You gave me meatloaf and bourbon. You are the best friend I have.”

  Guilt filled her to bursting. She was a terrible friend, judgmental and unkind.

  “Do you want to stay over?” she offered, and he jumped at the chance. He had slept over before, when their evenings went late or he’d drunk too much. He claimed the sofa bed in her office was comfy, and in fact he was the only one who had ever used it.

  Gen had tested the sofa bed at the store, picturing her parents visiting, maybe during the fall when the trees produced a breathtaking canopy of colors in the surrounding mountains. But she never invited them and they never broached the topic—a sort of mutual agreement of silence.

  The next morning, Gen heard Fenton padding around in the kitchen. Her nightstand clock read only 6:20. Soon the aroma of coffee hit her nostrils, and she threw on her bathrobe.

  Fenton was already fully dressed, his shirt even more wrinkled, as if he’d slept in it. “I’ll be out of your hair in a jiff. Don’t want to get you in trouble with the nosy neighbors.”

  At the front door, Gen donned a big-sister face, concerned but smiling, to buck him up. “I’ll be thinking of you today. Let me know what happens?”

  His old Dodge didn’t start right away; the cold engine took several tries to turn over. She hoped Mrs. Carr wasn’t up, that the racket didn’t attract her attention.

  Chapter Eight

  Fenton

  Fenton had never been to the provost’s office. Light spilled through the arched windows and landed on the two secretaries positioned like sentries at either side of the doors to his private sanctum. The older of the two barely acknowledged his presence, while Kathy Yost, the younger one and a former student he had mentored, smiled at him reassuringly. He took the seat Kathy suggested, one of several matching chairs with red and gold patterned cushions, even on the arms, like something out of a formal dining room.

  A few minutes past the appointment time, Provost Ramsey flung open his double doors and waved Fenton inside.

  “How is it we’ve never met?” Ramsey asked after they shook hands. He smoothed his silver hair, which, despite his age, was still thick and lustrous. Fenton felt the thinning of his own in that one gesture.

  “We did meet once,” Fenton said. “At your welcome reception. But you met so many people.”

  “Of course.” Ramsey smiled, displaying a set of perfect white teeth. His appearance and comportment suggested an upper-class pedigree. Fenton pictured him hailing from a grand house shadowed by an allée of live oaks.

  Fenton settled into his chair, a manly leather that sighed under him.

  “An issue has come up, Mr. Page. It is Mr. Page and not Dr. Page, correct?”

  The provost somehow intuited that Fenton was self-conscious about his lack of a doctorate. But he’d been hired for his position based on his hands-on theater experience, not because of an advanced degree. Fenton opened his mouth to point that out, then shut it quickly.

  The provost consulted notes on a legal pad. “I’ve had a call from Provost Loomis over at our brother school. A pesky situation that I hope you can shed some light on. It appears some parents have complained about the play we’re putting on with Davis and Lee this fall.” His eyes narrowed. “Charley’s Aunt by . . . Brendan Thomas?”

  Fenton cleared his throat, which was scratchy as sandpaper. “Brandon Thomas. Yes, he wrote about a d-dozen plays, but Charley’s Aunt was his hit.”

  Ramsey nodded with a tight smile. “The assistant provost looked it up in the library. A comedy, I take it.”

  “A very broad one. More of a farce. All good fun and mistaken identity-type humor, the kind of things the Victorians lapped up. I take it you didn’t see the movie? My students didn’t either.”

  Ramsey frowned. “Mrs. Ramsey likes farces, but when it comes to comedy, I’m more of a Shakespeare man.”

  The provost steepled his hands over the legal pad. “From what the assistant provost could find out about it, it’s an odd little thing, what with a lot of cross-dressing and innuendo and all.”

  Fenton cast his eyes down and examined his palms, which glistened with sweat. He rubbed them quickly against his trouser legs. Shakespeare used cross-dressing and innuendo, he thought but couldn’t say.

  “It seems you’ve had some other curious choices in your time with us. Lillian Hellman. Oscar Wilde even. Thomas appears to be a contemporary of Wilde’s. You like the Victorians, I take it.”

  “We’ve done a number of classics, but students prefer more recent works,” Fenton hurried to point out. “Next semester is Our Town.”

  “Good family fare. Always a solid choice,” Ramsey said, rubbing his chin.

  The silence that followed was achingly long.

  “Given the atmosphere these days,” Ramsey went on, “all the talk about morals and lewdness, and then the situation with Mr. Patton, it doesn’t look good for us to do this particular play. I’m afraid Provost Loomis and I agree that it’s best to cancel Charley’s Aunt.”

  “But we’re up in two weeks,” Fenton blurted out. “Most of the students are off-book.”

  He flashed to all the rehearsals, the hours spent blocking the pratfalls. Andrew and Margaret were particularly strong in their roles, as was the girl playing Donna Lucia. How would he ever break the news to them? In his mind, he heard a chorus of groans.

  “It would be cruel to shut it down,” he said finally.

  Ramsey’s lips twitched. “And yet that’s what you’re going to do.”

  Fenton noted the em
phasis on you’re. Someone as high up the chain as the provost only meted out instructions. He wouldn’t do anything as distasteful as informing students about an unpopular decision.

  Fenton rose from his chair, but Ramsey wasn’t finished. “Tell me something. No one advises you on your choice of plays, is that correct?”

  The question shouldn’t have startled him, but it did. “There’s no theater faculty except for me. That’s common at small schools.”

  “Yes, well, from now on, I’d like to get more people involved,” Ramsey said. “Dean Rolfe for one, and someone from Davis and Lee since we do joint productions. You can run your ideas by them.”

  “Does Dean Rolfe know theater?” Fenton instantly regretted the question, which burst out as arrogant and then couldn’t be stuffed back into his thoughts.

  “I’m sure he’ll welcome the chance to get to know it better,” Ramsey said, dismissing him.

  The dean’s involvement in play selection was an insult to his professionalism, a punishment for sure. But wonder of wonders, the provost had never mentioned the police. Fenton found himself flashing a smile at Kathy on his way out.

  ✥ ✥ ✥

  Before the students arrived for rehearsal, Fenton got down on his hands and knees and peeled the spike tape off the stage, since there would be no scenery or props to place. Normally, the stage manager and crew would remove these markers at the end of the run, but Fenton found the ripping action cathartic.

  “Hey, Mr. Page!”

  Per usual, Margaret was early. He had never divulged that Susanna Carr didn’t want to stage-manage with her. To spare her feelings, he had claimed it was his decision to stick with the first girl who accepted the job.

  Throughout the rehearsals Margaret was a brick, laughing at his jokes, playing her role as he directed, perfecting her British accent. She occasionally annoyed him, too, the way she got, as Gen had put it, “underfoot,” like a puppy.

  Now Margaret stood on the stage looking down at his hunched back. “Everything okay?”

  He pried up the last line of tape with a satisfying rip and stood up. “I’m just generally in the dumps today, Margaret. Rough week.”