The Sacrifice

  Ednetta was smiling now, though her eyes remained heavy-lidded, and wary. Ada saw with disappointment that Ednetta had no intention of inviting her inside: she stood blocking the door, sway-backed, contemplative, stroking her left arm.

  “Well, Anna. S’b’lla real grateful to you, an I am also. S’b’lla whole family grateful. This nasty thing happen to my girl, everybody sorry for us an talk about us but treat us like we was lepers. Everybody know the white cops aint gon do a God-damn thing, they just waitin for this to fade away. Fuckers!”

  Ada murmured sympathetically. She wasn’t sure how to respond. She hesitated to introduce herself as a schoolteacher, who had contact with the white world; this might backfire, and Ednetta would lose trust in her.

  Ednetta was saying, “Somebody say, one of them social workers comin around here, there is a ‘fund’ for lawsuits, you can sue the police force, like there is ‘wrongful arrest’—but . . . You need God-damn witnesses, an who gon test’fy against white cops? Every time I ask them, they say some bullshit takin you back to where you begun. They say, ‘You need S’b’lla to test’fy. When you gon bring her into the courthouse to test’fy.” Ednetta broke off in disgust.

  “Yes. I think that Sybilla would have to give a formal statement. We can accompany her to the police station—people from the neighborhood. There’s a protocol for reporting a crime—if the victim is able to participate in the investigation . . .”

  Ednetta stiffened, as if Ada had said the wrong thing.

  “Ma’am, I got to go now. Somebody callin.”

  “Oh but wait, Mrs. Frye—how is Sybilla? Is she home? I hoped I could see her.”

  “We real grateful to you, Anna—that your name?—Ada. We real grateful but see, S’b’lla not here right now.”

  “Where is she?”

  “Where is she?” Ednetta frowned. “She where she bein taken care of, that’s where.”

  “I’d like so much to see her. Just to say hello.”

  Ada spoke naÏvely, wistfully. She believed that, if she and Sybilla could meet, if Ada took Sybilla’s hand in hers, the girl would remember her, and smile at her.

  Sybilla Frye and Ada Furst in a photograph in the newspaper. “Ada Furst Saved My Life.”

  Her school colleagues would see that photograph. The staff at the school district headquarters, that was responsible for hiring her.

  But Ednetta was saying, “Nah, S’b’lla aint here. She stayin somewhere safe till she ‘convalesce.’ She real grateful to you, though—she say ‘Thank you!’” Ednetta bared her teeth in a forced smile. She would have shut the door in Ada’s face but Ada protested:

  “Mrs. Frye, wait! Please! I brought a—a little present for Sybilla. If she’s ‘convalescing’—this is just ideal.”

  Ednetta stared at the paperback book Ada gave her: Maya Angelou’s I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.

  “It meant so much to me, when I was Sybilla’s age. And I have other books she might like, if . . .”

  Ednetta glanced at the book, frowning and exasperated. She muttered “Thanks” and shut the door.

  Ada walked back home feeling very tired. But smiling to herself.

  “‘Your neighbor! Your friend.’”

  Klariss on the stairs asking her about the Sybilla Frye thing.

  “You know that mother? Ednetta Frye? Couple weeks ago I seen her and the girl out back by the factory, tryin to get through the fence like they didn’t know where the fence is broke, you can push through. This was just gettin-dark. They carryin something like a canvas an the girl have somethin wrapped on her head like a scarf. And I was watchin thinkin what the hell they doin here? Why’d they be out back of this place? An next I know, next morning you’re sayin there’s somebody over there needin help—and it’s the daughter be found in the factory cellar all tied up and ‘white cops’ put her there an beat her and raped her. Jesus!” Klariss laughed, shaking her head. “That’s some shit Ednetta is saying, ain’t it?”

  Ada hadn’t listened to most of this. Ada was eager to avoid Klariss if she could. The woman consorted with low-level drug dealers, you had to assume she took drugs herself. Not long ago Klariss had been a good-looking woman of about Ada’s age, now she looked ravaged. Dyed-beet-color hair looking like a cheap wig, shirt half-unbuttoned so you could see more than you wanted of the woman’s fleshy breasts, and that smell coming off her—you didn’t want to think what it was. Stiffly she said:

  “You don’t know Ednetta Frye, Klariss, and you don’t know Sybilla. I’d be careful what kind of stories you spread about them, that could get back to them.”

  The Lucky Man

  On Camden Avenue in the shadow of Pitcairn Memorial Bridge he was stopped by police.

  Coming up swiftly behind his car the Pascayne PD squad car siren deafening.

  He knew to pull his car over without hesitation. Seeing how traffic moved past, drivers’ eyes easing onto him in curiosity and pity and a measure of brotherly sympathy, and away.

  His heart was a fist pounding inside his rib cage. Myriad bone-aches and muscle-aches in his limbs faded to invisibility in the face of such danger.

  Two patrol officers approached his car. One advanced to his window and the other held back.

  Both officers’ hands lightly resting on their holstered weapons.

  He was asked for his driver’s license, vehicle registration. He hesitated only because he wasn’t sure—though it was not yet 9:00 P.M., and Camden Avenue was far from deserted—that, when he reached for his wallet, or leaned over to open the glove compartment, the police officers might not shoot him dead.

  Going for a weapon. We told him stop but he did not stop.

  There were two choices: silent, or deferential.

  Silent might be mistaken by the cops for sullen, dangerous. Deferential might be mistaken for mockery.

  So far as they knew he was a black man and armed. Might be armed. And good reason to be armed. On the floor of the car, or in the backseat, a weapon. Firearm, tire iron. Judging by his face not only the darkness of his skin but its rough and irregular texture this man was a killer.

  He’d killed, and he would kill again. He’d (maybe) killed a white person. White people. He’d liked the taste of (white) blood and could be trusted to kill again.

  His (shiny dark) eyes gleamed (wetly, whitely) in his rough black face like something hacked out of stone. The flash of his (not white, but white-seeming) teeth inside his (fleshy, blood-tinctured) lips.

  He considered asking what he’d done wrong, had he been speeding, had he crossed over the yellow line, or was he driving without headlights, or a taillight burned out. Such questions were but the reasonable questions of an innocent man stopped by police for no (evident) reason. A (white) man might ask such questions of (white) cops. Though it was clear to him that he hadn’t been speeding, at less than thirty miles an hour on Camden Avenue as dusk came on accelerated by the massive bridge blotting out half the sky.

  Yet, he didn’t trust himself to speak. Even in the way of (carefully cadenced, black) deference. His (ruined, rasping) voice might sound to the white cops like a voice of threat.

  He was cursing us, sounded like. Couldn’t make out what the fuck he was saying like maybe he was—Haitian? Domin’c’n?

  High on some drug seemed like.

  He decided to say nothing. Not even muttering Yes Officer as every adult woman had taught him when he’d been a boy.

  The Pascayne PD officers said nothing frowning at his driver’s license and vehicle registration with a flashlight. Quietly he sat unmoving as a statue arms lightly resting on the steering wheel. He owned a weapon, a Smith & Wesson .45-caliber revolver, but he was not transporting this weapon in his car at this time. He was in possession of “stolen goods”—(electrical supplies)—but he was not transporting these goods in his car at this time. The elder of the cops had taken his driver’s license back to the squad car to run through the PD computer while the other cop waited outside the car brandishing the flashlight.
He was very quiet waiting for them to order him out of the car, to lie down on the oil-splotched pavement, at least to kneel on the pavement with his hands on his head. Waiting to be so ordered, humbled and humiliated as traffic passed slowly on Camden Avenue, approaching the intersection with Eighth Street.

  His arms remained on the steering wheel of his vehicle. He would not make any sudden moves. His heart was still beating rapidly and hard inside his chest. He would not allow himself to cough, or to sneeze. Such sudden movements might cause the police officers to defend themselves by shooting him to death.

  It was police protocol, the cops shot twice. Two cops, four shots.

  A minimum of four shots. There was no maximum.

  A few weeks ago a young black Hispanic had been shot to death by Pascayne PD officers on a ramp of the Turnpike less than a mile from Camden and Eighth. He’d been speeding—(this was the officers’ claim)—and when they’d flagged him over he had gone for his weapon, looked like—though occupants in the young man’s car insisted that he’d had both hands on the steering wheel of his car and had not moved at all even to remove his wallet when they shot him to death.

  A fusillade of bullets, the media had reported. Not less than thirty shots fired of which at least half had entered the young man’s body and two had ricocheted, injuring passengers.

  An investigation was pending. Police officers involved in the shooting temporarily suspended.

  He had to think, that was how Lyander died. On a Pascayne street. The claim was his brother had fired shots at a passing police cruiser but Lyander hadn’t had any gun.

  Witnesses said there’d been no weapon in Lyander’s hand. Face so messed up, nobody could mostly recognize him except for his new jacket and shoes.

  “‘Anis Schutt.’ You the father of a high school girl named ‘Sybilla Frye’?”

  Shook his head no. Didn’t trust his raspy, ruined voice to communicate with the police officers staring at him from a distance of less than three feet.

  “You livin with her, though? At ‘939 Third’—right?”

  Shook his head yes.

  “You livin with the mother, is that it?”

  Shook his head yes.

  In his raspy ruined voice saying he lived with the mother Ednetta, that was right.

  “The girl is, like, your ‘stepdaughter’—right?”

  In his raspy ruined voice saying yes.

  Near-inaudibly so the police officers asked him to repeat what he’d said.

  He repeated what he’d said. Dry-mouthed having to swallow as with deadpan expressions the police officers regarded him. He understood how they were wanting badly to shout at him Get out and run! Run for your life motherfucker!

  Many times in his life he’d run. Many times in his sleep he’d run. In his dreams he’d run. The shotgun blast had blown his back open. The hail of bullets had torn his chest open, ripped at his face. There were special kinds of bullets, dumdums, that tore your organs out as they traveled through your body. A shot at the back of the neck exiting at the groin and every organ in the torso and gut carried out with it. He felt his lungs torn out, astonished as the hot-rushing bullets ricocheted through his body soft as a mollusk and out.

  They’d ordered him to step into the rushing sewer water. Ordered him to pick up the fallen wire with his hands. Cursed him and laughed at him as he’d burst into blue flame.

  It was the white cops’ happiest times, the times for which they lived when they shouted such orders. No time so thrilling, you understood seeing their snake-flat foreheads and pinprick eyes.

  Run! Run and we’ll let you go black motherfucker.

  Steeling himself for the bullets—but the bullets had not come.

  With disdain and contempt as you’d contemplate a cockroach goading it with your foot the police officers requested of the black man that he open the trunk of his car. As with care, caution, the stoop of an elderly man he popped the trunk, he cooperated.

  They ordered him out of his vehicle then in the stinging rain. Like acid rain it felt against his warm face and hands.

  They asked if he was carrying a concealed weapon or anything that was “sharp” and when he said no, one of the officers briskly patted him down. The (gloved) hands were swift, rough, practiced in all parts of his tense quivering body for there was no part of the black man that was private, untouchable.

  Pascayne PD officers wore gloves, that they would not leave incriminating fingerprints on any surface. Present-day officers were not so crude as their predecessors.

  The black-feather thing, the Angel of Wrath brushed near. With his teeth he could rip out the throat of the steely-faced officer close beside him except the other cop would shoot him dead even as the jugular vein spouted blood.

  He had not ever ripped out the throat of any human being with his teeth. But he’d seen throats slashed with knives. Once, with a machete.

  His shoes had been splattered with blood. More than once, in his lifetime.

  But always black blood. Not yet the blood of the enemy.

  The police officers continued to examine the vehicle, front and back, glove compartment, beneath the seats, every square inch of the trunk. He was kneeling now on the dirty pavement, hands on his head. It was a matter of shame to him, his knees were excruciating in pain. His ruined knees, his arthritic knees, shooting pains that left him dazed and breathless running from the base of his spine into his legs and through the length of his (kneeling, bent) legs into his very feet. He bit his lower lip to keep from sobbing aloud. He had never felt such pain, he could not bear it. Leaping from the sanitation truck, he’d been a young man when the pains had first started years ago. Drinking helped. Heavy drinking helped most. Painkiller pills. His right knee, and his right thigh, and later both his knees and both his thighs. And his fingers were becoming gnarled like claws. And the nails were splitting, so dry. The woman kissed his hands. The woman’s warm breath on his hands. She was forgiving him, he knew. But she had no right to forgive him. The woman had no right to forgive him.

  The examination of his vehicle had netted them nothing. The elder of the officers handed back his driver’s license with a look of contempt.

  “Lucky this time, Schutt.”

  The black-feather Angel of Wrath whispered to him gloating Lucky this time, Schutt. Ain’t you shamed.

  On ruined legs he struggled to rise but could not. At last crawling to his car to hoist himself erect he hoped the cops hadn’t observed as they’d driven away.

  The Stepdaughter

  The intrusions at 939 Third Street were fewer now. Telephone calls from city-county agencies. Unannounced visits.

  Search warrant from Passaic County Family Services.

  Social worker visit. Ednetta Frye? I need to see your daughter Sybilla immediately.

  Questioned by agency officers the girl replied in a voice so hushed, you could barely hear her words.

  Weeks after the (alleged) assault her face was still slightly bruised and her upper lip appeared swollen. There was a sickle-shaped scab in her left eyebrow. In her left eye, a just-perceptible cast that gave her a sly drifting impudent look.

  A girl of fifteen, lanky-limbed, attractive but wary-looking, unsmiling. Her fingernails had been polished sparkly-purple and there were gold studs in her ears. She sighed often, shifted in her seat. She’d been “returned home”—as Mrs. Frye explained—after having stayed with her great-grandmother Pearline Tice who lived over on Eleventh Street for several weeks—“S’b’lla been convales’in, an she feelin good now.”

  The mother was eager and attentive to the officers’ questions even as the girl appeared sulky and withdrawn.

  When the girl failed to reply to a question the mother murmured S’b’lla! and the girl roused herself to answer in monosyllables.

  Agency officers visiting the Frye household at 939 Third Street were disappointed, baffled—for it seemed, Sybilla Frye was refusing now to speak of what had happened to her the previous month.

  Stiffl
y Mrs. Frye said, “We aint gon talk about that. No more.”

  And, “We got ‘freedom of speech’—we exercisin that.”

  Some questions the girl didn’t seem to hear. These questions were repeated carefully and the girl mumbled vague replies or shrugged her shoulders with downcast eyes. You would think—almost—that Sybilla Frye was mentally impaired but medical records and school records did not indicate this.

  It was surmised that the girl had been traumatized. Psychological therapy, counseling were strongly advised for both the girl and her mother but had been refused, adamantly by the mother who’d drawn in the minister of her church and a Red Rock physician, in fact a chiropractor with strong opinions about “psycho”-therapy.

  In her chair the girl shifted restlessly as if to avoid the stinging of small ants. She sighed, swiped at her nose with the edge of her hand, didn’t trouble to conceal a yawn. From time to time she cast a narrow sidelong glance at her mother, unreadable to outsiders.

  The pouty mouth twitched in amusement, or in anger?—this wasn’t clear.

  Asked if she was being coerced in any way the girl shook her head vigorously No.

  Asked if she knew what coerced meant the girl shook her head vigorously Yes.

  “Seem like what you doin with me now, ma’am. ‘C’erced.’”

  That drifting left gaze, detached and mocking even as the girl spoke in a way to placate the anxious mother.

  “Yes ma’am. I am feelin OK. Yes I am goin back to school soon. You c’n write all that shit down.”

  It was the first week of November, Ednetta brought Sybilla back home. Soon then, Sybilla returned to Pascayne South High.

  But late morning of Sybilla’s first school day since her long absence Ednetta heard a thudding noise in the front hall—and a door slammed hard—and there came Sybilla into the kitchen to toss her backpack onto a counter, scowling. “Don’t you scold me, Mama. I am home. I am not takin any more shit.”

  Ednetta had been afraid of this. Ednetta knew her daughter’s headstrong ways and her unpredictable behavior since—what the mother called that nastiness happened to you. But Ednetta professed surprise and disappointment asking what had happened at school and Sybilla said there was God damn boys pressin against her in the hall and knockin into her on the stairs, God damn assholes lookin at her like she was some kind of slut. And her asshole teachers not much better lookin at her too.