The Street Sweeper

  He really had planned to call William McCray because even a finished man has moral obligations, however hard they might be to fulfil. All conversation was hard now; whether trivial or significant, superfluous or necessary, it was hard like lifting rocks, boulders, hard like lifting the phone. But when the phone rang for him he answered it. It could have been anyone. It could have been Diana. It was William suggesting they meet for coffee. So they met where they always did, at the Hungarian Pastry Shop at 110th Street and Amsterdam.

  When Adam arrived he saw William already sitting there, looking out the window staring up at the spires of St John the Divine. The place was quieter than usual, sparsely populated with people reading newspapers, magazines and their laptops. William must have been the oldest person there by around sixty years until Adam sat down and reduced the gap by twenty years.

  ‘Sorry I was late.’

  ‘You weren’t late, I was early.’

  ‘How you doing?’

  ‘I could ask you the same thing.’

  ‘I asked you first.’

  ‘But I’m older.’

  ‘So then I’m allowed to be more impatient.’

  ‘No, after eighty all bets are off. Hasn’t Charlie told you; I’m regressing?’

  ‘Humour me. You first. Are you feeling any better?’

  ‘You mean about the Supreme Court decision? I could lie to you but … I can’t get it out of my mind.’

  ‘Charlie said you read the decision online.’

  ‘I read the decision, I read about the decision, all from my own home. The internet; what a tool! All these technological advances giving people ringside seats to the world’s regression. This was the final day of John Roberts’ first full term as Chief Justice. And this was how he marked it, by trying to turn back the tide of desegregation. Can you believe it? And, you know, he has the temerity to say that he and the other four majority justices are being faithful to the 1954 decision in Brown. Faithful! He wrote that the way to stop discriminating on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race. The evil in the sophistry!

  ‘There is racism in society, right? Always has been. Among its myriad ways, it manifested itself traditionally, institutionally, formally and legally in substandard education for African American children. The decision in Brown sought to change this. But Roberts and the majority deliberately confuse negative discrimination with the positive discrimination that seeks to be its antidote.’ Adam smiled to himself. Whenever the conversation turned to injustice William sounded as if he were still addressing the full bench of the US Supreme Court.

  ‘You see, when someone first hears that “the way to stop discriminating on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race”, it sounds like a simple tautology so you can’t argue with it. Its simplicity is beguiling. And it’s pernicious.’

  ‘Well, what about the dissenting judges? They must provide some hope. There are four of them.’

  ‘Justice Breyer, Stephen Breyer, wrote the principal judgement for the dissenters and he saw it for what it is. He got it right. He described the majority’s decision not as in line with Brown but as a radical departure from it. He said that its effect would be to remove from local communities their capacity to prevent resegregation. Stevens, also a dissenter – and he’s been on the bench since Gerald Ford – he went even further. He talked about the cruel irony of the majority’s decision. Listen, I wrote this down, listen to this.’

  ‘You carry it on you?’

  ‘It makes me feel better, lowers my blood pressure. Stevens wrote that the majority opinion “rewrites the history of one of this court’s most important decisions … It is my firm conviction”, he wrote, “that no member of the court that I joined in 1975 would have agreed with today’s decision.” See, he’s not just talking stare decisis there; he’s having a dig at Roberts right there because Bill Rehnquist was one of the members of that court.’

  ‘So? I don’t get it.’

  ‘So, early in his career Roberts clerked for Rehnquist. It won’t do us any good, not one black child gets a better education from it but still it … Well, it wouldn’t have been lost on Roberts. This radical right-wing shift in the balance of the court now makes it the very monster the conservatives elected Bush to create. Now they’ve got it and we’re going to pay; not just African Americans, the whole country. Scalia’s been let loose completely. Scalia’s like a junk-yard dog. He even attacks Roberts when the two are concurring. Really! He says that while Roberts is agreeing with him, he’s being too coy about it. Can you believe that? Poster boy for the Neo-cons, our Italian friend! You know this all goes way back. You can see the pattern beginning in decisions of the ‘70s and ‘80s in cases like Bakke and Patterson.

  ‘Charlie thinks it goes back even further than that, as far as Nixon, to Nixon’s “Southern Strategy” to get southern whites to vote Republican.’ William took a sip of his coffee.

  ‘Well, I guess after Johnson signed those civil rights acts in the ‘60s he pretty much knew he’d given the south to the Republicans for at least a generation. I think he said as much. So, as with most things, I guess Charlie might be right. But none of that excuses this current crop.

  ‘And as for Clarence Thomas … I don’t know where to start with that man. He was always a fool but now he’s an unbearably smug fool. I mean, listen to this. A black man in the process of overturning Brown writes, “If our history has taught us anything it has taught us to beware of elites bearing racial theories.” This is a black man who buys the conservative line that those with a liberal disposition are, by definition, the elites, while the ruling oligarchy he works for are on the side of the dispossessed. You want to talk about Uncle Tom? Let me introduce you to Uncle Clarence.

  ‘This man is unbelievable. And listen to what he says to one of the other dissenters, Justice Stephen Breyer, what he says about Breyer. I mean he didn’t just say this, he wrote it in his opinion, in a footnote, he wrote, “Justice Breyer’s good intentions, which I do not doubt, have the shelf life of Justice Breyer’s tenure.” Vicious! See, Breyer’s soon to retire, on his way out in a few months I think, and Clarence Thomas, the plantation owner’s favourite Negro, is saying the force of Breyer’s dissenting opinion will evaporate when Breyer’s time is up. There’s a viciousness there that he’s too stupid to hide. It’s not enough for Clarence Thomas to sell out his own people; he has to go so far as to put on record his character assassination of an honourable man who has the audacity to disagree with him. I tell you, the best argument against affirmative action is Clarence Thomas himself. Did you know a Jesuit school in Massachusetts took him in as part of a black recruitment program? And then after that he got into Yale Law on a minority program. He’s a hypocrite, one willing to turn his back on his people and worse, to fight against his people while benefiting from their previous victories, which he does his best to overturn. This is the man George W. Bush’s father appointed to the Supreme Court to replace Thurgood Marshall! I tell you, Adam, it makes me hope against hope there’s no heaven, just so Thurgood doesn’t have to see this. What kind of a world is it we’re living in? I ask you.’

  ‘I have no answer to that,’ Adam said quietly.

  ‘I’m sorry to go on about this, Adam.’

  ‘No, William, I agree with everything you say. It’s just that I have no answer, not one that would please you.’

  ‘Well, then at least I know you’re committed to telling the truth. I shudder to think what your father would be saying right now. Speaking of the truth, tell me it isn’t true about you and Diana. I was talking to Michelle about you two. I know this is personal and if ever anything is none of my business this is it. But you’re like a son to me. Tell me it isn’t true. Is it really over? What happened?’

  ‘There’s a lot to say but … she wants children and –’

  ‘Don’t you want children?’

  ‘Well … under different circumstances I do … I would.’

  ‘What do you me
an?’

  Adam took a moment to draw breath and to formulate the words to best express what had once seemed so eminently logical, prudent and even kind.

  ‘More than anyone I know,’ he began, ‘you knew what kind of a father my father was. I don’t mean what kind of man; I mean what kind of father.’

  ‘Adam, you mustn’t doubt how much he loved you but, yes, he was a pretty terrible father and he knew it. Jake was a special man but part of what made him special made him unsuitable for being a parent. You suffered for this. But that doesn’t mean you’d make a bad father. You don’t think that, do you? Is that what this is about?’

  ‘William … I felt I needed to give her a chance to have children.’

  ‘With someone else?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Why not with you?’

  ‘I’m … I’m … Where do I start? I’m probably going to lose my job. They can’t give me tenure. My work, my research has stopped.’

  ‘What do you think it is?’

  ‘I don’t know. It’s partly confidence, I guess.’

  ‘What do you mean? You’ve done so well. The book was a huge success and there’s the television …’

  ‘That was all a while ago and anyway … William, I feel … perhaps I’ve always felt kind of … fraudulent.’

  ‘Fraudulent?’

  ‘There is a part of me that feels I’ve been living off my father’s name. I feel that I have to constantly, albeit with varying degrees of subtlety, defend my professional interest in civil rights. I’m white, I’m Jewish … Even the way I talk requires an explanation.’

  ‘Your Australian accent? People love that accent.’

  ‘Some do and, frankly, most of them think it’s British anyway. But it all adds up to a feeling that I need to constantly justify my professional interest, even my position.’

  ‘At Columbia?’

  ‘Yeah, it’s like people are thinking I’m only here because of who my father was. He’s Jake Zignelik’s son. It’s like I haven’t earned anything myself.’

  ‘Now you know how Charlie must feel.’

  ‘Because he’s your son?’

  ‘No, I didn’t mean that. Not exactly.’

  ‘Because he’s black?’

  ‘Sure. He’s the first African American chair of the department. He’s watching people looking at him and he’s wondering if they’re thinking he’s really earned it or if it’s just that it’s time. Are they thinking that he’s the lucky one, the black man who happened to be there when the liberals’ guilt or shame got too much?’

  ‘He’s said that to you?’

  ‘Not in so many words.’

  ‘Really? With complete justification, he’s a pretty confident academic. William, I’d be very surprised if he said that in any words.’

  ‘Adam, he doesn’t have to say it.’ William took a sip of his coffee and turned his gaze briefly outside and up to the spires.

  ‘Adam, I hope you won’t mind, I don’t think it will surprise you but Charlie and I have talked about you. I do know a little about your professional situation. Actually, it’s one of the things I wanted to talk to you about … as well as about you and Diana. After all, your personal situation and your professional situation are connected. Now look, I know that your research has stopped. Charlie told me. I think he’s let you down –’

  ‘Oh no! William, there’s nothing he can do. He’s been a great friend and –’

  ‘Adam, I may have something for you.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I mean that I think I have a topic for you, something important, something that needs to be written about.’

  ‘But it’s … William, you’re kind even to give it some thought but … No, it’s too late for me.’

  ‘Adam, you’re much too young to know how much time you’ve got left.’

  ‘No, I mean the committee meets soon. They won’t, they … they can’t give me tenure and –’

  ‘You’re a historian, aren’t you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, I’ve got something you might want to consider researching. I didn’t say anything about tenure. I didn’t say anything about Columbia, did I? Someone will pay if you do good work. You think you’re in a difficult position? As I understand it you are in a difficult position. But I would have thought that in your life you’d studied and written enough about people in difficult positions to be ashamed to throw in the towel so easily. Are you really going to tell me you won’t even hear me out? There’ll always be time to quit, I promise you.’

  Adam Zignelik took the old man’s hands in his hands for a moment and squeezed.

  ‘You’re somethin’ else, you know that?’

  ‘I know what I am. We’re talking about you. What kind of man are you?’

  ‘All right, councillor, I’m listening.’

  *

  Lamont Williams talked very little at work, even to his colleagues in Building Services. Most of the time as he made his rounds, however far his thoughts might have roamed, he kept them to himself. He often thought of his daughter as he collected the garbage, mopped the hallways and swept the floors. Where was she? Was she at school? What was she learning? But now he was thinking about cancer. It was all around him. Sometimes it went for children. In every room at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center there was a patient who had some kind of cancer. There had to have been a time, he thought, when they didn’t have it. Then the moment came when they were told that they had it and everything was changed for them. The moment of the telling would become something the patient would never forget. It was the moment at which a wall descended with the speed and terror of the blade of the guillotine to instantly divide time in two – the time he had been well, and the time his life was on notice. Where do you go with the news? Where do you take it? Do you take it home? In each room was a patient with his or her own set of answers. It reminded him of the time he was sentenced. The moment he was convicted everything changed. Even after he was arrested with his childhood friend Michael and another younger man he barely knew, there had been the possibility that his version of events would be believed and he would be found ‘not guilty’ of armed robbery. He’d had that hope. But the moment he heard the word ‘guilty’ a wall appeared in his life dividing his days forever between the days he only suspected he might not be believed and the day his suspicion proved to be warranted and he was deprived of his liberty.

  He was thinking about this as he collected the garbage and reached the room of a patient with whom he had, in a short space of time, become fascinated. This old man, with his unusual way of talking, seemed to have singled out Lamont as no one else in the institution had. The man was an odd mix of humour and tired, almost sad, resignation. Many of their respective words were lost on the other yet he felt in a way strangely understood by this odd old white man. Visiting and listening to the man was somehow calming. It was critically important for Lamont not to get distracted during his shift but at the end of the day, before going home, it was a huge relief to have this man take him away from concerns about money, about the security of his job, about the way the day had gone and whether the way his supervisor had looked at him bode good or ill or nothing at all for him.

  The old man looked at everything, including Lamont, unlike the way any other people Lamont had ever encountered did. It was as though the old man didn’t live in the real world of traffic on crowded streets, buses, subway stations, police, lawyers, courts, upstate penitentiaries, social workers, welfare, television, advertising, bodegas and supermarkets. Even the medical staff didn’t seem to genuinely permeate this man’s world. From what Lamont could see, it was as though the man was humouring them. He tolerated them. He played with them even though, surely, Lamont reasoned, he needed them. With his wispy hair and frail body the man floated through all this or perhaps above all of it, like someone in a fantasy. If, sitting on a bus for instance, Lamont’s mind turned to the man, he appeared almost mythical, no more real than a creat
ure of Ray Harryhausen’s making he remembered from childhood. But the old man in the bed in the ward was certainly real. And though his cancer was real too, he never seemed afraid. More than anything he had said to Lamont up to then, this was what was most seductive about time spent in this man’s company. No one else Lamont had spoken to since leaving prison had seemed so intoxicatingly unafraid.

  When he came again the old patient was being visited by the tall young black woman he’d seen in Mr Mandelbrot’s room before, the seemingly no-nonsense young oncologist, Dr Washington. He knocked once on the door just to announce his presence and, without making eye contact with either of them, went straight for the garbage. There were some candy wrappers in the bin. The bin was too far from the bed for the wrappers to belong to the old man and, he reasoned, the strictly business young oncologist was unlikely to be eating candy with him so Lamont interpreted the signs as suggesting the old man had had at least one visitor. The tentative conclusion pleased him. He didn’t like to think of the old man as lonely and the realisation of this made him smile to himself. He was, himself, often lonely. He tried to creep out of the room without drawing attention to himself. What kind of cancer did the old man have?

  ‘There he is!’ he heard Mr Mandelbrot say. ‘He doesn’t visit me when you’re around.’

  Lamont Williams turned back to face them with the smallest hint of a smile before urging his trolley on down the corridor away from the old man’s room.

  *

  ‘In 1948,’ William McCray told Adam Zignelik, ‘President Harry Truman issued Executive Order 9948 declaring that from then on there would be equality of treatment and opportunity for all persons in the armed services regardless of race, colour, religion or national origin. You would know this and you’d know that he did it about three years too late for me and for men like me who fought in World War II. There were young black men in Europe and in Asia fighting for a country that segregated them from the majority of their countrymen even as they fought the same enemy for the same country. We were fighting for values fundamental to the very essence of what it means to be a human being. I want to say we were fighting for freedom but now, when I talk about freedom in this context I’m not talking about it as a concept debased by virtue of its appropriation by conservative economic and political ideologues over the last twenty or thirty years. I’m not talking about freedom to ignore Jim Crow laws or freedom to ignore the separation of Church and State or freedom from government intervention in the alleviation of chronic poverty or freedom to carry semi-automatic weapons around your neighbourhood or freedom to incite racial hatred under cover of the First Amendment.’ Adam loved this man. He was forever fighting the good fight. William barely took time to draw breath before continuing.