Dominion

  “You look so shocked,” Clarence said, appearing genuinely confused. “Did I say something wrong? I mean, you’ve held this position a lot longer than I have. Have I misstated it? Is there a problem?”

  “Of course there’s a problem,” Myra said. “You’re talking about the man’s body but you’ve forgotten there’s another body—the woman’s! One person’s right to choose ends when another person’s rights begin.”

  “Oh, I see. So you’re not really pro-choice, is that what you’re saying?”

  “Well, yes, but not about rape.”

  “Because there’s a second person’s body involved?”

  “Right.”

  “And that second person has to agree to the first person’s choice or it’s morally wrong, is that it?”

  “Yes,” Myra said, “of course.”

  “Okay. I see. So if I could show you medical and scientific proof that abortion involves a second person’s body and that abortion hurts that innocent person, and the second person isn’t agreeing to the abortion, then you wouldn’t be pro-choice about abortion either, is that what you’re telling me?”

  “Well…”

  “I can see I’m going to have to reconsider this,” Clarence said. “Maybe we all are. Yep, I think I’ll do that column—abortion and rape: why we should be pro-choice about both or neither.”

  “We’re not amused, Clarence,” Jeremy said.

  “Neither are the women who get raped or the children who die in abortions, I imagine. I keep hearing some people say these are real babies that are dying and other people say they’re just blobs of tissue. So I was thinking, maybe alongside this column you want me to write, we could put in a few pictures of abortions. You know, like that picture of the heart we had in the heart transplant article? Then people could look at the actual evidence and decide for themselves whether this is a baby or blob of tissue. What do you think?”

  “You’re disgusting,” Myra said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Wanting to show those pictures. They’re sickening.”

  “Oh, I see. It’s sickening to show pictures of killed children, but it’s commendable to support killing the children in the pictures? Is that it?”

  “Clarence, this discussion is over,” Jess said. “And you did not get permission to do another column on abortion. Is that clear?”

  “My misunderstanding,” Clarence said. “You remember how the Trib endorsed the mandatory seat belt law instead of defending people’s right to freedom of choice about whether or not they wore seat belts? I get it. You don’t have the right to choose to risk your own life by not wearing a seat belt, but you do have the right to choose to kill an innocent child in an abortion. Makes sense to me. You know, when I first came to the Trib we were a lot more pro-choice than we are now.”

  “What do you mean?” Jess asked.

  “Well, you used to be able to smoke in the lunchroom, remember? The Trib was pro-choice about smoking. Now there’s signs all over that say you can’t choose to smoke.”

  “But that’s because cigarette smoke hurts others,” Mindy said.

  “Right,” Clarence said. “And abortion hurts the baby, don’t you think?”

  “Well, I…”

  “Forget it, Mindy. You’re only encouraging him,” Myra said.

  Jess sighed. “Okay, the room temperature’s rising. Let’s take a five-minute break, and we’ll get back to Engstrom’s letter.”

  “Yeah, take a break Mindy,” Clarence said. “Maybe go somewhere and have a smoke—I mean, if you can find some place in this building that’s pro-choice about anything besides killing babies.”

  GC and Ty drove up to the 7-Eleven, where on the side facing the road, the boys were chillin’ and kickin’, everyone from original gangsters to tinies.

  “Hey, homes, sup?” The brothers slapped skin all around.

  “Yo, GC, what it is, baby!”

  “Who da man now, locs?” GC asked.

  “Who da man? You da man, cuz.”

  “Ghost! How you be, my brotha?”

  GC and Ghost embraced, patting each other on the back, showing the respect of officers in the presence of enlisted men. Ty had never been this close to Gray Ghost, and now that he was he took the opportunity to look at the outer corner of the Ghost’s left eye. He’d heard he had five teardrop tattoos. Sure enough, he saw them. Some said each stood for a year spent in prison. Others said each stood for a rival gang member killed. Either way it put Ty in awe.

  “Well, here de boys,” GC surveyed the group, “hangin’, bangin’, and slangin!”

  “Hangin and bangin’ anyway. Not much slangin’.” Ghost pointed to a dealer a block away, peddling product to two customers. “Punk there, he doin’ the slangin’. He sellin’ me cheap, and all the cluckheads goin’ to him. He use more than he sell, but he costin’ us today, cuz.”

  “He didn’t buy from me,” GC said. “Gettin’ his product somewhere else, huh? Undercuttin’ my homie? We gotta pay that boy a visit tonight, Ghost. What say?”

  “Say right on, homes. We maybe smoke dat nigger. Righteous.” The two gave each other a knowing look, slapped skin, and said no more about it.

  “Daddy, you have to read to us,” Keisha begged.

  “Not now. I’m too tired.”

  “Mommy, can you read it to us? The first Narnia book? About Aslan the lion? It’s almost to the end, but Daddy hasn’t read it to us for the longest time. We want to know what happens.”

  “Your daddy’s the reader.”

  “But he never has time.”

  “Clarence, do you want me to read it to them?” Geneva felt trapped.

  Clarence shrugged. “Whatever.”

  She didn’t want to, she wanted him to. But looking at the eyes of her children, she decided it was better Mom than nobody. She watched Clarence walk to his office, shoulders slouching, and close the door.

  Celeste handed Geneva the book, as if passing her a royal scepter. “This is where we left off. They just killed Aslan.”

  Geneva read about Susan and Lucy coming to the dead lion. “And down they both knelt in the wet grass and kissed his cold face and stroked his beautiful fur— what was left of it—and cried till they could cry no more.”

  “This is very sad.” Geneva looked at the children. “Are you sure you want me to keep reading?”

  “Yes!” Keisha said.

  “Yes!” Celeste echoed.

  Jonah nodded.

  Geneva read how they took the muzzle off the lion, how they tried to untie him, but the cords were drawn so tight they could do nothing with the knots. The girls grew cold; the sky gray. Hours later they walked away, feeling nothing good could ever happen again. After a time they heard a great thunderous noise where they’d left the lion’s ravaged body. They ran back to discover “the Stone Table was broken into two pieces by a great crack that ran down it from end to end; and there was no Aslan.”

  The girls mourned that the body had been taken. Despairing, they suddenly heard a voice behind them. “They looked round. There, shining in the sunrise, larger than they had seen him before, shaking his mane (for it had apparently grown again), stood Aslan himself.”

  “Aslan’s alive?” Keisha asked, eyes wide. Geneva saw the light in Celeste’s eyes and the smile on Jonah’s face. She continued reading.

  “Oh, Aslan!” cried both the children, staring up at him, almost as much frightened as they were glad.

  “Aren’t you dead then, dear Aslan?” said Lucy.

  “Not now,” said Aslan.

  “You’re not—not a—?” asked Susan in a shaky voice. She couldn’t bring herself to say the word ghost.

  Aslan stooped his golden head and licked her forehead. The warmth of his breath and a rich sort of smell that seemed to hang about his hair came all over her.

  “Do I look it?” he said.

  “Oh, you’re real, you’re real! Oh, Aslan!” cried Lucy, and both girls flung themselves upon him and covered him with kiss
es.

  “But what does it all mean?” asked Susan when they were somewhat calmer.

  “It means,” said Aslan, “that though the Witch knew the Deep Magic, there is a magic deeper still which she did not know. Her knowledge goes back only to the dawn of Time. But if she could have looked a little further back, into the stillness and the darkness before Time dawned, she would have read there a different incantation. She would have known that when a willing victim who had committed no treachery was killed in a traitor’s stead, the Table would crack and Death itself would start working backward.”

  With shouts of joy and roars of exuberance Aslan leapt high over the girls and landed on the other side of the Table. The girls chased him. He tossed them in the air with his huge velveted paws and caught them again. It was a great romp. A celebration of resurrection.

  And Aslan stood up, and when he opened his mouth to roar, his face became so terrible that they did not dare to look at it. And they saw all the trees in front of him bend before the blast of his roaring as grass bends in a meadow before the wind.

  The children in the Abernathy home seemed connected with the children in Narnia. They wouldn’t let Geneva stop reading, and she didn’t want to stop either. She read of Aslan going to free the people who’d been turned into statues by the White Witch. Finally, she read of the great battle and the defeat of the Witch.

  “Aslan is not a tame lion,” the book said several times.

  No, Geneva thought. He is not.

  “Come on, Clarence. Stop whining, will you?” Geneva spoke to him from the passenger seat as he drove through North Portland.

  “I’m not whining.” He almost smiled in spite of himself. “I’m sulking. There’s a difference.”

  “It’s only a Bible study. Two hours a week. What’s the big deal?”

  “I just don’t like to feel pressured. I choose my own friends.”

  “Pastor Clancy hand-picked the people for this group, and for some reason he chose us.”

  “Didn’t ask to be chosen. Sunday’s one thing. Wednesday night, that’s something else.”

  “Clarence, you’ve been readin’ the Bible for years. You and Jake talk about it all the time. You used to read it to the kids.” The “used to” stung Clarence. “So what’s your big problem with havin’ a Bible study with some church folk?”

  Clarence sighed. “It’s not my church. Just don’t think I’m gonna get much out of this group.”

  “Well, with that attitude I’m sure you won’t. Maybe you need to stop thinking about getting and start thinking about giving.” Clarence stared straight ahead, saying nothing. “You know what, Clarence? Every time you start to lose an argument you just shut your mouth and get sullen.” She sighed. “Come on, baby, give it a chance. A group of mixed nuts, that’s what Pastor Clancy called it. A sampling of blacks, whites, Hispanics, Asians, and an American Indian—every ethnic group in the church. A little experiment in racial harmony. What’s the worst that could happen?”

  “The experiment could blow up in our faces. I just don’t think you can force a racial mix.”

  “Who are you, George Wallace? With that approach schools would still be segregated. Besides, nobody’s forcing it. They’re just trying it. You work with whites and Asians and Hispanics and God knows what else at the Trib. Why can’t you do it in a Bible study?”

  “I want my private life to be relaxing, you know? You can talk about racial harmony till you’re blue in the face, but it never seems to do any good.”

  “So we just give up, is that it?”

  Clarence retreated into silence. He turned on the overhead light just a moment to look at the directions Geneva had gotten from Pastor Clancy. He turned onto Weber Road, swerved around a broken beer bottle, and pulled up in front of the Edwards’s house.

  Geneva reached over and squeezed his hand. “Just give it a chance, baby. That’s all I’m asking.”

  Clarence nodded. “Well, at least it’s a potluck. Where there’s food, it’s never a total loss.” He squeezed her hand back. He got out, went around, and opened her door. They headed up the cracked, rough-edged sidewalk to the front door, Clarence carrying the fried chicken in a Tupperware bowl.

  “Welcome, Abernathys!” John Edwards extended his hand. “Come on in, you and your fried chicken both. Glad you made it.”

  “Glad to be here,” Clarence said, avoiding Geneva’s glance.

  The other couples were already there, milling around the living room, engaged in small talk. Clarence noted the women hovering over the table, laying out the food. Two white men and an Asian stood on the other side of the room. It sounded like they were talking business and high finance. John Edwards had resumed a conversation with another black man Clarence had never seen. A Latino man and the person Clarence figured must be the American Indian had formed their own group of racial leftovers.

  Typical. This is going to be an experience all right.

  John Edwards got the group’s attention. “Welcome to the United Nations Bible study group.” Nervous laughter rippled over the room.

  “We’ve got just about everybody but Arabs and Jews, and if any went to our church, I’m sure Pastor Clancy would have invited them too.”

  John introduced everyone by name, led in prayer, then said, “Let’s eat.” Clarence moseyed on up, engaging in small talk and answering questions about working at the Trib. People seemed genuinely interested.

  “So, what do you do?” Clarence asked Ray, the Indian.

  “I’m a PI. Private investigator.”

  “No kidding?”

  “Yeah, I was a Detroit cop for fifteen years. Last five as a detective. It’s that Indian blood in me, you know—fingers in the dirt, ear to the ground, listen to the train tracks, you’ve seen the movies.” He laughed. “I’m pretty independent, so four years ago I took an early retirement from the force and set up my own business.”

  “What brought you out here?”

  “Family. Kathy’s parents live nearby. She wanted to be close, and I was ready for a change. Took a year or so to build the business. Now I’ve got more work than I can handle.”

  “Know any Portland police?” Clarence said.

  “Sure. Quite a few. You?”

  “Some. Ever meet Ollie Chandler? Homicide detective?”

  “Big guy? Always eating?”

  “That’s him.”

  “Yeah. I helped him out once, and he’s thrown a few things my way. Cops—especially detectives—aren’t big fans of Pls, but it’s different when they’re ex-cops, like I am. That gives you credibility, opens the door.”

  “What kinds of cases you working on, Ray?”

  “You name it. Missing persons. Deadbeat dads. Suspicious people having me trail their spouses. That’s the worst kind. But, sometimes you can’t be as picky as you’d like. You see some of the seedy side of life. That’s why church and Bible study are a breath of fresh air.”

  Clarence grabbed two pieces of Geneva’s fried chicken, a slice of ham, and some turnip greens. He didn’t know who brought the greens, except he could narrow it down to the Edwards or the black man named Sal, who was married to Diane, a white woman. He looked at some vegetarian and fruit dishes and gourmet health food. Health food, he was convinced, was thought up by some bored white person wanting to make everyone miserable. He reached for a pork rib.

  “Clarence,” Ray jabbed, “I notice you’re passing by all the stuff that’s good for you. What’s the problem?”

  Clarence looked at Ray’s plate. “I see you’re doing the same. My theory is that high cholesterol is God’s way of saying, ‘This is real food.’”

  “Indians are a disenfranchised minority,” Ray said. “We figure, you can take our land, but don’t take our food.”

  They sat around the room eating, talking, and laughing. After a half hour, John asked each person to share something unique about themselves.

  A lot of interesting stories surfaced. Keo had been a champion skier, an alternate for the Japa
nese team in the 1968 Olympics. Duane, one of the white guys, had been with the Peace Corps two years in India. Karen, Duane’s wife, said, “My ancestors came over on the Mayflower.” Jarod said his family immigrated from Sicily. He relayed his grandfather’s stories about coming toward Ellis Island and catching his first glimpse of the Statue of Liberty.

  Sal was next. He looked at Jarod and Karen and said, “Well, my ancestors came over on a big ship too. But they didn’t come on the Mayflower, and they weren’t welcomed at Ellis Island. They came in chains—kidnapped, beaten, and starving, to be sold like animals.”

  Sal’s wife put her hand on his thigh and squeezed hard.

  He looked at her. “I’m just tellin’ the truth. That’s the way it was.”

  Well, at least this group isn’t going to be boring.

  After everyone had shared, John took the floor. “Pastor Clancy and I have talked about doing a Bible study like this for a long time. Sharla and I are from Jackson, Mississippi, and we were involved in Voice of Calvary Church down there. We built some great interracial relationships and got really excited about reconciliation. We really want to get to know each other in this Bible study, to learn from each other. To get us going, I want to throw out a question: What needs to happen for Christians of different races to be reconciled to each other?”

  “I think we’re starting it right here tonight,” Karen said. “To tell you the truth, all my friends have always been white. I’m looking forward to making new friends.”

  “I know what you mean,” Sharla said. “Before we got involved in Voice of Calvary, all our friends were black.”

  “One thing we have to do is admit there’s a problem,” Sal said. “I guess Diane and I are aware of it all the time, with this chocolate and vanilla marriage.”

  “We call it Neapolitan,” Diane said.