He pulled himself up to sit on the wet bench and clumsily pushed a couple of different buttons on his Casio sport watch. One of them finally turned on the light— 8:36. No. It couldn’t be. It was … Wednesday. Bible study night. Geneva would be worried. He was supposed to be home for dinner by 5:30.
What happened?
His face was numb. An insulin reaction? He’d lain back, stretched out on the bench the way he always did on his way home. He’d eaten raisins, and besides, the mocha should have kicked in. Apparently he’d gone into insulin shock. This wasn’t the first time, but it was the worst. It had never come on so suddenly or wiped him out so completely.
Clarence got on his bike, which had no light. He pedaled awkwardly down the trail, tipping to one side, then the other. This wasn’t working. He got off, falling to one knee. Then he walked beside the bike, leaning on it for support, trying to remember how far away he’d parked the car. He knew he should know, but he didn’t and it bothered him. Unsure in the darkness of what awaited each new step, he felt embarrassed and afraid.
What’s happened to me?
He finally found his way through the spooky darkness, then leaned the bike against the car. He fumbled for his keys and eased into the front seat. He heard a groan, then realized it was his own. He practiced speaking, trying to shed the slur from his voice. Finally he reached for his cellular and dialed home.
“Clarence!” Geneva cried. “What happened? Where have you been?” Her frantic voice sounded shrill and tinny.
“I’m okay, baby. I don’t know where, I mean what exactly I did. Or what happened, I mean. I’m all right, I think. I know I’m not making much sense, but I’m going to be all right.”
“O Clarence, you don’t sound … I’m so glad you’re okay.” Her voice broke.
“I’m going to drive home now and—”
“Just stay on the phone with me, Clarence. Open the glove compartment, okay? Do it, baby.”
“Okay. I did it.”
“Reach inside and grab one of those silver containers, you know, the glucose packets. Got it?”
“Got it. Okay, I’m tearing it open.”
The orange-flavored glucose tasted flat, but he hoped it would help him think more clearly. He squeezed the packet until it was empty.
After a few minutes of talking to Geneva, Clarence said, “I’m going to open the trunk and put on the bike rack.”
“Just carry the phone with you and talk to me, baby. Don’t cut me off. If you have to set it down, okay, just keep talking to me.”
“Okay.” He got out of the car, put the phone in his sweatshirt pouch, took his key ring, and floundered trying to find the trunk key. Finally he opened the trunk lid. He removed the bike rack, closed the trunk, and strapped on the rack. He heard Geneva’s muffled voice crying out to him from his pouch. “I’m okay baby,” he called to her. He tried twice to lift up his bike to the rack, bashing his knuckles in the darkness. Finally he got it on and started to strap on the bungee cord.
“What’s that?” For a moment he thought he saw a light shining behind him. He whirled around and peered into the darkness of the bike trail. “Who’s there?”
He heard Geneva’s muffled shriek, then removed the phone and put it up to his mouth. “It’s okay, baby—thought I saw something, but it was nothing, all right? I’m going to drive home. I’ll call you back in a while, okay?”
“Promise me you’ll drive safe, baby,” Geneva said. “Real slow, okay?”
“I promise.” He sat at the wheel for a few minutes. Just as he was about to start the engine, a car pulled up behind him, its bright lights intensifying his headache. He felt tense, stiff, and defensive. Was this a cop? Somebody was coming toward him, now tapping on his window.
“Clarence, is that you? It’s me. Ray Eagle.”
“Ray. What are you …?”
“Geneva came to Bible study and asked us to pray. Then we went out searching for you. I figured I could pray while I drove. We combed North Portland and down by the Tub. Geneva said maybe something could have happened on your bike ride. She told me you usually park out here. Man, am I glad to see you’re okay. What happened?”
“I don’t know. Maybe an insulin reaction.”
“Yeah, Geneva said that. I’ve got some orange juice and a Baby Ruth bar. Help yourself.”
Clarence opened the candy bar and self-consciously chewed it, bits of chocolate falling on his lap.
“I’m just glad to see you, brother.” Ray extended his arm through the window, patting his hand on Clarence’s shoulder. Clarence felt embarrassed, but strangely comforted. “Have you called Geneva?” Ray asked. Clarence nodded. “Good. Look, you ride with me. You’re in no condition to drive.”
“No. I can drive. No problem. I’m much better now.”
“Well … then I’m following right behind you. Drive slow. If you feel funny, pull over, okay? You hear me honking, that means you pull over, all right? I’ll call Geneva and tell her I’m with you—you keep both hands on the wheel, okay?”
“Okay,” Clarence said. The drive took longer than usual. He finally got home at 10:05. Ray jumped out of his car and escorted him to Geneva’s waiting arms.
“We were praying for you, Daddy,” Keisha said, hugging him tight. “We prayed God’s angels would protect you.”
Jonah and Celeste hugged him too. After taking his blood sugar and finding it was 288, way too high, Geneva helped Clarence take some insulin, pampered him, washed him up, and put him to bed.
The alarm sounded at 5:45 A.M. Geneva turned it off immediately, irritated she’d forgotten to disarm it. She told Clarence there was no way he was going to work. He insisted he had to go, to get off a column.
“I feel fine,” he lied. He promised he’d come home early and rest. He popped a couple Advil, shaved and showered while Geneva fixed him oatmeal. She clung to him tight before letting him out the door.
Clarence drove into work bleary eyed, his head throbbing, still embarrassed that Ray and the whole Bible study group went out searching for him. He’d had three cups of coffee—two at home and a third from a drive-through espresso station. It still wasn’t working.
It was just getting light, one of those dreary November days where the sky looked as if it had been rubbed hard with a dirty eraser. The air was heavy with the feel of a rainstorm threatening to cut loose.
Clarence pulled into the Fifth Street parking garage and passed by open spots on the second and third floors to circle up to the fourth floor to his favorite parking place, right by the elevator in the corner closest to the Trib. It was still early enough that there were only a half-dozen other cars up there. Clarence got out and pulled on his overcoat, taking his time, his muscles feeling old and tired.
Somebody else pulled in beside him. He had on a business suit, looked like an attorney. He went to the elevator and held open the door for Clarence.
Clarence nodded his thanks. The man leaned toward him and reached across to press the first floor button. When he brushed up against him, Clarence moved back. His personal space meant even more to him the way he felt now.
“Miserable day, huh?” the man asked.
“Yeah,” Clarence said.
You don’t know the half of it.
“Clarence? Good news. Got another hit on our guys, this time with the Mercedes temp plates.”
Even Ollie’s raspy voice sounded loud to him. Clarence held the phone two inches from his ear.
“I figured these same two guys with fake IDs buy a fancy Mercedes in Sacramento and they’ve got to test it on the highway. Sure enough, they got a ticket doing ninety-four in a sixty-five. I’ve got to test drive one of those babies myself.”
“Where were they?” Clarence asked.
“Just south of Buttonwillow.”
“Where’s that?”
“Way down 1-5, a little more than two hours north of L.A. Well, less than an hour and a half if you’re traveling 94. Nothing in Buttonwillow but a Motel 6, maybe a McDonald
’s. But that’s where CHP nailed ’em.”
“Did the cops search the car?”
“Nope. They pulled over and cooperated. No mota pipe, no reefer. Valid ID, valid title to the Mercedes, no outstanding warrants. No basis to detain them. Just one mama of a speeding ticket. But it’s what we needed. They were way past San Francisco and Oakland, way past Fresno, past the turnoff to Bakersfield. They were headed to L.A. or San Diego, no doubt about it.”
“You’re still talking huge areas, thousands of gangbangers,” Clarence said. “So can you put out word there’s a couple of Bloods using fake ID and driving a seventy-thousand-dollar Mercedes?”
“Not sure they’re Bloods.”
“But the red sweatshirts. You said—”
“Yeah, but stack that up against the fact it was Crips who shot the cop with the HK53. And remember the color of Mercedes they bought? Blue. Doesn’t sound like a Blood’s color preference to me. Maybe they were Crips wanting anyone who might have seen them in Portland to think they were Bloods. Except when they were in Taco Bell, but that’s a Crip hood and the red sweatshirts would draw attention. Anyway, Blood or Crip, there’s lots of high rollers with nice cars. It’s not the only blue Mercedes around. But these temporary licenses are only good so long. And they had to give a valid address.”
“Why?”
“You can give a fake address buying a used car. But when you get a new car you get the temporary license, and maybe a month later they deliver permanent plates by mail—to whatever address you put down. If it’s a fake address, you don’t get your plates. I’ve put in a request to get the address both at the car dealership and the motor vehicles department. The car people are dragging their feet, and the DMV’s government. So we’ll see what we get. Oh, one other thing on Leesa Fletcher. Dr. Canzler, the medical examiner who did the autopsy, he’s out of the country for another ten days. We’re going to have to wait to find out why his report doesn’t say she was pregnant.” Ollie paused. “Hey, Clarence, you okay?”
“Yeah. Why?”
“I don’t know. You don’t sound yourself.”
“Had a rough night.”
Clarence got his second cup of Trib coffee, his fifth of the day, and sat down to edit the column he’d rough-drafted the day before. He was grateful for the head start. A dull brain could handle revision better than creation. He absentmindedly ran his finger beneath his right ear.
I’m convinced Charles Murray is wrong and there is no genetic cause for black failure. But many liberals quietly suspect he’s right. They think blacks can’t succeed if placed in equal competition with other races. This makes them exactly what they call everyone else—racists.
People once believed blacks were inferior and couldn’t compete with whites in athletics. Nobody says that any more. Black athletic success has disproved the thesis. Likewise, black academic success will accomplish far more for our children than endlessly repeating the mantra ‘No more racism.’ Heaping all the blame on racism has fostered failure by distracting the black community from raising our competitive standards.
We have endless campaigns against white racism. We have mandatory sensitivity classes and campus multiculturalism lectures. We have speech codes and hate crime laws. Racism has become the windmill in a quixotic crusade. Liberals are redoubling their efforts to topple racism, while we neglect the real solutions of raising the standards of two-parent families, lasting marriages, moral training, discipline, and academic excellence.
According to its admissions application test scores, if University of California at Berkeley were to admit students on merit, few Hispanics and blacks would qualify. So how have we dealt with this problem? By working to raise the academic standards in schools attended by blacks and Hispanics? No, instead we implemented racial quotas. Ironically, most of the black and Hispanic students admitted to Berkeley under this camouflage flunk out. The tests don’t lie, and students with lower scores cannot compete with those who score higher. They flunk out of Berkeley, when they would have succeeded at any number of other colleges. Under quotas, blacks and Hispanics become failures—dropout statistics—when if they’d gone to a college where they were admitted on test scores, they would have succeeded. Ironically, many will believe they flunked out of college because of racism, rather than because they entered a college for which they weren’t qualified.
We must make a concerted effort to strengthen black families and improve black education, to raise the bar instead of lowering it, to transform inner-city schools back into true institutions of learning, and to assist black families who want their children in private schools.
We cannot succeed at eliminating racism. We can succeed at fostering discipline, determination, and self-improvement. And that is our young people’s true ticket to success.
Harley won’t speak to me after this one.
Joe, the Tribune security guard, looked respectfully but uneasily at the blue-and-black-uniformed policeman who walked in the lobby of the Trib. Joe’s eyes focused on the prominent gold badge, a slightly rectangular shield, directly above the officer’s left pocket.
“May I help you, officer?” Joe asked, in his most professional, we’re-law-enforcement-colleagues tone.
“Officer Guillermo Rodriguez.” He handed him a business card. “I’m here to see Clarence Abernathy.”
“Anything I can help you with?”
“No.”
“Okay. Well, uh, can you please check in at the receptionist’s desk over there?” The officer went to Elaine’s desk. She’d been listening to the exchange.
“So,” Elaine said, choosing her words carefully, “Mr. Abernathy is expecting you?”
“No, he’s not,” Rodriguez said.
“All right, well, let me call him and ask him to come down.”
“Actually, I’d rather go up and see him unannounced. What floor?”
“Fourth floor. But if he’s not expecting you—”
“Please don’t call him. I’ll find him myself. Thanks.”
He placed his handcuffs and gun on Elaine’s desk, walked through the metal detector, picked them up on the other side, and went to the elevator.
Clarence sat in his cubicle, trying to cut through the fog of his migraine and revise the column staring back at him from the terminal. He was finally making progress when suddenly, despite his earplugs, he sensed a presence behind him. He turned quickly, to see a uniformed policeman. His heart raced.
“Clarence Abernathy?”
“Yes?” He heard the blunted voice and fumbled to take out his earplugs with some appearance of dignity.
“Officer Guillermo Rodriguez, Portland police.”
The officer didn’t extend his hand. Clarence’s eye went not to the officer’s badge nor the radio positioned near his shoulder, but to the huge black belt housing handcuffs, asp baton, pepper-spray, and a large 9 mm Glock, along with two extra magazines.
“What do you want?”
“I need to talk with you. I’ve discussed it with Mr. Foley, and he said we could use that room over there.” He pointed to an editorial conference room.
“I’m busy. Need to finish up a column.”
“I can wait. A little. Ten minutes?”
“Fifteen or twenty.”
“All right.” The officer’s politeness didn’t cover the fact he wasn’t pleased at the delay. “Come in as soon as you’re done.”
Between the hammer beating on his brain and the uniformed officer pacing in the conference room, Clarence’s revisions went nowhere. He made a few cosmetic changes, pressed the send button, and delivered to Winston his premature and underweight column, still sixty words short.
Clarence cleared his throat and went to the conference room. There the officer was studying several white report forms and a yellow notepad. He looked like a journalist prepping for an interview. Except journalists don’t carry weapons and handcuffs.
“What’s going on here, officer?” Clarence asked.
“I’m here to get you
r side.”
“My side of what?”
“You’ve been accused of some serious crimes.”
Clarence stared at him in disbelief. Was Pete getting back at him for all those practical jokes? But this didn’t feel like a prank. “What crimes?”
Officer Rodriguez looked down at the papers. “Possession and use of a controlled substance, that’s a class B felony. Delivering a controlled substance to a minor, that’s a class A felony.”
“Drugs? You’re accusing me of doing drugs?”
“And rape three—contributing to the sexual delinquency of a minor. That’s a class A misdemeanor. Statutory rape.”
“My wife’s the only woman I’ve ever had sex with. And she’s not a minor. What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about you having sex with a seventeen-year-old girl.”
“You’ve got the wrong man, officer. I don’t do drugs, and I never touched a girl. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“The girl’s name is,” Rodriguez looked down at the sheet, “Gracie Miller.”
“The nearest telephone pole always looms largest to them,” Lewis said to Dani and Torel. “It becomes their reference point, so the newest so-called ‘truth’ is the most popular.”
“My brother talked about political correctness,” Dani said. “Is that what you mean?”
“Often, yes,” Lewis said, “although sometimes what is politically correct is also true. Usually, however, it is simply the latest in an endless string of wrong perspectives, each of which seems right for the moment because of its newness. Of course, silly things said now are as silly as they would have been if said long ago. But in the Shadowlands, men live by the myth of moral progress.”
“What do you mean?” Dani asked.