Lainie ate a bagged lunch every day at 12:30. Ham or turkey or chicken on white bread, with a fruit and a novelty cake. She sat on the picnic bench half a block up from the Winter Hotel on a slip of property that was too small to sell. She was wearing a white silk dress that was decorated with prints of giant purple orchids. A single pearl hung from a pendant around her neck. There was a dark freckle on her throat, next to the pearl. I was thinking that that small spot of dark flesh was far more precious than some stone from an oyster’s belly.
“How’s Peaches?” Lainie had regained her composure. She’d opened her bag and was peeling back the wax paper on the sandwich to check out the meat.
“Fine, the last time I talked to her. Her husband’s mother passed.”
“I know. I was at the funeral. I was surprised not to see you there.”
“Busy,” I said, not remembering the excuse I gave at the time.
Lainie took a bite out of her sandwich and smiled. She always smiled after the first bite of her sandwich. She told me once that her mother, Arvette, made her lunch every morning. I think the bread reminded Lainie of her mother the way that Catholics are supposed to be reminded of their Lord when they eat that biscuit.
Lainie and Arvette lived together just outside of town in a small house where both of them had been born. Most Negroes around the midisland lived in modest homes. Our ancestors had been farmworkers mainly. Many had come from the South over the decades, looking for a place they could work in peace.
“I was out at Wilson Ryder’s new site this morning,” I said.
“Really? Mr. Gurgel is the officer in charge of that loan. He says that the Ryders have always been good business.” She took another bite. But that was just eating—no smile involved.
“Yeah. Well, anyway, I went over there to ask about a job today. I mean, he had jobs. I know that because Ricky Winkler works out there. But Mr. Ryder lied and said that he didn’t have any jobs. And when I told him that he was a liar, he started talkin’ about the bank and why didn’t I work there anymore?”
Lainie took a big bite out of her sandwich. I think she did that because she wanted time to think. After chewing on her white bread and processed meat like it was a mouthful of jerky, she stopped and took a deep breath. I pushed down the urge to stand up and walk away.
“Did you ever take money from your drawer?” she asked.
And suddenly it all came back to me like the plot of a novel that I had read so long ago I didn’t even remember the name of the book. But it wasn’t that long ago and it was my own life that I was remembering.
It wasn’t really very much at all. I was a bank teller. I counted money, gave change, made debits and credits. I did passbooks, Christmas clubs, checking accounts, and sometimes payroll. Anything else went to another window. I wore a jacket and slacks every day with a tie. You didn’t have to wear the tie on Fridays, but I did anyway. I was good at my job. Always on time, friendly with even the rude customers, I was good at math too.
But one day I was going to meet my then-girlfriend China Browne for dinner. It was a Tuesday and I wasn’t due for my paycheck until the end of the week. My account was empty because I had just paid for an electric food processor and China wanted to be taken out.
So I borrowed twenty dollars from the bank. I made up my mind to pay a dollar interest when I got my paycheck. And it really wasn’t any big sum. If they asked me about it, I could just say that I must have made a mistake. People make mistakes in banks all the time. Mr. Gurgel, the senior loan officer, once missed a zero and the bank was out ninety thousand dollars for a week.
Of course Friday came and went. China and I went down to New York that weekend, so I put off returning the twenty until I got paid again. But by that time two more weeks had passed, and I figured if nobody noticed, then why should I worry? Probably if I had left it at that, everything would have been okay. But there were five or six other times when I needed money. It was never more than fifty dollars.
“No,” I said.
“Well that’s what they thought,” she said. “The president said that they had proof.”
“How could that be?” I felt indignant even though I knew that I was guilty. “If they had proof, then why didn’t they have me arrested?”
“Mr. Mathias told me that they had discussed it and the bank felt it wouldn’t serve their interests to prosecute.” I knew that she was reporting what she heard because the words she was using were not hers.
“Why not?”
“Because it wasn’t a lot of money and almost every colored person in the Harbor has money in the bank. If the bank prosecuted you over a couple’a hundred dollars, the customers might get upset and take their money to East Hampton.” Lainie peered into my eyes as she spoke. I don’t know if she saw my guilt there or not.
I was guilty. Every time I pocketed a few dollars, I expected to return it. But it wasn’t like the money I used to steal out of my uncle Brent’s wallet. I took that money because I hated him. I hated the way he smelled and the way he talked about my father. I took it because my father’s family had come directly from Africa, but Brent said that my father really didn’t know our roots. He said that we were like all other American blacks, that we came from “slave-caliber Negroes who were defeated in war and sold into slavery because they didn’t have the guts to die in battle.” He said that there was no such thing as free Africans who had “chosen to come over and sell their labor in indentured servitude” and that American Negro citizens never existed before 1865, as my father claimed.
I kept Brent’s money. He used to complain to my mother, but I’d just tell her that it must be his illness affecting his brain. I don’t know what she thought about it all. She didn’t like Brent’s mouth either, but he was family and my mother was the sweetest woman in the world.
“Well,” I said to Lainie. “I didn’t steal anything and now people at the bank are telling everybody that I’m a thief and I can’t get a job. And you didn’t even tell me. Didn’t warn me or anything.”
“I’m sorry, Charles,” she said. “I just didn’t know what to think. Mr. Mathias told me about what had happened. And I was afraid that you’d lose your temper and that if they did have some kind of evidence that they’d take you to jail. I was worried about you.”
She was getting weepy. Lainie had a kind heart. But I wasn’t in any mood to worry about her crocodile tears. What about me? Here I had waited until I was down to my last dollar, thinking that I could always pick up a job somewhere. But nobody in the Harbor would hire a thief. And even if I went out of town, people would still ask for references.
What I wanted to do was yell at Lainie until she felt the pain that I was feeling on the inside. I would have yelled if I were innocent.
“I’m sorry, Lainie. It’s not your fault. It’s just that bank. I probably made some mistake and they decided that I was a thief. That’s all.”
“What are you going to do?”
I considered her question for a moment, and then I thought a little more. I opened my mouth, but there was no answer forthcoming.
“I got to go,” I said. “Thanks for tellin’ me.”