THE DAYROOM WAS QUIET THAT SUNDAY MORNING AS Luther passed through, one old man nodding off in front of a dark television screen, a janitor mopping. At Johan’s door, he lifted his fist to knock, then paused. Standing there, just a few feet removed from the enfeebled monster down the hall, always seemed to demand as much. He looked toward Floyd Bitters’s door and immediately felt his stomach tighten. He remembered what he had told Adam a few nights ago.
“That’s the whole point of being white. Gettin’ away with shit.”
His nephew had seemed surprised. But for Luther, the reality of white folks getting away with shit had been one of the earliest lessons of his life.
He wrenched his gaze back from the hallway to the door in front of him. He gave it a perfunctory knock, then pushed it open. The room he entered was wreathed in shadow. The old man was still sleeping, his breath escaping in soft whistles. Luther was surprised. He had always known Johan as an early riser. The senility, he supposed.
Then one of the shadows moved and Luther started, a hand going to his chest.
“It’s just me,” said George’s sister, even as the door closed itself behind Luther. She was standing on the far side of the bed. “Sorry to give you a fright. I’m driving back home today and I wanted to say goodbye to Papa. I’ve been waiting for him to wake up.”
Luther’s eyes adjusted and he was able to make her out. Pink blouse, matching hat, navy-blue jacket. “Beg pardon,” he said, lifting his hat. “I ain’t meant to interrupt.”
“You’re not interrupting,” she said. A glance toward Luther’s case. “What’s that?”
He held it up for her to see. “Just my clippers and some other things.”
“Oh, that’s right,” she said. “You’re a barber. You cut Papa’s hair for him.”
“Yes, ma’am. Every two weeks.”
“And you visit him in between, don’t you? The staff told me.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“You like my father.”
“I suppose I do, ma’am.”
“You’re probably more attentive to him than his own children have been.”
There was no answer for this, so Luther didn’t try.
“Poor Papa,” she said. She stroked his hair fondly.
“Well,” said Luther, backing toward the door, “I don’t want to wake him.”
She laughed. “Stay. You couldn’t wake my father with a nuclear war. You never saw such a sound sleeper.”
“Well, in any case, I don’t want to intrude.” The idea of being alone in a room with this white woman made his skin itch.
“I told you you’re not intruding,” she said. “Indeed, I ought to be thanking you for taking such good care of him.”
“No need for that, ma’am.”
“And I suppose I owe you an apology, as well.”
“Ma’am?”
“Nick’s behavior these last few days has been absolutely beastly. You all have every right to be furious with him. I told him so in no uncertain terms.”
“Yes, ma’am,” said Luther—he hated all the “ma’ams” he heard suddenly coming out of his mouth—“and speaking of your brother, I really think I should be gettin’ on. Don’t want no more confusion.”
“Oh, you don’t have to worry about that,” she said. “I poured Nick onto a train yesterday morning. By now, I expect he’s halfway back to Vietnam. Probably nursing a terrible hangover, too, if I’m any judge. But try not to think too harshly of him. All of this is hard for him, you know? Hard for all of us. Except for Georgie, I suppose.”
Something else for which there was no good answer. Luther kept silent. He wished a nurse would come in.
“So,” said the white woman with sudden, forced brightness. “I suppose we’re family, eh? Been family for a good many years, even though we’ve never rightly met. You’d be my—what?—brother-in-law? I’m not even sure I know your name. It’s Lucius, right?”
“It’s Luther,” he said. “Luther Hayes.”
“Well, Luther, pleased to meet you, albeit twenty years late. I’m Cora Simon. Well, I used to be Cora Simon. It’s Cora Brockman now.” Luther was grateful she did not extend one of her gloved hands across the bed for him to shake. He was walking on new ice here. He had no idea what the rules were yet. In a way, he supposed, that was an apt description of the entire country just now.
“Pleased to meet you, Miz Brockman,” he said. There was no question of calling this white woman by her first name.
“So, tell me, how do you and my father know each other? I know that Georgie and your sister met—”
“Thelma.”
She blinked. “Beg pardon?”
“My sister name Thelma.”
“Yes, of course. I know that Georgie and ‘Thelma’”—she spoke it as if she had trouble with the pronunciation—“met when the military asked him to pay a courtesy call on her after Pearl Harbor, when her husband died saving his life. But how did you and Papa meet?”
“It’s a long story,” said Luther. He wasn’t about to talk about Johan showing up to rescue him from the drunk tank. “He done me a favor once.”
She smiled fondly. “That sounds like Papa,” she said. “Always helping others. He and George have such big hearts. They see things the rest of us don’t.”
“What kind of things?” Luther was curious, despite himself.
“The future,” she said. “I suppose that would be the best way to put it. Like all of this that’s going on now with that Martin Luther King and all these marches all over the country? Civil rights? Georgie saw the need for that twenty years ago. The rest of us never saw anything that needed changing.”
“‘The rest of us,’” said Luther. “You mean, white people?”
She conceded the point with a small, indifferent shrug. “Yes,” she said, “I suppose I do.”
There was a silence. Then she said, “Tell me, Luther, what did you think when you first heard my brother wanted to marry your sister?”
Luther did not hesitate. “I thought they was both crazy.”
“Exactly,” she said, laughing as if vindicated—as if here was someone who finally understood.
“Not ’cause they was wrong to love each other,” said Luther quickly, annoyed by her laugh, annoyed that she might think his disapproval back then gave them common ground now. “No, I thought they was crazy because gettin’ married meant they was gon’ have to fight every day of they lives. It meant they was gon’ have to take a lot of ”—he almost said “shit,” but decided at the last second to choose a more decorous word for this white lady—“grief from people who, like you say, never saw nothin’ that needed changing. Especially when the rest of us knew that everything needed changing.”
He heard the new ice creaking ominously beneath his tread, knew he had probably said too much. But he could not just stand here and trade idle bullshit with this woman. If he was going to be forced to stay in this room and talk to her, he would tell her the truth.
Her smile shrank as she processed his meaning and that gratified him. It frightened him, too. Finally, she said, “I never thought of it that way.”
“I ain’t never thought of it no other way,” said Luther.
“Everything needs changing?” She said it as if to confirm that she had heard correctly.
“That’s the way colored people see it, yeah. Schools, jobs, police. Ain’t none of it made for the colored man. You grow up like us, you feel the same way.”
“I understand,” she said. “But if you grew up like us, you’d realize what a frightening proposition that is.”
“Don’t need to grow up like you to know white people scared,” said Luther. “I’m a Negro, ma’am. I been understandin’ white people my entire life. Had to in order to survive.”
He heard the ice grumble. Tried to ignore it. Reminded himself that he would not stand here and bullshit.
“Oh, come now,” she said, with a little chuckle. “Aren’t you being a little dramatic?”
Luther shook his head. “No ma’am, I’m not.”
“But you really think we’re that easily understood?”
Luther said, “You got a husband, right? Brockman you said was his name?”
“Calvin, yes. But I don’t see what that has to do with anything.”
“Can you read him, ma’am?”
“Of course,” she said. “Like a book.”
“Can Calvin read you the same way?”
She blinked. Her mouth opened, then closed. “Well,” she said, finally, “I suppose that’s one way to look at it.”
“Yes, ma’am. That’s one way.”
“Well, anyway,” she said, “you can see why what you’re saying would scare some people.”
“Don’t seem to scare George none,” said Luther.
“Well, George is … George,” she said. “He’s different.”
“Yes, ma’am, that he is.”
Luther was lifting his hat to his head, thinking this might be an opportune time to make his escape. Then she said, “I suppose he’s returned to New York? He and Thelma and your nephew?”
Your nephew, too.
Luther thought this, but did not say it. He lowered his hat. “No, ma’am. Well, Thelma still here, but George and Adam in Selma.”
“Oh,” she said. “For that march, I suppose.”
“Yes, ma’am. Voting rights.”
“Georgie and Nick were arguing over that very thing the other night on the way back from the restaurant. Nick was saying how the way things are is ordained by God and outside agitators shouldn’t mess with that. As I’m sure you can imagine, Georgie disagreed.”
“Yes, ma’am. So do I.”
“I’m sure you do,” she said. “And I’m sure you have good reason.”
“Yes, ma’am. I believe so.”
“You know, George was hurt on one of those marches. He was with that Yankee preacher who got himself killed.”
“Yes, I know.”
Exasperation crimped her lips. “Of course, you do,” she said. “I don’t know why I even said that. You knew it before I did. And you’re not even blood kin.”
“No, ma’am. Just a brother-in-law.”
“I’m his sister,” she said. Her eyes glittered. “I should have known. God, I hate what all of this has done to my family. I hate that we’re so far apart. I hate that we barely know each other. I hate it all so much.”
“Yes, ma’am,” said Luther. “I imagine you do.”
She tossed her head bitterly. “I used to hope one day we’d all reconcile. But now I doubt that’s ever going to happen. The other night, Georgie spoke to Nick as if … he didn’t ever expect to see him again. He told him, ‘We were brothers.’ Not ‘we are’ but ‘we were.’ Nick was hurt. I was, too.”
“I’m sure that’s hard on you,” said Luther.
“It’s a dagger in my heart,” she said.
“Why George say somethin’ like that, you don’t mind me asking?”
She closed her eyes for a long moment. George wondered if the new ice had finally cracked open and he was about to fall into the icy depths below. Finally, Cora Brockman opened her eyes. “He said that Nick was asking him to choose between his brother and his wife and son, between his brother and what he knew to be right. And he wouldn’t do it.”
“I see,” said Luther.
“You know George,” she said.
“Yes, ma’am, I do.”
“So you know how he is about doing the right and moral thing.” “Yes, I do.”
Her smile was bitter. “I don’t know how it is being his brother-inlaw, Luther, but I can tell you it’s hard being his sister, hard living with someone who aspires to be a saint. You never quite feel as though you measure up.”
Luther shook his head. “George ain’t no saint,” he said, “and as far as I know, he ain’t never tried to be one. He just a man who think it’s important to do right by people. All kinds of people.”
“I suppose he is,” she conceded. “But it’s difficult to know just what that is, don’t you see? The things I thought were right twenty years ago all seem to be wrong now. The world is changing so fast and it’s hard for some of us to keep up.”
“‘Some of us,’” said Luther.
“Very well,” she conceded, “white people. It’s hard for white people to keep up, to understand what colored people are trying to say. But I hope you know,” she added, “that we’re not all like Nick. Some of us are at least trying.”
It seemed a plea for some absolution Luther had no power to give—and no desire to, either. He was struggling with how to respond to this when he heard Johan say, “Who’s that? Who’s in my room?” His voice was taut with distress.
His daughter patted his chest. “Shush. It’s just me, Papa. It’s Cora.”
Luther was grateful for the opportunity to escape. “I’m gon’ give you two some privacy, ma’am,” he said, placing his hat back on his head. “I’ll be out here.” He was through the door before she had a chance to protest.
Luther went to the parking lot, where he leaned on the hood of the Buick and smoked a cigarette. Then he smoked another. The whole encounter unsettled him.
Some of us are at least trying.
What did this white woman want from him? Was she expecting sympathy? Did she think she deserved a medal?
Some of us are at least trying?
Well, damn, he thought, try harder.
So cocooned was he in the bitterness of his thoughts that Luther didn’t register Cora Brockman approaching him in tears, dark rivers of mascara running down her cheeks, until she was almost upon him. Startled, he threw down his third cigarette and stood straight.
“Miz Brockman? What is it? What’s wrong?”
“It’s Papa,” she said.
An icepick of dread stabbed through him. “Johan? What’s wrong with Johan?”
She shook her head. “It’s not that. It’s … he didn’t know me. I kept telling him who I was, told him I was his daughter, his little girl, but he would have none of it. He became agitated, accused me of trying to poison him. He screamed for me to get out, then started yelling in some Hungarian gibberish.”
The memory unleashed fresh tears. It occurred to Luther that this was the moment, if she had been a colored woman, when he might have put a hand on her shoulder and tried to comfort her. But there was no possibility of that with this white lady. He had already walked on new ice and managed to escape safely. He wasn’t about to push his luck by hitting it with a sledgehammer. So Luther could only stand there awkwardly, sympathizing from the safety of four feet away.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “But you know he ain’t meant it. He not in his right mind. You know that man in there love you, miss. He wouldn’t hurt you for all the world.”
She lifted her eyes and they were garish—bright-red orbs framed by runny black makeup. “Has he ever screamed at you and told you to get out?”
“Well, no, ma’am,” admitted Luther. “But that don’t mean he won’t do it next time I go in there. It’s the condition, ma’am. It ain’t him.”
She closed her eyes, shook her head ruefully. “You always think there’ll be more time,” she said.
“Yes, ma’am,” said Luther. “But beg pardon, ma’am, he be eighty-two years old in November, right? How much more time did you think there would be?”
She regarded him closely, then smiled a smile that reminded him of a broken vase poorly glued back together. “My God,” she said, “but you do have a … unique way of putting things, Luther. No sugarcoating for you.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said. “Sorry, ma’am. I been told that before.”
She held his gaze a moment longer as if he were some species of fish or fowl she was struggling to identify. Then, without another word, she walked over to her car. Luther watched as she backed it out and pulled onto the street. After she was gone, he turned back to the rest home and spent a moment contemplating it. Finally, he lifted his barber’s case and headed for the door, wondering what he might find.
When Luther entered the room, Johan was sitting up in bed watching television as he spooned up a chunk from the grapefruit on his breakfast tray. “Luther!” he called, his voice jovial. Then, noticing the barber’s case, he added, “Is it haircut day again so soon?”
“Afraid it is,” said Luther.
“But you’re early, aren’t you? I’m not even out of bed yet.”
“Yeah,” said Luther. “Sorry about that. But the march startin’ today and I didn’t want to miss none of it. I thought we might watch together.”
Johan’s brow crinkled like paper. “March? What march?”
“Voting rights march. Remember? Martin Luther King. Selma to Montgomery.”
The old man’s brow released. “Oh, yes,” he said. “The march. Of course. Is that today?”
“Yes,” said Luther, setting his barber’s case aside. “George is going to be in it. Him and Adam.”
“George? My son?”
“Yes.”
“And who else, did you say?”
“Adam. George’s son.”
“George? My George? He has a son?”
“Yes,” said Luther. “Wife and a son.”
“Isn’t that wonderful,” said Johan. He waved Luther toward one of the two chairs in front of the television. Some Sunday morning church service was playing. “Sit, sit,” he said.
Luther put his hat on a wall hook and lowered himself to one of the chairs. He turned it and pushed back a bit so that he could see Johan behind him while also keeping an eye on the screen.
“George has a wife and son,” Johan was saying, as he spooned up more grapefruit. “Imagine that. You know, I have a wife. And another son. And even a daughter. I haven’t seen any of them in a long time, though. Do you know what happened to them? Do you know why they don’t come by?”
Luther glanced to the television, afraid his eyes might give him away. “I’m sure they come by as often as they can,” he said.
“You’re Luther,” said the old man.
“Yes, sir, I am.”
“I saw him, you know.”
Luther’s eyes came back around. He was surprised to find Johan’s cheeks suddenly wet with tears.
“You saw who?”
Johan’s eyes flicked from one corner of the room to the other, as if the shadows might be listening. “I saw that Floyd Bitters,” he whispered. “He’s here. Did you know that? He’s here.”
Luther lowered his head. “I know he is,” he said.
“Don’t let that man get me, Luther. Please, don’t let him hurt me again. He hurt me so badly that day. I could hardly breathe. I thought I was going to die.”
“He ain’t gon’ hurt you,” said Luther. “I promise. He can’t hurt nobody no more.”
“He killed your parents,” said Johan. It was as if the realization had suddenly struck him.
“Yeah,” said Luther, “he did.”
“You must hate him, too.”
“Yeah,” said Luther, “I hate him, too.”
“Does he still scare you, as he scares me?”
It took a moment and when finally Luther answered, his voice was as soft and harsh as sand falling on paper. “Yeah,” he said, “I guess he still do.”
Then Luther noticed that the Sunday morning preacher was gone, replaced by a sign that said “Special Report.” He swung his attention to the television. “Look,” he said, “the march about to start.”