The Sellout (31 page)
Anyone who’s ever described a bullet wound as being superficial has never been shot. But I wasn’t about to let a little lack of empathy get in the way of total closure.
“It’s illegal to yell ‘Fire!’ in a crowded theater, right?”
“It is.”
“Well, I’ve whispered ‘Racism’ in a post-racial world.”
I told her about my efforts to restore Dickens and how I thought building the school would give the town a sense of identity. She patted me sympathetically on the shoulder and raised her supervisor on the radio, and while we waited for the ambulance, the three of us haggled about the severity of the crime. The county reluctant to cite me with anything more than vandalism of state property and me trying to convince them that even if crime had gone down in the neighborhood since the Wheaton Academy went up, what I did was still a violation of the First Amendment, the Civil Rights Code, and, unless there’s been an armistice in the War on Poverty, at least four articles of the Geneva Convention.
The paramedics arrived. Once I’d been stabilized with gauze and a few kind words, the EMTs went through the standard assessment protocol.
“Next of kin?”
As I lay, not exactly dying but close enough, I thought about Marpessa. Who, if the position of the sun high in the gorgeous blue sky was any indication, was at the far end of this very same street taking her lunch break. Her bus parked facing the ocean. Her bare feet on the dashboard, nose buried in Camus, listening to the Talking Heads’ “This Must Be the Place.”
“I have a girlfriend, but she’s married.”
“What about this guy?” she asked, pointing a ballpoint pen at a shirtless Hominy, standing just off to the side, giving his statement to a sheriff’s deputy, who was writing in a notepad and shaking her head incredulously. “Is he family?”
“Family?” Hominy, overhearing the paramedic and somewhat insulted, wiped down his wrinkly underarms with his T-shirt and came over to see how I was doing. “Why I is something closer than family.”
“He says he’s his slave,” the deputy chimed in, reading from her notes. “Been working for him, according to this crazy fucker, the last four hundred years.”
The EMT nodded, running her powdered rubber-gloved hands down the length of Hominy’s saggy-skinned back.
“How did you get these welts?”
“I was whupped. How else a no-account, shiftless nigger like me going to get whip marks on his back?”
Having handcuffed me to the stretcher board, the sheriff’s deputies knew they finally had something to charge me with, though we still couldn’t agree on the crime as they carried me through the crowd and to the ambulance.
“Human trafficking?”
“Nah, he’s never been bought or sold. What about involuntary servitude?”
“Maybe, but it’s not like you’re forcing him to work.”
“It’s not like he’s working.”
“Did you really whip him?”
“Not directly. I pay some people … It’s a long story.”
One of the EMTs had to tie her shoes. They set me down on a wooden bus stop bench while she adjusted her laces. From the seat-back a photo of a familiar face comforted me with a soothing smile and a red power tie.
“You got a good lawyer?” the deputy asked.
“Just call this nigger right here.” I knocked on the advertisement. It said:
Hampton Fiske—
Attorney at Law
Remember, there are four steps to acquittal:
1. Don’t say shit! 2. Don’t run! 3. Don’t resist arrest!
4. Don’t say shit!
1-800-FREEDOM Se Habla Español
* * *
He showed up late to the grand jury indictment, but Hampton’s services were worth every dime. I told him I couldn’t afford to do jail time. I had crops coming in and one of the mares was scheduled to foal in about two days. With this knowledge in tow, he strolled into the hearing, brushing leaves off his suit jacket and flicking twigs from his perm, carrying a bowl of fruit and talking about “As a farmer, my client is an indispensable member of a minority community well documented for being malnourished and underfed. He’s never left the state of California, owns a twenty-year-old pickup truck that runs on fucking ethanol, which is next to impossible to find in this city, and thus he’s not a flight risk…”
The California attorney general, flown in from Sacramento just to prosecute my case, leaped to her Prada-shod feet. “Objection! This defendant, evil genius that he is, has through his abhorrent actions managed to racially discriminate against every race all at the same time, to say nothing of his unabashed slaveholding. The state of California feels that it has more than enough evidence to prove that the defendant is in abject violation of the Civil Rights Acts of 1866, 1871, 1957, 1964, and 1968, the Equal Rights Act of 1963, the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments, and at least six of the goddamn Ten Commandments. If it were within my power, I’d charge him with crimes against humanity!”
“This is an example of my client’s humanity,” Hampton countered calmly, gently setting the fruit bowl on the judge’s bench, then backing away with a deep bow. “Freshly picked from my client’s farm, your honor.”
Judge Nguyen rubbed his tired eyes. He selected a nectarine from the offering and rolled it in his fingers as he spoke. “The irony is not lost on me that we sit here in this courtroom—a female state’s attorney general of black and Asian lineage, a black defendant, a black defense counselor, a Latina bailiff, and me, a Vietnamese-American district judge—setting the parameters for what is essentially a judicial argument about the applicability, the efficacy, and the very existence of white supremacy as expressed through our system of law. And while no one in this room would deny the basic premise of ‘civil rights,’ we’d argue forever and a day about what constitutes ‘equal treatment under the law’ as defined by the very articles of the Constitution this defendant is accused of violating. In attempting to restore his community through reintroducing precepts, namely segregation and slavery, that, given his cultural history, have come to define his community despite the supposed unconstitutionality and nonexistence of these concepts, he’s pointed out a fundamental flaw in how we as Americans claim we see equality. ‘I don’t care if you’re black, white, brown, yellow, red, green, or purple.’ We’ve all said it. Posited as proof of our nonprejudicial ways, but if you painted any one of us purple or green, we’d be mad as hell. And that’s what he’s doing. He’s painting everybody over, painting this community purple and green, and seeing who still believes in equality. I don’t know if what he’s done is legal or not, but the one civil right I can guarantee this defendant is the right to due process, the right to a speedy trial. We convene tomorrow morning at nine. But buckle up, people, no matter the verdict, innocent or guilty, this is going to the Supreme Court, so I hope you ain’t got nothing scheduled for the next five years. Bail is set”—Judge Nguyen took a big bite out the nectarine, then kissed his crucifix—“Bail is set at a cantaloupe and two kumquats.”
I expected the air-conditioning in the Supreme Court to be for shit, like it is in all the good courtroom movies:
Twelve Angry Men
and
To Kill a Mockingbird
. Movie trials always take place in humid locales in the heat of summer, because the psych books say crime goes up with the temperature. Tempers run short. Perspiring witnesses and trial attorneys start yelling at each other. The jurors fan themselves, then open four-paned windows looking for escape and a breath of fresh air. Washington, D.C., is fairly muggy this time of year, but it’s mild, damn near frigid, inside the courthouse, yet I have to open a window anyway—to let out all the smoke and five years of judicial system frustration.
“You can’t handle the weed!” I shout at Fred Manne, courtroom artist extraordinaire and film buff. It’s the dinner break to what has amounted to the longest Supreme Court case in history. We’re sitting in a nameless antechamber passing time and a joint back and forth, butchering the climax of
A Few Good Men
, which isn’t a great movie, but Jack Nicholson’s disdain for the actors and the script and the way he delivers that last monologue carry the film.
“Did you order the Code Red?”
“I might have. I’m so fucking high right now…”
“Did you order the Code Red?”
“You’re goddamn right I did! And I’d do it again, because this pot is fucking unbelievable.” Fred’s breaking character. “What’s it called?” It being the joint he’s holding in his hand.
“It doesn’t have a name yet, but Code Red sounds pretty good.”
Fred has sketched all the important cases: same-sex marriage, the end of the Voting Rights Act, and the demise of affirmative action in higher education and, by extension, everywhere else. He says that in his thirty years of courtroom artistry, this is the first time he’s ever seen the court adjourn for dinner. First time he’s ever seen the Justices raise their voices and stare each other down. He shows me an artist’s rendering of today’s session. In it a conservative Catholic Justice flips off a liberal Catholic Justice from the Bronx with a surreptitious cheek scratch.
“What does ‘
coño
’ mean?”
“What?”
“That’s what she whispered under her breath, followed by ‘
Chupa mi verga, cabrón.
’”
My colored-pencil caricature looks terrible. I’m in the lower-left-hand corner of the drawing. I can’t speak to the Court allowing for unregulated corporate spending on political campaigns, or the burning of the American flag, but the best decision it’s ever made was to prohibit the use of cameras in the courtroom, because, apparently, I’m one ugly motherfucker. My bulbous nose and gigantic ears protrude from my bald Mount Fuji–shaped head like fleshy anemometers. I’m flashing a yellow-toothed smile and staring at the youngish Jewish Justice like I can see through her robe. Fred says the reason they don’t permit cameras has nothing to do with maintaining decorum and dignity. It’s to protect the country from seeing what’s underneath Plymouth Rock. Because the Supreme Court is where the country takes out its dick and tits and decides who’s going to get fucked and who’s getting a taste of mother’s milk. It’s constitutional pornography in there, and what did Justice Potter once say about obscenity? I know it when I see it.
“Fred, do you think you could at least shave down my incisors? I look like fucking Blackula.”
“
Blackula.
Underrated movie.”
Fred unclips the press laminate from his lanyard and uses the metal fastener as a makeshift roach clip to finish the rest of the weed in one mighty toke. His eyes and nasal passages closed tight, I ask him can I borrow a pencil. He nods yes, and I take the opportunity to remove all the brown-colored implements from his fancy pencil case. Fuck if I’m going down in history as the homeliest litigant in Supreme Court history.
During social studies, otherwise known in Dad’s curriculum as the Ways and Means of the Indefatigable White People, my father used to warn me about listening to rap or the blues with Caucasian strangers. And as I got older, I’d be admonished not to play Monopoly, drink more than two beers, or smoke weed with them either. For such activities can breed a false sense of familiarity. And nothing, from the hungry jungle cat to the African ferryboat, is more dangerous than a white person on what they think is familiar ground. And as Fred returns from exhaling a cloud of smoke out into the D.C. night, he has that Ain’t-I-a-Soul-Brother glint in his eyes. “Let me tell you something, my man. I’ve seen them all come through here. Racial profiling, interracial marriage, hate speech, and race-based set-asides, and you know what the difference is between my people and yours? As much as we both want seats at the ‘table,’ once you get inside, you motherfuckers never have an escape plan. Us? We’re prepared to leave at a moment’s notice. I never enter a restaurant, bowling alley, or an orgy without asking myself, If they choose this moment to come get me, how in the fuck am I getting out of here? Cost us a generation, but we learned our fucking lesson. They told you people, ‘School’s out. Ain’t no more lessons to be learned,’ and you dumb fucks believed them. Think about it, if the damn storm troopers were to knock on the door right now, what would you do? What’s your exit strategy?”
There’s a knock on the door. It’s a court officer gulping down the last of a prefabricated spicy tuna roll. She’s wondering why I have one leg dangling out of the window. Fred simply shakes his head. I look down. Even if I were to survive the three-story fall, I’d be trapped in a tacky marble courtyard. Walled in by thirty feet of overblown Colonial architecture. Surrounded by lion heads, bamboo stalks, red orchids, and a silty fountain. On our way out, Fred points to a small, Hobbit-sized side door behind a potted plant that presumably leads to the Promised Land.
I reenter the chambers to find an insanely pale white boy in my seat. It’s like he’s waited until the fourth quarter of the ball game to move down from the upper deck, sneak past the ushers to take a courtside chair vacated by some fan who’s left early to beat the traffic. I’m reminded of the black stand-up trope about white patrons returning to find “niggers in they seats” and drawing straws to decide who’s going to ask them to move.
“You in my seat, dude.”
“Hey, I just wanted to tell you that I feel like my constitutionality is on trial, too. And you don’t seem to have many people in your cheering section.” He waved his invisible pompoms in the air.
Ricka-rocka! Ricka-rocka! Sis! Boom! Bah!
“I appreciate the support. Much needed. But just slide over one.”
The Justices file back into the courtroom. No one mentions my newfound tag-team partner. It’s been a long day. Bags have appeared under their eyes. Their robes have wrinkled and lost their sheen. In fact, the black Justice’s garment seems to be stained with barbecue sauce. The only two people in the courtroom who look fresh are the Jeffersonian Chief Justice and a mackadocious Hampton Fiske, each with not a hair out of place or displaying the slightest sign of fatigue. However, Hampton has one-upped the Chief Justice with a costume change. He’s now resplendent in an argumentative bell-bottomed, ball-hugging, chartreuse jumpsuit. He doffs his homburg, cape, and ivory-handled cane and adjusts his bulge, then stands aside, as the Chief Justice has an announcement to make.