Hate Crime (11 page)

10

Ben came home from the office as depressed as he remembered ever being. That’s what you always say, he told himself. Which said something about his life. Something fairly pathetic.

He had stopped by Weber’s for takeout—cheeseburgers, fries, and chocolate milk. Comfort food. With luck, he would make it up the stairs of his boardinghouse without being accosted by tenants complaining about the air-conditioning or explaining why they couldn’t possibly pay their rent this month. Sometimes both at once.

He entered the boardinghouse where he lived—which he now owned—and walked up the stairs to his room without interruption, dropped his food on the kitchen table, then stopped to check in on the felines.

A big wicker basket with a cushion was the current home of Giselle, the huge mama cat, and her kitten Melisande. Ben had eventually given away the rest of the litter, but he couldn’t bear to part with them all, regardless of what people said about two cats in a small apartment.

He opened several cans of Feline’s Fancy and scooped it into their individual bowls, stroked their fur, talked baby talk—then heard a sound coming from his bedroom.

He stiffened.

He removed his shoes so he could walk more quietly on the squeaky hardwood floors. He tiptoed across the living room, then slowly made his way down the corridor.

What he found in his bedroom was a beautiful young woman wearing nothing but a pink string bikini.

“I thought you’d never get home,” the woman said, brushing her curly brunette locks behind her round and radiant shoulders.

“Joni?” Ben said, almost choking on the words. Of course he’d seen her many times before. She did live here, and had been serving as his building superintendent to work her way through college. But she was normally wearing baggy overalls or jeans with holes in the knees.

“I tracked down the plumbing problem,” she said, pointing to the hole where floorboards used to be. “Leaky pipe. Just below your bedroom.”

“So . . . I assume you’re working on it?”

“Like, you thought maybe I was going for a swim under your bed?”

“Well . . . I didn’t . . . I—”

“Yes, I’m working on it. I knew I’d end up soaked—I always do when I handle these plumbing jobs for you. Don’t worry. I’ll mop up the mess.”

Now that he noticed, she did appear to be wet, which certainly had an effect on the adherent qualities of her suit.

“So I thought—be smart for once, Joni. Switch into your suit before you start the job. Hope you don’t mind.”

Ben managed to speak even though his tongue was thick and cottony. “I can live with it.”

“Good. I was afraid you might have a stroke or something.”

“What? Since when—”

“I know how uncomfortable you are with some things. Like human physiology.”

“That’s . . . not at all . . .”

“I told my mom what I was doing when I changed. She asked if she could come, too.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah. Wanted to see the expression on your face.”

“I don’t see why that would be at all amusing.”

“Me neither. You were totally stoic. Cool and debonair.” She looked away, smiling. “Anyway, the plumbing job’s just about done. I’ll be out of your hair soon.”

“Good.” He loosened his tie and tossed it down on his bed. “I have some things to do.”

She grabbed a wrench and went back at it. “Really? Hot Scrabble game?”

The weird thing was she said that like there was something wrong with it. “No.”

“Don’t tell me—you and Christina are going to do something else? Monopoly, maybe? I guess for you that would be, like, second base.”

He popped open his briefcase. “Christina’s in Chicago.”

“Why?”

“She’s working on a case.”

“But you’re not?”

“It’s her own deal.”

Joni’s eyebrows knitted. “I didn’t think she had her own deals.”

“Well, she does.”

“Is there, like, something wrong between you two?”

“Not at all. She’s just working.”

“Hmm.” Joni gave the pipe a final twist, which required flexing her biceps and creating a rippling effect that Ben thought he was unlikely to forget anytime in the near future. Then she began putting the floorboards back into place. “Well, it’s none of my business. But can I give you some advice?”

“I need a college junior to be my spiritual adviser?”

“Ben, you know how I love and respect you. And you know what a mentor you’ve been to me. But despite my relative youth, there are a few things I know more about than you.”

“Such as?”

“Life.” She hammered the floorboards back into place. “Maybe you should give Christina a call.”

“She’s busy.”

“Couldn’t you help?”

“Absolutely not.”

“I don’t suppose you’re inclined to tell me why.”

“Not in the least.”

“Same old Ben.” She grabbed a towel, then walked right up to him, wet bikini and all. “Could you at least do me a favor? Dry my back. There’s a spot I can’t reach.”

Reluctantly, Ben took the towel. Damn, but being a landlord was hard! The responsibilities were overwhelming.

Mike dropped by around eight, using the excuse of a hot
Xena
rerun and bearing a New York–style pizza from Mario’s. Actually, the
Xena
thing was a pretty good excuse as far as Ben was concerned. He hadn’t seen this episode before; Xena was in top form, hacking away in her black leather.

“So, you’re really going to take this Chicago case?” Mike asked.

“Christina is,” Ben replied. “I’m not having anything to do with it.”

“Word is lots of people are out to get that Christensen kid. Anyone associated with him is in danger.”

“Swell. I like this case even better now.”

“Why don’t you let me call someone at Chicago PD? Maybe they can send an officer over to keep an eye on Christina? At least during the trial.”

“Don’t bother. You know Christina won’t allow it. The jurors would assume Christina thought she needed protection from her client. Which would not exactly improve her chances.”

“Maybe they can send someone low-key. Plainclothes.”

“I don’t think it will make any difference.”

“Oh, well. It’s not as if she’s ever gotten herself in trouble before.” He popped open a beer. “So, why is she in Chicago while you’re here?”

Ben’s forehead creased. “I assume she’s working on her impending trial.”

“But you’re not.”

“No, I’m not.”

“And there’s nothing unusual about that.”

“No, there isn’t. We’re two separate human beings. We have separate lives. Separate identities.”

“Fine, fine. Don’t go all I-did-not-sleep-with-that-woman on me. You want the last slice of pizza?”

Ben cast his eyes down to the nearly empty cardboard box. “Not enough to arm wrestle you for it.”

“Good call. I’d cream you.”

“I’ve been working out.”

Mike dangled the tail of the last Combo Supreme over his lips. “Success is counted sweetest / By those who ne’er succeed . . .”

Maybe he should call her, Ben thought, as he sat in his overstuffed chair staring at nothing. Forget that he had turned the case down, that she had gone over his head. She had been practicing for almost two years now; it was not unusual for her to handle a case on her own. Joni had said he was a mentor. Maybe he should take that attitude. Offer her that kind of assistance, just like when he was starting out and he’d had—

Well, okay, he pretty much did it on his own. But that didn’t mean Christina had to. He should just pick up the phone and—

But he couldn’t. Not this time. Not this case. It went too deep. The hurt was too ingrained. He couldn’t make himself do it. And even if he did, how could he know he was doing a good job? He couldn’t possibly be objective, not here, not with—

He stretched his feet out on the ottoman. His stomach was churning, and it wasn’t because of the pizza, either. This was tearing him apart. He played the piano for a while, but it didn’t calm him. He tried to work the
New York Times
crossword, but couldn’t focus. All he could think about was Christina.

He had known her for so long now, cared about her so deeply, he felt closer to her than anyone he had ever known in his life. Not that he would ever tell her that. But it was true. He hated leaving her dangling in the wind like this. What was that kid’s mother doing, anyway, giving a case of this magnitude, with this much media saturation, to a lawyer of Christina’s relative inexperience?

Of course he knew exactly what she was doing. And that was why he couldn’t give in.

He gripped the arms of his chair resolutely. This was the way it had to be, like it or not. He could not help Christina with this case. Not at all. Not a bit. Absolutely not. Never.

The next morning, Ben unlocked the front doors and tiptoed into his office. As far as he knew, everyone else was in Chicago, but he was taking no chances.

With great stealth he made his way to Christina’s office. Her desk was a mess, as usual, but this time she had a pretty good excuse. He was glad, because it made it all the easier for him to execute his plan.

He punched on the computer monitor at Jones’s workstation. He knew Christina had a laptop and would check for e-mail periodically. First, he forwarded a hyperlink to a Web page on the University of Chicago Law School’s Web site:
STUDENTS SEEKING INTERN POSITIONS
. Next, he sent a link to the Lexus database that keyed up the text of
State v. Harmon
. Christina was brilliant when it came to arguments in equity, which were the heart of any motion for a continuance, but she sometimes forgot about the more arcane legal precedents; what’s more, Ben’s sources had told him that Judge Lacayo was a sucker for public policy arguments. Since he was using Jones’s e-mail program, Christina would assume the case had come from Paula. Which was good.

After all, it was important that everyone understand that he would not help Christina with this case. Not in the least.

11

JOURNAL OF TONY BAROVICK

The day of my high school graduation I decided I was coming out. This was no small decision. I lived in the suburbs, after all, deeply traditional, conservative suburbs, dominated by huge churches, Democrats who always voted Republican, and trailer trash who measured success by the size of the wheels on your pickup. To say that gay men had to remain in the closet is to state the obvious. Oh, there were probably worse places—we did at least have some gay bars and a small gay underground network—but it wasn’t exactly Greenwich Village, if you catch my drift.

And my father. Since I’m treating this journal more like a third-rate autobiography than a diary, I should make the point up front that my father was not a bad person. More than once he surprised me with his kindness, with his startling gentility. But he had not exactly been raised with a progressive attitude, and it showed. At heart, he was still the kid from the projects raised by poor white laborers, and as a result, he carried around the baggage of every kind of prejudice there was: prejudice against foreigners, minorities, Catholics, aggressive women and, predictably enough, homosexuals. I remember once in the seventh grade when I got the lead in the middle school musical. My mother was delighted, but I noticed that Dad’s reaction was much more subdued. Late that night, when Mother wasn’t around, he made a rare effort to talk to me. “I guess being in plays is all right,” he said in that awkward sputtering drawl of his. “Problem is you gotta watch out for the fags.” He said it as if it were a two-syllable word.

I didn’t know what he was talking about, or pretended I didn’t, but he reinforced my later determination to keep my secret to myself. He was right, of course; there were plenty of guys who shared my sexual inclination treading the boards, but that didn’t make it any easier. In the early Eighties, when the AIDS plague started making the papers, I remember my father throwing down the
Sun-Times
in disgust and saying, “Who the hell cares about a bunch of queers?” Quite a statement, coming from a man who I knew had a good heart, who really had no meanness in him. Imagine what you’d get if you combined all those inbred prejudices with someone who did have some meanness in him. Maybe a lot of meanness.

That and countless similar remarks told me exactly where my dad stood on this issue that was of crushing importance to me. Which explains why I put off telling him for as long as I did. Mother was a different matter—she wasn’t going to like it, just as she didn’t like it when I wouldn’t try out for the tennis team. But bottom line—she loved me, and she always would, and if it turned out I was gay, she’d learn to live with it. Father was different. I couldn’t predict how he’d take it.

Not well, as it turned out. I don’t believe for a minute it came as any great surprise. He wasn’t a stupid person. I’m sure he’d seen the signs. About the only time in his life he gave me money without my asking for it was before that senior prom. I found an envelope on my bed with a hundred-dollar bill in it and a note that read:
TAKE A GIRL OUT FOR THE TIME OF HER LIFE
. He knew, or at least suspected. But I guess that isn’t the same as being told.

The weird thing was he seemed to take it as a reflection on himself, not me. “Too much time with his mother,” he muttered, turning his eyes skyward. “Never had to work for anything. Not like I did.” I didn’t know what that had to do with anything, but it seemed to make sense to him. Mother was okay till he spewed out, “You had to push him into all those plays, didn’t you? Singing lessons? My God, it’s no wonder.” Mother broke down at that point—and I left. I already had an apartment lined up for the summer, and a job. I didn’t need this crap. Not from the people who brought me into the world.

Things got better with my mom. After about a month, we started meeting on the sly—having lunch together at the Institute of Art or window-shopping on the Magnificent Mile. But I haven’t spoken to my father in years. The few times I’ve seen him, he just stares at me, examines me like some awful black blot, like I’m a stain on his shirt. He never says anything. Not even hello.

A few months ago, I went to the funeral for my friend Gary’s father. He held it in till everyone went home, then cried like a baby all night long.
You can’t imagine what it feels like,
he kept saying.
I mean, you’ve known your father all your life. He’s a part of you. And then, one day, he’s gone. It changes everything.