here beside me, Judy, and tell me what this brother of yours wants with an old black lady like me.”
Judy is eager to tell all.
“Well, my brother … my brother Jon of mine is … is like Mr. Perry Como.”
I roll my eyes and groan.
“Does he sing then?”
“No … no wait. I mean … I mean to say, he is like Mr. Perry Mason.”
Damn those reruns. “I’m not like Perry Mason at all. I’m …”
“My brother talks to people to see … to see if they have … have done something wrong.”
“I see.”
Some sidekick she is. The Lone Ranger would have never put up with this from Tonto.
“But he does … does not put them, I should say, into jail.”
“That’s comforting.”
“Because, you see, he is not an off … an officer of the law.”
“You might say he’s more like a snitch, then, Judy? Would that be right?”
“Why, yes. That sounds right.”
Then Judy smiles at me as though to say, “I’ve done what I can for you, Jon. Now you’re on your own.”
“So, Mr. Mote, how can I help you?”
I want to say, “You can shoot me and put me out of my misery,” but say instead, “I feel like I need to explain.”
Ms. Jackson laughs softly and puts her hand on my forearm.
“Mr. Mote, Judy and I are just playing the dozens with you.”
Another smile and a nod from Judy.
“I think I know why Mrs. Pratt asked you to look into her husband’s death. I would have done the same. And I also know I can’t be of much help to you. I got upset that night and did something I’m not proud of. I was raised to be respectful of other people and their views and I should have been more respectful of Dr. Pratt.”
“Had you ever met Dr. Pratt before?”
“No, but I have benefited from his kindness.”
“How so?”
“I spent most of my adult life working in low-level office jobs. When my last child left home, I decided I had time to better myself. And so I went back to school and finished my college degree and then went straight on and got a master’s, and then I landed a job here at Metro and I’ve been here ever since.”
“I would … I would like to say … con … congratulations to you, Ms. Verity Jackson. I would.”
“Thank you, Judy. I appreciate that. And I got my master’s at the university. I never had a class from Dr. Pratt. In fact, I never even saw him while I was there. It’s a very big department, and I had no time to go to events or socialize, and for at least one year he was on a study leave in France.”
I remember hearing about that year in France from Pratt himself when I was a student. He talked about it a lot. Said it changed everything for him. It was the year he wrote his breakthrough book. He went away a junior member of the department and came back a rock star in the making. So Ms. Jackson had been at the university only a few years before I came, though apparently she’d arrived both older and wiser than I had.
“I won an award for my master’s thesis that year. Dr. and Mrs. Pratt had established a prize for the best thesis each year by a disadvantaged student. It meant a lot to me. It gave me a shot of confidence and a thousand dollars to boot. I remember Mrs. Pratt presented the award to me at a small ceremony. Dr. Pratt was still in France. But she was very kind and told me to keep up the good work.”
“That’s what … what Sister Illuminata says when I clean the kitch … that is, the kitchen. Keep up … the … the good work, Judy, she says to me.”
Ms. Jackson puts up her hand for a high five and Judy slaps it, then rocks back, rubbing her hands together in delight.
“I wrote to Dr. Pratt, thanking him for sponsoring the award. He replied with a very kind and encouraging letter and an offer to help me in the future. Actually, he helped me get this job here at Metro. Put in a good word for me. I owe both him and Mrs. Pratt a lot.”
I don’t know exactly how to ask the obvious. If she was on such good terms with Dr. Pratt, why did she make a scene at the end of his talk? Ms. Jackson moves on to the issue without any prompting.
“Yes, I owe him a lot. But in that speech, and, I have to say, in his books too, he asks too much.”
“How do you mean? Maybe I’m missing something, but didn’t he talk a lot about things like deconstructing systems and hierarchies of power in order to free people of color from bondage, and women from patriarchy, and … someone or other from something or other?”
“Yes, he did. And there was time in my life when that would have been enough. I would have clapped and cheered with the rest of them.”
She looks out over the park and it becomes clear that she is seeing something I can’t see.
“Let me just tell you a bit about this park, Mr. Mote. It’s called Loring Park now, but it used to be called Central Park. We’d come here for picnics when I was a little girl. It wasn’t a place where a black family felt welcome back then. I’m just giving you a little history here. But my mother was the kind of woman to eat her fried chicken wherever she wanted, and this was one of the places she wanted.”
“I … I should say … I like fried chicken.”
“When I was a little older, I used to come here on dates. I got my first kiss under that big oak over there. Wasn’t everyone glad to see us in the park even then, but we weren’t necessarily glad to see all of them either.
“And they weren’t any happier to see us in the sixties when we came to this park to demonstrate for civil rights and against the war.”
Why is she telling me this?
“Then later there were the Take Back the Night rallies. I remember us holding burning torches and listening to speakers and trying to get back that feeling from the sixties and not quite succeeding. But at least we made it clear that we thought a woman should be able to walk around outside after dark. Like I say, I’m just giving you a little history here. Do you understand?”
“I understand.”
But I don’t understand at all. What does any of this have to do with Pratt, who would have agreed with every cause she mentioned and a dozen more?
“You see, Mr. Mote. This park is full of stories for me. And it’s only one place of many. I’m nothing without my stories. I need them all and I need them to be strong and life-sustaining things. How can they be strong, Mr. Mote, if they fall apart so easily in the hands of people like Dr. Pratt? Did you hear how he was going to undo empire and patriarchy and homophobia and every other
