Anton kept his eyes closed after he hung up with Delores, promising to phone her later that night, and continued to imagine the scene around the dinner table. William would probably draw Juanita out of her shell, so that her tight, awkward smile would loosen a bit around the edges when she spoke to him. Brad would treat her with his usual egalitarian, breezy charm, and she would blossom under his teasing. But she would remain shy and quiet around Katherine, casting appraising looks from below hooded eyes when she thought Katherine wasn’t looking. And Katherine would squeeze Anton’s hand under the table every time Juanita said something that made the others respond with soft, appreciative chuckles.
Anton was smiling to himself when the rapping at his window caused him to open his eyes. He turned his head and saw the window blocked by a uniformed state trooper. Muttering a soft “fuck” to himself, Anton rolled down the window, involuntarily running a hand through his hair. He craned his neck and looked up into a broad red face. “Hi, Officer,” he said, forcing a brightness into his voice that he didn’t feel. “I just pulled over to make a phone call.”
“Registration and driver’s license.” The voice was flat, slightly nasal.
“I need to explain something,” Anton said. His voice sounded strange, high-pitched to his ear. “The car belongs to a friend of mine. So it’s not in my name, okay? I’m visiting from up north, actually. I’m just here on—”
The gray eyes went hard. “I said, registration and driver’s license.”
“Yeah, yeah, sure.” To Anton’s mortification, he found himself fumbling as he reached for his wallet. The few times he had been stopped and frisked by the cops when he was a teenager, his family name had smoothed out any potential rough spots. Here, he knew exactly who he was—a lone black man with an out-of-town license in an expensive car that was not registered to him. Here, on a strip of highway in the middle of rural Georgia.
He watched his license disappear into the large beefy hand and sat staring ahead as the cop removed a flashlight and peered into the car even though it wasn’t dark. His mind was racing, anticipating what would come next—permission to conduct a search of the car—and whether he should allow it or not. He was out of his element here, a stranger in a strange land, and all his earlier affinity for the land of his forefathers had flown out of the window and was lying in the dirt at the side of the road. The small, narrowing eyes of the patrolman told him exactly who he was—he was a northerner, he was black, and he was guilty. Of what, he wasn’t sure. But he was pretty sure it didn’t matter, that on the side of a deserted highway, innocence would be only a formality.
Get a grip, he said to himself. Think. Tell him you’re the fucking attorney general back home, for fuck’s sake, if you think that will help. Although it could make matters worse. The uppity Negro and all that.
He was aware that he was inexplicably indulging in the worst racial stereotypes of the white southerner, but given the initial signs, he was not wrong. He mentally cataloged the clues: the curtness with which he had been asked for his license. The lack of pleasantries and the lack of “sir” that had followed the command. The unnecessary intimidation of the flashlight search of his car. No, he had not imagined the hostility in the patrolman’s posture, the presumption of guilt.
Anton waited with growing anger and dread as the officer went back to his patrol car to call in the license number. He had not lived the life of the average black male in so long that he had gone soft, lacking the sharpness that he would need to call upon now. He wanted to nip this incident in the bud, even if it meant accepting a traffic violation ticket, although what the cop would list as his offense, he hadn’t a clue. That was what he should’ve done, dammit, asked the man immediately what he was being questioned for. But the officer’s posture had been so curt and intimidating that Anton had meekly handed over his license.
It came to him as he sat there waiting. How often had an incident like this occurred in his mother’s life? How many such insults and humiliations had she endured? And how had she dealt with them? Had she smiled and cowered, as he had? Or had her eyes blazed with anger, the corners of her mouth turned down with scorn and hatred? As he remembered her large liquid eyes, the girl-like face, Anton’s heart pinched with regret. How had she done it, kicked her drug addiction and stayed sober in a world that seemed designed to break down women like her? A world where perhaps the sanest response was to lose yourself in a drugged stupor? What an iron will she must possess, what pools of courage must lie behind those gentle brown eyes. And the worst part was, her reward for a lifetime of self-discipline and hard work was so paltry. Pappy and David had worked hard, and so did Anton. But their efforts had such enormous payoffs—good salaries, wealth that reproduced itself, luxury cars, beautiful homes. What had Juanita Vesper earned in exchange for kicking a drug habit, for twenty-five years of sobriety, for decades of working in a small, hot restaurant kitchen? A free lunch hurriedly eaten in between customers. A small house on the outskirts of town that had been left to her by her blind mother. A car that ran but could stop any day. A solitary, almost reclusive life. No extravagant habits, no eating out, no trips to Europe. Did she even have health care? He had no idea. Carine was right. How did he bear it? How did he bear being the thoughtless, self-absorbed prick that he was? How had he not collapsed, how had his bones not cracked under the unbearable weight of his selfishness?
He knew that such thoughts would not help his situation, that they might make him combative when the officer returned, but without knowing it, he was sitting taller in his seat. In his job, he had put away hardened police officers for corruption, had faced off against members of the Mob and powerful high rollers on Wall Street. He was not going to be intimidated by an asshole patrolman with a red face and a southern drawl. Anton tapped his fingers impatiently on the steering wheel, and then struck by an idea, he dialed Beau Branson’s phone number, careful to leave the phone sitting on the passenger seat.
“BB speaking.”
“BB, this is Anton.”
“Anton. You run away with my plane? Where the hell—?”
Anton faked a chuckle. “Yeah, man. Can’t say I blame you. I’ll explain everything when I return. And I’ll make it right financially, okay? But BB, listen. I have a problem. I’ve been pulled over by a state trooper who may be suspicious about me driving a car not registered in my name.” He heard his voice tighten and hoped that Beau would pick up on the gravity of the situation without him having to spell out the obvious.
“Well, fuck,” BB interrupted. “Did you tell him who you are?”
“No. Not yet. He’s—He didn’t seem like he was in any mood to listen. He’s running my license right now. But I . . .” Anton looked around wildly, trying to find an identifying road marker to let BB know where he was. “I’m northbound on Route 25. About an hour away from a town called Thomasville. And I need to know—whose car have I been driving?”
He finally had BB’s attention. “Anton. Are you feeling—unsafe? Dude, what’d he pull you over for?”
Anton shook his head impatiently. “I don’t know. I’m hoping he’ll just give me a ticket and I’ll be on my way. And he didn’t. Pull me over, that is. I had pulled over to take a phone call from my mom. And next thing I knew, he was up my ass.”