Wendy Hornsby - Telling Lies

“Don’t you remember me, Maggie?” Rowland asked again.

I shrugged. “You all looked the same to me.”

A guard inside with Aleda looked out at the crowd. “Say good-night, Gracie,” he said loudly as he began to roll a steel shutter over the cage opening.

“What’s he doing?” I asked Flint.

“Aleda’s being booked. She wants a little privacy when they take her clothes away.”

We were six feet from the cage and I called out, “Aleda!”

She looked up, confused at first. I did stand out from the suits, so she spotted me quickly. A smile lifted the deep creases in her face. I had always been the pesty little sister Emily’s friends barely tolerated. For that reason, I didn’t expect Aleda to be particularly happy to see me. But she obviously was. She moved to the metal grid and laced her fingers through it to block the shutter.

“Excuse me,” the guard said and tried to move her aside. “Maggot,” Aleda cried. “Thank God, you’ve come.”

Flint held Fay back and I ran. I reached for the grid and put my fingers over Aleda’s.

Aleda’s face pressed close. “Is Emily okay?”

“No,” I said. “Who would do that to her?”

“Any of them.”

“Tell me.”

The guard had managed to pry her hands away.

“Give us a minute,” I begged him.

“Sorry, lady, but that’s it for now. Wave bye-bye.”

A second guard held Aleda by the waist. She struggled against him and pleaded with me: “Be careful, Maggot.” I saw tears running down her face. “For Marc.”

The shutter slid over the cage and locked into place. Fay was beside me, looking defeated.

“You heard her,” I said. “She wants to talk to me.”

“I heard her,” Fay sighed. “Please. Wait until tomorrow. Aleda hasn’t had any sleep for seventy-two hours. She hasn’t been well and she’s exhausted. I need her rested for the arraignment tomorrow. You can see her in court at two. Go away now, and I promise, I’ll get you together after the hearing. Fair enough?”

“Fair enough,” I said. “I’ll see you in court.”

Flint had me by the elbow. “Come on,” he said. “I’ll take you home.”

I leaned against him. “You offered me a drink earlier.”

“Okay. Where do you want to go?”

“Emily’s. I have to change for midnight mass.”

It was almost midnightwhen Flint and I drove up outside La Placita church. The sidewalk in front was like a carnival from hell. The usual neighborhood loonies, always joiners, were out in force. I saw sandwich boards promising everything from salvation to direct communication with our Martian cousins. There were a few mainstream groups represented as well: pro-life pickets marched in a tight circle with placards denouncing Emily’s work in a family health clinic that provided abortions. I’d had too much input during the day to feel properly offended.

I thought I understood why Emily had made arrangements with Father Hermilio for a private memorial mass for Marc. Marc’s funeral had been such a media fiasco that some of our family hadn’t been able to get inside the church. There had been so many issues vying for attention-Emily’s indictment, the death of young Tom Potts, the heated-up Peace Movement generally-that it seemed Marc had been forgotten about.

There was a second reason. Emily felt responsible for Marc’s death. He had been fragged by his own men the day the international edition of Time with Emily’s face on the cover hit the stands in Saigon. She had spent her life in atonement.

We parked in the Olvera Street lot across the street and made our way through the crowd. I carried a brown paper shopping bag, its contents requested by Uncle Max.

The sanctuary of La Placita church was ablaze with candles. Flowers and pine boughs banked the altar. Above it all, stretched across the ancient domed ceiling, was a hand-painted paper banner: HERMANO Y HERMANA. Brother and sister, it meant. Emily had been infused into Marc’s service; in fact, she had overpowered him again. The irony of the scene struck me. Whatever her intentions, Emily had managed to stage her own media fiasco.

Flint wedged us down the packed aisle toward the front. I passed many familiar faces, a Who’s Who collection of activists and politicians-a former governor, the mayor, the left flank of the City council-and a goodly number of neighborhood folks. There was also a smattering of men wearing bits of military garb: cunt caps, field jackets, khaki shirts, buttons that proclaimed, VETERANS FOR PEACE. What I sensed among the assembled crowd was an air of expectation, more celebrity-watching than grief. I worried about their motives.

The church is very old and not very large. Ordinarily the place has a certain historic charm. But I wasn’t seeing it. Everything about La Placita seemed heavy, the three-feet-thick adobe walls, dark oak beams, gaudy religious paintings, the overused air. It all began to press in around me. I tried to get a breath, but the smells repulsed me flowers, burning wax, mold, people who live without plumbing.

Uncle Max and Lucas Slaughter were sitting together on the front pew whispering. They looked up when Flint and I approached. I gave Max the bag he had asked me to bring, and squeezed in between Lucas and Flint. My parents had declined to come, preferring to stay with Emily. I was thinking I should be with them instead of here among so many strangers.

When we were settled, Flint nudged my arm. “You okay?”

“Yes.”

“Brought you something.” Out of his coat pocket he pulled Mrs. Lim’s starched napkin, the one I had blown my nose into earlier. He must have picked it up when we went back to Emily’s apartment for me to change into my red suit. He pressed the napkin into my hand. “Just in case.”

“Thanks.” I was very touched. I folded the napkin and held on to it. “It was nice of you to bring me.”

He shrugged. “I would have come anyway. This way, I get a front-row seat.”

“You’re some tough guy, Flint,” I managed before I started to choke up. I kept my eyes on my hands in my lap, to avoid having to speak to anyone. I didn’t look up again until I saw Rod Peebles’s freckled hand on my knee.

“God bless you, Maggie,” he said, bending over me solicitously. “Sit down, Assemblyman,” Lucas whispered. “They’ve all had time to see you.”

Rod glared quickly at Lucas and made his way down the front pew, giving everyone a back pat or a double-fisted handshake. Very sincere. The change in the nature of the service seemed to have changed his mind about coming-more politically correct. I didn’t see where he finally sat.

Father Hermilio entered the chancel in his robes. He offered prayers in both Spanish and English. I wasn’t listening very closely to what he said. Most of it was from the ritual and I could respond by rote.

“In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen.” He made the sign of the cross; then he called on Uncle Max to join him. This was a surprise to me, though Max seemed prepared. He opened the bag I had brought and took out the khaki field jacket I had brought home from the hospital among Emily’s clothes. It was Marc’s jacket.

Max kissed me, hard, on the cheek as he rose. “I love you, Margot,” he whispered.

“Did Emily ask you to do this?” I asked.

He nodded. “We’ll be okay, kid.”

In the chancel, Father Hermilio embraced Max dramatically, then stepped to the side, leaving Max alone facing the congregation.

With a showy flourish, Max put on the field jacket. He was only a few feet away. I could see DUCHAMPS on the patch over the left pocket. There were Marine insignia on the breast and sergeant’s stripes on the collar. The jacket had been sent home from Vietnam with Marc’s few personal possessions.