Tim Sandlin - Social Blunders

I was more than a little uneasy about this meeting with Atalanta. I’d hurt her unnecessarily and deserved any scathing accusations she wanted to hurl. But, sitting in the Sunday morning quiet of the park, I was even more uneasy about the direction my life was headed.

People who mattered—Maurey, Shannon, Gilia—were being shortchanged, emotionally speaking, while people who didn’t matter—Katrina, the fathers, Wanda—were taking control.

I’ve had this recurring dream ever since college, where I’m in the backseat of a speeding car with no driver. I fight to reach the wheel as the car careens through crowded streets, killing people and animals. It flips children up onto the front hood where their faces flatten against the windshield and I can see their mouths open to scream. Real life was beginning to ache like that dream.

The double doors opened and people began coming out of the church—men in dark suits and women in shiny dresses. The worshipers were all black except two older women who seemed to be dressed alike. They had on blue hats and white gloves. A lot of people lit cigarettes. That’s one of the big differences between North Carolina and Wyoming. Most everyone in North Carolina—black and white—smokes cigarettes. Not many white people in Wyoming smoke, and there aren’t enough black people to tell what most of them do.

Atalanta Williams was one of the last ones out of the church. As she made her way through the groups of people, the thing I noticed was her posture. I imagine Eleanor Roosevelt had posture like Atalanta’s. Nearly everyone she passed smiled and said something to her. Atalanta said something back, but she didn’t smile.

I met her on the edge of the church parking lot. She held her white leather Bible in both hands. The red ribbon marked a place toward the back of the book, one of St. Paul’s letters or Revelations or something.

Atalanta looked toward the church. “I have to apologize for the way I behaved toward you and the young woman last week. It was inhospitable and un-Christian.”

“I’m the one who should apologize, Mrs. Williams. Had I known about your husband, I would never have come to your house.”

“Let’s find a bench.”

Atalanta didn’t speak again as we crossed the street back into the park and sat on a wooden bench next to a sumac. The amazingly bright leaves gave off a shimmery bonfire effect.

“The fall of our junior year, Jake played in a Guilford County all-star game,” Atalanta said. She sat very straight with her eyes not focused on anything present. “Jake had played against white boys before, but that was the only time he ever played on the same team with them. He thought it was a great opportunity, even though the Negroes had to come to the game already in uniform because they weren’t allowed in the white boys’ locker room.”

I decided not to say anything. My personal apology had been lame enough, without trying to apologize for the entire white race.

“After the game, Jake started spending time with some of the white football players. I didn’t like it much, and I must admit we had words. Jake seemed to think it was modern or hip or something. He bragged about introducing the white boys to John Lee Hooker.

“That Christmas I spent with my grandmother in Asheboro. The entire family went down and I had a fight with Papa over inviting Jake. Papa didn’t approve of Jake.”

“Fathers never like their daughters’ boyfriends.”

Atalanta didn’t comment, but you could see the past playing through her mind like a home movie. The fight with her father. The trip to Asheboro. I’ve had long periods of living in memories and it’s hard. Too many booby traps.

“When I came home, Jake had changed. He no longer spent time with the white boys, but he didn’t say why. I always thought they hurt him somehow—treated him like a human one minute and an animal the next. Those things happened quite often back then.”

She lapsed into another memory. I tried not to look at her for fear of intruding on her privacy. “We never talked about it and in a few months Jake was back to normal.”

A squirrel hopped toward us through the fallen leaves. He stopped about five feet away, cocked his head at an angle, and watched us through his left eye. The last of the cars pulled away from the church. The only car left in the parking lot was a gray-and-green Chevrolet that must have belonged to Atalanta.

Her eyes shifted from the past to her hands holding the Bible in her lap. “I think I could accept it if he’d only had sex with her.” Her right hand started to shake. “But I cannot bring myself to forgive him for rape.”

Atalanta’s hands were small, like Maurey’s. The left hand clutched at the right to stop it from shaking; I couldn’t conceive of her making a fist.

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Williams.”

“It changes everything.”

“I’m sure Jake was a fine man. He just made a mistake. Maybe the white boys called him chicken if he didn’t do what they were doing.”

Atalanta raised a hand to brush against her eyes, then lowered it onto the Bible again. “There is no excuse.”

“When you want to be accepted, you’ll do almost anything.”

“No.” She turned to look at me and I had to meet her eyes. “If you are Jake’s son, I want to know. You would be part of him and I cherish any part he may have left behind.”

“Do you think I am his son?”

She studied me a long time. “I don’t know.”

“I’d hoped someone would recognize something in me.”

She shook her head slowly. “I’ve held on as hard as I could, but after thirty years I mostly see him as he is in the photographs.”

She leaned forward a little bit and stared intently into my eyes. I didn’t look away or blink. After messing up so many lives, hers more than anyone’s, it seemed important to come to some conclusion, to discover who was my father so I could set the other four families free.

But Atalanta gave it up. She looked back across the street at the church and her eyes almost, but not quite, relaxed. “You could do worse than having Jake Williams for a father.”

“Of the five, he’s the one I’m hoping for.”

“If you find out, yes or no, will you tell me?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“I miss Jake every day.”

Gilia was the worst driver I’ve ever ridden with as a passenger, not that I’ve been a passenger too often. Her idea of merging lanes was to roll down the window, stick her hand out, and wave fingers at whoever she was cutting off, as if people don’t mind you barging in so long as you’re friendly about it.

“D.C. drivers are mythologically terrible,” she said. “Politicians and bureaucrats refuse to recognize the authority of the red light. I think that says something about our government.”

“The middle lane is for turning left.” She’d just pulled an illegal maneuver that caused a moving van to lock its brakes and honk and my testicles to leap skyward.

“I don’t make decisions that far in advance.”

We were driving to High Point in her Ford EXP in hopes of finding and stealing my Datsun 240Z.

“Why did you let Wanda take your car in the first place?” Gilia asked.

“She wanted it.”

“You always give women what they want?”

The answer seemed too obvious to say out loud. Besides, I thought one of us should concentrate on the upcoming intersection.

“Women must take constant advantage of you,” Gilia said. “I like that.”

We parked across the street from the address Wanda had given me several times as the place to send money.

“Kind of run-down, isn’t it,” Gilia said.

“I should save her from this dump.”

“She must have wanted to leave you real bad to move here.”