Dreams from My Father

“We’re just doing renovation on this building, and after the contractors tore up one of the walls, they found asbestos on the pipes. It’s just being removed as a precautionary measure.”
    “Well…shouldn’t the same thing, the same precautionary measures, I mean, be taken in our apartments? I mean, isn’t there asbestos there, too?”
    The trap was laid, and Mr. Anderson’s eyes met mine. A cover-up would generate as much publicity as the asbestos, I had told myself. Publicity would make my job easier. And yet, as I watched Mr. Anderson shift around in his seat, trying to take measure of the situation, there was a part of me that wanted to warn him off. I had the unsettling feeling that his soul was familiar to me, that of an older man who feels betrayed by life—a look I had seen so often in my grandfather’s eyes. I wanted to somehow let Mr. Anderson know that I understood his dilemma, wanted to tell him that if he would just explain that the problems in Altgeld preceded him and admit that he, too, needed help, then some measure of salvation might alight in the room.
    Instead, I said nothing, and Mr. Anderson turned away. “No, Mrs. Evans,” he said to Sadie. “There’s no asbestos in the residential units. We’ve tested them thoroughly.”
    “Well, that’s a relief,” Sadie said. “Thank you. Thank you very much.” She rose, shook Mr. Anderson’s hand, and started for the door. I was just about to say something when she turned back toward the project manager.
    “Oh, I’m sorry,” she said. “I forgot to ask you something. The other parents…well, they’d like to see a copy of these tests you took. The results, I mean. You know, just so we can make everybody feel their kids are safe.”
    “I…the records are all at the downtown office,” Mr. Anderson stammered. “Filed away, you understand.”
    “Do you think you can get us a copy by next week?”
    “Yes, well…of course. I’ll see what I can do. Next week.”
    When we got outside, I told Sadie she had done well.
    “Do you think he’s telling the truth?”
    “I don’t know. We’ll find out soon enough.”
             
    A week passed. Sadie called Mr. Anderson’s office: She was told that the results would take another week to produce. Two weeks passed, and Sadie’s calls went unreturned. We tried to reach Mrs. Reece, then the CHA district manager, then sent a letter to the executive director of the CHA with a copy to the mayor’s office. No response.
    “What do we do now?” Bernadette asked.
    “We go downtown. If they won’t come to us, we’ll go to them.”
    The next day we planned our action. Another letter to the CHA executive director was drafted, informing him that we would appear at his office in two days to demand an answer to the asbestos question. A short press release was issued. The children of Carver were sent home with a flyer pinned to their jackets urging their parents to join us. Sadie, Linda, and Bernadette spent most of the evening calling their neighbors.
    But when the day of reckoning arrived, I counted only eight heads in the yellow bus parked in front of the school. Bernadette and I stood in the parking lot trying to recruit other parents as they came to pick up their children. They said they had doctors’ appointments or couldn’t find baby-sitters. Some didn’t bother with excuses, walking past us as if we were panhandlers. When Angela, Mona, and Shirley arrived to see how things were shaping up, I insisted they ride with us to lend moral support. Everyone looked depressed, everyone except Tyrone and Jewel, who were busy making faces at Mr. Lucas, the only father in the group. Dr. Collier came up beside me.
    “I guess this is it,” I said.
    “Better than I expected,” she said. “Obama’s Army.”
    “Right.”
    “Good luck,” she said, and clapped me on the back.
    The bus rolled past the old incinerator and the Ryerson Steel plant, through Jackson Park, and then onto Lake Shore Drive. As we approached downtown, I passed out a script for the action and asked everyone to read it over carefully. Waiting for them to finish, I noticed that Mr. Lucas had a deep frown carved into his forehead. He was a short, gentle man with a bit of a stutter; he did odd jobs around Altgeld and helped out the mother of his children whenever he could. I came up beside him and asked if something was wrong.
    “I don’t read so good,” he said quietly.
    We both looked down at the page of crowded