Chapter 10 - THE ACCOUNTABILITY DAVID DIDN’T WANTDavid wanted Harold to forgive Leon.
Harold refused to answer.
Not because bitter.
Because Leon dead.
“What good?” Harold asked.
David stared.
“For me.”
“There.”
“What?”
“You want me to forgive your father so you can stop being angry.”
David flinched.
Harold continued:
“You’re allowed anger.”
“I don’t want be.”
“That doesn’t matter.”
David laughed bitterly.
“You always talk like this?”
“Old age. People stop inviting you if you talk too much, so you learn use fewer words.”
Miles smiled.
David did not.
“I spent my whole life thinking Dad was framed.”
“He was partly.”
“What?”
“Public said he threw game intentionally. I don’t know if he did.”
“You were there.”
“Yes.”
“Did he?”
Harold looked away.
“Leon made three bad plays late.”
“I saw.”
“Were they deliberate? He never admitted.”
“Bookmaker?”
“Said only spread.”
“So Dad may have thrown?”
“Maybe.”
David’s pain returned.
Harold said:
“He was scared. Fear ruins judgment.”
David whispered:
“My surgery.”
“Yes.”
“Did you hate me?”
Harold stared.
“What?”
“For being reason.”
“No.”
“Never?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“You were five.”
David laughed through tears.
“Seems obvious.”
“Many obvious things take years.”
Miles listened.
David asked:
“Did you visit hospital?”
Harold smiled.
“Yes.”
David froze.
“What?”
“Once.”
“When?”
“After surgery.”
“I don’t remember.”
“You were asleep.”
David stared.
“Dad let you?”
“Your mother.”
David’s mother Ruth died twenty years earlier.
“What did she say?”
Harold looked down.
“She knew?”
“Yes.”
David’s face changed.
“My mother knew?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“Leon told her after game.”
“And she never told me.”
“No.”
David stood suddenly.
“Everybody knew but me.”
Harold stayed seated.
David paced.
“My father. My mother. You.”
“Yes.”
“Samuel.”
“Later.”
David’s voice rose.
“You all decided what I could handle.”
“Yes.”
Miles watched.
This was deeper injury.
Not gambling alone.
Denied informed family history.
Harold said:
“You’re right.”
David stopped.
“What?”
“We were wrong.”
No defense.
Harold continued.
“Your parents feared losing your respect. I feared breaking promise. We made your truth about our comfort.”
David’s anger lost target.
He sat.
“You should have told me.”
“Yes.”
“How many times can I say?”
“As many as needed.”
Miles thought of own interaction.
He had called Harold useless without knowing.
David called traitor without knowing.
Leon called silence protection.
Everyone measured others with incomplete information.
David whispered:
“I don’t know what to do with Dad now.”
Harold answered:
“Same thing you did before.”
“What?”
“Remember all of him.”
“He saved my life with dirty money.”
“He also raised you.”
“He hurt you.”
“Yes.”
“He built court with you.”
“Yes.”
“He lied.”
“Yes.”
David laughed sadly.
“You won’t simplify.”
“No.”
“Annoying.”
“I’m ninety. Privilege.”
They smiled.
Then Harold pulled folded small note from jacket.
He had brought Leon’s letter.
“I wrote response.”
David looked.
“To Dad?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Habit.”
“You going grave?”
“Maybe.”
Miles asked:
“What did you write?”
Harold handed.
Only three lines:
Leon,
I was angry longer than you knew.
I loved you longer than I admitted.
I wish we had both been braver sooner.
—H
David cried.
No word forgive.
No sainthood.
True.
Then Miles’s phone buzzed.
Jordan.
City Recreation Commission agenda.
Court renaming vote next month.
Corporate sponsor proposing “Valiant Performance Court.”
Old community name not recognized due lost plaque.
Miles showed Harold.
Harold shrugged.
“I told you.”
David looked at notice.
“Dad helped build that court.”
“Yes.”
“Why don’t you care?”
Harold’s face changed slightly.
“I care about why.”
“What?”
“If you restore name because history is true, fine.”
“And?”
“If you do because you need public absolution, don’t.”
Miles asked:
“How tell difference?”
Harold looked at him.
“Would you still do it if nobody applauded?”
Miles went quiet.
That night, Jordan proposed social campaign.
Miles stopped.
“No videos.”
“What?”
“No viral old-man shot. No ‘secret legend.’”
Jordan stared.
“You sure?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because that makes it about us discovering him.”
Miles looked at scanned 1974 newsletter.
“We need documents. Petition. History.”
Jordan smiled.
“You’re getting boring.”
“Apparently.”
They started research.
And what they found next changed the meaning of the court itself.
The original land had not been donated by city.
Leon Carter had personally guaranteed part of construction loan.
Harold Benson had covered final shortfall with nearly all his savings.
Neither man put that in newspaper.
They were not famous.
May you like
They were trying to give neighborhood children somewhere to play.
And sixty-seven years later, city was about to erase both names because nobody had bothered to check why they were there.
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