parents, she was married, to a young man who worked as a store clerk by day but was training to be a minister; they
didn’t associate with people outside their church.
All this made her something of a misfit in the group, and I wasn’t sure she’d be tough enough to deal with the CHA.
But when I got back to the office that day, my secretary passed on the message that Sadie had already set up the
appointment with Mr. Anderson and had called all the other parents to let them know. The following morning, I found
Sadie standing out in front of the Altgeld management office, looking like an orphan, alone in the clammy mist.
“Don’t look like anybody else is showing up, does it, Mr. Obama?” she said, looking at her watch.
“Call me Barack,” I said. “Listen, do you still want to go through with this? If you’re not comfortable, we can
reschedule the meeting until we have some other parents.”
“I don’t know. Do you think I can get in trouble?”
“I think you’ve got the right to information that could affect your health. But that doesn’t mean Mr. Anderson is
gonna think so. I’ll stand behind you, and so will the other parents, but you need to do what makes sense for you.”
Sadie pulled her overcoat tightly around herself and looked again at her watch. “We shouldn’t keep Mr. Anderson
waiting,” she said, and plunged through the door.
From the expression on Mr. Anderson’s face when we walked into his office, it was clear that I hadn’t been expected.
He offered us a seat and asked us if we wanted some coffee.
“No thank you,” Sadie said. “I really appreciate you seeing us on such short notice.” With her coat still on, she pulled
out the legal notice and set it carefully on Mr. Anderson’s desk. “Some of the parents at the school saw this in the
paper, and we were worried...well, we wondered if this asbestos maybe was in our apartments.”
Mr. Anderson glanced at the notice, then set it aside. “This is nothing to worry about, Mrs. Evans,” he said. “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.”
barré
(Barré)
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