Those Bones Are Not My Child Read Online Free PDF

staking out private airports in the area. Both the ATF and narcs crossed the paths of INS agents. Immigration and Customs came into the picture in the fall of 1980. Violations of the Arms Export Control Act had been reported in Florida, Georgia, and Texas. Those in Atlanta were keeping watch on the comings and goings of international right-wing terrorists who’d been issued visas by the State Department to attend Stoner’s convention the weekend before the Black day-care center exploded.
    “Faulty boiler,” city hall said. Black vets, other community workers, as well as a number of tenants who’d spotted white men on the roof of the day care, said otherwise. “Not related,” said the six o’clock news, quoting the mayor and Commissioner Brown. But enough people felt a connection between the observation “white men on the roof” and the old question “Who would kill Black children?” to give the media a lead.
    “Clean bill of health,” came the announcement from the governor’s mansion in spring after a three-week look at Georgia Klans. “Hothead,” said the reporters, quoting no one in particular, in response to Julian Bond’s outrage over the “whitewash” report. “War,” screamed the
Thunderbolt
and other fascist rags of the region when the National Anti-Klan Network was formed in Atlanta. “No connection,” said FBI director William Webster later that spring as Black citizen groups all over the country were documenting incidents of bigoted violence. “No evidence of conspiracy,” as various fight-back groups demanded that the Justice Department check into and stop the escalation of attacks throughout the country based on race, class, gender/sex, religion, nationality, and sexual orientation.
    “Opportunists,” say the media when STOP persists in its efforts to ally with children’s rights lobbyists around the country. “Mercenary motives” and “limelight greedy,” the media says of the Atlanta parents. No one seems to remember anymore that prior to the arrest, a member of the Atlanta City Council, not totally persuaded by the Task Force version of the case(s), requested Lee Brown to submit by June 30 a list of all unsolved homicides in Atlanta. Suspect Wayne Williams was formally charged on June 22, making the report moot, as they say—that is, forgettable. Meanwhile, the slaughter continues.
    Your daughter calls you from the pool. You close the notebook, rise, and look. Arms spread, legs wide, she’s facedown in the water, in a dead man’s float. Can you applaud?
    A woman hands you the notebook you’ve dropped and you sit back down on the bench. Your daughter jackknifes under the water and kicks off. She swims under the rope like an arrow, surfaces, and turns to grin at you. Your joints settle back into position and you grimace a smile. Will you find your voice before she climbs out of the pool?

[ I ]

FIRST LIGHT AND THE
SHAPE OF THINGS

Sunday, July 20, 1980
    M arzala Rawls Spencer prowled the living room. With each step, the shag carpet bristled. The upholstery crackled when she brushed against the furniture. Each time she rounded the room, the pinned choir robe slung over the chair reached out, electric, clinging to the shivering hairs on her arm. At the door, she thought she might go out again to look up and down Thurmond Street. A smear of Brasso on the knob warned her hand away from the metal. The shock came when she turned and faced herself in the full-length mirror propped against the sewing machine.
    She leaned in, close to the mirror furry with grime. She had worried the fuzz escaping from her braids into corkscrews. Smudged mascara from the day before ringed her eyes like a raccoon’s. She looked feverish, her lips cracked and peeling, salt streaked across her breastbone. She looked about to boil over. He would stroll in, take one look, and know she had no good side to get on.
    She set the mirror behind the sewing table in case he burst in. The sweat-crusty piping of her