Dreams from My Father - Barack Obama [112]
“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.”
“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