Small Great Things

Turk, at home after the death of Davis while Brit continues to recover in the hospital, dismantles the crib they will no longer need. He reflects on the changes his father-in-law, Francis Mitchum instituted in the White Power Movement, moving the movement underground: “And it turned out, it was even more terrifying to people to know we walked and lived among them unseen” (83). Then, angry, Turk shaves his head, revealing a swastika tattoo, after which Francis says, “You’re going to war” (84). They collect Brit, who is taking sedatives and grieving, and return home. In a flashback, Turk describes his growth as a recruiter for the Movement, seeking out community college kids with grievances, for a new division of NADS in Hartford. That night, Brit, looking into the empty nursery, worries that no one will remember Davis, to which Turk replies, “I’m not going to let anyone forget” (88).

The next day, Turk manages to get Brit, who took sedatives, to the hospital to talk to Carla Luongo, the hospital lawyer, who quickly suggests that, rather than suing the hospital, they should go after Ruth, “the individual who killed your baby” (90). Turk then flashes back to his arrest, because a lieutenant had meth in the car when they got pulled over, and his time in prison, when he actually had a black friend named Twinkie. However, he still maintained his views, despite his doubts.

After the hospital, Turk goes to the police station and presses charges against Ruth, and later he receives a call from the detective, MacDougall, in which he says they’d found bruising on Davis’s sternum, and will be moving ahead with a case. Turk thinks, “I can’t give [Brit] our baby. But I can give her the next best thing. Justice” (95). Continuing to oscillate between the past and the present, Turk remembers getting out of prison and going up against the lieutenant who had put him there, as well as the biker gang he’d taken up with, which re-established Turk’s reputation among the community: “I was the stuff of legend” (96). Then, in the present, they bury Davis, and for the first time since his death, Brit makes a gesture towards him, making him feel like “we will survive” (97). In the past again, his exploits got him an invitation to talk to Francis Mitchum, the legend of the “old guard,” and while at his house, he meets Brit, Mitchum’s daughter, and they first begin discussing the new evolution of the movement: establishing a presence on the internet.

After the funeral, there’s a gathering at Brit and Turk’s house. MacDougall stops by and Brit gets upset, thinking of the overt ways they used to channel their feelings—wilding and beating people up—versus the new version of “fighting behind a computer” (103). Turk thinks about how easy it would be to find Ruth’s address, but also how he’d go to jail and no longer be there for Brit, or for Davis’s legacy. So he goes out and beats up a white homeless man just to feel like he’s doing something: “I pound this stranger into someone who will never be recognized, since it’s the only way to remember who I am” (104).

Two weeks after the death of Davis, Ruth gets a call from Carla Luongo, the hospital lawyer, asking to meet. Once in Luongo’s office, Ruth goes over the details of the events of that day again, with Luongo asking her if she was angry and mentioning the comment Ruth had made about “sterilization” (107). As the questioning continues, Ruth tries to figure out what she should or should not say: “I can’t tell the lawyer that I disobeyed Marie’s orders, because it could cost me my job. But I can’t tell her I tried to resuscitate the infant, either, because then those orders suddenly seem legitimate” (107-08). She finally decides to say she never touched Davis, and intimates she could sue for discrimination. Luongo counters by implying that such a lawsuit would end her career.

Directly after this meeting, Ruth’s shift starts and she has a nursing student following her. The first patient she interacts with mistakes the student, who is white, for the nurse in charge, and Ruth has to “let the frustration go” (110). After her shift, she travels to the city to visit her mother, who still works at the Hallowell’s caring for Ms. Mina, though Lou is older by two years. Ruth finds her polishing the crystal of the chandelier. Lou pries out of Ruth part of her problems, Ruth masking the rest behind the patient who mistook the white student for her nurse. Lou asks if she might have imagined it, and Ruth begins to doubt herself. The she hears Adisa’s voice in her head, saying “That’s just what they want: for you to doubt yourself. As long as they can make you think you’re not worthy, they still got you in chains” (114). Ms. Mina and Christina arrive then, and Christina tells Ruth that her husband is thinking of running for Congress. Their interaction reminds Ruth that she still can “connect, human to human, friend to friend” with someone different from her in a lot of ways (116). But at the end of the visit, as Christina calls Lou “family,” Ruth thinks of the ways in which this isn’t true.

At home, Ruth spends a brief moment with Edison, who is working on a class project and tells her about the black men from history he might do a report on, before reminding her she’s going to be late for her shift. She rushes to the hospital, but Marie tells her she can’t work because her nursing license has been revoked, and she’s escorted out. She goes to talk to Adisa, who is not surprised and suggests suing, but Ruth counters that it would cost money she doesn’t have. Adisa says that even if her white coworker friends have let her down, having a sister is forever. When Ruth gets home, she hides what’s happened from Edison. She gets a call from the union lawyer she’s contacted, saying that she’s being charged with a crime, and Ruth finally vocalizes that “They’re targeting me because I’m Black” (126). She falls asleep eventually, but is then woken in the middle of the night when police break down her door and arrest her, handcuffing Edison in the process because “[a]ll they see is a six-foot-tall black boy” (127).

After being processed and placed in a cell, Ruth is then taken into an interrogation room for questioning, with MacDougall and an Asian-American detective, Leong. At first, Ruth senses a possible ally in Leong, but as the questioning continues, she realizes that Leong “still thinks [she’s] at fault” (132), and Ruth asks for a lawyer.