I decided on a different approach to get the answers I needed. I went to see my political science professor. Dr. Skurnik was somewhat of an intimidating man and demanded full concentration from every student in his seminars. He was from Germany and had immigrated to the United States before the war. I was put off by his gruff manner at first, by his German accent, but for some reason, maybe because I was the only colored person in the class, he extended his hand to me. After Rowland Tomlinson, I was wary concerning older men who took a seemingly helpful interest in me, but Dr. Skurnik had never asked or even suggested in his actions that he wanted anything in return, except that I be a good student.
“So, this is all of it?” Dr. Skurnik asked after reading the letters from the medical center. “And what do you want now, Miss Logan? What do you want to happen?”
“I want to know why they will no longer give me medical care.”
“Do you believe you know why?”
“Yes, I believe it’s because of my race. Everyone there had always been pleasant to me before. They did the operation on my wrist and they were fine then too. There was no reason for them not to see me. I’d paid my bill. I don’t know where all this other nonsense came from. I mean, it was out of the blue. I hadn’t felt this way in Colorado before. It’s an insult in a place I thought maybe was different. . . .”
“Colorado, with all its clean air and brilliant blue skies and all its mountain beauty?” There was mocking in Dr. Skurnik’s tone. I didn’t respond, and he went on. “So, what else do you want besides knowing why you are no longer welcome there? Do you want them to include you again, for you to be able to get medical treatment there at the center?”
“I think more than that, Dr. Skurnik, I want an apology.”
“An apology,” Dr. Skurnik repeated. “Maybe that’s what the world wants too.” He was silent for several moments, then suddenly stood. “Please, you stay here, Miss Logan.” He picked up the letters. “I need to see an acquaintance down the hall. I’ll bring these back to you.” He waved the letters as he went out the door.
While I waited for Dr. Skurnik to return I went to the window and gazed out at the grandeur of the mountains. I reflected on the hope they brought me when I first came through them, how I felt when I had seen them from the plains of Denver. I wanted to believe there was a promise of hope in them still. There was such splendor in this place, and a fairness in people like Dr. Skurnik, or so I thought; I also reminded myself that here I was, totally enmeshed in a white world. All around me, the people I had met in Boulder were white. There were Negroes in Denver, but I was in Boulder, a truly white town, where I wasn’t sure if there was even a handful of colored people, and I had reached out to a person from former Nazi Germany. I reminded myself that I had come to Dr. Skurnik for help, just as Mama and Papa and Big Ma had done with Mr. Wade Jamison. It was a matter of trust, and I had to trust someone in this matter.
When Dr. Skurnik returned, he was not alone. With him was a gray-haired gentleman whom Dr. Skurnik introduced as his colleague, Brad Buchanan. He invited us both to sit, then continued. “Don’t think badly of him, but he’s a lawyer.”
I smiled at that, and as we all sat, Dr. Skurnik behind his desk, and Brad Buchanan and I in chairs in front of it, Brad Buchanan turned to me and said, “I’ve looked at the correspondence—”
“I took the liberty,” Dr. Skurnik interrupted. “I thought maybe we needed a legal mind to advise about this matter.”
I looked from Dr. Skurnik to Brad Buchanon. “I didn’t say I wanted a lawyer.”
“I know, but whatever advice he offers will be gratis. He knows you’re a student.”
“Unfortunately,” Brad Buchanan went on, “the medical center is a private professional corporation and they can contend that they have a right to exclude or accept as patients anyone they choose.”
“So, there’s nothing I can do to find out why they excluded me or get an apology from them?”
“An apology is important to you?” asked the lawyer.
“Yes. And the reason why I was excluded. I can guess, but I want them to say it.”
“And what do you think that reason was?”
“I’m a Negro.”
Brad Buchanan rubbed his chin and took a moment before speaking again. “I’ll tell you what I’ll do, Miss Logan. I’ll write a letter to the center, to this director, and if he’ll see me, I’ll meet with him. Maybe they’ll tell me, but don’t get your hopes up about anything. I don’t know how far we can get with this, but I’ll surely do my best to represent you and your sentiments. All I need is your okay to proceed.”
“And that’s all gratis too, right, Brad?” Dr. Skurnik clarified.
Brad Buchanan nodded. “Yes. I’d like to get to the bottom of this myself and find out why they refused you.”
I studied these two white men sitting opposite me, awaiting my decision, and said, “All right, Mr. Buchanan, thank you. Go ahead. Write the letter.”
* * *
◆ ◆ ◆
It was more than two weeks before I heard back from Brad Buchanan. He met with me in Dr. Skurnik’s office and showed us the letter he had written to the medical center. He had met with the director of the center, along with the center’s lawyer, who said that the center was under no obligation to include me as a client and also was under no obligation to tell me why. They would not render an apology. The center’s lawyer had written a letter to that effect. Brad Buchanan told me, “You’ll be receiving a letter directly from the center concerning all this. I am truly sorry, Miss Logan, that this matter has not turned out as we all had hoped, but after you receive the letter, you let me know what you want my office to do.”
I looked at Dr. Skurnik for advice, but he offered none. I then looked back to Brad Buchanan. “What else could you do?”
“Honestly, I don’t know, Miss Logan, but new ground is being broken every day. Maybe nothing can be done, but who knows? Possibly you could sue on the grounds of discrimination, but that costs money and you most likely wouldn’t win. Just let me know.”
I nodded and we left it at that. When the final letter came from the medical center, it said what had been said before, “In review, we stand by all former decisions. You will not be allowed the services of this medical center.”
* * *
◆ ◆ ◆
Short. Curt. As painful as before. I read the letter over and over again, thought about it, was infuriated by it, frustrated by it, insulted by it, despondent about it, but in the end I decided to let it be. For now. For now, I couldn’t deal with it. Too much devastation was in my life right now to deal with it. I had to get on with my life, whatever it was to be, and it was clear to me it was not to be in Colorado, what I had seen as a promised golden land. For all its grandeur, all its promise, the people of Colorado were treating me the same as those in Wyoming, in California, in Iowa, in Ohio, in Mississippi, and in all the states up and down the Dixie Highway. Colorado, which in the short time I had been here I had grown to love, had put another dagger in my heart, which was already wounded from the loss of Flynn and our baby. Whatever had been revitalized by my being here, by some of the good people I had met here, was dissipated by the medical center’s actions toward me. It seemed I couldn’t win. I had long ago come to the realization that being colored was a full-time job in America, and I knew now it was a full-time fight, one I couldn’t win alone.