Mark Gimenez - The Color of Law

But Bobby copped a plea: fear. “Shit, Scotty, East Dallas is scary enough for me,” he said. “Fat white dude like myself, I wouldn’t last five minutes in South Dallas. Sorry, man, but no way I’m risking my life for fifty bucks an hour!”

So it was that on the second day of July and the first hundred-degree day of the summer, A. Scott Fenney, Esq., $750,000-a-year corporate partner at Ford Stevens LLP, found himself driving a shiny red Ferrari 360 Modena slowly through a grim public housing project in South Dallas, past the rhythmic pounding of loud rap music and the glares of tough-looking young black men, and feeling as if he were driving a flashing neon sign that screamed CARJACK ME! Scott had played football with black teammates at SMU fourteen years ago, but he didn’t figure that would count for much with these guys. Without conscious thought, Scott slid down the leather seat until he could barely see over the steering wheel.

Thirty-six years Scott Fenney had lived in Dallas and not once had he driven into South Dallas. White people drove south of downtown three times each year and only for events held within the gated Fair Park grounds-the State Fair, the Oklahoma-Texas football game, and the Cotton Bowl game-being careful to stay on the interstate, to take the Fair Park exit, and to drive directly through the park gates without detour or delay. White people never drove into South Dallas, into the neighborhoods and mean streets of South Dallas, into the other Dallas of crime and crack cocaine, prostitution and poverty, drive-by shootings and gangbangers, into black Dallas, where a white boy from Highland Park driving a $200,000 Italian sports car was considered neither welcome nor very smart.

But here Scott was, parking in front of a concrete block building euphemistically called a “garden apartment” by the housing authority, although not a blade of grass much less a garden was evident to Scott’s eye. He cut the engine and was working up the courage to get out-the Ferrari had attracted a crowd-when the sun was suddenly blocked out by a Dallas Cowboys jersey on the biggest black man he’d ever seen on or off a football field. Black knuckles rapped against the blacked-out window. Scott lowered the window an inch.

The jersey moved down until Scott saw wide shoulders, a thick neck, and finally a broad black face. The man lowered his sunglasses and peered in.

“You the lawyer?”

“What?”

“You Shawanda’s lawyer?”

“Yeah.”

“You here for Pajamae?”

“Yeah, how-”

“Shawanda call me. She figured you might need a, uh…chaperone, if you know what I mean.”

Scott knew what he meant. He looked out both sides of the car at the crowd looking in, black women-girls really-with babies on their hips and toddlers clutching their thick legs and muscular black males, and he thought of Fight Night, the last time he had been in such close proximity to strong young black males. Started during the depths of the great Texas real-estate bust when the Dallas real-estate community desperately needed a distraction, Fight Night had become an annual tuxedo tradition: a boxing ring was set up in the swanky Anatole Hotel and black boxers were brought in to beat themselves senseless for the entertainment of rich white men smoking big cigars, eating thick steaks, drinking hard liquor, and playing patty-cake with beautiful young models hired for the night. Scott remembered thinking that the black boxers might be has-beens in the professional ranks, but they could KO every white guy in the joint with one punch-and probably wanted to.

Scott put on his glasses, not to appear smart, but in the hope that these black guys wouldn’t beat up a white guy wearing glasses. He took a deep breath, opened the door, climbed out, and stood pressed against the Ferrari. He felt his face flush and heard the big man’s voice boom out:

“Y’all back off, give the man some room! He’s the lawyer!”

The crowd eased back several steps. Scott exhaled with relief, then inhaled the air, which felt even hotter down here, not a whiff of breeze or a tree in sight to offer shade from the sun, its full force seemingly directed down on him. Beads of sweat popped out of the pores on his forehead like popcorn and his starched shirt stuck to his skin. He glanced around at the gray bunkerlike buildings, the gray dirt yards, the gray concrete landscape, and the black residents, a strange world in the shadows of the downtown skyscrapers. If Scott’s office faced south, his view would be of these projects, hence, the preferred northerly view, toward white Highland Park. Only five miles of pavement separated these projects from Highland Park, but the black kids plastering their faces against the Ferrari’s windows to catch a glimpse of the plush leather interior might as well have been living in China.

“That a fine ride, mister,” one black boy said with a wide grin.

The big man said, “I’m Louis.” He gestured at the crowd. “Don’t mind all them. We don’t get many lawyers down here.”

Louis stood maybe six six and weighed well over three hundred pounds. His huge hands dwarfed Scott’s. So Scott didn’t offer to shake hands; instead he said, “Scott Fenney,” and handed his card to Louis, who examined it intently.

“What the A stand for?”

“Nothing.” Scott pointed a thumb at the Ferrari. “Maybe I should wait in the car.”

Louis said sternly to the boys: “Touch that car, you answering to me.” Then he smiled at Scott and said, “Car be okay, Mr. Fenney.” Louis turned and the crowd parted. Scott followed Louis a few paces up the sidewalk, but Louis abruptly stopped and turned back. “Still, you might wanna lock it.”

“Oh, yeah.”

Scott dug the keys out of his pocket and beeped the Ferrari locked and one of the boys said, “Aw, man!” Scott turned and followed Louis through a gauntlet of shirtless young black men bouncing basketballs so hard against the concrete it sounded like high-powered weapons discharging- boom boom boom. Their torsos were knotty with muscles and glistening with sweat, their sinewy arms etched with barbed-wire tattoos, their expressions sullen. They were wearing long shorts hung low on their hips and those $100 Nikes Scott couldn’t afford as a boy and looking on Scott Fenney as prey, which no doubt he would have been but for the presence of Louis. Scott avoided direct eye contact with them like they say to do with wild animals for fear of inciting them. He wanted to cut and run back to the car and drive full throttle out of here. But he’d never make it to the Ferrari: the image of a pack of wolves pouncing on a fat little rabbit flashed through his mind. So he closed the gap with Louis and followed in the black man’s shadow. And he had to admit to himself, he who had never felt fear on a football field felt it now. Scott Fenney was terrified. By the time they arrived at apartment 110, Scott’s heart was beating against his chest wall like a jackhammer and he had broken a full-body sweat. Louis knocked on the door.

“Pajamae, it’s Louis.”

No answer. Louis knocked again. Still no answer. The front window was covered with thick drapes inside and black burglar bars outside. No light was visible from within the apartment.

“Maybe she’s not home,” Scott said.

Louis’s body shook with a chuckle. “She home all right. She afraid to come outside. Don’t even open the windows even though ain’t no air-condition in there. She ain’t come outside since Shawanda arrested.” He leaned down and lowered his voice and said, “It’s a good thing you doing, Mr. Fenney, taking Pajamae to see her mama.”

Scott’s mind was busy considering his chances of making it back through the gauntlet alive so the words, “Why didn’t you?” were out of his mouth before he realized what he was saying. But Louis didn’t react angrily. Instead, his big round face folded into a gold-toothed smile.