Mark Gimenez - The Color of Law

Bobby said, “Can you believe those civic boosters, actually thinking the Summer Olympics might come to Dallas? Half the athletes wouldn’t make it out of this blast furnace alive.”

A block later, Bobby said, “Used to be whorehouses and saloons all up and down Main Street. Doc Holliday practiced dentistry and killed his first man right here.”

And later: “You know Bonnie and Clyde grew up here? They’re both buried here. Clyde’s grave is over in West Dallas. I don’t know where Bonnie’s is at.”

They walked like that, Bobby giving Scott a brief history of Dallas and Scott responding with only nods and grunts the same as if he were listening to Rebecca telling him about her day. They arrived at Dealey Plaza on the western edge of downtown, a tiny triangle of green grass wedged between Houston, Commerce, and Elm streets, the Triple Underpass to the west and the School Book Depository and the grassy knoll to the north. The place remained exactly as it had been on November 22, 1963.

Bobby said, “You ever been up to the Sixth Floor, looked out the window?”

Scott shook his head.

“No way Oswald did it alone,” Bobby said. “Had to be a shooter on the grassy knoll. You want to go over?”

Scott shook his head again.

Bobby pointed down the street. “Right over there, that’s where Ruby shot Oswald, down in the basement of the old jail.”

Scott grunted. Oswald shot Kennedy, Ruby shot Oswald, Shawanda shot Clark, Scott shot Mack. It was a thought.

Bobby said, “Right here, this is where Dallas got started, a hundred and sixty years ago, at the exact spot Kennedy got shot. Kind of creepy, ain’t it? Anyway, guy named John Neely Bryan set up a trading post right on the banks of the Trinity River-you know it used to run right here? Every spring it flooded downtown, so eighty years ago the city leaders moved the whole damn river a mile west, built big levees so it wouldn’t flood downtown. Course, ever since it’s flooded black people’s homes in South Dallas. They didn’t build levees down there.”

They started back toward Dibrell Tower.

Bobby said, “People that started Dallas, they were running from their creditors back East. ‘Gone to Texas,’ they said, which is like saying ‘chapter seven bankruptcy’ today. They figured their creditors might be brave enough to chase them into Indian territory, but they sure as hell weren’t stupid enough to follow them into this hellhole.”

When they arrived at the six-story Neiman Marcus flagship store at Main and Ervay, Scott stopped and watched an old homeless woman pull her shopping cart full of junk over and admire the window display, designer clothes on skinny white mannequins, while inside the fine ladies of Highland Park were attending the Estee Lauder Focus Week, or so the sign in the window said. The old lady looked up at Scott and gave him a big toothless smile.

They walked on and Scott began to notice the other strange people populating downtown, the people who walked the streets amid the heat and the noise and the nauseating exhaust fumes of buses and cars, so thick in the air he could taste it, the vagrants and the panhandlers, the old women without teeth and the old men with beards, Hispanic girls with little children in tow, black boys looking tough, and the cops walking the beat. There was another world down here on the streets. Driving by in his Ferrari, Scott had noticed these people no more than he did the inanimate objects of downtown, the light poles and parking meters and trash cans. His life was lived 620 feet up, in air-conditioned comfort. Scott was terribly uncomfortable down here on the street. Bobby was passing out business cards.

“What the hell are you doing, Bobby?”

“Trolling for clients, man. Scotty, I’m a street lawyer and this is the street. You look at them and see homeless people, vagrants, dime players, bottom-feeders-I see clients! This is my Downtown Club.”

Bobby quickly realized his error.

“Shit, I’ve been trying my best for an hour to get your mind off that, now I bring it up. Sorry.”

But Scott’s thoughts had already returned to his perfect life sixty-two stories above them. He now knew that Mack McCall was not going to beat Scott Fenney senseless with brass knuckles. He was going to do something much worse. He was going to take Scott’s perfect life away.

That feeling of impending doom enveloped Scott Fenney.

If she made this putt, Rebecca Fenney would finish with a 74, her lowest score ever. She stood behind the ball and took two practice strokes, then walked over and assumed her putting stance, carefully placing the putter behind the ball and adjusting her weight until she was comfortably balanced. She knew Trey, the young golf pro whom she was paying $500 for today’s playing lesson, was watching her closely, but he wasn’t eyeing her putting stroke. He was eyeing her butt. He always managed to stand directly behind her when she putted.

Trey had already holed out for a 62. He was twenty-six, gorgeous, and a former All-American golfer. He had just received notice from the PGA that he was eligible to play in the remaining tournaments that year. This was his last week at the club.

She made a smooth stroke, sending the ball on a true line six inches outside the cup, and watched as the ball broke left and rolled into the hole.

“Yes!”

Trey walked over to her. They high-fived on the eighteenth green of the country club. He looked at her like he always did, and she saw the need in his eyes: he needed her more than life itself. They had been having sex for the last seven months.

They turned and walked up the grassy slope to their cart and climbed in for the short drive to the clubhouse. Trey parked the cart, and the black bag boy appeared.

“Your car be the black Mercedes coupe, Miz Fenney?”

“What?”

“Your car, it the black coupe?”

“Yes, what about it?”

“Make sure I take your clubs to the right car.”

“Don’t take my clubs to my car. Put them in the clubhouse, like always.”

“Mr. Porter, he tell me take them to your car.”

“Why?”

He shrugged. “Don’t know, ma’am.”

Rebecca turned to Trey. He shrugged. She walked inside the clubhouse, into the golf shop, and directly to the head pro’s office, where Ernie Porter was sitting. Ernie couldn’t make it on the pro tour, so he had spent the last twenty years giving golf lessons, running tournaments, and pocketing a percentage of every club, golf ball, and pair of shoes sold in the pro shop.

“Ernie?”

He looked up. “Yes, Mrs. Fenney?”

“The bag boy, you told him to take my clubs to my car?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Why?”

“If that’s inconvenient, Mrs. Fenney, I’ll have them delivered to your house.”

“I don’t want my clubs at my house. I play here every day.”

Ernie suddenly appeared sick. “Mrs. Fenney, you don’t know?”

“Know what?”

Ernie shuffled some papers, squirmed in his chair, then said, “Your husband, Mr. Fenney…Well, he’s…He’s, uh…He’s no longer a member here.”

“ What? We’ve been members for four years.”

“Well, technically, Mrs. Fenney, your husband is the member. You have playing privileges as his spouse. Since he’s no longer a member, you no longer have privileges. It’s in the bylaws.”

“Since when isn’t Scott a member?”

“Since today.”

She found her husband sitting at the kitchen table, their daughter cradled in his lap and sobbing into his shoulder as he stroked her braids. Pajamae was sitting across the table, her face glum, her chin resting on her hands on the table.

“Mother, Consuela’s gone and she’s never coming back!”

Rebecca put her hands on her hips and tried not to scream.