Mark Gimenez: Accused

"Ms. Dawson has nice cheeks," Boo said.

"Very nice."

"The ones on her face."

"Oh."

"She's got a crush on you, A. Scott."

"Really?"

"Big time, Mr. Fenney. During lunch, she'll mosey on over and say, 'Hi Boo, hi Pajamae,' you know, like she's just visiting. Then she'll get around to asking, 'So how's your father doing these days?' And I'll say, 'Oh, 'bout the same as yesterday, Ms. Dawson.' Then she'll blush like white girls do and say, 'Well, tell him hi.' She's got the hots for you, Mr. Fenney."

"She does?"

"A. Scott, we're at that age-we need a mother. Ask her out. Please."

"Oh, I don't know…"

Pajamae let out an exasperated sigh. "Man up, Mr. Fenney, and ask that woman out!"

Scott eased the Jetta up to the drop-off point. Ms. Dawson opened the back door for the girls then leaned down. She said, "Hi, Boo, hi, Pajamae," but she looked at Scott. The girls leaned forward and kissed Scott on opposite cheeks and whispered in his ears-

"Ask her!"

"Now!"

— then climbed out of the car and ran up the walkway to the entrance. Before she shut the door, Ms. Dawson stuck her head in and said, "Scott, if I invited you over for dinner this summer, would you come?"

He wanted to say yes, but he said, "No."

Her face sank.

"Ms. Dawson-"

"It's Kim, Scott. It's been Kim for two years."

"Kim. I'm sorry. I've got to work through some things first… my ex-wife…"

"How long will she own you, Scott?"

"I don't know."

She shut the door on him. Scott sighed and exited the school drive, cut over to Lovers Lane, and hit the Dallas North Tollway heading south toward downtown. He tried to put thoughts of Kim Dawson and Rebecca Fenney out of his mind and focus on a subject matter he knew more about than women: the law.

But he could not know that before the day was out his ex-wife would again assert ownership over his life.

In a courtroom on the fifteenth floor of the Federal Building in downtown Dallas, A. Scott Fenney addressed a jury of twelve American citizens.

"Forty-six years ago, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated just a few blocks from where you now sit. The world's press descended on this city and exposed the ugly side of Dallas: a police force that ran roughshod over black citizens… a district attorney who won white votes in North Dallas by sending black men in South Dallas to prison… a city known as the 'Southwest hate capital of Dixie'… a city run by rich white men who retired to East Texas on weekends to hunt and fish at the Koon Kreek Klub… a city President Kennedy himself described as 'nut country.' That was Dallas in nineteen sixty-three."

Scott stood before the jury of nine whites, two Latinos, and one African-American. Dallas was a minority-majority city now, but money still ruled. Money makes the law and the law protects the money; and lawyers protect the people with money. But not this lawyer. Not anymore. Scott was representing all residents of South Dallas in a class-action lawsuit against the City of Dallas. When he had left the Ford Stevens law firm-that is to say, when he had been fired two years before-Scott had gone to the other side, from representing corporations that pay to people who can't-not what most lawyers would call a shrewd career move; from representing those whom the laws protected to representing those whom the laws oppressed-the "dissed" of Dallas. The dispossessed, the disenfranchised, the disrespected.

And so it was that day.

"That image of Dallas shocked the world-including the business world. And above all other things, Dallas was a city of business, by business, and for business. So the rich white businessmen who ran Dallas decided to polish up the city's image.

"Back then, seedy bars, strip clubs, and liquor stores lined the streets of downtown. Those businessmen wanted to close the liquor stores, but couldn't; the stores were grandfathered under the zoning ordinance. So they struck a deal with the liquor industry: if they moved out of downtown, they could have free rein in South Dallas. Not in North Dallas where white people lived, but in South Dallas where black people lived.

"At the time, South Dallas was a thriving community of small businesses and families living in neat homes. Today, there are three hundred liquor stores in South Dallas-twenty-five stores per square mile-and South Dallas is a community of drunks, drug dealers, addicts, hookers, crack houses, and crime. And citizens are prisoners in their own homes, hiding behind burglar bars. There are no grocery stores, no shopping centers, no Starbucks in South Dallas. There is only liquor and hopelessness. That is the reality people in South Dallas live with every day. Those businessmen changed the image but not the reality of Dallas.

"But you can. You can change that reality today. You can get rid of the liquor and give the people of South Dallas hope. Right here and right now, you have the power to change Dallas.

"Those liquor stores are grandfathered under the zoning ordinance, just as they were in downtown. The only way to get them out of South Dallas is to buy them out-at a cost of one hundred million dollars. The city leaders say they want to redevelop South Dallas, but they just can't afford that price tag. It's the economy, they say. Of course, the city can afford billions for a convention center hotel, for the basketball arena, for the Trinity River project, for everything North Dallas wants, but they can't afford to get rid of liquor stores in South Dallas.

"One million people live in Dallas. One hundred million dollars comes to one hundred dollars per person. That's all. One hundred dollars per person gets rid of every liquor store in South Dallas. One hundred dollars gets rid of the drunks and dealers and addicts and hookers and crack houses and crime. One hundred dollars frees the citizens of South Dallas from their prisons, allows them to remove the burglar bars from their homes and to rebuild their community. One hundred dollars rights this wrong. One hundred dollars, ladies and gentlemen. And you have the power to make it happen."

Scott spread his arms out to the courtroom like a televangelist at his podium.

"This is where regular people like you have power. This is where people like you can change things. This is where real change in America happens, in courtrooms just like this all across the country, by juries just like you. Juries that stood up to the tobacco companies and the drug companies and Wall Street and even their own government. Juries that had the guts to do the right thing. Juries that changed America and made our lives better. Juries just like you.

"This is your chance to change Dallas."

They didn't take the chance. An hour later-barely enough time for the jurors to go to the restroom, eat lunch, and take a single vote-the jury returned a nine-to-three verdict in favor of the City of Dallas. Nine whites versus three minorities. North Dallas versus South Dallas. Rich versus poor.

The story of Dallas.

Judge Buford dismissed the jury and motioned Scott back to his chambers then disappeared through a door behind the bench. Scott consoled the lead plaintiff, Mabel Johnson, a black woman who lived in South Dallas just east of the intersection of Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and Malcolm X Boulevard. She was a single mother. Her three young daughters walked to school past a half dozen liquor stores every morning and home every afternoon. She fought back tears.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Fenney."

"No, I'm sorry, Mabel. I'm sorry I couldn't make life better for you and your kids. For all the kids down there."

"Down there," as if she lived in Mexico instead of just a mile south of where they now stood. She reached up and touched his cheek.

"You're still my hero, Mr. Fenney."