“That’s him,” Darren repeats.
“This is what we always said we needed, Jay,” the Rev adds. “We just needed a name. Now . . . let the mayor put her money where her mouth is.”
Jay skims the article. In essence, it’s an OCAW love song to labor struggle and solidarity among working people. Mr. Car lisle Minty is quoted throughout the piece, saying that the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers Union “garnered a strong major ity vote in favor of a walkout with the ILA. And I, for one, believe in equal pay for equal work, that everybody ought to have equal opportunities to advance.” Minty goes on to say that he would not want a similar issue to divide his union, and therefore he and the other OCAW officers made a strong push to get behind the dockworkers.
Everything in the article, every word attributed to Carlisle Minty is in complete contrast to the violent picture Darren painted. Here, it says that Carlisle Minty is 100 percent behind the dockworkers . . . black or white.
Jay looks up from the newspaper article to Darren, looks into his eyes.
“You’re
“Yes, sir.”
“You tell the mayor to do something about this or we sue,” the father says.
Jay walks through their argument in his head, pictures himself telling all of this to the mayor. He runs it down two and three times and comes across the same crack in the logic. “You know, if you make a big deal out of this, make some public pronounce ments about this man, an officer in his union no less, beating up a young kid, spreading fear about the strike . . . you may end up sending the message that OCAW ain’t really down with this after all, that they might not go the distance in a work-stoppage situation. You’re already flying without the Teamsters. In a nego tiation, it may weaken your position.”
“I don’t want to cause no trouble,” Darren says in a childlike whisper, not wanting all this on his young head.
The elder Hayworth shakes his head. “I’m not backing down on this. The mayor said she needed a name, and we got a name. Somebody’s got to pay for what they did. If the police won’t han dle it, I will. I know who it is now.”
“Wait a minute, now, wait a minute,” the Rev says. “We not doing things that way, hear?” The elder Hayworth keeps shaking his head back and forth, arms pressed so tightly into his chest that Jay wonders how he can breathe. The Rev turns back to his son-in law. “Now, you said the mayor was sympathetic to what these men are trying to do. Give her the man’s name then. She said she would take it to the police. That’s all we’re asking.” Then he adds, point edly, “For now.” His voice is firm and crystal clear. “You hear me, son? Let the mayor know we aim to be taken seriously on this.”
Jay nods. “I hear you.”
Cynthia agrees to meet him at an address downtown, surprising him when he calls by saying, “We need to talk,” before he has a chance to. He hangs up his desk phone and tucks the front page of the
The streets downtown are like tiny rivers, the storm turning the city’s center into a grid of muddy, shallow creeks, much like the bayous that give Houston its nickname. The rain has not let up, not even a little bit. Jay squints through the wall of water coming down on his windshield, catching a clear snapshot of the road in front of him only once every few seconds as his wipers struggle to keep up. On his car radio, there are reports that some five hundred dockworkers are picketing with rain-soaked signs down at the port.
The address she gave is an alehouse on Travis.
Jay orders a sandwich inside the bar, which is full of dark wood and leather booths and smells like baking bread. He nurses a Coca-Cola while he waits for nearly twenty minutes, burning though two cigarettes, wondering what the mayor meant on the phone, what in the world she wants to talk to
When Cynthia finally walks through the door, their eyes lock, and Jay feels a strange, helpless sensation, as if he’s been struck dumb in her presence, as if he can’t move. He feels a prickly heat on his skin. He doesn’t know why she has this power still, to stop him in his tracks. Except that history is a funny thing. Fifty years from now, if they’re still walking around on the planet, if they should bump into each other on the street or in a bar some where, it’ll be just as this moment is now, like a key turning in a lock. They are each other’s history, capable, with just a glance, of unlocking hidden truths. She is his witness.
Cynthia slides onto the stool next to Jay.
They’re only a few blocks from city hall, but no one in the place seems to recognize her. Among the barflys and afternoon drunks, the mayor has found a little oasis of privacy. She knows the bartender by name. She orders a beer for herself and one for Jay. Some dark German brew t hat he would never have picked out for himself. But with Cynthia, this kind of shit comes with the territory. She steals a cigarette from Jay’s open pack on the bar top. Her nails are bitten past the fingertips, he notices, the pink manicure flaking off at the ends. She inhales, blowing smoke up into the air, the calf of her left leg brushing up against his. She doesn’t move it right away. “I didn’t think you’d see me again.”
From his jacket pocket, Jay pulls out the front page of today’s
“Right.” She nods, catching up.
“That’s the guy,” Jay says. “That’s the guy who did it.”
Cynthia picks up the torn newspaper clipping.
Jay watches her eyes drop to the bottom left, scanning the article just as he’d done earlier this morning. He catches the wrinkle in her brow, can almost guess what she’s thinking. When the mayor finally looks up, she has an almost comic look of incredulity on her face. She seems, honestly, on the verge of laughter. “You want to bring charges against the vice president of OCAW?”
“I want you to give this man’s name to the police department, tell them what happened, just like you said you would. It’s up to the D.A.’s office whether or not they want to bring charges.”
“But this doesn’t make any sense, Jay. OCAW’s all those men have, the only friend they’ve got. Why would
