Black Water Rising

well.

Then he looks down at the street below.

There must be three hundred people on the street, maybe four. As good a turnout as he ever had, years ago. From a dis­ tance, they move as one, like a river, a living, breathing stream pulsing through the heart of the city. They are coming right for city hall. At the sight of Kwame’s march, Jay cannot help his smile. It wells up from someplace inside him he didn’t know was still there.

He can almost hear them through the glass.

Clap, clap.

The hands in the air.

Clap, clap.

The march of feet on pavement.

Clap, clap.

The rhythm that is in his soul.

Cynthia, the girl he knew, would have been down there too once. But the mayor, the woman standing beside him now, looks absolutely panicked. She turns to Kip and asks how fast they can put something together on the mall in front of city hall. She asks him to call the Post and the Chronicle. She uses the word pronto more than once, barking orders at some of the other staffers. Before long, it seems that everyone on the third floor is on the phone.

Cynthia turns to Jay. “If you had anything to do with this, I swear—”

Kip calls from a nearby desk, informing the mayor that the city news editor from the Post is waiting on the line. She shakes her head at Jay, giving him a look of reproach or terror, he can’t quite tell. Either way, she’s furious with him. Jay, on the other hand, is still smiling, watching as the mayor turns and runs back to her suite, skittering across the beige carpet in her high heels.

Chapter 25

“No one understands discrimination more than I do,” the mayor says from behind the podium. Outside in the August heat, she’s removed her red jacket and rolled up her sleeves just in time for the camera crews. “As a woman working in politics, I have cer­ tainly had to knock down my fair share of doors.”

Click. Click.

The news photographers snap away on the mall in front of city hall, where the mayor, to her credit, has managed to pull together a press conference in less than twenty minutes. She stands behind the podium, baking under the August sun, sweating through her makeup and the pits of her white blouse.

Jay stands down below, on the grass with the other marchers. He stands with Reverend Boykins and the kid Darren. With Darren’s father, Mr. Hayworth.

With Donnie Simpson and his wife and their three kids, the two girls in matching halter tops, the little one asleep on her daddy’s shoulder.

Jay stands with the dozens of dockworkers he met along the way.

He stands with his old friend Lloyd.

If Kwame Mackalvy is surprised to see Jay here, he keeps it to himself, offering Jay a brotherly nod and a place down in front if he wants it. Jay, feeling a part of something again, weaves through the crowd, feeling its restless energy. The men are almost punch-drunk with it. The crowd rocks back and forth, shifting its weight every few minutes, relieving aching feet. Someone is passing around an army canteen of cool water. Jay peels off his jacket and tie in the heat.

Traffic has slowed to a standstill on Bagby, rubberneckers leaned out of their front windows, exhaust fumes choking what little oxygen hangs in the humid air. The mayor’s coiffed helmet is drooping by the minute, and Jay gets the feeling that she is courting this disheveled image, that she wants to let the long­ shoremen and the news cameras see that she is not putting on airs here or concerning herself with her appearance. She is, Jay guesses, betting on the fact that when it comes to women, people often mistake homely for earnest. He is beginning to think she’s a better politician than he gave her credit for.

“I want to let you know, first and foremost, that I stand with you,” she says. “Since this whole overtime issue came to light down at the port, I have been working tirelessly to see how this conflict can spin us all in a new direction. ’Cause as the city’s first woman mayor and a longtime supporter of civil rights, I will accept nothing less. We will move in a new direction or history will move all over us and leave us behind. We stand still at our own peril.”

Click. Click. Click.

Early in, the cameras are the mayor’s only applause.

The marchers down below listen with their arms firmly crossed.

“I don’t know about you,” Cynthia says. “But I want more for this city.”

Behind her, Kip smiles on the dais. Jay wonders which words are his.

“And I am not alone,” the mayor says. “The Maritime Associ­ ation and the Port of Houston, the unions and the oil companies . . . we all want to see an equitable resolution to this thing, a way that everybody can win. I want us to reach Dr. King’s dream, where race doesn’t matter, where black men and white men can get equal pay and benefits, overtime and a chance at manage­ ment.”

Jay doesn’t remember that part of King’s speech.

But it’s no matter. The mere mention of Dr. King’s name causes a knee-jerk reaction in the mostly black crowd. There’s a sudden smattering of hand clapping and head nodding, an amen or two. Here it comes, he thinks. Here comes the seduction.

“And the only way for us to get there,” the mayor announces, “is to get rid of preferential treatment once and for all.”

The applause in the crowd grows from a smattering to a swell­ ing wave.