by Mark Gimenez
"And cable will make life easier for you?"
"Yes."
Scott had steadfastly refused their pleas for cable. But he now felt his resolve weakening: he couldn't give them a mother; he could at least give them the Discovery Channel. He was just on the verge of saying yes when he caught the girls grinning mischievously in the rearview. They were gaming him. Again.
"No."
"But we can't watch Sex and the City reruns like the other kids."
"Fifth-graders watch Sex and the City? "
"Oops. Forget Sex and the City. Think Discovery Channel."
"I was… and no."
She frowned as if pouting, but Boo Fenney wasn't the pouting type.
"She was wrong," she said.
"Who?"
"That lady on TV, she said girls should view conflict situations in personal relationships as opportunities to get what we want."
"Really?"
"Unh-huh. But she was wrong-it didn't work."
"Not with me."
"I didn't think it would, but I thought I'd give it a shot." Boo sighed. "Fudge."
"Boo, don't say fudge. Everyone knows what you're really saying."
"I like fudge," Pajamae said. "With pecans."
They arrived at the elementary school. Scott felt like the class loser at a high school reunion when he steered the little Jetta into the drop-off lane behind a long line of late-model Mercedes-Benzes, BMWs, Lexuses, Range Rovers, and just in front, a Ferrari… a shiny red Ferrari… a 360 Modena just like the one he used to drive… he looked closely at the car… that was the one he used to drive. He caught the driver's face in the side mirror.
Sid Greenberg.
When he was a partner at Ford Stevens, Scott had hired Sid out of Harvard Law School and taught him everything he knew about practicing law, but Sid now sat in Scott's sixty-second-floor corner office, represented Scott's rich real-estate client, and drove Scott's $200,000 Italian sports car. The ungrateful bastard. Scott could still smell the Connolly leather interior and feel the four-hundred-horsepower engine rumbling behind him. The Ferrari's passenger door swung open, and Sid's young son got out- Hey, that's cheating, letting your kid out before the official drop-off point! — so Sid could avoid waiting in line like everyone else. Scott shook his head. Typical lawyer. But when Sid turned his head to check for oncoming cars before pulling out, he had a big grin on his face, as if laughing at Scott driving a Jetta.
You laugh, Sid, but I'm saving a lot of money on gas.
Sid Greenberg had made the same choice Scott had made at his age. Two years ago, Sid had decided to check his conscience at the door each day and now he was driving a Ferrari. Two years ago, Scott had rediscovered his conscience and now he was driving a Jetta. Funny how that worked for lawyers.
"A. Scott, you need sex."
He eyed Boo in the rearview. " What? "
"You look stressed. Just then, you were frowning. Sex relieves stress."
"Where'd you hear that?"
"From Meredith."
"Who's Meredith?"
"On the Today Show, this morning."
"You girls need to watch PBS in the morning."
" Sesame Street? I don't think so. Anyway, Meredith said stress is a leading cause of heart attacks in men. So if you have sex you won't have stress and thus you won't have a heart attack… like Sarah's dad."
Bill Barnes, a lawyer Scott knew, had died of a sudden heart attack earlier in the school year. Little Sarah Barnes would grow up without a father. The girls had always fretted over their only parent's health-every blemish on Scott's face could be skin cancer, every headache a stroke, every memory lapse a sign of early onset Alzheimer's-their worries exacerbated by the relentless barrage of drug commercials on network television. Each new commercial brought a new medical worry for the girls. But since Sarah's dad, a heart attack had been their constant worry. They had recommended he take Lipitor to lower his bad cholesterol, Trilipix to raise his good cholesterol, Plavix to prevent his platelets from forming blood clots, and Crestor to prevent plaque from building up in his arteries. Sex, though, marked a new and more agreeable course of therapy. Unfortunately, it required more than a doctor's prescription.
"Don't worry, Boo, I'm not going to have a heart attack. I run every day, I still weigh one-eighty-five, my cholesterol's low-"
"Besides, it's embarrassing."
"What is?"
"You're tall, blond, handsome, you don't have tattoos-you're the hunk of Highland Park and you don't have a girlfriend. The other kids think we have a loser for a father."
"I don't think it's because I don't have a girlfriend."
"Suzie's stepmom, she looks like a supermodel, and her dad's not exactly the cutest puppy in the pet store. He's bald."
"He's a billionaire."
"Oh. Well, that explains it."
"Mr. Fenney, you need a woman."
"Like Ms. Dawson," Boo said.
Up ahead, Ms. Dawson, the fourth-grade teacher, was working carpool. Her jet black hair glistened in the morning sun. She couldn't be older than twenty-eight, maybe twenty-nine. Scott had thought of asking her out, but it hadn't even been two full years since Rebecca had left him. Still, Ms. Dawson was very attractive in her form-fitting blouse that accentuated her narrow waist and her snug slacks that-
"Ms. Dawson would probably have sex with you."
"You really think so?" He caught himself. "I mean, Boo. "
The girls giggled. They knew all about sex now. Fifth-grade health class. Which was a blessing; Scott didn't have to have the talk with them, just as his father had never had the talk with him. His mother had said to his father at dinner one night, "Butch, it's time you had a father-son talk with Scotty. You know, about sex." Butch Fenney had turned to his son and said, "Don't have sex. Pass the potatoes." But sex was more complicated these days and more dangerous. Sex can kill and eleven-year-old girls were having babies, so kids had to know the truth. Explaining the facts of life to girls was a mother's job; but they had no mother so the job had fallen to their father. Just when Scott had bucked himself up to do it-he had even bought a book-the girls had come home armed with all the facts. Thank God. A major single-father hurdle had been cleared.
"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.
THREE
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."
"I lost."
"You tried."
Mabel embraced him then walked out of the courtroom. Scott sat on the plaintiff's table and stared at his shoes. He no longer represented the trophy clients of Dallas, rich people who bestowed social status on their lawyers; the mere mention of his clients' identities at bar association meetings typically evoked perplexed head shaking or muffled laughter from other lawyers. He no longer worked the margins of ethics and the law, that gray area where a lawyer's money is made; nor did he make much money. He no longer practiced law like he had played football. For one thing, he no longer viewed the law as sport; for another, he lost. A. Scott Fenney was not a man accustomed to defeat, either on the football field or in a courtroom. Two years before, in this very courtroom, he had experienced his greatest victory as a lawyer when the jury had returned a "not guilty" verdict for Pajamae's mother. But the last two years had brought defeat into his life.
He had tried to make a difference. He had failed.
Another pair of shoes now entered his field of vision-brown wingtips-and Scott knew whose feet were in them before he heard the familiar voice.
"Hell of a closing argument, Scotty. Almost made me want to pay my hundred bucks. Almost."
He raised his eyes to Dan Ford standing there. Dan was sixty-two, bald, and the senior partner at Ford Stevens, the two-hundred-fifty-lawyer Dallas firm that had previously employed A. Scott Fenney. Dan Ford was the man who had taught Scott everything he knew about practicing law, the man who had been Scott's father-figure for eleven years, the man who had single-handedly destroyed Scott's perfect life. He had come for closing arguments. A ten-lawyer team from Ford Stevens had represented the city. They had won. They would make millions. Which explained why Dan was smiling when he stuck his hand out to Scott. They shook, and Dan's expression turned to one of profound empathy.
"Scotty… you're trying to make the world a better place when you should be making money. You're wasting your talents, son. Come back to the firm. You can have your old office back."
"I have an office."
"Yeah, but your old office comes with a Ferrari, a Highland Park m
ansion, a country club membership, and a million-dollar paycheck."
A million dollars. Funny, but Scott's first thought wasn't the Ferrari or the mansion and certainly not the country club where his wife had met the assistant golf pro. It was braces for Pajamae.
"Sid's driving my Ferrari and sitting in my office."
"He won't be if you come back. Scotty, watching you today, it was like watching Secretariat in his prime pulling a tourist buggy. Made me sad, thinking of all the money you could be making. The hooker's case made you famous, you could be working the biggest cases in Texas. Instead, you're working for the little people, doing good instead of doing well. You take this case on a contingency?"
Lawyers his age at big firms like Ford Stevens billed $750 an hour-$12.50 every minute, almost twice the U.S. minimum hourly wage-and they billed in minimum six-minute increments: thirty seconds reading a letter or a one-minute phone call would cost the client a minimum charge of $75. But not Scott's clients. He no longer billed by the hour. He now worked on a contingency fee: one-third of whatever he won, if he won. Big-firm lawyers billed by the hour and won even when their clients lost. Scott Fenney won or lost with his clients. Today, they had both lost.
"A third of nothing is nothing, Scotty. We're going home with millions, you're going home with a hug from your client. That make you happy?"
"Why do you want me back? I lost."
Dan dismissed that concern with a wave of his hand.
"Jesus Christ couldn't have won this case, not in Dallas. But you should've won. Come back to the firm and be a winner again."
"For corporations."
"Who pay."
"I'm doing okay."
"That's not what I hear. You're behind on your office rent, can't pay your staff… You deserve better than that."
He once had better than that. At Ford Stevens, Scott had made $750,000 a year, with benefits. Now he made $100,000-in a good year. And this was not such a year. He had gone through every penny in his savings. He was broke.
"Look, Scotty, you can't take on these lost causes the rest of your life. How are you gonna take care of your girls, pay for their college, weddings…?"