Take My Hand(54)

“I never said that.”

“I know tensions in this city have always been high. Hell, tensions in this state.”

“Tensions,” I repeated.

“How would you put it?”

I paused. And then I told him a story. I asked him if he remembered what Montgomery was like in 1963. I was thirteen years old, I said. It was the year George Wallace was elected governor and declared segregation would define the South forever. The year students were hosed down in a Birmingham park. The year hundreds of thousands of people marched on Washington demanding their civil rights. The year President Kennedy promised a civil rights bill but was later gunned down in front of his wife. But it was also the year somebody knocked on our front door. Hard. The kind of knock that made Daddy wake the family. Three of Daddy’s friends carried the white woman into our living room and lay her on the couch. She was bleeding, and her face was swollen. The men argued in panicked tones. Who was she? Are you trying to get us killed? They’ll blame one of us. Okay, I’ll look at her, but she cannot stay here. And then Daddy had brought out his medical bag and stitched up the woman’s scalp, put ice to her face, squeezed ointment in her eye. An arm was likely broken, but it would require a hospital visit and an X-ray, he told the men. He had done all he could do.

Lou was staring at me intently. One thing was for sure: He was a good listener. No wonder he’d been able to rattle off those facts about the Williams family the first day I met him.

“They had found that woman on the side of the street, likely beat up by a husband or boyfriend. And they had tried to help her, though they’d known they were putting their own lives in danger. It’s not that I think you hate us. It’s that this risk you’re taking is real. It has consequences, Lou. Montgomery has come a long way, but race relations in this city still ain’t no county fair.”

His chair was black vinyl with silver metal armrests, the kind of chair that spun around and had wheels for feet. The way he leaned, I thought it might tip over and deposit him on the floor.

“You’re not even getting paid,” I added.

“Now you’re sounding like my mama.”

“Lou, how far are you willing to take this thing? I mean, what if it starts to blow up in your face? Will you stick by those girls?”

He sat up. “If you’re wondering whether you can trust me, I’m telling you now, Civil, that you can.”

I squinted at him. This white man still believed in the goodness of the world. I was younger than he was, but I had lost my faith the day I walked into that hospital room and found those two little girls wailing like babies. I longed to believe again. Maybe this optimism was a powerful thing to have in the girls’ corner—somebody crazy enough to stay in the ring even when his head was about to get bashed.





TWENTY-EIGHT




Montgomery

2016


I know what you’re thinking: This is just another white savior story. The white person drops in from the sky, saves all the Black folks, and by doing so, redeems themselves. We’re the channel through which they save their own souls, but we cannot save our own. I grew up reading To Kill a Mockingbird. I know the story. And I can’t say I blame your skepticism. Right now, I’m just trying to tell you the truth. If this story shakes out into something all too familiar, I apologize.

What I can say to you is this: We are at the center of our own destiny. Always have been. Yes, there have been times this country has tried to destroy us. But we have not been doormats. No, ma’am. We have fought and used every resource. Lou Feldman was a resource. And I grew to love him. But this story was and always will be about those sisters. I’m talking to you right now because of them. And the idea that Lou or I or any of us were redeemed by this whole thing ignores all the contradictions, the baggage we came in with, and the baggage we left carrying.

When I arrive in Montgomery it is late, and I’m bone tired. I have just enough energy to check into my hotel. I’ve never stayed at a hotel in Montgomery before. When the woman at the registration desk asks me if I’m traveling for business or pleasure, I respond by saying “Neither” and leave it at that.

The next day, I phone his office and they put me through to his wife. She asks how I am doing and gives me his cell phone number. I text him and he responds by saying he will be out of court by noon. He agrees to meet me on the south side of the courthouse. I know a lot of years have passed, but when I see him I’m surprised at how different he looks. In fact, I don’t think I would have recognized him if I had run into him on the street. All the youthful boyish looks that once caused me to distrust him are gone. And so is his hair. What is left of it is combed thinly over his forehead. It is the first thing he jokes about.

“I know, I know. I had a lot more hair when you saw me last.”

I laugh. “How you doing, Lou?”

“I’m good. Come on. There’s a little vegetarian place near here.”

“Vegetarian?”

He pats his stomach. “My wife is trying to keep me around for a few more years. But it’s got the best hash browns in town.”

When Lou and I sit across from each other at a table near the window, he studies the menu as if he has never been here before. But I know he is a regular because the server shows up with a cup of coffee, one sugar, and a single package of creamer, and he asks about her husband by name. Lou’s eyeglasses are rimless, unlike the thick black frames he used to wear. The current pair sits on his nose, and you can clearly see the lines on his face. After we order, he laces his hands and rests his chin on top of them. He launches right into his cases, and I know he is still just as driven as he always was. He tells me he now has a team of lawyers working for him, but he still loves the thrill of the courtroom. He recently worked on a trial to get a man off death row and won.