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“Really? Any thoughts on the lawyer Battle will want to replace you with?”
“Hey, Jack, buddy? Who’s your friend?”
They looked up to see a stocky man Jack’s age, dressed in a seersucker suit and carrying a martini, as he appeared next to their table. His slurred speech and unfocused eyes evidenced that he had imbibed more than he should have.
Jack began, “This is—”
DuBose held out a hand. “DeeDee. Nice to meet you...?”
“Mr. Douglas Rawlins,” he said, not shaking her hand. “Jack, don’t tell me this is the wife of the Randolphs’ colored errand-boy killer I hear you’re representing. Can’t be. She’s dressed too nice.”
Jack stood, towering over Rawlins, and said, “Doug, call a taxi, go home, and take a cold shower before you get yourself in trouble.”
“Oh, what a big man you think you are showing off for this colored chick.”
“Go home, Doug, now,” said Jack as he put a hand on Rawlins’s shoulder.
Rawlins leered at DuBose as he walked off.
DuBose said, “You showed more self-restraint than I imagined you would.”
“I shot a fella’s ear off tonight. I doubt Dr. King would have condoned that.”
“No one has the right to take your life without a fight.”
Jack sat back down. “I was horrified when I heard about Dr. King’s assassination. And my mother, who, to tell you the God’s honest truth, would be horrified that I’m here with you, was even more upset than I was about it.”
“Interesting. I just presumed the state that once held the capital of the Confederacy would be jumping for joy at his death.”
“My mother came from dirt-poor in the mountains. Small farms, no plantations. Lots of coal mines and just a damn rough life. She could have been a doctor, or hell, a fine lawyer. But people like her were just considered hicks who talked funny, not worth the trouble. My daddy told me she worked for years to get rid of the accent and work on her elocution so people wouldn’t look down on her. But she just can’t seem to bring herself to—” He shook his head, unable to finish.
“—to understand that maybe she has more in common with Black folks than she has with the likes of Douglas Rawlins or Howard Pickett?”
“Yeah, something like that.”
“People with money and power in this country have pitted white and Black workers against each other for centuries. That exploitation has made a very few very rich, with everyone else barely keeping their heads above water.”
Jack nodded. “W. E. B. Du Bois made that point clear in his works. The powers that be promise one thing to the whites at the bottom of the ladder.”
DuBose said, “That they will always be above the Blacks. So, W. E. B. Du Bois? Is that how you came to be the way you are, then? By reading books?”
“You wouldn’t think it would take cracking open a single volume. Just looking around at how people are being treated should have been enough. But don’t mistake me for someone I’m not, Desiree. I’d be staring just like the people here are.”
“So long as we’re making confessions, I’ve looked at white people as the enemy all my life. I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to see them any other way.”
“I can understand that, but we need to commit to each other for this case.”
“I wouldn’t be here if I hadn’t already made that commitment,” she said curtly. “And after this, I will go on to the next case. And I will continue to do so until...”
“Until when?”
She looked at her spit-upon wine. “Until that stops happening, I suppose.”
“I hope you have the patience of Job.”
“Oh, I left Job in the dust a long time ago,” she replied.
CHAPTER 26
