by Attica Locke
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.
“For as long as the stevedores are hiring and promoting on the basis of race, as long as anyone anywhere is picking people on the basis of their skin color, we all lose,” the mayor says. “As long as we continue to see race, we lose.”
The wave of applause spreads through the crowd on the mall, reaching such a fevered pitch that Cynthia actually has 342 Attic a L o c ke
to wait for it to die down before she can get out her next words. She plays the moment for all its dramatic effect, waving her hand in the air like a conductor, driving the people where she wants them to go. “If we play into that Southern stereotype, we run the risk of the world seeing Houston as backward and unsophisticated. We run the risk of driving away business. The future of this city depends on putting our best face for
ward, to let people know that Houston, Texas, is first class all the way.”
She pauses to look down at the print reporters scribbling in their notebooks, as if she wants to make sure that no one misses a word of what she’s about to say next.
“The answer then, as I see it, is to remove the lens of race altogether,” the mayor says. “Now just this morning, Pat Bodine of the ILA, your union president, as well as Wayne Kaylin from OCAW, some members of the port commission and the Mar
itime Association, and Thomas Cole . . . they were all in my office. We were hammering something out, trying to come up with the right solution. And I’m happy to report that we reached some common ground in there. I proposed a resolution I think we can all be proud of. And it starts here at city hall,” Cynthia pronounces. “I am proposing to the city council, as early as next week, that the city of Houston adopt an official policy of raceblind hiring. There will be no more skipping over people because of their race, putting one group of people over another. That’s where we’ve gone wrong in the past.”
Oh, she has them now, Jay thinks. This is what they’ve been waiting for. The words they came all this way to hear. He hears whistles in the crowd, sees a few women waving handkerchiefs in the air. The men clap and stomp their feet. Jay, at the head of the crowd, holds up a hand, as high as he can manage. He waves for them to stop, everything in his body telling them to wait. Bla c k Wat er R isi n g 343
Just wait.
“And,” the mayor says, “there will be no advancing people because of their race either. We will judge people by their mer
its, no more, no less.”
It takes a moment for the crowd to get it, for the catch to catch on.
For the dockworkers to understand what the mayor is really saying.
That her plan is to simply wipe the slate clean from this moment forward, to wipe out three hundred years of racial dis
crimination in a single afternoon.
The mayor’s solution: let the problem self-correct. Out in the crowd, the hand clapping stops short. The faces grow long.
Cynthia is so proud of herself, she is dangerously close to being smug.
“Now, when I proposed this idea to the unions this morning, to the stevedores and representatives from the port,” she says,
“it took them no time to come to the conclusion that this was the right thing to do, that this was the right solution at the right time for this city.” She pauses, waiting for applause that never comes. “So it falls to you men now,” she says, putting the onus of this labor problem squarely in their calloused hands. “If the stevedores and the union leaders can come to a consensus on this, then the only question left is, when do you boys want to go back to work?” She looks directly into the TV cameras on the mall and smiles broadly. “The city is waiting, y’all.”
When Jay calls home about an hour or so later, Bernie complains that Rolly’s got his feet up on her sofa. “Some bodyguard,” she mumbles under her breath. Jay asks if she wants him to come 344 Attic a L o c ke
home. She says no, “I know they need you there.” He asks how she’s feeling, if everything’s all right. Rolly, she says, “has been watching stories since this morning,” but she’s glad she’s not in the apartment alone. Jay tells her to hang in there, tells her that he loves her.
Outside the ILA union hall, he hangs up the pay phone. Then he heads back inside, where a labor fight has been rag
ing for at least an hour already, the men more divided than ever. The white ones came here today right from the picket line, their clothes pocked with sweat marks. Everyone in the room is hot and tired on their feet. Jay and the Brotherhood camp came here straight from the mayor’s press conference at city hall, Jay driv
ing his father-in-law and Darren Hayworth because the kid had asked him to come along. Reverend Boykins is still hoping for a sit-down with the union president and OCAW, and the kid, looking at Jay, said he wanted a man with him he could trust. It had been impossible for Jay, despite himself, to say no. This ILA meeting was thrown together hastily, at Pat Bodine’s suggestion. There’s no microphone set up onstage today, no cof
fee or refreshments. The union president is up on the stage, alone, in a damp and wrinkled shirt. He waves down the hand of a white man right under the stage, saying, “Naw, I got to you twice already. Let’s get some other voices in here.”
Another white man in front raises his hand in the air. He’s leaning his weight against the stake of his picket sign, which reads, union stands for brotherhood. When Pat Bodine calls on him, the man turns to face his union brothers, black and white. “I don’t exactly see what there is to talk about,” he says. “I thought this is what we was looking for from the get-go.”
The applause in the room comes from the picketers, from the white dockworkers who, by their own choice, stayed far away from today’s march. The picketers clap their hands and stomp Bla c k Wat er R isi n g 345
the posts of their handmade signs onto the meeting hall’s lino
leum floor. The marchers, the men of the now defunct Broth
erhood of Longshoremen, shake their heads vigorously. “This don’t make nothing right,” one of the black dockworkers says, followed by catcalls and claps from his fellow marchers. “This just puts us right back where we started.”
“Look,” one of the white picketers says, “if the stevedores say they’ll stop hiring foremen on the basis of race, I don’t get it . . . what more do you people want?”
“We want an equal shot, same as you,” Donnie Simpson says.
“I think what the mayor is saying is that a policy like this would level the playing field for everybody,” Bodine says. “There has never been an official policy like this on the books. It would be a huge step forward.” Then, sensing he’s maybe offered too much of his own opinion, he adds, “In theory.”
“But see, that’s the problem, jack,” Donnie Simpson says from the floor. “I can’t eat on theory. You understand me? I can’t send my kids to school on theory.”
There’s an explosive response from the Brotherhood camp, men calling out, “That’s right, brother,” and whistling loudly. Pat Bodine, on
stage, tries to call on someone else to speak, but the marchers are slow to die down. Bodine puts his hands on his hips, exasperated at having momentarily lost control. Reverend Boykins raises a hand next. This gets the black marchers’ attention. They shh each other and wait politely for the Rev to speak. “I think what the men are trying to say is that the policy put forward by the mayor does not redress the wrongs that have already been perpetrated against them.”
“I’m sorry, Pat, but I got to say something here,” one of the white picketers says, a man in a dirty T-shirt, sleeves rolled up to his shoulder bones. “This is what I don’t like about this,” he says, pointing to Reverend Boykins. “Y’all are listening to people who 346 Attic a L o c ke
don’t have a damn thing to do with this union. Y’all are getting into all this political crap when the rest of us just want to go back to work.”
“We want to work too,” one of the black marchers says.
“But we got to get some black men in management right now,”
Kwame Mackalvy says. The white union men turn to stare at this interloper in a colorful dashiki, a black man who invited himself into the dockworkers’ broken family. “Now look,” Kwame says, writing policy off the top of his head. “If the stevedores were willing to say that the next, say, twenty or thirty foremen they hire over the next year will be black, or hell, Mexican even, then that’s one thing. If there was something in place that said these companies had to hire so many blacks—”
“Well, wait a minute now,” the man with the rolled-up sleeves says. “Why should y’all get promised something we ain’t guar
anteed?”
“Putting some of us in management right now is the only way to make it equal right now, ” Donnie Simpson says above the buzz
ing crowd. “Y’all had your time. It’s our time now.”
“Let me see if I’m getting this straight,” the man with no sleeves says. “We stuck our necks out for you, walked out on the docks for you, and now you’re saying that this whole time what you really wanted wasn’t to be treated equal, but to be treated better than everybody else.”
“Fuck that,” one of the white picketers hollers.
“I got eight years on the job, eight years toward management. I’ll be damned if I’m gon’ stay on strike so a black man can come take my job,” one of the picketers says, letting his white poster board slide to the floor in defiance.
“You’d think people who say they’re always getting discrimi
nated against wouldn’t want to turn around and do that to some
body else,” No Sleeves says. “Well, I don’t think it’s right. I didn’t Bla c k Wat er R isi n g 347
think it was right when white folks was doing it, and I don’t think it’s right if blacks are the ones doing it either.”
The white men in the room applaud him loudly. Across the union hall, another man boldly drops his sign to the floor. Two more follow. It starts to catch on around the room. One by one, the white men drop their signs.
The black dockworkers seem stunned, hurt even. Pat Bodine waves his hand over the crowd. “I will say this, men. It will not be easy to go back into that negotiation room and push for more than what’s already been offered.” He looks out at the black dockworkers, talking as if the debate were already over.
“This doesn’t have to be a bad thing. Getting the stevedoring companies out of the habit of automatically putting whites first is not a little thing. We can build on that. Now look, we dragged OCAW into this with us. I don’t know how much longer those men are going to walk with us if we’re turning down what could be a workable solution.”
One of the white longshoremen down front climbs onto the stage without invitation, startling Bodine, who immedi
ately looks into the audience for somebody to come physically remove the guy. “We got to go back to work, y’all,” the man onstage yells. “For all of us, the whole union. If we hold out for too long, they gon’ have them machines down there running everything. And then ain’t nobody gon’ have a job. They say
ing they gon’ judge us by what we got inside,” he says, speaking directly to the black men now. “If y’all can’t live with that, I mean, if you don’t think you got what it takes to be manage
ment, then, hell, don’t apply. But don’t keep the rest of us from going back to work.”
The black men wave him off the stage, booing loudly. The whites clap and laud the man’s plainspoken sense. At the back of the room, there’s an ILA officer dressed in 348 Attic a L o c ke
slacks and a button-down. He motions to Bodine, then points to a wall clock overhead.
The Rev nudges Jay. “It’s time,” he says.
Onstage, Pat Bodine tells the men they’ll have to put this pro
posal to a vote before the whole union no matter what, something the officers will organize in short order. In the meantime, they’ll need to hear more from the Maritime Association on what the stevedores are willing to put in writing. He reminds the men about the port commission meeting at five o’clock. “Those that want to join us might want to think about heading that way in the next few minutes or so. Get y’all selves something to eat, as the thing is likely to run long. Public officials do love to talk,” he says, which elicits universal soft chuckles throughout both sides of the room. “Also, you boys remember now . . . they gon’ have cameras at this thing. They’re talking about getting press from up north. You boys make sure and represent this union well.”
As the dockworkers make for the double doors, Bodine walks across the room to where the ILA officer has been waiting for him, next to a door marked private. Both men look up as Rev
erend Boykins, Darren, and Jay approach. Pat Bodine takes one look at Jay and asks, “Who the hell is he?”
“I’m the boy’s lawyer,” Jay offers, which in this instance means nothing more than the fact that he’s not going to let the kid walk into this situation unprotected. Bodine, upon hearing the news of an attorney in their midst, sighs and shakes his head. They follow him down a long and dimly lit hallway.
This part of the building smells like stale coffee, tinged with the metallic edge of cigarette smoke so thick that it’s gotten into the curtains and the carpet on the floor. The union officers’ pri
vate offices are at the end of the long hallway, the vice president, secretary, and treasurer all sharing one large room to the right, and the president housed in a dim, windowless room to the left. Bla c k Wat er R isi n g 349
Two men are already waiting inside: Wayne Kaylin, president of OCAW, and Carlisle Minty, vice president of the same union. Jay remembers Minty’s picture from the paper. He is thinner in person. He’s wearing glasses, and behind them, his eyes are like two white clouds, pale and shape shifting. At first sight, Jay doesn’t like the man. The way he’s got himself leaned against Bodine’s desk, the way he doesn’t even bother to stand up straight and off the man’s property when Bodine walks into the room. He acts as if this whole meeting is beneath him. Jay immediately looks at Darren to see if there’s some recognition there, now that the two men are face-to-face again, to be sure once and for all if this is the same man who orchestrated the attack on Darren from the cab of his pickup truck. Minty isn’t wearing a baseball cap today, and he hardly looks twice in Darren’s direction, as if the boy were a stranger. Still, Jay can see the kid’s back stiffen in Minty’s presence. Darren turns and looks at Jay and the Rev. He nods. It’s him.
“You’re sure?” Jay asks.
The kid nods again. “I’m sure.”
Minty is staring long and hard at Jay. The enmity, it appears, is mutual.
There’s not room enough in this tiny office for the men to sit down. The only available chair is buried beneath cardboard boxes, phone books, and two poster boards: union stands for brotherhood and justice for one IS justice for all. The quarters are so close Jay can smell Kaylin’s aftershave and from here could probably make an educated guess about what kind of beer Carlisl
e Minty had with lunch. It’s hardly the most decorous place to hold a sit-down of this sort, but maybe, Jay thinks, it’s fitting for the sometimes down-and-dirty nature of union politics. Maybe Minty deserves no better courtroom than this.
350 Attic a L o c ke
“Let me just say off the top,” Bodine starts. “I don’t stand for labor violence. That’s not my way of doing things.”
He looks at each and every one of them, making sure they get that point clear and out of the way. Then he adds, “But this little incident is causing us a lot of fucking problems. We’re on the verge of making some real headway on this equal pay issue, and this shit ain’t helping at all. It’s goddamned unprofessional, for one. And I can tell you what, this strike wouldn’t be worth shit without OCAW’s participation,” he says, to which Wayne nods assent. “It’s the oil that’s got people scared shitless. It’s the shutdown at the refineries that’s got the fucking Washington Post coming around. The New York Times, reporters from out East. This is all about the oil.” He sighs, maybe sensing his own reduced position in this labor fight. The dockworkers might have started the strike, but like almost every other thing in America, it’s being fueled by petrol. “The alliance between the two unions is too important to piss it away on some bullshit like this. And I, for one, don’t want to see this drag on much further.”
“Me neither,” Minty says.
“And let me say this to you, Carlisle,” Bodine adds, poking a hairy finger in the air. “I’ve known you a long time, and if you did this, you ought to be goddamned ashamed of yourself.”
“Hold on, Pat,” Wayne says. “Let’s not jump to any conclu
sions here.”
“I never touched that kid,” Minty says.
“My understanding,” Jay says, not letting him get away on a technicality, “is that the beating took place on your instruc
tion.”
“I never seen this kid, okay?” Minty turns and looks Darren in the eye. “You got that?” He takes a step in the kid’s direction.
“You got it all wrong.”
Bla c k Wat er R isi n g 351
