POINT OF ORDER
Winfield parked next to the back door just in case he had to make a run for it. Reaching over the seat, he grabbed his heavy accountant’s case, swollen with stacks of documents. Just in case. On second thought, he dropped it. Better to go in playing dumb. Win was good at that. It had worked before. Aristocratic naiveté had saved him more than once. He took a deep breath, checked his hair in the rearview mirror, then climbed out.
Although the 1950s red brick school had been transformed into a community center during the Clinton era, it still defiantly bore its original name. Joseph R. McCarthy Elementary still honored Wisconsin’s great Cold Warrior with its crumbling fallout shelter and oversized flag pole. Walking through the lobby, Win noticed an alcove containing a massive bronze bust of the fallen Senator. Evidently too heavy to move, the great head remained, its bulbous Karl Malden nose poking between the coat racks parked in front of it.
Even the conference room used by the Inner City Redevelopment Commission bore McCarthy’s image. Among the multicultural murals, crayoned portraits of Malcolm X, and misshapen child-drawn maps of Africa was a photograph of the heavy-jowled black Irishman conferring with Roy Cohn with a lean and hungry Bobby Kennedy looking on. Sunfaded and dusty, the picture evoked a time when Leave it to Beaver third graders practiced duck and cover under their desks and swiveled hula hoops on the kickball court.
Standing in the doorway, Winfield took careful note of the picture, seeing it as an omen. The room looked forbidding. A pair of long tables, skirted in black, stood on a platform, forming a courtroom bench. The next row of tables, at floor level, were suspiciously covered in green felt. Shades of Watergate hearings. Winfield noted that the gulf between the tables was wide enough to accommodate photographers. “Are you now or have you ever been. . . ?” Win shivered. Beyond the tables were a hundred old-fashioned folding chairs. Add a few ceiling fans and wooden railings and you could film Inherit the Wind. Or possibly, he thought more glumly, Judgment at Nuremberg.
“What do you think?” Keisha asked, slipping behind him.
“Looks like a courtroom.”
“Let’s hope they’re rehearsing The Caine Mutiny. Maybe Shed will finally go crazy and pull a Captain Queeg.”
“Is he here?”
“Worse. So is Moses.”
“Moses?”
“He sits on the commission. Let’s hope he’ll be on his best behavior with all the ministers present.”
“Hope? Let’s pray!”
“Maybe they’re still upset about the whole sign thing. Moses might have to keep his mouth shut,” Win suggested. A month before Shed Harris had petitioned the commission to donate funds to erect fifteen billboards in the inner city bearing the message STOP BLACK ON BLACK CRIME! The signs were put up by a Hispanic contractor, which angered Moses. Within a week the signs were altered by vandals to read STOP BLACK ON BLACK CRIME! White folks got all the money.
“If he says one thing about my Dad or calls me a ‘ho’ one more time, I’ll lose it,” Keisha whispered. Win, you can let his insults roll off your back. He can call you a mick, and you smile. None of your friends are going to take him seriously. But when he gets in my face and calls me a bitch, I see red. He runs around telling people I drop and kneel for every white man in town, and folks start to believe it. I get obscene phone calls. There are people who won’t do lunch with me anymore.”
“Here’s Brooks,” Win said, pointing to the door.
Shaking Win’s hand, Brooks nodded grimly. “You guys don’t have to be here, but thanks for your support. Bijan and Carlos are parking their cars.”
“What do we expect?” Winfield asked.
“Moses twisted Shed’s arm to get Reverend Johnson to hold a hearing. You know, clear the air. All very respectable. Johnson pulled out the church money from Brewer’s Court. He’s no longer a player. The only thing they can come up with is the possibility that for six months they had fifty grand deposited and their money was misused. It’s history. It’s all bullshit. Shed just wants the opportunity to piss on us in public. That’s why the press conference. He wants to air our dirty laundry and show off for the TV cameras. If we ignored this lynching, he’d be on the ten o’clock news waving papers and claiming we refused to cooperate. It’s a win-win for him. Moses wants the Inner City Redevelopment Commission to boycott Brewer’s Court and get the minorities to pull out.”
“They can do that?”
“It was city land. Moses is an alderman. He can get the commission to demand we turn it into a homeless shelter to blow the whole deal. We’re overextended, and he knows it. If he kills Brewer’s Court, we go under. Nothing would please him more.”
“Nobody downtown takes Moses seriously.”
“They will if he can get Johnson to do the dirty work. You know Reverend Johnson. Mr. Marshmallow. All he is going to do is ask the questions Shed feeds him. And that could be enough. The whole thing is just a stunt to make us look bad.”
Ted walked boldly through the door and surveyed the room. Studying the green covered tables, he muttered. “Should have worn my Marine greens so I could feel like Ollie North.”
Brooks directed Keisha and Winfield to take seats behind the rows of tables. “Keisha, sit behind me so you can whisper and pass notes. We might need your legal opinion.”
Carlos, Bijan, and Lionel took their seats. A few observers, community center members, women with kids, bored old men on walkers, and off-duty daycare workers moved to the back of the room and read the bulletin board. Someone had posted a cartoon depicting Brooks and Lionel as carpetbaggers in spats and stovepipe hats.
Looking around the old classroom, Winfield recalled his New Jersey childhood, fondly remembering sixth grade English. O. Henry and Edgar Allan Poe. “The Ransom of Red Chief” and “To Helen.” Even more fondly, he recalled shapely Mrs. Neumann poised at the black board, her heart-shaped rump doing a slight wiggle as she wrote out home
work assignments.
A group of AME ministers, self-importantly carrying leather portfolios, took seats behind Win. They glanced at the cartoon, then studied Brooks and Lionel, silently telegraphing their disapproval with nods and pokes.
As always, Alderman Moses was preceded by a pair of men in black jumpsuits and visored caps pulled down to their noses. They took positions beside the door as Moses entered. Stroking his graying beard, he studied the gathering and silently moved to the far end of the black-skirted table and sat. He removed his wide brimmed John Brown hat and placed it before him upside down as if planning to take up a collection.
Shed Harris ushered in two heavyset women who, avoiding Moses’ greeting, sat near the door. Reverend Johnson, small and smiling, hesitantly took the center chair at the head table and shot nervous glances around the room before clearing his throat to get attention.
Aware everyone was looking at him, Johnson flustered, rose halfway, cleared his throat again, sat, then stood up hesitantly.
“I. . . . uh . . . I’d like to welcome everyone here today. We’re here today to try to address some concerns the community has. I want to thank everyone for coming.” He sat, put on a pair of gold wire rimmed glasses, and shuffled his papers.
“I asked Mr. Adams and . . . Mr. Adams,” he said, pointing to Brooks and Lionel, “to meet with us to clear up some confusion about Brewer’s Court. Our commission had been working with the city about building low-income housing on that site back in ‘99, and so we have a history of trying to redevelop this area. . .”
Winfield shifted in his seat. This was going to be worse than his freshman ethics class, a disaster of a course taught by an aphasic alcoholic one semester from retirement. He glanced up at the orange banner hanging above Johnson’s head. HIGH STANARDS START HERE. Moses must have kept it as a trophy. The banner, shy one letter, had been accidentally hung over a black school. It was replaced within an hour, but Moses raced to the scene to snap a picture and blazon it across his website as evidence of the school board’s ongoing conspiracy to denigrate W. E. B. DuBois Junior High.
“Mr. Harris and Alderman Moses, both members of this commission, have brought to my attention some articles in the press about Frederick Douglass Savings and Loan’s involvement in a number of uh. . . activities. And I thought it would be most beneficial to clear the air. The failure to communicate is the curse of our community. Men and women in our community often work at cross purposes. And there is good reason for warranted suspicion of corporate intentions. We see billions of dollars spent on office towers, stadiums, convention centers, and hotels and nothing for the poor.”
Reverend Johnson’s sing-song syntax was labored but soothing. Winfield’s eyelids grew heavy, and his body jerked when he nodded off. He should have taken a seat near the wall, he realized. Seated there, he could prop himself against the bookcase and, like many of his own students, gaze ceilingward to feign concentration and sleep.
“We in Inner City Redevelopment want to see projects that will create homes and jobs for residents, for working people. Now, uh, Mr. Adams?”
“Which Mr. Adams?” Brooks asked quietly.
Thrown off guard, Reverend Johnson cleared his throat twice and shifted his weight awkwardly. “Well, yes, of course . . . uh . . .” He glanced nervously toward Shed Harris, then mumbled, “I suppose whichever of you wishes to respond to whichever question that which. . . might come up . . . as we go along.”
Shed rolled his eyes and tapped his watch. Moses sat unconcerned for the moment, fingering the brim of his upturned hat.
Reverend Johnson cleared his throat and swallowed hard. “Well, to get started then. Well, Mr. Adams . . . I mean either one . . . I understand the cheapest unit in Brewer’s Court is . . . uh . . .”
“Four hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars,” Brooks said calmly.
“Now, you know a single person in Milwaukee County receives only three hundred and eighty-seven dollars a month in general assistance. Minimum wage works out to less than a thousand a month take-home pay. Now I wonder how a single person could afford to live there.”
“Well, it might help if he or she got a real job or started a business,” Brooks said simply. “Brewer’s Court was never meant to be low-income housing. Our goal, if you remember our statement to the mayor and this commission, was to bring more upper income taxpayers back to the city. The loss of tax base is, I believe, one of your concerns. White flight? I believe you and your commission have made statements to that effect since your organization was formed. We naturally thought you would approve of increasing the tax base by eighty million dollars.”
“So you admit this is for white upper class people. All this effort, all this help from the mayor, all the state grants, all the tax breaks go to rich white people?” Shed Harris raised his hands in exaggerated horror.
“Upper class perhaps. But it is certainly not limited to whites. The grants and tax breaks go to investors, many of them minorities. Over half the contractors are minority owned and operated. We’ve created fifty jobs . . .”
“Fifty Africans laboring in the sun and snow to build mansions for the white folk. Something very familiar ‘bout that, Mr. Adams,” Shed pronounced.
“Fifty men and women making up to thirty-eight dollars an hour. . . .”
“Oh, yes and when they pack up their ladders and shovels, who is going to live there? Who is going to sleep under those roofs, swim in that heated pool, stroll around on their rooftop gardens of Babylon, have the cops protect their Corvettes and Caddies? Who is going to take over that neighborhood?”
“We have sold units to at least four African-Americans, several Hispanics, and a Korean . . .”
“Koh-ree-un!” Shed gasped. “Well, that’s just what I want. Why? So he don’t have to take the freeway to the stores where he robs black folks?”
“Well, I think there are other concerns.” Reverend Johnson seemed pained by the Korean remark and began asking questions about property tax exemptions.
Winfield felt himself nodding off and bit his tongue to stay awake.
The minutes crawled.
“I have a question,” Shed Harris said, sitting forward, drumming his fingers on a stack of papers. “Frederick Douglass used to pride itself in being the backbone of the black community. And it is clear that you have gotten rich off black folks paying off mortgages. You been investin’ in Europe, buying up real estate in Texas and Las Vegas—but you have not made one home loan in the fourth ward this year. Not one. I need to ask why?”
“The answer is simple,” Brooks responded, holding back his anger. “No one can make a home loan in the fourth ward. Not since the state condemned the tannery on Fifth Street and declared it a toxic site. No one can get clearance to sell a house in that ward. It’s another Love Canal.”
“So you admit deliberately scaling back on minority home loans? And what about these overseas investments? Why should black investors put their hard-earned dollars into your hands so you can run over to Ireland and build a golf course?” Shed cupped his hands like a concerned All-State TV pitchman.
“We live in a global economy,” Brooks responded. “To survive we have to be invested worldwide, so we can secure the capital needed for local projects.”
“Well, let’s take a look at some of these domestic investments. You have on your website pictures of an air force bomber you purchased in Texas. Now how the hell does this help people of color in our community? Is this a wise use of our dollars? What are you going to do for the people in the ‘hood—cheat us, then bomb us if don’t pay? Not to mention the parties—receptions with champagne and caviar for the elites, while the people are dying on the streets. We’re eating government cheese and watching our entitlements slashed while you take state money to feed a bunch of Asian investors who fly over here to fill their pockets and run back to China. And all those minority employees you claim you got building this Taj Mahal? I looked at the payroll lists. Since when is people named Goldman, Cohen, and Rubenstein minorities? How cum they getting black people’s money?”
Reverend Johnson looked pained. Moses nodded in glum agreement. Folding chairs scraped, and the ministers behind Winfield muttered.
“I don’t want to sound anti-Septic—but since when did a bunch of Jews hire any of us to build one of their temples? And I’ve come across some interesting little tactics used by Frederick Douglass Savings and Loan in selling property to unsuspecting investors. I notice time and time again, NWA written on memos we have collected.”
“You went through our trash?” Lionel asked.
“How these documents were obtained is not the issue. Do you refuse to confirm that you have targeted NWA’s—Niggers With Assets as you call hard-working African-Americans—to buy inner city property? Do you also refuse to confirm the use of what your notes refer to as WAWA’s? I have learned that WAWA refers to White Adults Walking Around. Is that true?”
Winfield winced. WAWA’s had been his assigned contribution to Brooks’ Potemkin promotions. With investors flying in from Toronto or Miami, Lionel and his gymnast boyfriend rushed to a designated ghetto intersection, taping red SOLD banners across empty storefronts and putting up collapsible COMING SOON billboards in vacant lots. Win knew a half-dozen cash-strapped adjunct instructors who habitually wore suits and ties to look hirable and could be assembled at a moment’s notice. As soon as Brooks texted him from the airport, Win hustled his team into a pair of cabs and raced to meet Lionel. On cue, Win’s colleagues fanned out and for five or ten minutes walked up and down the street, brandishing cell phones, and entering and exiting shattered bodegas. Gathering on street corners, they held mock conferences, waving clipboards, taking pictures, aiming pencils, and making sweeping developer gestures. Brooks would roll by in his Lexus and pause for a casual stop and chat. Signs announcing the imminent arrival of Starbucks, Whole Foods, and Applebee’s and white men in suits greeting Brooks with broad smiles and deferential nods assured his passengers that the neighborhood was slated for revival and that Brooks was a major player.
“And these WAWA’s were paid a hundred dollars to walk around black neighborhoods in suits and ties to imply that some kind of Anglo-Saxon gentrification was underway?”
Untrue! Untrue! Win never paid more than fifty.
“Are these the kinds of tactics you employ? And what about that surplus army bomber? How do these investments create jobs and housing?”
“Those are discretionary investments apart from the savings and loan. Totally separate businesses. I also buy savings bonds and donate to the United Negro College Fund, but I don’t suppose that appears in your report, or does it? A fifteen thousand donation last year and twenty-thousand-dollar donation this year. You have that noted, don’t you?” Brooks asked, trying to soften the edge in his voice.
“No . . . uh. . . huh. . . . I do not at this time. . . But what did you want with a bomber anyway? Was you going to sell this to . . . uh. . . . a foreign country or something?” Johnson asked.
“Reverend Johnson, the plane is an antique. It’s seventy-five years old. A museum piece really. An important reminder of our veterans’ sacrifice in World War II. We plan to tour the country with this plane and demonstrate our commitment to education and national defense.” Brooks’ neck flinched. “Besides, how I spend my money should be my business.”
Shed leaned forward, “Well, there is a question here about Brewer’s Court. This was supposed to help the community. Now if no one in the neighborhood can afford these luxury units, I don’t see the benefit of an enterprise zone designation.”
“Remember, you can’t measure this project by its housing impact alone. It is going to create jobs. There will be three restaurants, shops, offices.”
Shed Harris shot his hand into the air. “Just what kind of jobs are we talking ‘bout here? Bussing dishes, waitin’ tables, parkin’ cars? Folks got those jobs now. All this will do is gentrify and whitey-fy the neighborhood and drive out the people of color. You’re building a high-walled ghetto for rich white folks and their colored friends who can get in because they gots the green and drive a BMW. How does this help the community? And one mo’ thing!” He tapped an investor brochure. “Check out the bottom of page four. You say, an’ I quote, ‘Brewer’s Court offers residents the latest in electronic security.’ E-lectronic security. Cameras and guards and sensors. Well, I wanna know just who you tryin’ to keep out?”
“These residents will be consumers,” Brooks interrupted, hoping to cut off Shed. “This will bring hundreds of new people to the community who will shop, drink, and dine in the area.”
“Oh sure!” Shed spat. “Once these rich fays move in, oh sure, I kin see ‘em racing ‘cross the street to eat ribs ‘n catfish at Sambo’s Pool Hall and gettin’ their dredlocks done at Sunny’s Beauty. Shee! Sounds like Atlantic City all over again. You ever see how the Boardwalk has helped black business in that town? You ever see a white gambler leave Trump’s palace where he just dropped ten grand and so much as walk three blocks to spend ten bucks for a Miller Lite and rib sanwitch? No way! This place is no different. You say you gots restaurants, bars, and dry cleaning right in Brewer’s Court. You got a self-contained little gold-plated haven there. These honkies might as well be on a cruise ship sailing down Niggah River. They ain’t gettin’ off and spendin’ dime one no place else.”
“First of all,” Brooks insisted, “we are not building a casino. This is a commercial and residential center. When we open, we plan to have local merchants exhibiting their wares. They’re integrated into the project from the beginning. We’ll have walking tours of the neighborhood, introducing residents to businesses in the area. We’ve given out two small business loans already for merchants to expand or rehab their operations. Let’s remember, the brewery buildings have been empty for twenty-five years. How can any development, any use of vacant buildings be a detriment?”
“Yes, but the community is not involved.” Reverend Johnson sat forward, seeking to regain control. “None of us have seen the plans you talk about. Who got these two business loans? Why aren’t we informed?” he asked, raising empty palms to the ceiling.
“Reverend,” Brooks stated firmly, “you pulled out of the project months ago. You got your investment back with interest. I don’t see how you can refuse to take part in something and then complain that you are not included. You can’t quit a job then complain about being unemployed can you?”
Reverend Johnson shuffled his papers. He glanced nervously about the table. The women looked troubled. Shed scowled, scribbling notes on a legal pad. Disapproving grumbles came from the back of the room.
Keisha leaned over and whispered to Winfield, “Moses has not said a word. He’s just playing with his hat and looking at his watch. Something is going on. I can feel it. He never usually lets Shed take all the limelight. He’s sitting there letting Johnson make a fool of himself.”
Winfield sighed. So much for the anticipated drama. No Watergate smoking guns here.
Reverend Johnson droned on. “I just dunno. We have poor black people in this city. People who need homes, jobs, daycare. I hear about all kinds of billionaires gettin’ tax breaks to build stadiums for baseball teams and the university building labs and the hotels adding rooms and swimming pools. When I ask how come no one builds affordable housing, no one can give me an answer. You business people can design skyboxes and saunas, how cum you can build jus’ plain houses? We got a governor pushing poor women off welfare into jobs with no daycare for their childrens. Now, I do like to see smart black young men going places and starting businesses, and I like to see these ole buildings preserved and not torn down. But all I hear is that poor folk is being left behind again to mop floors and wait tables.” The heavy black women flanking him were tired. Operating on automatic pilot, they nodded approval, their heavy-lidded eyes drooping.
There were coughs and mutters. An old man tapped his cane with impatience. Another clicked his dentures. Loudly. Reverend Johnson, running out of steam, droned and fumbled on. “I still have some questions about all this. . . uh . . . the community has needs.. . uh. . . and concerns. We must protect. . .uh. . .what we feel . . . are important concerns. We have to be a part. . . . of anything that affects the people. . . .and . . . I want to thank you all. . . for coming.” Eager for his closing words, people clambered to their feet, stretched, and began picking up purses and briefcases. “And we will . . . uh. . . continue to address these issues. . . at our next meeting. . . which will be. . . .” Johnson rummaged through his papers, then scanned the walls worriedly looking for a calendar. He turned to the women behind him, but they were napping. “Our next meeting. . . will be. . . sometime next month. . . it’s on the web page site. . . I think.”
He bowed and busied himself collecting papers.
Keisha leaned toward Win, “What a fuddy duddy. You see his whole board is a joke.”
“Yes, but the people in city hall respect his judgment,” Win said.
“White folks love black men without balls,” Keisha replied. “But I think we dodged the bullet this time.”
“Thank God.” Win felt the tension drain from his neck and back.
Brooks leaned over the back of his chair. “Notice how fast they beat it to the door to talk to the press. We bat down every single objection, but they still run to the press to make a statement. They waste our time, but they still get their names in the paper.”
“If nothing else, Shed gets another negative article for his file. He wants a nice fat file to hand to the whi-whi’s to kill our deal. If blacks won’t support a black project, why should whites?”
“There could be more going on. Johnson’s a clown, but these meetings give Moses a soapbox, and today he kept his mouth shut. Why? He never lets someone steal the show. Watch for another Oreo fight.”
The school lobby was bathed with camera lights. Shed Harris was delivering a statement. Reverend Johnson, clutching papers to his chest like a life preserver, tried to look concerned and supportive.
“Exploitation and discrimination is always abhorrent, no matter what color it comes in. When minorities cynically use government programs to front for corporate interests and use their complexion as a smokescreen to sell out their community, it is doubly offensive. It must be exposed. It must be resisted. I have proof, evidence just come into my possession about the so-called African investors in this project. I plan to turn this over to the Justice Department for a full investigation.”
Brooks stopped in his tracks. “Here it comes,” he hissed over his shoulder. “He’s gotta sling mud in public. We’re going to have to listen to this bullshit. When he’s done, the media will expect us to respond.”
“Stay cool, Brooks,” Lionel urged softly. “Stay cool and let Keisha do the talking. Women always looks better on TV answering charges. At least you get the female whi-whi’s taking her side. It’s the whole OJ thing.”
“Thanks,” Keisha sighed.
Brooks smiled, “Right, Keisha just be cool, smart, and kosher. Shed will come off like a loudmouth. OK, Keisha does the talking. Lionel and Win, you stand behind her. Win, I need your white Gesicht in camera view, a little Caucasian credibility will help.”
Keisha tugged Winfield’s arm. “Look out the window, what is Moses up to?”
Moses’ bodyguards were waving frantically at a passing car, motioning a battered Buck Regal up the drive like sailors guiding a damaged Hellcat onto the deck of a pitching aircraft carrier. The obese driver stepped out and ambled toward the door.
“Who is that?” Lionel asked. “Ted, can you make him?”
“Doesn’t look familiar. Win, you know the guy?”
Winfield studied the squat middle-aged white man. His thinning black hair was plastered to his skull like Jack Ruby’s. Scowling, he moved his heavy body awkwardly up the steps, pulling his raincoat over his rumpled brown suit.
“He looks like Rodney Dangerfield,” Lionel laughed nervously.
“He ain’t Moses’ brother, that’s for sure. But something’s up.”
Moses’ men paid unusual respect to the white man, clearing the crowd for him to enter.
Making his way across the lobby, the man called out names like a bored corporal at mail call. “Brooks Adams” he said in a Jack Webb monotone.
Moving forward, Brooks answered, “Yes?”
The white man deftly slapped a paper into Brooks’ hand.
“Lionel Adams,” the man said, pointing a paper into Lionel’s face.
“Keisha Jackson.”
“Brooks,” she hissed, “it’s a subpoena. Win, he’s a process server. Beat it if he calls your name.”
Camera lights flashed. Shed slipped out of range as the reporters crowded in.
“It looks like officers of Frederick Douglass Savings and Loan are being served to appear before a grand jury as I speak.” A reporter flipped her hair from her Botoxed face and pressed forward. “Mr. Adams, Mr. Adams, what is your reaction? Father Moses has accused you of laundering drug money from Nigeria? Is this now the subject of an official investigation?”
“Yo! Yo!” Moses shouted. “Yo, Adams, we gots you now. Yo ass is grass. Gran jury gonna clean your clock for what you done. Gran jury gonna skin you alive, man!”
Pushing through the reporters, the sour-faced process server called out like a railroad conductor announcing a seldom-used suburban station, “Win-field Pay-ton . . .Win-field Pay-ton. . .Win-field Pay-ton.”
Win froze. The squat man turned, searching the crowd of blacks for a response. “Win-field C. Pay-ton.” He turned and gazed in Win’s direction, looking directly over his shoulder at a Baptist minister coming out of the men’s room. “Winfield C. Payton?” The pastor shook his head, and the process server brushed past Win as if he were invisible. Pausing before another minister, the owlish man repeated, “Winfield C. Payton?”
Win folded a newsletter and grabbed his pen as if taking notes and melted into the pool of white reporters. As he slipped from a side door, he nearly ran into Mary Houlihan sneaking a cigarette outside her news van.
“Oh, Winfield!”
He winced, afraid the process server was in earshot.
“Winfield!”
“Yeah, yeah,” he said hurriedly, waving in fast acknowledgment to shut her up.
“What are you doing here?