The Color of Law_ A Novel - Mark Gimenez [110]
He was alone on the field.
The best times of his life had played out in this small arena—120 yards long, 5313 yards wide. And the worst times, too, he used to think. Glorious victories and crushing defeats. Moments of immeasurable joy and unspeakable sadness. He could still close his eyes and see the crowd. He could still hear them cheering and smell the freshly cut grass. He could still taste his blood. He could still feel football.
Scott climbed the steps to the spectator stands and abruptly did what he had done so often back then: he ran the stands. His arms pumping, his legs burning with pain, he ran all the way to the top. He turned and looked at the downtown skyline in the distance, the skyscrapers silhouetted against the blue sky. Dibrell Tower stood above them all, and on the sixty-second floor, Sid Greenberg was standing in Scott’s office. Sid couldn’t see Scott four miles away, but Scott shot him the finger anyway, just on principle.
Back in college, he had often run the stands at night just so he could sit at the top of the stadium and gaze at the lights of downtown, the Emerald City rising out of the endless Texas plains: Dibrell Tower outlined in blue argon lights; the lighted ball above Reunion Arena looking like a Christmas tree ornament; and Pegasus, the neon red flying horse above the old Magnolia Building. Like so many other young white men, Scott Fenney had been seduced by the lights, by dreams of getting rich in Big D. That’s what they call Dallas—“Big D”—because it’s a mecca for men with big dreams. Big dreamers come to Dallas like sinners to Jesus: you want to get saved, come to Jesus; you want to get rich, come to Dallas. Sitting right here, Scott Fenney had dreamed big.
“That ain’t bad for an old man!”
The booming voice startled Scott out of his thoughts. He searched the stadium until he saw a big black man standing on the sideline below. He looked familiar. Scott walked down the stands toward him. As he came closer, he recognized the man.
“Big Charlie, is that you?”
“Scotty Fenney, how you doing, man?”
Scott arrived and stuck out his hand, but Big Charlie wrapped his huge arms around Scott and bear-hugged him, as if Scotty Fenney had just scored the game-winning touchdown.
Charles Jackson stood six four and weighed 285 pounds—when he was an eighteen-year-old freshman. By the time he was a senior, he weighed 325. He played right guard, which required that he pull and lead running plays around either end, removing any obstacle from Scotty Fenney’s path. Scott scored the touchdowns, but Big Charlie led the way.
Big Charlie came from Tyler, an East Texas town known for its red roses and black football players. Earl Campbell was the best known, but Big Charlie was the biggest. He attended SMU instead of Texas because he didn’t want to be too far from his mama and his sisters. He drove the two hours home every Sunday morning for church and came back every Sunday night for curfew.
The last Scott had heard, Big Charlie had been drafted by the Rams. Charlie now told him that he had played two seasons and had been a knee injury away from fulfilling his dream. He had returned to SMU, where he had coached the offensive line for the last ten years. Scott had attended most of those games but he’d never noticed Big Charlie. It was a long way down to the sideline from Ford Stevens’s private skybox.
“We could always use a good running back coach,” Big Charlie said. He had read about Scott’s troubles.
“Thanks, but I’ve still got some lawyering left in me.”
“You gonna win?”
“I don’t know.”
“You think she’s innocent?”
“Of murder, but not of killing Clark.”
“Which means?”
“Worst case, she gets the death penalty. Best case, they convict her of second-degree murder, give her twenty years in prison. But she won’t live that long, without heroin or her daughter.”
“Read you took her in.