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Jack touched her arm. “Desiree, let’s go.”
Another reporter said, “Seems like Ambrose is doing all he can to help you.”
“And who are you with?” asked DuBose.
“The Review of the News.”
“Ah, yes, the John Birch Society. Well, all I can say is you and I have a difference of opinion on what helping someone looks like.”
“Desiree,” hissed Jack. “Enough.”
Another reporter, a large man with a soft dark hat and hanging jowls, said, “Why do you think colored people keep killing white people in this country?”
DuBose appraised him coolly. “Do you know what I pray for, sir?” She didn’t wait for him to reply. “I pray for the day when this country moves forward together, as one mighty nation, and one united people. It wasn’t that long ago that Senator Joe McCarthy sought to tear this country apart, pitting one American against another with his slanderous accusations and pieces of paper with nothing on them. Divided is when we are at our weakest, our most vulnerable. We are called the United States of America for a reason, because when we are truly united, there is nothing on earth that can defeat us, including whatever bogeyman someone puts up to turn one American against another. Dr. King may no longer be with us, but he loved the possibility of this country. And his spirit and his message of hope, his cry for equality, will forever be part of us.”
Jack noted that a number of people in the crowd were actually nodding their heads in agreement with her words. He looked at DuBose with a fresh level of respect.
DuBose also seemed to sense some support in their ranks. She had taken a step back but now moved up to the podium once more and glanced at the journalists arrayed around her obviously eager for more, and the crowd of everyday people just beyond them.
She said, “A great nation can never realize its full potential until all its citizens are allowed to realize theirs. And the rest of the world is not waiting for us to get our house in order. They are moving forward in ways that are best for them, not for us. By battling each other we’re literally fighting with one arm tied behind our back, and for no good reason at all.” She gazed around the crowd and then spied Pickett standing near his Lincoln watching and listening. And DuBose allowed herself the barest of smiles.
She continued, “It would be like taking pretty much every cent of wealth created in this country by all of you, and giving it to a handful of folks at the very top. Who thinks that’s a good idea?”
One man called out, “They already got too damn much as it is.”
There were cheers throughout the crowd that clearly showed they were in agreement with DuBose and the man on that point.
And then another voice spoke up. “So you mean socialism, communism, Miss DuBose? You’re a socialist?”
She looked at Howard Pickett as he finished speaking. By his slick smile she knew the man thought he had trapped her.
DuBose said, “On the contrary, it’s socialism when the government divides up the wealth and everyone gets the same share no matter what. However, what we have in this country, I believe, is outright theft.”
Pickett’s smile faded.
She continued, looking out at the crowd, “As a lawyer I can tell you theft is the illegal taking of something that does not belong to you. So when all of you work hard all day long and the lion’s share of the wealth you create goes to someone else? How would you define that?”
Pickett immediately said, “As the American way. The individual pulls himself up by his own bootstraps. Like I did.”
With the triumphant look that DuBose gave him, Pickett was suddenly aware that he had made an ill-advised move on the chessboard.
She said, “Really, Mr. Pickett? You got into Princeton through your family connections, not on merit. And bootstraps? After you graduated, your uncle, a millionaire many times over, gave you your first coal mine, which you subsequently drove into bankruptcy through a series of grossly incompetent business decisions. As you did your second coal mine. Then you received a government loan to bail you out, which you subsequently defaulted on, leaving the American taxpayer to foot the bill. But then luck shone upon you, because some valuable mineral rights became available through a government program, and you were awarded those rights. Not in an auction, as it was supposed to be conducted, but by an administrator with the Department of the Interior. You then hired that man as your vice president at ten times his government pay. Last year your income exceeded the combined salaries of every coal miner you employ. I don’t call that bootstrapping, sir. I call that... bullshit.”
Pickett looked up at her with more loathing than Jack had ever beheld on another person’s features. The coal magnate then turned and walked away as people in the crowd started to clap and hoot in appreciation of her verbal assassination of the man.
She stepped away from the podium and looked at Jack. He said, “You sounded like a politician, not a lawyer.”
“I actually have to be both,” she shot back. “Because while we have the law on our side now, they have the actual politicians on theirs.”
“I didn’t mean that as a bad thing, Desiree. I think you might have gotten through to some of the folks in the crowd.”
“One can only hope.”
“How’d you know so much about Pickett?”
“Many years of digging into his career. You see, I often know more about my enemies than I do my friends. I find it far more useful.”
They left the area and turned the corner heading toward Jack’s car. Halfway down a side street something hit Jack in the head.
