27. Chapter 24 | Dom
Questions Raised About Moral Standards Before Major March By Richard Hastings, Staff Writer
TREMé—An alcohol-fueled "rent party" at Louie's Lounge over Labor Day weekend has raised questions among community leaders. The event involved individuals active in local civil rights organizing, weeks before a planned march on City Hall.
"I have grave concerns about exposing young people to such influences," said Professor Marcus Thibodeaux of Xavier University, a longtime supporter of integration efforts. "The civil rights movement is a moral crusade. We cannot afford associations that provide ammunition to our opponents."
Questions have been raised about whether the funds from the event will reach legitimate civil rights organizations or remain with the bar's proprietor.
[Photo caption: Attendees at event at Louie's Lounge in Tremé. Questions raised about appropriateness of behavior at civil rights fundraiser.]
[Photo caption: Youth present at event hold signs for upcoming demonstrations.]
Dom crumpled the newspaper.
The paper tore where her fingers gripped too hard, ink smudging across her palms. Six-thirty in the morning, the bar still smelling like Saturday night—whiskey and sweat and gardenia perfume. All of it turned to ash.
She remembered counting that money with Elle. Two hundred fifty-five dollars. Elle had kissed her right there behind the bar, and Dom had pulled her into the storage room and—
Questionable activities. Open displays of deviancy.
Richard Hastings. The smug bastard who'd shown up at one in the morning asking pointed questions. Flat gray eyes cataloging their lives like he was tallying livestock.
Her first instinct was tactical. Get ahead of it.
Call Oretha, call Reverend Alexander, get statements out before the story spread further.
She was halfway to the phone when CJ appeared at the bottom of the stairs in his pajamas—one of Dom's old undershirts hanging past his knees. His eyes puffy from sleep.
He saw the paper. Started reading.
Dom watched his face change. Watched him see himself: minor child, dressed in clothing inappropriate for the child's biological sex, troubled youth, propaganda posters.
"They called my art propaganda," CJ said quietly.
Dom gripped the bar, a fierce urge to confront those who'd spoken to the reporter tightening her resolve. She stood, letting the anger surge without moving.
The phone rang.
"This is Margaret Thibodeaux. Mother of Ruth." The voice was flat, prepared. "Ruth will no longer be permitted to associate with your household, nor will she attend any meetings at your establishment. I ask that you keep your child away from her."
"Mrs. Thibodeaux, wait—"
The line went dead.
CJ stared at the phone. "That was Ruth's mom."
"Yeah."
The phone rang again. Vernon, apologetic and uncomfortable, was withdrawing his fifty-dollar pledge. His church was asking questions, and—
Dom hung up on him.
The phone rang a third time. Dom yanked it off the hook and left it dangling.
Papa Louie appeared from upstairs, moving slowly. He picked up the paper and read it. He set it down. "I need coffee."
Dom picked up the phone and dialed Oretha's number.
By two o'clock, the bar was packed for an emergency CORE meeting. Thirty people crammed into the space, air thick with heat and competing voices. Dom stood against the back wall. Elle was behind the bar, pale. CJ sat in the corner with his sketchbook, not drawing, just clutching it.
Professor Thibodeaux arrived late, making an entrance. Three-piece suit despite the heat, watch chain catching light. His expression was carefully neutral, but Dom saw the satisfaction underneath. This was what he'd wanted. Proof that people like her and CJ were liabilities.
Oretha called the meeting to order, looking exhausted. Twenty-two years old, trying to keep CORE from tearing itself apart. "Everyone's seen the article. We need to discuss how to respond."
Thibodeaux didn't wait. "Perhaps it would be best if certain members stepped back from visible roles. Until after the march." He smoothed his watch chain, not looking at Dom. "We need to present ourselves as dignified, respectable, worthy of the rights we're demanding."
"And we're not?" Dom's voice cut through. "We're not worthy?"
"I'm saying that if you cannot put the movement's needs above your own—"
Dom knew exactly what she wanted to say to him, the words a fist in her chest. She looked past him to Alexander instead.
"Reverend. You want to answer that?"
Alexander took his time. "I got three calls this morning.
Two white members leaving. One Negro deacon who won't worship with perverts.
I told all three not to let the door hit them on the way out.
" He looked around the room. "If our movement requires some of us to hide, to make ourselves smaller to deserve freedom—then what are we fighting for? Freedom for who?"
Silence. Somebody's folding fan stopped moving.
Oretha's voice came out quieter than usual.
"Three years ago, I left Dom in jail. Everyone else got bailed out.
Dom got charged with cross-dressing—fifty dollars.
I left her in that cell for two days because I thought her queerness would hurt the movement.
" Her voice cracked. "I was wrong. She marches with us or I don't march at all. "
"Nor I," said Reverend Alexander.
"Nor I," said Miss Virgie.
One by one, voices. Not everyone—some stayed silent, studying their shoes. But enough.
Thibodeaux's face tightened. He smoothed his watch chain one last time, a man rehearsing his exit line. "Then I hope your dignity keeps you warm when the city pulls your permit." He said it like an afterthought, already turning for the door.
The room quieted in a different way.
"What are you talking about," Oretha said.
"I had a call this morning. Before the paper even hit the stands, if you can believe the timing.
" Thibodeaux didn't turn back around. "Captain Ridgeway wanted my opinion on whether CORE could still assemble a march that presented itself, in his words, 'appropriately.
' I told him I couldn't speak for the organization anymore.
" He reached the door. "You might want to find out for yourselves what that means before you spend three weeks planning a parade nobody will let you have. "
The door shut behind him. Mrs. Patterson and two others followed, their footsteps too loud in the sudden hush.
Oretha was already moving, pulling the permit folder from her bag like she could argue with paper. "We filed in July. It's approved. It's stamped." She was talking to the room now, or to herself. "They can't just—"
"They can do whatever they want to do," Reverend Alexander said, not unkindly. "Question is whether they will."
"I'll call the clerk's office first thing," Oretha said. "Monday. I'll go down there myself."
"And if they stall you," Miss Virgie said. "Three weeks isn't long to fight City Hall on their own paperwork."
Nobody answered that. Dom watched Oretha fold the permit folder shut, her jaw set the way it got right before she did something reckless. Twenty-two years old, and now this too, sitting on top of everything else.
"We march," Oretha said finally. "Permit or no permit. I'll find out Monday which one it's going to be."
Nobody argued. Nobody had a better answer to give her.
Dom found Papa Louie in the alley after, sitting on a crate, smoking.
"They called it the bar's proprietor," he said before she could speak.
He didn't look up. "Forty-one years I've run this place.
Forty-one years of keeping this building standing, the lights on, a door open when people had nowhere else to be.
And he writes 'bar's proprietor' like I'm a footnote.
Like the place built itself." He stubbed out the cigarette.
"This bar has a name. A history. Nobody who never built a thing gets to rewrite what it is. "
Dom sat on the other crate. "I called Oretha before anyone else. Not Claudette, not—" She stopped. "I almost did it differently."
"But you didn't."
"No."
He looked at her then. "What does it say to that boy if you hide now?"
Elle was upstairs when Dom found her, sitting on the bed, the newspaper folded in her lap at the photo caption. The singer with the distinctive voice. Her profile. The angle of her jaw.
"Someone might recognize me," Elle said.
"Your face is mostly—"
"Anyone who knew Thelma Blake might see that. A woman who appeared in Tremé six months ago, right after Nightshade died." She set the paper down. "How long before someone puts it together?"
"Elle—"
"I'm not running." She crossed to the dresser, pulled out a notepad and pencil.
"Oretha's going to need help with the march.
Press coordination, signs, managing the crowd.
I know how to do that." Her producer voice slid into place—competent, strategic.
"I'll stay behind the scenes mostly. But I'll be there. "
Dom watched her make notes, her hands steady, her fear transformed into purpose.
"You're sure."
"What would we tell CJ if I stayed home?" Elle looked up. "You can't teach courage from a hiding place."
Then came a knock at the door.
CJ peeked in, looking small and uncertain. "I heard what Oretha said. About the march." He stayed by the doorframe. "Even though the article—even though Ruth—"
"Even though," Dom said.
"What if I'm scared the whole time?"
"Then you're scared. Doesn't mean you can't do it."
CJ was quiet. Then he crossed to where Elle sat and looked at her notepad—the march route sketch, the list of contacts. "I can make signs," he said. "For the march. Better than what they printed in the paper." He glanced up. "If you need them."
Elle slid the notepad toward him. "I need them."
He sat beside her and picked up the pencil.
Dom went to the window and looked out at Tremé in the late afternoon light.
Cars passing. People walking home from work.
Music from a neighbor's radio. Below her, the faint scratch of CJ's pencil, Elle's voice reading logistics aloud to him.
Downstairs, Papa Louie had started playing piano again—slow and aching, the blues that survived everything.
Three weeks. And now a permit that might not survive them.
Dom reached for Elle's hand, scarred knuckles against elegant fingers, nothing about them matching, both holding on.
They would walk out into the open, all of them, and refuse to disappear. That was enough to start.