28. Chapter 25 | Dom
The three weeks between the Times-Picayune article and the march felt like three years.
Dom watched the phone calls dry up, the bar empty, people crossing the street to avoid them.
CJ kept perfecting his posters. His tutoring sessions at Reverend Alexander's church started canceling — "arthritis," they said, but everyone knew the truth.
Elle picked up the slack, patient in a way that made Dom's chest ache.
Ruth called three times before her mother caught her. Dom heard the screaming through the phone before the line went dead. Ruth didn't call again.
Elle kept working with Oretha — coordinating, organizing, making herself visible despite the danger. "I'm done hiding," she'd said when Dom protested. And she was.
The night before the march, Dom couldn't sleep. At 3 AM, she found Elle in the kitchen, coffee cooling. They sat in the pre-dawn darkness, shoulders touching, preparing for whatever came next.
When Papa Louie found them at five, he nodded once and started making breakfast.
CJ appeared at six wearing Dom's white dress shirt, the one she saved for funerals and court dates. The sleeves hung past his knuckles. He'd rolled them three times, but they kept sliding down while he tried to butter his toast.
"No," Dom said.
CJ didn't look up. Just kept working the butter knife, steady and deliberate. "I'm going."
"Absolutely not."
"My posters are going." CJ gestured toward the stack of mimeographed signs leaning against the wall. Fifty copies of his best work in letters bold enough to see from a block away. "Why can't I?"
"You're fifteen. If they arrest you —"
"Ruth is going, and she's only sixteen."
"Ruth's mother doesn't know that." Dom's voice came out sharper than she meant. "And when she finds out, Ruth will be in exactly the kind of trouble I'm trying to keep you out of."
CJ looked up, his gaze red-rimmed. "I know the risks. I'm going anyway."
"CJ —"
"You said I matter." His voice cracked. "You said we'd march together. Three weeks ago, at that CORE meeting, you said you weren't going to hide." He stood. "Did you mean it?"
Dom looked to Papa Louie for help. He sat at the head of the table, gnarled hands wrapped around his coffee cup, watching this play out like he'd known it would.
"Papa —"
"Don't look at me, Dominique." He took a slow sip. "Boy's got a point."
Elle appeared in the doorway. She wore a simple navy dress, her hair pulled back. Professional, organized, ready. "Let him come." She crossed to the table, stood beside CJ's chair. "We don't get to choose his safety over his dignity. Neither does the movement."
Dom looked at CJ, at his too-big shirt and his careful posture, the way he clutched his toast like it was precious.
He'd called her on it. There was nothing left to argue.
"You stay with me," Dom said, her voice rough. "Every second. You see trouble, you run. You don't fight back. You don't resist arrest if it comes to that." She crossed to him, gripped his shoulders. "Promise me."
"I promise."
She didn't believe him, but she pulled him into a hug anyway. His arms wrapped around her waist, his face pressed against her shoulder. He smelled like Papa Louie's soap and mimeograph ink.
"I love you," she whispered into his hair. "Be smart."
"I love you too, Mom."
The word hung in the kitchen—in the morning light, with Papa Louie and Elle right there, right before walking into danger together. He'd said it before, in private moments, but never like this.
Dom kissed the top of his head and let him go.
A.L. Davis Park was already half-full when they arrived at eight. Two hundred people gathering under the live oaks, the September air thick and warm, summer refusing to let go. Dom scanned the crowd automatically: exits, sight lines, clusters of people who might be trouble.
CJ's gaze widened. Two hundred people, despite the article, despite the denouncements. The article had tried to shame them into silence, but it had made people angry instead.
Ruth found CJ within minutes. She wore a floral yellow dress that made her dark skin glow, her hair in two neat braids. She took half his poster stack, hands shaking slightly.
Dom watched them move into the crowd together and made herself stay at the perimeter. This was her role: protection, not proximity. She could want to stay close and still choose to be useful.
Oretha appeared beside her, clipboard in hand, neat skirt, practical blouse, CORE colors in her hair wrap. "Dom, I need you on the perimeter. Watch for counter-protesters, keep the marchers safe."
Dom didn't move. She tracked CJ through the crowd.
"Elle can watch him," Oretha said.
Elle was already moving toward CJ and Ruth, taking up a position near the young people. She looked back once, met Dom's gaze, nodded, and mouthed, "I've got him."
Dom forced herself to the edge of the crowd.
Rev. Alexander stood on a low platform, his voice carrying across the park. At fifty-three, he still had the build of the longshoreman he'd been. His voice was thunder and honey mixed.
"We march today because we have been disappointed. We waited for Mayor Schiro to keep his word. We waited for the city to desegregate its own cafeteria. We waited for justice to come without us demanding it." He paused. "We are done waiting."
The crowd roared. Dom felt the collective sound of people who'd been silent too long finally making noise.
CJ stood near the front, his poster held high: FREEDOM NOW. He looked back through the crowd, found her, and grinned.
That grin nearly broke her. She grinned back.
The march began with singing, two hundred voices moving through the park and onto the street. Dom walked the perimeter, scanning faces. Counter-protesters lined the route—Confederate flags, hateful signs. Papa Louie stood on his front step as they passed, hand over his heart.
They'd made it four blocks when the first bottle flew.
Dom saw it arc through the air, sunlight catching the glass. Calculated trajectory. The bottle was aimed at the cluster of elderly marchers—Miss Céleste, who had come to the rent party, who had pressed two dollars into Elle's hand and called her singing a blessing.
Dom chose Miss Céleste. She ran.
Glass exploded against the pavement. The air filled with shattering, screaming, and slurs she'd heard her whole life. Miss Céleste stumbled, hand to her temple. Blood immediately, bright and streaming.
Dom reached her as she fell. She covered Miss Céleste with her body. More bottles—one caught Dom's shoulder, sent fire down her arm. Another hit her back, right over the ribs Lewis had cracked. She gasped, tasting blood where she'd bitten her tongue.
She craned her neck, trying to see CJ through the chaos. Bodies everywhere. She couldn't find him.
Then—Elle's voice cutting through: "He's okay! CJ's okay!"
Dom looked. She saw Elle hauling CJ and Ruth to their feet, pushing them toward the center of the march where adults had formed a protective circle around the young people. CJ's shirt was dirty but he was standing, unhurt.
Her lungs opened. She hadn't known she'd stopped breathing.
Police arrived in three cars. They didn't arrest the men throwing bottles. They pushed the marchers forward, herding them toward City Hall. Dom helped Miss Céleste up. The woman's face was covered in blood, streaking the collar of her church dress.
"I'm fine," Miss Céleste snapped, batting away Dom's hands. "You think this is the first time I bled for freedom? Keep marching."
Dom kept marching. Blood dried on Miss Céleste's face and Dom's shirt, her ribs screaming. But CJ was moving, Elle's hand on his shoulder. She'd chosen right. They were still together.
By the time they reached City Hall, Dom's jaw and shoulders settled into iron, the particular tension of a fighter who knows the next round is already decided.
Rev. Alexander led a delegation inside to deliver their eighteen-point petition. They waited twenty minutes. When he emerged, his face told them everything.
"The Mayor's office refused to see us. They sent an assistant who said the Mayor is 'unavailable.'"
Oretha stepped forward. "Then we go inside. The cafeteria. In the basement. It's still segregated. We're going to integrate it ourselves. Right now."
The crowd surged. Dom caught CJ's arm.
"You did good. Now you need to go home."
"We're just getting started."
Elle took Dom's face in her hands. "We don't get to choose his safety over his dignity."
Dom looked at CJ, at this child who had learned to stand tall, who called her Mom and meant it. She couldn't argue it twice and mean it less the second time.
She released his arm. That was all. He understood.
Thirty people followed Rev. Alexander and Oretha down the marble stairs into the basement cafeteria.
White city workers, fried food, cigarette smoke.
And behind the service counter—Black cafeteria workers visible through the kitchen.
Dom recognized Miss Esther, who lived three blocks from the bar, whose grandson had helped carry the ice chest the night Elle first arrived.
Their gazes met. Miss Esther's hands stilled on the pot she was scrubbing.
Rev. Alexander, Sondra Nixon, Doris Jean Castle, and two other young women approached the counter.
"We'd like to be served, please," Rev. Alexander said.
The woman behind the counter froze. "You know we don't serve coloreds here."
"Then we'll wait."
They sat. The white patrons fled within five minutes, leaving half-eaten lunches.
In the kitchen, Miss Esther set down her scrub brush. She looked at the other workers, at the protesters, at the white manager already on the phone. Then she untied her apron with slow, deliberate movements. Folded it neatly. Set it on the counter. Walked toward the exit.
As she passed CJ's table, she stopped. Looked at his poster.
"That's beautiful, baby," she said.