“Why’s that?”
“I don’t know. I never been on TV before.”
“You’ll be fine.”
In a few minutes the cameras were rolling, and Sadie, her voice quavering slightly, held her first press conference. As
she started to field questions, a woman in a red suit and heavy mascara rushed into the reception area. She smiled
tightly at Sadie, introducing herself as the director’s assistant, Ms. Broadnax. “I’m so sorry that the director isn’t here,”
Ms. Broadnax said. “If you’ll just come this way, I’m sure we can clear up this whole matter.”
“Is there asbestos in all CHA units?” a reporter shouted.
“Will the director meet with the parents?”
“We’re interested in the best possible outcome for the residents,” Ms. Broadnax shouted over her shoulder. We
followed her into a large room where several gloomy officials were already seated around a conference table. Ms.
Broadnax remarked on how cute the children were and offered everyone coffee and doughnuts.
“We don’t need doughnuts,” Linda said. “We need answers.”
And that was it. Without a word from me, the parents found out that no tests had been done and obtained a promise
that testing would start by the end of the day. They negotiated a meeting with the director, collected a handful of
business cards, and thanked Ms. Broadnax for her time. The date of the meeting was announced to the press before we
crammed back into the elevator to meet our bus. Out on the street, Linda insisted that I treat everybody, including the
bus driver, to caramel popcorn. As the bus pulled away, I tried to conduct an evaluation, pointing out the importance of
preparation, how everyone had worked as a team.
“Did you see that woman’s face when she saw the cameras?”
“What about her acting all nice to the kids? Just trying to cozy up to us so we wouldn’t ask no questions.”
“Wasn’t Sadie terrific? You did us proud, Sadie.”
“I got to call my cousin to make sure she gets her VCR set up. We gonna be on TV.”
I tried to stop everybody from talking at once, but Mona tugged on my shirt. “Give it up, Barack. Here.” She handed
me a bag of popcorn. “Eat.”
I took a seat beside her. Mr. Lucas hoisted the children up onto his lap for the view of Buckingham Fountain. As I
chewed on the gooey popcorn, looking out at the lake, calm and turquoise now, I tried to recall a more contented
moment.
I changed as a result of that bus trip, in a fundamental way. It was the sort of change that’s important not because it
alters your concrete circumstances in some way (wealth, security, fame) but because it hints at what might be possible
and therefore spurs you on, beyond the immediate exhilaration, beyond any subsequent disappointments, to retrieve
that thing that you once, ever so briefly, held in your hand. That bus ride kept me going, I think. Maybe it still does.
The publicity was nice, of course. The evening after we got back from the CHA office, Sadie’s face was all over the
television. The press, smelling blood, discovered that another South Side project contained pipes lined with rotting
asbestos. Aldermen began calling for immediate hearings. Lawyers called about a class-action suit.