Atty at Law

by Tim Lockette

  “I’m going to cut you off right here, Miz Peale,” Judge Grover said. “Are you a lawyer?”

  “I am not,” I said. “I’m representing myself. I’ve never said I’m a lawyer.”

  Well, not in public anyway. What I think of myself is my business. Isn’t it?

  “You’re not representing or defending an alligator?”

  “No, Your Honor,” I said. “I’m arguing that as a citizen of this state, I have a right to see environmental laws in my county enforced. Including laws that protect the alligator population.”

  “So can you tell me this: how does your right to have an alligator in the local swamp outweigh the right of all other residents of this county to feel safe from a wild animal attack?”

  Oh God, I’m blank! That question! It was like that time I fell down the stairs at school and had the wind knocked out of me.

  Grover turned to Graddoch. “Does the state have anything to add?”

  “The governor is the chief executive of Alabama, Your Honor,” Graddoch said. “That’s all.”

  Grover leaned back and threw down his bifocals. “This is a frivolous pleading, Miss Peale, and I’m dismissing it. If I see you again, I hope you bring something worth this court’s time. That’s all.”

  Ever seen a movie about the high school prom? There’s always some nerdy boy who asks a pretty girl to go with him. Down on his knee, in front of everybody. And she says no. And he has to accept forever that this person will never love him. And he has to stand, and turn. And walk down the hallway with all those people watching him.

  I’ve learned that this happens to everybody, at some point. At least I was already standing. At least I didn’t have a bunch of dumb flowers in my hand. I tried to hold my head up high as I walked down the aisle and out into the hallway, where the news cameras and the bright lights were waiting.

  Bing.

  CinqueMartinez: Check out this story. They call you “defender of monsters.” Cool.

  This at nearly midnight, while I’m lying in bed, trying to sleep. I can’t sleep. What just happened?

  Bing.

  Princess_P: Personally I think you’d look great with one hand bitten off.

  And with that message, a link to a video of Raybun G. Hardstetter, the guy who was bitten by the alligator. A local TV station had interviewed him in his hospital room.

  “A local man—attacked by the alligator some call the Swamp Monster—says faith in God helped him survive against the odds,” the reporter said. Then the scene shifted to the hospital bed. Raybun in a hospital gown, talking about how he felt his arm snap and immediately called on Jesus to help him make it back to the surface.

  “I feel like the Devil himself had a holt of me,” he said. “I know I wasn’t living right. Drinking and chasing women and staying up all night. That’s how I wound up out there hunting for the Devil himself. I always believed in Jesus. But if you’re not really following Him, you’re just out there searching in the dark like me.

  “Sin is like that,” he continued. “First you’re ignoring the risk and having fun. Then Satan gets a holt of you with teeth, the strongest teeth you ever felt. And he drags you down into the dark, spinning you around. And that’s when I said to Jesus, if he would let me live, I’d do right. And just then my hand tore away and I swam off fast as I could. Just like in the Bible, if your hand offends you, cut it off.”

  Then the reporter asks him what he thinks of the “devil’s advocate” who was petitioning to save the gator.

  “I don’t know what would make a little girl do such a thing,” Raybun said, looking into the camera. “But I know that if she’d let Jesus into her heart, she wouldn’t need all this attention.”

  I groaned. So many emotions, so little time. Of course I felt sorry for the guy. The way he admitted he shouldn’t have been there, the way he called on Jesus, all very moving. And yet, my client—well, the animal I’m helping—is the Devil in this story. And I’m a sinner. How is this story about Jesus and my heart? He was saying that my life of cleaning dog poop was just like his pre-gator life of drinking and dancing and hunting deer with a spotlight. It’s all non-Jesus stuff you shouldn’t be doing.

  Anger. That’s what I was feeling, I decided. That way leads to the dark side. And it keeps you awake, when you have videos to make and cat profiles to write and cages to clean in the morning.

  Bing.

  CinqueMartinez: I’ve broken the code.

  Atticustpeale: What code?

  CinqueMartinez: The code on that piece of paper. The one stapled to the lottery ticket in Dad’s case.

  Atticustpeale: Sneak over and talk to me in person.

  A couple minutes later my door creaked open. In the moonlight, I saw Martinez in his too-short pajamas. If you demand PJs with dinosaurs on them, at some point you have to accept pajamas that are too short. Martinez climbed right into bed with me, like he did when we were little and shared a room.

  “I’ve got it, Atty,” he said. “After long expert study, I’ve figured it out. It’s complete nonsense.”

  “Umm, if it’s nonsense then you haven’t broken any code,” I said.

  “No, look,” he said, holding up his phone, with the photo of the paper on it. “Look at the pattern of letters.”

  wefpoj

  wf;l

  qpweodfk

  pfoj

  ‘sdlfkef

  “Okayyyy,” I said.

  “Now look at your own phone. The keyboard,” he said. “There, you see it?”

  I looked from one phone to the other. “Martinez, is this some kind of face-on-Mars conspiracy thing?”

  “No, look at where the letters are on the keyboard.” he said. “W-E-F on one side. P-O-L and J on the other.”

  “So a cat walked on a keyboard,” I said. “He stepped here and here. What does it prove?”

  “A cat. Or somebody just banged their hands here and here and purposely typed out nonsense. A keyboard smash.”

  “So what?”

  “So, when the police capture Jethro he has this little slip of paper stapled to the lottery ticket. Why on earth would somebody staple that to the lottery ticket?”

  I just sighed. Martinez shook his head like I was being really stupid.

  “Look,” he said. “Do we know if Jethro can read? What if he can’t? And what’s it like going to the store if you can’t read?”

  I’d never thought about it before. “I guess you can’t use a debit card machine if you can’t read. You’d have to pay for stuff with cash, I guess.”

  “And then when you’re done they hand you a . . .”

  “A receipt!” I said. “Okay, I get you now. You’re saying this is the receipt Jethro talked about getting from the clerk. Somebody goes to a typewriter and types out a nonsense page. Then they staple it to the lottery ticket. Then they say, ‘here’s your receipt,’ and he takes both. He doesn’t even know he’s got a lottery ticket.”

  “Code broken,” Martinez said.

  “I don’t know if that’s really codebreaking,” I said. “But it’s big. If you’re right, that’s big.”

  “You’re just jealous.” Martinez said. “I’m a codebreaker.”

  “Well, we have to tell Dad, obviously.”

  “I’m not telling him. I wasn’t supposed to take the picture of the paper. Why don’t we just write him an anonymous note?”

  “Like he wouldn’t know immediately who wrote it.”

  “You tell him,” Martinez said. “You’re the dog lawyer. You’re good at speaking for people. Go be my lawyer.”

  I glanced at the phone again. 1:13 a.m. There was a little strip of light under my door, so either Martinez left a light on or one of the parents was still up, reading and typing.

  “OK, Martinez,” I said. “You go back to bed.”

  “I’m comfy right h
ere. I’ll just snooze a bit while you go.”

  Little brothers. I climbed over Martinez and headed for the door.

  Walking around our house at night, I often feel like I’m on some old wooden ship in the British Navy. Our house turned one hundred years old that summer; it isn’t some big plantation house like you see in travel brochures, just a normal-sized house, but it is plenty creaky. The floorboards wobble, the hallway closet door pops open every time you walk by. You can’t sneak up on anybody.

  But Dad didn’t seem to notice me. He was on the couch, still in his suit, with papers all around and a computer on his lap.

  “Hey,” I said. “The murder case.”

  Dad nodded. “You know, in law school, I decided I’d defend poor clients because it would help me to sleep at night. And here I am. If I were a tax lawyer, I’d be in bed right now.”

  “I’m having the same problem,” I said. “People keep texting me about the alligator case.”

  “Let me guess,” he said. “You’re on the side of monsters. You’re what’s wrong with this country. If you’d worked a day in your life, you’d have enough principles not to defend a killer.”

  “Are you reading my emails?” I asked. I was serious, though it didn’t sound like something he’d do.

  “I don’t have to,” he said. “Look, I guess I should have told you before. This is the price of the kind of work we do. People say mean things. You stay up at night. You think there’s just one case out there that needs your help and then you find there’s more work than you can ever, ever finish.”

  I moved some papers and sat beside him. A long silence.

  “And?” I said. “This is where you’re supposed to say something inspiring about why we do what we do. About how important it is to stand up for the defenseless, even if you know you can’t win.”

  He laughed. “Do I really have to say it? I don’t know another way to live. Looks like you don’t, either.”

  “I’m sure there’s another way to live. You could drink all day and fall asleep in the hot tub like McNutters.”

  “Sounds dangerous.”

  Silence.

  “Dad, I’ve got something to tell you, but I want you to promise not to be mad,” I said.

  “I can’t make promises about emotions,” he said. “I promise I’ll be less angry because you told me yourself.”

  And I told him all about Martinez and the photo and the code.

  “Wow,” he said. “Wow, that is big indeed. Why didn’t I think of that? So somebody could have given Jethro the lottery ticket and made him think it was just a receipt. But who?”

  “Didn’t the owner of the pawnshop have a business partner?” I asked.

  “He has an alibi,” Dad said. “Fishing all day. He has a receipt from the marina where he put his boat in. Still, if it’s true Jethro can’t read, it supports his side of the story. I hope I get a chance to use that in court. I hope.”

  “When is the trial, anyway?” I asked.

  “I don’t know,” Dad said. “Maybe there won’t be one.”

  “What?”

  “Atty, you know I’m not supposed to talk about what goes on between me and my client,” he said. “But you know, a lot of people plead guilty to things they know they didn’t do, to get a lesser sentence. Especially when they could get the death penalty.”

  “So Jethro’s going to plead,” I said, shocked. Only then did I realize how convinced I was that he was innocent. “I just don’t see how he can do that when he knows he didn’t do it.”

  “That kind of thing is less about guilt or innocence than it is about your faith in the system, I guess. Or your faith in your lawyer. Do you think you can win? Put yourself in the shoes of a person accused of a crime and you’ll see what I mean.”

  I looked down at my feet, I guess because of the “shoes” comment.

  “Dad,” I said. “I have something else to tell you. I have in fact been accused of a crime.”

  “Practicing law without a license,” Dad said, matter-of-factly.

  “You knew!”

  “Troy Butler came to see me. I shut him down pretty good. You’ve got nothing to worry about, but I was wondering when you were going to tell me.”

  “Maybe I wanted to fight my own battles,” I said. But I knew it was wrong, even as I was saying it. “Dad, do you ever feel like it’s easy to speak for other people, but really hard to speak for yourself? Easy to take care of other people, but hard to take care of yourself?”

  “Story of my life,” he said. “Speaking of which, you should go get some sleep.”

  “Can I borrow your computer first? I want to write a letter to the governor about the alligator.”

  “It’s one-thirty! I’ll give you fifteen minutes. Look up his official e-mail address. Write a short e-mail, proof it, then send. Fifteen minutes. Then bed.”

  By the time I hit “send,” Dad was snoring next to me on the couch. I leaned against him and closed my eyes. It felt good to know I wasn’t in trouble with him. All that guilt about the lawyer-without-a-license charge, for nothing.

  Next thing I knew, it was daylight. Martinez standing about a foot from the TV, in his PJs, eating Froot Loops. My phone was jangling in my hand. I picked it up.

  “H’lo?” I said.

  “Hi, can I speak to Atticus Peale, or one of his parents?”

  “This is she.”

  “This is Jen Carter, a spokeswoman for Governor Fischer King. We got your message, and the governor would like to meet you to talk about your letter.”

  I jumped up and did a little dance. Dad’s laptop clattered to the floor.

  “Just name a time,” I said.

  10

  There’s a bullet hole in our living room. A dent, really, on the mantel just to the left of where Martinez hangs his stocking at Christmas. I know it was made by a bullet, because I was standing right there when the bullet came in.

  This happened years ago. It was, for us, a normal Saturday evening. Martinez was sitting on the floor next to the coffee table, which he’d covered from edge to edge with Lego buildings. Now two Lego men were fighting over who would be king of the city, and Martinez was speaking the entire drama out loud. “Aaaaah! Take that, you traitor!” he said. Taleesa was ironing in the kitchen, and she was talking to herself, too. She always talks out the dialogue in her fiction, and I’ve learned not to be alarmed when she mumbles to herself about why she sold secrets to Russia, or why she spent fifteen years working on a fishing boat. Dad, meanwhile, was in his study talking to the walls about “my client.” He had a trial coming up and he always practiced his closing arguments that way. Sometimes I think I’m the only person in the house who doesn’t talk to herself constantly. But then, here I am, talking to you.

  I was eight years old when this happened, and I’d just written my first novel. It was about fifteen pages long and was about a girl stranded on a desert island. At the time I wrote it, I thought a desert island was actual desert—sand and no water—and when I found out it just meant “deserted,” I was embarrassed and resolved to burn the novel so no one would ever find it.

  So there I was, standing in the living room by the fireplace, when suddenly there was all this commotion outside. A loud pickup roared by on the street, the driver honking his horn again and again. Somebody down the street shouted some kind of war whoop.

  And then the gunshots. Pop. Pop. Pop pop pop pop pop. A second later, a tinkle of broken glass, a strange, sudden click from the fireplace, and something thumped me on the chest and bounced away.

  I’m sure you’ve heard of Iron Bowl, the big football game between Alabama and Auburn. People are obsessed with it, and when the game ends, folks who supported the winning team drive around and shout and sometimes shoot guns into the air. Pop pop pop pop pop. All bullets have to come down somewhere. And one of them came through our liv
ing room window, knocked a chip of wood out of the mantel, and bounced off. The cops later found both the wood chip and the bullet on the living room floor. They say the bullet had already lost a lot of its speed, which is why it didn’t go all the way into the wood. The cops said it was the wood chip that thumped me in the chest, but I think it was the bullet itself.

  I brought all that up to say this. There are a lot of things that other Alabamians do that I’ve never done. Every other family in the state was watching the Iron Bowl that Saturday. No one in my house even thought about it until the gunshots started popping off. Dad and Taleesa are the only grown-ups I know who don’t care about football. I’m the only white girl I know who’s never watched Gone with the Wind. And I’m the only kid I know who’s never been baptized or bat mitzvahed into any religion whatsoever. (Martinez got christened as a baby, because Old Martinez, Taleesa’s dad, demanded it.)

  Even when I want to do the typical Alabama thing, fate seems to stop me. Every year, fourth-graders from across Alabama make the journey to Montgomery as part of their Alabama history classes. You can see the capitol and Martin Luther King’s house and the place where Nat King Cole was born and the White House of the Confederacy and a museum with a bus just like the one Rosa Parks sat in. Or so I am told. Dad says about half the photos in my Alabama history book were shot within six blocks of the capitol.

  It’s the one Alabama rite of passage I really wanted to experience, but I got the flu the day of the trip. So here I was, twelve years old already, and I’d never seen the capitol. I was extra-hyped about getting to see it now, with an invitation from the governor himself.