A Naked Singularity: A Novel

by Sergio De La Pava

  “Good to see you but I was hoping you’d be in the—”

  “I’m doing good. The new doctor is more better. He’s got me on the cocktail and—”

  “That’s great but I’m worried that—”

  “He give me this letter to give to the judge.”

  I looked at the numbers quickly. “The problem is this judge,” I said. “When your condition improves she gets impatient and—”

  “What’s she going to do? Is she?”

  “I don’t know. Remember I told you last time that she can put you in jail to serve the 1½ to 3 if she—”

  “But the other judge said—”

  “That judge is gone Raul. Cymbeline’s in charge of the case now and she can decide—”

  “But you said—”

  “I said that precisely this could happen. Damn it Raul, why didn’t you do what I said? I was very—”

  “Am I going to jail today?”

  I thought of Ah Chut and The Pledge. “No I’ll keep you out of jail. But next time either do what I say or tell your doctor to write more pessimistic letters!”

  “Okay.”

  “I’m glad you’re doing well and I’m sorry about this but—”

  “Can I make a call while we’re waiting to go in front of the judge?”

  “Yeah but don’t take too long. It doesn’t look very busy in there.”

  I went inside the courtroom and signed in Soldera’s case. I sat and watched Cymbeline and her Cheshire-grinned marionettes torture the lost like powerful boxers toying with overmatched opponents. After some time I realized Soldera hadn’t come back so I went out to the hall to look for him.

  I didn’t see him.

  I went back in and crossed his name off the list.

  Then I went back out and looked for him some more. Nothing.

  He had disappeared.

  The golden favor was a big one, catching a misdemeanor all-purpose part for an alleged afternoon hour prior to my death penalty meeting. In Manhattan there were five such parts with all-purpose code for nothing meaningful gets done but the nothing takes all day. Misdemeanors that had been arraigned but not disposed of were sent to these parts to take care of all pretrial matters. The parts typically handled about a hundred and twenty cases a day and did so with maximum confusion and disarray. In theory, the attorney on each of those cases would appear in the part to handle the case. Like most such theories, this one had little to do with reality. Reality was catch, the catcher, and catch notes. Each day an attorney was assigned to catch one of the parts, that person being the catcher. If the assigned attorney was unable to cover his case in one of these parts he would write a catch note that would tell the catcher what needed to be done on the case. The catcher would then cover the case to the satisfaction of no one. The client was usually unhappy because where the hell was his attorney and when was client’s case going to be called? The judge wasn’t thrilled because the catcher knew nothing about the case aside from vague jottings on a piece of paper. The catcher was least happy because he was fucking catching and more demeaning and horrifying task had yet to be invented.

  So there I was sifting through a pile of hieroglyphic notes and doing my best to ignore an increasingly-agitated audience. Linda was there too.

  “You know why you’re catching?”

  “Gold asked me.”

  “Know why?”

  “No.”

  “Diane Zale refused to catch.”

  “Doesn’t the schedule say Larry Halloran is supposed to be here.”

  “Where’ve you been? He quit weeks ago. Diane was the reserve but she refused to come in and catch.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Well Conley informed her that she was the reserve and she informed him that she refused to catch. Then Swathmore went and talked to her and she said the same thing.”

  “To Tom?”

  “Yup.”

  “And he said what?”

  “You’re fired.”

  “Is that even allowed in this place?”

  “No there’s already talk of a rescission,” she laughed. “The union’s negotiating and they’re hinting about a sick-out on Tuesday.”

  “Aren’t you broken up you’re leaving? You’ll miss all the fun.”

  “No I think I’m leaving just in time.”

  “Soon you’ll be pressuring earnest bright-eyed couples to buy homes they can’t afford. You know the ones near railroad tracks that you couldn’t resell with a gun.”

  “No,” she laughed. “You’re bad.”

  I would’ve thought we were done then but she just kind of hung around the table there until I felt compelled to create more noise.

  “So why are you splitting?”

  “I’ve been here a decade and that seems like enough. It’s draining to me. Every day dealing with people who are in so much trouble,” she gestured to the audience for empirical support. “I know that sounds silly but it’s true. I think it does something to a person to constantly deal with people who have made a mess out of their lives don’t you?”

  “I guess.”

  “See, you guess, but I know. That’s the difference. I’m not like you, I don’t have the stomach for this job. No I’m serious, I’ve seen you. You get sent out to trial you get excited, you like it. When I get sent out I get sick, literally. I just don’t want this to be a part of my life anymore, I want to go back to the real world.”

  “Everyone gets nervous when they get sent out, that doesn’t mean anything.”

  “I’m not talking about normal nerves here, I’m talking about terror. The first time I did a trial I’m about four months out of law school, twenty-six years old. I remember looking at my client and thinking am I really the attorney for this guy? It was petrifying to me to realize that it was really me who was in charge of this guy’s defense. The first time I spoke during that trial I heard the words as if they came from another person, a very nervous person. After the trial I told my supervisor about this feeling I’d had and how it lasted throughout the entire trial. She said it was normal and would go away through experience. Well it’s all these years later and I still get that feeling every time I pick up a serious case that doesn’t look like it’s going to plead out.”

  “Wow, that’s not good.”

  “Uh, no. That’s why I’m going to be worrying about mortgages and annual percentage rates from now on. I’m telling you this job’s not healthy. You know I watched Lee Graham faint in court from the pressure. He’s like me he’s—”

  “Wait, you were there?”

  “Yeah, I was his second-seat.”

  “Pray tell.”

  “Really?”

  “You’re surprised?”

  “I guess it’s okay right? Anyway, it was an attempted murder where our guy was made an offer just prior to starting trial. So we spent the whole morning trying to talk the guy into a plea but he was adamant about going forward. Now when you have a disease you know the symptoms, and when someone with the same affliction comes along you’re quick with the diagnosis. I’m looking at Lee and I’m totally seeing the signs. For one thing he’s begging this guy to take the plea. I mean actual begging. It was very uncomfortable. He’s doing this even though the guy didn’t really have a bad case and the offer wasn’t very good at all. Well the guy doesn’t take the plea and we’re supposed to start picking. Lee was literally green at this point. He was like shaking and stammering. He started telling the judge he couldn’t start. The judge is like you’re starting and calls for a jury. That’s when Lee fainted. I had never seen an actual person faint before, have you? It’s not like in the movies where the person gracefully falls perfectly backwards. The way Lee fainted it was as if all his bones had been suddenly suctioned out of his body.”

  “Then what?”

  “The case was adjourned and on the next date the guy took a plea. I suppose the fainting unnerved him.”

  “Nobody’s fool he.”

  “No, we told everyone Lee
had been feeling ill but if you were there the real reason he fainted was obvious. Don’t tell anyone. I saw the writing on the wall though. That would be me someday so I think I should get out before someone gets hurt. So I’m leaving.”

  Just then a burly court officer asked me to talk to a guy in the back who was making a commotion. The guy was in on a fugitive warrant from North Carolina. He’d been popped for having an open container of beer in the park. The police ran his information and found a warrant from North Carolina for a rape case. He was remanded (held without bail) in anticipation of North Carolina authorities picking him up and extraditing him back to their jurisdiction to face their version of justice. He had been in two weeks he said. But it wasn’t him; he had never been to North Carolina. He was a different Edward Hill. He was a good one. Why was it taking so long? His lawyer said it would be straightened out when they compared his prints to those of the NC Hill. His lawyer was Solomon Grinn and his note to me was consummately useless.

  When I came out from the back Linda was gone. Realizing it was for good kind of made me sad and sad in a way that was completely out of proportion to our relationship since we’d never really spoken much until arraignments the night before. This was one of my many problems. I could barely know someone—even border on disliking them—but if I then knew I was never going to see them again, those last few moments could make me pretty sad. For two years I barely exchanged words with Linda. Then two minutes before her final exit she opened her skull in front of me, as if I cared, to reveal that what I thought was gutless was gut-wrenching instead. I did Hill’s case and a few others then my replacement arrived. Was I aware why we’d been pressed into duty he was asking but I was busy staring out the window:

  The window is a vertical rectangle showing an alley’s airspace. Beyond it stir a great many white circles but out there the world’s been inverted so that snow falls up. The circles appear from behind the bottom glass then rise, circuitously but inexorably, until out of all view, ascending from the littered street like loosed souls seeking heaven.

  I was late for that death penalty meeting and when I walked into the conference room the speaker looked at me and stopped speaking, a formidable opponent to any stealthy entrance. I caught up. There were five groups of three attorneys each. Each group would work on the appeal of an Alabama death sentence. A member of the group would go to Alabama to meet with the client. The group would write and file a brief on the appellant’s behalf and a member of the group would argue its merits before the appropriate Alabama appellate court.

  My teammates were Melvyn Toomberg and Joe Ledo with our work product incredibly due in what felt like hours. The other catch was that after signing up to be part of our group, Ledo had subsequently quit about a week back. He had gone to Hollywood where he would write scripts with fame and fortune to follow meaning our three was two. Although Toomberg was more like one and a half there being no room in his cranium for anything other than The Law and his office therefore constantly housing a line of people hoping to hear his take on a legal issue which take he always preceded with a don’t quote me although you could do just that as he was always right.

  We got the files that day including a complete transcript of the trial. I rifled through it: Twenty-two-year-old Jalen Kingg it said. Sentenced to death it added quickly. Melvyn and I were of like mind. We would read over the weekend and talk on Monday.

  As I walked out I saw Solomon Grinn who had been with the office seemingly before there was a right to counsel. The only thing skinny on this clown was his beard.

  “You have a guy Edward Hill?”

  “Yeah what’s going on? He get picked up?”

  “Picked up? He says it’s not him.”

  “Oh that’s right. He’s probably full of shit but I did put that on the record at arraignments. He wouldn’t waive extradition so now they have to get a Governor’s warrant to get him back to South—

  “North.”

  —Carolina, right.”

  “Well has the DA compared his prints to the Carolina prints?”

  “I don’t know what they’ve done but I put it on the record that he says it isn’t him.”

  “Yeah but I think you should call the DA and make sure they compare those prints. All they have now is a name match. They have ninety days to get a Governor’s warrant and that’s how long they’ll probably take. Meanwhile this guy might be in for no reason, think about that. I said all this to the assistant in the part and the judge but you know how that is. You’ll probably want to stay on top of it with the assigned assistant.”

  “Yeah maybe you’re right.” He was looking away now, smiling at some other meathead and not really paying attention.

  “So you’ll do that or should I?”

  “What?”

  “You want me to do it?”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Means I’m not currently overcome with confidence you’re going to take care of this.”

  “Listen I’ve been doing this since before your father—

  “Fuck off,” I said leaving.

  Would I work with him on the case? I was back in Swathmore’s office. Death in the case he was mouthing about and death all around me too. Brown plants that had never been watered and ancient files closed tight and stamped ARCHIVE for good measure. I was opening and closing a binder on the floor with my foot and full of answers then questions. Yes I knew the case. Her own goddamn son. Wearing a yellow fisherman’s cap like Paddington Bear while it happened. Seven years old. But wasn’t Susan Hyves working on the case with him? Really? When did she leave? Hadn’t he fretted this morning that I was too busy? Oh this was why? No, just asking. Yes. I would forget the murder two and work on this case instead. I would read it over the weekend and we would talk next week. Thanks, I guess, and all that.

  From opposing ends, purple angelfish swim towards each other against a loud blue backdrop. Their mouths pucker then close again and again (breathing?) as they rush to meet in the middle. Just before making aquatic contact they veer off wildly in opposite directions swimming off the screen to be immediately replaced by others. The replacements look the same but aren’t.

  In front of this screensaver sat Conley and Debi Podurk and to their immediate left was Troie Liszt a new attorney who always wore white sneakers in court. They sat in the pink office that served as our Athenian Academy. (The walls of Conley’s office were white like all others but immediately outside his sole window was a tremendous U.S. flag flapping in the constant wind and often completely obscuring the world outside; Conley kept the lights off but the room was rarely dark because angry-white solar rays would pierce through the red fabric of the flag and emerge to color the room rose.) Conley and Debi were supervisors entrusted with the responsibility of assuring the smooth functioning of the office so, as such, they had no actual work to do and what they did in lieu was sit in that office and debate everything from the ponderous to the absurd. Liszt was one of the constant visitors and contributors but everybody was welcome and seemingly everyone joined in at some point or another. There were unspoken rules. Debi and Conley could never agree on anything no matter how minor. If entering mid-debate you were not to interfere in any way with the gaining momentum by asking people to repeat arguments or by raising work-related issues. Lastly, you were expected to yell often and occasionally take an indefensible position you didn’t wholeheartedly believe for the sole purpose of spurring passion and entertainment.

  “The great unknown,” said Debi.

  “Oh please,” said Conley. “You say that in hushed tones as if you’re saying something truly awesome or meaningful.”

  “And you say what?” asked Liszt.

  “I say that this great mystery that everyone tries to attach to it is totally overrated,” Conley said this as if he were reminding all present that a triangle has three sides. “Speaking generally, death can be one of four things, three of which are highly palatable. First, it could turn out that death is really not much different
than what we call life.”

  “Isn’t it by definition very different, as in the opposite?” Liszt said.

  “No. Not at all. Put aside for the moment spurious linguistic arguments. It could turn out that when you die you actually continue to function in essentially the same way albeit in some other form of reality. So while everybody’s looking at your old body and bemoaning your absence you’re actually doing quite well but doing it somewhere else. Note that this is not a bad situation. It’s like moving from New York to Los Angeles. It takes some getting used to, at first you may be miserable, but eventually you adjust and the weather’s better to boot.”

  “Of course your loved ones stay in this reality,” said Debi.

  “What-ones?”

  “Loved ones.”

  “Loved ones? Big deal, you make new friends. The second possibility is the one these religious kooks like Cleary try to sell you on. You know what I mean. Everybody’s had harp lessons and white is everyone’s favorite color. Peace, love et cetera abound. Although consummately boring, this possibility clearly beats the hell out of our current situation so again no complaints there right?”

  “Not for most,” said Debi.

  “The third possibility is more like a tremendously strong probability and is the one all sane, sentient beings should subscribe to. In this one death is a real end. No more consciousness, no more anything. This one scares the shit out of people but it shouldn’t. Someone explain to me what’s so bad about not existing? I know it’s bad to be sick or in pain. I know it’s bad to be sad or in other psychic pain but I can’t for the life of me get too worked up about the possibility of not feeling anything. As human beings we don’t sit around in dread recalling the days before we existed.”

  “To recall something you have to experience it. To experience something you have to exist,” said Debi.

  “Precisely. If death is an end to all experience then that’s not bad at all.”

  “Some of us enjoy life and its experiences and don’t want them to end,” said Liszt.

  “That’s absurd. Do you wake up after a long dreamless night and complain that you haven’t experienced anything in the past ten hours? Of course not. A good deep sleep is as good as it gets. If death is just the longest, deepest sleep then sign me up right now, it’s got to be better than this.”