Subject: argh!
Dear Jealous Jane -
Face it. Green’s not a good color on women.
Put your envy monster on a diet and maybe then you’ll be able to shake him off your back. Meanwhile, take care of yourself. Hate your job? Find another. Hate your apartment? Move. You should be getting the drift of this now. It’s easier to blame someone else for your troubles than to solve them yourself. Get some good stuff in your own corner and you shouldn’t be so worried about keeping score.
If you are, you’ve got bigger problems than I can solve.
Aunt Mary
***
Uncertain? Confused? Ask Aunt Mary!
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Johnny squirmed from his chair and went to James. James kissed his son’s temple and hugged him close, ruffled his hair then looked at Jimmy.
That son’s expression was hostile.
“What a bunch of crap,” he snarled, then fled to his room. He slammed the door hard behind himself, and James was on his feet in a flash.
“I’ve had just about enough of this attitude,” he muttered, but I stopped him with a gesture.
“Let me. I’ll enjoy it.” It was an impulsive offer, if one surprising to all of us.
In fact, I got as skeptical a look as James could conjure. “You’re always saying that you don’t do kids, Maralys.”
“But I had attitude when I was one. Believe me, I know how to get through to him in a way a goody-two-shoes type like you would never understand.”
James gestured to the door and bowed slightly. “Then, by all means, be my guest.”
I didn’t think of it at the time, but later I wondered whether I had some unconscious urge to prove that I had something to contribute.
Nah. Why would I want to contribute? It may be that no man is an island, but this woman has been an island for a long, long time. And it’s going to stay that way. With occasional diplomatic conferences in the land of wild sex.
It was just a chance to show off. Right?
I crossed the room and kicked open the door, a healthy measure of my own attitude on display. “Hey, you!” I shouted as the door bounced back against the wall.
Jimmy jumped and cast an alarmed glance over his shoulder before he went back to his handheld electronic game. It was one of those units that you load up with different games, about the size of a television remote. “Go away. I’m busy.”
“And I’m getting too old for this kind of garbage.”
“I don’t have to listen to you.”
“No, you don’t.” My agreement clearly surprised him, so I let him worry about it.
I sauntered into the room, which was a pit of chaos in the time-honored tradition of boys everywhere. Moving was only a temporary excuse. The big Pentium box was in the corner, with the monster tube that had made me salivate when James bought it for the boys two years before. I guessed that this was the one thing Jimmy had insisted on keeping.
But I had my suspicions about that handheld gaming toy. It beeped and bopped as he played. Closer perusal confirmed my suspicions of its model and recent vintage. Jimmy was trying desperately to ignore my presence but he was edgy.
Too edgy.
And I knew why. I had been there, done that, read the book and popped eight bucks for the movie. Jimmy was angry that factors beyond his control were shaking up his life. Fine. The black eye and the attitude were just the tip of the iceberg. Fine, again.
Theft wasn’t fine.
I had been joking about a goody-two-shoes not knowing where to begin, but this wasn’t funny anymore. James probably didn’t even suspect. I wouldn’t have suspected anything if Jimmy had flashed that gaming gizmo around their old house. But he had it stashed away and I knew that flashy acquisitions were seriously on hold.
Sometimes it pays to have a nastily suspicious mind in the quest for truth.
I eased up behind Jimmy and he edged away - trying to pretend that he intended to move that way all along - but he couldn’t get far. He’d parked himself in a tight place, and was still trying to hide the device from the doorway. And his dad. Wasn’t that telling? He was winning the game, though, and probably couldn’t bear to put it down.
I’m wiley. And I’m fast. He was going to lose the game with me.
I snapped the fingers of my left hand, Jimmy looked up, I swooped with my right and snagged the toy. He shouted and jumped after it, but I backed away, holding it high. James hovered in the doorway, watching, clearly not certain where I was going with this but trusting me. You’ve got to like that. Johnny’s eyes were as round as saucers at this unexpected household drama.
“Where’d you get this?” I asked quietly.
“It’s mine!”
I held it up towards James so he could see it. “Did you buy this?”
“I don’t know. All these games look the same to me.”
“Trust me to find that last living Luddite in the Greater Boston area.” I rolled my eyes, then flashed him a smile.” Tell me you have a Palm Pilot, at least. Restore my faith.”
James shook his head, bemused by the question. “A leather-bound daily planner.” Just thinking about how tactile he was could have distracted me in a major way if I’d let it. But he looked at Jimmy, challenging him. “Did I buy it? Did your mother?”
Jimmy tried to squirm free by acting bold. It works sometimes and I gave him some credit for trying. “Well, duh.”
James caught his breath and I knew he was fighting his father’s demons. No doubt he would have been flayed alive for challenging Robert Coxwell so boldly when he was this age.
Jimmy stretched out his hand, but I held the game away. Then I gave James some ammo while I held Jimmy’s gaze, daring him to argue with me.
“This is brand new technology. Next generation. Very, very cool and very, very coveted. In short supply, in fact. You can play interactively offline or on the ‘net. There’s an infrared in the head of it so the competitors can boing stuff back and forth in the same room.” I paused.
“Cool,” Johnny whispered, eyes round with awe now.
“It’s only just shipping.” I spoke to James. “You would have to have bought it in the last two weeks or so.”
“I haven’t bought anything lately.”
“Oh, you’d notice this baby on your Visa bill, even if Marcia had picked it up.” I named a price and James turned into Granite Man with Eyes O’ Fire. “Then there are the games, at a hefty price per pop.” I waved it at Jimmy. “What have you got on this, twenty games? That’s some kind of inventory.”
“Where did you get it?” James demanded of his son, and it was clear from his tone that the math was all nicely tabulating to the same answer I had gotten.
Jimmy faced him defiantly. “My friend gave it to me.”
“Which friend?” James demanded in the same moment that I said “Bullshit.”
Both boys stared at me, shocked that anyone would use such a word in their home. But this was serious stuff. Jimmy was only ten, so there was a chance to keep him off the slippery slope.
Someone snagged me back by the scruff of my neck when I was twelve, and I figured it was my job to pass the favor along. I’m a big fan of civic responsibility, you know.
I shook the toy under Jimmy’s nose. “You stole this. ‘Fess up.”
But he was unrepentant. “So what if I did?”
James looked like he was going to blow, but I held up one hand. “So, you’re going to make it right.”
“Oh, please.” Jimmy rolled his eyes. “Only stupid people think that’s how the world works.”
Boom! I had no chance to say anything more.
“What in the hell is that supposed to mean?” James started across the room, eyes flashing.
“Oh, come on, Dad! You get crooks free all the time!” He mimicked his father. “And you’re so good at what you do.”
James faltered, caught in his own inconsistency.
“S
ome bitch, having smart kids,” I muttered, but no one was paying any attention to me.
James’ composure had clearly been shaken, but he recovered in record time. “Is that what you think I do?”
“Mom said. You just went to California to get Uncle Zach out of jail. Didn’t you? Didn’t you?”
“That was different!”
“Bullshit!” Jimmy shouted, picking up my word with gusto.
James shoved a hand through his hair, then sat on the edge of the bed. He wrassled the demon of Robert Coxwell - who I suspected would have horsewhipped a child for challenging him so boldly. Either that or James and his siblings had all grown up so terrified of what their father might do that none of them had dared to challenge him.
James won his battle against repeating his own experience, took a deep breath, then bent his attention on his son. His words were very controlled, but I don’t think any of us were fooled. “What I do is ensure that people have a fair hearing.”
“I don’t think so…” Jimmy retorted and James’ anger flared again.
He pointed at the desk chair. “Sit. Shut up. Listen.”
Both boys sat.
Hell, I sat.
You could have heard the roaches breathing from the kitchen. James took his time, making us wait for it. And wait we did.
“We have a system of law which is intended to keep innocent people from being punished for what they haven’t done,” he said finally. “It’s a check and a balance to the authority of the state and of the police. Innocent until proven guilty. That’s the fundamental tenet, the right of every one of us who are citizens in this country. And if the guilt can’t be proven, then the accused is found innocent.”
“Even if you know he’s guilty.” Jimmy wasn’t going to let this one go.
“You can only know guilt for sure if you can prove it,” James snapped. “People lie and facts are obscured all the time. Truth is tricky. Our system demands that guilt be proven beyond a shadow of doubt or else we have to let the accusation drop.”
“It’s all a game.”
“No, it’s not a game,” James retorted. “It’s a cornerstone, the cornerstone, of a free society. To have the right to defend yourself against false charges, the right to a fair hearing and the right to a defense attorney is fundamental to our liberty.”
James spread his hands, warming to his theme in the face of Jimmy’s obvious skepticism. “That sounds very lofty, but there are a lot of places in the world where people don’t have those rights. Because you have grown up here, you don’t appreciate what you have. In many parts of the world, someone could walk into this room, say that your Pentium was stolen, arrest you, lock you up and throw away the key. No one would ever see you again, or even know what had happened to you. And they would be afraid to ask, in case they joined you.”
“But it’s not stolen!”
“But in those places, you would have no chance to say so.” James leaned forward and held Jimmy’s gaze. He’d gotten through the first barrier of hostility and both boys were listening to him. “You would have no chance to defend yourself against malicious and false charges.”
“What’s malicious?” Johnny asked.
“Something mean or unfair. Something someone does just to be nasty to you.” James turned back to Jimmy. He wasn’t talking down to the kid at all, but his explanation was easy to understand. Even I was getting a better grip on why he did what he did.
Who would have guessed that James Coxwell was an idealist? I was glad I was sitting down, let me tell you.
“The system only works if both sides fight hard to bring out the truth,” James continued. “Truth plays hard-to-get sometimes, so the legal system errs on the side the innocent.”
“Guilty people can get off.” Jimmy was a devil’s advocate par excellence. Obviously it was a dominant Coxwell gene.
“If there isn’t sufficient proof of their guilt, yes,” James admitted. “But the flip side of that is that theoretically an innocent person could never be found guilty of something he or she didn’t do. There wouldn’t be enough proof to prove their guilt. You see? Sometimes guilty people get off, but that’s to make sure that innocent people don’t get convicted.”
He looked between his sons, both of whom were watching him avidly, checking that they understood. “What I do, or what I used to do, was make sure that the state had done their job properly. I found the holes in their arguments or the mistakes they’d made in their procedures. I found the places where there was reasonable doubt or where they had broken the law themselves or not respected someone’s rights. Rules only work when everybody follows them.”
“But crooks don’t follow them,” Johnny said.
“No. And in a way it’s not fair. But you see, the cops and the state and the good guys have to follow the rules, otherwise they’d be no better than the crooks. In a lawless society, there is no justice for anyone.” The boys thought about that for a moment.
“Have you ever helped a crook go free, Dad?” Johnny asked.
James looked at the floor, his expression dead serious. I thought he might lie, or at least gloss the truth, but he was straight with them. “The hardest case I ever had to defend was one in which the defendant was clearly guilty, but the police had not followed the rules in gathering the evidence they had against him.”
“What does that mean?” Johnny was clearly intrigued.
“We have a law that the police can’t just search your home because they feel like it. They have to get a warrant first, and they can only get a warrant if they have some good reason for needing one. They have to have some proof that there’s something in your house to find.”
Johnny moved to sit on the bed beside his father. “What if they don’t?”
“Then what they find doesn’t count.”
“Even if it’s bad stuff?”
James nodded. “When they don’t follow the rules, the evidence can’t be admitted to court. It can’t be used as proof.”
“Why don’t they just follow the rules all the time then?”
“Because most cops really want to catch bad guys.” He smiled at his son. “We all forget the rules sometimes when we’re sure that we’re right about something. Or when we get excited and think we have to act fast. But the law says that even bad guys have rights.”
“That’s dumb.” Johnny was disgusted by this.
“You wouldn’t think it was dumb if someone said that you were a bad guy.”
“But I’m not!”
“Exactly. Because of the law, you’d have a chance to say so. Innocent until proven guilty. My job, as well as that of all the other lawyers and judges, is to make sure that we don’t forget to follow the law, even when we think we know that we’re right. It’s not a perfect system, but it’s a very good one and it’s worth defending.”
Johnny thought about that. Jimmy, who had been watching this exchange, folded his arms across his chest defiantly. “What about Uncle Zach?”
I had to like the kid’s gusto. He went right for the heart of it and didn’t flinch. I was feeling pretty simpatico with this small adult.
James nodded, unperturbed. “You’re right. Your Uncle Zach was guilty and I knew it.”
“But you still got him off?”
James nodded again.
“See?” Jimmy’s triumph was short-lived.
“I do see. You’re right that I should never have helped him. I should never have gone to California. I was wrong, Jimmy, and I made a mistake. Thank you for making that clear to me.” The boy regarded his father warily and rightly so. James smiled slightly. “You know what happens next?”
“What?”
“I learn from my mistake and I don’t do it again.”
Jimmy worked the implications of that out but quick. “That’s not fair!”
“Yes, it is. That’s the issue here. What’s fair? What’s law? What’s right? Your point is a good one. Everyone has always saved your Uncle Zach from himself. And you know, it’s nev
er done him any favors, I can see that now. He just gets into worse trouble all the time, because he doesn’t think any of it matters. Zach always figures someone else will fix it.” James eyed his son, leaning forward to brace his elbows on his knees as he dropped his voice. “Just like you’re doing right now.”
Jimmy folded his arms across his chest and tried out a glare on his dad. It wasn’t bad, but he was going to have to improve it to intimidate the shark.
“Maybe if somebody had made him understand that he was wrong the very first time, Zach wouldn’t still be getting into trouble,” James continued quietly. “He’d know that no one was going to fix it, because no one ever had. He might have to fix things himself.”
“You’re not going to fix this,” Jimmy said, his hostility clearly rising.
James shrugged. “No, you are.” He looked toward the kitchen. “Now, where do you think our pizza is?”
James stood up to leave and Jimmy lost it. He leapt onto the bed, looking a very furious ten years old now, and screeched at his father. “How can you do this to me? How can you be so mean?”
“Sometimes you have to be cruel to be kind, or so they say.”
“Liar! Liar liar liar!” He stomped up and down the bed, in full tantrum mode. It was a telling reminder of his age. “I hate you and I hate this house and I hate having no trip and I hate having no stuff. I wish Mom had never left! She loved me! She would have bought me this. But she wasn’t here and you don’t love me, so I took it! I fixed it myself!”
James said nothing, just watched his son until Jimmy was red in the face and his tears were rising. “Maybe that’s the problem, Jimmy. Maybe it’s time someone said no to you.”
“Maybe it’s a lot of things,” I added, knowing from my own experience that no one person could ever be responsible for the choices a teenager makes.
The kid turned on me. “What do you know about it?” Jimmy sneered. “You just want to boink my dad. Maybe it’s your fault that Mom left.”
“Now, just a moment here…” James started to argue.
But Jimmy was furious. He turned his wrath loose on the one most obviously responsible for his woes. Me. “It’s you, it’s your fault. You made Mom leave, you made my Dad mad at me. You’ve ruined everything, you, you, you SLUT!”
Double Trouble Page 25