by Alex Abella
Four hours and two bottles of wine later I finally weave my way down Vermont to Enzo's. A din of voices, music, clatter of dishes. All the booths are taken, all the tables full, people lined up against the wall waiting for a place. A seafood pizza, carried on high by a tiny Mexican waiter, passes right under my nose to a table nearby. Enzo sees me from the side of the bar and comes up.
"Ciao, Carlo."
"Ciao, stronzo," I tell him. Hi, shithead.
I see Lucinda coming out from the back, still laughing at a lewd comment by a waiter. Her silk dress reminds me vaguely of a leopard skin. She notices me, her smile drops. She stops for a moment, then walks directly up to me. We stare at each other in silence, Enzo by our side, whispering, in Italian, "Don't do anything stupid, Charlie!"
Lucinda keeps her eyes level with mine, she doesn't run, she doesn't bend.
"I'm sorry," she says at last. "It had to be."
I stick my hand in my jacket, feel the butt of the gun. I grab the gun, slide it out of the holster, bring it out into the open.
Enzo steps in between us but I push him away. Gasps among the diners when they see the gun. The hubbub dies down. We are observed in frightful silence. Lucinda does not flinch.
I snap the safety catch, cock the hammer, then twirl the gun and present it to her, butt first. She looks down at it.
"Take it," I say, "go on. Finish the job."
I grab her hand, put it on the gun, forcing her fingers around the handle until I know she's holding it.
Her hand shakes. Her eyes stay down.
"OK, then," I say. "Keep it. Anytime you want to, I'm ready."
I walk out, expecting the kiss between my shoulder blades. It doesn't come. Instead the crowd of diners opens silently before me. I walk up the crowded street.
Hours later, up on high, at the observatory, I see the city lying before me, lights twinkling. I stand on the edge of the platform around the building and look at the red tile roofs a thousand feet below. A shooting star blazes across the night sky.
"I wish for hell!" I scream into the darkness.
A vague echo floats back up. Another shooting star.
I know my wish has been granted.
20
judge Reynolds turned to Ramón. "Do you have an opening statement, Mr. Valdez?"
"I do, Your Honor."
And with that Ramón rose for the first time. Reynolds eyed him askance. He leaned back in his chair, every gesture saying Here's the rope, there's the gallows, let me help you.
The chain twinkled as the chair eased back. Leaning forward, his hands on the table, Ramón looked straight at the jury through the horn-rimmed glasses that made him look like a somber court clerk or a divinity student.
"Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, you will forgive me if I don't approach you, but as perhaps you know I have been in chains all the time I am in this trial. It would be most uncomfortable, in fact it would be embarrassing for me to show my chains. You see, I feel I don't deserve to be in them. But then, that's natural, is it not?"
The jurors smiled sympathetically. Ramón's accent draped itself over the words softly, like down. Never had I seen someone use his foreignness to such an advantage, to be able to enjoy the benefit of both worlds, the alien and the native, the Hispanic and the Anglo.
"Perhaps it would have been easier for all of you to understand me if I had an attorney. The accent and all that. But as you can see"-he waved magnanimously at me-"all I have is an investigator. I am my own attorney. I am sure you are asking why is that.
"Well, I will tell you. I believe that when the facts of the case are so different, so exceptional, and the truth of the matter depends on one's personal interpretation, in that case, I believe it is better to be without an attorney. It is better in that case to be without legal shields, without weapons, and to appeal directly to you, the jury, to understand what happened.
"I don't believe there is a single attorney who would do justice to my case the way I can. You have to see me, you have to hear me, then you can decide if you believe me. You have to see me through the trial, too, not simply when at the end I get on that witness stand and testify. No, because truth is something that flows completely out of your body-out of every pore of your being the smell of truth must come or else no one will believe what actually happened. Every action of mine must have the smell of truth because otherwise, it is all no good."
Ramón coughed, took out a handkerchief. The eyes of the jurors were riveted on him. Mrs. Gardner coughed sympathetically, too. From my chair I could see the notes Ramón had written in his handkerchief, so that no one would know how thoroughly he'd prepared for this statement, how hard he'd worked to make it look natural and spontaneous, the unplanned reaction of an unjustly accused man.
"Now all of you have been seeing me since the trial began, especially since I had my little ... problem at the beginning." Here he glanced at the judge, referring to the opening salvo of their warfare. The jurors chuckled.
"I think at that time you saw that I am a man of principle. I was shackled and put in solitary because I refused to follow an archaic concept of undue respect."
"Objection, Your Honor," said Phyllis.
"Mr. Valdez, unless you ... " All the jurors turned to the judge.
"Yes, Your Honor?"
"Please refrain from making comments not directly related to the case. Proceed."
Ramón looked at him for a moment, sincerely hesitating, contemplating in a whir all of the possibilities that would present themselves should he defy the judge at that point. Then he looked away and shook his head at the jury.
"I cannot tell you any more about my principles. As you see, the judge says that has nothing to do with the case." Here he turned to gaze fixedly at Reynolds. "I disagree. Everything in this case has to do with me personally, with my character, with my personality, with the kind of man I am and the kind of man everyone else says I am. Because you see, in the end, there is only belief-belief in one person, belief in one another, belief in the gods."
Ramón smiled at the jurors. In the corner, the eye of the camera zoomed in on his every move.
"Now, prosecutors sometimes use an analogy of the opening statement being like a road map. It shows you the highlights of the trip, where you're going, what you should watch out for. Miss Chin here did not do that in this case, wisely I think, for a reason-no road maps can apply to this case. There are no roads going in and out. The reason is very simple-because no one knows."
He paused, a momentous pause, eyes fixed on his audience. "No one knows because it is all a mystery. Terra incognita, in Latin. I am sure you are asking yourself, what the devil does he mean? This is no mystery, everybody says he did it. The prosecution says I did it, the police say I did it, my friend, my former lover, the former defendant in this case, he says I did it too.
"But I am going to tell you a secret. I didn't do it. I, Ramón Valdez, as I stand here, facing you, before this court, before the flag of this great country, I tell you I didn't do it."
Another pause, perspiration pearling his brow. He made no effort to wipe it off.
"I know it sounds ridiculous but it's true. I didn't do it. Something bigger than us, something beyond our everyday existence, a cosmic force came and used one of us for the greater meaning and
design He had in mind.
"Ridiculous, you say? God is not cruel, God is kindness, God is love. But is He really?
"In an old novel by a Russian author-the Russians, they know much about the soul, you know-Jesus Christ has come back to earth. He is brought before the Grand Inquisitor in Spain. The Grand Inquisitor is incredibly agitated for he can't believe Jesus has returned and that he has Him before him. And the main question the Inquisitor asks Jesus is, how can you allow the bad to exist in this world? How can we believe in You, in Christ, in God, when innocent children suffer for no reason at all?
"Just the other day I too ran into something like this. In jail, a man I knew was crying. I asked him why he
cried. He said his little girl, four years old, that he had left with his brother for safekeeping while he served his sentence, that little girl had been sexually abused. A broomstick had been stuck inside of her until she died from the bleeding and then her body was put in a bag and burned in a park. All this by the very same brother who was supposed to be taking care of the little niece.
"That is the soul of the question I would have asked Christ if He were here and if I were the Grand Inquisitor. Today, after Auschwitz, after Treblinka, the labor camps of Stalin, the killing fields of Cambodia, the famine of Ethiopia, how can we believe in Christ?
"Do you know what the answer was, ladies and gentlemen, the answer Christ gave the Inquisitor in that novel? No answer. No answer at all. Do you know why? Because God goes beyond human understanding, God goes beyond good and evil, God is-"
"Objection, Your Honor," interrupted Phyllis. "Mr. Valdez is giving us a Sunday school lesson that has no relevance."
The cold stares the jurors directed at Phyllis should have warned her not to insist but she pressed on. I noticed that Ramón's face seemed devoid of color, a film of sweat running down to his shirt collar.
"I think Your Honor should remove Mr. Valdez from his pro per status and appoint an attorney who can conduct a competent defense for him."
Reynolds held his ground. "Counsel, opening statements are allowed a wide latitude in their subjects," he countered, but emphasized, "as long as they ultimately show the connection to the case. Proceed, Mr. Valdez, but remember, I'm waiting to see where all these theological musings are leading. Objection overruled."
Ramón looked wide eyed at the judge, threw an arm into the air, then jerked spasmodically. He spoke in a rush, breathlessly, almost as though the weight of his words was unbearable and he had to unburden himself of them as soon as he could.
"Where will it lead us, Your Honor, where will it lead us? I will tell you where it will lead us, to the gates of Hell, Your Honor, to the gates of the infierno, that abre sus puertas y nos espera allí in the darkness amid the gnashing of teeth y el concierto de las almas malditas, allá in the heights, where the empyrean coro de angelitos danza en torno the clouds mientras que un God choleric wreaks his wrath…"
I was stunned, I couldn't believe what I was hearing. The non sequiturs in Spanish and English rolled in and out of Ramón's mouth, which now drooled and slavered, as though some perverse spirit were seizing control of him. Jurors looked at each other with amazement, not knowing whether the seizure was real or feigned.
Reynolds looked at Ramón like a lepidopterist examining a still fluttering specimen. Phyllis sprang up, raised her hand accusatorily. The bailiff also jumped out of his chair, arm muscles rippling from contained fear.
"You Honor, Mr. Valdez is demonstrating his incompetence. He has lapsed into gibberish and we request that he be taken off the case!"
Ramón paid no attention, his mouth now drooling freely, eyes moving rapidly left to right, as if scanning the vision of the Christian heaven that now appeared to him, a heathen, and was denied to us believers.
" ... y las plagas del Santísimo will spread triumphant throughout the land as el Señor dice I will not spare your firstborn this time, no, no lo haré, porque ni the prayers de un justo habrán de apartarme de mi divine wrath for you have sinned, people of Israel, you have worshiped false gods and el Dios de la Dulzura y el am or ya doesn't exist and I will come para abrir los caminos-"
"Mr. Valdez, get ahold of yourself! Mr. Morell, please speak to your client!"
"He is not my client, Your Honor!" I said as I got up and shook Ramón, trying to get him to stop.
"Well, he's going to be unless you put an end to this!"
"Ramón, cállate, cállate, la boca!" I said, but he hurled me into my chair with just one arm and sent me sliding ten feet across the room.
" ... y la cólera de Dios no ha de parar and I will visit your houses, O Israel, y la sangre de la oveja will spill-"
"Bailiff, remove this man from the court!" shouted Reynolds.
The deputy, who had already rung for help and was only waiting for the order, leaped on Ramón, wrestling him down to the ground. Now three other bailiffs entered from three different doors, jumped over me and seized Ramón, one of them unlocking the chains that tied him to the table.
"Palabra de Dios, the word of God, the word of God!" was the last thing Ramón said as the door into the lockup banged closed.
I got up, straightened my chair.
"This court is in recess! Mr. Morell and Ms. Chin, please follow me into chambers!"
I go down to the lockup. Ramón sits alone in his cell, his back straight against the wall. Above him, some hapless soul has scratched on the wall, Play the white man's game-computer crime! Ramón turns his head slowly, sees me and smiles. It's 12:35.
"That was a great show but I don't think the jury bought it," I said. "Do you really think anyone understood what you were saying? The reporter didn't write it down, the jurors that speak Spanish don't know it that well. It was gibberish. But you knew what you were doing, didn't you? You can't give me that possessed shit. I know that this is all a game-make believe to get your ass out of here."
Ramón doesn't answer, just smiles knowingly, blankly. I sit in the chair by the sally port, and for a moment I wonder which one of us is really behind bars.
"Why can't you take your punishment like everybody else? Why can't you plead guilty and take the deal they're offering? It would be so easy for all of us. I know you did it, you know you did it. There's no way to avoid that. One must always live with the consequences. Or die from them, as the case might be. But not you. You will not even recognize the evil you've caused. You want to do what you want and never ever have to pay for it. You want the moon to come down and fit in your pocket. You want everyone to say there's never been anyone like you and the rules don't and can't apply. I wish you would vanish. I wish you would die. But mostly, I wish I had the courage to kill you myself."
Ramón is still staring, his smile still fixed on his lips. I shake my head, weary.
"The judge wants me to act as your attorney. He says you're incompetent and he's removing your pro per privileges. You had it coming, but then I suppose you knew that all along. So what do you want to do?"
Ramón lifts a hand, asking a question with his fingers, demanding something.
"Didn't you hear me? I said ... " I glance at my watch for some unexplained reason. It still reads 12:35, the second hand still sweeping slowly across the roman numerals. I realize he hasn't heard a word because I haven't opened my mouth yet and all those words are still unspoken. I have imagined my speech, I have talked to myself in silence in the cell.
Ramón groans, then whispers hoarsely, "I lost my voice!"
"Ladies and gentlemen of the jury," intones Reynolds, "we all knew this was an unusual case when we started. I think the events of this morning have given us ample proof of that. "
I glance at the expectant faces of the jurors, who can't quite figure out what the judge is going to say next. Neither can I, as I wait for my turn to defend the darkness.
"Normally in a situation like we had this morning, when a pro per acts the way Mr. Valdez did, there is more than just the usual delay while the person recovers." Reynolds looks quickly at Ramón, at me, then glances back at the jury. "Like my momma used to say, it's more trouble than two hounds fighting over a hambone." Smiles and chuckles, a brief welcome break.
"Since it has become exceedingly clear to me that Mr. Valdez was unable to conduct his own defense in the correct fashion at the time this, this ... here thing happened, a whole passel of problems just popped out. A new lawyer has to be named, he has to familiarize himself with the case, perhaps file new motions, all the long and tedious work that judges and attorneys carry on while you folks are drinking coffee, smoking cigarettes and reading out in the hallway, waiting for us." More chuckles.
That's good, Judge, keep them happy, warm them up for me because I haven't the fainte
st idea what to do.
"But before I proceed," continues Reynolds, "there's just one little thing I got to ask y'all. You're not going to hold it against Mr. Valdez here that he couldn't hold his end of the bargain and conduct his own defense, now are you?"
The jurors shake their heads. Phyllis examines their faces carefully for signs of dissembling. I look at Ramón, who smiles unworriedly. God knows what forlorn expression I have on.
"If anybody here is going to, please raise your hand, I'd like to know right now. I see no hands are raised. Fine, so I can proceed. I knew you were open-minded folks. Now, as I was saying, this kind of ... change sometimes creates undue delays because of the difficulties in getting a lawyer in at this late stage of the game. So we've come up with a solution I think you will like. You see that good-looking gentleman there in the black suit, next to Mr. Valdez?"
All the faces turn to me. The news camera focuses in on me mercilessly. I smile.
"That's Mr. Morell, Mr. Charles Morell. So far he's been Mr. Valdez' investigator but actually, you see, he's also a lawyer. And a fine one too, I might add. Please stand, Mr. Morell."
I get to my feet reluctantly, feeling the sweat streaming out of my underarms, wondering if it will soak through the jacket.
"Mr. Morell obviously is very familiar with the case. He's helped fashion Mr. Valdez' defense, even. Seeing as to how we find ourselves in this hour of need, he's graciously agreed to take on the case for the duration of the trial. So, Mr. Morell, have a go at it."
I nod, pick up my yellow legal tablets on which I've scribbled the half-dozen defense arguments I think should be made to the jury. I move to the lectern. Slowly I turn it around so I can observe the faces of the jurors.