-The Fourth of July. Freedom and fireworkth and the Declarathon of Independenth, written by a man who owned thlaveth. Freedom, my ath!
-Professor Hanson, what about Valentine’s Day?
-Yeah, what about St. Patrick’s?
We knew the answer, we just wanted to hear him say it.
-Candy and beer, people, I told you, candy and beer. And thamrockth.
Professor Penguin we called him. He was pear-shaped, narrow shoulders and rounded hips, and constantly enduring the removal of cancerous spots from a long, splotchy face. But the way he cawed at us—Wear thunthcreen, people, you’re not immortal!—he sounded more like the chain-smoking offspring of a crow and a duck. Wear thunthcreen! Don’t drink and drive! Practith thafe thex! He concluded his lectures with urgent admonitions that sent us out laughing.
-Now thcram, and don’t thpend the entire weekend thtudying!
Since it was widely known that question three on Hanson’s final, unchanged in years, would require you to compose an essay making the case for a new holiday, you only had to ask around the dorms to find a time-tested response. John Brown Day, Harriet Tubman Day, New Deal Day—all proven winners. Bob Marley Day—don’t bother. Hiroshima worked, it was said, if you proposed a day of mourning and reconciliation and didn’t get cute and call it Enola Gay Pride Day. Someone supposedly got an A for a William Henry Harrison holiday, arguing that a president who only lasted one month did the least damage and should be honored. What would Harrison Day look like? Would everyone work one hour and go home? Would there be parties with no one invited? I mean, how do you celebrate the fact that something didn’t happen, that nothing was done?
Harrison Day was on my mind when I arrived in the courtroom on Tuesday morning because I had promised Pete we would commemorate his brush with death, and if I left it up to him to plan the evening festivities there would inevitably be some minor lawbreaking, which might be fun for Fletcher, but Guillam, who was sitting in the jury box fifteen minutes early, no tie but gray slacks and loafers instead of the usual jeans and sneakers, had already declared this National Adulthood Day, no occasion for juvenile delinquency, and an adult sticks by his word. I had expected to be the first one in the jury box, not the sixth—what time do these grown-up people arrive? No Roya yet, but Gramma Jamma was working a crossword puzzle and greeted me with a good morning smile.
-You look nice today, dear.
The Elephant was working her cell phone. Chatty Chad was rehashing last night’s Angels game with the other two fifty-somethings from north county—three moderate men in chairs seven, nine, and twelve.
-That kid can swing a bat, though.
-I still say he’s not worth ten million a year.
-You gotta spend to win anymore.
Sloan and Lawson were talking and chuckling, more like teachers in the faculty lounge before first period than two rivals girding for battle with an accused man’s future on the line. Mr. Clean was at his desk, sorting through paperwork, and greeted me with a good morning scowl. I know, I know, an adult would walk over and apologize to him. I’m sorry, sir, I was out of line yesterday. No, he looks busy, an adult wouldn’t disturb him, right? Maybe later. He saw me watching him and scowled again.
BAILIFF BALDY: He was early today, and dressed a little better.
JUDGE SILVERSON: Good. See.
BALDY: No, whatever he’s selling, I ain’t buying.
What about a reverse funeral? I could write a eulogy for Pete and read it to him to acknowledge his not dying. That makes more sense than real funerals, where friends and family say nice things about the deceased, who isn’t there to hear it. Pete Repetti, terrific teacher and even better friend, loved life, adored his students, a natural in the classroom, taught tenth graders to appreciate science, taught me how to press pennies between a door and the door frame thereby jamming the latch and trapping the head football coach in his office ten minutes before practice the day after he complained to the vice principal that Mr. Repetti was unfairly refusing to reconsider his starting linebacker’s test score. Just for the record, Pete, like any great teacher and colleague, wasn’t afraid to admit when he was wrong. He sent the coach an email, a copy of which I kept and will always cherish: Coach Julian, I looked at Kirk’s test and you were right, I made some mistakes. I apologize. He should have received a 59 not 61, an F not D-. I’ve made the appropriate changes in my gradebook. Sincerely, P. Repetti. That was Pete. I miss you, man. I mean, I would if you were dead.
More jurors arrived, like Noah’s animals, two by two. First came Lady Yoga with Juror Number Three, a skinny guy with an uneven haircut and bent-frame glasses listing off a long bony nose. Then my neighbor in chair two and a very tall, very blonde woman with large hoop earrings that framed her very long neck—an odd couple if ever there was one: mouse and giraffe. The Mouse greeted me with a good morning nod and waft of cigarette smoke, Giraffe took her place directly behind him in chair eight, Chad and the other moderates—the Mod Squad—making a chivalrous show of standing to help her ease by. And finally, Roya and Cowboy Kev, the last to board the ark. Great. Roya I can understand, but why did God have to spare him from the flood? I leaned forward and watched them settle in, hoping for one more good morning smile, the one that really mattered. She never looked my way.
The side door opened and Bud Jack entered, escorted as usual by two Orange County sheriff’s deputies in green uniforms who removed his handcuffs and remained hovering nearby. Bud Jack wore the same dark blue suit every day with a different tie, today a white one. Funny, the gang expert Ruffman had said the Eastside Rollin’ Twenties wore black and gold.
Still scowling, Mr. Clean called all rise, Queen Silverson ascended her throne, we were back in business. Her Majesty instructed Sloan to begin, Sloan signaled Mr. Clean, and the side door opened again—two more green-shirted officers, one more brown-skinned prisoner in handcuffs, coat, and tie. Once the cuffs came off, the prisoner took the stand, swore the oath, and told the court his name was Victor Ruiz. I wasn’t trying to be snarky, it didn’t bother me that the guys they were dragging up from the holding cell were better dressed than the juror driving in from Laguna Beach on this his finest sartorial outing, and anyhow I was trying to be mature about everything, but I wanted to turn to The Mouse and remark that Señor Ruiz must have shrunk. Or his clothes expanded. The sleeves on his sport coat were too long, the shirt was too big, the baggy pants were a joke. Ropa muy grande. What was Sloan thinking, bringing him in like that? Ropa-dope. Couldn’t Orange County taxpayers spring for a visit to the mall to make the witness for the prosecution look halfway convincing? Bud Jack’s coat was a perfect fit, measured, no doubt, by Richard Wilhite’s favorite tailor, giving the defendant at least a hint of respectability. Mean eyes, cold stare, sharp suit and tie—could be a murderer, could just be a corporate executive. And Ruiz? Wide-eyed and bewildered, hair to his shoulders, drowning in an ocean of wrinkled fabric—could be an addict, could just be one of Sharon’s beloved theater students. Ha!
In what proved to be her final semester at Dana Hills High, Sharon had attempted to stage a play about the Sleepy Lagoon trial—young Chicanos in outlandish clothing harassed by enlisted men and LA cops during World War II. A group of parents calling themselves PWP—Parents With Purpose—convinced our principal to cancel the show on opening night, claiming it encouraged gang behavior. Parents for White Privilege, Sharon called them. It’s not racism, they have a legitimate concern, Mr. Worster told her, even though these were the same outraged citizens who disrupted school board meetings with shouts about the dangers—They’re a different culture, they have different values those people, they’re rancheros!—of allowing too many Hispanic students from San Juan Capistrano to enroll at Dana Hills. Livid and verging on spontaneous combustion—Principals Without Principles!—Sharon threatened to give automatic A’s to all her students in all her classes or, better yet, not submit grades at all, Worster offered to suspend her, and when she exploded—Worst, Worster, Worstest!—into
my classroom where I was quietly grading papers during my lunch hour, I made the colossal mistake, being a man and a math teacher, of suggesting she calm down and think rationally.
-Come on, Sharon, it’s only a play.
She screeched and wildly swung her arms. Oops.
-Only a play? What if Worstest banned the quadratic equation? You know, because it encourages geek behavior.
I wasn’t disagreeing with her about PWP. I knew that south county was a bastion of white privilege, I knew about white flight. Ever since World War I, when southern blacks began moving to northern cities, moving on up, whites have been moving on out. Professor Penguin taught me that.
-Rathithm, people, the thuburbth were created by rathithm. That will be on the tetht.
Sharon was right, I told her, she was just being impractical.
-Impractical?
I ducked as the chalkboard eraser flew by my head.
-Impractical? Let’s see, teach them square roots, help them find imaginary numbers, that’s practical. Ha! Or give them words, put them on a stage, help them find their voice.
She grabbed another eraser. I shielded my face with my gradebook.
-No, you’re right, Mr. Fletcher, you’re right, it’s only a play. But algebra… algebra….
She struck a theatrical pose, holding the eraser in a raised hand, studying it as if she’d never seen one, and spoke in a grand, tremulous voice.
-2b or negative 2b, that is the question, whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to solve for the sums and averages of outrageous fractions or to take odds against a sea of variables and by opposing add them. Indeed, Mr. Fletcher, algebra is the very stuff of life.
I didn’t know whether to applaud or crawl under the desk and call Captain Safety—yes, she’s armed, an eraser, hurry before she wipes me out.
But eventually she did calm down and turn practical. She cancelled the annual December production of A Christmas Carol, and, with approval from Worster, who thought he was orchestrating a wise and reasonable compromise, replaced it with West Side Story. A classic American musical, always a crowd-pleaser, she assured him, not bothering to add that it’s about New York gang-bangers killing each other over race issues—Everyone knows that, darling, why should I have to tell him?—or that she intended to set it in 1940s Los Angeles. She would have her Sleepy Lagoon show after all. She also failed to mention the less than subtle lyric changes she had in mind.
Everything’s right in América
No need to fight in América
Well, parents’ groups might in América
Keep schools white in América.
East LA Story in South OC, the LA Times headline read after Sharon called a reporter to fan the controversy. There was even a photo: Jets in sailor uniforms, Sharks in zoot suits. That’s what those oversized outfits are called, that’s what our witness Victor Ruiz looked like—a zoot suiter, lacking only the floppy hat.
He sat down and fidgeted nervously while Sloan explained for the record that Mr. Ruiz wasn’t currently under arrest for any crime, they just wanted to guarantee he would show up to testify. Was that a smart thing to tell us? Don’t worry, jury members, the witness isn’t a convict, just totally unreliable. Ruiz looked wired. If Sloan had spent the previous hour pouring coffee into his witness to prepare him for his debut, it wasn’t enough. Or it was too much. Sloan’s questions were sharp, Ruiz’s answers fit as well as his pants.
-How do you know Mr. Jack?
-He told me what happened. That dude over there.
-How did you meet him?
-That’s him for sure.
Ruiz pointed toward the defense table. Sloan smiled and took a few steps closer to his witness.
-Let’s start over. You were arrested in Huntington Beach, and Mr. Jack, that man seated over there, was in the same cell with you, correct?
-Yeah.
-Good. Okay.
-He said he capped the dude.
Sloan appeared unsure how to proceed. His previous witnesses had known their lines, recognized their cues. Ruiz must have missed the dress rehearsal.
-He told you he shot someone?
-That’s right.
-Did he just volunteer this information?
-We was in the cell.
Sloan’s smile was getting thinner.
-Did you ask him why he was there, is that how the conversation started?
-Yeah, that’s right.
-You were in the cell, they brought him in.
-That’s right.
-And you asked what he was arrested for?
-That’s right.
Isn’t this called leading the witness? Why doesn’t Lawson object?
-What did he say?
-That’s right.
Maybe because the witness is witless. Let him sink himself.
-Victor, I want you to concentrate, okay? I want you to slow down and concentrate and listen to my questions, it’s very important, okay?
The witless witness nodded and tried to hold his hands still.
-When you were in jail, in the cell, and they brought in Mr. Jack, and you asked him what he was arrested for, what did he say?
He clasped and unclasped his hands.
-Victor, what did he say?
-I need a smoke.
Judge Silverson granted Sloan a thirty-minute recess. I had nothing to read because I had finished the Grisham, and I couldn’t stalk Roya through the courthouse—it was National Adulthood Day not Halloween—so I went to the restroom, then checked my cell phone. One text message from Marissa: Dinner at six. I’ll pick you up. Oh, crap. I had agreed to dinner with my sort of girlfriend on the same evening I had promised my best friend we would celebrate National Pete Didn’t Die Day. Someone’s going to end up angry. Or maybe Pete forgot. Maybe he took more pills and the new holiday slipped his mind. I hit speed dial.
-Dude.
-Pete, you up?
-I keep thinking about the accident. What time you coming over?
What’s a responsible adult to do? My best friend sounded like he needed someone to talk to. My sort of girlfriend seemed more interested in a trial update than anything else. I should hang out with my friend. But if I backed out of dinner with my sort of girlfriend, she might take it the wrong way, and maybe she also needed someone to talk to, she did sound a little depressed yesterday. A responsible adult would just tell his friend the truth, right? A responsible adult would lay out the situation, explain his conflicting loyalties, apologize for any hurt feelings, ask if the celebration could be postponed one more day. And his friend, also an adult, would understand, would say what he always says: She’s got you pinched, dude. Maybe an adult should buy time.
-Pete, sorry, I’ve got to go. They’re about to start. How ‘bout I call you when I get home?
Zoot Suit, act two: Victor Ruiz back on stage, looking more at ease. Nothing like a nicotine hit to calm the nerves. The Marlboro Mouse in chair two, reeking like a smokestack, nodded. I nodded back. Do smokers know how bad they smell? The Mouse nodded again. Does The Mouse have mental telepathy? He didn’t respond. Was he playing coy? I watched him from the corner of my eye. Nothing. I would need a better mousetrap. Sloan apologized for the delay and turned to his witness.
-Okay, Victor, here’s where we were. You were in the cell, Mr. Jack came in, you asked him why he was there. What did he say?
-He told me to fuck off.
-Did you?
-I ain’t backing down. I said, you got a problem, bro? And he goes, get out of my face, I already popped one Mexican.
-What does that mean—I already popped one Mexican?
-Means he offed him.
-Offed him?
-Killed him, shot the dude, whatever.
-Did you believe him?
-He wasn’t clowning, I know that. Said the guy’s name was Juan.
There it was, the prosecution’s pièce de résistance, a jailhouse confession reported by a nervous prisoner in someone else’s clothes who thirty minutes ago co
uldn’t remember what he was supposed to say. Marissa was going to love this.
-And then, Victor, you told a police officer what happened?
-Yeah.
-When did you tell him?
-That same night.
When Sloan sat down, Lawson popped up and took center stage. No limp—he was on the attack, the pie-faced pummeler descending on the witless witness. This should be fun. First a barrage of questions, barely allowing time for a response.
-Mr. Ruiz, did Bud Jack tell you anything more about this guy named Juan that he supposedly killed?
-No.
-Did he say where it happened? When it happened?
-No.
-Did he say how he did it? Why he did it? Mr. Ruiz, did he give any details at all?
No on all accounts. His point made, Lawson took a breath and softened his tone.
-Victor, on the night you talked to Bud Jack, why were you arrested?
-They said I was drunk.
-Were you?
-Maybe a little.
-A couple of beers?
Lawson was slowing down, sounding less accusatory, sounding almost sympathetic.
-Something like that.
-Are you drunk now?
-No.
Maybe it was the way the witless witness glanced over at Sloan or the way he looked down at his nervous hands, but suddenly I knew—physiological certainty—Señor Ruiz had enjoyed more than a smoke during the recess. That fat leather satchel by Sloan’s feet held more than just notepads and files.
-Where were you when they arrested you?
No! Lawson! Don’t change the subject!
-In the park.
-Were you causing trouble in the park?
-No.
Lawson, ask him when was the last time he had a drink. Ask him if Sloan has a flask or is it those tiny bottles you get on airplanes. Am I the only one who sees this?
-Were you bothering anyone?
-No.
-But they still arrested you.
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