by John Decure
Here is the law in my life, in the form of my father, the lawyer. A great one, or so I believe for no reason I can articulate here. But it is so, I’d stake my life on this man’s reputation for… I don’t know, but I can tell I’d die for the principles he embodies in his work… whatever they may be….
Daddy, I say expectantly, like a child with a question, my voice soundless and tranquil as a bamboo shoot.
His eyes dare not blink, so locked down tight they are beneath a brow dense with concentration, but oh, the head, that large head is calm and regal, like a lion surveying the bustling plain. More than a lawyer, a crusader, this man, and a great one at that. His starched white shirt, severed by a slash of red tie, it holds a pair of hands that could snap that bamboo shoot of a sound—which has just, heaven forbid, interrupted a delicate, intricate thought-process.
The moment irretrievably punctured, the child backpedals, but a force field of momentum walls up from behind, pushing her closer, heel-dragging but closer yet, to the center of the room and certain doom.
Yet memory—if that’s what this is—fails me, because behind the lawyer’s intellectual drive and dogged intensity is… wait… a kind-hearted patient soul who will rise up from his tornado-blown pile of papers to fetch a glass of ice water and soothe the wandering girl with deft words of understanding and a soft, lion’s kiss atop the head.
Daddy.
The road less traveled, he says, though his gray eyes cannot find mine. Hah—you and I are quite a pair!
That was you, reading the poem, I say.
His voice has the soothing sound of tires on fine gravel.
We share two paths, you and I. One lit by God, the other by demons.
The devil?
He shakes his head, pointing at his temple. Our demons. Trick is—
You need only know which path you’re on, I blurt.
He smiles, regarding the work spread out before him again. Doesn’t give me the answer I’m hoping for.
My little girl, he says.
His little girl feels a powerful urge to come to his side, to touch him, kiss his cheek, as if this is a good-bye she didn’t see coming until it was here, now. Instead, the force field burns off like midmorning beach fog, pushing her away and back out the kitchen and down another unlit corridor of… aching nothingness.
The… aloneness—I couldn’t feel that before, but it hits home now. Like a punch in the eye. And it hurts. A lot.
* * *
God kisses my forehead; my vision returns…
Nighttime and the room is dark. Light slides across a slick floor from a hallway outside the cracked door. I’m not face-down, but facing up in a large bed. A plastic alien with a thin metal body gazes down, as if studying me. I stare back, blinking into kind, benign eyes for I don’t know how long, but eventually the alien reveals himself to be a suspended IV drip. I am in a hospital bed, unable to move, as yet, yearning for some kind of understanding but recalling nothing of how I got here.
A pair of hard-edged, glowing red eyes glare at me. With some effort I tilt my head to the left, staring back at those eyes until they reveal themselves to be numbers in a digital clock.
5–0–5
5:05 a.m.
I lie there, fixing on objects around the room, all of which transform themselves, upon closer study, metamorphosing like flowers I have willed into blooming. An aircraft carrier turns into a plastic tray; a foamy white waterfall becomes curtains. Enjoying the sensation of power this exercise brings me, I engage in shape-changing until the dawn cracks in along the windowsills.
Out in the hall, an alarm sounds, bringing a hail of pounding feet. The voices are calm and technical, but urgent.
Crash cart.
Prep.
Stat.
Clear.
More voices, more urgency. An alarm drones in the background.
Clear.
No voices now, only a murmur, the creak of wheels on waxed floors, a silence—respect for the dead.
Down on the end of Lonely Street, the Heartbreak Hotel, I say to myself.
I am so outta here.
Six hours, five arguments, two grand rounds, one private consultation, four conflicting opinions, a discharge doctor with taped glasses and an Indian accent, and about twenty consent forms later, I’m walking gingerly to the elevator doors, turning down the offer of a wheelchair ride just to show them I’m not crazy, I can do this. Or… just to show myself. A short black nurse with a halo of cornrows jogs toward the elevator and shoves her hand in before the doors can snap shut.
“Whoa! You forgot this,” she says, handing me a book. “Found it on the nightstand.”
The Collected Poems of Robert Frost.
I open it and read the name inside the cover.
“Thanks,” I say. “Thank you. For everything, I mean.”
“God bless.”
God bless.
Yes—true, this is so, I tell myself on the ride down to the lobby.
* * *
Mendibles was at counsel table when I arrived in court. So shocked to see me, he dropped half the contents of his trial notebook on the floor as if to prove it.
“Bradlee? Oh my God, you… how—”
“Nice to see you too, boss.”
“H-how’d you even get discharged?”
“I’m fine,” I said, which qualified as half a lie, and half a leap of faith.
“But the doc, your doctor—”
“Nice guy. That is, for someone who has to split skulls open like coconuts when the situation presents, I thought he was a remarkably centered dude.”
Mendibles’s face constricted. “He… told you that?”
“Uses a high-speed saw, titanium. Could cut through a diamond.”
“That’s… terrible.”
“Shop talk,” I said. “He was trying to be nice. Asked me what I do, I told him, so I asked him the same thing.”
“But… I don’t get it. He said you’d, uh, you know.”
“Suffered a head trauma? I did. So? I’m better.”
“He, uh, said it might take a while before you, uh, recovered, if at all.”
“Don’t worry, I’m not a ghost.”
“It’s just… he thought it would take, um, longer.”
I shrugged as if, hey, baby, I was feeling no pain, good to go! In truth, I had two wounds oozing blood under the dressings and my head felt as thick and loaded with untamed momentum as a wrecking ball. All I could do was keep lying to my supervisor, acting as if this was all part of the plan.
Mendibles had not yet moved from his first-chair position, and he wanted more details.
“Fine,” I said. “Woke up early Saturday morning, more or less fully cognizant. And my progress was great after that. Miraculous, even.”
“Hmm. I see.”
Strange: when you’re gone from the world you know for a while, even a few days like I was, your perspective shifts, and you see things more clearly upon your return. To me, Mendibles looked like a dog sniffing around, trying to catch a snootful of my female scent.
“Well, I’m, uh… relieved you’re better, Bradlee. This is so… yeah, great, really.”
Less than entirely won over, his gaze turned to a stare, which in turn put me on edge. Making my head hurt more.
“What is it?” I asked when I saw him staring.
“Um, your uh—”
“Jesus, Mendibles, just say it.”
He pointed down. “Your hand. It’s shaking.”
Shit. I reached down and corralled the twitchy appendage, which seemed about to scramble right off the table.
“It’s frigid in here,” I said casually. “Building maintenance needs to dial down the AC.”
After a moment of nothing to say between us, I made my way into a chair and sat down, my supervisor silently mirroring my movements. It was still upon me to explain my way back into the Fallon case.
“I’ll be honest with you, Mendibles. The neuro guy didn’t want to let me go, but I sig
ned myself out AMA—”
“Against medical advice? Oh, great, so you just—”
“—and they knew they couldn’t stop me.”
“That’s just great.”
His face was too grave for my liking. At that moment I realized that the trial notebook he’d spilled all over the place when he’d turned to see me walk in the courtroom was my own.
“I’m here to finish this case, if you’re wondering.”
“You must be joking,” he said bitterly.
I didn’t think he had even that soft-spoken level of fight in him.
“Listen—”
“No, Bradlee, you listen. You can sit here with me, but that’s it. You’re not well.”
“Bullshit, Mendibles. This is my case.”
“Excuse me?”
Just like that I was breathless, struggling to hold back a raft of rage.
“I had a lot of time to think this weekend, sitting in a bed as my mind came back online, bit by bit, and… you want to know what I’ve concluded about this case?”
He folded his arms the way a husband does just before his wife lets him have it. “Go ahead, say it. I can’t stop you.”
“You never wanted me to try this thing from the get-go.”
“That’s—lemme use your word: bullshit. Not true. I’m the one who assigned you.”
“You knew I’d be the best reason to settle this thing from our perspective because I’m so obviously a mess.”
“Oh, please.”
“You pushed me to do the sweetheart deal, but then, when that fell apart, you found a different way to push me.”
“I pushed you?”
His air of easygoing denial was pissing me off, and for reasons I didn’t understand, my hand began to shake again.
“Right off a goddamn cliff would’ve suited you fine.”
“Bradlee—”
“You sat back and did nothing while that cretin’s lawyers tried to dismantle my case.”
“That’s absurd.”
“Intimidated Deshaun Fellows.”
“Oh? That’s why he testified and stuck around throughout the case?”
“Sent my expert packing.”
“And you got another one.”
“Yeah, by hook or by crook, and she suffered an anxiety attack on the stand.”
“No matter. She testified well.”
I’d reached the outer edge of my patience with my supervisor and his lack of accountability.
“You may be my superior, but you’re a coward and a primo jerk.”
“Bradlee, let’s be calm.”
“With a wife you don’t deserve.”
“Hey, that was below the belt.”
“Don’t push it, Mendibles. The only thing below the belt is that bulge you get when you stare at me too long. I’m sick of looking up to see you leering back at me, like a stalker.”
His face flushed as he sputtered for words. “I can’t believe you just accused me of—”
“Don’t even try to deny it. I have half a mind to make a sexual harassment complaint, and if I did? I’d have, oh, seven or eight of our secretaries lined up to back me.”
He was silent, staring at the bench, right where the judge would soon be seated.
“You’re wrong,” he said with some finality.
I didn’t care. “No, I’m right.”
“You can’t prove—”
“Mendibles, I’m a lawyer. A litigator. Do not talk to me about proof.”
“You’re… angry.”
“I know I can’t prove what you did to harpoon this case. But I don’t care. All I want is to finish it. The right way.”
He was back to staring, his shoulders slumped.
“You know what, Mendibles?”
“What.”
“Your posture’s shitty.”
He chuckled silently. “Among other things.” His palms went up as if to reason with me.
“You’re not well, Bradlee. You can’t handle this case effectively in your condition.”
“Yes, I can,” I said. “And you’re going to let me. As a private gesture of gratitude.”
“For not—”
“Don’t even say it,” I said quickly. “Give me the case back, and that shit is in the past.”
“Fine.”
“But you leave me alone from here on. I mean it.”
He’d finished stuffing the papers back into my trial notebook and pushed it over to me.
“All yours. Have fun.”
I was suddenly lightheaded. “Thanks.”
Another gallows laugh from Mendibles. “Well, here comes a final reality check, so get ready. We’re losing.”
Then, in a low, sober voice, he filled me in on what I’d missed. When he was done, I was without any comebacks. For the first time since I’d left that hospital, I felt as if I was without a distinctive purpose, a first order of business. The thought scared me—unreasonably. More than the sight of buildings chasing me down the block, or that gangbanging prick with the gun slinking out of the gutter to hunt me.
“Okay,” I mumbled as Mendibles went on. “Okay, got it, no problem…”
I was still shaky as hell; what I needed was a big, broad goal, a plain objective. Step one, baby, please! An objective was my gateway to sanity. Two paths, in my mind, two paths to be delineated with great care along the way. The time was now; my moment had arrived. Find an objective and grab hold, girl!
Then the door to the courtroom swung open, and for the second time in these last few short, eventful days, the hand of God touched me on the forehead, calming my frenetic, defective mind. I felt like kneeling and reciting a prayer of thanks, but instead I stood up and smiled as if this was nothing to me, nothing at all. Ha ha!—just another day in the life, in court, at trial…
“Morning, Ms. Aames,” Deshaun Fellows said.
Swaying like strands of sea grass in the sand, I caught my balance and gasped.
“You were there, by my bedside.”
“Yes, ma’am. So glad to see you up and about.”
He touched me on the shoulder and I reached up and squeezed his large hand. I felt like crying, crying until I might melt into a puddle.
Then Rue Loberg came in the door behind Deshaun Fellows.
“Brought you some friends this morning,” Deshaun Fellows said.
Rue Loberg gasped herself at the sight of me and started to cry.
“Miss Aames! You’re here! Oh, thank God!”
I traded glances with Mendibles. “Well, sure,” I said. “I wouldn’t miss this for anything.”
A girl, a young woman of maybe twenty, with the same rounded features and oversize doll-eyes as Rue Loberg, trailed in behind her.
“This is my daughter,” Rue said proudly.
“Of course,” I said. “Hello.”
Mindy Loberg, my lone rebuttal witness—and about the finest first objective any lawyer with my kind of injuries could ever dream up—came closer until she stood beside her mother.
“So, where’s the party?” she asked.
I shot a false glare at Rue, who giggled. “What did your mom tell you?” I said.
“Whatever I could think of,” Rue said.
Mindy and her mother regarded each other silently. They’d been through some kind of private process but didn’t seem diminished by it. Not to my view, at least.
“Doesn’t matter,” Mindy said. “It worked, ’cause I’m here.”
My head rang with hurt and soreness, but I nodded as if to show her my thanks. “So you are, indeed.”
30
BRADLEE AAMES
Rebuttal evidence is a gift to the prosecution, coming along late but just in time, like giving mouth-to-mouth to a case flat on its back. I was so damn grateful for my rebuttal that my hand kept clenching into a fist under counsel table—which, in turn made my head hurt. Jesus, even thinking was making my skull throb. The fist-pumping wasn’t helping, but on the emotional side of the equation, it felt sublime.
/> The equally delicious flip-side on rebuttal? It’s the bane of the defense attorney’s existence, a calling of bullshit on the Spell of the Lie—that carefully crafted counter-narrative concocted solely to undermine a case’s core truths, to explain away any unpleasant facts, or at the very least to distort the known into something questionable and unreliable.
I looked at the row of black wing-tips poking out from the other table and thought: Well, too bad, guys, you’re about to endure a little suffering. The Dr. Don Trio had shown me no courtesies and dealt nothing but dirt behind my back. They had it coming.
By my act of walking in here, I’d already given them a beating. Deshaun is a thoughtful, detail-oriented man who thinks things through from every angle, and the shooting had troubled him on a number of levels. The young man who shot me was being held for murder so he was not in a talkative place, but Deshaun said the man had a history of violence dating back to his middle school years and a reputation for hitting his targets. He had personal business with Deshaun, but he may have started with me because that business took precedence.
I couldn’t argue with his logic. I’d lost an expert witness for the first time in my career on the eve of trial, had the shit beaten out of me for no good reason surfing Malibu alone. Deshaun also seemed vaguely guilt-ridden. I’m sure the defense team did what they could to keep him from testifying, but he had come through, which was all that mattered. Fighting these battles in my head alone for all this time had left me feeling hard-edged and isolated. Homeless—though I was fortunate enough to have a roof over my head. I’d lost contact with the people around me and had little motivation for reaching out. Deshaun was within my reach; I was not inclined to push him away.
Fallon seems to enjoy hurting people, even indirectly. Before we went back on the record, I caught a glimpse of him on the far side of his minions; he was studying my bandages with a smirk, digging my pain.
Back to the poetic beauty of rebuttal: Right at nine, as I asked my witness to step inside, the door cracked open and all heads turned. Heidegger’s twitchy face was the first to fall. I soaked in his air of surprise with such pleasure, it was almost as good as getting high.
Her mother—that is, the victim—and Craig Weaver filed into the gallery behind Mindy. I took their presence as a hopeful sign, a show of strength. But I had no idea how Deshaun had arranged all this. I’d accepted his help, no questions asked.