Punishment

by Linden MacIntyre

  The next morning I watched the lane, nervous as a boy, for half an hour before I saw her car.

  We showed up at the courthouse early, and already the parking lot was full. Caddy had warned me there would be a crowd and the seating would be limited. Maybe thirty people filled the chairs, some standing at the back, Neil Archie among them. Caddy sat beside me, thigh and shoulder warm on mine.

  Nearly half the courtroom was a large enclosure separated from the public seating by a rail; pale maple panelling, long tables, chairs for lawyers. A bench behind the lawyers’ tables, reserved for the accused. A jury section, witness box. A lectern. At the front a kind of altar for the judge, the high priest of the business; a high-backed chair flanked by flags; above the flags a flattering portrait of the Queen. In the front rank of the spectators, young reporters were laughing, chatting, clasping notebooks. Coming in, one of them attempted to engage with Caddy but she just looked down, hurried by. When I realized she’d looped her arm through mine, I smiled.

  Lawyers sauntered in, stood inside the enclosure, posed thoughtfully organizing files on tables. Sullivan was there, talking to a prosecutor who was frowning. Then a door clicked open and everyone went silent. Three men in uniforms, bulky in protective vests, flanked Strickland. He was wearing a pale green shirt and a dark tie, black dress pants. He’d had a haircut. I thought with a slight twinge of resentment that he was the best-looking man in the room. Young, trim. He could have been an actor in a movie drama. Brad Pitt maybe. He looked straight ahead, face grave. They ushered him toward the bench behind his lawyer where he sat, one of the officers beside him. The other two withdrew to stand like sentinels at the back of the room.

  Caddy gripped my arm, just above the elbow, followed every move he made. He stood, nodded to the officer beside him, bent to talk to Sullivan briefly, then sat again, leaning back and looking around, frowning. Sullivan turned to him, talking rapidly, but Strickland was just staring straight ahead.

  “What’s going on?” Caddy whispered.

  “I’m not sure.”

  Then another door opened and a woman’s voice called, “All rise.” Everybody stood and suddenly it felt like church. A bulky older man in robes entered, looking grumpy. He made his way to the high chair. The woman loudly made another proclamation: Court was formally in session. The judge sat, reading glasses on a nose that seemed to be enlarged and unusually red. He peered quickly at a sheet of paper, then leaned forward and looked down, spoke directly to the Crown. “You’re ready to proceed?”

  The prosecutor stood. “Your Honour.” He paused and glanced with what appeared to be disdain toward Sullivan. “My friend has just informed me that he has a brief statement he wishes to make to the court, a matter that could affect proceedings here today.” And he sat.

  Sullivan rose, thanked the Crown. His voice was muted by what seemed to be uncertainty. I had to strain to hear.

  “Your Honour, this is a little bit awkward but I find myself in the position of having to ask the court for an adjournment.”

  He was shifting nervously from foot to foot, shuffling papers. The prosecutor sat with his elbows on the table, hands on either side of his face.

  The judge looked angry. “My understanding was that we were here for a plea and pre-sentencing arguments. Are you telling me that this has changed?”

  Then Strickland was on his feet. “I want to say something.”

  Caddy grabbed my hand. Strickland turned, as if to address the room. His guard was standing, too, looking confused.

  “Sit down,” the judge said firmly. Strickland faced him.

  “No. I’ll sit down when I’m finished—”

  “Sit down, and shut up,” the judge enunciated with forced calmness.

  “I’m not pleadin’ guilty for the convenience of the court. I’ve seen too much of that.”

  “I’ll have you removed,” the judge said, voice rising.

  “Not until—”

  “Officer, remove the prisoner.”

  The burly deputy reached for an elbow but Strickland snatched his arm away. He swept his hand around the room, half-turning toward us. I realized I’d abandoned Caddy’s hand, was on the edge of my chair. They don’t understand the situation, I thought, heart racing. They don’t get it, not even the officers. This is new to them, this defiance. Then Sullivan was on his feet, speaking quietly to Strickland.

  Loud enough for all to hear, Dwayne said, “I’m not going to lie because you want everything nice and tidy. I’m not going to play that game. I know the ending …”

  He didn’t get to finish the sentence, as three officers overwhelmed him. There was the rattle and the click of a handcuff and he was being roughly quick-marched away.

  Sullivan turned back to face the judge, shoulders slumped. “Your Honour, I can only offer my apologies to the court …”

  “Am I to take that as a not guilty plea?” the judge asked. Perhaps I imagined that he was now actually holding back a smile. There was a nervous chuckle from the crowd.

  Sullivan seemed speechless. Then he said, “I’d like a moment to confer with the Crown.”

  The prosecutor turned and stared in mock amazement, held up his hands and shook his head. The room was silent. The judge studied the lawyers for what felt like a full minute. Then he said wearily, “I’d like to see you gentlemen in chambers.” He stood.

  “All rise,” the woman cried.

  I turned to Caddy. Her face was blank. “Come,” I said. “Let’s get out of here.”

  “Do you know what just happened?”

  I shook my head. But of course I knew. Strickland didn’t trust the lawyers, didn’t trust the court, backed out of a plea bargain. He could feel the public appetite for punishment. And maybe it was true: maybe he was innocent, unwilling to put himself at risk. He used the word “convenience.” I knew exactly what he meant.

  Neil stopped me as we walked out. He nodded at Caddy. “Hello Neil,” she said and continued on without me.

  “If you have a sec,” he said to me, then leaned close. “What did you make of that?”

  “Who knows,” I said, and tried to move on.

  He caught my arm. “Hang on a minute.” He looked around, then dropped his voice to a whisper. “There was a rumour going around that you were going to testify for that fellow. Put in a good word for him, so they’d go easy on him. I didn’t believe it for a minute, knowing how close you and Caddy were.” He laid a hand on my shoulder, squeezed. “Anyway, he saved us all a lot of trouble.”

  “Not sure I follow, Neil,” I said. I was genuinely puzzled.

  “After that performance? They’ll throw the book at him.”

  “We’ll let the system do its job,” I said.

  He laughed. “Yes, the system. We know all about the system, don’t we, Tony.”

  Outside Caddy was waiting in her car, engine running, windows up as reporters tried to get her to speak to them. There was a television camera. I pushed through but the car door was locked and I was trapped for a moment. “Sir, is it true you knew Strickland in prison?” someone shouted. The door lock popped and I climbed inside. The car was moving even before I had the door closed.

  “They’re like vultures,” she said.

  “Just doing a job,” I said.

  “What did he want?”

  “Who?”

  “You know who. That Neil.”

  “He heard a rumour that I was going to go to bat for Strickland, before sentencing.” We drove in silence. She was staring straight ahead.

  “So aren’t you curious?” I asked at last.

  She shrugged. “I can’t imagine what you could say.”

  “His lawyer thinks I could help him. He got involved in something when he was in prison.”

  “I can imagine.”

  “Anyway, I said no.”

  “I see.”

  We drove away in silence. Then she sighed. “So where does this leave everything?”

  “In limbo for a while,” I said. “They�
�ll have to prepare for a preliminary hearing. The Crown was hoping to avoid that. Just to get it over with.”

  “Weren’t we all,” she said.

  I stared out the window at the leaden sky. There was so much I could have told her, so much I could have predicted about the weeks and maybe months ahead. But I realized that we were strangers, she and I. Estranged by time and life, our only link a distant, painful memory. Childhood, really. I studied the dark spruce trees that lined the road and was taken by surprise when I felt a surge of grief I’d long assumed to have gone cold, like an old volcano. I almost spoke but caught myself. Tears welled. She turned down a gravel road.

  “Stop the car for a minute,” I said, and opened the door while the car was still moving. She hit the brakes and looked at me, alarmed. “Is there something wrong?”

  I walked behind the car and just stood there, breathing deeply, saying to myself, “Get a grip for Christ’s sake.” Then I blew my nose. Then went back, sat, looking straight ahead. “I’m okay now.”

  “If you ever want to talk …” she said.

  ——

  Standing at my door as she drove away I watched the car diminish in the lane. It’s a long lane that disappears in a turn that is obscured by spruce and juniper and tangled hawthorn. The engine sound was gone before I lost sight of the car and it seemed almost ghostly, floating off in silence. I became acutely conscious of a gathering breeze, and of a stinging on my face, granular snow thickening the air around me. Then the wind sound hushing trees, the caressing whoosh, and in the distance, beyond the field, the dark sea rumble. It was like I’d never been alone before.

  I told myself: This is what you wanted. You wanted solitude. And how many days did you imagine this peaceful emptiness, this liberation from the grim ugliness of the limestone walls, chain-link fences, barbed wire, grimy institutional pastels. The names rolled through my head: Kingston, Joyceville, Millhaven, Collins Bay. Once proud, lovely place names now appropriated by the purpose they’ve obtained. Penitence and punishment. The false promise of redemption.

  So what caused this sudden sense of abandonment? Perhaps the way it all ended—a marriage, a career. So much untruth, so much misunderstanding, so much unfinished business. Strickland’s futile gesture said it all: How deals get made; the convenience of the system; the perversion of justice.

  I unlocked my door. It sticks, still unaccustomed to frequent opening and closing. I’ll have to get somebody to look at it, I thought, but then realized there isn’t anybody. Everybody useful to the place has gone out west. Heartland of prosperity and anger. Years and years resentful of the east’s prosperity; now prosperous, but angry still; resentful of resentment. I felt a smile on my face but nowhere else.

  Tea maybe. Too early for a meal. I thought court would eat the day. There was a musty smell, ooze from the muddy cellar. Something else to fix.

  When did I start longing to be liberated from the prison world? I remember it was fairly early on, before Anna. Ten years at least before Anna, I’d become disillusioned with all the platitudes about the potential for “correction” of deviant behaviour. Then Anna opened up another life, a healthy life I thought, insulated from the violence and hypocrisy and hopelessness I saw around me every day. I could go to work each morning with a smile, look forward to her comfort and perspective. I could, for long periods of time, forget the reality of where I worked, with whom I worked, forget that work had once been a vocation.

  Somewhere in the remnants of my early, optimistic life I still have the book the sociology professor was reading aloud the first time I noticed Anna in the classroom: The more effective any individual or group of individuals is in getting the categories of deviance and crime imputed to others, the more effective he is in getting the categories of morality and law-abiding citizen imputed to himself.

  The professor let the words sink in, pacing back and forth, index finger buried at the page. I realized that I was staring at Anna. She caught my gaze, held it for a moment, smiled and winked. “There you have it folks,” the professor said dramatically, “the Manichean motivation for our justice system. Classification, depersonalization. Good and evil, black and white, them and us.”

  Then, staring out the window at the sunny day, sunlight on his face, he said, “At least the Manicheans were honest—they believed in killing anybody who didn’t fit the proper category. We isolate and dehumanize them, and then we turn them loose expecting them to act like normal humans.”

  He turned full face to the room: “And it doesn’t. Fucking. Work.”

  Light tittering agreement.

  “What did you think?” I asked Anna afterwards.

  “I think he’s on the right track,” she said.

  After that we always sat together.

  I stared into the glare of the refrigerator. Too much empty space. Too much shelving, bare and shiny, too much light in there. Remembering the fridge at home in Kingston. Things piled on top of things. The cottage-cheese tubs stacked. I must remember to get cottage cheese for moments like this. Kingston freezer jammed with steaks and chops. The frozen vodka. Deli drawer neatly packed with cheese and spicy meats. Nothing in my deli drawer but a hard plastic piece of cheddar, stored too carelessly. At the back of a shelf, six cans of Keith’s. Snapped one. Stood, staring at the emptiness.

  The wind was rising outside, snow or hail or sleet or all three ticking on the windows, damper scraping in the oil stove, wind bumping in the stovepipe. I closed the fridge, not really hungry anyway. In the living room I went through the CD pile she left for me. Rachmaninoff. She couldn’t stand him. She’d complain about his heavy hands. “Moody Russians, dark and tragic.” Flicked through the titles. Some Bach, perhaps. Nothing heavy or morose. “Anna Moroz morose, I used to tease. You call Chopin jolly? Slavs invented dour.” Maybe Brandenburg, merciful timeless music blocking out the moment and the storm the way the beer blocks hunger.

  Strickland had caught everybody in the courtroom by surprise and I couldn’t suppress the flicker of respect. Caddy wasn’t even breathing when he spoke. I’m sure I felt her shudder when they marched him out. We expect people like Strickland to be stupid because so much of what they do, in retrospect, seems pointless. But think it through: You only know what they get caught for. You only know their failures. This is what you learn: their world is upside down. Out here, success is noted publicly and celebrated. But only they know the scores they got away with, the little victories that justify the next big risk. We think the system always wins. Of course, we must believe that. We must believe that everybody on the inside lost. But their successes must have brought enough rewards and satisfaction to motivate the failures that we punish.

  In the courtroom I’d watched the faces of the law-abiding citizens as they watched Strickland, earnest, honest faces imputing categories of deviance and crime to him and people like him, reinforcing their own morally secure positions in society. Lawyers’ faces calculating where this was going, planning how to get there first, to intercept and thwart. Strickland held everyone’s attention because his gesture had inherent eloquence. He had a point to make: I’m not going to play the convenience game; I’m not going to make it easy for the system; I don’t owe the system anything.

  ——

  Next morning in the store, five familiar faces leaned over the daily paper, crowded close. “There he is,” said one of them, smiling as I walked in. “The man a’ the hour.”

  They were studying a photograph—me trapped outside Caddy’s car, smiling. Or was that the look of fear?

  “What did you think?” John Robert asked. “Did you have any clue that he was gonna pull a stunt like that?”

  “No,” I said. “It looked like a last-minute thing on his part.”

  “So what does it mean?”

  “It means that he wants the judge to hear the Crown’s case against him. Let a judge decide if the evidence is worth a trial.”

  “Going for the publicity,” said John Robert. “Gonna get his fifteen minutes o
f fame no matter who it hurts.”

  I made a face, walked to the newspaper rack.

  “You were probably gone when he was growing up.” This was from someone else I remembered from long ago. A MacKinnon. Paul.

  “Yes, Paul,” I said. “Long gone.”

  “You missed all the excitement. The time he broke in here. And then the accident. Killed the Graham boys. But I suppose the poor fella never had a chance, all things considered.”

  Silence fell. I wanted to ask: “What things considered?” But I knew the silence was the sound of civility, the consciousness of the unspoken gaffe—Well, he wasn’t really from here, was he?

  I had another vague memory of one of the others, a quiet boy in school, still quiet. “How is your mother, Jake?”

  “Good, Tony. Still in her own place. Still driving.”

  “She’d be what?”

  “Ninety-two.”

  “And still driving?”

  “Got her licence renewed for five more years.”

  “Sharp as a tack, Christy is,” said John Robert. I considered the coffee urn. Then the door opened and Neil walked in. The door closed loudly. I imagined a drum roll.

  “What’s new in the world, Neil?” Collie asked from behind the counter.

  “Don’t get me going about the fuckin world. You heard what happened in that courtroom yesterday.”

  An uncomfortable murmur in reply.

  Collie picked up the newspaper: “Hey, I see where Saddam is accepting the terms of that resolution they passed at the UN.”

  “Fuckin UN.”

  “It says right here … Saddam says they can inspect all they want. Won’t find a thing.”

  “You believe that? You believe Saddam? I wouldn’t trust that fucker as far as I could throw him.”

  I turned to Collie, put down a bill to pay for the papers.

  “What do you have on today, MacMillan?” Neil asked, his tone suddenly playful.

  “Never stuck for things to do in an old house, as you well know, Neil.”

  “What did you make of yesterday. That Strickland. Some gall that fella.”