by Eva Luxe
But with time I’ve been able to see that mercy and justice were things that he strongly believed in. He practiced what he preached, and he was a good man. A much better man than I'll ever be.
My mind flashes back to when I was a teenager, and we’d all just found out that Mom had left Dad for some no-good vagrant.
“Boys,” Dad had said, after sitting us down on the couch.
Ramsey and I were almost bigger than he was— Ramsey was probably already taller than Dad was— but he still called us “boys.”
“I know you’ve been wondering where your mom has been. And I’m sorry to tell you this, but I don’t think she’ll be coming back any time soon.”
“How can you just put up with this?” Harlow had accused Dad, as he threw a sofa pillow across the room in frustration.
He was still practically just a kid and didn’t know any better. “We know she’s gone. She’s been gone. She’s not coming back. So why are you holding onto all her stuff like this is some sort of free storage unit instead of our house that she left?”
“Harlow,” Ramsey had said— always protective of Dad, of any of us— “Calm down.”
“Kids at school are talking,” Harlow had shot back, with a pout.
“Shut your mouth.” Ramsey had said, quickly and loudly.
He didn’t want to further hurt Dad by piling more dirty, ugly truths on top of the truth that Dad was just starting to face, even though it had been plain as day to the rest of us for some time.
Dad had been a prominent political figure and we’d enjoyed a rather privileged, middle class upbringing up until that point. But now kids at school were saying our mom was a slut and an alcoholic, and our dad was a “cuckold.” I’d had to look that one up.
At the time, I was convinced that life would get better. Mom would realize her mistake and come home, and Dad was obviously willing to welcome her home with open arms. We would be a family again and everything would be okay.
“You haven’t had an easy life, kiddo,” I can almost hear my dad say now.
It sure didn’t pan out like I’d wanted it to. Mom did occasionally come home but it was only to crash with us when she was completely broke, and to get more money from Dad before she moved on to the next guy.
Dad had to support us and Mom and her habits— which had progressed from alcohol to drugs, and from seedier and seedier men. We were still always the talk of the town and he didn’t run for reelection because he had slipped into a pretty deep depression and suffered from anxiety and panic attacks.
From that time on, the Bradford Brothers were on the outs. We were bad news. No good.
Our family’s reputation was toast and our parents were the laughing stocks of the town. It was our mom’s fault, but for a long time I harbored resentment towards my dad— and I know that at least Harlow did too.
“I miss you, Dad,” I tell him now. “I wish you were here to help me through this.”
Dad passed away unexpectedly a year later, when Ramsey was a senior in high school and I was a junior. Harlow was just a freshman. The autopsy revealed rampant coronary hypertension that had gone unchecked, leading to heart failure.
Mom came back into our lives then, begrudgingly. She was worried that the state would take Harlow if she left Ramsey and me to take care of him.
Ramsey went off to the military and I was left to deal with our crazy mother for Harlow and me both. Sometimes, I think Ramsey goes easier on my mom than Harlow and I do because he wasn’t around to see how awful things got.
Harlow was understandably mad at my mom but she would punish him any time he brought up what she had done to us. And she would punish me for even mentioning Dad or how much I missed him.
I stayed home for a year after graduation to help take care of Harlow— because Mom was more absent than she was present, and when she was present, she seemed bent on making our lives miserable— but Harlow was kind of off the rails himself at that point.
He was getting into trouble at school and didn’t want to be around anyone but his bad influence friends. I had gone down that path for a while but Ramsey had shown me through example that a better future existed for me.
So, I joined the SEALs because Ramsey was in it, and because it seemed like the perfect place for me to be—the only place for me to be—
and we were both surprised when Harlow got his act more or less together and joined us a couple years later. Everyone in our unit referred to each other as “brothers” at times but it was nice to be together as actual brothers. Even— no, especially, I suppose— later, when everything bad happened with Harlow.
I try to shake my head free of the bad memories and concentrate on the good ones I have of my dad, before everything went to shit. The way he made us pancakes with peanut butter for breakfast. The way he would sing as he drove us to school. The way that he and my mom used to be in love. I don’t know what happened, but the love was there once, and I had been able to see it plain as day.
“I think I’ve met someone, but it’s a complicated situation…” I start to tell my dad.
No, I tell myself. I’m not going there.
I had promised myself that I would never be like my dad. I wouldn’t get my heart and life literally ruined by a woman. Sex was one thing, but love was another. I had decided a long time ago that I would have plenty of the former, but none of the latter. I wouldn’t take a chance that my life would turn out like my dad’s.
“Well Dad, I have to get going, but I just wanted to drop by and say hello. And that I love you.”
“Take care, son.” I can almost hear my dad’s voice say the phrase he would always say in parting.
I leave the cemetery feeling slightly better but wondering if things will ever feel normal again.
Chapter 13 – Riley
Today's a big day at work for me. It's the day that I get to take the direct testimony of my firm’s client, and then the cross-examination of the most important witness of the biggest trial of my career to date. I take a deep breath and can’t help but look around to see if Charles showed up. He’s not in the courtroom.
I sigh, realizing I should have known that he wouldn’t be here. I did know this, but couldn’t resist checking anyway, just in case. Charles has been all but non-existent in my life lately, barely asking me how my day was or if I’d like to grab dinner.
When I ask him if everything’s okay, he swears it is and that he’s just distracted. But he works maybe ten hours a week and parties the rest of the time, so I don’t know what he has to be distracted about.
Nor do I know why I haven't been brave enough to break up with him, when things are obviously going so, well badly, between us. I guess I'm just stuck in fear and inertia. But I have no time to think about that now. I have a trial to win.
I stand up to begin my questioning of Jed Marks but Jack Holt hands me a sheet of paper. Even though he’s the supervising attorney for the trial, so far, he’s let me handle the entire thing on my own.
I frown, wondering if he’s going to step in to do the big cross-examination, or if his interference means he no longer thinks I’ve been doing a good job, even though he’s been assuring me for the past week that everything has been going even more smoothly than he expected and that he’s very happy with my work.
“You’re doing great, Riley,” Mr. Holt assures me in a whisper. “But there was a sudden change in strategy and I’ve put together these questions to ask instead of the ones you prepared and we went over last week.”
Sudden change in strategy? When was there time for the managing partners to meet about this case between yesterday’s full-day trial session and this morning, and why? He put together new questions? Did he not like mine?
It makes no sense. We had painstakingly gone over my prepared questions until neither of us had any doubt that they were perfect. And now he’s handed me one sheet with questions for our witness and on the back questions for the opposing witness, and they’re completely different than those that we
had planned out.
I’m not prepared; I haven’t had time to practice my direct questioning since I didn’t even have these questions until now. How could he sandbag me like this? And why?
As I quickly scan the questions, the answers become a little more clear, but not much. It appears that someone at my firm was given information about the other side’s case, and I doubt that it was done above board. There is no way we could know all of this information unless someone had discovered it unethically or had been provided the information unethically.
And the worst part is that the notes clearly indicate that our client was guilty of trading insider information. It looks to me as if someone at our firm is trying to sink our own client.
The new information completely ruins our case in the civil lawsuit and means I’m not supposed to be questioning the client on the stand. I’m not allowed to let him lie, and if I know he’s lying, I’m supposed to withdraw my representation as his lawyer.
“Go on,” says Mr. Holt, impatiently, in a hissed whisper under his breath.
He actually wants me to do this. I’m not sure what’s happened but he wants me to be unethical in order to win this case. If I’m ethical, I’ll lose it.
And perhaps I’ve been set up the whole time. I’m the associate handling the trial so if I do the wrong thing, it’s my bar license on the line. On the other hand, Mr. Holt would still be responsible as my supervising attorney instructing me to be unethical. So, I guess he just doesn’t care.
What did you think? I ask myself, while trying to decide what to do. That he built the richest law firm in the city by being some moral upstanding citizen?
I know deep in my gut that this behavior is probably par for the course for my law firm. This trial is likely some test or initiation, to see if I have what it takes to be partnership material.
I flash forward to the future in my mind and I see my father shaking his head disapprovingly at me, not for being unethical but for no longer having a job. And my mother’s face in tears, asking me what’s to become of all the money they spent to put me through law school. They thought my career was set, and now I’m fired, and they don’t even know or care why. They just can’t believe that their baby girl would disappoint them like this.
I clear my throat and ask the first question.
“Mr. Marks, have you ever traded insider information about your company’s stocks?”
“No, of course not,” is his quick answer from the witness stand, just as I’d expected.
But the paper I’m looking at tell me that he has. It also tells me a lot of damning information about the other side that I’m not sure how the firm got its hands on— but apparently, the strategy is to deny, deny, deny, while muddying up the waters with all the things the opposing side has done wrong that we somehow know about now.
I pause. This is where I’m supposed to recuse myself. I suddenly wonder if it’s a test in the opposite direction— maybe the firm wants to make sure I’m ethical? It’s a laughable thought but I don’t know which way is up anymore.
Mr. Holt reaches up and points a finger to the next question, angrily, as if he thinks I suddenly can’t read. But I just can’t do it. I can’t go through with this, because even worse than having to look at my parents’ disapproving faces if I don’t, would be having to look at my own face in the mirror every day if I do.
Hopefully this is a test in the right direction, but even if it isn’t, hopefully Mr. Holt will understand. He truly wouldn’t want an unethical associate or partner in his firm. And I will just have to convince him of that, once we are outside of court.
I take a deep breath and look from the unabashedly lying face of my client to the bored face of the judge beside him.
“Your Honor? May I approach the bench?”
“Certainly,” he says, looking relieved to have something to listen to besides allegations of stock market tampering.
But at the same time Mr. Holt says, “Your Honor, I need to have a word with my associate.”
“Well which is it? Does your firm want a bench conference or a recess?”
“No recess is necessary, Your Honor,” Mr. Holt. “I’ll proceed with the questions from here. Ms. Morrell isn’t feeling well, and will need to be excused from the direct examination she just started.”
“Fine, but no more last-minute switches,” says the Judge. “This isn’t a baseball game and you’re not a pinch hitter.”
I look at Mr. Holt in disbelief, but he motions to the exit of the courtroom, his eyes dismissive and annoyed. Just like that, I’ve been tossed out.
As I gather my briefcase and walk out, my client looking at me in confusion, Mr. Holt continues the line of questioning from the notes he had given me.
It definitely wasn’t a test of any kind, I realize. It was just business as normal. Somehow— most probably in an unethical way— Mr. Holt got his hands on this information and decided to use it to our client’s advantage.
He doesn’t care that the client is guilty of what the other side is accusing him of and he doesn’t care that he’s not supposed to let him lie under oath. He just needs to win the case, which is the end goal.
He was going to let me do it but since I wouldn’t, he stepped up. I begin to question how unethical the situation really is, and I remind myself that I have no idea who wrote those notes and that I personally don’t know that my client did anything wrong.
Why didn’t I just continue asking the questions? I didn’t have to get on some high horse and act like I knew he was lying.
Sometimes practicing law feels like an exercise in an ethics test. I’m supposed to zealously represent my client, but I’m not supposed to let him lie. I’m supposed to deal truthfully and with candor to the court, but not about anything that would prejudice my client’s case. And I suppose I should tell Jed Marks what exactly is going on, so that he knows his own firm may potentially sabotage his case.
With my head held low in shame, I exit the courtroom. I want to cry, but more than that I want to dig a hole in the ground and never come out. I’m so afraid I’ve just completely ruined my legal career, or at least my legal career as I know it. Just when everything was starting to go right in my life, everything has suddenly gone horribly wrong.
Chapter 14 – Jensen
My feet grip hard metal and my hands pull me up faster and faster, to the top of the forty foot high training tower. I’m the first one to the top— as I should be, or I wouldn’t deserve this job— and as soon as I’m secure in my position at the top of the tower I retrieve my stopwatch.
“Trainees, you have less than a minute to get up here!” I yell down at the men clamoring to the top of the tower behind me.
Some of them make it but there are quite a few stragglers arriving at the top, winded and out of breath. The last one is obviously a bit overweight and I wonder how he didn’t already get weeded out.
“You! Trainee Garrison!” I yell at him, after looking at the name emblazoned on his uniform. “What makes you think you have what it takes to be a United States Air Force Pararescueman?”
“I… uh…” he stammers, panting, red and visibly embarrassed. “I passed the physical tests and…”
“That’s nothing, you sack of shit loser,” I shout at him, getting up in his face and daring him to push me away. "I was a Navy SEAL and I'm here to tell you that being in the Air Force, even Special Ops, is a piece of cake compared to that. If you can't do this simple training exercise, you're not going to be able to make it."
I think of all the times my buddies saved me and others while we were at war— and all the times I saved them— and I can’t imagine this portly pathetic excuse of a trainee doing anything like what we did. It’s better to kill any false hope that he has now, instead of stringing him along, making him think he’s got a chance.
“And all the rest of you, listen up!” I shout, and everyone stands straight at attention, as if I’m their superior.
But I’m not. I’m something bette
r. I’m a trainer, working for a private contractor employed to teach these new recruits what I spent years learning and practicing as a SEAL. The normal rules of the military don’t apply here, and for once I’m glad I’m no longer a part of it.
“If you didn’t clear this tower in time, there’s no way I’m letting you out on the rocks. Here you’re grasping cold, hard metal but in the real world it’s slippery and unpredictable terrain. There’s a rigorous test you’ll have to pass if you ever want to make it off this tower and onto the mountain. We don’t let just anyone do this.”
“Yes sir,” they mumble, most of them looking earnest and eager. But Tub of Lard just looks scared. I snarl at him and nearly spit in his face, trying my best to show him he doesn’t belong here, before he fails the test and gets sent home anyway.
“Do you understand, Trainee Garrison?” I yell into his face. “This is no place for stragglers. There is no room for you here.”
“Yes sir, Yes Trainor Bradford,” he huffs, looking as if he’s going to cry. Good, I hope he goes home to cry to his mommy and never comes back.
I look away from him with disgust and notice my new boss staring at me from the observation deck. I inwardly wince, prepared to be “talked to” about my “unpredictable and sometimes out of control” temper. But instead he gives me an approving nod.
Whew. I’d forgotten this isn’t the military. This is the private, civilian world. They like my “craziness” here. So, I guess I’d better embrace my new circumstances.
“When you get down to the bottom, have a good think about whether or not you really have what it takes to be here. And that goes for all of you. I’m going home. You pussies aren’t worth my time.”
On my way home, I call my brother Ramsey. I took my car to work so that I could bring all the equipment I can’t load onto my motorcycle. But I sure wish I could be riding the open road right now instead of enclosed in a car. I always think better on my bike.