Blood on the Leaves

by Jeff Stetson

  Both lawyers nodded reluctantly. Reynolds understood that the judge would rather bully the attorneys inside his chambers than come across as obstinate before the jury.

  “Splendid,” said the judge, who leaned back into his chair. “Now’s as good a time as any to test the waters. Mr. Reynolds, you first.”

  “I ask the court to deny bail for the defendant and to have him remain in custody throughout the duration of the trial.”

  “Mr. Miller, let’s hear your argument.”

  “Your Honor, since the professor doesn’t have significant financial resources and would pose no risk of flight, I request bail be waived entirely or set at a moderately low figure.”

  “Mr. Miller,” Tanner said in a voice that foreshadowed a lecture, “sometimes there’s a risk of flight, and on occasion there’s a greater risk a defendant will hang ’round and make everybody’s life miserable. I believe, given the circumstances of this crime, the community will be better served by keeping Professor Matheson confined. I’d like to make it easier to guarantee everyone’s safety, including your client’s.”

  “Are you really concerned about my client’s health, or is this just an effort to prevent Professor Matheson from exercising his First Amendment rights?” challenged Miller.

  “He can speak all he wants,” Tanner offered. “But, he’ll be talkin’ to three tiny walls and a row of iron bars in his cell. His days of inspiring students will have to be put on hold for a while, Mr. Miller.”

  “Your Honor, if my client were white, I doubt very much he’d even be arrested with the relatively minor circumstantial evidence the state’s presented thus far.”

  “Counselor, if your client were white, he wouldn’t have had black students takin’ his course, and we wouldn’t be here today.” Tanner’s voice became less strident. “Now, I admit, the state’s got a difficult case, but it’s not due to the absence of evidence. You and I both know there are plenty of folks dressed in those lovely orange jumpsuits servin’ time based on a fiber from a throw rug or a mere strand of hair that appeared to be a possible match.” Tanner rubbed against the bottom of his chair.

  “Yes, Your Honor, we can agree on that,” Miller said, “but we can also agree those defendants were poor and uneducated.”

  “Prison ain’t made ’em no richer, so I hope for their sake they picked up some books while they’ve been incarcerated and gotten smarter.” Tanner mumbled something and rocked forward. “Now, as far as this case, I’m expecting a rather speedy trial. Mr. Reynolds, I hope you don’t intend to draw this out.”

  “No, Your Honor,” agreed Reynolds. “We don’t anticipate calling any more than six to eight witnesses.”

  “Fine and dandy.” Tanner jotted a note. “I don’t want any comparisons to that case in California whose name I dare not mention. Suffice it to say, you can’t put jurors through a case that lasts as long as the Nuremberg trials and expect one or more won’t find a doubt and call it reasonable.” The judge sharpened a pencil. “And don’t allow your cocounsel to change her hairdo or wardrobe more often than you change your theory of the case.” Tanner tried the new point on his legal pad. It broke off when he used it, and he grudgingly put it aside for a pen.

  “Judge Tanner,” Miller interjected, “I object to you providing advice and encouragement to the state designed to help achieve a guilty verdict against my client. I find that highly inappropriate and potentially prejudicial against the defense.”

  “No need to get all riled up or try to establish a misleading record as a basis for your possible appeal.” Tanner rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Now, Todd, don’t you go on and get your feelings hurt; I’m about to give you some helpful advice, too. You’re as free as Mr. Reynolds to cherish it and draw it to your bosom or reject it and risk havin’ it come back to seek revenge on another part of your body.”

  “Your Honor, I’ll be grateful for any insights you have to offer that will ensure my client receives a fair trial.”

  “Wonderful,” punctuated Tanner. “My recommendation is that you don’t piss me off in front of the jury.”

  “That’s it?” asked a frustrated Miller.

  “I can expand it to include my private chambers.”

  “That won’t be necessary, Your Honor,” Miller capitulated. “I appreciate your first offer and will consider it seriously.”

  “It’s advice you can take to the bank. And if you don’t follow it, that’s precisely where I’ll send you to pay any fines I impose for contempt of court.” The judge turned around his yellow legal notepad and displayed it on the outer lip of his desk so that both Miller and Reynolds could see it. He pointed to the left margin. “Now that I’ve given you both the benefit of my substantial wisdom, I call counsel’s attention to the two letters runnin’ down the side of my paper right next to your motions. You with me?”

  “Yes, Your Honor,” both attorneys answered.

  “R.R.—got several of them already.” Tanner’s fat little fingers played the accordion alongside the paper’s edge. “You see all these?” He pointed out the initials. “That’s my abbreviation for Reserved Ruling.” He put the notepad down. “As long as y’all don’t give me too many convoluted citations to look up, or ask for too many complex decisions before we even start the damn trial, I promise to rule on your requests in a timely fashion.” He cleared his throat. “Follow me thus far?”

  The two lawyers looked at each other a bit confusedly.

  Tanner took a drink of ice water and ran the liquid over his teeth before swallowing. “However, if I start havin’ to write a lot of these twin Rs, that’s when life gets unduly complicated.” He leaned back in his chair and flapped his arms, freeing space for his black robe to spread its wings and fly. “I discovered a long time ago, the best solution for a complicated problem is to apply a simple remedy. So once I fill up a whole legal page with my Reserved Ruling initials, this is what I’m gonna do.” He took a red marker and started circling the initials. When he finished an entire page, he once again showed the pad to both attorneys.

  “I’ve just changed my exceedingly patient and cooperative twins into a series of dangerous railroad warnings.” He fanned himself with the pad. “I’m not responsible for what happens to anyone who wants to risk crossin’ the tracks or challengin’ the train to a race. However, that’s a contest you can’t win.” He rested the pad against his stomach and folded his arms around it in a loving embrace.

  “So, gentlemen, don’t complicate this case any more than necessary. If you do, I guarantee you won’t see what hit you—but rest assured, the damage inflicted will be quite severe.” He tossed the pad in front of him and leaned forward. “The wheels of justice may grind slowly, but trust me, they do grind.” He smiled warmly. “Do either of you have any further motions you’d like me to consider at this time?”

  The two lawyers didn’t respond.

  “I thought not. May God bless you and keep you from harm.” Tanner tucked his yellow legal pad under his right arm. He carried it in the manner of a football headed for a trophy case and walked to a cabinet. He slid open a door, lowered a drop shelf, and removed a bottle of brandy and three glasses.

  “I don’t do this often,” the judge announced, “but it might be a good idea if we share a toast, since I have a queasy feelin’ this case might test our skills and collective patience beyond all reasonable limits.” He filled the glasses halfway.

  “Judge Tanner,” said Reynolds, “I’m afraid I don’t drink.”

  “That’s as good a reason to have fear as any I’ve heard.” Tanner pulled out a can of Coke.

  “I’ll drink his, Your Honor,” volunteered Miller.

  “Spoken like a true defense lawyer. But I don’t want you leavin’ here and causin’ any accidents.” He handed Miller his drink. “’Specially in that car you drive.” The judge gave Reynolds his soda. They stood in a three-spoked circle as Tanner raised his drink. “To the pursuit of justice.”

  They clinked together their two gl
asses and a can and declared in unison, “To justice.”

  CHAPTER 30

  DURING HIS FIRST three weeks of confinement, Matheson remained in solitary, totally isolated from the general inmate population. Several white prison gangs had threatened his life. Blacks, who greatly outnumbered all other ethnic groups combined, issued a retaliatory warning that if the professor was harmed in any way, the lives of all whites, including correctional officers and staff, would be endangered.

  Matheson insisted he be allowed to participate in public activities and eventually signed a waiver agreeing not to hold the state liable for any injury sustained while outside protective custody. During meals in the cafeteria, black prisoners offered the professor their desserts or extra portions of meat. They’d gather around his table and ask questions about his college course and the nature of the crimes committed by the men on the list. Instead of answering, Matheson discussed matters of greater concern.

  He started with the institution of slavery. If it existed today, he hypothesized, blacks would be quartered in housing much like these prisons; the latest and most advanced technological equipment would be utilized to monitor their movements and quell any potential uprisings. He speculated how drugs would be used to control the most defiant among them. The irony wasn’t lost on these inmates, most of whom had lost their freedom due to the use or sale of narcotics.

  He asked how many of them had children and how often their sons and daughters had seen them before they’d been incarcerated. He wanted to know if they supported them, financially or emotionally. Many of the men stared at the floor they were forced to disinfect twice each day. “Imagine a time when children were ripped away from their parents,” he told them, “and sold to anyone who had money in their pockets or hatred in their hearts.” He wanted them to envision their daughters being brutalized in the middle of the night and contemplate “how their voices sounded when they screamed for help.” Then he posed the question: “Were those screams any different than the ones you elicited from your black victims?”

  He talked about the Diaspora and the journey across a mysterious ocean during which their ancestors were chained together, huddled in darkness within the bowels of a ship. He described the slaves “lying among the dead and the dying, sleeping in their own defecation and sharing a nightmare tame in comparison to the reality that awaited.” He suggested they look around the room at each other and consider the environment they’d created for those who shared their name and, in all probability, their fate.

  “The worst type of slaves,” he claimed, “were the ones who not only volunteered for the job but also enlisted the people who trusted and loved them.”

  Did they know that less than two centuries ago masters inserted iron devices inside the mouths of field hands so they wouldn’t be able to communicate with one another while working? And were they aware that the “sun heated the metal so intensely it tore away dry skin from blistered tongues each time it was removed”? He inquired if anyone wished to hazard a guess as to how those slaves might feel if they knew their burned-out throats were sacrificed so that their offspring might have the freedom, if not the luxury, to call their brothers “niggers” and their sisters “bitches and whores.” How many of these inmates, he wondered aloud, had knife or gun wounds inflicted by the descendants of slaves? “Would those scars have hurt any more had they been caused by the lash of a bullwhip or the burning metal of an owner’s branding iron?”

  Then he stopped talking and requested the men share their stories. He listened carefully and without judgment to several multigenerational tales of families who’d been in and out of prisons their entire adult lives. Sometimes father and son, or brother and brother, or uncle and nephew would be serving time together, separated by the distance between similar county, state, or federal facilities but united by equally harsh sentencing for identical crimes. A grandfather spoke of waiting for a grandson to join him in prison. He recounted the day the boy lost his name to an assigned number, the last three digits of which he’d frequently played and twice won in the poor man’s illegal lottery.

  Mothers and wives and sisters and daughters increasingly acquired their own unique numerical “ID bracelets,” thereby repeating the multigenerational prison ritual. Only this time it wasn’t the men but the women recycled rather than rehabilitated.

  Those who escaped the harshness of imprisonment suffered the indignities of visiting their loved ones in a cold, guarded room, forced to endure the mechanical rape of handheld metal detectors moving relentlessly across their bodies and between their legs. They took off sweaters and discarded belts. They removed jewelry from their wrists and around their necks and stored it in lockers to be supervised by guards who deemed prisoners of no value. Before receiving authorization to enter the visitation area, old women pulled out their bobby pins and hoped they still looked presentable. Young girls left behind plastic barrettes or colorful hair ribbons and exchanged them for embarrassment and tears, which their mothers quickly ordered them to conceal.

  Before too long these visitors, who’d grown accustomed to their dignity being stripped away, asked to meet Professor Matheson. They’d read so much about him from letters sent home, as well as from newspaper accounts of his impending trial, they now thought of him as family. On regular visits they brought him books and extra magazines. They asked for permission to write to him and ended each letter with the assurance he’d always be in their prayers. On special visits they baked him coconut cake, his favorite, and a variety of pies and cookies he shared with everyone, even the guards. He’d been invited to become their children’s godfather. They hugged him when they arrived and wept for him when they left.

  One Saturday evening after visitations had ended, a Muslim inmate approached and offered to convert Matheson to Islam. He replied that they should all set aside their gods and discover if love was possible without the existence of a deity. “God’s been used so often to tolerate evil,” he said, “to accept it as a plan conceived by a divine force, designed to test the depths of one’s faith.” For a moment he wanted them to conceive of a world without God’s will—a time when they had to assume responsibility for acting without a grand design or an all-powerful being recording their actions for the specific purpose of rewarding or punishing them in an afterlife. What would happen if this life was all they had? If their immortality existed only in the hearts and minds of those whom they’d touched with honor and respect?

  “Would you love differently?” he asked each man. “Would your good deeds be less worthy or important? And if you lived without a belief in God yet acted the way a God would demand, wouldn’t you reap and possibly deserve even a greater reward?”

  The Muslim thanked Matheson for posing questions that caused him to rethink and renew his faith, then asked if he could leave a copy of the Koran for the professor to read at his convenience. Matheson indicated he’d already read it several times but would accept the book as a gift that reflected the good wishes of a friend. That night Matheson opened the holy book and found a newspaper clipping of a burned-out house. The brick structure remained intact with two sets of windowless frames supported by steel bars. The front entrance also had been consumed by fire except for an iron gate inserted within the doorway.

  At breakfast the next morning, Matheson asked the man why he’d kept the article. He answered that as a teenager he’d robbed the home several times. There wasn’t much worth stealing, he said sadly, “a radio, an old television, some CDs.” A woman lived there as a single parent raising three young daughters including an infant. She had evidently spent two weeks’ salary to purchase and install the steel bars inside her windows and front door in order to protect her belongings.

  Less than two days after the installation, an electrical wire overheated and caused a fire to spread quickly throughout the small home. The mother grabbed her three children and attempted to exit the burning house but remained trapped by the very system designed to protect them. Neighbors tried frantically to rem
ove the screaming children, to no avail. By the time firefighters entered the home, the entire family had perished in the blazing inferno.

  He’d had nothing to do with setting the fire and therefore technically hadn’t killed them. Yet, he knew if it weren’t for his continued thefts, she wouldn’t have needed the security gates that turned her home into a prison and her prison into a death trap. To a truthful heart, that made him as responsible for taking their lives as if he had started the fire himself and barricaded all the exits to their salvation.

  He’d placed the article inside the Koran in the hope that Allah would grant him forgiveness. When the professor first asked the men to imagine the screams of their children being brutalized in the middle of the night, the inmate had thought of that mother and her three little girls. He heard their screams and felt the fire that consumed their lives erasing an entire family from the face of this earth.

  He looked at Matheson with tears in his eyes and asked the professor if he’d felt responsible for the murders of those white men on his list. Without any hesitation Matheson answered yes, and further replied that he’d never ask his God for forgiveness, only understanding and, perhaps, mercy. He returned the Koran to the young Muslim brother but asked to keep the newspaper article.

  “I’d be grateful to you, Professor, for relieving me of my grief,” said the prisoner.

  Matheson posted the article on the cell wall over his bed, where it would remain until he learned his fate.

  At the end of the professor’s first six weeks virtually every black inmate had attended at least one of his regularly scheduled sessions. They sat in foldout chairs or on long metal benches or on the floor. When a particularly large crowd assembled, they stood quietly along the walls, with the tallest inmates in the back. They abstained from smoking in the meeting room and agreed not to retaliate against any warring factions for the duration of the talks plus one hour. They found the additional grace period unnecessary since there were no reports of violence among blacks on the days that Matheson spoke.