Verdict in the Desert

by Patricia Santos Marcantonio

  “Francisco, you cook the best chili.” Juanita blew out a satiated breath.

  “It was nothing.”

  Toni laughed. “That’s why you were cooking over a hot stove all day, Pops?”

  “Shush, Antonia.”

  After dinner, Juanita’s children sped off to the front yard to find kids to play ball. “Don’t get into trouble,” she yelled.

  Francisco sat in the front room, summoning Víctor and Guillermo. “Come on, Maverick’s about to start, then it’s Lawman.”

  That left the women in front of the dishes.

  “That’s okay, we’ll wash up,” Toni called sarcastically.

  “I know you’ll clean real good,” her father answered with a mischievous grin.

  Víctor laughed and picked up his bottle of beer. “Listen, Francisco cooked, and me and Guillermo ate. Ain’t that fair?”

  “Sí, el jefe,” Carmen said.

  “Women.” Víctor shook his head.

  “Men,” the women replied.

  Toni, Carmen and Juanita heard the television start, and they began piling up the dishes.

  “Throw me the estropajo.” Juanita ducked the scouring pad Carmen threw too hard.

  Carmen laughed. “Sorry.”

  Within twenty minutes the kitchen mess disappeared. By that time, Juanita’s sons had joined the men, sitting on the floor watching television.

  Carmen handed Toni and Juanita each a beer and took a soda for herself. “Let’s go to my room and listen to records.”

  Upstairs, Juanita nudged Toni as they sat on Carmen’s bed. “We used to have fun times at our sleepovers.”

  “Especially when we sneaked up a bottle of beer.”

  “You guys never let me play with you.” Carmen threw a pillow at Toni.

  “We did let you play, but you were so obnoxious, Carmen. You came in the middle of the night and tried to fart in my face.”

  “Quit lying, Toni.”

  “I remember that,” Juanita volunteered.

  “Excuse me, ladies, I have to go pee. Again.”

  “That’s the worst part of being pregnant,” Juanita said. “The gas is pretty bad, too.”

  “While I’m downstairs, I’ll see if the men want more beer.” Carmen left.

  “I miss those times we had in high school,” Juanita nodded with memories.

  “Oh, yeah. Hanging around together and playing Eddie Fisher records. I remember Guillermo showing off for you. His ’44 Chevy truck would tear up and down the block.” Toni sipped her beer and studied her old friend. “So, Juanita, are you very happy now?”

  Juanita’s heavy brows blew apart with surprise. “You were always the one for questions. The teachers loved you because you asked such good questions.”

  “I’m sorry. That was pretty rude. I must have had too many beers.”

  “Claro, I’m happy. I hope you’ll be as happy as me someday with your own husband and children, and then you can get fat as me.” Juanita grinned, which made her cheeks even broader.

  “I look forward to that.”

  Her friend did appear sanguine. Then again, when they were younger, Juanita had always appeared content with whatever she received or had been offered. She dated whatever boy asked her, no matter how homely he was or how he treated her. Juanita called Toni picky because she wanted more.

  “How were those white college boys, Toni?” Juanita asked.

  “Let me put it this way. Mexican boys try to charm you out of your panties. The college boys try to talk you out of them.”

  “No matter what color boys are, they all know what they want.” Juanita burped a little and giggled. “My mommy used to say women marry men and turn them into babies.”

  “That’s not much of a leap. I’ve always thought women were stronger than men, anyway.”

  Carmen ducked back in. “Who’s stronger?”

  “Women,” Toni said.

  Juanita puffed out her sizeable chest. “I may have gained weight, but I can’t whip Guillermo.”

  Toni laughed. “That’s not what I meant. Women have babies, clean the house, wash the clothes, tend to their husbands and some of them have paying jobs, too. All men have to do is go out and work.”

  “And fish,” added Carmen.

  “And watch westerns on television.” Juanita fell back on the bed. “And they have to keep us happy with that little thing between their legs.”

  “Not too little, I hope.” Carmen winked.

  “Carmen Marie García Villaseñor! What a mouth.” Toni squeezed her sister’s arm.

  “I’m not two years old anymore, Antonia Cruz García.”

  “No, you’re not. You’re a dirty old woman.”

  Carmen patted her stomach. “If I have a daughter, I’m going to prepare her for being a woman. God bless our mother, but she didn’t tell us anything. You’d mentioned the birds and the bees, and she started saying a novena.”

  Toni sat up. “When I got my first period, I ran to Mamá. Boy, was I scared. She smiled and told me, ‘Antonia, you’re a woman now.’ I started running around the house and yelling, ‘No, Mamá, I don’t want to be a woman!’”

  Juanita hooted, spraying her beer in a mist. “My mom didn’t tell me nothing neither. So when I saw Guillermo’s thing, I told him, ‘Oh no, you’re not putting that in me.’”

  “You must have gotten used to it,” Carmen said.

  “What about you, little Miss Pregnant?”

  They laughed again. Francisco peeked in. “How you girls doing? It sounds like you’re having fun up here.”

  “We are, Pops,” Carmen answered, still laughing.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Cooking,” Juanita said.

  “That’s good.” He closed the door, and they laughed even harder.

  Later that night, Víctor lay in bed as Carmen changed into her nightgown. She traced the roundness of her belly. “God, I’m getting fat.”

  “No, you’re cute.” Víctor rolled over in bed. “I saw it again, babe.”

  “What?”

  “That white guy’s car. He’s driving an older model now, not that flashy sports car. He leaves it down the street. All the neighbors are talking, Carmen.”

  “So let them talk. They’re working on that trial.”

  “They are working on a lot more than that.”

  “Shut up, Víctor.”

  “You can’t ignore it, babe.”

  Carmen folded her clothes and trembled with cold feet on the warm floor. She got into bed and snuggled next to Víctor.

  “Maybe you should talk to her, Carmen.”

  “Toni’s a big girl, Víctor.”

  “Whatever you say, but I wanted to warn you.”

  She sat up. “I wonder if the neighbors would talk so damn much if he was a Mexican guy.”

  “Nah. They’d just think she’s easy.”

  “Víctor!”

  He gently pulled her back and kissed her lips. “Sorry, but it’s true. Let’s get some sleep. I got work.” He closed his eyes.

  Carmen felt gas bubbles rising in her stomach like a soon-to-erupt volcano. She tried to blame her dad’s chili. The real cause was the car Víctor had seen parked down the street and the fact that her sister wasn’t alone in the little house in the back.

  23

  THE ENTIRE SHAW LAW FIRM got to its feet when Martin entered.

  “Welcome back, Mr. Shaw,” gushed his secretary, Mrs. Garrison, a compact woman with rouged, wrinkled cheeks. “We’re all so happy you’re feeling better. We missed you.” She handed him a bouquet of roses.

  Four young attorneys, their secretaries and the clerks clapped at the presentation.

  Michael stood at the back of the crowd. His own secretary had had to shoo him from his office to the official welcome. Following his release from the hospital, his father had skipped work for five days. Martin stayed away that long only because his longtime physician had threatened him with more tests and treatment if he returned any sooner. />
  Toni had told him about her father, Francisco. She spoke with such love and as much despair, because the affliction in his lungs would result in his early death. There was nothing to stop it. His father, on the other hand, had escaped death. After Martin had been released from the hospital, Michael went to visit him at home with a gift—a book about Abraham Lincoln’s early law career. His father had locked himself in his study, where he slept on a bed set up by the fireplace, Josita told him. She was only allowed in to bring food and change the sheets. With lowered eyes, she also informed Michael his father refused to see him. He wanted no visitors to disturb his recovery. Michael never tried to visit again.

  Michael noticed how his father’s commanding stride was diminished a notch. His cheeks were hollow, but he still projected a forbidding presence. Accepting the roses and good wishes from the staff, Martin stepped back. His eyes dimmed, and he cleared his throat with discomfort at the simple gesture.

  “Thank you,” Martin said. “But we have even more work to do. That will do for now. I’d like to talk with you for a moment, Michael.” He turned his attention to his secretary. “Mrs. Garrison, please bring your pad into my office in a half an hour. I have a lot to catch up on.”

  Mrs. Garrison lost her welcoming smile. “Yes, sir.”

  The crowd broke up, a few shaking their heads, Michael noted.

  “The old man is back, all right,” whispered a young attorney to another. He shut up when he noticed Michael listening. They sped back to their cubicles.

  Ceiling-to-floor windows covered two walls of his father’s office. He kept the blinds closed, which gave the impression of a tasteful dungeon cell. A massive oak desk was bare except for a Tiffany lamp and a tray with a glass pitcher of water and a glass. Martin sat back in his chair and motioned for Michael to sit across from him. The week without his father had been akin to taking a vacation, but all vacations had to end.

  “I see you’re going to trial soon,” Martin said.

  “I haven’t fallen behind on my work, Father.”

  “That’s admirable.” Martin poured a glass of water and sipped carefully.

  “I’m glad you’re well enough for work,” Michael said. How polite they were. His father fidgeted in a way that indicated he had more to say but didn’t know how. Michael would help him along, if nothing else to get the hell out of there.

  “Anything else you want to tell me, Father?”

  Martin shook his head.

  Michael left as Martin placed his hands on the clean, shiny desk.

  Facedown on her small bed, Michael sighed as Toni kneaded his back.

  “You have more knots than a rope.”

  “Yeow,” he groaned as Toni rubbed a knot out. “How’s your dad?”

  “Tired, but he won’t slow down. The new medicine his doctor gave him is helping his coughing spells.”

  “He sounds like a good man. I wish I could meet him.”

  “One day. How’s your father?”

  “Back to work and recovered enough to boss everyone around. He’s a tough old bastard.”

  “Why don’t you like him?”

  “He killed my mother.”

  She stopped massaging. “What do you mean?”

  He sat up and faced her. “They argued the day she died. Hell, they argued every day. But that night, I had sneaked out of my room and lain on the carpet in front of my mother’s room. I watched their shadows move under the door. He yelled. She screamed.

  “I wanted so badly to knock on the door. I wanted to stop him from hurting her, but I was too damn scared to do anything. I fell asleep on the rug.”

  “You were a little boy. What could you do?”

  “I remember my mother carrying me back to my room. ‘Mommy loves you,’ she said and laid me in bed. She left and took the light with her.”

  “What happened then?”

  “The next morning, they found her body ten miles from the house. Her car had smashed into a telephone pole. All during the funeral, I waited for him to cry. But he never did. That’s when I began to hate him.” He balled his hands into fists.

  “Why don’t you talk to your father, Michael? It’s not too late.”

  He relaxed his fingers and put his hands on her face. “I don’t know if I can. That resentment’s set hard as cement. It’s the only real thing between us.”

  “Were you sorry your father lived?”

  “I don’t know anymore.” An equal amount of animosity and regret weighed on him like a mountain of shale. He put his head on the pillow. Toni took his hand and kissed his fingers. She was crying.

  “I hope those aren’t for him,” he said.

  “No, not him.”

  24

  COURT BAILIFF GEORGE ROY carried the red drum up from the basement and placed it on a rickety table across from the judge’s bench. With gout invading his legs, he again promised himself to retire but dreaded seeing his wife more than he had to. A decent woman in most every way, Marjorie talked constantly about nothing at all. She clanged pots and clattered dishes like artillery. She chastised the dog for getting hair on the couch or him for not picking up his socks from the floor and leaving up the toilet seat. Give him rotten criminals in court anytime.

  George walked past several people in the courthouse hallway, who watched him carry the drum into the courtroom. Only among prospective jurors did the well-off sit next to the not-so. They were all equals when it came time to serve on a jury—that is, unless they were pals with the juror commissioner, who somehow managed to keep their names off the list.

  As they waited, the women read books or knitted with yarn stringing out from giant handbags. Two working men in their early twenties played Go Fish on a folding chair between them. They really wanted to play five-card stud with pennies, but they were in a courthouse and didn’t want to get arrested for gambling in public. So they played the dullest game of all and tugged at ties. Jerry, a bricklayer with sandpaper fingers, had won his third game from Curt, a carpenter.

  Curt glanced over his fanned cards. “Ever get called for jury duty before?”

  “Nah. You?”

  “Nope. Got any nines?”

  Jerry scratched at his neck and the tie he had had to borrow from his father-in-law. “Go Fish. What’d you hear about this trial?”

  “A wife killed her husband after a fight.”

  “Is that all? Got any fives?”

  Michael again examined the list of prospective jurors. He wanted as many women as possible on the panel. At least the ones who might sympathize with María. If he were County Attorney Joe Brennan, he’d exercise his preemptory challenges and get rid of those women. Brennan would likely want to seat older men who would probably vote guilty to revenge manhood against a woman who had dared to strike back. Michael had no hope for Mexican-American jurors, not that the bailiff might call any. Although they made up almost half of the county’s population, they seemed to have vanished during jury selection, which he hadn’t really noticed until that morning. So much for a jury of one’s peers, at least for María.

  Michael’s mouth tasted gritty in anticipation of the trial. His nerves also fired up with excitement and challenge. He surveyed the faces of the prospective jurors who would be tasked with judging another human. During voir dire, the people would swear to the judge how much they wanted to do their civic duty and serve. Mostly, they lied. People hated lawyers, feared judges and distrusted the law. They’d rather be home or at work. Despite all that, juries delivered the right verdict, except, of course, when they totally screwed up. Michael couldn’t help but admire a system that was great, flawed and terrifying.

  Next to him at the defense table, María had her tiny hands folded on her lap. Her long hair went in a braid down her back. She wore a plain dark-blue dress with a cheerless white collar, which he guessed she probably wore to church. No longer the hysterical woman he had first met at the jail, his client sat calm and resigned, as if she knew the outcome of the trial would not be in her favor. Si
tting close to María, Toni wore a black suit. Her hair was in a bun, calling attention to her long neck. He couldn’t think of her now, not of her body and voice. He took out his handkerchief and patted his forehead. Although the courtroom fans along the ceiling pushed around the air, the temperature was tepid as tap water.

  At nine on the dot, Judge Hower pushed through his chamber door, ascended to the bench and asked both sides if they were ready to proceed. They were. The potential jurors were ordered to stand and swear to tell the truth during the questioning.

  “Call the first name,” Judge Hower boomed.

  George Roy reached into the red drum. “Herman Andrews.”

  With the hesitation of a doomed man, Andrews walked forward. He wiggled in the witness stand as if it was covered in tacks.

  “Morning, Mr. Andrews.” Michael smiled to put the guy at ease.

  The man nodded.

  Judge Hower snorted with frustration. “Mr. Andrews, the court cannot record a nod. Please answer out loud.”

  “Good morning,” Andrews replied a little too loudly.

  “Mr. Andrews, how do you feel about natives of Mexico?” Michael said.

  Andrews chewed the question like tobacco. “You mean wetbacks?”

  “That’s all the questions I have.” Michael crossed Andrews off his list.

  “Mr. Brennan?” Judge Hower said.

  The county attorney gave a greeting smile and asked only a few questions. He wanted this man, but Michael Shaw would probably toss him from the panel with a preemptory challenge.

  “Step down, Mr. Andrews,” the judge said after Brennan completed his questions.

  “Is that it?” the man asked.

  “Probably for you,” the judge answered.

  Elsie Van Buren, a young woman with broad hips and a high hairdo, answered Michael’s questions politely. “I don’t have anything against Mexicans. I believe God made us all. Yes, this is what the Bible says.”

  Michael wrote a question mark beside her name on his pad. If she quoted the Bible, she might also get to the part about “Thou shalt not kill.” He took another direction. “Miss Van Buren, if someone attacked you or your family, do you feel you have the right to defend yourself?”