The Mt. Monadnock Blues

by Larry Duberstein

  Tim waited, expensive seconds ticking away, while she leafed through her book. A hundred an hour was cheap, though; Karl said two hundred was possible, more than that for courtroom time. Tim struggled to maintain this costly silence. “Anything else?” he blurted, getting desperate. It had been twenty seconds, yet it reeled out in his imagination to a time millions of dollars hence in New Hampshire where the ninety-nine-year-old flint-and-vinegar judge delivers the punch line, “You have wasted this court’s time, knowing all along you were nothing but a flaming pervert.”

  “Yes. What makes you think this matter will be challenged? Have you heard from their lawyer?”

  “I heard it from them. In person.”

  “Conversationally.”

  “Well, yeah. In a conversation.”

  “I’m just trying to understand your sense of urgency. So far there has been civil discussion, about a difference of opinion—”

  “A friend of mine—a lawyer friend—says they can get a court order and grab the kids.”

  “But they haven’t.”

  “Not yet, no.”

  “Very likely they won’t. It’s been three weeks, they are behaving civilly, and given the terms of the will, it wouldn’t be granted. Can you be here at this same time tomorrow?”

  “Sure I can,” he said. Thinking, I can? How can I? Also thinking, There goes another hundred bucks.

  “Good. Bring along a copy of the will, any codicils, any letters or documents pertaining to William and Cynthia or to the situation that you think could be helpful. Even photographs of you with the children, or with Jill and Monty. Can you manage that?”

  Right, in my spare time. As if he had no job, as if he had no responsibility to produce breakfast, lunch, and dinner for three. And where the hell were these letters and documents? Would Jellinghaus fax him a copy of the will? And codicils? Karl would have to fill him in on codicils.

  “No problem,” he heard himself saying, though it dawned on him he had nothing but problems, some self-inflicted. He was launched, it would seem, on a headlong quest to attain the precise status he so recently sought to evade: parentis.

  “Good, then,” said Barnes, showing him out.

  Twenty-three hours later he was right back in, with a clutch of papers he presumed were worthless. He simply wanted a passing grade from Barnes. Thus his college transcript—unearthed!—a birthday card from Jill containing a broad hint of his sexual preference, photos Monty took of Camp White Sneaker canoeing the Contoocook, and a copy of the will. No codicils, though now he knew what a codicil was.

  “Nice work,” said Barnes. “You do understand that one burden we bear is to answer the obvious question, namely What’s wrong with this picture? Why name the single man, why not name the married sister who lives practically next door?”

  “Yes.”

  “But the Hergesheimers were perfectly clear about it.”

  “Yes.”

  “Tim, are you feeling all right?”

  “Yes. Fine, thanks.”

  “You seem so unnerved—and furtive, really. We can’t afford to have you looking so much like a criminal.”

  Her smile released a sigh that left Tim like ten pounds of air leaving a popped balloon. He blushed, briefly, and then came clean.

  “I guess I’ve been a little concerned about the cost of this, and—”

  “And you figure if you sit there with a stick up your arse, it will somehow be cheaper?”

  “Something like that,” he said, as another ten pounds escaped, this time in the form of laughter.

  “Look. It’s a terrible imposition on you to defend this guardianship, if it comes to that. But it may not. Your brother-in-law may find he doesn’t want to invest in a complicated court action any more than you do.”

  “Earl doesn’t think it’s complicated.”

  “In any case, we’ll work out something comfortable regarding the money. You shouldn’t worry about strict hourly rates.”

  Now she looked right at him with those arresting blueblack eyes, and smacked the desk like a drum. “I said don’t worry and you went right back to worrying.”

  “Yeah. I worried how much money we just spent trying to stop me from worrying.”

  “The answer is none. No charge. There will be no charge for a lot of conversations we have here. I’m not Hale and Dorr.”

  “I get it.” Tim did get it, more or less, and was disgusted at himself for hassling her. “I’m not really cheap, you know.”

  “I understand. You’re just worried.”

  “Yes, exactly.”

  “Or you were worried.”

  Even knowing Karl Trickett, Tim found it difficult to trust a lawyer. Lawyer jokes aside, how could you trust someone who saw eight clients a day—or eighty, like a doctor? No one could be sympathetic and engaged that many times a day. Yet Barnes had convinced him. If this took every penny he had or ever dreamed of having, it would still be a bargain.

  “Okay,” said Barnes, “let’s get back to work. To begin with, I’ll tell you that the law, as such, will not decide this case.”

  “Of course not, it’ll take blazing six-guns,” said Tim, perhaps too liberated for his own good. Barnes shot him a one-eyed dart that said, that kind of shit I’ll bill you for.

  “The law leaves room,” she said, “for human beings to decide it. We could prepare a perfect trial memo and still lose those kids.”

  Sobered, agreeable to the max, Tim nodded. Basically he was amazed to find Barnes on his side. We could lose those kids.…

  “There are three human beings,” she went on, “who will play a central role in the decision. A family service officer who investigates the situation. A guardian ad litem, who also investigates but who represents only the childrens’ interests—”

  “But that’s what you’ll be doing.”

  “Technically, no. I represent your interests—which may differ. The third person is of course the judge. With the judge, a great deal will turn on what your sister can offer with regard to your—”

  “Unfitness?”

  “‘Unconventional household’ is the term we’ll use.”

  “I like it.”

  “Meanwhile, you should do some thinking—maybe even some digging. If they do come after you, we would like to be in a position to return the favor.”

  “Yeah. They don’t have such a conventional household themselves.”

  “Everyone has a few holes in the armor. Drink? Drugs?”

  “Oh, without question.”

  “Abuse, a restraining order, dishonorable discharge—anything. Maybe there’s a letter from Jill expressing concern about the children being left alone in Earl’s care?”

  “Well, they never have been. That’s a sort of letter, isn’t it?”

  “Another consideration: you have a college education and they don’t. Is that the case?”

  “It is, but do judges take children away from moms with low board scores? They can’t.”

  “Of course not, but education does tend to factor in big. I’ll tell you another biggie: to be gay is one thing, to be militantly or promiscuously gay is another. In the eyes of the court,” she hastened to amend.

  “In the eyes of everyone, Attorney Barnes. Trust me on this.”

  “As to that, the AIDS virus would obviously be relevant. As you haven’t mentioned it, can I assume you don’t have it?”

  “Have AIDS? I don’t. Have it. Thank God.”

  “Tim, if you gave that response in court, a judge would wonder why you were so hesitant.”

  “Maybe I find the question offensive.”

  “Do you?”

  “I’m not sure,” said Tim, gaining temporary footing in this accidental tack. “Let me try again. I have never tested positive for the HIV virus, much less had an episode of actual fullblown AIDS.”

  “That’s much better. And I’m sorry I had to ask.”

  “It’s fine. I’m fine with it.”

  What would a judge ask him? What was he permi
tted to ask? There were rules of privacy that protected AIDS patients and gays in general; protected everyone. According to Peter Weissberg, your landlord was not allowed to ask either question, were you gay or were you sick. And no one could make you get tested.

  Almost everyone had been tested, of course. In San Francisco, one hundred percent of them spun the chamber and played Russian Roulette. What a relief for the few who got good news! In Boston, where there were still cowards and holdouts, you went with that in mind: you might be granted a fresh lease on life. For Tim, the alternative was too depressing—and too likely.

  He already knew he could not tolerate AZT. (He took it to find out and was violently nauseous until he stopped.) Despite the rumors and the experiments, there was no other defense except health itself. Carrots and peas, vitamins, exercise and fresh air. Prayer! So how was getting tested a help?

  His friends said he was in denial and Tim said fine, he wanted to stay in denial. He had been mixed up, going back and forth on the question, until Phil Ryerson’s death. Tim was there, taking his turn, reading poems at the hospice. Phil looked at him blankly, lay back, and died. His mouth fell slack and his eyes rolled up glossy and totally white. Zombies, was all Tim could think as he sat shivering in that overheated room: we are the living dead.

  That night he said to Karl, “Thank God I don’t have this grotesque disease.” And Karl (who was HIV Positive and guessed Tim was too) stared at him for a minute and then said, very softly, “You have to get tested, Timmy. Please.”

  Well, no. They could test him on his deathbed.

  “Can I also assume,” said Barnes, “that you have never been arrested? Just to get all the unpleasantness out of the way.”

  “Never. I patronize only the cleanest rest stops.”

  “Please don’t be offended, Tim. We will need to be able to discuss this in a pragmatic way. The law is at best a horribly pragmatic mechanism.”

  At the moment, Tim could hardly decry pragmatism. He felt unclean lying to Dee Barnes, or misleading her, but it was simply impractical to tell the precise truth. And fair enough. By refusing the test, he had kept the precise truth from himself for years. Why should he owe Barnes more than he owed himself?

  Or so he reasoned, spuriously, while walking home, feeling unclean.

  Once, at a Thanksgiving dinner, speaking “off the record,” Earl Sanderson let down his hair. It was not a confession, it was braggadocio, for Earl always valued a good con job over mere accomplishments. Twice decorated with the Purple Heart in “Nam” (as he invariably called it, having spent a total of five weeks there in the fall of 1971), he revealed he had never seen battle.

  The first Heart came when his company killed some civilians in a village called Binh. Just a stupid mistake, yet it had to be rectified—whitewashed, that is—so an attack was postulated, mothers and children were transmogrified into a Vietcong stealth unit, and a few buck privates were cited for bravery. Earl was among the lucky.

  No casualties on the second Heart. Earl and two other soldiers (in fairness to Earl, one was a black man) were holed up in a Saigon whorehouse. They stayed too long, raged on far too drunk, and Earl caught a bullet in his backside from Madame Butterfly. It was worth it, however, as the WW II issue .38 calibre slug had to be accounted for. Wounded in action!

  Earl could deny the story in court and his denial might even be the truth. Tim never took such tall tales at face value. Earl Sanderson could deny anything, true or false, as he denied shooting the dogs, and Ric would confirm whatever he told her to confirm.

  But what if he had done some time? He could not deny official records. Earl left the service at age twenty-one and re-enlisted at twenty-nine. Hard to believe that the intervening years had been a time of clean living and steady upward mobility. Bad checks would be a nice fit. Petty theft, battery? It might take a private eye to find it out.

  Tim could ask. Ask Ric, directly. Her husband could lie with the very best, the Nixons and Ollie Norths of this world, but you always knew when Ric was lying. If she phoned tonight, Tim would corner her and ask point blank about Earl’s police blotter. Not only that, he would refuse to put the children on. This rash of systematic caring calls was ugly stuff, blatant manipulation.

  When she did phone, however, he failed to ask, or refuse. The script left no room for it. “I’d like to say hi to Cindy” provided no segue to “When was your husband last in stir?”

  “Sure,” he heard himself saying instead. “Hang on, I’ll get her.”

  Before it was over, Earl had jumped in, to sell Billy a house.

  “Uncle Earl says we can turn his barn into a year-round basketball court. Heat it in the winter.”

  “Earl says a lot of things.”

  “Really. He says there’s nothing in there but a lawnmower.”

  “Fine. If he does it, we’ll go over there sometime and shoot some hoops.”

  Billy looked at him askance. He knew his uncle had stamina and strength. Tim could compete in a triathlon—he could run, bike, and swim all day—but he had no taste for the ball sports. Since putting in two years (for Rex’ sake) on the bench in Little League, he had rarely stepped onto anyone’s field of dreams to throw or catch a ball.

  “I’m better than you think,” said Tim, catching his nephew’s ironic glance. “Much better than old Earl.” As though they were going one-on-one for custody rights.

  “Sure, Unk. Slam dunk,” was Billy’s sly reply. He and Tim were both grinning now, both in on the joke, “but I bet Uncle Earl can talk some serious trash.”

  By the next night, Tim had smoothed out the details, taken control. If peanut butter crackers and Juicy-Juice stood for routine, they had routine. If the establishment of a reading hour constituted ritual, they had that too. Tim even added something not on Karl’s list: rules. The first was bath and pajamas right after dinner, which gave him a real tactical advantage on the hard transitions.

  The second was that “for complicated reasons” (which mercifully they chose not to pursue) only Tim was permitted to answer the telephone. They were both asleep anyway by the time Erica called—and how dumb was that? She didn’t wish to talk to Tim (refused, in truth) yet she called at eleven o’clock. By the time Joe Average called, midnight on the dot, Tim was in bed himself.

  “I know you’re there, hotshot,” he seethed, as Tim listened in the freshly poisoned dark. Was Average following general principles of terrorism, or could he actually see into the apartment?

  Meanwhile the mornings too had become a lot smoother. Drawing on White Sneaker discipline, Tim had them mustering out so briskly by Friday that he beat Ellie to the office. By ten o’clock he had done enough work to merit a coffee break—forgotten pleasure—and sitting with his jumbo French roast and a lemon-ginger scone he was blessedly back into the rhythm of his own normalcy thing.

  By noon, when Ellie brought in his mail (including a FedEx), he was cruising, he was carefree, the world was benign. Had that FedEx contained explosives from the Unabomber (or Joe Average) they would have blown him up for sure.

  “You must be expecting something good,” said Ellie, seeing his eagerness, watching him strip open the red-white-and-blue envelope like a kid attacking a crackerjack box for the prize inside.

  “Just blind optimism,” said Tim. “It’s probably from the I.R.S.”

  No such luck. It was from the District Court, Cheshire County, State of New Hampshire.

  Though really it was from Earl.

  IV

  DISSOLUTION & PROMISCUITY

  ….inasmuch as for twenty years the Defendant has led an irregular, dissolute life of promiscuous homosexuality. Moreover, as he is infected with the AIDS virus, he presents a significant health risk to the minor children, as well as a clear risk of further emotional loss to them.…

  The Complaint, as Dee Barnes was calling it (Motion, Petition, Complaint, it was all the same to Tim, a loud wailing siren calling him before the tribunal bare-butt-naked), went on to provide an alternative to all
this dissolution. For as surely as Tim was Caligula, Earl and Ric were Ozzie and Harriet.

  “Okay,” said Barnes, “there’s nothing we can do with the basic fact that you are single and they are double.”

  “Gay. Straight.”

  “If the judge is an out and out bigot, yes, that could do it. Assuming we have a shot, it becomes almost a matter of spin.”

  “I noticed a little spin in the Complaint.”

  “Oh, plenty. These are subjective words, not clinical terms. Irregular? Dissolute? I am sure we’ll bounce a few nasty adjectives off Ozzie there, before we’re done.”

  “I can’t quite believe you’re on my side in this.”

  “I’m your lawyer, Tim. And I’m not a bigot myself, if that’s what you mean.”

  “Yes, actually. At the very least, people like me have to be ready for that. Not just gays. Blacks—”

  “That’s good, Tim, you stay ready on that front. And we’ll see if we can’t get you ready on the jurisprudential front as well.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “This can seem like a crazy game sometimes—my father is stronger than your father. But it is our task to make you look as good as we can and make them look as bad as we can.”

  “Let’s do it.”

  “‘We’ll start by taking a run at these descriptive adjectives in the Complaint. See if we can reduce them to a careless exercise in semantics. I’m hoping the facts will help us.”

  “You want the facts.”

  “One doesn’t always. But here the judge can place you under oath right at the hearing and have at you. So I do need to know where it could lead.”

  It was Friday night, and Tim had left the kids alone, to bloom by the light of the television. It gave him the willies to do this, especially with an hour of light in the sky. Barnes would understand (wouldn’t she?) if he wrapped things up here and ran to safeguard Billy and Cindy. The facts, sure, but was there not metaphysical risk in daylight glancing directly off a TV screen?