Legally Wasted

by Tommy Strelka

  Beads of sweat trailed down Larkin’s temple. As he made his way down the street, he tried not to think about the god-awful liquor that was both numbing his senses and eating away at his stomach. He passed Tudor’s Biscuit World and the usually pleasant aroma of hot buttered bacon egg and cheese biscuits forced him to close his eyes and lock his throat in a half-swallow lest some of the Bowland’s find its way back to his mouth.

  He reopened his eyes after the tip of his left shoe banged against a fire hydrant. The shock shook his constitution and he immediately shuffled to an alley where he coughed and hacked into the side of a brownstone for a precious minute. He looked at his watch. “Damn,” he croaked.

  From his pocket, he withdrew the kind of wrinkled red bandana that wannabe outlaws carried and dabbed at the corner of his mouth.

  “Are you all right, man?” asked a city employee clutching a trash bag in one hand and a spiked pole for litter collection in the other.

  “Fine,” Larkin lied as he waved his bandana. “I’m fine.”

  The man stood for a moment and regarded him. Larkin could sense the pity and it swelled him with a putrid mix of anger and sadness. He was a licensed attorney, a professional in a city without much of a professional class, while the other man clutched refuse and wore a blaze orange vest. He waved the bandana again, in an insulting “shoo” gesture. The man shrugged and continued about his business.

  More gin burned a hole in his stomach lining, but as it entered and cooled his bloodstream, he felt a second wind. The alley was shaded from the heat of the day and that pleasant moss-on-stone smell filled his nostrils.

  “There she is,” said Larkin as his second wind flushed him from the alley. “Deveraux had better match me,” he said as he straightened his tie. He strode quickly up the long gradual hill toward the city courthouse. Hit with a pang of civic pride, he scooped up an empty beer bottle on Church Street and tossed it into a nearby dumpster.

  The state courthouse was a relatively attractive tinted glass structure that poked through the ground about midway up Church Street hill like a polished brick of quartz. The exterior of the building portrayed a bit of class, especially compared with the dour federal courthouse two blocks away. Larkin hustled up the stone steps and pushed his way through the revolving door that had always needed more than a few squirts of oil. He rubbed his eyes while cool conditioned air hit his face. He stood quietly just inside the main entrance for a moment as he regained his bearings. The interior of the courthouse certainly paled in comparison to the building’s exterior.

  Whether one looked at the tan floorboards, the spiraling stairs that cut through the center of the building or even the metal detector that always seemed a bit too sensitive on humid days, everything was worn. One of the busiest courthouses in all of Virginia, the Big Lick City Courthouse saw heavy traffic Monday through Friday. The paint scheme might have once resembled the muted taupe and pastel shades typically found in public buildings, but now the colors only peeked out from behind layers of scuff marks.

  “Christ,” Larkin hissed as he scanned the long line of people waiting to walk through the metal detector. Years ago, he could have given the deputies guarding the court entrance a little knowing wave and they would have allowed him to bypass the security check. But now, all lawyers, even the prosecutors who were constantly popping in and out of the building, had to receive the electromagnetic onceover.

  The machine buzzed like a game show buzzer as a stream of individuals continually upset the overly sensitive detector. Larkin took his place behind a woman holding a toddler and gabbing on a pink lipstick-colored cell phone.

  “That’s right,” he said under his DUI breath, “bring your baby to court. The judge won’t throw you in jail if you bring your baby. He’ll feel sorry for you and think that you’re probably such a great mother. That misdemeanor won’t stick if you bring your baby. Christ,” he cursed, “and a cell phone to boot.”

  Larkin followed the woman’s lead and deposited his personal effects into one of the plastic bowls on the card table next to the metal detector. The deputy glared at the woman’s cell phone which lay in the bowl a few inches from a dangling baby foot.

  “No cell phones, ma’am,” said the deputy.

  The woman pointed to Larkin’s bowl.

  “How come he’s got his phone?” she asked.

  “He’s a lawyer, ma’am,” said the deputy. “Lawyers can have phones.”

  “That’s discrimin - -”

  Larkin didn’t give her a chance to finish. “Bullshit,” he said. “They don’t care if you’re black, white or purple. You want to bring a phone in? Pass the bar exam.”

  The woman glared at the smartass behind her in line. Her lips trembled and she took a deep breath, but she ultimately said nothing.

  A sudden stroke of shame at the whole incident, nearly forced Larkin to blurt the lie, “It’s okay, though. I’m a civil rights attorney.” But he stopped himself before getting in more trouble.

  “You’ll have to take the phone back to your car, ma’am,” informed the deputy.

  Larkin scooted around her before either she, her cell phone, or her baby could slow him down any further. When he reached the metal detector, he gave Deputy Deano a high five. Deano gave all the defense attorneys high fives, but Larkin had never asked him why.

  “A bit fired up aren’t we today, Mr. Monroe?”

  “Maybe,” said Larkin.

  “Not everyone went to law school like you, I guess,” said Deano.

  Larkin paused. “Right.”

  “What you got this afternoon, Mr. Monroe?” barked Deano from under his bristly horsehair moustache.

  “A little bit of juvenile court, Deano.”

  “Ah,” said Deano with a dip of his head. “Enjoy the circus.”

  Larkin nodded. A fly on the wall in the juvenile and domestic relations court could hear tales of cheating spouses, physically abused children, and undisciplined juvenile hellions on their ninth strike in a three-strike system. While the subject matter remained juicy, generally, an attorney could make much better money in the courtrooms on the higher floors of the building. Despite this, Larkin could not deny that he received a certain satisfaction from participating in the theatrics of the state family court. But it was not the same rush as winning a sophisticated legal battle in the circuit court. It was more like winning a street brawl at the flea market.

  “It’s where you get the best stories,” said Larkin as he cruised through the metal detector. He didn’t know if he was lying or not; just riding the Bowland’s train. He nodded once more to Deano and hustled down the hall. As he rounded the corner, his finger slid along the glass wall. Normally he tried as hard as he could not to touch a damn thing in the courthouse. That rang doubly true for juvenile court.

  “Feels like I drank a bottle of Purell anyway,” he muttered as he navigated his way through the mob of people milling about in front of the three juvenile court rooms. A young deputy standing like a rancher in the thick of the herd rapped a clipboard against his hand. Larkin waved and whistled. The deputy nodded, looked down at the docket, and held up three fingers directing Larkin to the third court room. Larkin snapped his fingers and continued his way through the crowd. He did not spy Deveraux amongst the members of the crowd, but given Larkin’s tardiness, he assumed that he was most likely already seated in the courtroom.

  “Mr. Monroe, sir,” shouted a voice to Larkin’s left. He squinted at the man erupting from his chair against the back wall. The vaguely familiar client pawed at the air and eventually barreled his way in between Larkin and the courtroom door.

  “Mr. Monroe, sir!” he stammered.

  “Yes, hello to you, Mr. . . .” Larkin held out the last syllable and nodded to encourage the man.

  “Craig Powers,” he replied. He nervously eyed the deputy standing not ten feet away. Sweat dotted his brow.

  “Ah, yes, Mr. Powers,” said Larkin. “We’ll begin in a moment.” He attempted to slide past Mr. Pow
ers, but the bigger man side-shuffled like a basketball player defending the paint.

  “Am I going to jail? Just tell me now if I am. I need to know.”

  Larkin sighed. He opened his brief case and rifled through the manila folders until he located the Powers file. “Let’s see,” he said as he deciphered his own hastily scrawled chicken scratch. “Three hundred and eighty dollars a month to . . . Ms. Tracy Fitzgerald . . . arrearages of around nine thousand bucks . . . hmmm.” He flipped through a few more pages before looking up at Mr. Powers. The taller man seemed as if he was about to burst in tears. “No,” Larkin finally said and proceeded to scoot past Mr. Powers.

  “Are you sure, Mr. Monroe?” Mr. Powers asked as Larkin grabbed the door handle.

  “Absolutely,” said Larkin. “I have certain things worked out with the department attorney in these cases.” He turned and entered the courtroom. The thick doors closed gently behind him and his ears stopped ringing with the din of the lobby. “I’m glad these things aren’t open to the public,” he announced as he made his way to the defendant’s table.

  “Why is that, counselor?” asked a woman’s voice. “Are you worried about losing face?”

  Larkin quickly looked across the courtroom. Though she was no more than five feet tall and seated, Wendy McAdams looked down at Larkin through her heavy framed black glasses.

  “Ms. McAdams,” Larkin said with a start. He scanned the courtroom for Deveraux’s wrinkled hound dog face, but it was very clear that he was not present. His throat clinched. “Where is Deveraux?”

  A smile worked its way across Wendy’s thin lips. Only a few years out of law school, Wendy McAdams had already made quite a reputation for herself as a competent no-nonsense attorney who particularly despised the pervasive “good old boys” network. Though Larkin surely resided near the bottom of the local male hierarchy, his situation worsened when he recalled that he had seen Wendy’s name pop up multiple times on his caller ID log in the past two weeks but he had never returned her phone calls. As he thought for a moment, he realized that there might have even been an unopened letter from Wendy starting to collect dust on the corner of his desk.

  “Didn’t you get my messages, Mr. Monroe?” she asked, although she already knew the answer. Wendy probably could have envisioned the cluttered surface of Larkin’s desk better than Larkin.

  Larkin’s fingers fidgeted with the latches on his briefcase. He was not in a position to stare competence in the face, much less begin to make legal arguments. And he could tell by the tone of her voice that the hearings were going to be hell. She would relish going toe to toe with a loser like himself but merely as practice to hone her skills for more impressive opponents. A cat playing with a drunk and under-qualified mouse.

  With quick glances stolen here and there, Larkin spied on Wendy while pretending to flip through mostly documents in his files. She swung her legs back and forth below her desk fairly quickly, like a child waiting for her favorite carnival ride to start. Larkin’s wounded stomach turned. “There might be something on my desk. My secretary has been out for a few days,” he said, wincing a bit.

  “A few days?” she asked as she tapped her pen lightly against her legal pad. “I don’t remember a secretary ever answering my calls. Is she sick?”

  “Very,” said Larkin. He kept staring at her legs. No one in court twelve years ago wore those shiny knee-high vixen boots, he thought to himself.

  “Sorry to hear that. It must be pretty severe. I called you two weeks ago and the call went straight to your answering service.”

  “Yes, well . . . you know, Ms. McAdams, Deveraux and I had worked out a number of things on these cases.”

  “Oh yes,” said Wendy as she lifted a thin file folder. She opened it and showed Larkin its contents, only a single yellow sheet of paper with a few unintelligible notes lay inside. “I have read Mr. Deveraux’s files. Quite the work.”

  “Where is Deveraux?” Larkin asked. Her attitude was pissing him off.

  “Fired,” said Wendy. “Three weeks ago.”

  Larkin swallowed. “Cocksucker,” he whispered as he slammed his briefcase shut. It closed loudly and caused the clerk to jump in her chair. A serene middle-aged woman seated next to the judge’s vacant leather chair, the clerk glared at Larkin from over her paperwork.

  “Sorry,” Larkin said with an artificial smile. His tongue suddenly felt thick and dry. He searched for the defendant’s water pitcher but found neither the pitcher nor the disposable cups that usually sat in the center of the table. “Hey,” he said, “where’s the water?”

  “Water’s been removed, Mr. Monroe,” said a nearby deputy.

  “Removed?” asked Larkin. “Whatever for? Don’t tell me that they’re digging that low because of the budget.” Larkin wiped his brow with his right sleeve and quickly realized that he had spoken far too loudly.

  “No, sir,” said the deputy, “but someone done used that aluminum pitcher as a weapon in Courtroom Two last week and Sheriff put in new policies.”

  “Good god,” muttered Larkin, “it is daytime television. It really is.” He cleared his throat. He looked over his files again, but that did not distract him. He was very thirsty. More sweat collected at his brow. He knew that he looked terrible.

  “So, uh, Ms. McAdams,” he started, “what do you want to do? Do you want to have a trial on every single one of these guys? That will surely take up most of the docket this morning. Your cases will get backed up.”

  Wendy stared at him and squinted. Her legs continued to rock back and forth. “Every single one of these guys here?” she repeated. “You’ve only got six guys here, Larkin.”

  “You’re damn right that I’ve got six,” grumbled Larkin. His fingers gripped the meaty portions of his thighs as he closed his eyes. He tried to think of anything else other than Wendy’s swinging legs or his want for water. He hated Wendy for her tough attitude, envied her competence, and wanted so badly to see what she looked like with nothing on but those boots.

  “Yeah,” said Wendy, “I’m fairly certain that I have far more cases than you do today, Mr. Monroe.” She smacked the heel of her hand against the intimidating pile of file folders stacked neatly to her right. “I’ll pursue each one of them as I see fit. However, right now, I will offer you thirty days in jail for each guilty plea.”

  “Bullshit,” said Larkin. “Some of these guys just got jobs,” he said. He could not remember exactly who that might have been, but he was fairly sure that someone must have landed a job. “Child support payments will surely proceed again in some of these cases with wage deduction orders. If you throw them in jail, poof!” said Larkin with a clap of his hands, “that money will be gone.”

  “Your clients should have realized where this was heading when they stopped paying their support,” said Wendy. “Of course, some never started paying.” She drummed her fingernails on the cheap wooden desk. “You realize, Mr. Monroe, that it would be unethical not to present this settlement offer to your clients, all six of them?”

  “What’s that?” asked Larkin.

  “The state bar provides that it is your ethical obligation to present my offer of settlement to each of your clients. You do not have the authority to deny them the opportunity to settle for so low. This is a serious ethical consideration for you.”

  “Settle for so low?” Larkin’s growing anger momentarily overshadowed his need for water. “You are not a prosecutor here, Ms. McAdams. These are civil matters to be heard by the judge. Do you even have the authority to offer such a deal?”

  Wendy did not skip a beat. “Whether I possess that authority or not, if I were you, I would not want to waive any duty that may be perceived as required conduct for an otherwise ethical attorney. You of all people should be aware of what may be construed as unethical.”

  “Why, you . . . you . . .” Larkin stammered. The vein that traversed the center of his forehead bulged as he glared at Wendy with balled fists. He wanted to shout, to bellow a litany of ob
scenities. But despite his rage, he knew that if he did go on the offensive, he would be playing right into Wendy’s trap. He would appear as an unhinged maniac, someone who probably should not be carrying a law license, and that was just what Wendy had implied. He cursed quietly under his breath. A drop of sweat fell off of his nose and landed in his briefcase. “All six defendants,” he muttered.

  Wendy laughed. “I just don’t know what the deal is,” she stated to the clerk. She reopened Deveraux’s file and held up one of his notes. In bold strokes of permanent ink at the top of the page, Deveraux had written a giant number six, circled it, underlined the digit, and placed two exclamation points next to it. Wendy rotated the paper as if showing it to a group of third graders kneeling on the carpet. “Six,” she said. “I just don’t get it.” The clerk shook her head and shrugged her shoulder.

  Larkin pointed at the clock hung above the main entrance. “We’re going to begin any second. It can’t possibly be my ethical duty to advise clients not to take a terrible offer that’s extended after the time the hearing was already supposed to begin.”

  “Judge Loundsbury had a lunch appointment and I don’t think he’s returned yet,” said the clerk.

  Larkin’s head hung low. He already knew what lay ahead. He was being tag-teamed. The courtroom felt hot and nearly as humid as the outside air despite the conditioning.

  “I have an idea,” said Wendy as if the thought had suddenly struck her rather than actually occurring to her yesterday after her fifth unanswered phone call to Larkin’s office. “Why don’t we just start with a few of the unrepresented defendants first while Mr. Monroe circulates my offer in the lobby?”

  “That sounds fair to me,” said the clerk, who had apparently appointed herself interim judge.

  The room suddenly shifted as if part of the underlying foundation had crumbled. Larkin squinted and grabbed the back of the chair next to him. He quickly realized that he had begun swaying from side to side and the room was as still as it had always been. “But, we . . .” Larkin began. His words came purposefully and with difficulty, “the court does not hear unrepresented cases until after all of the attorney’s have been heard.”