“I don’t have any money to pay you yet,” Gina says, not quite able to look me in the eye.
I am afraid she is about to suggest again that I take it out in trade and say hastily, “You don’t need to worry about that now.”
She gives me an uncertain smile and studies the shrubs in front of the building.
“I want to pay you.”
I nod, knowing this is her way of expressing gratitude, regardless of the outcome.
The bailiff, an elderly ex-cop named Sonny McDill, whom I’ve known for years, waves at me through the glass window that the judge has reached a decision.
Knowing this haste is not a good sign, I take a deep breath, realizing that I’ve come to like Gina.
“I think they’re ready for us,” I say, as gently as I can.
In plain view of Sonny she flips the cigarette into the shrubs, and I resist the urge to tell her to pick it up, realizing I think of her as a child and not a woman.
As Judge Sloan enters the courtroom, I search his face for an answer, but he seems preoccupied as if he has al ready mentally moved onto the next case.
“Be seated, please,” he says nodding to Sonny to close the door.
These moments in a courtroom before a decision is announced are an eternity and usually the climax of wishful thinking. Somehow, despite the evidence, the jury will acquit, the judge will remember what it was like when he was young, etc. Virginia, not only is there a Santa Claus, but out of all the billions of boys and girls, he remembers your name! We sit down and I turn and catch Steve Huddieston’s eye. He looks as if he has been holding his breath since the judge left the room. His almost bug-eyed expression suggests that he couldn’t be more impressed than if the United States Supreme Court had chosen to announce its most momentous decision in an obscure Arkansas courtroom. Yet, for Gina and her daughter, no decision will affect their lives more decisively.
“This is an especially difficult decision,” Judge Sloan begins, looking directly at the social worker, Laura Holmes, who filed the petition on behalf of the department “because of the seriousness of the injuries to the child, but in this particular case I am persuaded by a number of factors that Ms. Whitehall did not injure her child deliberately, and therefore I’m dismissing the petition against her.”
Tears spurt from Gina’s eyes as she gasps with joy, and I glance at the social worker, who is crying just as hard.
Joe Heavener is outraged.
“Your Honor,” he says, his voice high with indignation as he struggles to his feet.
“There was overwhelming medical evidence in this case!”
“Sit down, Mr. Heavener,” Judge Sloan says placidly.
“And I’ll tell you the reasons for my decision. Just be cause you bring in a doctor to testify doesn’t mean I’m obligated to accept his testimony. What would be the point of having judges to hear these cases? I’m the finder of fact here, and I wasn’t persuaded by the evidence that the child was held down….”
Like a schoolboy naming the causes of the Civil War, the judge begins to tick off on his fingers the evidence favorable to Gina. While he does, I think how this decision would have been virtually unthinkable only a few years ago. It has only been since 1987 that the Arkansas Supreme Court has required juvenile proceedings to be truly adversarial. I pat Gina on the back and whisper that after the judge is finished she should go thank Steve Huddieston who now seems a little stunned by his part in the outcome. In his summary Judge Sloan has noted that he found Dr. Huddleston’s testimony helpful in understanding why Glenetta simply didn’t crawl out of the tub when she began to be burned by the water.
Outside the courtroom I pump Steve’s hand and ask him if he would be interested in doing more research for me some other time. His hands in his pockets, he stares at the floor and says sheepishly, “One case like this is enough for me. I’ll worry about this kid until she leaves home.”
“All you did was give the judge information,” I assure him, “he wouldn’t have had otherwise.”
Apparently relieved to be thought in some manner as a technician, Steve’s face brightens visibly.
“I guess so.”
Outside in the parking lot, Gina, her face shining with joy, gives me a big hug.
“You were great!”
Hardly, I think, but she got her money’s worth. I’d give what little I’m getting on this case to know if she really burned her kid deliberately.
“Was it an accident?” I ask.
“You can tell me now.”
“Of course it was!” she says indignantly.
“I wouldn’t hurt my child!”
I say quickly, “I didn’t think you did.”
Driving back to the office, I muse on what a dumb question I asked her. Nearly every defendant I’ve ever represented says he or she is innocent. It’s the nature of the beast. Did Dade rape Robin? That’s an even dumber question.
12
“Dade would have made all the difference in the world against Auburn,” Clan says, staring out my window into the street below. Each Monday he comes into my office and dissects the Hogs’ performance from the previous Saturday.
“They knew we didn’t have anybody who could get open long without Dade.”
The Razorbacks kept it close (21 to 14), but it was painfully obvious how much they missed Dade. Only five completions in twenty attempts and none more than ten yards.
“It serves them right,” I say, still angry about the administration’s decision to uphold the “J” Board.
“If they lose the rest of their games, you might see some heads roll.”
Clan lets out his belt a notch, even though it is only nine in the morning.
“People have been fired for less.”
He was almost absurdly pleased that I got the dependency-neglect petition against Gina dismissed on Friday. I noticed he took off the rest of the day. Surely he isn’t still sleeping with her. If he is, he deserves what he gets.
“It pisses me that Carter didn’t even mention Dade on his TV show Sunday. It’s like the Soviet Union when they used to rewrite their history. Dade never existed. I wanted him to be a character witness at Dade’s hearing, but he wouldn’t do it.”
“The pressure on coaches must be enormous,” Clan says, taking up for him.
“He probably had done all he could do for Dade.”
“Shit! If they’re winning, they can get away with murder.”
My phone rings. Julia tells me it is Binkie Cross, calling from Fayetteville. I give Clan the thumbs-up sign, and pushing the button on the speakerphone, I tell Julia to put him through. This could be good news.
“Binkie Cross, Gideon,” Binkie says, wasting no time on pleasantries.
“I’d like Dade to take a polygraph. If he passes, I really might be able to see my way to a dismissal.”
Polygraph tests aren’t admissible in court in Arkansas unless both sides agree. Yet, law enforcement types use them frequently to weed out suspects. Clan nods. What does Dade have to lose? I ask, “Has Robin taken one?”
“Her parents are balking at it,” Binkie admits.
“They think it’s an insult. I understand their feelings, but if your client were to pass with flying colors, and she still won’t take it, it’d be a lot easier to justify a dismissal.”
Damn right it would, Clan mouths the words.
“Let me talk to him,” I say, “and get back to you. It might take a couple of days. I’ll have to talk to his parents, too.”
“No big rush,” Binkie says.
“Just give me a call, and I’ll set it up.”
“I’ll do it.” Before he gets off the phone, he tells me he has subpoenaed the tape of the “J” Board hearing and will provide me a copy of the transcript when it has been typed. I look down at the calendar on my desk. Though it promises to be a gorgeous, mild Indian summer day, we are into the second week of November. Still, the trial is almost two months away. I thank him and hang up, thinking this is about as good
an offer as Dade is going to get “If he dismisses charges, the school might reverse itself and put Dade back on the team,” Clan points out.
“It’d be worth a shot.”
I pick up the phone and call Dade but as usual get his answering machine. I leave a message for him to call me as soon as he gets in. Because he has only been suspended for the rest of the season, he is still being allowed to keep his athletic scholarship and live in the dorm. Actually, the university could have been a lot tougher on him. Before Clan leaves, I ask, “You’re not still screwing Gina, are you?”
Standing at my door, he nods like some three-mont hold puppy who has been caught standing in his water dish.
“It’s not really like you think,” he says.
“She’s fun to be around. I’m crazy about her.”
How foolish and pathetic we are!
“She’ll give you AIDS, goddamn it, ClanI” I yell at him.
“You may be exposing Brenda, too! Are you crazy?”
Embarrassed, Clan mutters something under his breath and scurries out the door. I shake my head at his back. I don’t think he and Gina are spending their time trying to figure out ways to solve the national debt. Yet, if I were married to Brenda, I’d have trouble going home, too.
At noon, as I am about to go downstairs to lunch, I get a coquettish call from Julia telling me I have a visitor.
She won’t say more, and I go out to the waiting room fully expecting to see Amy. Instead, it is my old girl friend Rainey McCorkle.
“Gideon, I wouldn’t be asking you to help this client,” Rainey says, two minutes later, leaning against my desk on her elbows, “if it weren’t so terrible where she is required to stay right now. Confederate Gardens is driving her crazy.”
Though we haven’t seen each other in months, we still talk occasionally. I notice, not without satisfaction, there is more gray in her red hair. She has lost weight, too, and even seems a little gaunt, her skin tight against her jaw. I can’t help comparing her to Amy, who usually can’t help flirting even if she is discussing the weather. Rainey is far more serious. There is something to be said for youth.
“I take it she is crazy,” I comment. Confederate Gardens is a big boardinghouse-like facility that provides care for individuals released from the state hospital.
“She’s in good shape,” Rainey says, sounding like a car salesman.
“She’s got a fixed delusion that Bill Clin ton owes her some money, but that’s all. She doesn’t act on it, and other than that, she’s as normal as you are.”
That’s not saying much. I resist drumming my fingers on my desk.
“Wonderful. She’s threatened the President of the United States. She’s lucky to be out of the state hospital. The Secret Service has a file on her the size of a telephone book.”
Rainey, persistent as a bad cold, shakes her head.
“The incident happened when he was governor. All she did was show up at the Mansion and try to speak to him.” She looks down at some notes in her lap.
“She was arrested and found not guilty by reason of insanity and was conditionally released by Judge Blake last November and ordered to live in Confederate Gardens. I just want you to go out there with me, and you’ll see why it’s so inappropriate for her.”
While she talks, it is hard to keep certain memories at bay. Though in all the time that we dated we never made love, we had some delicious make-out sessions on her couch. It seemed as if we had regressed to being teenagers but the desire I felt I remember more than actual intercourse with other women before her.
“So you want me to go to court with her,” I ask, “and try to get her conditional release amended to let her move?”
“Not just that. Amended to allow her to try to get a job, too. Her conditional release says she has to go to a day treatment program every day. They sit and stare at each other all day. It’s a total waste,” Rainey says bitterly.
I smile at this familiar refrain. I first met Rainey when I was with the public defender’s office, which had the job of representing patients in involuntary commitment proceedings She thought the Blackwell County community mental health center was a joke and never hesitated to tell me so. Instead of helping persons with mental illness to find decent places to live and jobs, they wasted millions of dollars pushing paper around.
“Does she have a job history?” I ask.
“She was a respiratory therapist at St. Thomas for five years.”
I never even saw Rainey nude. The day she found out she had a lump in her breast she spent the night in my bed, but with me on the couch. How strange our relation ship was! I thought she was perfect for me. So did Sarah.
“I suppose she had a big pension plan,” I say sarcastically.
Rainey says, “I’ll pay her fee.”
“I’ll do it for nothing,” I say grudgingly.
“You don’t have any money.” I remember the day Mays amp; Burton fired me, and she, with her modest state salary and a kid in college, offered to loan me money. Rainey would have done anything for me except make love.
For the first time Rainey smiles.
“I’ll buy you a yogurt if you get her out of Confederate Gardens.”
“Whoopee,” I say, and twirl the index finger of my right hand in the air. Rainey was never much of a drinker, and her idea of a hot date was to drive to Turbo’s for a kiddie cup of sorbet and white chocolate mousse swirled together.
“Can you go see her now with me?” Rainey asks. She never stops pushing when she wants something.
“You can follow me to the hospital and drive us over. It’s only a few minutes from there.”
I look at my watch.
“Sure,” I say. Maybe we can go to lunch afterward. I don’t have a client coming in until four.
“You don’t come out here by yourself?” I ask Rainey, when we pull up front. Confederate Gardens is not going to be featured in the real estate section of the paper featuring choice residential areas anytime soon. An adult video arcade, a liquor store, and an auto parts store make perfect neighbors for a former motel whose occupants now consist entirely of persons with all manner of disabilities, ranging from retardation to mental illness.
“You’re such a baby,” my old girlfriend says, shrugging
“Nothing will happen,” she adds, indicating a parking space in front of the sign that announces this dump as a retirement center.
Rainey seems overdressed for the occasion in a straw berry tunic and skirt set that matches her hair. When I picked her up at the hospital it seemed like old times.
Loosening up a bit, she has teased me ever since she got in the Blazer. Rainey has always been able to puncture any illusions I have about my importance and make me laugh at the same time.
“This place gives me the creeps,” I confess, “and I haven’t been here two seconds. What happened to the zoning laws?”
Rainey gives me a familiar smirk as if to say that some smart lawyer thought he knew what he was doing. I have been around persons with mental illness at the state hospital, but it has always been in such a clean, safe environment that I never felt the slightest uneasiness. As we pass one buff-colored brick unit after another, I look around for security but don’t see any. Instead, we encounter several men and women some of whom are angrily muttering to themselves. One black guy, who looks as if he might weight three hundred pounds, yells something in comprehensible at me. I smile brightly and nod as if he is welcoming me as the newest resident.
“They make sure they take their medication,” Rainey whispers, “but other wise the residents can leave during the day. Of course, they don’t have any money to spend. Confederate Gardens is allowed to get all of their disability checks except fifty dollars a month.”
After years of representing patients at involuntary civil commitment hearings at the Blackwell County public de fender’s office, I had convinced myself that I had been doing something noble. Institutionalization by the state was bad, I thought. Confederate Gardens l
ooks like more of the same thing, but definitely more seedy. Rainey stops at number 114 and knocks at the door. I feel relieved to be going inside.
After thirty seconds, the door opens a crack, and Rainey says gently across the chain, “Delores, it’s Rainey. Are you dressed?”
The door opens, and a pleasant-looking woman in her mid-thirties emerges into the warm sunlight.
“I was taking a nap,” she says, looking at me.
She is wearing baggy gray shorts, no shoes, and a rum pled T-shirt that advertises Michael Bolton’s Love and Tenderness Tour. Her shiny black hair could stand to be combed, but with a little work she could be attractive.
Rainey explains, “This is Gideon Page, the lawyer I was telling you about. Can we come in for a moment?”
Delores seems a little overwhelmed, but says, “Sure.”
As I follow Rainey into the room, I realize Delores has a roommate. A black woman I would estimate to be at least seventy lies on top of the bed, fully clothed, watching us. She works her lips but no sound emerges. Rainey says in her most cheery social worker voice, “How are you?”
“Don’t mind Betty,” Delores says, giving me a good once-over.
“I’d send her out for a little bit, but sometimes she gets lost and it’s too hot today.”
“We can go to that Wendy’s on the corner,” I say quickly, feeling claustrophobic. It is only a standard sized motel room with two twin beds. There is a wooden chair at a desk, where Delores motions me to sit.
“This is all right,” Delores says.
“It’s close to lunch. I don’t mind if she hears.”
The woman, who has long white hair, mutters under her breath and turns on her side facing away from us. I say, “Rainey says you’d like to leave here and try to get a job” Delores nods eagerly.
“I’d like to have a place by myself.”
I can’t imagine why. Before judges are allowed to order someone to stay in conditions like this, they ought to have to live here themselves. The room is picked up, even neat, but it must be fifty years old and smells of bug spray.
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