Lifeline

by Gerry Boyle

  “Do you have anything to say, sir?”

  “No, Your Honor,” the defendant would say sheepishly.

  “Is there a recommended sentence?”

  “Yes, Your Honor,” Miss Tate would say. “This is a second offense, Your Honor. We would ask the court to impose the minimum three-day jail sentence but a thousand-dollar fine.”

  “Is that your understanding, sir?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “How much of that fine can you pay today?”

  “Fifty.”

  “And the balance?”

  “I don’t know, Your Honor,” the defense attorney would put in. “He’s working, but he has a previous fine to pay and a sizable child-support obligation, and I—”

  “Your Honor,” Miss Tate would interrupt. “The defendant does have a steady income. I would suggest one hundred dollars a month for the next ten months. If he gives up beer and cigarettes, that will pay half the fine right there.”

  “A thousand-dollar fine, then,” the judge would say. “Fifty today and a hundred a month for ten months. The additional fifty to be applied to court costs. You may see the clerk at the window. Bailiff.”

  “Now?” the defendant would ask, but the bailiff would already be propelling him toward the door.

  “Next,” the judge would say.

  It was swift justice, relentless as an assembly line. It didn’t break down until a little after two o’clock, when a lawyer, a young woman, said she hadn’t had time to confer with her client. The judge glared. Miss Tate threw her hands up in disgust. The judge called a five-minute recess and we all filed out, like good little school kids.

  In this case the playground was the parking lot outside the front door. There was an old metal trash can chained to a pole, but the pavement was covered with layers of cigarette butts, like a midden built by chain-smokers. I followed everyone else out, and they all lit up.

  Smoking doesn’t cause cancer, I thought. It causes misdemeanors.

  I stood there with nothing to do, like a recovered alcoholic at a cocktail party. My notebook in my back pocket, I stood with my back to the door and, like everybody else, gazed silently across the parking lot at the river, quiet and relentless.

  “Those seats are tough on the back,” I said, sidling up to the guy next to me.

  He was twenty-five, maybe, tall and thin, with bad skin and a worse mustache. His hair was long and his T-shirt, which commemorated a rock band’s world tour, had yellow stains under the arms. Perhaps it had been warm and he had carried the amps.

  I looked at him. He glanced back and moved away. Next time I’d bring some of those chocolate cigarettes.

  The class was becoming restive as the end of recess approached. I wondered if they rang a bell. If not, perhaps we should have synchronized our watches.

  I stood and looked at the river and the empty brick mill that rose from the water at the opposite shore like some giant monument to the forces of decay, the cruel vagaries of economic change, the intrinsic boom-and-bust nature of a free-market economy. I thought of mentioning this to the next guy who came within striking distance but thought better of it.

  “Time to go back in?” I said.

  “Yup,” he said.

  He was older than the first guy and his shirt was cleaner. It was plain green, with MAINTENANCE written in small white script over a pocket in which a pack of cigarettes bulged. Pausing in front of the door, he took a last drag and flicked his cigarette thirty feet, hitting the side of a parked car. I followed him inside and we stood and waited for the bailiff to open the courtroom door.

  “Who’s this Tate lady?” I said.

  He looked at me. “The DA,” he said.

  “People sure roll over for her.”

  “If you don’t you’d best be ready to get screwed but good,” he said, looking straight ahead. “You cross her, that bitch’ll have your ass in a sling.”

  “That why everybody pleads?”

  “You don’t, you’ll be friggin’ sorry.”

  “What if you’re not guilty?” I said.

  The guy looked at me.

  “Got nothin’ to do with it,” he said, and the door banged open and we all filed in. When the maintenance man sat down, I sat beside him.

  The rest of the afternoon was more of the same. They filed up to Miss Tate like cattle. She loaded the gun and the judge pulled the trigger, bleeding them dry. When they said “Guilty,” the maintenance man turned to me and raised his eyebrows.

  “They’re smart,” he said.

  “But where do they get the money for these fines?” I whispered.

  He shrugged.

  “Beg, borrow, or steal,” he said. “I know a guy broke into a house and stole a TV, VCR, whole bunch of shit. Another guy I know stole it from his mother-in-law.”

  “Stealing to stay out of jail?”

  “Can’t think of a better reason,” he said, and five minutes later walked up and heard his charge: driving without car insurance.

  “Guilty,” he said.

  “We would ask the court to impose a two-hundred-dollar fine,” Miss Tate said.

  The court did. The guy left. He nodded at me on the way by.

  By this time, it was three thirty-five. There were four people left in the courtroom, including me, and I had a notebook full of nothing. When I’d covered municipal courts in the past, the idea had been to pick the most interesting case, the most dramatic testimony. Watch as the cases rolled by and pluck the standout off the conveyor belt.

  I flipped through the pages. Nothing jumped out. Nothing even flinched.

  The kid Mulcahey had gotten two days and four hundred dollars for driving after suspension. The big girl with the cigarettes had been fined a hundred dollars for shoplifting sweatpants. The old man, Reny, had his driver’s license yanked for ninety days for driving without insurance, taillights, and a rear bumper. So what was I supposed to write for the Observer? Give them the court results? Joe Schmo, fined two hundred bucks for driving without insurance. Jane Doe, whacked for four hundred for driving without a license. This newspaper recommended by four out of five physicians.

  For insomnia.

  And the last three cases were assembly line. Driving after suspension. Giving alcohol to minors. Miss Tate didn’t even recount the specifics of the case. How old were the kids? How drunk did they get? No matter. The plea was guilty. The fine was three hundred and fifty dollars.

  What had I gotten myself into? Roxanne, start packing.

  The last guy called up was bagged for passing a school bus that had its flashing lights on. As he laid himself down at Miss Tate’s feet, I heard one of the bailiffs, an older guy, talking to the other one, who was younger.

  “All done with the pleas?”

  “That’s it,” the younger guy said. “Except for one protection order.”

  “Oh, jeez,” the older guy said. “It’d be nice to get out of here early one of these days. I get out right at four, I can still get in a quick nine holes.”

  “I’d like to get in a quickie, myself,” the younger guy leered, and then the door swung open.

  It was two women, one young and thin and blonde, one older and heavier, with reddish hair tied back. The red-haired one was well-dressed, wearing a white tailored blouse. Her face was grim but resolute. The blonde woman looked weary and haggard. As they stood there, a clerk came in and turned on the tape recorder next to the judge’s bench.

  The two women hesitated, then sat down in the next row directly in front of me, holding pocketbooks on their laps. The blonde woman’s hair was short and she was wearing big gold hoop earrings. She took the left one out, pulled at her ear, and then put it back in, probing for the hole. Her nails were done in dark pink. Her blouse was turquoise and loose, and I could see that her bra strap was turquoise, too, but a shade lighter. She had just reached up to adjust it when the judge called her name.

  “Miss Donna Marchant,” the judge said.

  The red-haired woman gave the blo
nde woman a sisterly touch on the shoulder. The blonde woman got up from the seat, put her pocketbook down, seemed to take a deep breath, and walked to the front of the room. Glancing at me, the red-haired woman pulled the pocketbook closer.

  “Miss Marchant,” the judge said, looking down at the form. “You’re asking this court for protection from abuse from one Jeffrey Tanner. Is Mr. Tanner your husband?”

  “No, he’s my boyfriend. Was my boyfriend.”

  “But you had been living together.”

  “Yes,” the blonde woman said, her voice small and high and quavering.

  “With your daughter.”

  “Yes.”

  “But Mr. Tanner is not your daughter’s father,” the judge said, letting the words hang in summary judgment.

  “No,” the blonde woman said. “He’s not.”

  “So tell the court, Miss Marchant. Or is it Mrs. Marchant?”

  “It’s Miss.”

  “All right, Miss.”

  She paused.

  “Tell the Court why it is you feel you need protection from Mr. Tanner.”

  The blonde woman tilted her head back and an arm went up and wiped her eyes.

  “Because of this,” she said, and with the red-haired woman, the bailiffs, Miss Tate, the judge, and me all looking on, she reached to her waist and yanked up her blouse.

  4

  “Oh, Jesus,” Miss Tate said.

  “Miss Marchant!” the judge gasped.

  “Tell ’em, Donna,” the red-haired woman called out from her seat. “Tell ’em what that bastard did to you.”

  The judge banged her gavel. I scribbled frantically in my notebook. When I looked up, Donna had lowered her blouse. She was starting to cry, and her shoulders were thin like a child’s.

  “Miss Marchant, this is a court of law of the State of Maine,” the judge said. “I could find you in contempt.”

  “What about him?” the red-haired woman called out. “What are you going to do about him?”

  The older bailiff trotted down the aisle, a big finger pointing.

  “You’ll be out of here, you say one more word,” he said, his eyes narrow with anger.

  “That’s my sister,” the red-haired woman said.

  The gavel banged. Donna stood there. Miss Tate looked at her disdainfully. The red-haired woman slouched back in her seat. I flipped the page in my notebook.

  “Miss Marchant,” the judge said. “If you feel compelled to display yourself again, will you please tell the court so that it may rule as to whether it is necessary for your case? Now, as long as you’ve treated the court to this spectacle, perhaps you could tell us what you purport those marks on your chest and torso to be.”

  “Bruises,” Donna said timidly. “And one’s a bite.”

  The bailiffs stood with their arms folded across their chests. Miss Tate turned away, rolling her eyes as if the whole episode were in terribly bad taste.

  “A bite?” the judge said slowly.

  “Yeah. He bit me. He beat on me and he bit me.”

  “Mr. Tanner?”

  “Yes.”

  “When did this happen?”

  “Three days ago. What’s today, Tuesday?”

  “Yes,” the judge said.

  “It was Saturday night.”

  “And I presume that this was done in anger and not with some other, how should we say, amorous motivation.”

  “Well, yeah, it was anger,” Donna said, not getting it. “He came over and he said I wasn’t leaving him and I told him to leave and he wouldn’t and I said I was gonna call the cops and he tried to pull the phone out of my hand and I wouldn’t let go, so he hit me. It was when we fell down that he bit me.”

  The judge gave Donna a long look.

  “And did you file a complaint with the police?”

  “I called them,” Donna said.

  “Did they arrest Mr. Tanner?”

  “He was gone.”

  “He left the scene?”

  “Yeah,” Donna said. “He got in his truck and took off. And he ran over my daughter’s bike, also.”

  “So what did the police say?”

  “They said they’d arrest him for domestic assault.”

  “Have they?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t think so. I don’t think they can find him.”

  The judge turned to Miss Tate.

  “Is there an officer here to testify about this?”

  “No, Your Honor,” Miss Tate said wearily. “You know how they come in on these things. No warning whatsoever. I did not have prior notification so that an officer could be present.”

  She began gathering up folders and papers from her table.

  “I didn’t know I needed an appointment, Your Honor,” Donna said. “I just don’t think he has any right to treat me like this, and I don’t want him coming ’round anymore. It isn’t healthy for my daughter, either.”

  The judge looked at Miss Tate, who had her books and files gathered up, holding them in her arms as if the bell were about to ring. Donna stood there and waited, like a schoolgirl called before the principal. Donna’s sister glowered in her seat.

  “I’m going to issue this order, Miss Marchant,” the judge said suddenly. “It will say that Mr. Tanner cannot come on your premises. If he does, he will be arrested. He cannot call you on the telephone, or visit you at your job, assuming you have one. This order will remain in effect for thirty days, at which point a hearing will be held at which Mr. Tanner will have an opportunity to give his side of the story. If the court finds cause, the order will remain in effect.”

  She paused.

  “Thank you, Your Honor,” Donna said.

  “Two more things,” the judge said, starting to gather up her papers. “One, I will not tolerate any more of these displays in my courtroom. Two, I would suggest that in the future, you pick your paramours more carefully. This court is adjourned.”

  She went through the double doors. Miss Tate exited stage left. Donna, her eyes swollen, turned back to her sister. I finished scribbling. For the first time, Donna and her sister noticed me.

  “Are you from the police or something?” the red-haired woman asked me.

  “No,” I said. “I’m a reporter.”

  “Oh, my God,” Donna said, and bolted for the door. The red-haired woman followed her, and I brought up the rear. We went through the lobby, which was empty, and out into the parking lot. Twenty feet from the door, where the cigarette butts started to thin out, Donna stopped and put her hands up to her face. The sister put an arm around her.

  I stopped five feet behind them and paused, then circled in front of them and stopped again.

  “I didn’t mean to upset you,” I said. “But this is what I do. I’m supposed to cover the courts.”

  “You’re going to put my name in the paper?” Donna said weakly.

  “You do and we’ll sue,” her sister snarled. “We’ll own that paper.”

  Lucky you, I thought. Don’t spend all the assets in one place.

  “I didn’t say I was going to put your name in the paper. I just want to talk to you.”

  “About what?” the sister demanded, her arm still around Donna’s shoulder.

  “About what you were talking about in court. Is this the first time you’ve had to go to court for something like this?”

  It was the crucial moment. If they told me to take a hike, I was stuck with half a story. If they answered this question, more than likely they’d answer the next one, and the one after that.

  They hesitated. I waited.

  “No,” Donna said, dabbing at her eyes with her finger. “I’ve been here before.”

  “About this guy?”

  “Yeah,” she said. “And once for my husband.”

  “Did they do anything about it?”

  “I got a protection order.”

  “Was this a violation? This assault?”

  “No. I let it expire. I guess he knew that.”

  “Did your
husband beat you too?”

  “Not as much. He mostly screamed at me. Called me names. He was always cutting me down. It was worse than getting hit, really.”

  As she spoke, I reached for the notebook in my back pocket. I pulled it out slowly, like a doctor reaching for a syringe. No abrupt moves that might scare the patient.

  “My name’s Jack McMorrow,” I said.

  “What are you going to do with this?” the sister said, her eyes carefully made-up and narrowed with suspicion.

  “I’d like to write about what happened in court.”

  “What if we don’t want you to?”

  “Anything that happens in that courtroom is public.”

  “Her name?” the sister said.

  “Yeah. But that doesn’t mean I’d use it.”

  I looked at Donna. Her eyes were deep and dark and sunk in shadowed hollows. She’d endured a lot of pain.

  “I don’t want to victimize you any more,” I said. “I just think that what happened in there is important. I’m sorry you had to stand up there and talk about that sort of thing in front of all those people.”

  She smiled, but just barely, just for a second.

  “That? That’s nothing,” Donna said, looking at the dirty pavement. “The first time I went, the place was full. All these guys looking at you and laughing. Even the judge got pissed at them and told them to all shut up or she’d toss them out. They were quiet after that, but they were still there, you know? That’s how I learned not to go first thing in the morning. You go late in the day, just before they close up, and there’s usually nobody there.”

  “Was it me, or did it seem like the prosecutor there and the judge weren’t very sympathetic?”

  “Miss Tate?” Donna said. “I tried calling her once about this and she wouldn’t even return my phone calls. I came in and they said she was in a conference. I mean, what kind of joke is that? She too high and mighty to talk to me?”

  I jotted in my notebook.

  “You don’t have to talk to him,” her sister said, still vigilant.

  “You gonna put my name in the paper?” Donna asked.