Try Darkness

by James Scott Bell

  He smirked.

  119

  SMIRKING IS SOMETHING trial lawyers like to do. We are all egos on wheels. You can’t try cases without a healthy concept of your own self-worth.

  That’s why trial lawyers can be hard to live with. We have to win all the time, even if it’s just what restaurant to go to, what DVD to watch. We start to see all the exchanges of life as little sessions of the one big game, which is winning.

  Yeah, we can sometimes have a drink after a day in court. But even then we’re watching. Can I outdrink him? Does she have what it takes to play with the big boys and girls?

  It’s better not to open your mouth too much at opposing counsel. But Mitch Roberts annoyed me. Prosecutors, of all the practitioners among us, are supposed to be the ones who can set ego aside for the cause of justice.

  Mitch Roberts was not the type to do that. And I’m not the type to keep my pie hole shut.

  Which can get me into trouble.

  Especially when you’re invited to see a hot Hollywood actor in his native habitat. I was outside heading to my car when I got the call.

  “This is Mr. Baxter.” The voice on the phone sounded eerily familiar.

  “Who?” I said.

  “Cruciferous greens.”

  “Oh. Hey. Really good to hear from you.”

  “What?”

  “I was just about to fry up some bok choy. Wanna come over?”

  Pause. “Mr. McLarty would like to clear up any misunderstanding.”

  “I shouldn’t deep-fry bok choy?”

  “You interested or not?”

  120

  MILLIONS OF VIEWERS tune in each week to watch the high jinks of Barry and Kyle, two divorced guys living in a two-room apartment with Barry’s seven-year-old daughter. How the courts, or a good God, would have allowed this girl to be there was a question dealt with in the first show. I guess.

  The taping I’d been invited to was at the Warner Bros. Studios in Burbank. They shot Casablanca here. Now it was home to Men in Pants.

  Here’s lookin’ at crud, kid.

  They had a VIP pass waiting for me as I drove on the lot. McLarty’s peeps set it up, and I was given prime treatment. Hollywood. Glamour. Bring your autograph book.

  The shoot was on a Tuesday evening in one of the big sound stage buildings. A line of audience members was waiting outside as I was escorted past them by a guy in a navy blue coat.

  Inside I was intro’d to a tall woman with headphones and a clipboard. She was expecting me. Her name was Starr. Last name Brite.

  I am not kidding.

  “We’re so happy to have you,” Starr said, smiling. She had prominent cheekbones and smooth skin. Auburn hair and brown eyes. About twenty-five.

  “Are you a fan of the show?” she asked.

  “I’ve seen it.”

  “Just a couple of times?”

  “Once. That I can remember.”

  “Oh, well, we’ll have to remedy that, won’t we? Something to drink?”

  Starr Brite showed me the set and gave me a front row seat. She brought me a Coke and a Men in Pants T-shirt, along with a press kit. The crew were getting ready for the shoot, setting lights, positioning cable, checking cameras.

  Big headshots of the actors beamed from the back wall. The other star, Wayne Chesterfield, was a Broadway actor whose big break came after he posted a fake commercial for Preparation H on YouTube. It became a comedy sensation, and he was cast in the show a few weeks later.

  The little girl in the cast was named Madison Martell. She was blond and cute and had been a hit in a cereal commercial.

  A little before seven the doors opened and the teeming masses stormed in. Took seats in anticipation. A rotund family of four was sitting on my right. Two kids, a boy and a girl, between larger versions of themselves. On my left were three teens chattering and laughing about one of their friends who wasn’t there.

  Starr Brite came out and gave the audience some instructions and warnings—cell phones and all that. She said she hoped they’d all enjoy the taping. The large mother on my right told one of her kids she was going to march him right out if he didn’t shut up.

  Then the warm-up guy came out. He was about thirty and he did a few jokes about Hollywood and then the president and a few people laughed. Not enough to get him out of being a warm-up guy.

  Then it was time for the taping.

  In this particular episode, McLarty was trying to get a pizza delivery girl into bed. He kept ordering pizzas. Chesterfield and he fought about it. Madison Martell kept eating pizza and got sick.

  Then hurled into McLarty’s underwear drawer.

  What great writing these shows have.

  McLarty, for what he was doing, was fine. Professional.

  The taping came to an end and the cast members were introduced. They came out and bowed.

  Then it was over.

  The teeming masses headed out.

  Starr Brite asked me to join McLarty in his dressing room.

  121

  “I’M REALLY SORRY about the other night,” McLarty said, lighting a cigarette. “You know, you show up, I’m trying to have a good time, you know how it goes.”

  “Do I?” I said. “Why don’t you tell me how it goes?”

  His dressing room was nicer than most homes in East L.A. There was a fully stocked bar and a mirror table, a treadmill, and two plasma TVs. The place smelled like cold cream and smoke.

  We were alone, which surprised me. I expected his bodyguard to be there.

  “Dude, you have any idea what it’s like to be me? Come on, I’d like you to be me for a while. I mean, you’ve got paparazzi and hotties one after another who come around, saying he did this, he did that. You know how many times I been accused of rape?”

  “Seven,” I said.

  He blinked. He had his shirt unbuttoned and a white towel around his neck. “No. Two. Where’d you come up with seven?”

  “It’s a lucky number.”

  “It’s not funny! I got all sorts of things happening. You wonder why I had to go into rehab? You wonder about that?”

  “I don’t.”

  “Don’t what?”

  “Wonder.”

  He wiped his face once with the towel. “Let’s cut this short, huh? What exactly do you want from me, Mr., what is it, Buchanan? Solid name.”

  “I had an Irish cop father.”

  “Sweet.”

  Sweet?

  “I would love to play an Irish cop someday. Do I look Irish to you?”

  “You’re not Pat O’Brien,” I said.

  “The TV guy?”

  “No, the actor. Don’t you ever watch old movies?”

  “Oh, that guy. What was he in again?”

  “Knute Rockne, All American,” I said.

  “Canoot who?”

  “Never mind.”

  “Drink?” He got up and headed for the bar.

  “No thanks.”

  As he poured some Svedka in a glass I said, “What I want to know, Mr. McLarty, is whether you fathered a child with Tawni.”

  “You want to hold me up for some money, that it?” He took some ice cubes from a little freezer and plopped them in his glass.

  “So you’re telling me you did father a child?”

  “No, man.” He flipped a switch on a console and the place filled with music. Rock. Nirvana.

  He smiled and rocked his head a few times. “The classics, huh?” he said.

  “Right,” I said. “Along with Cole Porter.”

  “Cole who?”

  “Not important.”

  He took a seat in a director’s chair, facing me. I sat on the only other chair in the room.

  “Look, my friend,” he said. “I know you have work to do, you’re a lawyer, and that’s all good. It’s all good. But I’m asking you and telling you at the same time. I’m asking you to drop this whole deal, because I’m telling you I don’t have any kids.”

  “You do have a past. With women, I me
an. It hasn’t been exactly a secret.”

  “Hey, you know how it works. This town. The pressures. The fame. The money. You know what it’s like.”

  “I never went to an escort service.”

  “It’s sort of like an A rating at a restaurant, right? I have a favorite sushi place. I know when I go there I’m going to get the best. So it’s the same with women. I don’t see anything wrong with that as long as you can pay for it. As long as you’re not spending the milk money. Am I right?”

  “Does anybody have milk money anymore?” I asked.

  “But the girls all get checked, I get checked, and there’s always protection, you know. To keep those little items from happening.”

  “Items.”

  “You know what I mean.” He took a sip of vodka.

  “You’re a romantic guy. So you’re saying you never had a little item come along?”

  “And if I did,” he said, leaning forward. “I’d take care of the problem, you know?”

  For some reason, I wanted to grab his drink and throw it in his face. I wanted to splash it all over his self-satisfied expression, his secure-in-his-own-juices look.

  Instead I said, “What was your relationship with Tawni?”

  “She was one of many.”

  “You spent a lot of time with her. You were seen out with her on a couple of occasions.”

  “Yeah, there were a couple of stories in the tabs. You do that sometimes. Generate a little publicity. Back then I needed some.”

  “You needed that kind of publicity?”

  “Thought I did,” he said. “It’s a whole different environment now. I got one I want to hang on to.”

  “An item?”

  He frowned. “No, a woman.”

  “Was she with you the other night? At the club?”

  Now he smiled. Bobbed his eyebrows. He need that vodka facial. “Not that particular night. That was more of a pub deal, too.”

  “I can’t keep track of the pub you like or don’t like.”

  “You don’t have to. Only I have to.”

  “Are you telling me your relationship with Tawni was nothing more than commercial?”

  “That’s what I’m telling you.” He tossed back the last of his drink. “You sure you don’t want anything?”

  “There’s a simple way to figure out what we’ve got to figure out,” I said.

  “Figure out what?”

  “If there’s a little item in your life you don’t know about.”

  He stared at me.

  I said, “Let me run a DNA test. I have a private lab. We can rule you out as the father, and that would be that.”

  He stood up, his hands clenching the ends of the wooden chair arms. “You’re not taking anything from me. I try to be nice. I invite you down here.”

  “Sometimes, you schmooze, you lose.”

  “Go now.”

  “You won’t give me some spit?”

  “In your face, maybe.”

  “That’ll do, too.”

  He went to the door and called out. The big guy from the club appeared at the door, like a storm cloud over Tulsa.

  “Time to go,” McLarty said.

  “Can’t I get an autographed picture or something?” I said. “For the item?”

  “Get out!”

  122

  BACK AT THE ranch, as they say, I heard some rapid-fire tink tink tinks coming from Father Bob’s trailer. I knew what it was and let myself in.

  “Join me, Ginger?” he said, referencing one of the all-timers, Ginger Baker of Cream.

  Father Bob was drumming coffee cups and jars on his kitchen table.

  We share a passion for great drummers. I did some rock drumming in high school. Father Bob was into the jazz side. But he had some sticks and I think that’s what he does for therapy. Me, too. A little “Moby Dick” (as if anybody can do “Moby Dick” but the great Bonham) and I’m good for a couple of days.

  I sat down at the Formica table and the father handed me a couple of stems and we tapped some table, jar, and cup. Got going pretty good there, smiling. Egging each other on the way Buddy Rich and Animal did on The Muppet Show once. You can YouTube it.

  When we took a break I said, “Man, you still got it.”

  He laughed. “Never had it, but thanks.” He looked down, a little sadness washing across him.

  “So what is it?” I said.

  “What’s what?”

  “Experience tells me you play when you’ve got something on your mind.”

  “We all have something on our minds,” Father Bob said. “Only some people just aren’t in touch with it. That’s my theory about drums, by the way. It was how people got in touch. With each other, with themselves. It was the earliest form of community. It was therapy before Freud. Religion before gods.”

  “And what are they now?”

  “Missing. More drumming would mean more communication.”

  “Maybe we should tell that to the talk shows.”

  “You got an idea there. All they do is yell over each other now. Why not drum solos to determine who’s right? We could get Arianna Huffington and Ann Coulter together and they could drum it out.”

  “How do you know about Arianna Huffington and Ann Coulter?”

  “What good can I do for others if I don’t know about where they live and who they listen to?” He paused and said wistfully, “What good can I do anyway?”

  “That’s it,” I said. “What is going on?”

  He didn’t answer.

  “Listen, Padre, you get people confessing to you all day. Who do you get to talk to? Me, that’s who. What is it?”

  He paused, then reached for a trifolded paper under the salt and pepper shakers. Handed it to me.

  I unfolded it. It was a letter on the official stationery of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles.

  To: Father Robert Jackson

  Greetings in the name of our Father and His son Jesus Christ.

  After further review of your case, it is the considered judgment of the council that the facts do not warrant a re-opening of this matter. We are sure that you will agree the greater good to the Church should be our ultimate concern.

  With one voice we commend your piety and obedience. It is a model for which we are truly thankful.

  May the Lord be gracious unto you.

  Sincerely,

  Monsignor Michael O’Malley, J. C. B.

  “What’s a JCB?” I asked.

  “Juris Canonici Baccalaureatus,” Father Bob said. “A law degree. Canon law. The law of the church.”

  “Which is a fancy way of saying they’re gonna let you hang.”

  He shrugged. “What’s done is done.”

  “What’s done is they’ve shelled out over half a billion dollars in damages to settle all the abuse claims, and they don’t want any more publicity. They don’t want any reporters crying that they’ve restored a priest they got rid of, even if he happens to be innocent.”

  “The church has suffered enough.”

  “Maybe not,” I said.

  He frowned at me. “Don’t go there.”

  “What about justice? Doesn’t the church believe in that?”

  “You’re an outsider. You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “I have eyes.”

  “So does a blind man. Doesn’t mean he can see.”

  I folded my arms. I was holding in an anger I didn’t want to unloose. Or maybe I did. “What kind of a church is it that treats one of its own that way?”

  “Look, Tyler. You don’t go into somebody’s house and start tearing down their mother. She may be a crank. She may be a loon. But she’s loved, and it’s none of your business.”

  His face twitched then and a little cluck came out of his throat. Like he was choking on some words. Or on emotion.

  “I want to be alone now,” he said.

  “Come on—”

  “Please.”

  “I didn’t mean—”

  “Pleas
e!”

  A flash in his eyes like distant lightning. I could see the street kid he used to be, forty or so years ago. Confused kid, too.

  I could tell it was gnawing at him but, like he said, the church wasn’t my mother. So I left. I could hear him drumming fast when I got outside.

  123

  THE NEXT DAY I drove all over L.A.

  One of the things I like about this place is, you can drive a mile and be in a different world. Even though driving a mile can sometimes take half an hour, you deal with it. If you care to look, you see things. L.A. is about being alive to the possible.

  If you were free to drive, of course, as Gilbert Calderón wasn’t. My first stop was at the Twin Towers to see him.

  “Where you been, man?” he asked.

  “Oh, here and there.”

  “Yeah? You got busy with stuff?”

  “Yeah. Stuff. How you doing?”

  “Great. I’m doing real good. I been having visions.”

  “Yeah? Of what?”

  “You, man. Winning my case. We’re gonna win this thing.”

  “Gilbert, I appreciate your faith in me but—”

  “Faith! Yeah!”

  “But let me tell you, this is not an easy win, for either side. I want to give you a chance to hire another lawyer.”

  “Huh?”

  “I want to make sure you have somebody who knows what he’s doing.”

  “I don’t have money for that.”

  “There are good public defenders. They—”

  “No! You’re the best I’m gonna do.” He paused, smiled. “Sorry, dude, that came out funny.”

  “Gilbert—”

  “If you don’t rep me, I’m gonna rep myself. I mean it.”

  Now I smiled. “In that case, Gilbert, you’re better off with me.”

  “That’s what I been trying to tell you!”

  “Got it. Then I figure we make Roberts go to trial right away.”

  “Can we do that?”

  “Sixth Amendment. Speedy trial. We don’t have to wait. The less time Roberts has to prepare, the better.”

  “I like that. See, you’re already paying off. “

  “That’s only to get to trial, Gilbert. It’s not a win until the jury says it’s a win.”

  “How they not gonna like you, huh?”