KILLER MARKET
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I hate child custody cases.
I hate having to choose between two people who clearly love the child they’ve created together but who now detest each other so thoroughly that there’s no way they can share joint custody of that child.
I particularly hate it when I have to make such judgments in an unfamiliar courthouse after less than four hours’ sleep on a stranger’s lumpy guest room mattress.
I’m not Solomon, full of God-inspired wisdom. I’m just a thirty-six-year-old district court judge, paid by the State of North Carolina to make Solomonic decisions when its citizens can’t—or won’t—decide for themselves.
Some days I earn my pay; others—like today—I’m not so sure.
Randy J. Verlin versus April Ann Jenner. Unmarried. Both were twenty-three and high school graduates. Both had past records of minor substance abuse and driving violations. He had shoplifted a six-pack of beer when he was seventeen; she bounced two checks around the time of the baby’s birth, and they once drove off from a convenience store without paying for a tank of gas. Both were currently employed for the longest sustained periods of their young lives. Both wanted sole custody of twenty-month-old Travis Tritt Verlin.
“Both of you still like country music?” I had asked upon reading the baby’s given name.
Each had nodded warily.
“Well, now, that’s a starting place,” I said, which got me a skeptical smile from April Ann. “What were you going to name her if he’d been a girl?”
“Kathy Mattea Verlin,” they answered together.
That would have been a first for me. I’ve passed judgments affecting two Patsy Clines, several Loretta Lynns and even a Dolly Parton, but never a Kathy Mattea.
Custody hearings can be as formal or informal as the judge wishes, especially when neither side is represented by an attorney, as was the case today. My style is to let all the parties speak freely. I usually learn a lot more that way.
Randy Verlin told me he worked as a rough carpenter at Mulholland Design Studio here in High Point, just a few blocks from where I was holding court for a week, substituting for a colleague who had flown out to Detroit to welcome the arrival of her first granddaughter.
“What is it you actually do?” I asked.
“It’s like building part of a new house inside a warehouse every week,” he said, “like if they’re shooting a bedroom, we have to put up two walls, do the sheetrocking, maybe set new windows, hang some doors, then tear it all down again after the photographer finishes and turn it into a den or a dining room. I’m learning how to sheetrock and do a little wallpapering, too.”
“Does the studio have a family leave plan?” I asked, trying to ignore the headache that was building in my left temple from too much caffeine and not enough sleep.
“You mean like if Travis gets sick, could I get off?”
I nodded.
“He’s on my medical plan and they’re pretty good about letting you off if you really need to do something. Like today. ’Course they do, like, dock your pay.”
He showed me pay stubs to prove that he’d been employed there for over a year and he had a letter from his supervisor that said he’d been steady and dependable and had already received two merit raises.
April Ann Jenner had been a data entry clerk for a large insurance company over in Greensboro for the past eight months, and she, too, had a glowing letter of commendation. Her salary was less than his, but her company did have a family leave plan.
Neither employer provided day care, though.
Randy had recently moved back to his parents’ house so he could save money and have help with Travis on the weekends. If granted full custody, his mother, a youthful fifty, was prepared to keep Travis during the day since she was already tending a neighbor’s child and often cared for Travis as well whenever April Ann got in a bind.
At present, April Ann and Travis shared an apartment with another woman and the woman’s three-year-old daughter. The roommate kept both children as a rule, but occasionally she took part-time jobs. When that happened, her daughter went to preschool and Randy’s mother would come and get Travis.
The housemate was another reason Randy was asking for full custody. According to him, she had a different man there every week, sometimes he could smell alcohol on her breath when he went to pick Travis up after work, and her daughter bullied Travis.
April Ann admitted that her friend had boyfriends, liked her beer, and didn’t always control her daughter, “But don’t no men sleep over in our apartment, which is more than Randy can say about his women. And I know for a fact that he has a beer or two when he’s got Travis.”
Living alone was not an option, she said. “My salary just won’t do it.”
I leaned my head on my hand so that I could unobtrusively massage my throbbing temple and asked, “What about family?”
