“I’m quoting here.
“The purpose is … the development of maximum self-reliance and independence of the parson, and shall be ordered only to the extent necessitated.”
” He pops the bright red book shut and says to Ferd: “My suggestion to you, Mr. Machen, is that in the next fifteen minutes you get together with your client and consider settling this matter along the following lines: Mrs.
Gentry does not appear in need of a guardian of her person;
however, she would seem to require the services of a guard ian of her estate. Unless Mr. Page is going to present evidence of severe mismanagement or fraud, I see no reason why her son should not be appointed guardian of his mother’s estate so long as she is permitted to leave the nursing home and resume her former quality of life. If you want to try this case, it’s fine with me. But let me warn you that I’m not inclined to keep the elderly locked up in nursing homes be cause it’s convenient to do so. You embarrassed that poor old woman out there by that ridiculous question about sex.
If she wants to have sexual relations with another consenting adult, she should be able to do so in the privacy of her own apartment or house instead of being forced to have them in a closet. I’ll resume court in fifteen minutes to either continue the trial or dictate into the record a settlement.”
Ferd leans back in his chair as if he can’t believe his ears.
“Judge, she’s batty as she can be!” he protests, pointing at his head and rotating his right hand in the time- honored manner
“She sounds like a chain saw if you give her a chance!”
Fogarty leans forward on his desk and peers over his glasses unpleasantly at Ferd.
“Mr. Machen,” he says, “the world is full of eccentric people, but we don’t institutionalize them in this country simply because they’re odd. For your information, my mother is in her eighties and hums as loud as Mrs. Gentry, and she does the crossword puzzle in the paper every morning before breakfast!”
The Nerd, whose face has turned almost as red as the statute book on the judge’s desk, says, “Yes, sir,” and he and I leave, chastened as schoolchildren who have been sent to the principal’s office for disrupting class.
After a talk alone with our clients, within ten minutes we witness a reconciliation between mother and son. As Ferd and I watch, our clients embrace in the hall outside the courtroom, I marvel at the capacity of some humans (at least) to forgive and to trust once again people who have wronged them. I wouldn’t want her son near me, but as I watch the tears run down his mother’s cheeks, I realize she really loves him, regardless of how he treated her. However, at her age, she doesn’t have a lot of choice, leaving me to speculate what, if anything, was going on in that closet. Her boyfriend, a man at least a decade younger, refused to talk to me and wasn’t worth a deposition I couldn’t afford. Subpoenaed to testify by Ferd, he has been sequestered with the other witnesses but with this settlement, we will never know, and, for once, I am content to leave my prurient curiosity unsatisfied.
Judge Pogarty, again relaxed and in good spirits after learning Ferd’s client has swallowed the settlement the judge rammed down his throat, tells me to prepare a petition for an attorney’s fee for my representation to be paid from Mrs.
Gentry’s estate, but hints, as I feared, that the amount won’t be overly generous, since he was less than impressed with the quality of representation by both attorneys in the case.
He tells Ferd bluntly that he won’t be able to charge the estate at all for his time in court. My cheeks burn, but Mrs. Gentry is happy. She tells me to come visit her any time. When Eagle Savings and Loan forecloses on my mortgage, I will remember her invitation.
Cooking in the July heat, I walk back to my office wondering what lessons I have learned from this case. In the future, reading the law might help. I realize now that despite what I had told myself, I was only going through the motions, never expecting to win, never expecting to be paid a dime, so I didn’t prepare adequately, relying mainly on my instincts from the days when I represented mental patients at the state hospital as a public defender. If the state hospital wanted a patient badly enough to go through a commitment proceeding the judge wasn’t going to get in its way. The patients rarely had a chance, so I assumed Mrs. Gentry wouldn’t either. My clients won’t always be so fortunate as to have a judge rescue them.
Across the street, waiting for the light to change, Martha Birford waves at me and yells, “Gideon, wait a minute!”
Nonplussed by this effusiveness after our last meeting at the Hardhat Cafe, I stand above a steaming gutter, wondering if another snotty remark is on the way.
“I got a job!” she says gleefully, pounding across the pavement toward me.
Good for you, I think, meaning it. Dressed in a red suit I’ve seen half a dozen times, Martha looks as happy as a woman who’s been told she doesn’t have ovarian cancer.
Instantly, I forgive her for her remark at the Hardhat about me landing on my feet. We may talk about sex as if we can’t live without it, but it is our work that defines both men and women these days.
“Great!” I say, touching her arm as if for luck.
“Who’s the lucky firm?” “Verser and Jeffcoat,” she says, naming a partnership that has come together in only the last year.
“Actually, I’m only kind of a glorified paralegal, but it’s a start.”
A paralegal! I maintain my grin, hoping it has not become a grimace, but inwardly I feel embarrassment for her. True, at Mays amp; Burton we got the shit cases, but at least we got to see the inside of a courtroom. Poor Martha. Those idiots at Verser and Jeffcoat will probably never discover how much money she could be making for them. A few more bromides about our mutual good luck, and I head off in the opposite direction, once again glad I’m not a woman or black. As sloppy as my performance was today, I realize I’m one of the primary beneficiaries of discrimination. I may be a capitalist now, but damn if I like competition.
On my floor in the Layman Building, Julia, seeing my scowling face, greets me cheerfully, “Lose another one, Giddy baby?”
I check my box for messages.
“Not quite,” I say, noting her outfit. This is sex week, I decide. Everything so far has been skintight or see- through. Today, underneath a sheer white blouse she has on a purple bra, which matches her eyeshadow. The effect is that she appears to have two badly rotted grapefruits under her blouse. I have a message to call David Spath, administrator at the Human Development Center who keeps playing telephone tag with me.
“Actually,” I say, my eyes drawn like a bomber pilot’s to her chest, “the judge ruled mostly in my client’s favor.” I am careful not to say that I did anything to win the case. Gossip from the courthouse spreads like poison gas, and if Julia gets wind of the hearing, she will throw back in my face anything I say.
She nods sourly.
“Don’t you lawyers have a saying that even a blind hog can find a few nuts?”
In more ways than one, I think, looking at Julia, but I do not say anything. I have found it is crucial to let her have the last word. Once some people think they have the better of you, they treat you better, and Julia, who turns out to be the niece of the owner of the building, will be here long after I am gone. I go to my office and surprise myself by getting David Spath on the phone. In a British-sounding voice, he tells me that an appointment has canceled for the afternoon, and he will see me if I have the time. Since I had scheduled Mrs. Gentry’s trial for all day, I am free and I agree to meet at two in his office.
It is close to twelve, and I take the elevator down to the cafeteria to put my own spin on Mrs. Gentry’s abbreviated trial. I find Tunkie Southerland and Frank D’Angelo seated at a table against a window overlooking the Arkansas River.
Tunkie, who avoids even nonjury trials whenever he can, preferring the written word to the spoken, chews on the lemon in his glass of tea.
“She got what she paid for,” he comments defending my laziness. I have not spared myself in my telling of the morning’s events, though I have made Ferd Machen sound even more cruel and venal than he probably is.
“Every lawyer screws up,” Frank says, folding his napkin on his plate, “it’s just a question of who catches you and what they try to do about it.”
Truly, misery loves company, but so does incompetency, I realize. Yet, in their own areas, they are not
