reassure her.
“Mum’s the word,” I say, pretending to zip my mouth.
Amy laughs.
“You act so silly to be such a good lawyer.”
I smile, pleased at the compliment. Were I certain of my ability, I would not need to be reassured. I have lost confidence in myself in the last hour, and for good reason. If I am so good, why was I fired?
At the front desk the receptionist calls around for me and finds out that an attorney by the name of Kerr Bowman can see me for a few minutes. She gives me directions, and I head down to the opposite end of the hall from Amy’s office.
I do not know Mr. Bowman, but my first impression is that I have not missed much. Though he is at least fifteen years my junior, Bowman greets me as if I were a long-lost fraternity brother. He is the kind of attorney who is always onstage, no matter how small the audience. The only thing I like about him is his tie, which has alternating navy and green stripes. He is young and cocky, with so much blond hair he probably has to dry it with an industrial-strength fan.
Somewhere along the line a professor must have told this kid he would make a great trial attorney and he believed it. I look behind him and see on his wall a diploma from the University of Texas. That accounts for some of it. Fortunately, today he is on a short leash. He pretends not to have a copy of the arrest warrant, telling me that “Bobba” Stewart, the prosecutor over in municipal court, will be delighted to make me a copy.
“We’ll get one when the case is filed in circuit court after the probable cause hearing,” Kerr says.
I try not to roll my eyes. Kerr probably drafted it. I can’t say much without implicating Amy, so I play dumb, an easy role for me most of the time.
“I assume, since I’m talking to you, that you’ll be handling it once it gets to circuit court.”
Kerr fingers his tie.
“Jill and I will be working together.”
I can’t resist a smile. Once the case hits the papers, he’ll be lucky if she sends him out to have a subpoena served.
“Must be a big case,” I say, feeling a pang on the right side of my mouth. At breakfast I crunched down on what felt like a rock in my cereal and spit it out. A part of a dingy silver-black molar lay on the table surrounded by mush. Second one this year. My mother’s teeth. If my dick begins to crumble the way my teeth are I ‘ll be down to two inches by Christmas.
A good grunt, Kerr doesn’t bite.
“It should be good experience.”
If it goes to trial. Yet Chapman doesn’t strike me as the type to want to cop a plea. I’ll find out soon enough. I head back over to the municipal court, leaving Kerr napping his gums about what a privilege it is to work in front of a jury.
A minute more and I would have gagged. Could Kerr be the father of Amy’s unborn child? Surely she has too much sense for that. The legal woods these days are full of Kerr Bowmans-showoffs with loud voices who are convinced a few jury trials make them bona fide lawyers. I’m not so sure. The most effective attorneys keep their clients out of court and failing that, if at all possible, away from a jury. I hope I don’t have to fight Chapman over a plea. Actually, what I’d love to do is take this case and try it and win. I’m going to need all the publicity I can get.
I sit in the back of the courtroom and wait for Bobba Stewart to finish up. The prosecutor could have filed Chapman’s case directly in circuit court and avoided a “probable cause” hearing-ordinarily no big deal, but under the circumstances, not a sure thing, since Darwin Bell, the municipal judge, is likely to be curious about a fellow African-American with a doctorate accused of recklessly killing a child he was trying to help. At the very least, I am counting on Darwin to set a quick bond hearing and perhaps set Chapman free on his own recognizance. The trial, a simple assault involving onetime friends, no more than a good slap in the face according to Judge Bell, who summarizes the case and then fines the defendant, a bookkeeper for a church, court costs, gives him time served (a day in jail), and then admonishes the complainant and the defendant to stay away from each other.
I come forward while the judge is lecturing the parties.
Since it is now routine, the sight of a black man in central Arkansas shaking his finger at two white males as he warns them to stay clear of each other has lost its wonder (in certain parts of the state a two-headed calf presiding on the bench wouldn’t draw as big a crowd) so that I can perhaps squeeze in a bond hearing before he quits for the day. After he finishes, I grab Bobba, who shrugs noncommittally at my request and accompanies me to the bench to speak to Judge Bell. I explain what I want to the judge, who listens while he is writing in the docket book his female clerk has handed him. When I tell him the name of the defendant. Judge Bell, who bears an uncanny resemblance to the late Sammy Davis, Jr.” in the period of Sammy’s life when he was photographed joyously embracing Richard Nixon, shakes his head and says, “You’ll have to ask Judge Bruton. I have to recuse. Your client was the best man at my wedding.”
Bobba grins slyly as if to say “Gotcha!” A story is told about Judge Bruton, an old man who generally hears only traffic cases, that he once said at a reception for a colleague that the country had begun an irreversible decline the day Lincoln freed the slaves. This remark must be many years old, because within the so-called “civilized center,” as the Arkansas Gazette once referred to central Arkansas, racist remarks made in public have long been regarded as a breach of etiquette. In private, a different code governs. Five minutes later I am told by Judge Bruton’s clerk that the judge, approaching seventy, has gone home for the day. My bond hearing will be no sooner than tomorrow, and I walk down stairs to tell Andrew Chapman that he will have to spend the night in jail, for no other reason than one judge likes him too much and the other one has gone home to doze in front of the afternoon soaps.
Downstairs I can detect relief by the spring in Chapman’s step as he is led toward me. Damn, I haven’t been on this case an hour, and I already feel guilty. Why? I think it’s because I already like Chapman, even though I’ve just met him. Some people (not many criminal defendants) I like instinctively and he is one of them. There is a dignity about the man that is appealing. I extend my hand formally, knowing at the moment I have nothing better to offer him. He crushes my fingers as if to reprimand me silently for allowing him to be degraded in this way. I explain his dilemma, and he listens intently. Fortunately, I didn’t promise him his re lease this afternoon. Still, guilt, like prickly heat, jabs my conscience while I explain that tomorrow morning he will appear before the judge for a bond hearing. This man should not be in jail even overnight. If he were white, given the nature of the alleged crime, he would most likely be released on his own recognizance. He may spend one night in jail, but I’ll be damned if he is going to spend another one.
“It’s okay,” Chapman says, consoling me.
“I know you did all you could.”
I shrug, not so sure. Hell, I should have called Bruton, the old bastard, at home and told him to get back down here and put in a day’s work.
“I’m sorry. Dr. Chapman.”
He gives me a wan smile.”
“My friends call me Andy.
“Dr. Chapman’ seems a little formal in a place like this.”
I look around the human zoo surrounding me and have to agree.
“Andy,” I say, “my parents. God forgive them, named me “Gideon,” and my friends don’t call me “Giddy.”
” His smile broadens.
“Gideon it is.”
I leave, glad I could give him something to smile about.
3
I stand out in front of the jail like some derelict who has just been released from the drunk tank. The afternoon sun feels about five feet from my face. What now? So far my debut in private practice has been less
