After a few more questions, I sit down, thinking that with a little luck, we’ll know about that tomorrow.
As I return to my seat, Andy, without even a glance at me, rises suddenly and says in a loud voice to the judge, “Your Honor, I want to fire Mr. Page and represent myself!”
Staring at Andy as if he has suddenly gone crazy. Judge Tamower stands up, too, and says, “I want the lawyers and Dr. Chapman back in my chambers immediately. The court will be in recess for fifteen minutes.” With that, she flees the bench through a side door.
I turn to Andy and snarl in a low whisper, “Are you out of your fucking mind?”
In front of the jury, Andy grabs my arm and says, “You broke your word! I warned you not to do this!”
“Come on!” I say, furious.
“She’s not going to let you.”
Shaking with rage, I look into the stunned faces of Jill and her young assistant as they hurry past our table.
In chambers, the judge has taken off her robe as if she is through for the day. Underneath it, she is wearing a red dress almost identical to Olivia Le Master’s.
“What is your client’s problem, Mr. Page?” she yelps at me. Whatever sympathy she may have had for our case seems a distant memory.
Judges do not like surprises, nor do they like defendants to represent themselves.
For an instant I consider trying to explain what I believe is in Andy’s mind. The truth that Andy thinks I have wrongly injected the issue of race into this case, when, in fact, that is what it is primarily about as far as I’m concerned is too bizarre, too threatening. Instead, I say, “We are having a disagreement over trial tactics. Your Honor.”
“Your …” Andy begins.
The judge loses her temper.
“I don’t want to hear from you, Dr. Chapman,” she yells, pointing a finger at him.
“If you didn’t want a lawyer, you should have thought about that a long time before today. I’m not allowing you to represent yourself; I’m not allowing Mr. Page to quit as your attorney, and I don’t want you to speak here or in my courtroom again until you’re spoken to! Is that clear?”
Andy shakes his head.
“Then I refuse to participate in this trial any further.”
Judge Tamower looks at me and then back at Andy as if she wants to make pressed meat of both of us. Lawyers are supposed to be able to control their clients, and defendants dressed as nicely as Andy are supposed to behave themselves and go to prison, if not with smiles on their faces, at least with stoic calm. It is not as if I am back at the Public Defender representing some dope-crazed space cadet.
“That’s fine with me,” she says grimly.
“You can spend it in a holding cell.”
Great! I can hear the talk on the street: Page can’t even keep his clients out of jail during their trials. I look at Jill and send her a silent prayer: we’re both lawyers, even if we hate each other’s guts right now. There is a smirk on her face as if she is daring me to keep Andy company. Desperately, I look over at the huge bailiff, who seems more than willing and able to take each of us under one arm, and notice the clock. It is after four.
“Judge, it’s getting late. Why don’t we quit for the day, so I can have a chance to talk to Dr. Chapman?
This is a capital case, after all.”
I have said the magic words without ever having mentioned the dreaded word: appeal. It could go on forever if she screws up. No judge likes to be reversed, especially this woman. A thin, bloodless smile comes to the judge’s lips.
“That’s the first good idea,” she says firmly, “you’ve had all day, Mr. Page.”
Oh yeah, Clan, this woman has the hots for me all right. I nod, grateful beyond words I don’t have to go back out there to the defense table alone.
23
In my office, Morris listens to my account of our conversation with the judge and then looks at his brother as if Andy had told Judge Tamower he had seen her mother in a Juarez whorehouse.
“You’re one crazy nigger,” Morris tells his brother.
“We’re trying to save your ass, and you want to fuck it up with this stupid shit! You think you’re gonna have a rat’s-ass chance in hell sitting in a cell while your lawyer does a solo act. That’s bullshit, man!”
In a rare concession to the pressure he must be feeling, Andy loosens his tie.
“I don’t expect you to understand this either, Morris.”
Morris, seated across from his brother, has his feet up on my desk. He puts them down on the floor and gets up to pace.
“I understand this,” he says, his dark face anguished.
“You’re the most selfish motherfucker who’s ever had the nerve to draw a breath! Have you thought one Goddamned minute about what it’s gonna do to me, knowing you’re in prison for the rest of your life or a piece of fried meat in the ground? Forget our mother and daddy’s memory; forget their families. They’re mostly dead. What good are you gonna do anybody in prison? We don’t need another nigger convict.
You’re throwing away the one chance you have! Even if by some miracle you walk, the white assholes who run these things are gonna bust their asses to keep you from being a psychologist again, and then what will all those shit for brains you’re so crazy about do? You think white folks care about a nigger retard? Bullshit! I’ve been out there and seen the way those little black monkeys climb all over you. Who’s gonna give a shit about them while you’re in prison getting fucked up the ass by some crazy dude who’ll pile-drive you into the concrete after he’s stretched your asshole to the size of a manhole cover? This ain’t the time,” he pleads, his voice winding down to a whisper,” ‘to tell white folks what a shitty place for us this country is.”
Morris, to my amazement, is almost in tears. His eyes are red, and his voice is so hoarse I can barely hear him.
He probably doesn’t understand Andy much better than I do, but there is no doubt about the love he feels for him.
Andy shifts uncomfortably in his chair but says nothing. I don’t get it. Andy isn’t stopping at cutting off his nose to spite his face; he’s taking his eyes and ears, too. People who actually do things this drastic on principle are, in my experience, few and far between. The last one in the legal profession was Thomas More.
“We’ve got a chance, Andy,” I say, filling the silence.
“But you’ve got to stay and fight.
If you don’t stick around to explain your side of the story, the prosecutor will fill in the blanks for the jury on closing argument.”
Like some kind of black Buddha, Andy stills himself and draws his hands together beneath his trim goatee. I look at Morris, who, judging by the agonized look on his face, has withdrawn into his own private hell.
“I know you feel I’m betraying you, Andy,” I say, from behind my desk, “but at some point you simply have to start trusting me.”
From behind his hands, Andy says bitterly, “Olivia trusted me, and look what she’s getting.”
I slam my fist on my desk in frustration at this man.
“She betrayed you!” I yell at him.
“She had the opportunity to convince the jury she is still passionately committed to you even though her child is dead, and she lied!”
Wearily, Andy shakes his head, “She’s ashamed,” he says, his voice under control.
“She can’t imagine people would understand how she could be involved with anyone right now, much less a black man, after what has happened.”
He has just admitted that the woman he supposedly loves is as racist as the rest of us. I look at Morris for support, but he merely shrugs, as if his brother were another species. I still believe that Olivia is calibrating her performance as best she can, but I don’t dare risk fighting this battle again. Andy, I decide, is a lost cause.
