Michael Nava - Goldenboy

Jim was still alive at daybreak. His doctor set her breakfast tray on the table in the hospital cafeteria where I had been waiting for her. She took a bite of scrambled eggs and made a face.

“They should make hospital cooks take the Hippocratic oath,” she said. “‘First, do no harm.’ That part.”

I smiled, not too convincingly to judge from her expression. Her face was the color of exhaustion. She turned her attention to her meal, and ate with complete concentration as if taking a test. When she lifted her head, she looked almost relieved to be done with it.

“How are you feeling?” she asked.

I smiled again, this time genuinely. No matter how casually a doctor asked, this question always sounded like an accusation to me.

“I’m tired,” I replied.

She nodded understanding^. “Go home.”

“If he’s all right.”

Her narrow, studious face tensed a bit. “I didn’t say that.”

“No,” I agreed, “you didn’t.”

“He’s alive, Henry, but not all right.” She rubbed her eyes. “He was unconscious for a long time, not breathing well. There’s brain damage. How did he get those barbituates in jail?”

“They were prescribed,” I answered. “To relieve anxiety. He must have stockpiled them.”

“If they’d found him five minutes later, he’d be dead.”

“It seems that was his plan.” In my head I heard him telling me that he wouldn’t be at the jail when I returned to see him.

According to the guards who’d brought him into the hospital, one of Jim’s cellmates had been awakened by a gurgling noise. It was Jim, choking on his own vomit.

“You never said what he was in for,” the doctor said.

“Murder,” I replied.

“That little guy?”

“Yes,” I said. He had also told me that he had wanted to kill himself, not Brian. Well, maybe he killed part of himself when he killed Brian. He decided to finish the job. Thanks to me.

She curled her elegant fingers around a chipped coffee mug. “Well, he did manage to do a lot of damage to himself, so I guess murder’s not impossible.”

“Will he live?”

“Parts of him.” She wore a thin gold wedding band. She saw me notice it and said, “You were one of the lawyers on that sodomy case a couple of years back.”

“I’m surprised you remember.”

“I recognized your name as soon as you told me. You’re his lawyer, or what?”

“His lawyer,” I said, shaking the grounds at the bottom of my coffee cup.

“No parents?”

“He has parents,” I said, setting the cup down. “They couldn’t be bothered.”

“That’s rough,” she said, blinking the tiredness from her eyes. She studied me. “Was his situation so bad?”

I nodded. “He got backed into a corner. I helped put him there.”

“Working in emergency,” she said, “I see a lot of suicide attempts. The ones who survive, they didn’t mean to succeed.” She pushed her tray away. “The ones who don’t make it — it’s not that they give up, Henry. They fight, but they fight to die. That’s what Jim’s doing. You can murder someone, but you can’t make him kill himself. You understand?”

I studied the pattern of the grounds at the bottom of my cup. “Yes,” I said, lifting my tired eyes to hers.

“Go home,” she said. “I’ll call you if anything happens.”

It was cold and gray outside the hospital. The sun was like a circle of ice, lightening the sky around it. The silvery towers of downtown shimmered through the morning mist. In this weather the palm trees seemed wildly incongruous, like tattered banners of summer.

I had read, years ago, of the Japanese poet who commented upon suicide, “A silent death is an endless word.” Should I read Jim’s attempt to kill himself as a reproach, as release, as an admission of guilt? Of love? I could understand why he did it but I didn’t approve. It was the drama that disturbed me. The most basic rule of survival is to wait things out. It was a rule Jim was too young to have learned. With almost twenty years on him, I knew that the great passions — love, fear, hope, terror — merge with the clutter of the day-to-day, and become part of it. A truer symbol of justice than the blindfolded goddess was a clock.

A clock was ticking in the kitchen of Larry’s house as I let myself in. He was sitting at the table with a cup of coffee in front of him. He looked up when I entered.

“I heard your car when you left,” he said. ‘‘That was six hours ago.”

“You’ve been awake since?”

“Off and on,” he replied. “It’s Jim, isn’t it?”

“He tried to kill himself,” I said, sitting down.

In a gray voice, Larry asked, “Is he dead?”

“No. He’s in a coma.”

“How did it happen?”

I explained.

Larry raised the cup to his lips without drinking. The robe he wore fell away, revealing his thin, hairless chest, the skin as mottled as an autumn apple. A few sparse white hairs grew at the base of his neck. His face showed nothing of what he felt but the white hairs trembled.

“How stupid,” he muttered. “What a stupid thing to do.” “He was afraid,” I said.

“Well I know a few things about fear,” Larry snapped. He shut his eyes for a moment. When he opened them he said, “I’m sorry I said that.”

“Who better?”

“No,” he shook his head. “It’s not the same at all. I’ve had my life, but to throw it all away at eighteen…” He lifted his fingers from the table in a gesture of bewilderment.

“If you can’t imagine the future,” I said, “it must not seem like you’re throwing much away.”

Larry nodded. “You’ll have to do something about the trial.”

“I’ll ask for a dismissal.”

“Then what?”

“I suppose he’ll revert to the custody of his parents.”

Larry frowned. “The perfect son at last.”

I went upstairs to get some sleep. As I undressed I remembered the call I received the night before. I called my office and reached my secretary. I asked whether anyone had requested my number in the last day or so.

She went through the telephone log. There had been someone, a man named King who had insisted on getting my number in Los Angeles. The name meant nothing to me. I thanked her and hung up.

I got into the rumpled bed, naked between the cold sheets. Outside, a bird cawed. Inside, there was silence. I closed my eyes and slept a long, black sleep.

Three days later I was back in court. The press was out in full force. Pisano, the D.A., told the court he would not dismiss the charges against Jim Pears as long as Jim remained alive. He put Lillian Fox on the witness stand. She demanded that the prosecution proceed. I informed Judge Ryan that Jim had suffered permanent, catastrophic brain damage and was unlikely ever to revive. I asked the judge to dismiss the charges on her own motion, as the law permitted, in the interests of justice. However, as she had just finished pointing out, those interests were complex.

“Your Honor,” I said, “the medical evidence is that my client is, for all intents and purposes, dead. I don’t see what more could be accomplished by hounding him to the grave.”

Pisano was on his feet. “The medical evidence is not conclusive,” he said.

“It’s as conclusive as it’s going to get,” I snapped. “Jim Pears isn’t going to get much deader, short of driving a stake through his heart.”

“So dramatic,” Pisano said, mockingly.

“You’re just trying to squeeze another headline from this, aren’t you?”

The judge broke in. “Gentlemen, some restraint.”

“Speaking of restraints,” I said, angry now, “my client’s wrist is handcuffed to the railing of his hospital bed. Do the police really think he’s going to rise up and go on a crime spree? This entire hearing is ghoulish. Regardless of what Jim is charged with, what he may or may not have done, we’ve reached a point where simple decency demands that this matter be ended.’’