Grif Stockley: Illegal Motion

I climb the concrete steps and collapse on the first row beside her.

“Everybody’s too fast for me,” I say, too tired to lie.

“You need some water,” she says handing me the plastic container beside her.

“And your hair looks like it’s been electrocuted.”

Instinctively, I feel my head. My hair is mashed up on the sides and I smooth it down. My bald spot feels like the size of a crater on the moon. I must look like a jogger from hell. No wonder the blonde speeded up.

“Gilchrist, how have I been coping without you?” I say, taking a swig of water from the blue jug. If she is worried about germs, she shouldn’t have offered.

“Obviously not very well,” she says humorously, her eyes on the runners passing in front of us.

“I’ve been waiting for years for the opportunity to straighten you out, but you’ve never called me.”

I cut my eyes at her to see if she is serious. Amy is the kind of woman who is so likable and friendly she seems as if she is flirting with every man within ten yards of her.

Reluctant to invest too much in this conversation, I banter “I’ve always been afraid I’d have a heart attack and you wouldn’t try to revive me.”

Her blue eyes, round as two dimes, twinkle mischievously.

“It would depend on how you did. You’re not that old.”

I take another pull at the water. We are having quite a randy chat for friends.

“Aren’t you still a Holy Roller or whatever?” I ask rudely, but wanting to know. Over a year ago through an odd combination of circumstances I saw Amy at a service of the largest fundamentalist church in Blackwell County. I was in attendance as part of my preparation for defending a murder case; Amy was there apparently because she wanted to be. My girlfriend at the time had astounded me by joining the church, causing irreparable harm to our relationship.

“Nope,” she says, apparently not offended. She smiles.

“I’m still searching though.”

“Aren’t we all?” I respond tritely, but relieved. My own search is a little closer to home. For the most part I gave up on religion after Rosa died of breast cancer.

“So, your place or mine?” I kid, forcing her to be serious.

She giggles deliciously.

“Aren’t you still seeing Rainey McCorkle?”

Some women love to flirt if they think you’re safe.

“Rainey and I could never work things out,” I say truth fully.

“We haven’t gone out in months.” Occasionally, she phones to ask about Sarah. Sometimes, I hear a wistfulness in her voice, but basically, she has decided she needs to find a man with fewer warts. For my part, I want someone who needs fewer certainties.

Amy removes her leg from the rail and gives me a dazzling smile as she heads down the steps to the track.

“Well, give me a ring sometime.”

“I will,” I call after her, deciding to break my selfimposed vow not to go out with women as young as Amy. Since they haven’t exactly been lining up outside the house, it has been an easy pledge to keep. I decide to go home, though I’ve hardly worked out. If she compares me with some of the guys circling the track, she could easily change her mind.

After a shower I put on a pair of pants and a T-shirt and call a much younger classmate who graduated law school with me from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock.

Barton Sanders is the only lawyer I know in Fayetteville.

Most graduates migrate to the center of the state, but Bar ton moved to Fayetteville to take advantage of a real estate operation that was already thriving under his father-in-law. Rich and well connected. Barton is a dye ding-the-wool Hog fan and may be able to help me jump start this case if he is willing. Though we are not close, we were friends in law school and I have been by to see him a couple of times since Sarah has been in school at

Fayetteville. His wife calls him to the phone, and I tell him I am representing Dade Cunningham.

“No shit?” Barton exclaims, his voice high and reedy as usual.

“That’s incredible!”

I ask him to fill me in on what he has heard. Although he is excited to be in the loop, it turns out he doesn’t know much more than Roy Cunningham.

“It’s like there’s a news blackout at the university-while they stew about this thing. The girl’s father is a big Baptist,” he says, supplying me with one fact I didn’t have.

“Lots of money. The girl is a looker, too. Have you seen any games this year?”

“Only the one in Little Rock,” I answer, delighted there have been no announcements that Dade has been suspended. The fact is things have been so slow lately that I haven’t really been able to afford the trips this year to Fayetteville, but I don’t let Barton know it.

“Do you have any idea how well Coach Carter would react to a phone call from me? I want to slow this down before they make any decisions that would be hard to reverse.”

“Let me make some calls, and I’ll find out,” Barton volunteers.

“I know a couple of guys who know him pretty well. Carter’s the type of guy who might be willing to talk about this, but I bet he’s getting a lot of pressure from the higher-ups to drop him from the team. The old do-right rule. With all the crap in the past, this is a real PR problem for the school.”

“I know,” I concede, “but Cunningham’s the difference between the Sugar Bowl and another .500 season. All I want to do is talk to Carter. I’ve read that he sticks up for the players.” Years earlier Dale Carter had brought Houston a couple of almost undefeated seasons but had a problem with the bottle and got run off. He dried out and had been coaching quarterbacks with a number of teams when Jack Burke, the Razorbacks’ athletic director, tapped him in the spring to revive the team after a number of bad seasons.

“He does,” Barton agrees.

“In his interviews, he always says he knows what it’s like to be down. I’ll see if I can get his number. It’s probably unlisted.”

“Thanks, Barton,” I say.

“I appreciate it.”

“I’m always glad to help a real lawyer,” Barton says slavishly.

“Barton, you make more in a day than I make in a month,” I remind him. Barton (who was advised by our trial advocacy professor not even to try crossexamining a dead dog because he got so flustered in class), has the kind of mind that can trace a chain of title practically without pencil and paper. I could have five computers working night and day and never get a parcel of land back further than three owners without becoming hopelessly confused. The last time I saw him he had on a Rolex and a gold ring that ought to be locked up in Fort Knox. The metal on my body couldn’t even buy me lunch.

“Don’t kid me, Gideon,” he says.

“I read about you in the papers. You’re the real thing.”

Why discourage him? If he wants to believe what he sees on the tube, that’s his problem.

“Whatever you can find out,” I say, “I’ll be in your debt.”

“No problem,” he says, his voice rushing on to another topic.

“Here’s something that might help. Did you notice this case was actually filed by the assistant prosecuting attorney, a kid by the name of Mike Cash? Our prosecutor is on vacation for three weeks in the wilds of Canada.

There’s a feeling that Mike should have waited until Binkie Cross got back in town to bring this kind of charge. There’s a rumor going around he has a sister who was raped and he’s got an itchy trigger finger when he comes to that kind of crime.”

This is welcome news. There is nothing to say that a charge can’t be dismissed. I thank him and hang up so he can get on the phone. While I’m waiting, I call Sarah to let her know I’ll be coming up tomorrow. She answers on the fifth ring and sounds sleepy. It is only seven-thirty.