Grif Stockley - Probable Cause

“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.

Yet, even as I think this, I remember the shame I felt in having an affair with a married friend of Rosa’s just two weeks after Rosa’s death. What was that all about? Probably grief, loneliness, lust. All I know is that I would never have admitted it in court to a group of strangers sitting in judgment over me. Maybe it’s possible that Olivia, despite everything I know about her, is as innocent as Andy thinks. But I represent Andy, not Olivia, and my job is not to judge the moral purity of a witness’s soul but to be an advocate for my client. While Andy may feel he has the luxury of philosophizing about the motives of Olivia, I do not.

“You’re going to have to decide,” I say harshly, getting up from behind my desk, “whether you want to fight for your freedom or be a martyr. You can’t do both.”

Andy is silent for once as if he is about to give up on the idea of trying to make me understand he sees no conflict between the two. I leave the two brothers in my office and go to Dan’s office to use his telephone to call Charlene Newman to tell her she will have to testify that Leon told her he was in the Trackers. After a tearful phone call from her, I agreed not to subpoena her, so that Leon would not find out she might be a witness.

“Leon will find out within two hours if I’m subpoenaed,” she had told me. That gives me a lot of confidence in our law enforcement officers, but since they seldom make it into the Blackwell County Country Club, they have to be members of something. Leon has not been in contact with her, proving, I suppose, that the female bartenders at the Bull Run are, if not quite feminists, more loyal to their own sex than to their own race, since they apparently have not told Leon I was looking for his ex-wife.

Seated behind his desk like Humpty Dumpty in a special oversized chair, Clan, happy as ever to eavesdrop, observes cheerfully, “You’re doing a hell of a job! Keep this up, and you’ll give a new meaning to criminal defense work.”

I dial Charlene’s number.

“Shit happens when your client gives his home address as Uranus,” I say glumly.

Great. No answer.

“Do me a favor and try this number every fifteen minutes until you leave for the day. If a woman answers, come get me.” I hand Clan a slip of paper with Charlene’s number on it.

Clan squints at the number. He needs reading glasses but won’t get them, claiming he is too vain about his looks.

“You can’t turn a sow’s cunt into a silk purse,” he says, his face now sympathetic.

“I think that’s a sow’s ear,” I say, happy to smile for the first time today.

“The weird pan is that my client may really be a silk purse.”

“Sure,” Clan says breezily, “and the Cubs’ll win the World Series.”

I am home by seven (with nothing resolved), my briefcase crammed with work, and exhaustion begins to creep up like a shot of Novocain. Walking in the front door to find Woogie and Sarah curled up on the couch, I feel as though I have been gone a lifetime.

“What happened?”

Sarah asks, anxiously twisting a lock of her springy black hair, which she had decided to let grow. Woogie, probably disturbed from a nap, merely looks grumpy.

“Are you really getting fired? Kim Keogh made it sound on TV like it was a disaster today. You seemed a little desperate in the interview.”

Well, what the hell? The truth hurts.

“I don’t know whether I am or not,” I say, peeling off my suit coat and tie. I’d love a beer, but with so much work to do I don’t dare drink one, tired as I am.

“Has anyone called?” I ask, going into the kitchen for a glass of water. Tomor row I’m probably going to look like the biggest idiot ever. I pour myself a glass of water from the tap, realizing how petty my thoughts are. My client and my girl friend could end up dying, and I am worried about how I am going to come across on TV when I’m asked why Andy chose to spend the rest of his trial in a jail cell instead of with his lawyer. Self-hatred begins to work into those spaces of my brain not overcome by my growing lethargy.