Russell Banks - The Sweet Hereafter

Finally, he turned away from the bus and moved back toward his own vehicle. I decided to speak to him. I wasn’t scared of him anymore. The timing and locale couldn’t be better. It was invasive but not intrusive.

I got out of my car and crossed the lot toward him.

“You work for Ansel?” I asked him, as if I didn’t know who he was.

“I am Ansel.”

I moved closer and in a low voice said, “I’m sorry about your children, Mr. Ansel.”

“You are, eh?” He was already combative.

“Yes.”

We stared directly into each other’s eyes. The old staredown.

He broke first and said, “I take you to be a lawyer,” which let me counterpunch, which is how you control these things.

“Yes, I am an attorney. My name is—”

“Mister, I don’t want to know your name.”

True enough, but he was damn well going to learn it anyhow. “I understand,” I said.

“No. No, you don’t understand.”

“I can help you.”

“No, you can’t help me. Not unless you can raise the dead,” he declared, moving away from me and getting into his truck.

I quickly handed him a card. “Here. You may change your mind.”

He read the card and then passed it back, looking me straight in the face, but distracted somehow, as if memorizing the card.

Fine by me. I stared him back.

“Mr. Mitchell Stephens, Esquire, would you be likely to sue me if right now I was to beat you with my hands and feet?” he growled. “Beat you so bad that you pissed blood and couldn’t walk for a month? Because that is what I’m about to do, you understand. Whether you sue me or not.”

Lawyers sue; he’d made the connection. And suing is bad; he’d taken his stand. In what I hoped was a slightly weary but kindly tone, because I did not want to sound in the slightest defensive, the way I knew those other lawyers would react when he started threatening them, I said, “No, Mr. Ansel. No, I wouldn’t sue you. And I don’t think there’s anyone in this county who would even arrest you for it. But you’re not about to beat me up, are you?”

He paused, reconsidering. “No, I’m not going to beat you up. Just don’t talk to me again. Don’t come around my garage, and don’t come to my house or call me on the telephone.”

The rest was finish work. “You may change your mind. I can help you,” I said.

“Leave me alone, Stephens. Leave the people of this town alone. You can’t help any of us. No one can.”

“You can help each other. Several people have agreed to let me represent them in a negligence suit, and your case as an individual will be stronger if I’m allowed to represent you together as a group.” This was no longer the hook I’d originally planned it to be; now it was merely a way for him to feel morally superior to his neighbors, which, of course, would keep him clean for me later on, when I put him in front of a jury.

“My ‘case’? I have no case. None of us has a case.”

“You’re wrong about that. Very wrong. Your friends the Walkers have agreed, and Mr. and Mrs. Otto, and I’m talking with some other folks. It’s important to initiate proceedings right away. Things get covered up fast. People lie. You know that. People lie about these things. We have to begin our own investigation quickly, before the evidence disappears. That’s why I’m out here tonight.” I showed him my camera.

He looked at it with disgust. “Our children aren’t even buried yet,” he said. “It’s you — you’re the liar. Risa and Wendell Walker, I know them, you’re right, but they wouldn’t hire a goddamned lawyer. And the Ottos, they wouldn’t deal with you, for Christ’s sake. You’re lying to me about them, and probably to them about me. We’re not fools, you know, country bumpkins you can put the big-city hustle on. You’re just trying to use us. You want us to pull each other in,” he announced, getting it nicely wrong.

Smiling at his minor triumph, he shut the door of his truck, backed the vehicle up and turned, then drove quickly from the lot. The truck fishtailed as it hit the road and turned left, heading toward the west end of town. Where the Bide-a-Wile Motel was located; and Risa Walker. I did not have too much trouble imagining the conversation that would take place between them there. Husband Wendell I was certain, would not be a party to it. Poor sap. I liked Wendell. I did not like Billy Ansel.

Things moved pretty fast for a while then. A lot of it was strictly procedural, the kind of search-and-destroy that precedes filing a notice of claim, where you’re essentially boxing off the defendants so that you can both narrow the terms and widen the areas of liability. I had some files and a fax machine shipped up from New York by UPS and set up a sort of office for myself in my room at the Bide-a-Wile. The Walkers seemed pleased by the arrangement, especially Risa; from their point of view, they now had a lawyer-in-residence. I wasn’t exactly on retainer, but I did end up advising them, Risa in particular, on a few matters other than their negligence suit, which I was now attempting to aim at the State of New York, for not having installed sufficiently strong guardrails along that especially dangerous stretch of roadway, and at the town of Sam Dent, for not having drained the sandpit. And I was contemplating a suit against the school board, for having permitted Dolores Driscoll to service her school bus herself. I figured, cast as wide a net as possible and catch whatever fish you can in it.

As a defendant, the driver was out of bounds, of course, but I was now considering making even her a plaintiff, since, if she was not herself responsible for the accident, she might be shown to have a cause for action for emotional distress. What the hell, it was worth a try. It’d make an interesting precedent. Also, I might be able to run it backward: it would be that much harder for the state, town, and school lawyers to lay the responsibility for the accident on her if she was one of the parties suing them for negligence. In an important way, the whole case rose or fell on the question of Dolores Driscoll’s liability, and it was a question I’d just as soon not get asked at all. At least not without a few roadblocks.

The funerals started the next day, all over town, going on for several days, for three or four children at a time, and naturally I planned on staying away. Out of decency, but strategy as well. It doesn’t hurt to be the only lawyer in town who doesn’t come off as a buzzard.

The town was beginning to formalize its response to the tragedy. There had appeared one morning fourteen tiny crosses out at the crash site, which turned out to be the work of schoolchildren, at the instigation of the school board. So much for separation of church and state. A memorial service for the victims, announced in the local weekly newspaper, was scheduled to be held the following week in the school auditorium, where the state representative from the district, the school principal, and half a dozen area clergymen would intone. Money was being collected, ostensibly for the families of the victims (although the exact purpose of the money was a little vague — funeral expenses for some, medical expenses for others, I supposed), in glass jars at all the local businesses, even at the Noonmark Diner over in Keene Valley. TV viewers from around the country were sending contributions — money, clothing, canned food, stuffed animals, crucifixes, and potted plants — all of which was being logged in and held at the school for eventual distribution. Even then I could see problems down the road with that, but it was none of my affair, so I just listened and nodded as Risa filled me in on the details. She was evidently quite touched by the generosity of strangers, and I saw no reason to disabuse her of it. Some people, when terrible things happen to them, take strength from believing that other people are better than in fact they are. Not me. I go in the opposite direction.