Sergio De La Pava - A Naked Singularity

“How was the lobster yesterday?” asked Graham.

“Not bad, we didn’t do many cases at all.”

“It was slow?”

“Well it was actually funny. They beat the shit out of some guy in the back real bad so we just sat around while they had all these EMS guys come in and take this poor sap away. Supposedly they shattered this guy’s jaw and everything.”

“The cops?!”

“No the other prisoners.”

“Really?”

“Yeah don’t faint on me now. It wasn’t that big a deal.”

“They charge anyone?”

“Nah, no one would spill who done it.”

“When did this happen?”

“Round three.”

“Did you see the guy when they took him out?”

“Oh yeah. A real mess, both eyes closed, broken teeth, dried blood, the whole deal. Somebody wasn’t happy with this dude.”

“Wow. Who was it?”

“Some Oriental.”

“What?!” I said.

“What what?” he said.

“What did you say about Oriental?” I said.

“Oh I’m sorry Asian . Fucking political correctne—”

“No, who was Asian?”

“The guy who got fucked up haven’t you been listening?”

“Well what the hell was his name?”

“How do I know? He didn’t show me any I.D. man. Who is this guy?” to Graham.

“Nobody said his name?”

“Choo choo or something. What the hell do I know?” he was full of laughter too.

“Chut? Ah Chut was that his fucking name?”

“Sounds right. Why does he owe you money or something?”

“Listen you worthless piece of shit, was his name Ah Chut or not?”

“Hey screw you man. No reason to get insulting here.”

“Fuck” I said under my breath as I walked through the lobby towards the door.

“Who is that guy anyway Grammy?”

Worst part was I couldn’t even remember what Chut looked like. Those arraignment faces always bled together like in an amateurish, speedy camera pan. You go home I remembered assuring him in that retarded way people talk to those who fall short of full comprehension of the language being used. I thought about it some and concluded I had messed up. I was supposed to get him home. No one else cared or was supposed to. I was responsible for getting him home without excuses but didn’t so now he was a mess to look at.

Just then, at that very moment, I became sick of my job and wanted a different one. More specifically I was sick of that kind of shit always happening. Until I quit, I thought, I could make a pledge like the kind comic book superheroes are always making, you know where they like pledge that never again will injustice flourish in their presence and then this pledge brings a clarity and meaning to the superhero’s life that he or she could not have envisioned prior to the pledge. A Pledge. I decided to make one, a pledge, to myself really. And not an insignificant factor in this decision was the fact that the word pledge was really rather funny if you kept saying it repeatedly or in my case thinking it, so I felt a responsibility to somehow animate this word that had given me pleasure at a down time by actually making one. So anyway the pledge was that, in the mystical future, but the one that began like that instant, nothing detrimental or untoward would ever happen to a client of mine. I could make this pledge, I thought, because I would be physically present whenever such a deleterious event would threaten to occur. I would be there when somebody — judge, prosecutor, court officer, janitor — tried to make something bad happen and I would be there to stop it. I would simply stop it is what I would do. How I would do that would obviously depend on the situation. So no more errata I thought. No almosts or maybes. In the future I would always succeed; all regret and guilt would wither and die in the face of a crushing, compulsive efficiency.

I thought about how, when I was a squirt, minor bad things like misplacing a pair of gloves that still spanked, the price of which I’d been explicitly and repeatedly informed, would happen with alarming frequency and how I was often, as a result, placed on the defensive. For the defense: they lost themselves, you still love me? ¡Of course papi! how much? This much. but there are mommies who are bigger than you and can stretch their arms wider, do they love their kids more than you?

First up following The Pledge was Malkum Jenkins and 111 Centre Street, one of two buildings in New York County where state criminal cases were heard and home of Part 28 where Jenkins was presumably waiting. Part 28 belonged to Judge Sizygy and Friday meant it was his calendar day which in turn meant there would be a slew of teens and their families behaving like heated molecules inside his ridiculously tiny courtroom. (The thinking went something like this: let’s take the JO [juvenile offender] part, the part that figures to attract the highest number of interested observers — familial and otherwise — due to the age of the defendants, and stick it in a courtroom appreciably smaller than any other so that inevitably the audience on calendar days [remember, Friday ] will spill out into the halls creating barely-restrained chaos, won’t that be fun?) And Sizygy was probably the best judge around. He took an interest in the defendants and tried to help. He kept their families informed and even fielded questions from them. He took his time on every case, careful to do the right thing. He was, in short, a good man whose basic decency made contact with him a desirable pleasure. Everyone hated going there.

Malkum had to go because four months earlier he’d sold to an undercover during a buy and bust. He was arrested and charged with Sale 3° and some 18B got the case but no matter since Jenkins was nothing if not routine and thus entitled to the standard outcome for sixteen-year-olds who look disproportionately at the floor and sell the product that sells itself. Standard outcome was adjudication as a youthful offender, meaning no criminal record, and five years probation. YO and probation meant Malkum stayed pure and out of jail but with someone to watch over him: a probation officer or PO, where we were all the kids had them. Twenty-one days, that’s how long Malkum reformed before we met. Once again he’d sold to the only customers who complain and his sweet deal had turned acrid. This time there was no ROR at arraignments. Instead he received $5,000 bail and a head start on his expected jail sentence. YO eligibility had been exhausted too, meaning the minimum was one to three years in state prison plus whatever he got on the forthcoming VOP or violation of probation.

Malkum’s predicament required that I employ the signature move of public defenders everywhere, unseemly begging. So I begged the DA — a decent, mousy woman with a visible heart — and she agreed to offer the kid an open C, meaning no mandatory minimum jail sentence, with the judge to determine his sentence. Then I begged the judge to send the case to Sizygy who had put Malkum on probation in the first and now represented our best chance at mercy. Several weeks later Sizygy was looking down at me shaking his head like the guy lending you money again even though you’ve never before repaid. But I had checked shame at the door and said judge this is Rene Collis from YOUTH FIRST and I think this is exactly what Jenkins needs because he’s not a bad kid and they have drug testing, job training, and counseling and what say you? Sizygy agreed and Malkum was released to the program but not before confessing and with his sentence pending. Complete the program he was told. Show me something and you’ll get another chance at probation, albeit as a felon this time. Of course, screw up and…

Now we were there for the first update from the program and the mere sight of Malkum sitting in the audience, wearing a green-polo-shirt-with-white-tie ensemble, represented an initial victory: