Sergio De La Pava - A Naked Singularity

“Judge he wants to go to college,” who said that?

I don’t know why I said it but the mere sound of something like that gives it at least some truth value, and a foundering-if-free Malkum was somehow worse than an incarcerated one. At any rate, Sizygy was pleased now and the courtroom exhaled. So what if almost always the dumb just got dumber and dumber until they altogether ceased to form images if we were now confronted with the exception?

So that was settled more or less with the case adjourned two months for another update from the program. In the middle of all that a court officer had announced that we were the last case before lunch precipitating a palpably resentful exodus that left Malkum and me in a near-empty courtroom. And I didn’t want to walk out with him so I pretended I had urgent business at the prosecutor’s table which, in one of The System’s obvious tells, was always millimeters from the jury box. I played with the pitcher of water and its satellitic cups then at an officer’s urging took dilatory steps out into the hall where surely Malkum would no longer be.

“why’d you tell the judge i was going to college?” he asked.

“I said you wanted to, don’t you?”

“shit no, i’ll be lucky if i can get my GED, that shit’s hard.”

“But if I asked you right now if you want to go where rich, eighteen-year-old women congregate to drink heavily what would you say?”

“course.”

“Then I’m sticking by my statement that you want to go to college.”

“yeah but why the judge all up in my grill and shit?”

“He does that, don’t stress. You have my card, call if you need anything or if there’s a problem with the program.”

“oh yeah, my moms wanted me to ask if i have a criminal record.”

“Yes, you do, quite a one.”

“why?”

“ Why ? Man, how many times did we go over that before we took the plea? I told you, you have a record now and it stars a felony.”

“oh, but what does that mean?”

“It means you’re a fucking felon. All your future actions are felonious because taken by you. You can’t do certain things. You can’t vote, you can’t hold certain government jobs, can’t say you’re not a felon. Get it now?”

“but that gets sealed after a while right? if i stay out of trouble?”

“No it doesn’t, the only thing sealed is your fate. You’re a sixteen-year-old felon, for good. Well your age will I hope change.”

“oh.”

“What’s the face? You’re the same person you were before I told you that.”

“ can’t vote ?”

“Vote? What’s so fun about voting? You should never vote, everyone knows that. If you vote and your guy wins you can’t later complain because you helped put him there. That’s why I never vote, so I can later complain. Besides who were you going to vote for? The guy who ignores you or the one promising to build more jails for you as we speak.”

“…”

“And don’t even try using your record as an excuse either.”

“i’m not i just didn’t know all that.”

“Well you have to listen when I talk, it’s not all bullshit. We discussed all this to the point of nausea, mine, before you took the plea.”

“nah i remember.”

“Anything else?”

“nah, you know you got my boy T-Dog.”

“What does that mean?”

“you’re his attorney, he was picked up wednesday.”

“Let me guess, Terrens Lake.”

“yeah that’s him, i toll him you was real good, he’s all happy now.”

“Good, we’ll see how long that lasts.”

“that’s a cool suit too.”

“Okay.”

“good looking out b.”

“All right Malkum. Like I said, call if there are any problems. You know you can call even if there aren’t any, if you want to let me know how you’re doing or about anything else. You’re doing well.” That said I kind of tapped his shoulder and walked away making my way through the lobby.

Truth was I had to get away from that moment and in a hurry. It was that kind of bullshit social worker aspect of the job that had me ready to end it. I guessed that for the first time Malkum could feel the noose tightening around his neck and I was more than just a witness; I felt like the goddamned hangman.

Which reminded me of often being called on in school to be the Hangman. Which, as I viewed it, was a position completely bereft of any prestige. But Sister Whatever must have been keen on the way I drew the ill-fated stick-figure hangee. Or maybe the words I chose to have the other squirts guess at, every wrong answer bringing the poor stick soul closer to its demise. Until I figured out that the squirts would always call the same letters out first. And so if my word had those letters in sufficient number even they could correctly identify it before I could finish drawing the victim’s final limb. Making everyone happy.

Just outside the courthouse was a group of food vendors. Hot dogs, Italian sausage, and an actual line. I was on this line when a noisy group of fellow defense attorneys came by. Now I don’t know anybody who is actually happy but I’m forever coming across clustered people roaring at some knee-slapping hilarity I must have just missed. Just to the left of the group was Dane, the only person I knew who appeared capable of laughing from under a seriously furrowed brow and who somehow seemed to be simultaneously with and apart from the group. What I had to do then was kind of slink off the line to avoid letting on that I had forgotten about lunch. He broke off from his fellow revelers and came right at me.

“I just had the second best idea I’ve had since I made the mistake of becoming an attorney,” he said.

“On Rane?”

“No on lunch. Let’s go to Katz’s — easily the best deli in the free world.”

“Agreed but that’s all the way on Houston.”

“So what? We’ll jump in a cab.”

“No way, I have to go back to court after this.”

“So what do you propose?”

“Let’s do Little Italy,” I said and we did. Once we decided on the particular restaurant not a word was exchanged on the way there. For one thing it was so apocalyptically cold I wasn’t sure words could survive if released. For another my ear was acting up again putting me in no mood for idle chat.

What I did instead was make a mental list of the myriad diseases that could be responsible for that damn ear. It had to be Thrombocytopenia, that ticking time bomb I’d been waiting to feel detonate ever since I stole an adolescent glance at that fucking medical chart. My only inheritance. Oh yes, a brilliant piece of diagnostic reasoning I then thought. A blood disease with no possible connection to my ear. No, I would have to go to the place where they hand out official verdicts on things like ears. Tests would be ordered, the kind you can’t study for or cheat on. Then the grim, white-haired doctor would come in with a false air of professionalism and distracted eyes. Further tests. The passive voice would be used. My options discussed. Doctors stripped to their true function, estimates of time and pain.

As for any possible non-fatal causes I rejected them out of hand as I steeled myself for what would surely be an anticlimactic denouement. Then what? Then we arrived at the restaurant, a tiny, family-owned deal on Mulberry Street. Mobby cars parked bumper-to-bumper on both sides of Mulberry with disregard for the Italian-flag-colored hydrants. Eager waiters stood outside and tried to talk you into their restaurants with broken English while German tourists walked around with noses in their Fodor’s looking for the place that sells the best cannolis, filled right before their expectant eyeballs.

Dane insisted we sit at a big table, something about nothing being worse than eating all cramped. Once seated we would need conversation.