Sergio De La Pava - A Naked Singularity

And you’re sick. You’re sick and your T-cell count is in like the teens and your mouth bleeds at inappropriate times and you didn’t know you were positive, although it wasn’t exactly a shock either, until those six days when your lawyer said something about medical attention then a doctor saw you and took blood and checked a lot of boxes for high-risk behavior then later told you it was bad, the blood. Now you are perceptibly wasting away with what look like white Rorschach inkblots on your face and have no stomach for a risky trial or prison sentence and instead just want the case to somehow disappear. Which it sort of does because after talking to the judge your lawyer tells you that because you are so sick you are being offered a special deal by the judge whereby you plead guilty and are promised the minimum sentence but your sentencing is deferred indefinitely while you provide intermittent updates on your medical condition until such time as… and then his voice kind of trails off as the two of you silently contemplate the obvious eventual ending of the litigation.

But these still become something like good times. For one, without the Damoclean sword of a potential trial and consequent state bid hanging over your head you actually start to feel better. You feel better and you play better and you stop with the junk and your sister lets you live with her as long as you continue to stop with the junk. You even start to semi consistently play Jimmy’s of all places and even though drinks are free for the band you drink club sodas with lime all night. You tell your lawyer he should come and watch one night. Then things really get better when you get switched doctors and you get Dr. Weintraub who puts you on a cocktail, which you think is a funny name considering everything, and your T-cells go up like a lot and his letters to the court don’t seem so dire and Judge Hilton, like the hotel, still smiles when she sees you every couple months and everything just seems so much quieter now.

But imagine that one day Judge Hilton is not there and she won’t be back and instead it is Judge Cymbeline who will now preside as they say. The medical reports don’t look so dire she says with slit-wrist serenity and adds that she disagrees with Judge Hilton. That she wouldn’t have given you such a big break. This Dr. Weintraub sounds almost optimistic she says. Why can’t you go to prison now that you’re feeling better? After all hasn’t it been eight months since you took the plea and yet there’s your heart still pumping, your compromised blood still flowing. That was not the deal. Your improving health requires that you be incarcerated and she’s ready to do so. Imagine all that.

I did and remembered that after we dodged that bullet on the previous court date I had informed Soldera and his counselor, with uncertain terms decidedly not present, that he should get sicker if he wished to avoid going to prison. Preferably, I strongly suggested, he would be in the hospital, his home away from home and the only place that offered true amnesty, the next time he was supposed to be in court. So I fully expected to be greeted by a duly-appointed representative who would give me the good news of Raul’s hospitalization along with a little supporting documentation. But instead there was Raul himself, in the audience and smiling.

He stood and came to me. Raul was all eyes; they dominated his face as if his body had been reduced to its barest essential, seeing obstacles and getting out of their way.

“Good to see you but I was hoping you’d be in the—”

“I’m doing good. The new doctor is more better. He’s got me on the cocktail and—”

“That’s great but I’m worried that—”

“He give me this letter to give to the judge.”

I looked at the numbers quickly. “The problem is this judge,” I said. “When your condition improves she gets impatient and—”

“What’s she going to do? Is she?”

“I don’t know. Remember I told you last time that she can put you in jail to serve the 1½ to 3 if she—”

“But the other judge said—”

“That judge is gone Raul. Cymbeline’s in charge of the case now and she can decide—”

“But you said—”

“I said that precisely this could happen. Damn it Raul, why didn’t you do what I said? I was very—”

“Am I going to jail today?”

I thought of Ah Chut and The Pledge. “No I’ll keep you out of jail. But next time either do what I say or tell your doctor to write more pessimistic letters!”

“Okay.”

“I’m glad you’re doing well and I’m sorry about this but—”

“Can I make a call while we’re waiting to go in front of the judge?”

“Yeah but don’t take too long. It doesn’t look very busy in there.”

I went inside the courtroom and signed in Soldera’s case. I sat and watched Cymbeline and her Cheshire-grinned marionettes torture the lost like powerful boxers toying with overmatched opponents. After some time I realized Soldera hadn’t come back so I went out to the hall to look for him.

I didn’t see him.

I went back in and crossed his name off the list.

Then I went back out and looked for him some more. Nothing.

He had disappeared.

The golden favor was a big one, catching a misdemeanor all-purpose part for an alleged afternoon hour prior to my death penalty meeting. In Manhattan there were five such parts with all-purpose code for nothing meaningful gets done but the nothing takes all day. Misdemeanors that had been arraigned but not disposed of were sent to these parts to take care of all pretrial matters. The parts typically handled about a hundred and twenty cases a day and did so with maximum confusion and disarray. In theory, the attorney on each of those cases would appear in the part to handle the case. Like most such theories, this one had little to do with reality. Reality was catch, the catcher, and catch notes . Each day an attorney was assigned to catch one of the parts, that person being the catcher. If the assigned attorney was unable to cover his case in one of these parts he would write a catch note that would tell the catcher what needed to be done on the case. The catcher would then cover the case to the satisfaction of no one. The client was usually unhappy because where the hell was his attorney and when was client’s case going to be called? The judge wasn’t thrilled because the catcher knew nothing about the case aside from vague jottings on a piece of paper. The catcher was least happy because he was fucking catching and more demeaning and horrifying task had yet to be invented.

So there I was sifting through a pile of hieroglyphic notes and doing my best to ignore an increasingly-agitated audience. Linda was there too.

“You know why you’re catching?”

“Gold asked me.”

“Know why?”

“No.”

“Diane Zale refused to catch.”

“Doesn’t the schedule say Larry Halloran is supposed to be here.”

“Where’ve you been? He quit weeks ago. Diane was the reserve but she refused to come in and catch.”

“What does that mean?”

“Well Conley informed her that she was the reserve and she informed him that she refused to catch. Then Swathmore went and talked to her and she said the same thing.”

“To Tom?”

“Yup.”

“And he said what?”

“You’re fired.”

“Is that even allowed in this place?”

“No there’s already talk of a rescission,” she laughed. “The union’s negotiating and they’re hinting about a sick-out on Tuesday.”

“Aren’t you broken up you’re leaving? You’ll miss all the fun.”

“No I think I’m leaving just in time.”

“Soon you’ll be pressuring earnest bright-eyed couples to buy homes they can’t afford. You know the ones near railroad tracks that you couldn’t resell with a gun.”