Sergio De La Pava - A Naked Singularity

“No,” she laughed. “You’re bad.”

I would’ve thought we were done then but she just kind of hung around the table there until I felt compelled to create more noise.

“So why are you splitting?”

“I’ve been here a decade and that seems like enough. It’s draining to me. Every day dealing with people who are in so much trouble,” she gestured to the audience for empirical support. “I know that sounds silly but it’s true. I think it does something to a person to constantly deal with people who have made a mess out of their lives don’t you?”

“I guess.”

“See, you guess , but I know . That’s the difference. I’m not like you, I don’t have the stomach for this job. No I’m serious, I’ve seen you. You get sent out to trial you get excited, you like it. When I get sent out I get sick, literally. I just don’t want this to be a part of my life anymore, I want to go back to the real world.”

“Everyone gets nervous when they get sent out, that doesn’t mean anything.”

“I’m not talking about normal nerves here, I’m talking about terror. The first time I did a trial I’m about four months out of law school, twenty-six years old. I remember looking at my client and thinking am I really the attorney for this guy? It was petrifying to me to realize that it was really me who was in charge of this guy’s defense. The first time I spoke during that trial I heard the words as if they came from another person, a very nervous person. After the trial I told my supervisor about this feeling I’d had and how it lasted throughout the entire trial. She said it was normal and would go away through experience. Well it’s all these years later and I still get that feeling every time I pick up a serious case that doesn’t look like it’s going to plead out.”

“Wow, that’s not good.”

“Uh, no. That’s why I’m going to be worrying about mortgages and annual percentage rates from now on. I’m telling you this job’s not healthy. You know I watched Lee Graham faint in court from the pressure. He’s like me he’s—”

“Wait, you were there?”

“Yeah, I was his second-seat.”

“Pray tell.”

“Really?”

“You’re surprised?”

“I guess it’s okay right? Anyway, it was an attempted murder where our guy was made an offer just prior to starting trial. So we spent the whole morning trying to talk the guy into a plea but he was adamant about going forward. Now when you have a disease you know the symptoms, and when someone with the same affliction comes along you’re quick with the diagnosis. I’m looking at Lee and I’m totally seeing the signs. For one thing he’s begging this guy to take the plea. I mean actual begging. It was very uncomfortable. He’s doing this even though the guy didn’t really have a bad case and the offer wasn’t very good at all. Well the guy doesn’t take the plea and we’re supposed to start picking. Lee was literally green at this point. He was like shaking and stammering. He started telling the judge he couldn’t start. The judge is like you’re starting and calls for a jury. That’s when Lee fainted. I had never seen an actual person faint before, have you? It’s not like in the movies where the person gracefully falls perfectly backwards. The way Lee fainted it was as if all his bones had been suddenly suctioned out of his body.”

“Then what?”

“The case was adjourned and on the next date the guy took a plea. I suppose the fainting unnerved him.”

“Nobody’s fool he.”

“No, we told everyone Lee had been feeling ill but if you were there the real reason he fainted was obvious. Don’t tell anyone. I saw the writing on the wall though. That would be me someday so I think I should get out before someone gets hurt. So I’m leaving.”

Just then a burly court officer asked me to talk to a guy in the back who was making a commotion. The guy was in on a fugitive warrant from North Carolina. He’d been popped for having an open container of beer in the park. The police ran his information and found a warrant from North Carolina for a rape case. He was remanded (held without bail) in anticipation of North Carolina authorities picking him up and extraditing him back to their jurisdiction to face their version of justice. He had been in two weeks he said. But it wasn’t him; he had never been to North Carolina. He was a different Edward Hill. He was a good one. Why was it taking so long? His lawyer said it would be straightened out when they compared his prints to those of the NC Hill. His lawyer was Solomon Grinn and his note to me was consummately useless.

When I came out from the back Linda was gone. Realizing it was for good kind of made me sad and sad in a way that was completely out of proportion to our relationship since we’d never really spoken much until arraignments the night before. This was one of my many problems. I could barely know someone — even border on disliking them — but if I then knew I was never going to see them again, those last few moments could make me pretty sad. For two years I barely exchanged words with Linda. Then two minutes before her final exit she opened her skull in front of me, as if I cared, to reveal that what I thought was gutless was gut-wrenching instead. I did Hill’s case and a few others then my replacement arrived. Was I aware why we’d been pressed into duty he was asking but I was busy staring out the window:

The window is a vertical rectangle showing an alley’s airspace. Beyond it stir a great many white circles but out there the world’s been inverted so that snow falls up. The circles appear from behind the bottom glass then rise, circuitously but inexorably, until out of all view, ascending from the littered street like loosed souls seeking heaven.

I was late for that death penalty meeting and when I walked into the conference room the speaker looked at me and stopped speaking, a formidable opponent to any stealthy entrance. I caught up. There were five groups of three attorneys each. Each group would work on the appeal of an Alabama death sentence. A member of the group would go to Alabama to meet with the client. The group would write and file a brief on the appellant’s behalf and a member of the group would argue its merits before the appropriate Alabama appellate court.

My teammates were Melvyn Toomberg and Joe Ledo with our work product incredibly due in what felt like hours. The other catch was that after signing up to be part of our group, Ledo had subsequently quit about a week back. He had gone to Hollywood where he would write scripts with fame and fortune to follow meaning our three was two. Although Toomberg was more like one and a half there being no room in his cranium for anything other than The Law and his office therefore constantly housing a line of people hoping to hear his take on a legal issue which take he always preceded with a don’t quote me although you could do just that as he was always right.

We got the files that day including a complete transcript of the trial. I rifled through it: Twenty-two-year-old Jalen Kingg it said. Sentenced to death it added quickly. Melvyn and I were of like mind. We would read over the weekend and talk on Monday.

As I walked out I saw Solomon Grinn who had been with the office seemingly before there was a right to counsel. The only thing skinny on this clown was his beard.

“You have a guy Edward Hill?”

“Yeah what’s going on? He get picked up?”

“Picked up? He says it’s not him.”

“Oh that’s right. He’s probably full of shit but I did put that on the record at arraignments. He wouldn’t waive extradition so now they have to get a Governor’s warrant to get him back to South—

“North.”