Sergio De La Pava - A Naked Singularity

The next morning I stood up prepared to take my rightfully lofty place in the universe of mortal achievement. The whole thing would take twenty-two minutes. Twenty-odd minutes and I would float out of that courtroom to compose my resignation and start looking for other fields to conquer. And so it went, with everything proceeding as planned until I neared a dramatic pause I had installed near the end. I’d decided that the pause would go on just a little too long to be comfortable in order to create some of the purposeful imperfection I spoke of earlier. The problem was that when it came time to come out of the pause I couldn’t fucking remember what came next! I stood there looking at these fucking jurors knowing that every second that passed my dream — the word dream is woefully inadequate here, it was a fucking obsession, a life and death need —was slipping away. When too much time had passed for me to possibly reconcile I felt my actual heart being squeezed and lost my breath. Then I slammed my hand down on the podium screamed damnation and sat the hell down.”

“Why? You could’ve just played it off. Easily too. Someone like you? Nobody would’ve known the difference.”

“Too late, I knew. I knew I had failed. I had to abide by the conditions I’d imposed on myself. I had to be honest or else the whole thing would reduce to mere charade. I knew this particular imperfection hadn’t been planned. It was a mistake. An error beyond my control. Imperfection at a time when my every action was geared toward the pursuit of perfection and what could be more demoralizing? I credit myself for not having immediately broken down into tears. I was furious. At myself. At life. At my lot to be no better than anyone else.”

“What happened?”

“I just told you.”

“I mean the verdict.”

“They acquitted him in like nine minutes but who cared at that point? I bailed out of there in record time. The jurors wanted to talk to me, probably to ask what had gotten me so angry. I went into my office and barred the door. I had a dartboard in my office back then and I spent the rest of the afternoon trying to hit the bull’s-eye with my eyes closed. When I finally did I went home and drank. A lot.”

“Damn, you needed maybe some perspective. You tried a case probably better than anybody else ever has and as a result you got an almost instantaneous acquittal on a dead case.”

“Listen don’t get me wrong. I’m way over it now. But what happened in that courtroom that morning was nothing short of devastating. I had trouble coping. I looked for ways to atone. I thought about writing a perfect appeal. What I found in my preliminary investigation is that writing is an often unsatisfying process even more fraught with error.”

“Fuck yeah.”

“The rest of my practice had gone to shit too. My other clients barely knew my name and I somehow felt bad about this. Acting like such a responsible attorney on the Barnes case made me actually feel like the responsible attorney I was emulating. I wasn’t able to separate the two. Seemed my actions determined my internal state more than the inverse and this new responsible internal state was devastated by the neglect I had visited on my other clients. I was lost. I hadn’t expected to still be doing this job. I spoke to a friend of mine at the time about my predicament. I told her what had happened and why it had me in a tailspin. She was a generally useless person this friend but she said one thing that stuck in my head and which finally allowed me to move on, to set my sights elsewhere. She said I was absolved of all blame because my project stemmed from crime and was therefore doomed to imperfection. In other words, the natural or perfect order of things is law-abidingness and because criminality deviates from this it is inherently imperfect. This imperfection then necessarily taints any attempts at perfection such as mine that stem from crime. Now a greater crock of shit than this is hard to envision but it got me thinking about the nature of crime and for that I am grateful.”

“Grateful why?”

“Let me put it this way. Have you ever imagined what your performance would be like if you were suddenly cast in a different role than defense attorney? I have lost cases, though thankfully not many. That said, I am certain that if I was a DA, with the advantages attached to that position, the greatest being the ability to exercise a great deal of control over which cases go to trial, I would never lose a case.”

“ Never might be too strong a word but in general I agree.”

“What this means is that being a prosecutor is an easier job when the job is defined as the successful acquisition of legal victories. So if you define perfection in one instance as never losing a trial, having a perfect trial record, the prosecution of criminal cases is more susceptible to perfection, whether attainable or not, than criminal defense. Now turn your attention to our clients whose job, so to speak, is to successfully commit crimes. Success obviously involves evading prosecution so in one sense all of our clients are already imperfect failures. Have you ever envisioned yourself, or a comparable other, seriously engaged in the practice of crime? How difficult is the criminal’s job in relation to others in the criminal justice system? Well one thing that seems true about crime as a profession is that you far more often see the types of errors that boggle the mind in their stupidity. So you hear about the bank robber who writes the demanding note on his personal stationery. Or the defendant who wears the proceeds of his larcenous activity, unique lizard-skin boots, to the trial on those charges.”

“Or the defendant representing himself who asks the complainant in an identification case whether or not she got a good look at him !”

“Or the robber who parks his getaway car in a tow-away zone with predictable results.”

“Or the guy who stumbles onto a movie set and surrenders to actors portraying cops only to be held for later arrest by the real thing.”

“You get the idea. Is there something about crime that makes not only perfection but simple competence such a challenge? I’ve done my research and it does appear that crime gives rise to a higher incidence of error than your average process. Nonetheless, I think that the commission of a perfect crime is possible and I view crime’s imperfect nature as a challenge which can potentially create a higher order of perfection. More importantly, what ultimately proved therapeutic to me and what has taken me to the crossroads I’m at today is the notion that I can kill all of the birds currently fluttering about my head with one large beautiful stone. Incidentally, these birds also circle yours so you’d do well to listen attentively.”

“What?”

“What?”

“What do you mean?”

“What?”

“What birds?”

“Oh, these birds. For one, although I’m by no means poor, I have nowhere near the amount of money I want or deserve. That’s exacerbated by the fact that in my current condition I need to quit my job soon. Of course, for you matters are far more pressing.”

“What do you know about it?”

“Second, there’s the matter of my fascination with the Perfect and my consequent need to achieve perfection vis-à-vis becoming Godlike and so forth.”

“A fascination I don’t share.”

“Nonsense. I seem to recall you saying that what makes a caper compelling is the idea that you can execute it without flaw. Sufficient planning and intelligence were I believe referred to.”

“That’s fantasy.”

“How many trials you done?”

“I don’t know.”

“Come on, how many jury trials have you done alone or as lead attorney?”