Sol Stein - Other people

To elicit sympathy for Wilson, the D.A. tried to get in testimony from him to the effect that he had been robbed twice before in the same year, but I objected, and the objection was sustained. Then I had my go at him.

"Mr. Wilson," I asked, "how tall are you?"

Up popped the D.A. muttering "irrelevant" and Judge Bracton told him to sit down. I said I would show it was a material line of questioning.

Wilson said he was six feet tall.

"Is that the height given on your driver's license?"

"Yes, it is."

"Mr. Wilson," I said, my eyes checking the judge to make sure he'd go along, "would you mind stepping off the stand and coming over here." I motioned him over to where I'd had a doctor's scale brought in, the kind that has an L-shaped measuring rod for height, too. Wilson was reluctant. He looked at the D.A., the D.A. looked at the judge, the judge nodded. Wilson stepped on the scale as if it was covered with broken glass and he had bare feet. I lowered the measuring rod till it brushed his skull.

"According to this," I said, "you're five feet ten inches. Does that mean your license application was false?"

Well, there was a flurry at the bench, but I had gotten my point across.

"Mr. Wilson," I said when he had returned to the stand, "you testified that the person who robbed you came out of the shadows near where your car was parked. Could you tell whether the robber had a moustache?"

"He didn't have no moustache."

"I see. Was he close enough for you to tell whether he was clean shaven, whether he had shaved that day or had a few days' growth?"

"I didn't notice that close."

"Could you tell if he had pimples or not?"

The judge had to quiet a titter among the spectators.

"I don't know. I didn't notice."

"What did you notice?"

"You know, a general impression of what he looked like."

"In the dark?" I shot a disbelieving look at the spectators. "Did you notice his height?"

"He was the same height as me."

"Is that six feet or five feet ten?"

I had gone for the laugh and gotten it.

"Mr. Wilson," I continued, "when you were taken to the lineup, how many men were in it?"

"Seven or eight."

"You sure it was seven or eight?"

Wilson was getting nervous. Actually, there were six people in the lineup, but I was saving that piece of information.

"Mr. Wilson, is it true that when you were asked if you saw the man who robbed you in the lineup, you said and I quote 'It was either him or him' and when a second later you learned that one of the hims was a police officer you settled for the other one, namely the defendant?"

Wilson looked at the D.A.

The judge told him to answer.

"That's the way it was," he said.

"No more questions."

They don't teach it to you in law school, but you'd damn well better latch on quick to the Rules of Human Tolerance. If someone exaggerates his height by a quarter or half an inch, people think what the hell. But two inches, that's more than vanity, it's perverse. And if you say you recognize somebody, you have to notice not Just the general configuration of a face, but some specific details.

My summation was brief. Wilson was held up in relative darkness, he hadn't really gotten a good look at the robber. In the station house, he hadn't been sure, he had guessed. You don't guess when people are accused of serious crimes. Wilson filled out a license application not erroneously, he had been willfully false. He was an unreliable witness, and there were no other witnesses. Connolly had been picked up not because there was anything linking him to this crime but because he'd been in trouble in the past. When arrested he had no paper bag full of money, no gun. I didn't blame the arresting officer for his zeal, I just pointed out that you can't go picking up suspects willy-nilly on the street. I said there were more reasonable doubts in this case than there were hard facts, the only hard fact was the one we stipulated, that Wilson had been robbed and hadn't merely hidden it somewhere to collect on the insurance. The jury was back in fifteen minutes with a not guilty verdict, which was no surprise to me or Wilson or the D.A. Only Connolly breathed a sigh of relief, probably because he did it.

At least I could still get it up in the courtroom.

I was standing at the urinal shaking the last drops out and thinking You bastard, you let me down, you ought to be cut off, when a voice from the next urinal says to me, "That was an easy one."

"Yeah," I said to the D.A., "that was an easy one."

Widmer bills his clients. You think I'd collect from guys like Connolly if I billed them?

"I'm very grateful to you," he said when I came out of the John.

His wife, a mouse he probably beat up on regularly, said, "I can't tell you how grateful we all are, Mr. Thomassy. It would be awful for the children if Charles went to jail again."

Charles . The formality was for my sake.

"What do I owe you?" he asked.

Your freedom, you jerk.

"The retainer covered all but five hundred," I said. The five thousand retainer was intended to cover all of it in case he got socked away. The five hundred extra was my tip for getting him off.

"I have it right here," he said. He peeled off ten fifties. I wondered if it was gas station money.

"You shouldn't carry that much cash with you," I said. "You might get robbed."

His wife laughed, but he shut her up with one look.

"Connolly," I said, motioning him away so his wife wouldn't hear. "You better stick to your job, period. Know what I mean?"

He nodded.

"I won't take you on for another armed robbery, understand."

"You won't have to. I'm staying clean. You were terrific."

That's my consolation. The threat of not defending him again might be more effective than any jail term. He'd have to make an honest living. Like me.

I wasn't used to self-hatred. I had my pecker to blame.

Can you imagine yourself famished, looking at a table laden with ripe fruit, and you can't get your mouth to work. I mean you actually bring a peach up to your mouth and it won't open, won't move, won't cooperate. You can't eat a peach intravenously, you need your mouth. I mean there's no other part of the body that behaves like a pecker with a mind of its own, an uncooperative, stubborn, unpersuadable prick. What is it telling me?

In high school and college I thought the trouble with men was that they were an army of erect penises marching around all day long looking for a home. You danced with a fellow and soon there was that stiffening coming between you and the idiot would look at you with a kind of how-can-I-help-it expression. They perform on signal like jumping dogs, touch it with a hand and it curves up like a banana head ready to take a bow. But when you need one, when you want one, not for its own sake but as the best last step in bringing you together with someone you want to be together with, and what do you get, a pathetic lump of overcooked pasta looking like it's ready to fall off its owner's body.

Now I appreciate the great advantage of a really skilled performance, the faked orgasm done so perfectly even you begin to believe it was more than an act. God was extra good to women, if it isn't working, you don't have to advertise failure, you just make believe, hypocrisy to the rescue, like in every other avenue of life a bit of fraud will see you through. I remember once I was faking it, and suddenly the real thing caught me by surprise. Poor men, an inborn lie detector hanging off each of them, ready to rat. To be betrayed by a friend is terrible, but to be betrayed by the organ you feel most protective about, treason!

The truth is: some part of him doesn't want me. Not that part of him, some other part. That part is just the message carrier. Jane yes. Rosemary yes. Edna yes. Francine no.