I walk the dog; the morning sky is a rich benevolent blue, filled with promise and opportunity. It’s overwhelmingly optimistic — in other words, it makes me nervous, sets the bar too high.
I dress for court and lunch in one of George’s charcoal-gray suits, a white shirt, and a blue tie. Blue seems more about justice than red, which signals aggression. An impending sense of doom is gnawing at me from the inside. I dress as best I can, putting deodorant not just in my armpits but in a thick line down the center of my chest, a ring around my lower back, as far up each side as I can reach. I’m a sweater — under duress I drip raindrops of stress; I can soak a shirt in two minutes.
In White Plains, I circle the Court House; there are “No Parking Anytime” signs posted everywhere. I end up parking at the Galleria shopping mall and walking through the mall.
Like all modern courthouses, this one is a characterless fortress, testament to paper pushing, bureaucracy, and the incipient insanity of our system. Going postal is no longer reserved for those who pledge that “Neither rain nor snow nor gloom of night would deter its couriers from their appointed rounds.” It’s become a kind of rite of passage: disgruntled employee returns and shoots boss, disgruntled wife kills kids, disgruntled husband wrecks car, kills strang-ers, and then kills wife. Hard not to be surprised, when the bulk of public conversation goes like this: “Paper or plastic?” The loss of the human touch scares me.
I approach expecting a media circus, TV trucks, satellite dishes — this is Amer-ica, everything is a circus. The fact that it is not a “scene,” no red carpet, just business as usual, is all the more unnerving. Is it still “real” if it’s not documented and delivered back to us in the media? Does anything have meaning if it’s not covered? And what does it say about me that I feel these events are not legitimate without a camera crew? Inside the building, an anonymous recording plays: “Welcome, please empty your pockets into the bins provided and pass through our screening process.”
Reflexively, the man ahead of me takes off his shoes.
The guard says nothing and simply ushers him through the metal detector, ignoring that he’s clutching his well-worn lugs close to his chest. Looking at the heels, I see he walks on the outsides of his feet — is that pronation or supination?
My turn. I dig deep into my pocket and throw my handful into the basket; it misses, splatters, nickels and dimes hitting the floor like shattering glass and rolling this way and that.
“Sir, please step to the side.”
“Is there a problem?” I ask
“Is there?” the guard repeats.
“I worry that I was too enthusiastic,” I say. “I’m a little nervous. My brother is coming today.”
“How exciting,” he says, giving me both the wand and the pat-down. “Do you want your money back?” he asks when he’s done; another guard has been walking in circles collecting my nickels, dimes, and quarters.
“Keep it,” I say.
“I can’t,” he says. “Either you take it or it goes in the bucket.” He tips his head towards an unmanned Salvation Army cauldron, like the kind Santa minds in season.
“Bucket,” I say. And then, as I’m repacking my pockets, I ask. “Am I being treated specially?”
“We treat everyone specially.”
I’m taking all of this far too personally, as though I’m the one who’s on trial. I locate the courtroom, which I mistakenly call a classroom when asking for directions. It’s half empty, with activity of a low-key preparatory sort, papers changing hands, people milling about. It’s like watching stagehands getting ready for a scene. The system is a bastardized construction, vaguely English, surreal, and reeking of American culture, fast food, and an absence of style — the clerks and officers of the court are fat and poorly dressed. The room itself is ugly and not well maintained; you get the feeling no one is feeling any love for this place — it’s more like a bus station than a place you’d hold in high esteem.
So there I am, expecting media, press, people fighting to get in, and instead it’s a big nothing. A man with a beer belly takes notes on what we used to call a steno pad, and a woman wearing what Mother would call a shmatte is doing the same. When the case is finally called, George and his lawyer enter through a side door and take their places. I am in the third row, looking at George from the back. George turns and glances at me; he looks dull, puffy, medicated. Various formalities are run through, a kind of recap of where we are and how we got to this point. In the middle of it all, George makes a sound, like the grunt of a rhinoceros about to charge; it’s disconcerting, but no one says anything. The lawyers continue. I drift in and out, perking up when I hear someone from the DA’s office say, “Long story short — we’re dropping the charges with respect to the fatal traffic accident.” He reads from a prepared statement: “Independent investigation corroborates defense assertion of known manufacturer fault. Manufacturer is documented to have failed to notify consumers in a timely fashion. In the twelve months prior to this accident, manufacturer received numerous claims about failure, hesitation, and issues relating to the brakes, including inconsistency of brake application. Evidence obtained confirms that in fact the brakes on the defendant’s car were of the same type as those found to be faulty and that the defendant at the time of the accident stated to officers on the scene that he, quote, ‘tried to stop but the car kept going.’ Defendant has a clean driving record, and in the end it is our belief that the accident was the fault of the vehicle and not the operator. We feel our resources are best spent pursuing the manufacturer, and to that end papers have been filed.”
Am I hearing what I think I’m hearing — George is off the hook for the car accident?
“So, with regard to the accident, you’re dropping all charges against Mr. Silver?” the judge asks for clarification.
“Yes, sir, we are dropping all charges related to the car accident, noting insufficient evidence to proceed.”
The only people who seem surprised are George and me.
“This is ridiculous,” George says loudly. “I am a guilty man, more guilty than you can possibly imagine. I want to be punished.”
“I second the motion,” I call loudly from the audience.
“Order in the court,” the judge demands, banging his gavel. “What you want is irrelevant, Mr. Silver. This is a court of justice. Until further notice and or any change in condition or circumstance that would warrant a revisiting of the placement, Mr. Silver is to be returned to the custody of The Lodge.”
George turns to face me. “Thanks for backing me up,” he says, as one of the “staff”—bullies from The Lodge — leads him out of the room.
I find one of George’s lawyers by the water fountain. “I’m Ordy,” he says, shaking my hand, “we spoke last night.”
“It’s all so strange,” I say. “Did you see this coming?”
“If we did, we’d be psychics, not lawyers. There are reasons people hire us: we did good investigative work on this.”
“But he did it, it was his fault. I was there; I talked to him the night of the accident.”
“It doesn’t really matter what George said. The brakes were faulty and the manufacturer had knowledge.”
“I picked him up at the jail; he was not himself that night.”
“He is who he is — the fingerprints match.”
“He killed his wife.”
“About some things only time will tell,” he says, wiping his lips with the back of his hand.
“I have no doubt,” I say. “I saw it happen; he hit her on the head with a lamp.”
“Is that so?” The lawyer looks at me. “Maybe it was really you — maybe you hit his wife on the head and are blaming him?”