Ten minutes before his arraignment hearing, Winston was in a small holding cell behind the upstairs courtroom. Across from him sat his legal aid lawyer, Ms. Rachel Fisher. Rachel had the sniffles. As she leafed through the stack of Winston’s files, hawking and wiping her runny nose with the back of her hand, errant droplets of snot fell on his docket. “Mr. Foshay?” Winston grunted, offended and pleased she didn’t offer to shake his hand. “You got some record here. Because of your propensity to skip bail and miss court appearances the Criminal Justice Agency has decided your bail should be set at three thousand dollars. Since there’s no way you can afford that amount, I’ll try to get it reduced.”
“I can afford it.”
Rachel looked up with a snort. “You can? We’ll make a plea, then they’ll send you home,” she said with a lawyerly finality.
“Yeah, but I ain’t paying it. I need that money for other things.”
“Well, then no matter how you plead, there’s a chance you’ll be remanded to Rikers if you don’t post bail. I think if we plead guilty now to the cruelty charge the district attorney will drop the other counts without much of a fight. Possession of firearm — there’s no evidence of a firearm. The rest of these are bullshit. I think you’ll get four months max, maybe a fine. Maybe nothing.”
“I ain’t pleading guilty to shit. I ain’t done shit but get arrested.”
“But Mr. Foshay, you’re charged with a weapons violation and cruelty to an animal. Specifically the shooting of a pit bull”—the lawyer lifted a sheet of paper—“named Der Kommissar in the head, so they arrested you for something.”
“Nobody arrested me. I made a citizen’s arrest on myself because I needed to go to jail to take care of some business, but I ain’t done nothing.”
“You were arrested, but no crime was committed, per se?”
“No, I didn’t commit no crime, per se.”
“Per se.” Winston allowed the phrase to dangle on the tip of his tongue, enjoying its foreign tang. “ ‘Per se’? What language is that?”
“It’s Latin.”
Fighting to breathe through her clogged sinuses, Rachel tilted her head back. For the next five minutes she counseled Winston on the efficacy of making a guilty plea with her nose pointed to the ceiling. “Any questions, Mr. Foshay?”
“What’s the judge’s name?”
“Judge Weinstein.”
“He Jewish?”
“Yes, I believe he is.”
“Then I might got a chance. Maybe I’ll represent myself.”
“You want to make a fool out of yourself, too cheap to hire a lawyer or post bail, you go pro se, be my guest.”
“I don’t know about no pro se, but I arrested myself, and I’m going to represent myself. Shouldn’t be a problem. If I start losing I’ll just go Al Pacino in And Justice for All on them. Start screaming, ‘No, you’re out of order. In fact the whole system is out of order!’ ” The lawyer cleared her nasal passages with a loud sniffle, pinched her red-rimmed nostrils closed, and gathered her papers. “Fine, whatever,” she said. “Have you ever seen To Kill a Mockingbird?”
“Of course.”
“Then I suggest you do a Gregory Peck and charm the judge.”
Before she stood to leave, Winston grabbed her wrist. “Can you do like Gregory Peck and get an innocent nigger like me out the door?”
Rachel affected a southern drawl and asked Winston, “You ain’t raped any white women, have you, boy?”
Winston played along. “No, ma’am. Least not nones that’s lived to tell the tale.”
“Winston, did you shoot the dog?”
“Yes, but he tried to bite my son.”
“I’ll talk to the DA.”
As they entered the chambers Winston had a small panic attack when he remembered that in To Kill a Mockingbird, Gregory Peck lost the case.
Judge Weinstein was presiding, barricaded against the hordes of miscreants seated in front of him by a nameplate and a tall mahogany bench. The cases heard before Winston’s moved like clockwork. Lasting no longer than forty-five seconds, each arraignment moved efficiently down the assembly line. The conveyor belt of justice moved its manufactured goods, the defendants, from their courtroom seats to the front of the judge’s bench. The assistant district attorney looked at a sheet of paper, recited the charges, and recommended that bail be set at x amount. The defense lawyer cited a mitigating circumstance, such as the defendant’s being the sole provider for a destitute family, and requested the bail be reduced by a third. The prosecution would say the substantial bond was more than fair, since the defendant was a previous offender, a danger not only to law-abiding citizens of the community but to his own physical well-being. The judge would agree; the defendant would be stamped “Made in the USA” and shipped out on a bus to Rikers Island. During the paper shuffling between hearings, Judge Weinstein stuffed a transistor-radio earplug into one fleshy ear. He was listening to the Mets’ game.
The bailiff called Winston’s docket number and motioned for Winston to approach the bench. As he walked through the swinging gate, the balding magistrate pulled the earplug from his ear and said, “The Mets are up five to three in the bottom of the seventh. Jenkins just hit a two-run homer.” There was scattered applause from the pews. Winston could see Weinstein was pleased with the progress of the baseball game and took it as a good sign. The bailiff called Winston’s name. He and Rachel approached the bench. The district attorney read the long list of charges. Judge Weinstein paused and put the earplug in his ear for about ten seconds. “Two strikes to Henderson. Mr. Foshay, do you understand these charges against you.”
“Yes.”
“Then how do you plead?”
Winston looked at Rachel. Rachel looked at her watch. “Guilty.”
“My client means guilty to the animal cruelty charge, Your Honor.”
The DA announced that the people of New York would drop the remaining charges. Before he could be sentenced Winston blurted out, “The dog was attacking my son, Your Honor, he’s a baby.”
Weinstein lifted his glasses to get a better look at Winston. Somewhere in Queens a Met hit a line drive that caromed off the shortstop’s mitt and into center field. This one looks like Mookie Wilson, the judge thought. God, I loved Mookie.
“Mr. Foshay, what breed was the dog you shot?”
“That would be a dog of the pit bull variety, Your Honor.”
Judge Weinstein nodded his head. “Good, I hate those dogs. But Mr. Foshay, I’m concerned about the possession of an unregistered firearm.”
“That charge has been dropped, Your Honor,” Rachel said, forcing a phony smile.
“I know that, Counsel. But I’m more concerned with the gun than the dead dog.”
“No smoking gun, Your Honor,” Winston said.
“And if there had been a smoking gun?”
“I took the gun from a little girl so she wouldn’t hurt herself or nobody else with it.”
“Did you hurt anybody else with it?”