Lay Your Sleeping Head

by Michael Nava

  “How would that work?”

  He frowned. “Gay sex equals disease. I mean, if we’re not shoving gerbils up our asses, we’re giving each other cancer. As if most of us don’t already have enough shame and guilt to work through.” He gulped his Scotch. “Sorry, stuff like that gets me on my soapbox. How was your day?”

  As I told him about my meeting with Terry Ormes and Sonny Patterson, the awkwardness returned. Not that Grant was anything other than sympathetic and interested, but on the subject of Hugh he listened from a distance of time and feeling while for me Hugh was still present and my feelings for him still raw. Yet, I was also undeniably attracted to Grant and I knew he liked me. A lot.

  “It sounds complicated,” he said when I finished.

  “Translate that into Latin and you’ve got the Linden family motto,” I said. We were sitting on the couch. He began to massage my neck with his big, strong fingers. “Do you know about the Chinese railroad workers?”

  “I don’t think so,” he said.

  “Grover Linden and his pals brought twelve thousand of them to build the transnational railroad. Recruited them from villages all over China, shipped them across the ocean to a place that must have seemed as distant and strange to them as the moon. They died by the hundreds. Their friends buried them in temporary graves and after the railroad was built, they dug up the bones and sent them back to China, to be buried with their ancestors. Ten tons of bones, Grant. That’s what Grover Linden built his railroad on.”

  He stopped squeezing my neck. “Would it have been better if it hadn’t been built, Henry?”

  “He could have done it with a little less suffering,” I said.

  “You would think that,” he said. “That’s one reason I admire you.”

  “Not following,” I said.

  “I’ve never suffered, Henry. Dealing with being gay is the closest I’ve come and that was a cakewalk compared to a lot of stories I’ve heard. But you know suffering first hand, don’t you?”

  “Suffering is not a virtue, Grant. It tends to maim people, like Hugh.”

  “Or deepen their compassion,” he said. “Like you.”

  “Don’t make me out to be a saint or anything like that,” I said. “I’m as screwed up as the next guy. I’d just like a world where people don’t treat each other as the means to an end.”

  He rested his hand on my neck and asked. “What did you want to do about dinner?”

  “This,” I said, and kissed him.

  Later in his bed, after sex. He’d switched off the lamp, casting us into darkness like a raft adrift on a slow-moving stream. We were turned toward each other. Grant’s breath grazed my chin. The coarse hairs on his legs abraded my thigh when he dragged his leg between mine. I gripped his bicep, hard and round and warm and kissed him, softly, because we had gone at each other hard.

  “I have this little game,” he said, his voice husky from sex.

  “Uh-oh,” I said. “Where is this going?”

  “No, listen. The first time I meet someone, the way I know whether I’m going to like them is that I try to imagine them as a child.”

  “Explain.”

  He pulled me closer, our chests touching. “Don’t you remember when you were a little boy and you saw another kid for the first time. You didn’t know who he was or where he lived or what his dad did for work. You start playing with him and if you liked the way he played, he became your friend. Simple as that. It’s the same principle. Before I know anything else about you, I have to know, do I want to play with you?”

  “Did you want to play with me?”

  He ran his tongue lightly along my cheek and up to my earlobe and whispered, “From the moment I saw you.”

  “I like playing with you too,” I said.

  He pulled away a bit at that but grinned to hide his disappointment.

  Ormes and I provided Sonny Patterson with everything we had gathered on the deaths of Christina and Jeremy Paris. I called Katherine Paris and explained where we had left the matter with Patterson, thanking her again for consenting to the second autopsy. She told me she had returned to Boston with Hugh’s body and buried him. I carried that image with me on my runs through campus, now alive with students returning for the new school year. They made me feel old and I had to wonder what I was still doing in Linden ten years after graduating from law school. Admittedly, Linden was the first home I had chosen for myself after throwing off the fetters of my family and it had provided me with stability and peace. But maybe it was time to leave the nest. And go where? And do what?

  I spent time with Grant and it was easy time. Unlike Hugh, Grant seemed free of shadows. But then, I had enough shadows for both of us. He coaxed them out of me, gently but persistently. I found myself telling him things I’d never told anyone. I even told him about the death penalty case that had driven me from the law.

  My client, Eloy Garza, was charged with the grotesque rape, mutilation and murder of a middle-aged nurse in her suburban home in a quiet neighborhood. He was a Chicano handyman, she was an ER nurse. He had a long record of prior offenses, including a prior rape conviction that the judge allowed into evidence to demonstrate a pattern of conduct. Over my objection, the court allowed the prosecutor to dismiss the only two Chicano prospective jurors with peremptory challenges. Again and again, at gratuitous length, the prosecutor emphasized the brutality of the murder, the vulnerability of the victim and Eloy’s prior rape conviction. My objections were consistently overruled by a judge who had himself been a prosecutor. Helplessly, I watched the prosecutor instill into the jurors a primal fear and anger.

  “This could have happened in your neighborhood,” he argued. “Miss McDonnell could have been your neighbor. Your friend. Your sister, or aunt or mother.”

  “Objection, Your Honor.”

  “Overruled. Continue, counsel.”

  When I stood up to give my closing argument, I knew by the crossed arms and hostile stares that I had already lost them.

  One morning I picked up the local paper and read on the front page that Eloy Garza had been given the death penalty. I called Mike Burton, my ex-boss, to tell him I would sign a declaration saying my representation had been incompetent if that would help on appeal.

  “Well, sure, Henry, we’re going to have to argue ineffective assistance. You called the jury a lynch mob. I think we can assume that prejudiced them against the defense in the penalty phase. But listen, I read the reporter’s transcript of the guilt phase. Between the judge and the prosecutor there was no fucking way our guy had any chance at acquittal. They double-teamed you from day one. Don’t worry about the appeal, we have plenty of ammunition.”

  “I should have—”

  “Should have what, Henry? You did a good job but you were pissing against the wind. I wish you hadn’t lost it there at the end, though. I also wish you hadn’t quit. If you want to come back, we can talk about that.”

  “Thanks, Mike.”

  “Listen to me, Henry,” he said. “Racism is part of the social climate and so is fear of crime, especially violent crimes committed by strangers, stuff people believe they can’t protect themselves against. Add to that a biased judge and a gung-ho DA, and you walked into the perfect storm on this case.”

  “Eloy was innocent, I should have got him off.”

  Mike said, “The case isn’t over yet. We have years of appeals ahead of us, and if we lose, then, yeah, maybe the state will end up executing an innocent man. That’s on the state. The thing you have to ask yourself is this. If you’re in the business of saving people, are you going to let the next one die because you weren’t able to save the last one?”

  Even with Valenzuela pitching, the Dodgers were losing to the Giants at Chavez Ravine. I watched Valenzuela leave the game with mixed emotions. I wanted the Giants to win and keep their post-season hopes alive but, like every other Chicano baseball fan, I’d been caught up in Fernandomania. In a perfect world, he’d be playing for the Giants. The Dodgers fans were
giving him a round of applause—he’d kept the game close—and there were cries of “Toro, Toro.” I thought he was built less like a bull than a luchador, big-bellied and massively strong. My father loved the luchadores and for a while, before he decided to disown me, he would take me to the Mexican movie theater in our farm town to watch luchador movies where Mil Máscaras and Tinieblas and El Santo would battle mummies and space aliens. We shared popcorn and I drank orange soda while he sipped the beer he had told me to hide in my coat. My dad. The hardest part of having a father who had come to hate you was the memory that he had once loved you. I picked up the beer bottle on the coffee table. Budweiser. His brand. I emptied the bottle in a swallow and turned my attention back to the game. The Dodgers had called up a new, young leftie from the bullpen. His name was stitched on the back of his jersey, DeLeon. I watched him give up back to back home runs.

  The phone rang. I grabbed it.

  “Henry,” a voice slurred. “ ’s Aaron.”

  “Aaron. You drunk?”

  “Never mind that. Need to see you. You got it all wrong.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Not over the phone. Come over. Need to tell you.”

  The urgency in his voice cut through the alcohol and alarmed me. “You calling from home?”

  “Mmm, home,” he said. “Need to talk to you.” The phone seemed to fall from his hand and then the line went dead.

  Aaron lived in a small house set back from the street by a big yard shaded by two massive oak trees. His black BMW was crookedly parked in the driveway. Lights were on behind the drawn curtains and I could hear the last inning of the Dodgers-Giants game on his television. I stood at the front door, about to knock, when I heard an explosion inside the house. I pulled at the door but it was locked. Then I pounded on it and called his name. The back door slammed shut as someone ran past me. I glanced over my shoulder and saw a dark figure scaling the fence that separated Gold’s yard from his neighbor. I ran toward him and grabbed his left foot, trying to pull him down. He gave me a startled, angry look, then lifted a gloved hand and began flailing it at me. Something heavy, hard and metal smashed into my skull. I let go of his leg and collapsed on the ground. I heard an object drop with a thud beside me as he scrambled over the fence. I sat up and saw the gun he had hit me with. Black, .22 caliber. Still dazed, I picked it up, pulled myself to my feet and went around the back of Gold’s house. I let myself in through the unlocked kitchen door.

  “Aaron!”

  Nothing.

  I followed the sound of the television to the living room where Aaron was slumped back in his armchair with a bullet hole just above his right eye. On the table beside him was an empty Jameson bottle and a half-filled glass. Outside a siren, the sound of a car jerking to a stop and then someone at the front yelling, “Police. Open up.”

  Numbly I went to the door and pulled it open. Three cops crowded the porch. One of them shouted, “He’s got a gun,” and in an instant, three revolvers were aimed at my head.

  “Drop it,” the first cop said.

  I dropped the gun. “My friend’s been shot,” I said.

  I no sooner got the words out than I was slammed against the doorpost, handcuffed and dragged to one of the two patrol cars parked in front of Aaron’s house. A moment later, the paramedics arrived.

  By then, I’d been pushed into the back seat of the patrol car and was having my rights read to me. The whole thing was surreal.

  “Do you understand these rights as I have read them to you?”

  The cop’s harsh tone cut through my confusion.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Do you want to speak to a lawyer?”

  “I want to talk to Sonny Patterson in the DA’s office.”

  The cop gave me a surprised look. “You know Patterson.”

  “Yes, I’ll talk, but only to him.”

  ELEVEN

  I stood in the sally port until the steel door rolled back with a clang and then stepped into the jail. My hands were cuffed and my head throbbed. The deputy in the control room stared as I passed through to booking. It was my old friend Novack.

  “What the hell?” he said, storming out of the room.

  The officers who had brought me in stopped. One of them—Jackson? No, Johnson—said, “What?”

  “Do you know who this is? He’s a lawyer. A PD.” He looked at me. “What’s going on here, Henry?”

  “He’s under arrest for a one eighty seven,” Johnson said, using the penal code section number for murder. “Caught him with the gun in his hand and the vic sitting in a La-Z-Boy with a hole in his head.”

  Before he could respond, Novack was distracted by the phone ringing in the control room. He went to answer it, closing the glass door behind him. Johnson and his partner jostled me toward booking. Novack held up his hand, gesturing them to stop. We watched him listen, nod, and briefly speak. He came out again.

  “That was the sheriff,” he said. “The DA is on his way. In the meantime, he goes into a holding cell.”

  “After we book him,” Johnson said.

  “You’ll book him when I say you book him,” Novack said. “You two start your paperwork. I’ll take him from here.”

  Johnson shrugged. “He’s all yours.”

  “Cuffs,” Novack reminded them. Johnson uncuffed me. Novack took me by the elbow and guided me through the familiar rooms to the holding cells. They were empty. “Looks like you got your choice, Henry. What’s it going be? The presidential suite or the honeymoon special?”

  “Hey, anywhere I lay my hat is home.”

  He opened the cell door. “I don’t know what shit you got yourself into, but it’s deep if I have the sheriff calling me and Sonny Patterson on his way.”

  “It’s not what it looks like,” I said.

  He locked the door and laughed. “You know how many times I’ve heard that before? Do I need to take your belt and shoelaces?”

  “Give me a break,” I said. “Thanks for the hospitality.”

  He smirked. “I pride myself on it.”

  There were two bunks in the cell. I sat down on one of them and looked around. Cells looked different when you were on the wrong side of the bars. Smaller, much smaller. The strong antiseptic the trusties poured down the metal toilet did not completely conceal the smell of piss. The concrete floor shone dully in the dim light and I imagined I could make out a faint groove where thousands of inmates before me had paced the room waiting for a lawyer or a meal or to make bail. Hugh might have been in one of these cells. That night seemed so long ago, but it had only been four months since the deputies had brought him into the interview room and my life had changed. My head hurt. I touched the spot where I’d been hit with the gun. It was tender and a little damp. I examined my finger. Blood. I considered calling Novack, but if I told him I was injured, they’d have to take me to a hospital and I’d miss Patterson. Better to tough it out. Blood. Aaron’s blood. Aaron was dead. I lay down on the bunk and closed my eyes for a minute.

  A voice called me out of a dark dream. When I opened my eyes, Sonny Patterson was standing on the other side of the bars. “Henry, you all right?”

  “I fell asleep,” I said.

  “You look bad, pal.”

  “I’ve had better days.” I went over to him. “I didn’t kill Aaron.”

  “I know,” he said. “The neighbor who called 911 saw the whole thing. Why did you pick up the gun?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “He hit me pretty hard in the head and I wasn’t thinking straight. Maybe I was afraid he would come back for the gun. I honestly couldn’t tell you what I was thinking.” I touched my scalp. The bleeding had stopped.

  “They should have taken you to the hospital. There could be a concussion.”

  “I didn’t tell them what happened. I said I would only talk to you.”

  “Did you get a good look at the guy who hit you?”

  I shook my head. “About my height, athletic build, white. Wear
ing gloves and a stocking cap. I only saw his face for a few seconds.”

  “The department’s treating it like a home invasion robbery,” he said. “Interrupted by you. Why were you there?”

  “Aaron worked at the law firm that represented Judge Paris,” I said. “He called me, drunk, told me he had to see me. Said I’d got it all wrong.”

  “Got what all wrong?”

  “I don’t know,” I replied. “Someone shot him before I could ask.”

  “You think this had something to do with the Paris murders?”

  “Aaron warned me off the case. Said it was dangerous.”

  “He was feeding you privileged client information?” he asked incredulously.

  “He was trying to protect me,” I said. “Now he’s dead. It’s not a coincidence. The judge was behind this.”

  “Yeah, about Judge Paris,” Patterson said. “He’s dead.”

  I grabbed the bars. “What?”

  “Massive stroke this morning. Died two hours ago. About the same time someone was shooting your friend.” His forehead furrowed. “Maybe you should sit down. You look like you’re about to pass out.”

  I was. My head was spinning and my legs were crumpling. I staggered back to the bunk and collapsed.

  “He’s really dead?”

  “I’m afraid so, Henry. And your friend, Aaron? That was a robbery. It was just his bad luck that he was home. You relax for a minute while I get you out of here.”

  I nodded dumbly.

  “I don’t believe it,” I told Terry Ormes. “I don’t believe Aaron was killed in a robbery. It has to be related to the Paris murders.”

  We were back at her booth in the Denny’s across from the station. The same waitress, the same pile of pancakes on Terry’s plate, the same omelet on mine.

  “The judge was dying in a hospital room in the city when your friend was killed,” she reminded me.

  “Who said he gave the order that day?” I replied. “He could have done it before the stroke. I’m pretty sure he didn’t plan on dying that evening.”