There was a chimp. Or monkey, can’t really tell the difference. Or even if there is one. Well I could at one time and quite definitively, at least until Alana caused me to start doubting myself; so let’s just say chimp. No ordinary chimp either. This ninety-eight-percent-human had joined hands with the Uncle Sam. Okay not the but just a guy in a costume. Only this guy had no business being in an Uncle Sam costume because in place of being tall and gangly he was short and fat and very both. He was more like an Uncle Sam bowling ball rolling towards me with his attached friend. His friend—The Chimp—was not in costume. He was naked. Although I’m not sure the word naked is appropriately used here given that the average chimp rarely dresses up. He did have a hat. The chimp I mean. Well of course Uncle Sam did as well. That crazy top hat that nearly doubled his height. But back to the chimp’s hat. I liked that damn hat quite a bit. Not so much the hat, which was pretty run-of-the-mill far as these things go. It’s just that I dig it when like a chimp wears a hat and things of that sort. Of course, this wasn’t like a chimp wearing a hat, this was an actual fucking chimp wearing a crazy chimp hat that he kept adjusting with his free chimpy left paw. And it took me a while to figure out why, despite my general predilection, this particular chimp and his hat weren’t so great but were instead bugging me a little. The problem was the chimp’s hat reminded me of my hat. The one I had just lost and whose heat-trapping qualities I was in dire need of at that very moment. I loved that hat. But I didn’t know why the chimp’s hat reminded me of it since all I could remember about my hat was that it was black. And it had ear flaps. Maybe. It was cool. I mean warm. Though not as warm as the hat the old man wore when I spied him later that night as I finally reached my shelter.
And this was not just any old man who wore that hat. This was the old-timer who a couple nights earlier had tried to hug me to his bare chest. At least I thought, and maybe wanted to think, it was him. Actually I was a hundred percent sure of it. But I had my doubts. Because now instead of bareboned and shivering he wore a serious Russian papakha with matching fur coat. He looked great in that get-up. But old. Ancient. He was taller too. And fatter. In fact, except for the fact that he was the same old man who had tried to hug me, there was nothing, no physical or other similarity, tying this person to that one. Where did he get the coat and hat? And why didn’t that hat remind me of my lost hat and make me long as well?
Instead the only envy I felt then was directed towards that chimp’s hat. So much so that I seriously considered swiping it off the chimp’s head when they passed, since he had all that fur to keep him warm. But I didn’t think it would fit anyway because I have like this real fat melon where even nonchimp hats rarely fit nicely. More disconcerting was the fact that Uncle Sam and the chimp seemed to be on a direct collision course with me and did not seem inclined, in the slightest, to alter their course to avoid such a collision. I anticipated one of those moments where the two opposing parties engage in a little side-to-side dance until finally one of them just stops while the other sidesteps and walks by. But it never happened.
Although something similar did happen later that night with Angus, right after I ran away from the old man in fur. I had run away from the old man in the fur coat and hat as fast as I possibly could, which wasn’t very fast at all, with the blue air feeling like tiny razor blades going down the inside of my neck, and I continued to run even once I got inside. And it was while I was running up the stairs to the second floor that I almost ran into Angus, who must have at that very moment just jumped out of his apartment and begun running down those same stairs.
“Oh Casi,” he said panting. “Looks like we’re both in a hurry.”
“What’s up?”
“Want to come with me to meet the new neighbor?” he said as he ran down after I had stepped aside.
“What neighbor?” I called out to him. Silence was his response before I heard the downstairs door close.
Which was the same reaction I got from Alana on the phone when I told her what the chimp had done.
“Hello? You still there?” I said.
“Yeah, of course.”
“You have no reaction to that.”
“I just don’t know what to make of it. I can’t imagine what would possess a monkey to do that.”
“Not a monkey, chimp.”
“No difference.”
“Of course there is.”
“Would you feel better if it was a monkey?”
“No.”
“Then there’s no difference.”
Which was disappointing because I’d been hoping for insight. So much so that I saved the chimp story for Alana and did not relay it to Louie and Alyona who were in their apartment when I went in and found out we had a new neighbor.
“Carlos Sanchez,” said Alyona. “He’s a professional dancer, teaches the Mambo.”
“Please don’t play along Alyona,” said Louie. “It scares me a bit.”
“What are you guys talking about? Since when do you care about neighbors?”
“See what I mean? Cut the shit, there is no new neighbor. Ralph has a new neighbor not us. I mean Ralph Kramden the character on Television, who is most definitely not a real person, was in an episode of a show on Television called The Honeymooners where a Mambo dancer named Carlos Sanchez, also not a real person, moved into the building and caused all sorts of trouble by being really attentive towards the wives.”
“Oh yeah, I remember that one. But what does that have to do with Angus firing out of here like a human cannonball?”
“He went out to meet Sanchez,” said Alyona.
“He’s not still using that Casio Carousel is he?”
“Yes,” they said in unison.
“That reminds me. Did fucking Angus call a tip in to the Tula hotline?” I wondered aloud.
It was a question that remained unanswered even days later when the Tula mystery had been solved to everyone’s satisfaction but had in the process given birth to an even greater mystery.
“What do you mean two seven-year-olds?” said Liszt the same day I would later scream at him and punch a hole in his wall. But Debi had the definitive proof in her hand in the form of a New York Post that proclaimed BABY FACED KILLERS! Two seven-year-old boys, still bathing in their original sin, had snatched baby Tula from her stroller in front of Thank God It’s Not Monday’s. That much was beyond dispute and it was undisputed because of the Video Vigilantes. The area in midtown that contained the relevant TGINM’s was one of the original Vigilante Flashpoints and as such was inundated with cameras long before the Vigilantes even entered the City’s consciousness. One of those cameras had witnessed the whole thing and would be available to testify if need be.
This pleased Mayor Toad, who at the press conference held for the heroic camera had one arm around the head vigilante and the other around his grinning lieutenant. Toad was there to announce that, thanks to the Video Vigilantes, seven-year-olds operating within the lenticular penumbras of influence were now on notice that their misdeeds would be captured on everlasting videotape and ultimately broadcast with the cooperation of Television. The eyes of the camera were all-seeing and possessed with complete veracity. Here, the eyes had seen the two boys lift that baby like a doll and run.
What happened next was still anybody’s guess but the end result was not. The seven-year-olds, with parents in tow, had led police to Tula’s lifeless body. In a box. In the boiler room of one of the kid’s basement. That was it. You could shut down the 1-800 hotline too because there wasn’t anyone who could get on the other end of the phone and explain this.
The case would have nothing to do with us since given the age of the defendants it would undoubtedly be some kind of Family Court deal. But I knew eventually I would have to see that putrid video. I hadn’t even gotten the Rane video out from inside my skull yet. Maybe meeting Rane would do it, but I had yet to do so because he failed to appear for his counsel visit days earlier when Dane and I kept calling the Department of Correction cou
nsel area at 100 Centre Street in the futile hope that he had been produced. Until finally Dane grew suspicious of the C.O. on the other end of the phone, went over in person to see for himself, verified that Rane wasn’t there, and ended up meeting with DeLeon instead.
“Come again,” I said when he told me.
“Yeah, he was there.”
“On the twelfth floor?”
“Yeah.”
“Why?”
“I guess he was waiting to be released after taking the plea in 49.”
“What do you mean you met with him?”
“I heard his name. Someone said Ramon DeLeon and a bell went off in my head so I just talked to him a little. I told him I was an attorney in your office and was familiar with his case. He said he wanted to talk to me so I had him brought into the counsel room and met with him there.”
“You talked to a client of mine about his case?”
“Yeah. Take it easy, he’s basically a client of mine as well.”
“About his case?”
“Of course, what else?”
“Why?”
“I don’t know, just curious I guess. I had taken that whole annoying trip up there for nothing and you have to admit his story is pretty interesting. It was like entertainment.”
“Don’t do that again please. If you do that or something similar again, I shall be forced to kill you.”
“Be glad I did. I found out a lot of interesting stuff about this deal that’s going down and it’s given me an idea.”
“What are we going to do about Rane?”
“How’s about a week from today?”
“Maybe.”
“I’ll try that then.”
And the missed Rane counsel visit was one of the many desperate excuses I attempted to deploy early the next day to avoid getting sent out by Judge Bartee on Juan Hurtado. I wanted Hurtado to take a plea because he had no chance. He wouldn’t take the 2 to 4 being offered and was undeterred by the prospect of getting the maximum 3½ to 7 after trial. Failing a plea, I wanted an adjournment to delay my grim task as long as possible. I was destined to get neither.
Which was the reason I was in Conley’s office when Debi came in with the Tula papers but was thankfully not included in any of the discussion as I was on trial and therefore ineligible for messing with. What I was looking for in that office was a book I had on good authority was there. And I was tearing Conley’s office apart looking for it because it represented a last hope at salvation for me and Hurtado. In that book there was supposed to be a lovely paragraph or so. Somewhere in that paragraph there should be a sentence or a string of words in which a judge, a judge known for his commentaries on criminal law and practice, would agree with the premise of the crazy defense I had been concocting since openings and which I would soon be committing to wholeheartedly in my summation. The words had to be in the book I couldn’t find because Toomberg said they were and that was amply good enough for me.
Toomberg told me the words and the book were in Conley’s office when he came into my office a day earlier to ask if I was serious about not working on the Alabama death penalty case with him. I had called Toomberg at home, and told him I categorically refused to work on Jalen Kingg’s case, the same night Uncle Sam and the chimp refused to get out of my way on the Brooklyn Bridge.
We had approached from opposite ends and were now about four feet apart with me in the middle of Sammy and the chimp. Only now instead of the dance I’d expected Uncle Sam and the chimp simply raised their left and right hands respectively creating a little London Bridge-type scenario. I ducked my head to walk under and through the arch leaving its owners behind.
I didn’t tell Toomberg about the chimp when I called him that night even though Alana had already proved unhelpful. I didn’t tell him how, after taking a few more steps on the bridge, I looked back and saw that Uncle Sam and the chimp had reversed course and were now following me. I did tell Toomberg that I wanted no part of Jalen Kingg. I didn’t want to meet him, didn’t want to learn about his life or look at that picture of him in the file anymore or try to prevent this regicide or any of that because what the hell is the meaning of this Toomberg? Is this a joke? What kind of volunteer situation is this? Specifically? Where should I start? First of all, isn’t it reasonable of me to assume, given the fact that we are trial lawyers and not death penalty appellate experts or whatever, that we are responsible for like an early step in this guy’s long, drawn-out appellate process and not his desperate last gasp? What the hell is the meaning of this deal whereby our papers are the only thing between Kingg and an electrode hat? And this file I’ve just reviewed in my less-than-ideal condition is littered with the word denied and are we just supposed to add the final one? He doesn’t need a lawyer, he needs an undertaker. Do I look like a stolid undertaker?
After continuing in that vein a bit, I told Toomberg the true reason I couldn’t work on Kingg’s case. The reason was the rainbow candy. The rainbow candy that Jalen’s mom used to make for him. The rainbow candy made the whole notion of me working on Kingg’s case a pure impossibility. It was no longer a matter of choice or free will once the candy appeared. We were dealing with a genetic makeup, namely mine, that was simply incapable of dealing with matters of this nature. Toomberg understood immediately.
“I haven’t the slightest idea what you’re talking about,” he said sleepily.
“The candy Toom. The fucking candy!”
“What candy?”
“Didn’t you read that letter he wrote his attorney along the way?”
“I don’t know. I know I read everything. Remind me if you could.”
“In one of the letters he writes down what he’s going to request as his last meal. Do you remember that?”
“I do, what about it?”
“For dessert he said he wants the rainbow candy his mom used to make for him. Did you see that part Toomie? Did you see that?”
“I don’t—”
“He says he knows his mom is no longer around to make it but that he’s seen the same candy in the stores.”
“Okay.”
“Christ Toom! What in the world? This guy’s I.Q. is 63. Fucking six three!”
“I know but I would think that would make you want to work on his appeal even more. There’s no way we as a society should be executing people like Kingg. Not to mention the fact that his trial lawyer failed to adequately convey this fact to the jury during the penalty phase.”
“All that is beside the point my large-brained friend. My whole life I can’t deal with this type of thing you understand? You might as well ask me to breathe underwater. I can’t do it.”
“I think I understand. I’ll deal with that aspect of the case. There’s plenty more to be done.”
“I don’t think you do understand Toom. Do you really feel what it means for this guy to be asking for rainbow candy? They’re fucking Skittles. That’s what he’s talking about.”
“I don’t know much about candy.”
“Do you know where he’s getting the goddamn rainbow description from? The fucking commercial! You’ve heard it right? Taste the rainbow! Those fucking bastards.”
“I don’t own Television.”
“Jalen Kingg did. You can bet your ass on that. His mom did. And somewhere along the line she took to calling the Skittles she gave her son rainbow candy. And she told him she had made it special for him. And Jalen believed her because it was his mom and she was all he had. It brought them comfort. This woman and the son she had at fourteen in their one-bedroom dump. And far away in goddamn L.A. or Madison Avenue is the prick who decided that Skittles would sell more quickly if they promised Jalens they would taste the fucking rainbow which is like a complete fucking impossibility and even if it wasn’t who said a rainbow would even taste good you know? That’s the reason I can’t work on this case. You want me thinking like this the whole time? Did you see what his face looked like in that picture? You see the eyes? Do you realize I’m going to dream a
bout this?”
“Don’t make any rash decisions. Sleep on it.”
Advice I ignored that night and the following two as well. In fact, I didn’t really sleep until I got a verdict in the Hurtado case. Then I collapsed the minute I hit my bed and had a horrible nightmare involving Skittles.
In the nightmare, Uncle Sam and the chimp were referred to but never actually showed their faces. In real life, they followed me. I think following me was Uncle Sam’s idea and not the chimp’s. Because whereas before they walked more or less side by side, now it was clearly Uncle Sam leading the way with the chimp following slightly behind in what looked like a malformed race.
“There’s not going to be a winner,” Debi said. “That much is clear.”
“I agree,” said Liszt as he consulted the big chart on Conley’s wall.
“There has to be a winner,” said contrarian Conley. “Just pick whoever got closest.”
“There’s nothing close to this,” she said.
“This is bad,” he said.
“What do you mean? A lot of people predicted she’d be dead,” said Conley.
“Not like this,” she countered.
“Not even close,” Liszt added.
Which was what Alana said the night I spoke to her and she had no reaction to the chimp disclosure. I asked her how much of the money she needed she had come up with.
“Not even close,” she said, and I looked around in my apartment at strewn letters from collection agencies and feeble pay stubs and felt shame. Later I would feel shame again when I stood up and started picking a jury in People of the State of New York vs. Juan Hurtado. I was woefully unprepared and it didn’t matter a bit. I was so unprepared because I knew, as certainly as I could know anything, that there was nobody crazy enough to go to trial on a case this bad. When confronted with the unimpeachable logic of 2 to 4 years in prison being preferable to 3½ to 7, any reasonably intelligent person would take the 2 to 4.
A Naked Singularity: A Novel Page 33
