Rattlesnake & Son

by Jonathan Miller

  I desperately wanted to prove to Luna that I could handle being a dad­—for a full forty-eight hours at least. Tuesday morning, I had court in Tucumcari, New Mexico, 173 miles east of Albuquerque. If Luna wanted me to return Marley that night, I’d have to then drive 173 miles back, along with another 150 miles south to T or C, and then the 150 miles back to my place.

  This potential Albuquerque to Tucumcari to T or C one-day journey was the almost equivalent of driving from Albuquerque to Cheyenne, Wyoming. I didn’t know if my aging body could take ten hours on the interstate. I’d better win the case, so Marley and I could stay in Albuquerque, at least.

  We woke before dawn and Marley survived the moldy bathroom. This time he wasn’t as oblivious. He had green stains on his left foot. “Are you ever going to get the bathroom fixed?”

  “Let me remediate my relationship with your mother first, then maybe she can help me get a contractor.”

  At least I now had fresh yogurt in the fridge, along with power bars and energy drinks. I even had orange juice, with calcium for a growing boy.

  “I love the smell of calcium in the morning,” I said. “It smells like victory.”

  “Apocalypse Now,” he said. He hummed the Valkyries theme, and then said, “Instead of saying ‘Charley don’t surf,’ I always wished it was ‘Marley don’t surf.’”

  “Marley don’t surf? I love it. You know your old movies.”

  “Like I’ve said, a side effect of having no friends. I know old movies and old music.”

  Mostly satisfied that the mold had not infected us and turned us into zombies, we got into the Lincoln and headed east to Tucumcari. Marley didn’t wear a suit today. Instead, he decided to wear his hiking clothes again: khaki shorts and a blue pocket-T—as they were comfortable for travel. He also had his Velcro-tying hiking boots. I was glad that he wouldn’t attract undue attention, especially since shorts were allowed here, and even encouraged for visitors, in the courthouses in the state’s outlying areas.

  “You look good,” I said. “You’ll fit in, in Tucumcari.”

  “What’s a Tucumcari? It’s sounds like the end of the earth.”

  “It’s only the end of New Mexico.” Tucumcari was a three hour straight shot away from Albuquerque, twenty minutes from the Texas state line. The Big I was Exit 159 off I-40, the courthouse was off Exit 332.

  I had shown him the big city, perhaps it was time to show him the country. Tucumcari was most famous for being a line in the Little Feat song, “Willin.”

  The band’s singer, the late Lowell George, sang about weed, whites, and wine, the whites presumably being pharmaceuticals without valid prescriptions. By amazing coincidence today’s client had been busted for all three of the substances in the song.

  I was about to make a turn off to the prison post office, but Marley told me I didn’t need to bother.

  “NFM,” he said.

  “How do you know that?”

  “I just know things sometimes.”

  “Are you psychic?”

  “I don’t know, I just know things sometimes.”

  I trusted him and kept going east on Interstate Forty.

  Marley slept in the darkness as I drove toward the pink glow. At Exit 203 we passed a vacant building that once housed a strip club that could have been the basis for the vampire strip club in the Dusk to Dawn film. Some bats flew into a broken window, as if checking out the final show before sunrise.

  Just as the sun started to rise over the horizon, I pulled over at Exit 263, the San Ignacio interchange. This uninhabited spot a hundred miles from Albuquerque was sacred to me, although I didn’t quite know why.

  “Why are we stopping here?” he asked, as he wiped the sleep out of his eyes after I pulled to an abrupt halt in a slick of mud. “There’s no intelligent life out here.”

  “You’ll see.”

  We parked by a dumpster that was surprisingly full, for a deserted exit. We then walked over uneven ground just as the sun peeked out to reveal a small lake the size of a basketball court, at best. The water was perfectly smooth. I don’t know whether it was the altitude or the incredibly clear air, but the water perfectly reflected the sunrise and the pink clouds above us. The entire lake quickly turned fuchsia, except for a streak of blinding light that emerged directly from the sun itself and bounced off the lake into my eyes. The ninety-three-million-mile distance to the sun might as well be across the lake on the other side of the barbed wire fence.

  “Are those the northern lights?” he asked of the pink clouds reflected in the water. I almost laughed. We were probably at the same latitude as Atlanta.

  “No, it’s just a sunrise. See, this is the most enchanting place in the land of enchantment.”

  “This is the most beautiful place, I’ve ever seen,” he said. “I feel like I’m in the Cratercross game, in the final crater.”

  “I’ll take your word for it. I stop here to meditate sometimes,” I said. “Seeing the sun rise or set puts everything in perspective.”

  “I wish I could stay here forever.”

  “I don’t know if that’s such a good idea.”

  The sun now rose high up over the horizon, and the enchantment ended. The interstate was barely a hundred yards away and trucks were thundering down the highway, horns honking. A pair of skinny cows mooed on the other side of the barbed wire fence, probably dissatisfied with the quality of the grass. The dumpster was overflowing, and broken beer bottles were only a few feet from the car. Why did the dumpster smell worse in the light?

  “Can we go now?” Marley asked. “This place sucks in daylight.”

  He stepped on an opened beer can that still had beer in it, which sprayed beer all over his new Velcro boots. “Actually,” he said, “life sucks in daylight.”

  • • •

  We made it to Tucumcari just in time for the eight-thirty a.m. hearing. Tucumcari sat under its namesake mountain. The "mountain" had a flat top and it looked like a discount version of Devil’s Tower, where the aliens came down in Close Encounters of the Third Kind. There was a T on the mountain, in case you forgot where you were. The surrounding valley itself sometimes doubled on film for the buttes and mesas of Monument Valley, Utah.

  The town was not without its western cinematic history. Rawhide had been filmed nearby, as had A Few Dollars More.

  The town’s other claim to fame was a giant wind turbine, which sat in the middle of town. It was always windy here, and the wind had a mind of its own. Or was it the mind had a wind of its own?

  The wind soon blew us to the old courthouse, which blended well into the tan landscape. It was three stories tall, but probably had less square footage than the Luna Landing. Marley carried my files in, dropped them, and then the two of us scrambled to pick them up.

  “What is this case about?” Marley asked, as he put the last of the loose paperwork into a folder.

  As we walked toward the brick building, clutching the file tightly, I briefed Marley on the case, another probation violation on an old client with the unlikely name of Innosense—with an S—Schwartzbaum. I had represented poor Ms. Innosense with an S out here before.

  She had been found with marijuana, pills, and open containers—the weed, whites, and wine of the Little Feat song. I had pled her down to one count of mere possession of a controlled substance, even though she probably should have been busted for trafficking with intent.

  Six months later, she had been picked up for speeding, six miles over the limit on the interstate. When they ran her name, the cops found she had a warrant for failure to report to her probation officer. Considering that she had a six-year suspended sentence over her head, she was looking at a year in the joint for every mile over the limit.

  We passed the county assessor’s office on the first floor. Nearly everything in this county, which was the size of a desert Delaware, took place in
this small building. Above the courtroom door was a painting of the conquistador, Francisco Coronado. The picture, with its faded watercolors and Tucumcari mountain in the background, could easily grace a Barcelona museum. I wondered when it was done and by whom. The painting had a caption: I Francisco Vasquez Coronado passed this way and left my mark.

  “That’s what I want to do in life,” Marley said. “Pass this way and leave my mark.”

  “As long as it’s a positive mark,” I said. “Speaking of leaving your mark, be sure you go to the bathroom before court.”

  He agreed and hurried into the small bathroom on the first floor.

  I waited for him as he finished up, then we entered the courthouse’s single courtroom. High tech equipment belied the decor.

  Two lawyers were finishing up a probation violation adjudicatory hearing. One was responding to the other’s objection. “Your honor, opposing counsel opened the door.”

  Apparently opening the door—bringing up an issue that would otherwise not have been discussed—gave this lawyer magic power to pursue a line of questioning.

  The judge agreed. “The door is open.”

  How many doors had I opened in my life?

  After the hearing ending, the guards brought my client, Innosense—with an S—Schwartzbaum. She sat in the jury box wearing an orange jump suit, staring at me like a jury of one. I had chosen another orange tie to match. It was subtle, but usually clients got that I wore the tie in solidarity with their struggle. Orange is the new orange and all that.

  Innosense was her real name, and perhaps her stage name too, as she had been a dancer at that truck stop from hell along the interstate off Exit 203. She was a dead ringer for actress Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman. Marley was somehow fascinated by her “Wonder Woman Gone Bad” look—tattoos and dyed hair over an angelic face and glasses.

  Innosense even had a cheering section—Team Innosense. Her boyfriend, two kids, and her mother, all dressed in white, white for innocence. Without the s.

  “Can you get my baby out?” Innosense’s mom asked. She was the “after picture” in faces of meth posters and it was not a pretty sight. I had to keep Innosense from becoming her mom.

  “I’ll do my best,” I said.

  I took a deep breath and walked to the jury box. “Sorry to meet you again under these circumstances,” I said to her.

  “I am on un-supervised probation,” she said when she looked at me and rattled her bracelets. “I didn’t know I had to report to no probation officer.”

  I opened my file, and looked over her judgment and sentence, which had a box for my signature. The blank line for my signature contained the words approved electronically.

  Those words clearly said: supervised probation in black and white.

  Did I approve that electronically? I must have. I sure didn’t remember her sentencing other than it was very long and complicated, as her prior felonies were “held in abeyance” and I had to explain to her what abeyance meant—after I looked it up myself.

  Someone from the DA’s office had probably emailed me the paperwork while I was driving, and I reviewed it looking at the phone at seventy-nine miles an hour. I then just typed “approved” onto my phone with my pointer finger. The whole “review” probably took a minute, and over the course of mile on the freeway.

  Was this my fault? Approving something that was downright wrong? There was a good chance I hadn’t bothered to open the document and just approved it without reading it. Still, I was sure the probation was supposed to be supervised. The DA wouldn’t have sent me an incorrect form, right? The judge wouldn’t sign off on something that didn’t conform to his order.

  Was Innosense—with an S—really, umm . . . innocent?

  “It says here you’re on supervised probation,” I said, pointing to the line. “That means you would have had to report to a probation officer.”

  If she hadn’t been handcuffed, she would have ripped the paper, and perhaps my head. “It’s a freaking mistake and you know it. I was not supposed to be supervised by nobody.”

  I looked at Innosense. She had been locked up for a few days and had already lost her Walmart job, her apartment, and her man.

  But her baby blue eyes were clear. She hadn’t been using weed, whites, or wine. Maybe a Xanax or two, but hopefully with a prescription from a jail doctor. I felt even more guilty about what had happened to Innosense. I had to fight for her, well, I had to zealously represent her, which was the same thing.

  “Let me go check with the DA,” I said.

  Sandy Oakley, the DA, was no Doug Douglas or even Jane Dark, just a nice local woman who operated a ranch on the side. She wore jeans and a denim shirt with a bolo, and really did have dirt on her cowboy boots, but not bullshit. She came over to my table and smiled at me as if she just wanted to resolve this case before the cows came home.

  “So, what do you want to do?” she asked.

  “My client informs me there’s a mistake,” I said. “She says she was never supposed to be on supervised probation, thus she never was supposed to report to a probation officer.”

  My, client, informs, and me. The four least persuasive words a lawyer could use when he didn’t believe his client and had to pretend to try to convince a prosecutor or judge.

  Oakley just laughed. “Miss Innosense with an S pleads guilty to violating her probation, and I will give her a sanction: ninety days in jail with no good time, credit for the day or so she’s spent in jail. However, if we take it to hearing, and you lose—which you will as there is never a defense to failure to report—I will impose the suspended and ask for the full nine years.”

  “Can I get that in writing?”

  Oakley was prepared and gave us the plea agreement, which was indeed already in writing. I liked Oakley already. The three-page document did not say does not oppose. It clearly said in bold caps that the parties agree. The judge would give Innosense the ninety days (eighty-seven counting the days served) and we would be done.

  The probation officer was there, holding a logbook. He was a minister at a local storefront church in his spare time, and even wore black and a discrete silver cross to the hearing. His word was gospel in this hearing—and in the hereafter. I gestured for him to come over to the table.

  “She didn’t report,” he told me. He showed me his logbook as if it was the bible.

  I slithered back to the box. “The state can make the case. Ninety days in jail sure sounds a lot better than nine years, especially if that was in writing in your paperwork,” I told Innosense.

  “I’m not even guilty. I was not even supposed to report.”

  Before I could argue further, the court was called to order by a deputy. The judge came out and took the bench. He looked a bit like a young Clint Eastwood. Clint had filmed Rawhide here, and For a Few Dollars More. Did Clint leave a few children out here in Tucumcari?

  “Are we having a hearing, or can we just get this over with?” he asked in a drawl that sounded home on the range.

  “Your honor, against the advice of counsel, my client wants a full-fledged probation violation hearing,” I said.

  “Make my day,” he said in a monotone. Was he imitating Clint?

  I turned around and went back to counsel table. This was a very cramped courtroom. Innosense leaned back in her chair and accidentally touched Marley, who was sitting in the front row. Before the guard could stop him, Marley touched Innosense on the shoulder, as if he was doing Spock’s nerve pinch.

  She smiled at him and nodded. He released his grasp and she leaned back to the table.

  “She’s telling the truth,” he stage-whispered to me. “She’s telling the truth!”

  The judge banged his gavel. “No talking from the gallery.”

  It took me a moment to recognize the court reporter, a woman named Shaharazad. She traveled all over the state when other repo
rters were sick—the breakdown docket of her own. She had been there for one of my biggest triumphs in Deming many years ago.

  Shaharazad had shaved her long, beautiful black hair. She once mentioned that she was going to sell it to be used in a wig. In a town like Tucumcari, the biggest excitement would be watching her hair grow back at every hearing.

  “You have a recording of Ms. Schwartzbaum’s original hearing, don’t you? You have a transcript?” I asked her from my table.

  Shaharazad ignored me. Her eyes were on the judge.

  “Mr. Shepard, are you ready to begin?” the judge asked.

  “Your honor, before we begin, a crucial issue is whether my client was placed on supervised or un-supervised probation. My client informs me, informs me quite strenuously, that her probation was un-supervised.”

  I was referencing the film A Few Good Men, when Demi Moore didn’t just object, she strenuously objected. Hopefully we all would be able to handle the truth.

  “I don’t know,” the judge said, staring at me with Eastwood eyes, as if he was about to draw first and shoot me down. “That should have been put in a motion before the court.”

  “If your court reporter could just check the record,” I said. I took off my glasses as if to say I was ready for a fight and knew I was going to get poked in the eye. I looked behind me. Marley had his eyes closed, and I felt like he was beaming energy to me. I turned back and looked at the judge. I could hold the judge’s gaze for one moment, but not two.

  The judge said nothing. Holding me in contempt would indeed make his day.

  “Your honor, as a zealous advocate, I would ask that you allow your court reporter to check the transcript. Innosense is innocent!”

  I now looked away. Marley and my combined powers of persuasion worked. The judge glanced at Shaharazad, as if he had psychic powers of his own. Without a word, she hurried past a mysterious back door and vanished into darkness.

  We sat in silence, waiting.

  “If your client is wrong, I’m going to be asking for time,” Oakley said after the third minute. “Big time. I think I can file a superseding indictment and stack a few more habituals on her.”