Rattlesnake & Son

by Jonathan Miller

  “How can they prove that?” Marley asked me.

  As if on cue, Dark continued. “Next, you will hear from Dr. Mary Ann Romero, a psychiatrist, who analyzed Mr. Arnold’s diary, which is filled with ramblings indicating a diseased mind. In it he manifested specific threats against the people he meant to kill. Later, you will hear from Edgar Ermey and Yvette Castaneda, staff at the school who will testify about their concerns about this would-be killer. Then you will hear from the innocent Caldera Academy students who were directly terrorized by Mr. Arnold and his cratercross of death.

  “Finally, you will hero from an American hero, Patrick ‘Pistol Pat’ Chino, a man who continues to serve his country and this community every day. Mr. Chino was the hero who made sure that Caldera did not become Columbine or Parkland.”

  Marley winced again. I held his arm tightly, but it was like holding on to a snake, a rattlesnake. I tightened my grip until he calmed down.

  Dark kept looking right at us. “You might say this fourteen-year-old is but a boy, but Mr. Arnold is considered a serious youthful offender and under New Mexico law, a serious youthful offender can be tried and sentenced as an adult. So, we ask you to find Cruiser Arnold guilty of all three counts of attempted murder, as well as guilty of the multiple counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.”

  She sat down at her seat and put the cratercross in front of her. She fingered the device on the table, slowly turning it in our direction as if she wanted to aim it right at us.

  I looked at Marley and wondered if he was indeed guilty.

  “Does the defense wish to make an opening statement?” the judge asked. I looked at Marley, blankly. I usually could remember everything before a trial—how many grams of cocaine, how far away in feet was the eye witness, the address of the alleged victim’s home and zip code even. I must have worked this case hard over the last few weeks, and I must have attorney “work product” in that box, but my mind was drawing a blank, probably because of the stress of defending my own son. What should I say in opening statement?

  I thought about bending down and taking the rubber band off the banker’s box, but I feared it would shoot out and hit one of the jurors. Marley noticed my distress and wanted to refresh my recollection. He scribbled a note on the yellow legal pad. “Lack of specific intent/accident. Trick not tragedy. Never made threat. Intervening causation. Cover up.”

  It was starting to come back, but only a glimpse. I didn’t bother going to the podium. Instead, I stood tall at the table and put my hand on Marley’s shoulder. “I’m am the lawyer for the boy I know as Marley,” I said. I didn’t say that he was my son. I had been warned by this very judge in a prior hearing not to refer to clients as “my friend.” I certainly didn’t want to call him Cruiser. He would have to be merely “my client,” like he was still up for shoplifting at Walmart instead of attempted murder. A client could be anyone.

  “My client didn’t mean to kill anyone. This was just a trick, not a tragedy. He was the new kid in town, the new kid at school.”

  Marley had never let me read his diary. I would have to wing it. I was fourteen once and kept a diary, too. Could anything I wrote in that diary be used against me in a court of law? I had once talked about threatening my school, just like my son. The worst I had done in carrying out my plan was flood the boy’s bathroom in the library. Could the authorities have argued that it was my specific intent to drown the entire school? That really was my specific intent, but the world didn’t have to know that now.

  “My client’s writing in his diary is just creative writing, much like a Hollywood script is just that, a script. It is merely a fantasy, not a manifesto. This young man did not have the specific intent to attempt to kill anyone, much less attempt to aggravatedly assault all those people. You must find him not guilty.”

  I had missed the note about intervening cause as I glanced down at the yellow pad one last time. I lifted my hand, indicating that I wasn’t done.

  “Did my client cause the horror, or perhaps it was the action of the dean himself that almost turned an audition into a massacre? If there is any reasonable doubt about any of this, you must find him innocent, I mean not guilty of all charges.”

  Marley had once told me a metaphor I could use to show reasonable doubt, but I couldn’t remember it at the opening. Just as well. I sat down, wondering if I had just made a promise to the jury that I couldn’t keep. “You can do better than that,” Marley said. I didn’t know how to respond. He was right. Attempt to aggravatedly assault? An abundance of alliteration.

  “I might as well kill myself now,” Marley said. “I won’t last an afternoon in an adult prison. I might not even make it through the trial.”

  He looked like he was about to cry. He hadn’t lasted two weeks at boarding school. He would die in prison his first day, or perhaps his first night, when his cellmate tried to rape him. I had to stop from crying myself.

  The judge looked at me, indicating that I control my son, and myself. “If the defense has nothing more, the state may call its first witness.”

  “The State of New Mexico calls Dean Damon Korn,” Jane Dark said.

  Korn wore the khaki suit again and that damned purple tie as he limped all the way up to the stand. Had he sustained an injury during the incident? I was about to find out. Up close, Korn was a compact, muscular man whose muscles made the khaki cling too tightly in all the wrong places.

  After being sworn in, Dark took Korn through the story of his life. He had gone to active duty with the air force in Afghanistan. Discharged. I would assume it was an honorable discharge, but she didn’t ask him to specify. When he returned from his tour, he became a teacher and swim coach at various schools around the state. Eventually, he became the assistant dean of students at Caldera—in charge of discipline—and then last year became the dean of the entire school. The man sure moved around a lot. If I had been a better lawyer I would have subpoenaed his employment records to find out if there were any scandals.

  “What type of student attends Caldera Academy?” Dark asked.

  “We like to give kids second chances, but not third chances,” he said. “We accept kids with high test scores and low grades, or low-test scores and high grades. We mold them into successful leaders of tomorrow through discipline and diligence.”

  “Is it a military school?”

  “No. It is a college prep school with some military traditions.”

  “Is it a public school?”

  “We have a state charter. That means we have a little more leeway in how we run things. By the way, despite our original name, we’re not a religious school. We take people from all faiths.”

  “So the school is no longer Caldera Christian Military Institute, correct?”

  “No, we are Caldera Academy now, like Albuquerque Academy or perhaps even Phillips Andover Academy. We are turning Caldera into a college prep liberal arts magnet.”

  This musclebound man in a khaki suit was supposed to turn a religious military school into a college prep liberal arts magnet? I felt magnetism coming from all the irony.

  “Are you familiar with the defendant, Cruiser Arnold?”

  “Yes, he was a new student, a freshman.”

  “Can you identify him today in the courtroom?”

  “He is sitting next to his father, excuse me, sitting next to his lawyer.”

  “So, which was he, a student with bad grades and high scores, or high grades and bad scores?”

  “Objection, relevance,” I said. I didn’t really have any specific objection to it, but I didn’t think Marley’s scores were anyone’s business. My own dad used to remark to me about how I never lived up to my potential. He was right. I didn’t want to be like my dad when it came to Marley.

  “The young man’s intelligence and work ethic are certainly an issue here,” Dark said. “They go to his credibility.”

&
nbsp; I had no idea why being a bad student went to someone’s credibility. I suppose it went to the fact that we all had to make excuses for our failures, and those excuses weren’t always credible.

  The judge agreed with Dark. “Overruled. The witness may answer the question.”

  Korn smiled. He was missing a tooth, maybe from a bar fight in Baghdad or Bangkok. “Young Mr. Arnold was most definitely a student with high standardized scores, the highest I had ever seen. But he had many learning difficulties and terrible spelling. He applied very late and was originally wait-listed. One of our prospective students got into an accident, and Mr. Arnold was admitted with a few days to spare. His mother’s company made a two-million-dollar pledge to the school, which was a factor in his admission.”

  Two million dollars? I couldn’t wrap my mind around that.

  “For two million dollars you would admit anyone?” Dark asked. “Even a risky, unbalanced student like Cruiser Arnold?”

  “We didn’t have access to any prior disciplinary records. We hoped we could whip him into shape.”

  Marley flinched at the mention of the word “whip,” especially after Korn said the word with such gusto. Marley held his head down as if trying to use x-ray vision on the table. I thought he was able to get into Caldera without sitting on the waitlist. Had the bully we encountered in the courtyard been accepted before my son? Getting waitlisted rather than immediately accepted at a second-tier school such as Caldera was hard to fathom for a kid as intelligent as Marley. I had been waitlisted before I was accepted to my private high school, but that was one of the most prestigious schools on the east coast. My parents hadn’t even donated money, as far as I knew. But Marley only got in because Luna’s company made a pledge. A two-million-dollar pledge. Was the company even good for the money?

  “How did he perform at Caldera Academy?” Dark asked. “Academically?”

  “We didn’t have grades yet, but several of the teachers reported that he wasn’t paying attention in class and made jokes at inopportune times.”

  “Were the jokes funny?” I asked.

  “Mr. Shepard, please wait your turn,” the judge said.

  “How was his adjustment socially?”

  Korn shook his head. “I get reports on my students every day, both in and out of the classroom. He was having trouble adjusting to life in the barracks and didn’t relate well with other students. He was bad at hygiene and there was even a report that he used another student’s toothbrush.”

  “Objection,” I yelled. “Prior bad acts are not admissible.” Normally that objection applied to a prior conviction of battery or forgery but using another student’s toothbrush sounded even worse in this context.

  The judge laughed. “The jurors are to ignore that Mr. Arnold used another student’s toothbrush, potentially exposing said student to all sorts of germs and diseases, not to mention my general unease about Mr. Arnold’s invasion of that other student’s privacy. That action by Mr. Arnold—using another student’s toothbrush in his mouth and then putting it back without washing it—while disgusting and vile, is not necessarily a prior bad act.”

  “You’re making it worse,” Marley whispered to me.

  Dark ignored us. She was good at that. “Dean Korn, please tell us what happened on September 22.”

  “As dean, I was ultimately responsible for all aspects of producing the Freshman Showcase. As you might imagine, I’m not artistically inclined. The day before I went around to the various barracks and obtained the final list of acts. Most of the acts were singing and dancing. There was also juggling, but with tennis balls.”

  “Do students need to audition for the Freshman Showcase?”

  “Not exactly. Everyone gets to participate, if the acts have merit. However, I get the final say over the acts at the dress rehearsal. That’s why the dress rehearsal took nearly two hours and Mr. Arnold was the last to audition.”

  “And what was Mr. Arnold’s so-called act?”

  “His act was merely listed as ‘magic.’ I presumed it was a card trick, or some other sleight of hand, so I didn’t think anything of it.”

  “What happened next?”

  “We were supposed to have a dress rehearsal at five o’clock that afternoon, before the performance for the parents at eight. We had to go through all the other auditions before we finally got to see his at around seven that night. This would have been the first time I could see this cratercross card trick.”

  “That’s not true,” Marley whispered. “They could have seen it before. I would have showed it to them.”

  The judge shot us a glance. I elbowed Marley in the ribs. Dark continued “So, Dean Korn, what happened at the dress rehearsal in the evening of September 22 when Mr. Arnold finally went on stage?”

  “At the rehearsal, a little after six, Mr, Arnold, the defendant, took out the crossbow crater, or whatever it was, and it was loaded with three metal darts. It looked very dangerous. He asked for a volunteer for the audience. The trick involved picking a card, and then I guess the dart was supposed to go through the card. It was hard to understand what he intended to do. He was talking really fast, and I have trouble understanding the young man’s New York accent.”

  Having a New York accent in New Mexico was a bad thing to a New Mexico jury, as New Mexico could be very provincial. There were some people who didn’t like anyone whose family came into the state after statehood in 1912. Hell, some people didn’t like anyone who came into the state after Coronado in the sixteenth century. Needless to say, many people didn’t like Coronado that much either.

  “The boy pointed the weapon in the direction of the students sitting in the auditorium,” Korn said. “That’s when I thought the act was inappropriate and potentially dangerous. I got on stage and told him that I’d seen quite enough, and his act would not be part of the show. I rushed the stage, attempted to pry the weapon from his hands. Before I could get to him, he fired the weapon and three darts were discharged. Those darts nearly hit several people in the audience.”

  “Darts didn’t go off till he tried to take weapon away and busted the safety,” Marley scribbled on the pad.

  “What happened next?” Dark asked.

  “During the scuffle, I lost my balance and fell off the stage. While he was alone on stage, the boy then pointed the weapon at the ten or so people in the audience and said he would kill each and every one of them. The defendant ran from the stage, and I didn’t see anything after he went outside to the quad.”

  Dark picked up the cratercross from the side table. She signaled to the bailiff, who helped her hold it up, managing to avoid ripping his sleeve a second time. “Is this the crossbow-type device?”

  “Yes,” Korn said.

  “Your honor,” Dark said, turning to the judge. “I ask that this crossbow device, ‘the cratercross,’ be introduced into evidence as state’s exhibit one, and be published to the jury. It has already been stipulated to by opposing counsel.”

  Marley looked at me. “Why are you on their side? Why did you agree to let that in?”

  When did I stipulate to that? It was strange that I couldn’t remember. I should have objected on, like, five different grounds, but apparently, it was too late to keep it out.

  By publishing it to the jury, the bailiff, with the help of one of the deputies, “published” the bulky wooden device around to each juror to let them examine it. When one juror attempted to touch it, the bailiff stopped his hand.

  “Don’t touch it!” the bailiff said. “It can kill you.”

  I jumped up. “Your honor, I move to strike that statement.”

  “The jurors are to disregard the statement by the bailiff that the device could be deadly,” the judge said. “However, the jurors are to listen to his statement not to touch the device.”

  Jane Dark then picked up three darts that had sharp metal tips. These darts were
little missiles. They wouldn’t just take an eye out, they would go through the other side of your skull.

  “Are these the very darts that were on the crossbow device?” she asked Korn.

  “They are.”

  “I took the tips off and attached them to rubber balls,” Marley said to me, not bothering to attempt a whisper.

  “Mr. Shepard, please control your client,” the judge said. “We can put a gag on him if he continues to disrupt the proceedings.”

  I held Marley down with a firm hand on his shoulder. He looked mad enough to throw the darts with his bare hands, and that made him look even more guilty in the jury’s eyes.

  “Dad, you’ve got to believe me,” he whispered.

  I gestured for him to remain calm, or at least hold his breath and not hyperventilate. I pantomimed the controlled breathing I learned in martial arts. He finally took a deep breath through his nose and then held it before finally exhaling.

  Dark ignored us and kept going. “Your honor, we ask that the three darts be introduced into evidence, as state’s exhibits 2, 3, and 4. They all have been stipulated to by defense counsel.”

  “Why did you stipulate to everything?” Marley asked. He didn’t mention that I had stipulated to the restraining order that kept me away from him. He didn’t have to.

  “It would get in anyway, and saves time,” I said. “And, it doesn’t piss off the judge.”

  “The judge is still pissed off.”

  Dark shot us a look, then demonstrated how the darts were placed on top of the cratercross. I was terrified that she would shoot the cratercross right there in the courtroom.

  “Your honor, can the bailiff dim the lights?” she asked.

  Dark had a gigantic black TV set that looked like it had belonged in Darth Vader's living room. It was called a Mondopad. The Mondopad played a video of Dean Korn demonstrating the power of a cratercross at three pumpkins on the shooting range. There was background music reminiscent of the Mission Impossible theme. Korn adjusted each cratercross dart until it was aimed at a pumpkin. He fired, and simultaneously the three darts penetrated the three pumpkins.