“I heard court didn't go exactly as planned, Dawson...” his arched eyebrow said accusingly.
James nodded, fighting the natural urge when nervous to smile or laugh.
“Yes, sir, the client was not very obliging when it came to cross-examination.”
“Aren't you meant to coach him in those matters?”
Silence.
“I...I spoke with him on how to answer my questioning...but he refrained from taking the charges seriously. He felt they were focusing on the wrong man.” James attempted.
“Quiet, Dawson!” Gerald Wade shouted suddenly. “I have had enough of your incompetence! Bernard and I have decided that your tenure at the firm has come to end. You were such a bright boy...potential abound!” The man turned from James. “Then this business with your secretary...very unprofessional...”
James didn't dare mention the mistresses he knew Bernie and Gerry had; their office had a revolving door of blonde bimbos with funny accents.
They had banished him from the inner circle and outsiders were not welcome.
James’ ruthless banishment did not bother him. The scales had fallen from his eyes. He saw the law firm for what it was – a narcissistic playpen.
10
On the plus side, James’ firing would probably please Karen; something he was desperate to do. She would freak out first. He was out of a job after all. It was not easy to keep the mortgage payments up on a house in Boston, especially when you had no money. He would need another job soon but he couldn’t count on a reference from his now former employers.
The public defender’s office could give him his old job back but with seven years gone and a less than amiable departure in their memory, it would be a difficult sell.
He would do one of two things – go back to the public defender, or find a lesser practice.
Karen’s reaction was to be expected; after a brief fallout that James sheltered from, she realized the benefits for the family. A modest existence had been when they were at their happiest; a return to form might accompany the new lifestyle.
“We do have some money saved...” Karen said, hopeful. “We could get a nice apartment – bigger than before. The kids could go to a nice elementary school with normal children.”
Karen had met parents at Marcus’ private school. She would not be inviting them to brunch anytime soon. “Yes.” she smiled now. “This could be very good!”
By 1980, Jamaica Plain’s housing market was on the up again. The area had always been nice, but in the last ten years, redlining by the banks and the intrusion of the Southwest Corridor had meant it significantly reduced the houses in value. People had just abandoned their homes rather than try and sell them.
The houses, now renovated, still remained cheap. Karen and James could get a pretty big house without risking money woes. The pair’s Alma Mater was close by, which sold the idea for Karen.
They found a great place on Burroughs Street, a wood lined suburb that directly led to Jamaica Pond. It was a beautiful lake that Karen had loved to jog around as a student. This was a return to the life of which Karen had dreamed.
Their house was a Dutch Colonial like the others on their side of Burroughs. The opposite side comprised of Victorian Gothics – the sort that had attic rooms with stain glass windows. They were significantly more expensive due to their size and demand. Karen as a young girl had always dreamed of owning one.
Her family’s farmhouse in Mason was based on both Victorian and Colonial architecture. Karen didn't know this as a child; she just thought their house was pretty. When she went to college and saw the different houses that populated Boston’s suburbs, she could identify what had made her love that farmhouse so much.
J.P. Manning Elementary wasn’t far from their house and had a wonderful reputation for nurturing the youth of Boston. It worried Karen that after a few years at private schools, Marcus might not be able to interact with regular children, but he made friends almost instantly and his teachers said he was very intelligent.
Little Sophie attended Kindergarten at Pine Village on Center street; the other end of the street from the Pond. She had always been very bright as a child. She had begun speaking very early with surprisingly good diction for a toddler. Sophie refrained from talking most of the time. When Marcus had been younger, he would not stop. Everything required questioning. Sophie observed.
James’ upmost priority was to ensure his family had somewhere to live. Once they had found the Dutch Colonial in Jamaica Plain, he began his search for another job. He had assumed that the position he had once inhabited at the Public Defender’s Office could be offered to him again. He rang his former boss and explained that he was interested in returning to the fold.
“James, I know why you left Wade and Wilson, don’t try to bullshit me!” Daniel Percival fumed.
“Good to speak to you too, Dan.” James laughed. There was no reply from the lawyer. “What exactly did you think was the reason?” he said, now more serious.
“You were screwing your secretary, James! You're a walking cliché! Seduced by money and then throwing your career and marriage away? For some tail!”
“You think that was why I was fired?” James feared this would happen. “Yes, I had an affair but that’s not why I was fired. Would be kinda hypocritical coming from those two old bastards! They have a different woman in their office every hour!” James was becoming irate; he had to calm down if he wanted old Percival to give him his job back. “They fired me because I spent more time at home instead of in the office. My marriage is more important than making money...I realized that before it was too late. I did my time and left.”
“You're track record wasn’t that impressive either, sonny!”
“I won cases. I made them a lot of money, but when I had to take a step back, they crucified me!”
“I'm sorry, James, my boy, but you're a liability. You're blacklisted in Boston. No one wants to hire you and I can’t be seen to be low balling the others by taking you on after everything.”
“You make it sound like those two run the legal profession!”
The silence on the other end of the line told James that he was not wrong.
“What are you trying to tell me, Dan?” James didn't need to ask but he was hoping his former boss would tell him something to the contrary.
“You're finished, James. You're not even going to get a job as a paralegal now.” The bluntness and lack of sympathy from someone James had once believed cared, was further confirmation of the karmic retribution of his misdemeanors.
If James Dawson, the great defense lawyer, could not get a job for the public defender, he must be in a hell of a hole.
James rang all his contacts in the profession. The men he worked with and against denied him any help. Some would not even take his calls. The days turned into weeks, yet James could not organize any meetings.
When Karen asked him how the job search was going, James would simply smile and say he was ‘gathering offers’.
James did not want their move to Jamaica Plain to have been in vain. Finding a different career occurred to him, but he thought it ill-advised, given his age and circumstances. The Dawson’s required a relatively modest income for them to afford their house and the kids’ schooling. They had saved enough money to cover this, in conjunction with Karen’s waiting tables. If James had to return to school to study, he would still require a part time job. This would limit the time he had with the kids; the basis for his life change in the first place. The possibility that he acquire a non-skilled vocation was not attractive either given the financial standing.
Since their move from Boston, Marcus and Sophie were noticeably happier. The fresh air and friendly neighborhood allowed them to have the traditional childhood that Karen had wanted for her children. The three of them went to the park every afternoon. They fed the ducks and enjoyed the nature around them.
James was still ‘collating all his offers’ nearly a year later, but it was important
that they had fresh income from somewhere and with both of the children at school now, their savings were fast running out. It left Karen with no choice; she decided to get a job at a café.
11
“Hi, my name is Karen. What can I get you?” the waitress smiled at the table.
“Could I get the soup of the day, please, with a roll?”A middle-aged woman in a checked skirt and blazer asked.
“And can I get the club sandwich, please?” The second woman at the table asked. She was younger than the first. They looked like they could be mother and daughter.
“And can I get you any refreshments?” Karen queried.
The two women looked at each other. The older of the two mouthed ‘Cola’, and the younger nodded.
“Two Colas, please.” The mother figure said.
Karen smiled and took her leave, jotting down the last remnants of the order. She walked behind the counter at the back of the café and popped her head through the kitchen door.
“Soup and a club, Gaz!” she shouted at Gaz Berry, the Scouse cook at the ‘Cooking with Gaz’ café. The Liverpool native’s family had moved to America in his teens. He opened his café in the mid ‘70s, taking advantage of the increasing popularity of Plain since the redlining and community activism. Students came in during their lunch breaks to get good food at decent prices.
Berry was a good boss. He paid Karen more than he really needed to; she was one of four waitresses he hired. She didn't work in the afternoons; this allowed her to pick Sophie up from kindergarten. She sometimes brought her back to the café though so she could do a few extra hours. Karen would eventually leave when it was time for her to pick Marcus up. He insisted that he was old enough now to walk home from school, but stuck in a city mindset, she refused to let him do so.
“Got it, hun!” a voice came back from behind the pots and pans hanging from the ceiling.
Karen returned to her stool behind the till. She had been reading a new novel; ‘Flowers in Attic’. She was unable to take her eyes of the page, only for the fact that the mother and daughter approached her, did she realize they had come in.
The story of siblings and their sequestration in the upper room of their grandparents’ home was too gripping for the young mother.
The small town of Jamaica Plain and their wooded suburban street with classical architecture allowed the vivid illustration of the novel and its events to become too real for Karen. She had sat at the bay window of the master bedroom of 20, Burroughs Street in the evenings with a cigarette, reading. She stared at the houses opposite her, imagining the strange occupants, and their sordid family secrets. Karen was both terrified and enthralled.
Life in Jamaican Plains was far from exciting but Karen wouldn’t have it any other way. She looked up from her book at the sound of the bell above the door announcing the arrival of more customers – the student onslaught was starting. Karen marked her place in the novel and set it to the side of the counter.
I'm gonna read the shit outta that later, she thought excitedly.
12
“Karen, we need to move away from Boston.”
Karen looked up from her book. She was sitting at the window seat with her cigarette as usual. James was in bed.
She was not sure exactly when it had begun, but James was sleeping beside her again. It had happened one night during a power outage. The two had been sitting by the window talking about their money issues when the bedroom light went out. They looked out onto the street and saw nothing; the streets lamps were gone too. They had continued to talk and eventually the talk subsided as they slowly fell asleep. At some point in the night, one or other of them had slipped into the bed, swiftly followed by the other. They had still not made love but this was an acceptable step towards the reparation of their marriage.
“We are out of Boston.”
“I mean out of the boroughs...a different state maybe...?” James had something he wanted to say. Karen had known him for too long. She knew when he was hiding something.
“What is it?” she removed her reading glasses and set the book aside. She would drag this problem out of him.
“I haven’t got a job...”
“I know...you've been ‘looking at your options’...I must admit...you've been looking for a helluva long time!” she laughed.
“I'm not going to get a job. I've been blacklisted. Wade and Wilson are fuckin’ me over!” his head dropped. Tears formed in his eyes. “Dan Percival treated me like shit on his shoe...he said...well, he’s right, I got greedy!”
“Those two geriatric clowns can’t have that much of an effect?” She laughed again but this time there was no warmth in it. Hysteria was setting in. “And Pecker-Head Percy was a little rat anyway! He didn't exactly fill me with confidence in the future of your career when I met him at that Christmas party. Why did you think I was actually quite glad when you got the job at W&W? It certainly wasn’t because you would get better pay for defending murderers and rapists.”
James nodded. Karen had made him feel better despite her upset. She was breathing heavy after the tirade. She took a long drag on her cigarette.
“I wish you wouldn’t do that; you know I hate it when you smoke!”
Karen wagged a finger at him.
Don't even try and change the subject.
“So what have you been doing for the past year?” She said.
“I have called every law firm in the city. I'm a pariah, babe. I've even tried lesser jobs like temping and paralegal work. The bastards won’t even me have them. I thought about something completely unrelated to law....maybe go back to school but that’s not gonna aide our money afflictions...we can’t last much longer!”
Karen rubbed the tears from her eyes. “And you think you could get a job in another town if you ran far enough?”
“Yes. But it couldn’t be a major law firm again or for a public office. Wade and Wilson probably have ties there as well. It would have to be a small town; some no name backwater where they need an attorney. It’s all we can afford. I would be doing wills and farmland quarrels!” The two of them giggled.
“I would like to live in country again...I love it here though!” Karen paused. “You need a job. My part-time at Gaz’s isn’t gonna keep the rent up on this place. I could ask for more hours but I don’t wanna be stepping on the other girls’ toes. Gaz already over pays me as it is...”
“I haven’t looked if that’s what you’re thinking...best to get a job before we move somewhere, ya know?”
Karen padded across the carpet towards the bed. She crawled across the covers to James. She kissed him on the lips delicately and then laid her head on his chest.
“I’ll start tomorrow. I’ll drive up to Pittsfield. Austin works up there as a family lawyer. He might be able to use his connections for some meetings. Poughkeepsie isn’t that far beyond Massachusetts either.”
“You think New York is far enough?” she turned her head and smiled up at him.
“Portland?” he said.
The two laughed. The pair finally made love again that night; soft and gentle, the way they had in the beginning.
13
The morning following the couple’s first post-affair coitus, James drove along the I-90 West towards Pittsfield. It was the stereotypical three-lane highway that seemed perpetually congested with disgruntled travelers; commuters on the daily slog, dreaming of the day they got to retire. The families with young children driving along listening to those soul-crushing children’s albums while the kids fight in the back; the mother turning around every five seconds to tell them off. The father tearing chunks out of the steering wheel with his vice gripped hands, trying to not drive his station wagon off the edge of the freeway.
The trip was a two and a half hour journey. James had his 8-track so he was happy enough. He didn’t try and think about what he had to do when he got to Pittsfield. The idea of more rejection was not motivational on such a long journey with just your thoughts for company. Instead, J
ames focused on the howling vocals of Robert Plant while Jimmy Page shredded behind him.
The tree tops of lesser-sized towns and cities that reached over the sides of the high-set road helped make the journey pleasant.
Pittsfield, Massachusetts was a nice enough place. It had tree-lined streets with wood-slat houses. Quiet sleepy neighborhoods gave way to the beautiful Pontoosuc Lake where the red and gold leaves of the forest caressed the cabins on the shore. It was the most picturesque place James had ever seen. The town looked closer to paintings of an idyllic New England village than an actual place.
James drove his ’77 Pontiac, the last vestige of his former wealth, down South Street on North. He passed a white Colonial building. A black glass cubicle sat at the front of it. This was the Beacon Cinema, the local movie house.
“That's the weekend sorted...” His acerbic side thought.
He turned onto Fenn Street, driving beyond the grand Greek Revival City Hall. This was the biggest and grandest building in the entire town.
Elm Street had two commodities – a key cutter and the local attorney.
14
Carragher and Carpello was a one-man operation, despite the implications of the name. Austin Carragher had been a classmate of James’ at college. He had moved to Pittsfield after a brief career at a big law firm in New York.
He had moved back to Jersey to care for his sick mother in the last few years of their studies. She suffered a stroke during ‘her stories’ on a Tuesday afternoon. Austin had been contacted by the hospital and he had rushed back home mid-semester. He did not appear for another month at which point midterms were coming up. He performed adequately and promptly returned to his mother’s bedside.
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