by Michael Nava
The Little Death
( Henry Rios - 1 )
Michael Nava
Michael Nava
The Little Death
1
I stood in the sally port while the steel door rolled back with a clang and then I stepped through into the jail. A sign on the wall ordered the prisoners to proceed no further; more to the point, the word STOP was scrawled beneath the printed message. I stopped and looked up at the mirror above the sign where I saw a slender dark-haired man in a wrinkled seersucker suit, myself. As I adjusted the knot in my tie, a television camera recorded the gesture on a screen in the booking room.
It was six-thirty in the morning but the jail was as loud as if it had been six-thirty at night. The jail was built in the basement of the courthouse, and there were, of course, no windows, only the intense, white fluorescent lights that buzzed overhead. The jail was a place where people waited out their time and yet without day or night time stood still; only mealtimes and the change of guards communicated the passage of time to the inmates.
I moved out of the way of a trustee who raced by carrying trays of food. Breakfast that morning, the last day of July, was oatmeal, canned fruit cocktail, toast, milk and Sank. Jones stepped into the hall from the kitchen and acknowledged me with an abrupt nod. He had done his hair up in cornrows and his apron was splattered with oatmeal. Jones cooked for the population. He was also a burglar and an informant and his one great fear was coming to trial and being sentenced to time at the state prison in Folsom. Several of his ex-associates were there, thanks to his help. I had just been granted a further continuance of his trial, delaying it for another sixty days. Our strategy was to string out his case as long as possible so that when he inevitably pled guilty he would be credited with the time he served in county jail and avoid Folsom altogether. The district attorney’s office was cooperative; the least they owed him was county time — easy time, the prisoners called it. County was relatively uncrowded and the sheriffs relatively benign. On the other hand, county stank like every other jail I’d ever been in. The stink was a complex odor of ammonia, unwashed bodies, latrines, dirty linen and cigarette smoke compounded by bad ventilation and mingled with a sexual musk, a distinctive genital smell. The walls were faded green, grimy and scuffed. The floor, oddly enough, was spotless. The trusties mopped it at all hours of the day and night. Busy work, I suppose.
Everyone in the public defender’s office avoided the jail rotation. If the law was a temple, it was built on human misery and jails were the cornerstones. I minded the jail less than most, finding it — psychologically, at least — not so much different from a courtroom. So much of crime and punishment consisted of merely waiting for something to happen, for a case to move. But it was different, the jail, from the plush law school classroom, just a few miles away, from which I graduated ten years earlier determined to do good, to be good. I achieved at least one of those things. I was a good lawyer, and most days that was enough. I was aware, however, that I took refuge in my profession, as unlikely as that seemed considering the amount of human suffering I dealt with. It offered me a role to escape into, from what I no longer knew; perhaps nothing more significant than my own little ration of suffering.
I went into my office, a small room tucked away at the end of a corridor and where it was almost possible to hear yourself think. I picked up a sheaf of papers, arrest reports and booking sheets, the night’s haul. There was the usual array of vagrants and drunk drivers, a couple of burglaries, a trespass. One burglary, involving two men, was the most serious of the cases so I gave it special attention. The two suspects were seen breaking into a car in the parking lot of a Mexican restaurant on El Camino. The police recovered a trunkful of car stereos, wires still attached. The suspects were black men in their early twenties with just enough by way of rap sheets to appeal to a judge’s hanging instinct. I gathered the papers together and went into the booking office.
“Good morning, Henry,” Novack drawled, looking up from the sports page. He had a pale, pudgy face and a wispy little moustache above a mouth set in a perpetual smirk. Novack treated me with the same lazy contempt with which he treated all civilians, not holding the fact that I was a lawyer against me. This made us friends of a sort.
“Good morning, deputy,” I replied.
“We had ourselves a little bit of excitement here last night,” he said, folding his paper. “Los Altos brought in a drunk — that’s what they thought he was, anyway — and it took three of us to subdue him.”
“What was he on?”
“Well we took a couple of sherms off of him when we finally got him stripped and housed, so it was probably PCP.”
“Why didn’t I see an arrest report for him?”
“We couldn’t book him until he came down enough to talk. Here’s his papers.”
I took the papers and asked, “Where’s he at now?”
“In the drunk tank with the queens. He’s a fag.”
“That’s no crime,” I reminded him.
“Good thing, too, or we’d have to charge admission around here.”
I read the report. The suspect’s name was Hugh Paris. He stood five-foot ten, had blond hair and blue eyes. He refused to give an address or answer questions about his employment or his family. He had no criminal record. I studied his booking photo. His hair was in his face and his eyes went off in two different directions, but there was no denying he was an exceptionally handsome man.
“How do you know he’s gay?” I asked.
“They picked him up outside of that fag bar in Cupertino,” Novack said.
“He was arrested for being under the influence of PCP, possession of PCP, resisting arrest and battery on an officer. Geez, did the arresting officer go through the penal code at random?” Novack scowled at me. “Was anyone hurt?”
“Just scuff marks, counsel.”
“Was he examined by a doctor to determine whether he was under the influence?”
“Nope.”
“Did you ask him to submit to a urine test?”
“Nope.”
“Then all you can really prove against him is drug possession.”
“Well,” Novack said, “I guess that’s a matter of interpretation between you and the D.A. Are you going to want to see the guy?”
“I’ll talk to him,” I replied, “but first I’ll want to interview these two,” and I read him the names of the burglars.
I interviewed the burglary suspects separately. They were bored but cooperative. They knew the system as well as I did. They had nothing by way of defense so the best I could do for them was try to plead them to something less serious than burglary. I’d observed that repeat offenders were the easiest to deal with, treating their lawyers with something akin to professional courtesy. All they wanted was a deal. It was only the first timers who bothered to tell you they were innocent. After the interviews ended, I walked back to the booking office and poured myself a cup of Novack’s coffee. I flipped him a quarter and asked to see Hugh Paris.
They brought him in in handcuffs and a pair of jail blues so big that they fell from his shoulders and nearly covered his bare feet. His eyes were focused but he still looked disheveled. I thought, irrelevantly, of a picture of a saint I had seen as a boy, as he was being led off to his martyrdom. There was a glint of purity in Hugh Paris’s eyes completely at odds with everything that was happening around him. The guard sat him down in the chair across from mine. I took out a legal pad and set it down on the table between us. I introduced myself as Henry Rios, from the public defender’s office.
“A lawyer?” he asked, thickly.
“That’s right,” I said. “How do you feel, Mr. Paris?”
He gave me a puzzled look as if how
he felt should be obvious, and asked, “Are the handcuffs necessary?”
“The sheriffs think so,” I said, studying him. “Do you think you’d be all right without them?”
“I’m not going to hurt you.’’
I had decided he was down from whatever drug he had taken. I called in the deputy and asked him to remove the handcuffs. He resisted but, in the end, the handcuffs went. He stationed himself outside the door. I got up and closed it.
“Better?” I asked.
Paris smiled, revealing a set of even, white teeth. He rubbed his wrists and smoothed his hair, buttoned the top buttons of the jail jumpsuit and pulled himself up in the chair. He looked less dazed now, and he fixed me with a look of appraisal.
“Thank you,” he said. “I feel terrible. Why am I here?”
“You were arrested,” I replied, and read him the charges.
“Mr. Rios,” he said, “I don’t remember much about last night, but I do know that I didn’t take any drugs.”
“None?”
“I smoked a joint and then I went to this bar.”
“What’s the last thing you remember?”
“I was having a drink,” he said, “and then I heard this horrible, rasping noise. It scared the hell out of me. And then I realized it was my own breathing. Then I went outside, I think, because I remember the lights. And then I woke up here. That’s it.’’
“The police found a couple of sherms in your clothes,” I said, testing him.
“What’s a sherm?” he asked.
“Cigarettes dipped into PCP.”
“I don’t smoke,” he replied, conversationally. It was possible he was telling the truth.
“Were you alone at the bar?”
“I came with an ex-boyfriend,” he said, calmly, “but he left before any of this happened.”
“You smoke the joint with him?”
“Yes.”
“Did you know anyone else at the bar?”
“Not that I remember.” “How many drinks did you have?”
“Two or three. Not more than three.”
“What’s your friend’s name?”
“I don’t want him involved.”
I had been taking notes. I put down my pen and leaned back into the chair. “There isn’t anyone in this room but you and me,” I began. “Anything you say to me is privileged. The resisting and battery charges won’t stick and they have no evidence you were under the influence of PCP because they didn’t bother to have you examined by a doctor. That just leaves the possession charge. If you were just holding it for someone, I might get the charge reduced or even dismissed.”
“You don’t believe me,” he said.
“I have to argue evidence,” I said, “and the evidence is, first, you were high on something last night and, second, the police found PCP on you. It shouldn’t be hard to see what inference can be drawn from those two facts.”
“I know what PCP is,” he said, “but I’ve never used it and I’ve certainly never carried it on me.”
“It could’ve been in the joint you smoked with your friend,” I said. “Let me at least talk to him.”
He shook his head. “I have to take care of this my own way.”
“You have money to hire your own lawyer?”
“Money isn’t the problem,” he said, dismissing the thought with a shrug. He looked away from me and seemed to withdraw into himself. I could hear the deputy outside the door shouting at a trustee. Paris looked back at me without expression. The silence went on for a second too long. “You’re gay,” he said.
Still looking into his eyes, I said, “Yes, I am.”
“I didn’t think so at first.”
“What gave me away?”
“You didn’t react at all when I mentioned my boyfriend. You didn’t even blink. Straight men always give themselves away.”
I shrugged. “There probably isn’t anything you could tell me about yourself or your boyfriend that would surprise me. So why not level with me about last night?”
“I have,” he said, wearily. “Look, it was Paul’s joint and maybe it was laced with PCP. He could’ve given me the cigarettes. I just don’t remember.”
“Then let’s call him and clear it up.”
“I can’t.”
“Why?”
“I’m hiding,” he said. “I shouldn’t have called Paul in the first place. I can’t risk seeing him again.”
“Who are you hiding from?”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I can’t tell you, although I’d like to.”
“Then take my card,” I said, digging one out from my wallet, “and call me when you want to talk.”
He studied the card and said, “Thanks. I’d like to make a phone call.”
“I’ll take care of that,” I said. I reached across the table to shake his hand. This we did very formally. Then the deputy knocked and I called him in to take the prisoner back to his cell.
Outside it was a bright and balmy morning. A fresh, warm wind lifted the tops of the palm trees that lined the streets and sunlight glittered on the pavement. I put on my sunglasses and headed toward California Avenue where I was meeting my best friend, Aaron Gold, for breakfast. He had told me he had a business proposition to make. A couple of kids cycled by with day packs strapped to their shoulders. The Southern Pacific commuter, bound for San Francisco, rumbled by at the end of the street. I felt a flash of restlessness as it passed. Another summer passing. In two months I would be thirty-four.
“Henry,” I heard Gold call. I looked up from where I’d stopped, in front of a pet store. He approached rapidly, his intelligent, simian face balled into a squint against the sunlight. He was tall, pale, a little thick around the waist, but he still carried himself like the college jock he’d been.
“Morning, Aaron.”
“What were you thinking about?” he asked.
“Nothing really. Getting older.”
He made a derisive little noise. “You’re still a kid. Look at me, I’m pushing forty. Am I worried?”
“You’re in your prime,” I said, not altogether jokingly. In his tailored suit, Gold looked sleek and prosperous from his polished shoes and manicured nails to the fifty dollar haircut that tamed his curly, black hair.
“You never went to my tailor,” he said, looking me over critically. “Come on, let’s eat.” He took me by the elbow and led me across the street into the restaurant where all the waitresses knew him by name. We found a table at the back, ordered breakfast and drank our first cups of coffee in silence.
Thirteen years earlier, Gold and I had been assigned as roommates in the law school dormitory our first year there. We had not liked each other much at first. He mistook my shyness for arrogance and I failed to see that his arrogance masked his shyness. Things sorted themselves out and we became friends. He was one of the first people I told I was gay. It would be an exaggeration to say he took it well, but we remained friends on the levels that counted most, respect and trust. Lately, he had even relaxed a little about my homosexuality — joking that I needed to meet a nice Jewish boy and settle down.
He was saying, “Did you run into anyone I know at the jail?”
“You don’t go to county jail for SEC violations,” I replied.
“Trading stock on insider information isn’t the only criminal activity my clients engage in.”
“Doubtless, but they wouldn’t stoop to the services of a public defender.”
“Actually,” he said, “that brings me to the subject of this meeting, your future.”
“It’s secure as long as there’s crime in the streets.”
“There’s crime in the boardrooms, too, Henry. My firm is interested in hiring an associate with a criminal law background. I’ve circulated your name. People are impressed.”
“Why would your firm dirty its hands in criminal practice?”
Gold put his coffee cup down and said, “Corporations consist of people, some of whom are remarkably venal. Others
still are just plain stupid. Anyway, they’ve come to us often enough needing a criminal defense lawyer to make it worth our while to hire one. We’d start you as a third-year associate, at sixty thousand a year.”
I answered quickly, “Well, thanks for thinking of me, but I’m not interested.”
Gold said, “Look, if it’s the money, I know you deserve more, but that’s just starting pay.”
“You know it’s not the money, Aaron,” I said, reflecting that the sum he named was almost double my present wage.
He sighed and said, “Henry, don’t tell me it’s the principle.” I said nothing. “You’re wasting yourself in the public defender’s office. You knock yourself out for some little creep and what you get in return is a shoebox of an office and less money than a first-year associate at my firm makes.”
“So I should exchange it for a bigger office and more money and the opportunity to defend some rising young executive who gets busted for drunk driving?”
“Why not? Aren’t the rich entitled to as decent a defense as the poor?”
“You never hear much public outcry over the quality of legal representation of the rich.”
“What is it you want?” he asked, his voice rising. “The rosy warm glow that comes from doing good? You’re not dealing with political prisoners, you’re dealing with crooks and murderers.”
“It’s true they don’t recruit criminals from country clubs, but if they’re outsiders, so am I.”
“Because you’re gay,” he said, flatly, dropping his voice. “If you’re gay.”
“That’s settled.”
“I won’t argue the point now,” he said, “but you let it run your life, closing doors for you. If you really were gay and accepted it, you would make your choices on other grounds than whether someone would object.”
“I can think of plenty of reasons for not joining your firm,” I replied, “none of them related to being gay.”
“They aren’t why you’ll turn me down,” he said.
I laid my fork aside and glanced out the window. It was luminous with summer light. Gold and I had a variation of this conversation nearly every time we talked. Since each of our positions was set in stone, the only thing our talking accomplished was to get us angry at each other.
