Bronx Justice

by Joseph Teller

  Jaywalker had his daughter circle the blocks and read off the names of streets and avenues long forgotten but still familiar. Randall, Turnbull, Seward, Lacombe, Pugsley. She made a turn onto Stickball Boulevard and drove up Olmstead Avenue, where Darren's uncle Samuel had once lived. The improbable Roman names were still there. Homer, Cicero and Cincinnatus Avenues. Caesar and Virgil Places. Lafayette was there, too.

  "It's not such a bad area," his daughter remarked at one point. "I expected much worse."

  "Me, too," said Jaywalker.

  Sometimes, in the early morning hours, before he climbs out of bed to get ready to go to court, Jaywalker lies awake alone and listens to the sparrows, and wonders how he ever lost the trial in the first place. But then he reminds himself that had he not, he never would have learned what he did from it, or grown into the lawyer he ultimately became.

  There are those who believe that everything that hap pens in our lives happens for a reason. Perhaps they're right. Who's to say?