Stung

by William Deverell

  With the quickie verdicts Her Ladyship has made clear she expects.

  * * *

  Four hours later, it is dinnertime and no stirrings have been heard from the jury room. Lawyers, court staff, media, and accused sprawl about in corridors or witness lounges. I’m in one of those, learning pinochle from Ivor Trebiloff, when we get word we are to reassemble.

  “The verdict’s in,” an excited young reporter says as we hurry into 6-1.

  That seems not to be the case — the lawyers and court staff scoffed at Donahue’s optimism over an early verdict. “They’re not going to pass up on a free steak-and-lobster dinner and a night in the Four Seasons,” says a court officer.

  The jury enter, unruffled, no red faces, projecting a sense they finally feel important, they’re playing an active role. The judge bounds to her chair with a jauntiness that I read as put on, and gives them a verbal back rub about the thought and care they’re obviously putting into this. She tells them to enjoy their dinner as guests of Her Majesty, and grants them an evening off. We are to return here Wednesday at nine thirty.

  4

  Thursday, June 6

  Here I am, Dear Journal, just tapping away mindlessly after a pizza and a toke with Lucy. Got back here to find Arthur asleep in his club chair with Plutarch’s Morals open on his lap. I put him to bed. He’s been a little harried lately. Me too. I get it, the tension of waiting almost three days for a verdict gets damn gripping.

  Local social notes: Sooky-Sue and Richard Dewilliger-James II have asked Lucy and me to an engagement party, according to the engraved cards we got today. If we’re still not behind bars a week from Saturday, we might go. After all, he is my bondsman.

  I suppose it’s too late to try to persuade him she’s a narcissistic viper incapable of love. Spooky has closed down her spiritual scam, the church of the Lord Saviour Divine. She’s into the big bucks now.

  Excuse me, Journal, while I take a moment, the Oriole reliever just walked Grichuk to load the bases . . .

  That paid off. Two runs on a wild throw. Hey, Howie, are you at the game? Hope you haven’t taped it for later, because spoiler alert: Jays seven, Baltimore five in the eighth.

  I get weirded out whenever the screen saver kicks in and “Always Believe” scrolls sideways across it. Are you trying to hypnotize me, Howie? Have you embedded a psychic command into the screen saver that will have me begging for forgiveness for having doubted you? Repeat after me. Always believe. Always believe. You are getting sleepy, your head is heavy . . .

  As I wrestle with belief, so does the jury, apparently. They’re out for a third night and we haven’t heard a whisper.

  Nancy thinks they’re doing a little rebellion thing, refusing to be pushed around. They’re goddamn well going to enjoy a paid holiday before sheepishly returning to court and doing what they’re told.

  Arthur is less cynical. They’re just meticulously performing their duty, reviewing every scrap of admissible evidence, and maybe some that’s not, and reading and viewing our media interviews. “They’re taking the case seriously, or at least pretending to.”

  The other possibility is that someone has taken on Abbie Lee-Yeung’s promised role and is holding out. It’s like a juror has done a Howie, and become a firm Bee-liever. The court officer stationed outside their lounge confided that he’d heard a raised voice or two. Someone being pummelled into submission?

  Meanwhile, an irony of this trial is that Charlie Dover’s testimony has moved several allergy victims of ziegladoxin, or their families, to reach out to Nancy’s office. All with varying degrees of muddled senses of direction. She’s thinking about a class-action. Thinking about destroying Chemican. If that happens, I’ll happily do my time.

  Last out, top of the ninth. The Jays hold on. Always believe.

  Back to Arthur. Did I mention he’s been acting strangely? In court, he was as advertised, Darrowian, but with the trial over he’s become a fuddy-duddy around the house. Leaves lights on. Can’t find his slippers. I go down to the kitchen every night to check the burners.

  Now that the pressure’s off, he’s lost his edge? — that should work in reverse. Little slips of paper are haphazardly strewn all over the kitchen and under fridge magnets. Get suit from cleaners. Pack bags. Pet store, dog treats. Repossess Fargo. He’s homesick, pining for dog and garden and the soft Pacific air.

  5

  Saturday, June 8

  For the fourth straight morning, corridors are taken over by zombies: silent, slow-moving women and men of the press, some pacing, some sitting on the floor, remnants of them outside, smoking. None of them dare wander far, even on this sunny Saturday, because the jury could return at any time.

  The press outnumber Bee-lievers and courtroom habitués, whose ranks deplete as the jury is now officially in deadlock. We have no clue who of the eleven is our champion, or how long she or he will be able to resist the others’ demands to fall in line. Meanwhile, we’re nervous wrecks, waiting, waiting, waiting.

  Donahue went at them yesterday, goading them to do their duty: ten minutes of boilerplate about the need to listen to each other, to hear a differing point of view, to not let emotions overrule common sense.

  Now it’s mid-morning and Donahue has called us into court. She floats in instead of stomping. Makes you wonder if she’s on tranks. The beatific expression may, however, just mask irritation that someone is filibustering in the jury room. She doesn’t want them fetched yet, wants to discuss “taking the rest of the weekend off out of respect for Mr. Khan’s loss.”

  We all knew his mother’s death was imminent, so it wasn’t a shock when the end came yesterday. Khan was abruptly called away to her bedside at about midday. His robotic junior, Finley, broke the news to judge and jury. He’s now at the helm while his boss attends to funeral arrangements.

  She asks for counsels’ views. “Mr. Findlay? Shall we take the weekend off?”

  The robot rises. “Finley. F-I-N-L-E-Y. If it please the court, I’ll need to seek instructions—”

  Donahue hates mealy-mouthing. “Never mind. Mr. Beauchamp?”

  “Out of a sense of collegiality and my deep fraternal respect for Azra Khan, I would be honoured, as senior counsel, to make a motion to that effect.”

  “Ah, yes, that would be appropriate,” Donahue says, defenceless against Arthur’s skill at evoking the traditions of professional protocol.

  The old fox has done it again. When the jury comes in — eleven tight, weary faces — they show relief as he urges, out of respect to “our dear friend Mr. Khan and his family,” that we all take the weekend off from our labours.

  “So ordered,” says Donahue, then she expresses the hope that the jury, even though sequestered, will return on Monday “reinvigorated” after relaxing for the weekend. Then she sends the rest of us home.

  I decide to cycle the long way to Parkdale. I’m so tense I could snap in half. Paranoia grows. I only recently learned I could get consecutive sentences on my roster of charges, the break-in, the conspiracy, false pretences, passport fraud. The count of uttering, which means using a forged passport, exposes me to fourteen years. All told, I could get up to fifty years. “Highly unlikely,” Arthur insisted. “Let me do the worrying.”

  Easy for him to say.

  * * *

  After almost three hours of pedalling haphazardly around town, working the tension out of my system, I vault off my bike, sweaty, bedraggled, hair over my eyes, passers-by staring — hey, isn’t she that crazy dame from that eco-terrorist trial?

  The door isn’t locked, so Arthur is somewhere, but not in the parlour or kitchen, though the kettle is hot and tea makings are on the counter. On the fridge door, a recent scribbled note: AC Lv 410 Mon. arr YYJ 630. That translates to an Air Canada reservation to Victoria on late Monday afternoon. Day after tomorrow. Does he know something I don’t?

  After a glass of milk and a bo
wl of re-nuked chicken soup, I’m ready to clean up, put on my running shoes, grab some more sunshine, pretend to enjoy one last free weekend. But I’m piqued by that note, Arthur’s proposed flight home.

  I spy him in his bedroom folding and packing clothes into a suitcase while talking to a hypothetical dog. “Come along, boy. This way. It’s a beautiful day.”

  My lawyer is losing it. I don’t want to embarrass him so I return to the kitchen and yell, “Arthur, are you home? You want your tea?”

  He wanders in, again giving me his newly trademarked dozy smile. “‘And tender love is repaid with scorn, what floweret can endure the storm?’” Though pulled from his unbounded repertoire of verse from long-dead poets, it seems hardly appropriate. Another symptom of a disarranged mind?

  He thanks me for pouring his tea, and I ask, “So what are you up to?”

  “Just packing a few things.”

  “You mean, like for your flight on Monday at ten after four?”

  “No, for a train trip to Ottawa.” Checking his watch. “At two today. Margaret and I made weekend plans, and, ah . . .”

  “Oh, God, of course, please enjoy. I’m not prying, but . . . you booked a flight home? On Monday?”

  “Oh, well, that can be changed. I just . . . I think we’ll have a verdict on Monday. Maybe not. Did you see their faces this morning? When they first came in? The jury?”

  “Yeah, they looked pissed.”

  “One learns to read faces in a court of law.”

  This is all too enigmatic. He’s definitely falling apart. “Read my face. If they convict everyone, what happens — will you stick around for the sentencing or will you be in a rush to make your plane?”

  He looks shocked. I hate myself.

  “Rivie—”

  “I’m sorry. That’s awful. I’m as jumpy as a cat in a lightning storm. Need to shower, then I’m going out again.” I rush him, hug him, nearly cause him to spill his tea, apologize again, then race upstairs belching tears.

  It’s not him, it’s me. I’m having a breakdown. It’s not just the tension, the waiting. I’m overcome by a sense of longing and loneliness. I’ll go to jail with no one to love.

  A quick shower, repairs to my reddened eyes, a cap to hide my mangled hair, short shorts and running shoes and daypack, and I’m off, not sure where, I just need to run until my lungs ache, I need the pain of this cruelly sunny day.

  My feet take me down to Lake Shore, then east to Harbourfront, up Spadina, where the SkyDome looms. This is my goal, an irresistible force has propelled me here, where there is energy, high spirits, happy thousands pouring into the Dome to watch the Orioles and Jays. I will feel less lonely here, among fellow rooters in the cheap seats.

  * * *

  As players warm up on the field I find myself being tugged again, from my bleachers seat, then down, and down, from level to level, toward the diamond, toward the third-base seats. I feel a little jolt on seeing him, in his usual spot, reading a magazine or folded newspaper, sunglasses tucked over a ball cap, clean-shaven, long-haired. The seat next to him is empty. My seat.

  I swing my pack off and squeeze past Howie’s knees and sit with a “Hi.”

  He looks at me puzzled, like he vaguely remembers me from somewhere. Then he deadpans, “We have to stop seeing each other like this.”

  “Seriously, feel free to tell me to fuck off.”

  “It seems odd, Rivie. Not like stalking, but sort of inappropriate.”

  “Relax. You won’t be seeing me for the next ten years, less time off for good behaviour.”

  “Good behaviour? Why would they give you points for that?”

  So acerbic. I thought he’d forgiven me. Howie applauds, and so do I, as a home run king from eons past is introduced. We applaud again as the Jays take to the field.

  “What am I supposed to always believe in?”

  “In yourself. In beauty and goodness. In the continuance of life. In love. In the impossible. The idea is to believe something, not sit around jerking off.”

  “Still doing your Buddhist guru impersonation?”

  When he sees I don’t buy his bullshit, his face creases into a squinty frown. “Literally and symbolically, I got jerked off by you, Ms. Levitsky. The hand job that shook the world. I am the biggest Toronto laughingstock since Rob Ford.”

  This is the true Howie Griffin, not the courtroom version. That was protective cover to camouflage his disgrace.

  “Why do you still have two reserved seats? How can you afford them? Are you getting back with Maxine?” His ex, who preferred Mozart to baseball, and with whom he recently met over wine.

  “Maxine and I are friends. I see the boys regularly. They love baseball.”

  He pauses to watch the first out, a long, looping fly to left centre. “And I can afford the seats thanks to several dirty Chemican executives.”

  “Right. You know where the bodies are buried. How much has she jacked them up to? Greta Adelsen, your lawyer.”

  Now comes his famous lopsided grin. “I couldn’t understand why Becky McLean pretended to be shallow. Did her dear old mom warn her that men get turned off by brainy women?”

  “Were you blowing shit in there? In court?”

  “About being in love with you?”

  “Okay, that too. But the whole thing, suddenly being radically green and socialist?”

  “I am the converted. I no longer feel like shit. I feel purified.”

  “And the love bit? Did you mean it? It’s okay if you didn’t.”

  A bloop single and a sharp double play end the first half. Howie checks his lineup card against the stats on his sports page. He sighs. He speaks.

  “Okay, it was a severe rebound reaction. You played me like an oaf from the backwoods. I lost control of the wheel, went off the road. It was real, it wasn’t lust masquerading as love. And then when the whole thing blew up, yeah, I felt totally used and betrayed but I still loved . . . not you so much, the concept of you, who you really were . . .”

  We both look up. Standing in the aisle is his redheaded mouthpiece, Greta Adelsen. She holds a big bucket of popcorn. “Sorry, I’m late.” Eyes as cold as icicles as she extends the bucket to me. “Would you like to share?”

  I’m already up, wiggling into my pack. “No, he’s all yours.”

  6

  Monday, June 10

  The jury didn’t take the weekend off after all — either that or a verdict has been reached with lightning speed. They began working only twenty minutes ago, and a court officer has announced they’re ready. There’s frenzied excitement in the hallways, loud gabbling.

  We all take our proper places and wait while Miss Pucket visits Donahue in her chambers. And we wait. The judge was seen scuttling into the courthouse late, a major aberration for the punctuality freak.

  Azra Khan is back, looking wan. He had an exhausting weekend — a service for his mother yesterday at her mosque, then a family event at the Khans’ home.

  Nancy slouches in her chair and looks grim. Despite the occasional bad mood, she enjoyed this trial, gave it everything — it took her away from her unhappy personal life. That life is now back, her husband seeking an order for an accounting of his wine holdings.

  Arthur works on a Times crossword. He is calm. He will make his flight. He figured out who the holdout was by studying the jury for the few minutes they were in court on Saturday. One learns to read faces. He also predicted the jury would bring in a verdict quickly today.

  Arthur got back from Ottawa early this morning, and I haven’t had a chance to learn who he deduced was the die-hard. Nor have I had a chance to apologize for my bitchiness on Saturday. Will you stick around for the sentencing? You should fall on your knees, bitch, after everything he’s done.

  Lucy and I spent Sunday doing pharmaceuticals under the moose, laughing hysterically in a deranged cel
ebration of our last day of freedom. She got a kick out of hearing about my farcical episode with Howie. “Told you. His only true love is his dick.”

  When I came down from our trip I felt like I’d found acceptance. I’m chilled, I’m ready to take what comes my way. I keep repeating that. A mantra.

  The judge finally comes sailing in, beaming with relief that she won’t face the shame of having presided over a mistrial and thereby wasting taxpayers’ dollars. “I understand we have a verdict. Ah, I see Mr. Khan is back. I hope your weekend was, ah . . . not too difficult.” She remembers, too late, to jettison her smile. “Are counsel ready? Very well, let’s hear from the jury.”

  And they troop in. This time, I study their faces with more purpose. The foreman, the architect, nervously fidgets over his small but vital role: as the jury’s voice, he will read the verdicts. Most of the others are as expressionless as officers of the palace guard, only their eyeballs moving, looking everywhere but at us: they hate themselves for their gutlessness, they can’t bear to look upon the plucky band of heroes without feeling shame.

  But some seem oddly at peace. Juror Seven, his arms folded in triumph, signalling he’d stubbornly fought and won. Juror Eleven, the SPCA lady, has the smile of a contented cat. Beside her, Mabel Sims, the churchy auditor, looks helplessly skyward, stiff-jawed, chastened, as if she’d just got a going-over from her parish priest. Maybe she heard the angry voice of God. Maybe I’m fantasizing. Something is askew here.

  Miss Pucket asks the foreman if he has a verdict. Yes, he has. My mind spins as I continue to focus on Mabel Sims, sitting stiffly in the back row. She has it in for me, was forever glaring at me — I’m Satan’s little helper, an arrogant, publicity-seeking infidel.

  Miss Pucket wants us to stand as our names are called. Doc rises first, with head held high. Mabel Sims glances at him, then back in the direction of the heavens, as if seeking God’s guidance. Or questioning it.

  As Miss Pucket reads the first count against Doc, the conspiracy, I pinch myself. I feel pain, so I’m not dreaming. I’ve just had a revelation. I go to Lucy’s ear. “Mabel Sims was the holdout.”