Touch

by Elmore Leonard

  "You mean tonight?" Lynn was pushing herself up out of the crushed velvet. "You want me to go in there smashed?"

  "They won't think anything of it," Bill Hill said.

  Chapter 5

  AUGUST MURRAY said later that outside of himself and of course the twenty from the Gray Army of the Holy Ghost, practically everybody in the courtroom was black. He said, "You want to see a profile of Detroit, go down to Recorder's Court in the Frank Murphy Hall of in-Justice."

  The court clerk, sitting at a counter in front of the judge's bench, was black. A police sergeant, the bailiff, next to the clerk, was black. There were black probation people and skinny black policewomen with shoulderbags, three black defense lawyers, a young white-girl defense lawyer trying to prove something, another blond girl recording the cases, and a two-hour line--while August Murray waited his turn--of black prostitutes, black shoplifters, black guys who beat up their common-law wives, black people charged with larceny under a hundred dollars, assault and battery, indecent exposure--maybe there were a few white people. Judge Kinsella was swarthy turning gray, supposedly white. The assistant prosecutor under all the hair looked like some kind of hybrid. Black voices--a girl saying, "I'm already doing sixteen to two out to the House." Sullen or half asleep, very few of the voices addressed the court as "Your Honor" or had much to offer in their defense. The voices made sounds. August Murray--waiting through all that, until the court clerk called file number 7753047 and his name--would have a few things to say.

  He stood at the microphone facing the clerk's counter and the judge's bench and waited another five minutes, at least, staring at the judge, trying to get his eye. The judge was talking to a black policewoman, signing a paper, having her swear to something with her hand raised. A black lawyer was leaning on the counter talking to the clerk now. The police sergeant next to the clerk said, "You people back there, take a seat."

  Murray wanted to look around, but kept staring at the judge, waiting for the judge to look up and notice all the young white men in the courtroom, twenty of them among the black relatives of the defendants, all wearing light gray armbands and six of them carrying cardboard signs, turned in, they would hold up at the right time. August Murray wore a long-sleeved brown sport shirt, a white T-shirt showing beneath the open collar. He carried a silver pen and pencil set and two Magic Markers, a red one and a blue one, clipped to his shirt pocket. Around his left bicep was the armband of the Gray Army of the Holy Ghost, a soaring white dove appliqued on a field of light gray felt. He kept waiting for the judge to notice his armband and become aware of all the other armbands in the courtroom.

  But when the judge did look up he didn't seem to notice.

  August Murray stood at parade rest, his brown crepe-soled shoes exactly eighteen inches apart, right hand holding his left wrist behind his back. He would maintain this stance throughout the proceeding.

  The court clerk said, "Mr. Murray, you're charged with assault and battery--" He looked down at the counter again and said something to the police sergeant next to him. Their heads remained together looking down at the file, the clerk turning a page and turning it back again.

  August Murray, staring at the clerk now, was sure they were doing it on purpose. He said to the clerk in his mind, Look at me. Look at me.

  Dark hair in place, combed straight back; no sideburns or excess hair on his face. Clean. Serious. Not about to take any second-class treatment or be shuffled, pushed aside. The clerk would know immediately when he looked at him--

  "Albert--Father Albert Navaroli," the clerk said. "Is Father Navaroli in the courtroom?"

  He was here. Murray had seen the little guinea priest in the hall. The hippie guinea priest and another priest.

  The police sergeant held up his hand. "Come up here please, Father."

  Please, Father-- The cop had said to Murray, "Stand right there." Judged before a word was said, who was right and who was wrong. Nothing had changed at the Hall of in-Justice.

  The clerk said to Murray, "Are you represented by counsel?"

  Murray said, "I represent myself."

  Then a conference between the clerk and the judge before the clerk sat down again and the young assistant prosecutor with his hair touching his suit coat said to the hippie, curly-haired street priest, "Father Navaroli, would you tell us what happened, please?"

  Murray glanced at the priest then. He was shorter than August Murray's five seven and a half, even with all his curly hair. The priest was wearing a black suit with a Roman collar. At his mass the priest had worn vestments that looked like they'd been made for some kind of an Indian ceremony, with fringe and a beaded stole.

  The priest said, "Well, it was during the ten o'clock mass, right after the offertory. We were singing the Sanctus--"

  "The what?" August Murray said. "You were singing Holy, Holy, Holy."

  "Mr. Murray--" the assistant prosecutor began.

  "I'm asking him a question as the right of counsel," Murray said.

  The judge spoke for the first time, calmly. He said, "If you're representing yourself you can cross-examine. But when your turn comes."

  A quiet putdown. Murray stared at the judge and watched him look away.

  There were other interruptions. People coming up and whispering to the clerk, to the judge, the judge talking to someone and not paying any attention as the priest continued.

  "This man, Mr. Murray," the priest said, "came in with several others and began distributing pamphlets right up the main aisle when I saw them, disturbing the people hearing mass--"

  "Mass?" August Murray said. "That was a mass?"

  "Mr. Murray," the assistant prosecutor said, "you've already been told--"

  "It didn't look like a mass to me," Murray said, staring at the judge. "Guitars, tamborines. I thought maybe it was a square dance." He smiled a little now, testing the judge. "You know what I mean, Your Honor? Some kind of a new-wave Vatican II hoedown."

  The judge didn't smile or respond and the prosecutor, as though in pain, shook his head and told Murray to be quiet during Father Navaroli's testimony. Not please be quiet. Murray kept his hands behind his back, not moving, knowing his people in the audience, scattered through the semicircle of benches, were there waiting.

  The curly-haired priest said he addressed Mr. Murray and his group from the altar, asking them to kindly take a pew or else leave the church, as they had not been authorized to distribute literature. Murray approached him, the priest said, and began yelling, using abusive language.

  "What exactly did he say?" the prosecutor said.

  The clerk looked at the wall clock above the door and then at his watch. The judge seemed deep in thought.

  "Did he place his hands on you?" the prosecutor added.

  The priest cleared his throat. "He said, Mr. Murray said, 'This is not the holy sacrifice of the mass. This is a clown show, a mockery, and a sacrilege.' Then he pushed his pamphlets at me, trying to get me to take them. The pamphlets fell--"

  "He knocked them out of my hands," Murray said.

  "He grabbed my stole and tried to pull it off," the priest said. "I caught the end of the stole and pulled, like a tug-a-war, and that's when he pushed me with both hands, hard, knocking me down."

  "He tripped on his microphone cord," Murray said.

  The judge was looking at him now, finally, about to get into it. He said, "One more interruption, Mr. Murray, and I'm holding you in contempt of court--"

  "Sir?"

  "You're trying for one hundred dollars or ten days in the Wayne County Jail." The judge seemed to pause, finally noticing Murray's armband.

  Murray grinned, giving the judge a sheepish, little-kid look. "You mean just for saying, 'Sir,' Your Honor?"

  "If you interrupt testimony again." Now the judge was studying the file in front of him. He looked up, saying, "Have you been in trouble before this?"

  Murray shook his head. "No, Your Honor."

  The assistant prosecutor said, "He's got two priors. As
sault and disorderly conduct."

  The judge was looking at Murray, waiting.

  Murray said, "You asked if I'd been in trouble," trying the little-kid grin again. "I didn't consider those charges much trouble, Your Honor. I was put on probation."

  "For the assault," the clerk said. "He violated his probation with the disorderly and was fined two hundred dollars, November 1976."

  "You don't consider that being in trouble?" the judge asked.

  "Your Honor," Murray said, "are you asking me to testify against myself?"

  The clerk saw it coming. He looked at the clock again and sat back in his chair, glancing at the police sergeant. The young assistant prosecutor made a little turn with his hands in his pockets, walked over to his table. Judge Kinsella seemed tired, though it was only 11:15 in the morning.

  He said, "The court requests you answer questions that are a matter of record."

  "If it's in the records," Murray said, still calm though not grinning now, "why ask the question? Unless it's to trap me. You asked if I'd been in trouble before. I said no, I didn't consider it trouble. Did I answer your question or not?"

  The clerk turned, half rising to have a conference with the judge. Murray didn't mind the wait now; he had them irked and edgy.

  He said, "Your Honor?"

  But the judge didn't look up.

  "Your Honor?"

  Now he did. "Wait till we're finished here."

  "I just want to say I think it's open to question whether you're qualified, Your Honor, to sit in judgment on this particular hearing--"

  The judge was staring now, yes, eyes fixed, brought to attention; the clerk turning back again as Murray delivered his statement in a dry, unhurried tone.

  "--considering the fact you've been excommunicated from the Church, Your Honor, following your recent divorce and, if I'm not mistaken, remarriage? Since this is basically a religious question we're talking about here--"

  The judge seemed to be getting hold of himself, formulating his words, or counting to ten. He said, then, "No, the question is whether or not you are in contempt of this court--"

  "Your Honor, I feel the judgment of an excommunicated Catholic layman could be prejudicial in examining my right to defend my church and its sacred traditions from a carnival atmosphere that one not in the Church any longer might fail to recognize." Murray paused, giving the judge a chance to speak.

  "I've been patient with you. I feel I've indicated sufficient warning--"

  That was enough.

  "Let me say, Your Honor," Murray began again, "I believe you should disqualify yourself on prejudicial grounds and appoint a judge not subjectively concerned."

  "Mr. Murray"--the judge's tone was brittle, controlled with an effort--"this is a misdemeanor court hearing on a charge of assault and battery. You will not open your mouth again unless I give you permission. Is that clear?"

  "I want the record to show, Your Honor, that you are now speaking in a subjective and emotional fit of anger--"

  "You're in contempt!" The judge cut him off, straightening as if to rise out of his high-backed leather chair. "And will be remanded to the custody of the bailiff!"

  "I want a jury trial," Murray said. "God help me, in another court. It's my right and you know it."

  Now. Murray unlocked his hands, bringing them to his sides. He saw the judge's gaze rise suddenly and the police sergeant come to his feet, hand going to his holstered revolver.

  "You gonna shoot them?" Murray said.

  The signs were up now, he knew, he could feel them before he glanced over his shoulder to see the words, red on white squares of cardboard, OUTRAGE . . . OUTRAGE . . . OUTRAGE . . . OUTRAGE . . . OUTRAGE . . . OUTRAGE, six of them held high, scattered through the courtroom, and the twenty members of the Gray Army of the Holy Ghost standing now, silently facing the court.

  "Go ahead," Murray said to the police sergeant, "shoot them."

  Chapter 6

  A LITTLE GRAY-HAIRED WOMAN in a sleeveless yellow blouse brought Lynn a breakfast tray at 7:30. She said, "How you doing? I'm Edith, I'm your Big Sister."

  Lynn could smell oatmeal. She said, "Where am I?"

  "You're in detox. Don't you remember coming here?"

  "I mean where am I?"

  Lynn was still wearing her scooped-neck Bob Marley and the Wailers T-shirt and cutoffs. She sat up in the single bed, thinking of an orphanage, not a hospital. She had pictured white walls and hospital beds. The walls were pale green and needed paint. The two empty beds in the room, made up, were covered with faded summer spreads. Sunlight came in the window through a heavy-gauge wire screen. The place was old, an institution.

  "Few days, once you get dried out, they'll move you up to four," the little gray-haired woman said. "I'll take you around, help you get some other things if you want. I don't see a suitcase anywhere--"

  "I'm at Sacred Heart, huh?" Lynn said, practicing, trying to sound foggy and vague. Her head was fairly clear though it throbbed and she was nauseated. She could remember one hangover before this, years and years ago, and hadn't had anything to drink for weeks.

  "There was a bar--I was sitting there talking to a friend about getting straightened out--"

  She had not worn her eyelashes or skin gloss, but had rubbed on a dark red shade of lipstick Bill Hill said would make her look pale, left the apartment about 2:30 A.M. after two and a half bottles of Spumante--giggling, telling him she was going to walk in naked, liven the place up--and had been dropped off in front of the Center with Bill Hill's parting words, "Ring the bell then quick see if you can throw up a little."

  "Your friend done you a favor," the little gray-haired woman said. "You don't look too bad except maybe your eyes."

  The doctor asked how long she had been drinking. Lynn said, oh, about ten years. She said lately she'd been drinking about a gallon of wine a day and carried a pint of vodka in her purse just in case. The doctor didn't seem impressed.

  The nurse, taking blood samples, asked if she'd been eating regularly. Lynn said, oh, you know, now and then. The nurse said well, she didn't look too bad, considering.

  What was this, not too bad? Compared to the other women wandering around here, with their bruised white skin and circles and oily hair, she looked like a homecoming queen.

  The nice woman counselor, sitting at her metal desk smoking cigarettes (everybody here, Lynn decided later, smoked two packs a day) asked if she remembered coming. Lynn said, vaguely.

  "Have you experienced blackouts?"

  "Some."

  "For extended periods or just the night before?"

  "I guess both."

  "Do you think you're alcoholic?"

  "I guess I must be, all I've been drinking."

  The woman counselor said it wasn't the quantity that counted, it was the dependency. The first step was to realize she was powerless over alcohol, then learn to accept it, and finally substitute an entirely new attitude for the dependence.

  "How?"

  That would come. She'd see films on alcoholism, hear talks by recovering alcoholics working in the field and, once through orientation, take part in group sessions twice a day during the seventeen weeks of the program.

  Seventeen weeks?

  The woman counselor asked about her moods--any feelings of depression or anxiety?--to the point that Lynn was afraid the woman suspected something and was trying to trap her. When the phone rang and the woman counselor walked over to the window with the receiver, looking out as she spoke, her back to Lynn, Lynn looked at the steno pad on the desk and saw the notations, "Natural but somewhat evasive . . . Underlying feelings of guilt . . . Appearance not too bad."

  When the counselor returned to her desk Lynn asked if she could use her phone after. The counselor explained that in order to concentrate on her immediate problem and not be concerned with anything else, Lynn would have no contacts outside the Center for the first five weeks.

  "You mean I'm trapped here?"

  "You can leave anytime yo
u want," the counselor said, "but if you stay you have to play by the house rules."

  "I thought the door was locked."

  "To keep friends and relatives and all their good intentions, and all your old problems, out," the counselor said, "not to keep you in."

  Lynn felt better, but tried not to show it.

  * * *

  She studied a crucifix on the wall: a pale plaster Jesus on a varnished cross, the figure contorted, eyes raised in agony. Dramatic, but was it necessary? She liked plain crosses better, without the figure.

  Lynn's gaze moved to a blown-up photograph of an empty room littered with old newspapers and junk, the hall or lobby of a condemned building where street bums would find shelter.

  Lynn said, "Is that this place before it was fixed up?"

  The man sitting next to her in the booth, stirring his coffee, said, "I don't know what it's supposed to be. Looks like some dump on Michigan Avenue."

  Maybe the photograph hung on the wall as a reminder, or an option. Huddle in that filthy place sweating or shivering, or both; or relax here in the coffee shop of the Sacred Heart Center, second floor, across from the TV lounge. There were tables, booths along the windowed wall that looked down on the backyard and the volleyball court; soft-drink, cigarette, and candy vending machines and a pair of sixty-cup coffee urns with trays of cups, cream pitchers, and packets of sugar. The coffee was free, very strong, and all you wanted.

  Lynn had eaten lunch, sat through an orientation session, watched a film called Bourbon in Suburbia, and had been in the coffee shop nearly an hour, wondering if she should ask about Juvenal, look for him, or wait until they happened to meet. It was kind of interesting watching people, sizing them up.

  They used a lot of cream and sugar and ate candy, passing around a box of butter mints, and smoked cigarettes. Some of the men rolled their own and, at first, Lynn thought they were making joints, but it was Bugle pipe tobacco, a blue package they rolled up and shoved into their back pockets. People, the residents, sat around awhile and left and others came in---