Ever After: A Father's True Story

  We sit, not saying anything. The drinks arrive. I hope a cop doesn’t stop us on the way home.

  Then, I can feel myself about ready to cry, but if it comes, it comes. I’m getting better at crying. I even cry when I don’t know what I’m crying about. I can cry over a picture in a newspaper or when I hear about a kind, loving act that somebody’s done, or a piece of music, or, as I said, over nothing at all. I imagine this is the sign of some neurosis with a complicated name.

  I put five dollars down on the table, hoping it will cover the beers. Mona and I walk out the door, slowly, so they can stop us if it isn’t enough.

  The next day, Mona tells me we’re going to a pre-trial conference. It’s been called by Judge Higgins, the trial judge.

  I dress in my lawyer clothes. We park in a parking-lot near the courtroom. Clint is already there waiting for us on the steps. I’m reminded of the settlement conference, with Ted Mitchell and Clint waiting for us. But no Mitchell this time, no security check either.

  We go to a small room. Harry Fox is there with another guy, a big heavy fellow, and we shake hands all around. About five minutes later a middle-aged woman peeks in the door, and nods for Fox and Mona to come with her. We sit in silence waiting.

  They come back quickly. Mona walks in her high-heeled-booted walk over to me.

  “Judge Higgins doesn’t want either plaintiffs or defendants at the pre-trial conference, only the attorneys. I’m really sorry to drag you all the way over here.”

  “It fits.”

  “Whatever you do, don’t talk to the defendant. You’ll probably be told to stay in the same room. Don’t trust this guy, he’s standing in for Sampson. He’ll try his damnedest to wangle something, anything, out of you.”

  The middle-aged woman returns. She motions Mona, Clint, Harry Fox, and his fat lawyer helper into the room with the judge. She takes the Sampson man and me through the door. It opens into a medium-sized courtroom, the kind I’m accustomed to in films.

  At first I wander around the room, trying some of the chairs, first the jury’s, then the judge’s. It’s comfortable and swivels. I wish I had something to read; the other guy has a couple magazines.

  “Like to borrow one of these? They’re the latest Newsweek and Time.”

  He holds them out like the witch in Snow White with her poisoned apple. I take Newsweek. Maybe it’s a test to see which one I’d choose, get some information as to my political preferences. But no, he keeps on reading.

  Five minutes later he begins talking about one of the articles he’s reading. I figure, the hell with it. I’ll just be careful about what I say, nothing about the accident, my lawyers, the case in general, my personal opinions.

  We have a great time chatting. As far as I can tell, he asks no leading questions. We talk about skiing, the baseball season, the pennant races, our children, neutral stuff. It’s a good thing we have something to talk about, because the pretrial conference goes on for over two hours. I feel guilty when Mona comes out. Should I tell her I’ve been friendly with the enemy?

  She and Clint are all smiles. But then, so are Harry Fox and his blimp. We again shake hands, just as if we’re in a boxing match before the starting bell. I don’t like the feeling.

  We stop at a bar around the corner from the courtroom. They’re jabbering away as we go along. They seem to think they’ve won every point that was raised. I wonder what Harry Fox was smiling about. Maybe this is the way lawyers hide their real feelings, smiling and jabbering. I try to stop my mind from thinking that way. I’ll listen.

  It turns out that in most points of procedure and of admissible evidence, “we’ve” won. Then, Mona speaks to me directly.

  “Judge Higgins wants to close the courtroom to TV. He says this issue is too controversial in Oregon, and could possibly generate a media-inspired mass hysteria. He pounded his fist and said his courtroom would not be a circus.”

  I look at her, then at Clint. It’s so diabolical, and it isn’t even their fault. They still don’t understand what I want, why I want it. The only person who seems to have been listening was Harry Fox. Now I know why he was smiling.

  “I give up! There’s no use having a trial if nobody’s going to be there to see it, to hear it. If no media can be used to put it before the people, the whole farce is an exercise in futility. How hard did you fight Judge Higgins when he tried to put this one over?”

  Clint speaks.

  “But we got everything we wanted, Will. We’re going to win this trial and win it big. There’s only a question of how much Judge Higgins will limit any award the jury makes. You have nothing to worry about.”

  I turn to Mona.

  “And what did you say?”

  “Clint’s right. We’ve practically won the case already. Most of our time was spent arguing whether he would or would not deduct the money awarded to Wills by Judge Murphy from your jury award, and what he would do if Sampson appeals.”

  “And that’s all?”

  “Well, what else?”

  “You won the battle and lost the war, that’s all! Don’t you see it? I know Harry Fox does. I’m sure all the seed growers and farmers will see it when they get to know about this fiasco.

  “As far as I’m concerned, this trial might as well not take place. It’s going to be a non-event, a total waste of two years’ work on your part and mine, an insane parody of a real trial!

  “I’ve said it all along, over and over. WE WANT AN UP FRONT JURY TRIAL! We’ve wanted it because we want to rub the filth and the stubble and the ashes into the faces of everyone who has anything to do with field burning, want them to experience, in total, complete detail, the destruction of my family. You had to know that. I’ve said it often enough.

  “I don’t think I’m a vindictive person, but as some compensation to my daughter, her husband, her lovely children, I want these Oregon grass-growing hicks to know what they’ve been a part of, what they’ll be a part of again, when the next fire burns, when more autos and trucks tangle and are crushed, and their drivers along with them, into oblivion.

  “Now, it will be just another private black mass in the back chapel, dry tears, echoes of muffled snickers by the people responsible; from your wonderful governor, to the last person who would not sign the petition for the referendum. How could the two of you have missed it. Didn’t you listen? Or were you so caught up in the ultimate trivia game, called law, that you forgot to look at or listen to what was happening?

  “It’s easy to see why plaintiffs and defendants were excluded from that pre-trial conference. I’ll bet our Mr. Fox was somehow behind it as I’m sure Mr. Crosley, the lawyer for the man who lit the fire, in his ice-cream suit and Buddha smile, was behind the settlement conference.”

  I stand up, drop some money on the table, and walk out. I don’t know how to get around by public transport in Portland but I have Robert and Karen’s phone number.

  I find a phone booth around the corner. I’m in it when I see Mona running along the street. I don’t duck, but I don’t signal where I am, either. Let chance be a factor. In her high-heeled boots, she isn’t quite running, but she’s moving fast enough. She passes my booth, then, apparently having seen me in the corner of her eye, comes back. As I slip coins into the phone, she’s outside watching me. I look back at her while the phone rings. After nine rings I put the receiver down. Chance! I go out. I don’t see Clint.

  “Hi there, good, old, bloodbuddy chum. What do you think of yourself as a friend now?”

  I start to walk away, not knowing where I’m going. She follows, stride for stride, even in those dumb boots.

  “Please, Will. Stop! Listen to me! You tried to explain but I didn’t really hear you. I thought I did, but I didn’t. I should have known, just by watching Harry Fox. Jesus, law can be such a fucking stupid business.”

  “Yes. Law sure is, at least as it’s practiced in Oregon, and probably over all America, and perhaps the entire world, but it’s lawyers who make it stupid. The kinds of
people it attracts, the way they’re trained, separated from real life, made to believe they’re somehow superior to others. It makes any possibility for real justice almost negligible. Our negligent law and its indigent practitioners. It makes me sick.

  “Mona, let’s stop running and sit down somewhere, please.”

  I flop on the green bench in a small park. I spread my arms across the back. Mona sits on the edge of the bench beside me. I’m soaking wet from nervous perspiration; I must stink like a raunchy old boar.

  We’re both breathing heavily—me from frustration and pent-up emotion, she from trying to run in those crazy boots, and probably something else.

  “Are you going through with the trial or shall I phone Judge Higgins and everybody else to call it off? If we don’t notify them and then you don’t show, the judge will have a good reason to call us in contempt, all of us.”

  “Well, as you know, Mona, I’m definitely in contempt, more so now than ever. I don’t know yet what I’m going to do. But whatever I do, don’t feel you have to go through with this farce because of me. I’ll work it out somehow.”

  “Will. Are we still friends?”

  I don’t know how to answer. I feel so betrayed, but I know I was betrayed by a situation beyond my control and hers, or Clint’s. Only another trapdoor mind like Fox’s, or perhaps Judge Higgins’s, with some nudging from Fox, could understand and know what was going to happen.

  “I’m still your friend, Mona, and I’d like you still to be mine. It’s just we don’t always dance to the same music.”

  I can feel myself filling up, choking, on the brink of breaking down. I don’t want that, not now. Mona looks away across this little park, this green oasis between high buildings. We’re quiet again. She knows I’m trying to pull myself together.

  “Will, I’d like you to come home with me. You can pull me off the case, never speak to me, but come home with me.”

  She stops, bites her lips. I see she’s having a hard time, too.

  I can’t speak. I can’t look at her either. The whole shitty thing seems such a mess. I stand up. I barely get it out.

  “OK, Mona, let’s go. Lawyer and client, riding off into the sunset.”

  CHAPTER 18

  AFTER A quiet dinner, where Mona’s son, Jonah, does most of the talking and Mona makes noncommittal sounds at appropriate places and Tom grunts approval in the same way, I get up and clear the table.

  Over Mona’s objections, I fill the sink and prepare to wash things up. This is the kind of work I always do when I’m upset at home. It smooths things out, makes them better, organizes disorganization.

  Twice Mona comes in, and twice I shoo her out of her own kitchen. She knows. After the dishes, I clean everything within reach, starting with the stove, the microwave, all the counters. I’m about ready to start scrubbing floors when Mona comes in again.

  “They’ve all gone up to bed, Will. I’d like to go sit on the porch. I can smoke there without blowing my diseased lungs all over you and maybe we can talk.”

  I follow her out the screen door. She reaches behind me and pulls the big door shut so it latches.

  She sits on the wide railing, tests the wind with her forefinger, and lights up. I watch how, with only about four movements, she opens the pack, knocks one out, puts it in her mouth, and lights it. The smoke, illuminated by the street lamp in the dark, is like a fog. I pull a chair over from the other side of the porch and tuck it in the corner. She looks through the smoke at me.

  “So where do we start?”

  “I thought the question was how do we end it?”

  She blows smoke slowly out her lips in what seems an unending stream. I could contemplate the twistings of that smoke in the back lighting of the street light for a long time.

  “Well, Mona, I’ve been thinking while I was futzing around in your kitchen. I feel strongly that if I’d just stayed closer, pushed harder, paid more attention, I wouldn’t be in the spot I’m in now. I succumbed to my own grief and anger. I didn’t keep my eyes and ears open. I let experts do the things I should have been doing for myself. That was dumb. I trusted more than I should have. I was lazy.

  “So now I don’t have many alternatives. I will hate having to explain to Bert in my dreams what’s happened. What I want to tell you now is strictly confidential between client and lawyer. Mona, I’m thinking of settling after all. I don’t want any part of the animal act that’s going to happen in that courtroom. This is between us, personally, professionally. Do you agree to that?”

  “You mean I’m still part of the act?”

  “Yes, you can play lion-tamer and double as the double-jointed lady.”

  “It can’t be this simple. What are you planning?”

  “A 180-degree turn, but at top speed. You can be the driver, if you want, or just step out now. I’ll need a navigator.”

  “Come on, stop being such a wise-ass.”

  “What’s the latest figure Sampson has come up with for a settlement? I haven’t been paying much attention because it didn’t mean anything to me.”

  “He’s offered $60,000. It’s Morgan who’s in charge of these negotiations.”

  “It’s all so disgusting. Imagine, one can kill four people at only $15,000 a head. Bargain-basement murder.”

  “It’s not as simple as that, and you know it.”

  “Yes, I know it, but I don’t like it.

  “There’s obviously no sum of money which can compensate for what’s happened. But, I won’t accept anything less than twice that on any condition. Yes, it’s blood-money, black, burned, blood-money, but that’s where I am now.”

  “So what are you going to do?”

  “I hope it’s ‘we.’”

  “I do, too.”

  “Thanks. We’ll go the way we’ve been going, refusing any offer. But no more expert witness crap. Let’s see if we can cut our losses a bit.

  “We give off vibes to Sampson, Fox, everybody, as if we’re dead sure we have the trial in our pocket and don’t intend anything except a jury decision. We make out as if we intend the trial to go on as long as we can keep it going. Steele, Cutler and Walsh isn’t going to like that, neither is Judge Higgins. This might make Mr. Fox think a second time, too. They don’t want a trial any more than anyone else.”

  She starts to light another cigarette, then stops.

  “So, what happens? Don’t we do anything? What do I do with all the trial preparations I’ve made?”

  “Save them, you might need them yet, Mona. I’m sorry. This is one aspect of this entire ploy that bothers me. You’ve worked hard and you’d have won, I know it.

  “But you know that I’ve been aced out of what I needed to win—a big, live court-case with heavy coverage: we’re not going to get that. And after the expenses and the pot money, legal and illegal, there wouldn’t be much real money left at the end.

  “Anyway, if we win we’d be forced into probate, then to an appeals court, waiting a year or more while the pittance that’s left is reduced even more. You see, I’ve been reading some of your law books, and I have been listening to you.

  “Then, by contract, I need to pay lawyer’s fees to Steele, Cutler and Walsh for the appeals out of my pocket. I’d be lucky to pay off the debts I’ve already run up. Do you get the picture, Mona? Tell me where I’m wrong.”

  Now she lights that cigarette. She puts her feet up onto the porch railing. She’s staring up the street to the next street-lamp.

  “I can’t tell you where you’re wrong. I’m not sure you’re right all the way, but it could go that way. Don’t worry about me and the case. I’ve been on salary. I’m not a partner, only an associate. I have a regular monthly salary just like any high-class secretary. But I still don’t understand what you intend to do. Are you going to skip the trial or settle? And when?”

  “Wait and see, Mona. They’ll come after us soon enough. They think I’m a nutcase. They haven’t yet made anything resembling a serious offer. So, for now, we’re
just not listening. As far as they know, we’re only preparing to put them through the hoops in a courtroom.”

  “Mitchell will be all over us to settle.”

  “Yeah, he and just about everybody involved.”

  She puts out her cigarette and stands up. I hope I’ve convinced her. I stand and open the door. She looks at me as she passes.

  “I hope you know what you’re doing.”

  “You, as a lawyer, have only one thing to lose, and it isn’t the case; it’s the chance to win the case. In their eyes, and on their terms, I have everything to lose, but I’ve already lost it, so I have nothing more to lose. I don’t think they’ve figured that one out.

  “Think about it. In the morning, after you’ve slept on it, and you decide you want out, just tell me. I’ll understand, I really will, and respect you for it.”

  She goes up the stairs and I stay out on the porch a little longer. I’m wishing I could have the family with me.

  CHAPTER 19

  THE NEXT MORNING, while I’m driving Mona to her office, she keeps looking at me, not smoking, not saying anything until we’re on the Hawthorne Bridge.

  “OK, I’ve decided. I thought I’d never fall asleep last night. You deserve a chance to play it your way, crazy as it seems to me. But first I need to find out how late one can call off a civil trial without being cited for contempt. And I must do this without alerting anyone. I think I can trust Paula. She’s an expert on these kinds of things. She’s my best friend at the office.”

  She looks at her watch and runs for the door.

  “Boy, are there going to be a bunch of scared, shocked people in that office. It’s almost worth getting fired just to see this. Stay at the house. I’ll call probably in about an hour. I think Paula will have what I need by then and I’ll have started pushing the buttons to abort lift-off.”

  I return, and some time after breakfast the phone rings. I let it ring seven times for luck.

  “Paula says we have until midnight tonight to cancel the trial. The bees are buzzing here. Mitchell took it out on me, then on Clint. But he really took it out on you. I told him you weren’t going to abandon the trial, just push for a maximum settlement and what’s wrong with that? According to him, everything. He says you’re playing with the law and so forth. It was great.