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PROSE - SECOND PLACE
Napoleon and the Battle of Midway
by Ruth Stone Ezell
"Professor Marquez?" Susan touched the face of her watch. "Isn't it time for you to go to the faculty meeting?"
Ignacio Marquez, III, known to all but his students as "Nat", looked up from the case file he had been going over with Susan and Roland, two of the clinic students. He glanced at the cheap plastic clock on the wall. "You're right. One thirty. Time for Romper Room."
Susan laughed, but Roland looked at him and frowned. "You'll be back to talk with us about this case?" Roland demanded. "I really don't see what we can do for this family," he added defensively, not wanting Professor Marquez to think he was in any way afraid of this horrible court case with the terrible facts.
"Not this family", Professor Marquez chided Roland. "The child is your client." And with that he strode out the door of the little white house with peeling paint that sheltered the clinic, and raced across the law school green. He headed for the modern and very expensive building housing the faculty meeting room, the building immortalizing the alumnus who'd brought the tobacco industry to its knees and who had coincidentally given eleven million dollars to Southern State University.
Nat walked quickly into the meeting, slowing only as he approached the door. The current dean had been at the school for four months, slightly less time than Nat, and Nat did not want to antagonize him by arriving late. Nat looked for a friendly face, and saw none. He had not met many of the tenure track faculty, and all of the other clinical teachers were somewhere near Truckee, California at a clinical legal education conference.
Conference! he thought, and shook his head. He suspected that his compatriots, Professors Baldwin and Taylor, were either swimming in a heated pool or skiing down the slopes. Or maybe even smoking dope. After all, they were both former Legal Services lawyers. When he had asked them what they would be doing, they had told him they would be singing in rounds with a Jean Koh Peters. Nice work if you could get it. They had told him that as the clinician with the least seniority, he would have to guard the fort and keep the law students in line.
He hesitated, and then sat down by a woman sporting a crew cut with dark roots and spiky yellow hair that resembled soiled chicken feathers. He had noticed that most of the women faculty at the school dressed in pants and other forms of male clothing. Her face was devoid of makeup. Probably a lesbian, he thought, as she looked back at him through narrowed eyes. "Aren't you a clinical instructor?" she inquired. "The faculty is going to vote on continuation of the law school's in-house clinic, and you'll have to leave."
Nat was dumbfounded. He had not known the clinic was up for a vote, and he was sure the other clinicians didn't, either, or they would be here instead of in California. How had what he had come to refer to as the "regular" faculty managed to sneak this on the agenda without the clinicians' knowledge? Of course, none of the clinical staff were allowed to vote on law school matters, but clinicians were still required to attend faculty meetings and usually received agendas or at least grapevine news beforehand.
The Dean stood. His name was Fob Smith but clinicians used the familiar of "Snob" behind his back. The dean was tall and thin with a disproportionately large Adam's apple that would bob up and down when he became excited. He reminded Nat of his ex-wife's pastor, a righteous man of the Southern Holiness persuasion. Dean Smith threw his arms in the air and intoned in a booming voice: "I realize this is short notice, but we just received word a week ago that the federal grant for the clinic will not be renewed. You will recall that loss of funding is a basis for the faculty to consider discontinuation of the clinic. I placed this item on the agenda because summer and contract renewal for non-tenure track faculty are fast approaching."
A short silence followed, then Professor McElhaney, famous at the school for her articles on feminist issues that no one on the faculty bothered to read, raised her hand. "Don't you think in fairness we ought to have this discussion when all of the clinical faculty are present?" she asked hesitantly. At that, there was an audible stir, as the fifty some odd faculty members turned in unison and looked around to see who was there.
Dean Smith looked at Professor McElhaney coolly. "As you all know, part of my agenda when I came on board was to make some significant changes at the school. I feel this school is at a turning point, midway to becoming the Harvard of the South, and midway from…" Here he paused and smiled at his own wit…'Nuts and Bolts R US.' We can either spend hard dollars on the brightest scholars with the brightest futures, and on publishable research," he emphasized, looking pointedly at Professor McElhaney, "or spend valuable time teaching the least qualified students how to go to court with briefs that don't have coffee stains on them. Instead of performing groundbreaking research we can bow to President Salcines' request to fill the speakers' spaces at the state bar's continuing legal education classes!"
There goes a coveted committee membership Nat thought, glancing sideways at Professor McElhaney, who seemed on the verge of tears at this exhortation. Dean Smith continued, "No, I don't want to wait. The floor is open for discussion, after the clinical faculty have left." He looked at Nat, who took this as a sign that he was supposed to leave since he was the only clinical faculty member present.
Nat made a small nod in the direction of the dean, and sauntered out the tall palladium doors. He headed to the faculty parking lot. This was as good an excuse as any to leave school early. Susan and Roland would think he had been detained at the faculty meeting. He didn't feel like going over the Bennett case with them. It had been a rotten week, and he needed a drink. Besides, it was just a run of the mill dependency case. The students always wanted excessive handholding. It would be good for them to use this beautiful Friday afternoon stewing over a situation that was more social work than law.
It was a short drive to his apartment two streets over. The apartment was a dump, but a prize at the price in a crowded college town that was a landlord's market. Nat went to his kitchen and opened the liquor cabinet. He found a bottle of ninety proof whiskey. He poured himself a stiff one. Stiff one, that was funny. He had learned on a cruise to Key West that the phrase had originated when islanders began using scarce ice culled from the morgue to cool their drinks.
He knew he wasn't supposed to drink. He was hypoglycemic, and alcohol did strange things to him. In fact, the last time he had gotten drunk he had lost the job he had held as a career prosecutor. This was shortly after his divorce from Catherine, when he was still feeling sorry for himself. He had had the misfortune of flirting with the State Attorney's wife at the annual required attendance Christmas party. The boss's wife was dark-skinned, with high cheekbones, almond-shaped eyes, and an ample bosom. Perhaps he had danced a little closely with her, and it certainly had been a mistake to rest his head on the woman's décolletage. But it wasn't intentional; he was very short. His ex-wife had been fond of calling him Gnatpolean. His boss, who was also intoxicated, had pulled him out of a slow dance to engage in a fistfight. Nat had won that battle, but lost the war.
His father, a powerful state representative from Miami, had gotten him his job ten years ago, but even his father's influence couldn't save him. And there was no merit retention at the State Attorney's Office, so the next morning Nat had been out of work.
Representative Marquez and the President of the main campus at Southern University were political cronies and hunting buddies. President Salcines had immediately found a place for Nat in the law school clinic. The clinic had a vacant spot that had been reserved for a year for a minority lawyer, preferably an African-American minority, but African-American academics were scarce, and none had been willing to take a year to year position paying $50,000. It had become obvious to Nat that the other clinical professors resented how he had gotten this low-paying job, but they had no idea how much he had hated having to take it. After a decade of prosecuting murderers and assorted felons he was shepherding novice lawyers through the perils of juvenile court. Him! Ignacio Marquez the third in kiddy court!
He looked at the whiskey bottle sitting on the counter. Why not? It was Friday; he didn't have to work tomorrow. He poured himself another double. "Cheers," he said to the painted velvet religious picture his landlord had hung on the wall. Where did the landlord get these things? he wondered. Now he probably wouldn't even have this babysitting job. He knew his ex-wife would stop visitation if the child support was even a week late or a dollar short. He supposed he would have to borrow money from his father. The thought of his continued dependence only served to intensify his hatred for his ex-wife. His father, a devout Catholic, had made sure to let Nat know of the deep familial shame caused by the first divorce in the known history of the Marquez family. Nat looked up at the Madonna with the accusing eyes. "Well, she wasn't exactly you," Nat slurred out loud. "It's what I get for marrying outside my faith, but don't pity me," he said as mixed his fourth, or was it his fifth, drink and gazed back into what now seemed a sorrowful stare. "I'm a survivor and I know how to land on my feet."
He went back to the kitchen, and grabbed the whiskey. Why bother to count when you could drink straight from the bottle. He was definitely feeling better. What the hell. He hadn't enjoyed working with those emotionally retarded, self-styled intellectuals anyway. He had hated law school when he was a student at Southern U, too, except for the parties with the unending, sweating kegs of cold beer. Cheap stuff, cheap thrills, but it had made law school pass by a little quicker. On 50K a year, he could afford the good stuff now-Evan Williams! he thought with disgust as he took another swig. It was like drinking syrup.
He lumbered to the swayback couch to stretch out. He turned the television on and his thoughts wandered back to his job dilemma. Maybe he should pay a visit to the Snob's house and straighten this thing out, mano a mano. But for now he felt too tired to fight or even think. His father was in town for the legislative session. He would call him in the morning and get a second opinion. His eyes closed and soon he began to snore. His stubby fingers uncurled. The bottle dropped, and the sickly sweet smell of bourbon filled the room. Talking heads on the television babbled on, but Nat wasn't listening. He also didn't hear his phone ring, and ring, and ring.
"Well, what are we going to do now?" asked Susan as she hung up the phone.
"I think the answer is obvious," Roland answered. "We call the Department of Children and Families and make a neglect report."
Susan frowned. She had known this was going to be difficult, ever since Professor Marquez had assigned her to work with Roland on this dependency case. First, she had never liked Roland. He was an elitist and she was the only person from her family who had ever gone to college, much less law school. She had heard he was a Kappa Alpha and a member of the Sons of the Confederacy; she was a New York Jew. He had made the comment aloud in one of their first year orientation classes on diversity that several of his well-qualified male friends (if he really had any, which she questioned) had not gotten into law school because of all the women admittees who were never going to practice anyway. Finally, he had told her when they were assigned to the Bennett dependency case that most poor people ended up in court because they were addicts or shiftless drunks who preferred to be supported by the system and hard-working taxpayers like himself. It had irritated her that she couldn't even contradict him on this particular point because the mother had been brought into court for failure to comply with the caseworker's plan, which required her to get a job, stay off crack cocaine, and make sure her nine-year-old daughter Kaylie was being adequately fed, clothed and housed.
Susan had found Kaylie to be a sharp, precocious child. One of the child's first questions had been whether they were her lawyers, or whether they worked for the State. And when Susan had told her they were her lawyers, and that everything she would say to them would be secret between them, she had asked them if she could get that in writing. We won't tell anything you don't want us to tell," she assured Kaylie." It is part of our contract with you, and it is in writing. I'll read it to you if you like."
"But you're blind!" the little girl had exclaimed thoughtlessly, "give it to me!"
Even Roland had been offended, and had started off with a "Listen here, young lady.." When Susan interrupted him with a laugh: "Visually challenged is how I prefer to think of it."
"I can read," the little girl said defensively as she grabbed the retainer from Roland's hands. Kaylie had actually spent about ten minutes reading the two-page form before signing it. A lot of their adult clients just flipped to the back page and signed. The students were never sure whether the clients couldn't read, were too trusting, or just didn't care.
"We can't call the Department, Roland," Susan said. "We promised Kaylie." The child had told them she did not want to talk with any caseworker, and that she did not want the students to do anything that might cause her to be separated from her mother. "If they found out she has been left alone overnight they'll put her in foster care."
"So?" asked Roland. "What's the question?"
"Well, in case you don't remember, the Rules of Professional Responsibility require us to keep client confidences," Susan retorted angrily. "And she told us she didn't want us to tell anyone, she just wanted us to come get her."
Roland was exasperated. "Damn it, Susan, I'm a certified legal intern, not a babysitter. That's the Department's job. Besides Professor Taylor and Professor Baldwin told us never to go to a client's home without their consent and they're all the way across the continent right now. And we don't know where the hell the little banty rooster they left in charge is. The child's home is in Midway, for God's sake. That's fifteen miles out; it's in the sticks. Half the roads out there are named something like Old Farm Road or Old Dirt Road-because they are! I'm not getting my Porsche stuck in some sandspur covered sand dune."
"Then I'll go by myself," Susan said. "But you better not call the Department while I'm gone." She stood up and grabbed her bag and her cane.
"How are you going to get out there?" Roland asked.
"I'll call a taxi," Susan replied.
Roland snorted with indignation. "Where do you think this is, New York City? There are no taxis to Midway." He paused, then spoke hesitantly. " I think this is the wrong decision, but I can't let you go alone to that crack-infested rat heap. By the way," he added hopefully, "we can divulge a confidence if there is a likelihood of substantial bodily harm."
Susan was surprised, but grateful. She had read in the dependency reports that Kaylie and her mother lived across from a known crack house and hadn't relished the thought of being dumped by a cab driver in a place where a blonde with a serious northern accent might not be welcome. "Roland, the substantial bodily harm would have to be to a third person, not the client, to be able to report. Get your keys and let's go."
. . .
Kaylie was beginning to sweat in the small closet. Her mother had made her promise not to make any noise unless absolutely necessary, and not to come out under any circumstances until she came back. Kaylie had fallen asleep in the closet, but it was morning now. She could tell by the slice of daylight under the door. Why hadn't her mother let her out?
She and her mother had seen the two men getting out of a dark Cadillac Thursday evening, walking down the path to their door. Her mother had given her a look like that of a deer caught in the headlights of an oncoming car. She had shoved Kaylie in the closet with the warning not to come out. Kaylie was quite familiar with her mother's wrath, and had held her breath while the men stomped through the little shotgun house, screaming and demanding money. The last thing Kaylie had heard before she fell asleep in the closet was the front door slamming.
Kaylie was getting very hungry and thirsty, and she desperately needed to pee. Still, she feared her mother's reaction, especially after a late night out with one of her boyfriends. She probably would have remained there for another few hours except she saw the largest palmetto bug she had ever seen in her life, its spindly legs curving up into the air. The bug was on his back, so he must be dead, but she could not abide cockroaches. She would either scream or come out of the closet. If her mother had a hangover, it would probably be worse to make a racket so the only choice was to exit on tiptoes. She slowly came out and looked around the one room house. No one was there. What was she going to do? She had not even had dinner, not that she always got an evening meal. Sometimes her mother was too out of it to fix anything, and unlike Kaylie, she never seemed to want to eat. Kaylie looked through the cabinets and the refrigerator. All she saw was a bottle of her mother's fingernail polish and a can of beer in the refrigerator. She took the nail polish out and began absentmindedly coloring her nails as she tried to think what she could do.
This was not the first time her mother had left her alone overnight, but it was the first time she could remember when she could not find even so much as a cracker in the house. It was also the first time she had slept in the closet. There was no telling when her mother would be back. She could tell by the height of the sun in the sky that she had missed the bus, so there would be no school and therefore no guaranteed meal. The prospect of a weekend alone was bad enough, but an impossibility with no food.
She knew she could not call her caseworker. The caseworker would be furious, Kaylie would end up in foster care, and her mother would kill her if and when Kaylie got released back. Her mother had forbidden her to go to the house across the street and Kaylie did not know any of her neighbors. Her mother had gotten this house a few weeks ago and most of the people here appeared to be elderly and probably would not open the door to anyone. Also, there was a good likelihood they would simply call the Department if a hungry and obviously truant child came to their attention. She put her hand in her jeans pocket to see if she had any candy squirreled away. Nope, only the clinic card the blind woman had given her. She looked at it. The law students! They surely had a car, and they had promised her they would not report to her worker. She picked up the phone. It rang, and rang, and rang. She was just about to hang up when a voice came on the line. "Children's Clinic. This is Susan. May I help you?"
Susan and Roland drove into a yard littered with trash: broken beer bottles, old tires, and thousands of cigarette butts that would take a million years to decompose. Susan carefully opened the door of the Porsche. "Come on, Roland," she urged him.
Roland looked around apprehensively. "Wait," he cautioned. "And take this cell phone. Don't forget these houses don't have street numbers, and one of them is a crack house." But which one, Roland asked himself silently. He did not want Susan to know how frightened he was. This was not the kind of neighborhood to which he was accustomed. There were only two houses on the unpaved street, and they faced each other.
Nothing and no one was outside except for an emaciated white mongrel dog that was eating something disgustingly nondescript. The dog turned to face Roland, assumed a defensive posture, and growled. "No thank you! None for me," Roland said as he walked backwards and away from the mongrel towards the door of the closest house. The dog went back to its meal, keeping one eye focused on Susan and Roland. Susan had gotten out of the car and was tapping her way down a broken sidewalk. Roland caught up to her and grabbed her arm. He helped her up the sagging steps of the rectangular house to a solid wooden door. The windows of the house were boarded up, and Roland could not see inside.
He knocked on the door. "Kaylie?" he called. No one answered, and he hesitantly turned the doorknob. "Stay behind me," he told Susan. He pushed the door open and walked in, with Susan clinging to the back of his shirt. There was no light in the house, and it was extremely dark due to the boarded windows. "Oh," he said with some relief. "It's the right place." He saw Kaylie's mother sitting slumped over, apparently passed out drunk, at a table in a dark corner, still wearing the "have a nice day" tee shirt they had seen her in at Thursday's dependency arraignment.
"How do you know?" Susan asked as she followed him to wherever he was taking her. She got no reply, but Roland suddenly stopped and Susan ran into him. She heard a retching sound, and felt something warm, wet, and sour smelling spraying her jeans. "Roland?" she asked nervously. "Should I call Professor Marquez?" "No," he answered weakly.
"The Department?" she continued. His only response was "You better call the police."
"I admire your son, Alexandro," President Salcines commented looking at Nat's potato soup and water. "Young people today are so health conscious! Are you sure you won't have some wine, Nat. They say a glass or two a day is quite good for you."
Nat shook his head slowly. It hurt to move it too quickly. His father and President Salcines were eating rare steak prepared by the hotel and restaurant majors who interned at the University Club. Nat thought he might throw up if he didn't avoid looking at their food.
"What a beautiful place you have here, Tav," Alexandro Marquez said admiringly, taking in the wide expanse of glass windows and the rich burgundy carpet. "Thank you for your kind invitation to lunch with you on such short notice, and especially on a Saturday morning. Nat and I are in your debt."
"Not at all, my dear friend," President Salcines smiled. "It is I who am in your debt. Without you, Representative Marquez, and the most generous appropriation you gave us last year, this place would not exist."
With his bow tie and curly gray hair, President Octavio Salcines looked like the man who represented Nat's favorite brand of popcorn. Nat had known President Salcines since he was a little boy in Miami-from the time Tav Salcines still served in the legislature and controlled the powerful Hispanic bloc with Nat's father.
"So how is your job at the law school?" President Salcines gave Nat a fatherly look of concern. It was well known at the law school that the President, formerly a practicing lawyer at a large Florida firm, did not agree with the ascetic and inward direction the law school had taken in recent months. President Salcines favored a school that mirrored the very public and accessible conservatory organization and success of the schools of music and dance.
"Well, sir, I am not sure I still have a job," Nat replied.
"What is this?" President Salcines turned to Representative Marquez. "I told you he would have a job as long as the clinic was there and as long as he wanted to be there."
"It seems that the new dean does not believe in practical skills training, or in clinics, for that matter," Nat answered for his father, knowing he was being rude speaking out of turn to these well-mannered old gentlemen.
"Yes," added Nat's father, casting a rebuking glance at his forward son. He paused and said slowly, with emphasis, "Strange in these days when the rest of us Miami and Tampa bananas are pushing for our own law school in south Florida, and our black brothers still want the law school back that they lost to this school thirty years ago. True, the Florida Bar doesn't think we need another law school, but the lawyers in the legislature, especially Hispanic and African-American lawyers, seem to think that minorities and practical legal skills are neglected by our current state schools."
"The new dean is quite out of touch with modern realities," President Salcines answered sympathetically. He gave Nat a patronizing look, and called over a beautiful young woman who had been hovering nearby. "This is one of our new 'Platinum Girls', Coach's idea for recruiting non-committal football players." He looked up at the woman scantily clad in Southern U colors and said, "Why don't you give this young man a tour of our new facilities here?"
"Whatever you say, sir," the woman nodded at President Salcines, looking over her tanned and bare shoulder as she took Nat by the hand.
"Yes indeed," replied President Salcines as he watched them walk away, "whatever I say." Then he added to Nat's father, "And Alexandro, you and I will continue to discuss the world of realpolitik, as our Cuban cousins would say."
. . .
Professor Baldwin looked at Professor Taylor and commented, "There is always so much to do when we get back that it makes you wonder if it is worth it to leave. Just think of all the e-mails, the memos, the student crises, and only that hopeless idiot Ignacio to field them."
Professor Taylor looked out the window at the line of planes headed with their own out of the Atlanta airport. "True," he said, "but nothing important ever happens while we are gone. Our state capitol is such a sleepy little town. I wish I had done just a little better at law school; maybe I'd be landing in Oakland or New York City."
Professor Baldwin yawned, and handed him the Tallahassee paper she'd purchased at the gift shop. "Well, something happened somewhere while we were gone." She pointed to a completely tasteless picture with one of The Herald's typically tabloid headlines: "Gangland Style Drug Executions in Midway".
"Yeah, but nothing of import ever makes the mullet wrapper, and we've still got at least an hour left of good nap time" Professor Taylor said, throwing the paper to the empty seat between them where it landed with the small caps headline "Dean of Law School Resigns" face side up.
"You're right," Professor Baldwin said reflectively. "Nothing ever happens while we're gone."
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