PLEASE NO, NOT THAT

From my phish pond:

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TUNAFISHNEWS MOLTS

TunafishNews will move to a new address over the next few days, a tales-from-the-trenches place called Lawyerworldland. This is because I've been having more fun writing the lawyer pieces than writing snarky wisecracks. Free Heineken for furniture movers.

WHATEV

Dick Cheney, in case you missed it, wants the CIA specifically exempted from the McCain anti-torture bill.

Now any eight-year-old boy knows that this is wrong. The proper procedure is to say "N'kay" (or in moments of defiance, "Whatev"), and then do what you're going to do. The stupidest eight-year-old knows better than to say, "Mom? Dad? You know that rule about setting off M-80's in the house?"

Dick Cheney could have at least consulted with an eight-year-old about this. The eight-year-old would have told Cheney to say "N'kay" about the anti-torture act, and to pass the word--quietly--that if any of the detainees should happen to, like, fall down the stairs, or suddenly develop a whole whole lot of cavities, or accidentally get the flu so they had to take his temperature with a rectal thermometer, it would be really too bad, especially if the thermometer broke.

Cheney seems incapable of such an approach. This is because Dick Cheney himself had no childhood. He was born fully grown, staring balefully up at the obstetrician and rubbing his hands together and saying "Excellent."

"Think positive."

MY TWELVE-YEAR-OLD RAPIST

“A twelve-year-old rapist?”

“Hey, nobody’s perfect.”

Well, nooo, but--

“And you gotta be impressed with him--raping two girls at once. Of course they were eight and nine.”

“And what does this have to do with me?”

I was representing the kid on his appeal, it turned out. Well, not really--I was still a law student--but I would write the brief. The kid was upstate at a facility.

This Court finds that the defendant, aged twelve, many times larger and heavier than the two complaining children, did on the date and at the time alleged detain them forcibly and against their will on the rooftop of 16551 East 174th Street, and ignoring their struggles and attempts to flee did forcibly have sexual intercourse with each complaining witness...

“Honey,” I said when I got home, “I’m representing a twelve-year-old rapist.”

My wife looked at me. Then she said:

“What are you doing with your life?”

*

The problem with the conviction was that the two girls should have been sworn to their oath. They weren’t sworn. That’s unconstitutional, even in juvenile court. I called up the lawyer who had tried the case.

“Were they too scared to swear?”

The guy started laughing.

“Scared? When they saw your client in the hallway they ran right up to him and started joking and giggling and horsing around.”

“Get out.”

“Swear to fucking God. They had themselves a fine old time on the roof, those three, and then one of them blabbed it around and it got back to the parental units, and then it got to the cops, and here we are. Good luck. You’ll win on the issue and the thing will get re-heard, and he’ll lose again.”

“Why?”

“I got a big news flash for you. People don’t like little kids fucking."

I had only been through a year of law school. I toiled. My supervisor marked it all up. I toiled some more. I toiled late into the evening. More markups. Filing date neared. The last draft didn’t get returned. I supposed that was good news. The brief came back, printed up--desktop printing and fonts being a few years in the future--and there, at the bottom right, was the legend:



On the Brief:
Archer (law student)
Supervising Attorney: Really Mean Old Lawyer With Markup Pen


“Look, honey,” I said when I got home, “here’s my brief about the twelve-year-old rapist.”

She looked at me.

“I hope he’s in jail,” she said.



**

The case was argued before the appeals court a few weeks later. I went and watched. Three judges in robes poked and prodded at my arguments. MY arguments! I had a bit of a minor crush on the lawyer who actually argued the case. She argued three other appeals that morning. Then the summer was over, and it was time for the beach.

The decision came down in mid-October. Reversed and remanded, 3-0. The 12-year-old kid was coming home. The opinion, published in the law books, quoted my brief. Okay, my boss’s brief that had my name on it. Okay, it was my boss’s language--mostly. Okay, leave me the fuck alone, it was my brief and had my name on it and they quoted it.

I floated, postured, bragged, showed the brief around. I had made a difference!

The kid was retried within a month. This time, the girls were properly sworn. The kid got convicted again and sent back upstate.

I was crestfallen.

“My twelve-year-old rapist got convicted again,” I said.

My wife looked at me. Then she said:

“Did you take out the trash?”

A MOM AND THE NIGHT VISITORS

When my two guys showed up with her son, the mother slammed the door.

I never blamed her. My guys looked like baby-rapers. Carlos was about six-three with a scar on his face, and Jose always wore a stocking over his head. As a matter of fact, neither ever did any significant jail time except for dope, and both had jobs and kids, though for some reason when I called them at work I had to ask for them by other names. Anyway, they were driving along minding their own business at about two in the morning when this kid blew a stop sign, T-boned them passenger side, and knocked their car into a lamppost.

Jose was driving. It was his wife’s car. Jose had just broken up with his wife, but she still let him use the car. When the cop ran the plates the car came up uninsured.

"That bitch," Jose said. "I'm going to fucking kill her."

"Ayyy, you not going to kill nobody," said Carlos.

It was at precisely the same point in the discussion that the kid's mom slammed the door. She didn't grasp Jose’s legal point--that since his car had no insurance, they wanted to know about hers--she (being no genius herself) having neglected to put her insurance card in her glove compartment.

Eventually, talking through the mail slot, they managed to resolve the issue. Then the next morning the woman woke up and thought, Why, that pair of baby-rapers wants to sue me! How do I get out of this? So she filed a stolen car report--another less-than-brilliant move, since the driver was her son. I explained this to Jose and Carlos.

“Ohh, maaaaannn, thaddissuch BULLshit,” Carlos said. “Her own SON? He LIVES with her, man.”

“That bitch,”Jose said. “I’m going to fucking kill her.”

"Ayyy, you not going to kill nobody," said Carlos.

The case dragged on for three years. Finally the woman admitted her car wasn’t stolen. The kid had blown the stop sign, that was all. My guys were young and their lower spines were in a bit of a mess. The settlement was on the low side, considering the surgery, but there was no way these guys were going to court. The expenses of trial would have been prohibitive, I explained, and besides, they looked like baby rapers. (Okay, I only explained about the expense.)

They came in and picked up their checks, and they were very happy, and they said I was a good abogado, and they left shaking hands and swearing eternal blood brotherhood and loyalty and referrals, and pretty soon the phone rang, and it was the bank--Were these guys legit? Did we really write these checks? We really did? Really truly really? Could I, um, talk to this guy, Jose, and calm him down?

“This bitch,” Jose said. “I’m going to--”

“Jose, you want your check cashed or not?”

“Okay, okay, man, I’m sorry.”

I put down the phone.

"Those guys were frightening," said a cute secretary.

"Hey," I said, artificially deepening my voice, “it’s all in a day’s work.”

HURRICANE ALPHA IS SCARY AS SHIT

Naming a hurricane after a Greek letter is, as the blurb writers say, the stuff of nightmares.

A newspaper stand. The newspaper is dated YEAR B. I ask a passing adult about the date.

"Yes," he says. "This is Year B."

"Year B?"

"Yes. We ran out of numbers."

Year B, Planet X, Chromosome Z, velocity C, Hurricane Alpha, the scrabbling of something in the cupboard--is there anything scarier than a variable? No, there isn't. Nobody likes that shit except in a book by Stephen King. And okay, Year B was just a dream--one I had when I was ten and read Tales from the Crypt and watched Twilight Zone and Way Out--but it scared the holy crap out of me so I still remember it. And I got up, too, in the middle of the night, and checked the newspaper, just to make sure it was still the year it really was.

So what is the National Weather Service trying to do with this Hurricane Alpha crap?

"Hurricane Alpha?"

"Yes. There were so many hurricanes they ran out of names."

I got this to say about Hurricane Alpha.

I want my mommy.