Authors: William Lashner
Philadelphia Family Court sits in an old neoclassical building on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway, just next to the main library, which is its exact double in architecture. The buildings were modeled after twin palaces at the mouth of the Champs-Elysées, built by ambitious civic leaders determined to turn Philadelphia into the Paris of America.
Talk about missing the mark.
On the third floor of the Family Court Building, I stepped warily into a large, beat waiting room outside Judge Sistine’s courtroom. The room was as noisy as a day-care center at recess. In one corner was a carpet with a few sad plastic toys strewn upon it. Young children, placed with desperate hope on the carpet by their mothers, looked around and screeched as if to say,
Is that all there is?
Older children sat sullenly on the molded plastic chairs and mouthed off, infants cried, mothers fussed, men eyed the nearest exit as if waiting for their moment to dash for it.
I checked in with the clerk and then went around the waiting room asking each of the women there if she happened to be Julia Rose. She wasn’t.
The slim file in my briefcase told the story. An anonymous complaint had come into the child welfare department concerning the treatment of a young boy named Daniel Rose, age four. After an investigation it was determined that the boy’s interests might best be represented by his having his own lawyer. This was not a case designed to make me rich or put my mug on the front page of the newspapers, and so my plan was to get in and get out as quickly as I could. The social worker at child welfare, a woman named Isabel, had assured me the boy was in no apparent danger. I figured the judge would lay out a series of concrete steps for the mother to follow, the mother would agree, and that would take care of that.
Julia Rose’s not being in the waiting room wasn’t helping my get-in-andget-out strategy.
I slumped in disgust on one of the hard plastic chairs and gently rubbed my swollen jaw. You can imagine my delight when a woman with an infant sat down right next to me, the baby crying and slobbering, drool flying as the baby shook in its mother’s arms. I pulled my suit as far out of harm’s way as I could. Sitting across from me, a skinny old man in a bow tie and a black porkpie hat was jiggling his leg. I caught his eye, and for an uncomfortable moment we fell into an impromptu staring contest. I lost, turning my attention to the side of the room, as if something of great import were happening there. As surreptitiously as possible, I glanced back at the old man. He was still staring, a bent smile of victory on his narrow face.
This, I thought, as I leaned away from the baby and pretended that I hadn’t noticed the old man’s stare, as children ran and squealed around me, as the smell of an unchanged diaper wafted from behind, this, I thought, was why I became a lawyer.
“Daniel Rose,” called out the clerk.
The old man glowered at me as I stood.
It was less a courtroom I entered than a small, shabby conference room. Judge Sistine, a large woman with the forearms of a wrestler and reading glasses perched on her nose, sat at the head of the table. To the judge’s right was a file clerk, to her left was the child-welfare social worker, the woman I had spoken to on the phone, Isabel Chandler, who turned out to be tall and stern and quite pretty. I sat at the far end of the table, feeling uncomfortably like I was on trial.
“Have you met your client yet, Mr. Carl?” said the judge.
“Not yet, Your Honor.”
“Don’t you think you ought to?” said Judge Sistine, peering at me over her glasses.
“I was hoping to meet him today. I called the mother, and she assured me she would show up at this hearing.”
“From what I can tell, her assurances don’t mean much. That’s why we’re here. Miss Chandler, have you been able to contact the mother today?”
“No, Judge.”
“I’m concerned about this report. I’m concerned that we can’t get a grip on the conditions in which this boy is living. How many times have you tried to visit the home, Miss Chandler?”
“Twice, Judge, both times unsuccessfully. Miss Rose continually apologizes and promises to be at home and then misses her appointments.”
“The anonymous report mentioned a boyfriend,” said the judge. “I want to talk to him, too. See if you can get him in, Miss Chandler.”
“Not likely, but I’ll try.”
“Mr. Carl, the truth is, Miss Chandler has a caseload that would choke an elephant. There is only so much she can do. You are this boy’s lawyer. I’m going to expect you to have some answers for me, and soon. I would hope you’d give this boy the same attention you give your corporate clients.”
“I don’t have any corporate clients, Judge, though if you see a herd wandering around, I’d appreciate your driving them my way.”
Isabel Chandler bit her lip to stop a smile, but the judge was having none of it.
“Do your job,” she snapped. “If you can’t handle this, let us know, and I’ll find someone who can. We’ll reschedule this matter for three weeks from today, at nine o’clock. If the mother doesn’t appear on that date, I’m going to issue a bench warrant. You tell her that, Mr. Carl. And I expect you to get the whole story from your client.”
“He’s four years old, Judge.”
“Then speak slowly.”
Outside the courtroom Isabel Chandler shook her head at me as if I were a troublemaker who was once again in some kind of trouble. She was thin and dark, with the kind of sharp, cool beauty that was like a driver’s-ed movie, so shocking you couldn’t look away.
“Judge Sistine doesn’t have much of a sense of humor, does she?” I said, trying to ingratiate myself.
“She was quite jolly when she started in family court six months ago, but I wouldn’t test her patience anymore. In fact, the most fun she’s had this month was reaming you.”
“I’ll be sore for weeks.”
She fought a smile again. “What’s with your cheek?”
“A bad tooth.”
“You ought to get it looked at.”
“So I’ve been told. But the lady at the insurance company acted like I was Cedric the Entertainer opening a bottle of beer when I asked if I had dental coverage.”
“She laughed?”
“And not just her. She put me on speakerphone, and soon the whole floor was guffawing.”
“So no coverage?”
“Bare naked.”
“That’s a shame. Look, if you want, I’ll schedule another home visit and we can go see the Roses together.”
“That would be great.”
“I’m not quite sure what’s happening with Daniel, and all we’re really going on is the anonymous report, but we ought to find out what we can. I’ll give you a call.”
“Thank you.”
“How’d you get this case, anyway?”
“My partner dumped it on my desk.”
“You ever do one of these before?”
“No.”
“Having fun yet?”
I was watching her walk down the hall when I heard a sharp bark of a voice from behind me.
“It’s a double shame, yes it is.”
I turned and saw the skinny old man who had been staring at me in the waiting room. His porkpie hat was still on, as was his scowl.
“What’s a shame?” I said.
“That someone ugly as you can be plain stupid, too.”
I must have misheard. “I’m sorry?”
“Don’t you be apologizing,” he said, accenting the consonants with a snap of his voice. “It’s not your fault you had a mama as ugly as my foot.”
“Excuse me?”
“Or a daddy as dumb as my other foot.”
“Now, stop that,” I said. “I’m the only one who’s allowed to insult my daddy.”
“You’re so ignorant, I bet you think you got a shot at that there girl.”
I looked back at Isabel. “And you don’t think I do?”
“Son, you got a face good for catching hardballs, and that’s about it.”
I turned and grinned at him. “I’ve got a better chance than you, old man.”
He took off his hat, spit on his palm, rubbed his hand across the shiny pate of his head as he whistled out of the side of his mouth. “Don’t bet against me.”
“Victor Carl,” I said, reaching out my hand.
“I know who you are, boy,” he said as he slapped my hand away. “You think I just insult any damn fool who steps in my way?”
“Why, yes,” I said. “I do.”
“The name is Horace T. Grant. My friends call me Pork Chop. You can call me sir.”
“You were in the army, I suppose.”
“Hell yes, but I wasn’t a commissioned officer, if that’s what you’re thinking. I speak out from my mouth and fart out my asshole. With those mixed-up bastards, it was the other way around.”
“So what can I do for you, sir?”
“You can buy me a cup of coffee,” he said.
And so I did.
Now, this is strange, but absolutely true. I looked up
irascible
in the dictionary and found a picture of Horace T. Grant in his porkpie hat.
“You call this coffee? This isn’t coffee. I’ve had ground donkey bladder tasted better than this.”
“Maybe you need a little more sugar.”
“Sugar’s not going to help this, fool. You ever put sugar on a load of crap?”
“No.”
“Well, let me tell you, it doesn’t turn it into cake. That’s experience, boy, hard won. Now, you might get me one of those muffins if the thought strikes, though I bet it’s a rare occasion when a thought strikes your sad excuse for a brain. I bet there’s celebrating in the streets, banner headlines, dancing girls up and down Broad Street.”
“Do you want the donkey-bladder muffin or the horse-shit muffin?”
“Blueberry. And if they don’t got blueberry, cranberry. And if they don’t got cranberry, then the hell with them, they don’t deserve my business.”
“Your business?”
“Get a move on, boy. I don’t got all day.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And another cup of coffee while you’re at it.”
Why was I subjecting myself to Horace T. Grant when I could find pleasanter ways to bide my time, like wrestling porcupines or pouring hot coffee down my pants? Because I had screwed up. The judge was right to lash my scrawny back with her fierce words. Even if I had never met him, even if he was too young to know who I was or what role I was supposed to play in his life, even if I had never wanted his case in the first place, Daniel Rose was my client and I owed him more than a cursory phone call the day before a hearing. Yes, I had relied on the mother, but if the mother was reliable, I wouldn’t be needed in the first place, would I? So I escorted Horace T. Grant to a quaint little storefront in the charming residential area behind the courthouse, I treated him to a coffee, and I now jumped up with alacrity when he asked, in his own sweet way, for a muffin. Partly it was a form of penance, suffering Horace’s slings and arrows was surely a penance, but partly it was something else, too. Because Horace had known my name.
“What kind of muffin you say this was?” said Horace T. Grant.
“Cranberry.”
“I don’t see no berries. Where are the berries? All I see is little red spots. This might as well be a chickenpox muffin. I’m not eating no chickenpox muffin,” he said as he took a bite off the muffin top. “Next time you take me someplace right.”
“Next time?” I said.
“Oh, yes. You got to make it up to me, taking me here to this hole. I got standards.”
“I bet you do. Why don’t we talk about what you wanted to talk to me about?”
He looked up at me as he took a sip from his coffee mug. “I got nothing to say to you.”
“Then why am I treating you to coffee?”
“Don’t ask me. You the one can’t wait to flash your wallet, show everyone how fat it is. ‘Look at me, look at my wad, see how much I got.’ ”
I took out my wallet, as thin as a slice of bologna. “That look fat to you?”
“Now you’re blaming me for your struggles? It’s not my doing you can’t make enough money to buy yourself a decent suit. And look at that tie.”
“What’s wrong with my tie?”
“It’s an embarrassment. There’s a word you might not be familiar with. Style. It means not that tie.”
“Here’s a word for you, sir: Daniel Rose.”
For the first time in our short acquaintance, Horace T. Grant was close to speechless. But only close. He looked at me, he looked away, he took a swig of coffee and winced at the taste. And then he said, “We talking flowers?”
“No, little boys. Daniel Rose is my client, as you very well know. An anonymous report was made to child welfare about him. I figure it was you who did the reporting. You might pretend to be a hard act, but you cared enough to make the report, and you cared enough to keep up with the proceedings. That’s why you were there in the courthouse, that’s how you knew my name. You saw me searching for his mother in the waiting room.”
“Looking every inch the fool, you were.”
“So I’d appreciate your telling me what you can about the boy’s situation.”
“See, here’s the thing about anonymous reports that might have escaped your sterling perspicacity, Mr. Carl. They’re anonymous. That’s another word, like
style,
that you must have no idea the meaning of.”
“So why would the person who made the report want to remain anonymous?”
“Where’d you grow up, boy?”
“Philadelphia.”
“Now you’re lying to me. Dumb and dishonest, no wonder you’re a lawyer.”
“Well, to be honest—”
“Don’t strain yourself on my behalf.”
“I grew up just north of the city, in a little place called Hollywood.”
“The suburbs.” He exhaled dismissively. “A wasteland for the congenitally unfit. I could tell just by looking at you that you was dumber than an ear of corn. They grow them stupid out there, don’t they? Boys from the suburbs can’t understand what it’s like in the city, how close we all live, one next to the other. How delicate are the relationships between neighbors.”
“So you’re scared.”
“Don’t be a pinhead. You seen what I seen in this world, it’s not scared you get. But maybe Mr. Anonymous is simply cautious.”
“All right. And maybe who he’s cautious about is Daniel’s mother’s boyfriend.”
“Listen, fool. Whoever made that report might not know for sure what is going on, might not have any proof of anything. There might simply be concern, a cautious concern.”
“Based on what?”
“Neighborhood history. The dramatis personae. You know what that means, or is them words too big for you, too? Well, I’ll help you out. Dramatis personae. It means if you’re so damn interested, you ought to go visit the boy for yourself.”
“I intend to,” I said. “But that won’t be so easily accomplished. Apparently every time an appointment is set up, the mother isn’t home.”
“Well, that pretty social worker, each time she shows up, might be going to the wrong house.”
“The mother takes the son somewhere and hides to avoid the visit, is that it?”
“Don’t be getting any thoughts that you are suddenly some genius, now. Remember your limitations.”
“And you might know where she goes to hide?”
“I know a lot more than you’ll ever fit in that cement head of yours.”
“That I believe,” I said, smiling into his scowl. “Can I get you something else, sir?”
“Yes, you can. It’s the least you can do, an ungrateful suburban pinhead like yourself. But no more pastry like childhood diseases for me, no chickenpox muffin or measles muffin for me. And no mumps muffin neither, you understand. Next thing you know, my cheeks will be swelled and my thing will fall off, and then I’d be no better off than you.”
I bought him another muffin, bran because I thought he could use the fiber, and then I sat and listened to his insults until he decided it was time to give me an address.