THE FOURTH WATCH (29 page)

"Well, gee, Bob, that's swell,
someday you can hire a lawyer and sue
them
on those grounds," I told him,
"but for today, and the day after tomorrow, we need to talk about
the fact that when the cops pulled you over in that car, you had
some dope on you, and some works. What can you tell me about
that?"

"Okay," he said, "so lets say I hire you to
help me with this oil company thing, how does that work. You know I
ain't got no money. What do you get, like a percentage or
something?"

It was unbelievable really.

''I would never voluntarily represent you in
that or any other case. In fact I'm hoping you'll fire me from this
one."

He blinked at me, twice. "I might, you know,"
he said after a moment.

"What?" I didn't know whether he meant fire me
from this case or hire me onto the oil company case.

"Leave the country," he said.

"Any chance of you doing it before
Friday?"

"Grenada," he said by way of explanation.
"Reagan staged that whole thing back in the 80's to get those
students off the island. They moved them out and moved the cartel
in. That's where the Headquarters are. I figure if they got their
families living there, they probably haven't fucked with the ground
water. It's the only safe place."

"Bob, why would the oil companies want to
poison us?" I asked him, just so that he'd remember that I was
there. ''If we all die, there won't be anyone left to buy
oil."

"They're not poisoning us, you fucking idiot,"
he screeched at me. "They control us through the water. Get us to
do what they want. Buy cars, and, you know, plastic stuff: shit
like that. Could you live without water, hmmm?"

I rubbed my eyes. I saw no future in pointing
out that he had just assured me that the oil companies were
poisoning us.

"Let me ask you this, Mr. Big Shit lawyer," he
said suddenly, uncrossing and recrossing his legs in the opposite
direction, like a strange bird resettling itself in it's nest. I
could tell he'd jumped to another dimension of mind. "They are
charging me with having a controlled substance, ain't that what it
is?"

"That's correct," I told him, happy to be back
on point.

"Well just how is that possible, you tell me?"
He shrugged his shoulders up next to his ears and held his palms
out at me. "I mean gimme a break here, if it's a controlled
substance, how could I have it? How is that possible? What's that
all about? Even I know that can't happen. If it's controlled then
that means they have control over it. If they have control over it
then how could I have it in my possession?"

For the better part of two hours he tormented
me like that. I got nowhere. I tried to go over his direct
examination with him but only rarely got him to acknowledge the
questions I was asking him. I tried to get him to add some common
sense to the argument we would be making in his defense, but if I
had made any progress in convincing him that he was the defendant
in a criminal case, he didn't let on. I could plead him out and get
him off without a jail term, but he wanted to get in front of the
judge and talk about oil companies, and ground water, and Reagan,
and Grenada and a vast array of unrelated social injustices. I
tried to tell him that there was no way the judge was going to let
him testify about any of that stuff: but he would not be dissuaded
from his mission.

Like so many of the inhabitants of our modern
justice system, Bob does not fear jail. As the winter snows draw
near, being a homeless street preacher loses some of its romance.
He begins to think that a warm cell, television, inmate fellowship
and three square meals each day beats the hell out of a growling
belly and lonely cardboard box down by the railroad tracks. The
jails are full of men and women who have resigned themselves to the
fact that the place works for them at some level. They view their
criminality as the way of their lives. Preordained. It comes with
options, not in the sense of choosing right or wrong, because wrong
is what they were born to, but in the sense that there are less
miserable ways of living and more miserable ways of
living.

If I knock over that liquor store
on the corner,
one of these might
reason,
I could get me a pocket full of
scratch to buy me some hooch and spike juice with, if I don't get
caught. If I do get caught, I might maybe do a little time, maybe
get out of the cold, maybe get off the spike juice while I'm in,
maybe get me some good food to eat and see me a doctor about this
thing I got growin' on my leg.

When you first become aware of this subculture
of people, it startles you. It's that underbelly of society that
only judges and lawyers and cops and probation officers see. As
time goes by you become numb to it. You find yourself hoping that
they do find a way in so that they won't die on the winter streets,
and praying that the way in is not at the expense of some other
citizen who gets robbed or worse. Robert Baxter was a sad soul with
a body craving drugs and a mind all out of sorts. What came first
was anyone's guess. But if you were thinking that he might be too
crazy to stand trial, you'd be wrong. Our system only requires that
a defendant be able to communicate with his attorney and have a
general understanding of the proceedings, to be found competent to
stand trial. What Bob and I had been doing would constitute
communication within the meaning of the law, and if he could
distinguish the Judge from the Prosecutor, he would possess
sufficient knowledge of the system to qualify for a jail
sentence.

When we were finished - having accomplished
almost nothing as far as trial preparation went - I slapped him on
the back and sent him on his way. "I'll see you Friday, Bob. It
will be alright."

He probably thought I was in cahoots with the
oil companies.

*****

WALTER WAS WEARING MOST
of the barbecue sauce that came with his BBQ beef
sandwich when I met him at his office for lunch that afternoon.
What was not smeared around his mouth or riveted down the length of
his tie, sat in fat dollops on his forearms, or on the brown paper
wrapper that his sandwich had come wrapped in. A half finished,
20oz. bottle of Diet Coke sat next to his elbow. He had back-washed
what looked to be a quarter pound of chewed gristle into it that
floated like raw sewage on the surface. He shoved a brown paper bag
across the desk at me with his elbow and pointed at his client
chair with a corner of his sandwich when I came in. Food flew from
his mouth as he greeted me.

''I screwed up and only got one Coke. Grab a
plastic cup over there and I'll share this one with ya."

"No, that's quite alright. Looks like you spit
chewing tobacco into that one. I'll go thirsty."

Walter shrugged. "Suit yourself."

I unwrapped my sandwich. It was grilled chicken
with provolone cheese, lettuce, tomato and salad dressing packed
tight into a half Syrian loaf. The pizza joint on the first floor
of Walter's building made the best sandwiches in the city. Walter
called me just after Robert Baxter left my office. He was looking
for a check and wondering what was going on. We agreed to meet at
his office for lunch. Now, looking at him, I realized that, hidden
under the BBQ sauce covering his mouth, he had a split lip. On
closer inspection I noted a yellowish-purple patch under his eye
and a row of stitches on a shaved slab of scalp above his right ear
that looked like a caterpillar crawling across his head.

“What the hell happened to you?” I asked
him.

“Ah, nothin', crazy fucker Walinski went off on
me, last night.”

“Chet Walinski? For what?” Walinski is a big,
mean, red-faced Patrol Sergeant on the Worcester PD that lived in
Walter's neighborhood up on the hill.

“Because he's a freakin' whack-job is
why?”

“Well...what happened?”

He sighed, and blew out his breath and shook
his head. “I'll tell you, but I don't want to hear a lot of
bullshit from you, okay.”

“Ought oh...”

“Aaaah, see...” He waved the back of his hand
at me.

“No, no...go ahead, I want to know.”

He blew out another sigh, then told me the
story.

“Well, I was down at Grady's havin' a couple of
brews – mindin' my own fuckin' business by the way – and Walinski
is down the bar with Jerry Cain.” Grady's is a cop bar on Bellmont
Street. Jerry Cain is another WPD Patrolman.

“Wait, wait,” I said, holding up my hand. “What
were you doing at Grady's? I thought you were taking that little
chipee from the clerks office out on the town.” Walter had been
chatting up a woman that worked in the criminal clerks office at
the courthouse lately. He had bought her a hamburger a couple of
times, down in the courthouse grill, and one night at O'Hara's she
came in with a couple of other girls from the office. She and
Walter had their heads together talking most of the night, and it
looked like they were getting on famously. Walter had planned to
ask her to dinner the night before.

“Yeah, well, that didn't happen,” he said and
shrugged his shoulders, and took a bite of his sandwich.

“What, did she stand you up?”

“Nope, just turned me down flat. Said she had
other plans or some shit.”

“Well...maybe she did,” I said.

“Yeah, other plans my ass. Look, I was gonna do
her a favor, you know? Buy her a meal then take her home and bang
her into a lather.” He shrugged, “Her loss. It ain't no big
thing.”

But I could see the hurt in his eyes. “So ask
her out again, it might...”

“You want to hear this story or not?” He
snapped, shutting me down.

I gave up. “Sure.”

“Okay. So I'm at Grady's, and this kid gets up
– he's sittin' in a booth with his girl – he gets up and puts some
change in the juke-box and puts on a Queen song – 'We Are The
Champions' or something – and Walinski says 'Hey, kid, what the
hell you think you're doing playing that fag music in here?' The
kid goes 'Huh?' He don't know what to say to this asshole, you
know? Walinski was drunk, bein' a tough guy.”

Walter took a big swig of his toxic Coke and
watching me with his eyes, then he went on. “Walaniski says:
'Whataya mean 'Huh?' don't you know what you're playing for music?
Maybe you like fag music 'cause you're a little bit on the queer
side yourself. You get feelings for men that you can't explain?'
Now even Cain says 'Hey, Chet, leave the kid alone.' But Walinski
ain't listening, he's havin' fun, so he says: 'Does that nice
little girl of yours over there know you're a faggot?'

“Anyway, now the kid is in a jam, right? The
girlfriend is mortified. Gets all red in the face and everything.
Kids got to protect his honor and all that shit, in front of his
girl. So he tells Walinski he's no queer, him and his girl, they
just like Freddy Mercury's voice, and why doesn't Walinski shut the
fuck up and mind his own business. So, now our boy Walinski is
offended., Jerry Cain is trying to get him to knock it off, but
Wilinski gets up and says to the kid, so his girl can hear: 'Freddy
Mercury? He was the worst queer of the bunch. Sonofabitch caught
the AIDS and died. I ain't surprised either, what with all that
cocksuckin' and ass fuckin' he was doin'. The kid goes: 'You're an
asshole, man.'.

“Walinski doesn't like that and he
starts doin' his John Wayne walk over toward the kid. The
girlfriend is saying, 'Com'on Bobby, lets just get out of here'. So
now I've had enough. I mean, I like Queen myself, and Freddy
Mercury
was
a
great singer, you know what I'm sayin'? And now Walinski is on his
feet, like he's gonna go over to the table and play hard-ass, so I
say: 'Hey, Walinski, speakin' of buck-toothed bone-smokers, hows
that sister of yours doin'?”

In spite of myself, I burst out
laughing. It was classic Walter. “Um...you do remember, don't you ,
that his sister
did
have a bit of a rep in the neighborhood when we were kids and
she
does have
a
bit of...um...an overbite?”

“Course I remember, that's why I
said it. So, anyway, Walinski loses his mind. He smacks me over the
head with his beer bottle, just like in the movies, then Jerry Cain
grabs him and goes to pull him back and as hes going down, he kicks
me in the face!” Walter shook his head. “Grady called the cops.
Jerry says to him What did ya do that for Billy?
We are the cops for chrissake!'
and Grady points at Wilinski and goes: 'Because
I'm sick of that asshole fuckin' with my customers. Awful the way
he talked to that kid and his girl, and I'm pressin' fuckin'
charges this time!' So Wilinski says: 'Yeah, well fuck you, Billy!'
and Grady says: 'Lets just see who fucks who, Chet?' What a
circus!” Walter shook his head and took a bite out of his
sandwich.

“So how did it all end up?” I asked.

“I was kind of out of it through all of this,
you know, after he cracked me on the head, but I guess a couple of
patrol guys showed up, and what with it being their Sarge and all,
they didn't want to hook him up, but Grady was pissed, and he's an
ex-cop himself, so he's got some juice downtown. He called some
Captain buddy of his, who must also think Wilinski is an asshole,
and they cuffed him and took him away. Soooo...I spent an hour in
the hospital and Walinski spent the night in the bag. Now he'll be
doing paperwork for a month! The dumb shit.” Walter shook his head
and cackled with delight.