Another Day at the Bar

People say it's drab in court. It's all oak and marble and some little guy sitting on a big bench with a long black robe. The lawyers drone on and on and on about codes and statutes and their stupid little motions they think are so important. And then there's me. In the big-ass courtroom, with all those guys in their black and gray suits, I sometimes feel like the last girl on earth. It's not that I'm the only female in the courtroom. There are some women if you could call them that., scattered amongst the attorneys. They've got big husky voices and short cropped hair, and they look stupid in their pin-striped pantsuits, trying so hard to look like the guys. Sometimes I'd fantasize about one of them women, about what the guys do to her after the judge bangs his gavel. I'd have those women doing horribly wicked things right there in open court.

In my mind, the lawyers would hold their own little sessions, throwing their colleague up on the judge's dais, ripping off her mannish uniform until she looks like a woman again, a slut on the bench ready to accept the order of the court, the rule of law, the code of man. And then they would have their way with her. They'd bind her wrists with Hermes ties, they'd put their Pradas to her throat until she gurgles and drools a little on the evidence table. Her pleas would go unheard in the great room that has heard so many pitiful pleas. And she would know who she is; the that little bitch would finally know At least that's the way I see it in my daydream. Her gray pinstripes are in tatters, strewn around the well of the court, and she finally remembers who and what she is, and why she came. We all need to remember the horrible truth. So bring back the jury and what say you all? The courtroom is hushed with only her sobs as she accepts her fate stretched out on the judge's bench, beneath those huge marble pillars. Guilty. Guilty. Guilty.

I blink a couple of times and the room comes back into focus. There's an attorney droning on about some long boring motion. Miss Prissy over there, in her pin-striped suit, hunched over a thick law tome might look just like all the guys, but I know who she really is. When I look over at her, all I can think of is that slut panting and writhing up on the bench, tied up and blindfolded, and the guys getting drunk on justice.

How a girl's mind can wonder. But I can't help it. I'm just a little girl in a big courtroom. It's true. I mean everyone thinks it's dull and boring in here. Even the slightest reference to my job, at a cocktail party, causes people's eyes to glaze over and they inevitably give me a knowing little half-smile, but if they only knew what was really stored up in my mind, what was really going through my head in the long days in court, they might see me differently. But maybe that's a good thing because if my ardent thoughts somehow came alive for all to see, I'd be blushing all the time and I'd never get any work done.

There's more to it than just my fantasies and what goes on in my head. I've learned a lot from the righteous earnestness of the prosecutors and the passionate theatrics of the defense attorneys. Like I know how to be just appealing enough to get a fair hearing in the courtroom. I've got to fix myself so I look sexy but do it in such a way that it looks like I'm oblivious to what I'm doing. It's like when one of the lawyers puts on one of their dumb-aw-shucks-I'm-just-a-country-boy-like-y'all act for the jury. That's the trick. It's like the jury will disregard. You get people to see something or feel things without them even knowing it. So they notice me even if I'm just the girl who tells everybody to rise for His Honor in the morning, the girl who takes pictures or scraps of paper over to play show-and-tell-with the jury and the girl who makes witnesses swear to God, they'll notice me. For the guys, it's more obvious. They wear power like a well-tailored suit. It's the kind of thing that when they stand up, their look says I own this place, I own the judge, I own the Truth. And if one of the lawyers were to looks at me, looks right at me while he was handing me a piece of evidence, he would probably own me too. So it's a juggling act. I have to be careful because you don't want to act demure or they'll ignore you. If you act slutty, they'll dismiss you as too easy or give you the courthouse kiss of death and brand you as unprofessional. The trick's to fix up just enough to make their hearts pound a little, to make their eyes do a little dance when they're trying to please the court. People think it's dull, that this whole court-clerking thing is dreary, but there's more to it than they think.

So one day they're trying some sad fellow for fraud, and there's this guy at the defense table, one of his lawyers, M. Mac McDonald was his name, and he was looking at me through the bluest of eyes. I'm trying not to blush, trying not to let on that I noticed him, and was especially trying to avoid looking at his cute little partner, Sarah. That would be even worse, imagining than hulking M. Mac McDonald dragging Sarah up to the bench. It was all I could do to get through the day. Like I actually had to listen to the boring monotonous testimony to keep myself from getting flustered. It seemed everywhere I went, whether it was swearing in a witness, fetching the judge a glass of water, or logging in evidence, I could feel the lawyer's eyes on me. And when the session was over, when the jury had their nightly instructions, when the defendant had gone, and people were still milling around the well of the court, M. Mac McDonald asked me if I wanted to go down to Lou's—the joint down the block where all the lawyers hung out—for a drink. It was like I'd been caught, like I'd been shackled and was being led out of court by the Marshals. I just nodded and followed him. It was like that guy has looked right into my head and saw all of my secrets come to life.

Down at Lou's, he was talking shop with me and I was trying not to dig myself in any deeper by staring at his powerful, confident shoulders, or at the lines of his angular cheeks. I was looking away while he was telling me some of the techniques he uses to questions witnesses. "If it's a guy up there, I watch his eyes, look to see if they dart around, if they look up at the ceiling or if they focus right on me. But if it's a girl, a woman, a lady, a whore, I watch her legs no matter who she thinks she is, or no matter what she's telling the court. But I don't even need her whole legs to tell what I've got. No. Women have too many parts to keep track of. That'd be a waste. I look right up at the top of her legs, right below her belly, and I'll stare long and hard at that spot, and keep right on staring until she knows I'm looking, until she feels my stare burning through her, caressing her, exploring her. Then she'll tell me everything I want to know. Everything. There'll be no time for her to wonder about why some lawyer is staring at her like this. Hell, I don't even want her to remember she's in court. All I want her to know is that she's mine. And when I start my colloquy, she'll tell me exactly what I want to know and she'll tell it exactly the way I want the jury to hear it." He stopped and tapped the table, making me jump. And then he said, "It's easy, really."

Later that night, when we were lying in bed after M. Mac MacDonald, Esquire sucked the air out of my lungs, he wanted to talk a little more shop. I was still panting and hot from having this man crawl into my head only to find that girl still up on the bench. He knew exactly what to do with her, and took advantage of the situation like a lawyer who knows he has all the facts on his side. And maybe he did. Actually, in the sweaty afterglow, it really looked like Mac had everything going for him: Looks, confidence, and a certain commanding presence to go along with his piercing blue eyes and his feathery soft brown hair, just enough for a girl like me to grab a handful and hold on tight.

I was still gasping for air and feeling surrounded by this man when Mac blurted out, "What'd you think of Burnzy?"

Burnzy? Burnzy? Oh yeah, the fraud guy, the sad guy who was on trial. I remembered him. He looked so lost. Confused. "I don't know, I kind of liked him. It looked to me like all those other guys—his managers—along with his company's Board, were the one's who hijacked the firm and cooked the books. Looked like that guy was just too nice to be any good at managing. I mean I just don't think he really knew what was going on." Mac was stroking my breast and I moaned a bit while I was trying to give him a straight answer. Maybe that's why the bed made me betray my objectivity. "Besides, I thought he was cute."

"Cute?" He snorted. "Y'know in all the years I've been practicing, I've won a lot of cases, but y'know I've had maybe one client who really didn't do it. And this guy, that Burnzy, the prosecutor's all over this one. They got this guy left, right and center. and the best I can hope for is to kick up some dust for the jury. But trust me, he's guilty."

All that legal talk made my breath slowly come back into my lungs and I was heaving to the cadence of my lawyer-boy's voice. "Come on," I whispered, "let's make love again. You can kick up dust tomorrow." And we did. Again and again and habeus corpus and corpus delecti and corpus anything as long as it was my body and it was that lawyer's hands and lips and mouth that was seeking the truth and making a blind lady blush.

The next day, I'm back in the courtroom where Mac is seated next to his morose client, the stodgy judge is seated in his high-backed cushioned chair, the jury is restlessly fidgeting in their wooden chairs, and I'm feeling a bit dangerous after a long night out. I looked hot that morning, wearing a pink silk skirt, a loose white top—open at the neck—and white stockings with cute little pink heels. I had a little bow on my head and it was fixed so that it made my hair cascade down over my left shoulder, but the bow held only just enough so my hair would dangle in my face whenever I leaned over to, for instance, show the jury another document. I didn't know if there were any women lawyers in the room that day and I didn't care. They can do what they do and I'll do what I do. All I cared about was M. Mac McDonald and some tired sighing man named Burnzy. Whenever Mac was making his pitch or whenever I swore-in one of his witnesses, I would smile sweetly, seductively, and bat my eyes toward the jury. When the prosecutors were on, I was stern and cold and stiff. When I was arranging evidence on the table, I always made sure to bend over directly in the line of sight of the jury, with my hair hanging down. And I was sure to give Burnzy a sweet little smile when I was done with a witness or when I was bringing the judge his water. That's how it started anyway, but soon enough I was giving him the whole female lawyer treatment, except this time, I imagined Burnzy had me splayed out on the dais, and he was telling me how he didn't do it, how it was those damn greedy managers and saying you got to understand, you must believe me, and I was just saying, "Yes, yes, yes." When I was seated in the court, perched in my spot between the witness box and the judge's bench, I used my eyes as bright shiny beacons to signal the startled Burnzy, and my pursed red lips were giving the defendant big sloppy wet kisses through the still air of the the solemn courtroom. "Yes, yes, yes."

By the time the jury had the case, I was self consciously hoping that the room wouldn't notice that I was sweating and panting and flushed, and I was even more glad they couldn't tell how slippery I felt on the wooden bench. And when they returned the verdict just an hour later—shortest vigil that anyone could remember for a fraud case—I was already back to being the sweet girl blended into the dull blacks and browns of a vast courtroom, I was back to being the modestly reserved court clerk

"What say you all?"

"Not guilty."

McDonald was muttering to me that he couldn't believe the guy got off. There was just too much evidence and he had nothing to work with. "You know what they say," he said, "Justice is a fickle bitch."

Yes she is, I thought, you never know about the law. And love. And the power of a cute little girl in the center of a dull, drab room. The funny thing is that as dull as people say this place can be, it has its moments.