Injustice for all

4

I sleep fitfully in the hotel room. The voices that haunt me alternate between Phillip Johnson’s and a young girl’s. Both are begging for their lives, asking me to save them. But I’m frozen in fear, unable to move or even speak. I wake three times during the night, drenched in sweat. Finally, at five thirty, I roll stiffly out of bed, go into the bathroom, and splash cold water on my face. I look into the mirror and wonder whether the nightmares will ever end.

They’ve dogged me for most of my life, these snippets of violence and horror, exploding ordnance, and cries of anguish. They began when I was a young boy and stumbled onto a rape. My teenage uncle was raping my sister, who was only a year older than I. I tried to stop it, but my uncle overpowered me, threw me out of the room, and I wound up lying on the floor, helpless, listening to my sister’s muffled cries.

Later I marched off to the army in a misguided attempt to feel some kind of kinship with my father, who was killed in Vietnam six months after I was conceived. I wound up parachuting into Grenada with two battalions of Rangers from the Seventy- fifth Infantry. The things I saw and did there enter into my subconsciousness randomly, like pop-up targets on a firing range, nearly always when I’m sleeping. The images don’t appear as often as they once did, but when they do, they come complete with digital sound and brilliant color, and they remain as vivid as the day they happened.

If I’d had any sense, I would’ve chosen a career that promised to be relatively uneventful-something like accountancy or maybe pharmacy. But some irresistible force has always pushed me toward self-flagellation, and in my early twenties, I made the unfortunate decision to become a lawyer and subsequently-driven primarily by a need to support my family-entered the world of criminal justice with its sociopaths, psychotics, narcissists, and idiots. I practiced criminal defense for more than a decade, until I wound up getting shot by the deranged son of a murder victim. I took a year off after that, but eventually I was drawn back in as a prosecutor. The first case I prosecuted involved a group of Satan-worshiping Goths who murdered six people. Their leader-a psychopath named Natasha Davis-nearly killed me. Now, as I gaze into the mirror at a face that looks much older than it should, I wish I could somehow lift the top of my skull, remove my psyche with a spoon, and start all over again.

I leave the bathroom and pull on a pair of sweatpants, a hoodie, and my ragged running shoes. The hotel where I’m staying is a block from Vanderbilt University, so I spend the next hour jogging through the campus and around the park across the street that surrounds the Parthenon. By six thirty I’m showered and seated in the hotel restaurant. A couple of minutes later I see my son walk through the door.

Jack is six feet three now, the same height as me. His hair is dark like mine but cut much shorter. His eyes are a chocolate brown and reflect a natural intensity and intelligence. He’s twenty years old, a junior at Vanderbilt, and a member of the baseball team, a program that prides itself on discipline and toughness. He carries himself with the confidence of an athlete, and as I stand to hug him, my heart seems to swell in my chest.

“Big Jack,” I say, wrapping my arms around his neck, “you look fantastic.”

“You look tired,” he says as he returns the hug and sits down across from me.

“Didn’t sleep very well.”

“So, how are you? Want to talk about it?”

“Talk about what?”

“The execution. Are you handling it all right?”

“I’m not sure yet,” I say honestly. “It’s hard to believe I sat there and watched them kill a man.”

“A man who murdered a defenseless little girl.”

“I know. I’m just not quite sure what to think about it.”

“Then don’t think about it.” He smiles broadly. “Let’s talk baseball.”

I’m relieved he isn’t interested in hearing the details of the event I witnessed several hours earlier, and we begin to talk about our favorite subject while he wolfs down four eggs, two pieces of wheat toast, two apples, and a banana. We talk about coaches and teammates and opponents and Jack’s prospects of being drafted by a major- league team in June. I’m in favor of his staying at Vanderbilt through his senior year, but he’s a power hitter who also hits for average and rarely strikes out, and there’s a good chance the pros might throw some serious money at him in the draft this year. An hour flies by, and at seven forty-five he looks at his watch and gulps down the last of a glass of orange juice.

“Gotta go, Dad,” he says. “Class in fifteen minutes.”

“Sure,” I say dejectedly.

“Something wrong?”

“Nah. I’m just not looking forward to the rest of the week.”

“What’s up?”

“I have a hearing tomorrow morning that I don’t think is going to go well, and your mom has invited Ray and Toni over for dinner Saturday night. She thinks they’re on the verge of splitting up.”

“I talked to Tommy yesterday,” Jack says. Tommy Miller and Jack have remained close despite being hundreds of miles from each other. They speak on the phone often and spend time together during the holidays, which is the only time they’re at home now. The last time I saw Tommy was at Christmas. He told me he loved Duke University and was doing well both in the classroom and on the baseball field.

“Yeah? What’d Tommy have to say?”

“He says things are bad. He’s worried about his dad. He also says he’s going to have to transfer in the fall because they can’t afford the tuition at Duke anymore.”

“I know. Your mom told me.”

Ray Miller’s situation has grown steadily worse since Judge Green threw him in jail on the contempt charge six months ago. The judge made good on the promises he made as Ray and I left the courtroom that day. Less than twenty- four hours after Ray was jailed, the judge issued an order suspending Ray from practicing law in the criminal courts of the First Judicial District. He then filed a dozen complaints against Ray with the Board of Professional Responsibility. Since the complaints were coming from a judge, the BPR-a useless bunch of paper pushers in Nashville-suspended Ray statewide without so much as a perfunctory hearing.

Green’s scorched-earth campaign has resulted in Ray’s being unable to earn a living, which in turn has caused him to be unable to make his mortgage payments, which will undoubtedly result in the loss of his house in the very near future. Two of his vehicles have already been repossessed by creditors, Tommy is being forced to leave Duke, and as the situation has worsened, Ray has fallen into a deep depression. He’s grown a beard, is drinking heavily, and has put on at least thirty pounds. I find myself going by to see him less and less often, because watching him deteriorate is nothing short of heartbreaking.

“So why is Mom having them over?” Jack asks.

“Sounds like it’ll be pretty miserable.”

“You know how she is,” I say. “She always thinks she can help, and even if she can’t, she thinks she has to try.”

Jack rises from the table and hugs me again.

“Tell Mom I love her,” he says, “and tell her there are some things a person just needs to stay out of.”

“I’ll tell her.”

“And you,” he says with a smile. “Can I tell you something without making you mad?”

“Depends on what it is.”

“I’ve learned something since I’ve been here. It’ll probably sound strange to you, but I’ve learned the only thing that’s real is the present. If you think about it, there’s really no future and no past. There’s only now, and that’s where we should concentrate on living.”

“I didn’t know you’d become a philosopher.”

“It’d be good if you’d give it a try, Dad. It’d be good if you’d stop worrying about the future so much, and it’d be even better if you could forget about the past.”

“Tell me about it.”

“I’m serious. I know you’re my father and I’m biased, but I think you’re the best man I’ve ever known. You should go easier on yourself.”

“Thank you, son. I’ll try.”

He turns away, and as I watch him walk out of the restaurant, I feel a tear slide down my cheek.