Maximum Bob

1

Dale Crowe Junior told Kathy Baker, his probation officer, he didn’t see where he had done anything wrong. He had gone to the go-go bar to meet a buddy of his, had one beer, that’s all, while he was waiting, minding his own business and this go-go whore came up to his table and started giving him a private dance he never asked for.

“They move your knees apart to get in close,” Dale Crowe said, “so they can put it right in your face. This one’s name was Earlene. I told her I wasn’t interested, she kept right on doing it, so I got up and left. The go-go whore starts yelling I owe her five bucks and this bouncer come running over. I give him a shove was all, go outside and there’s a green-and-white parked by the front door waiting. The bouncer, he tries to get tough then, showing off, so I give him one, popped him good thinking the deputies would see he’s the one started it. Shit, they cuff me, throw me in the squad car, won’t even hear my side of it. Next thing, they punch me up on this little computer they have? The one deputy goes, ‘Oh, well look it here. He’s on probation. Hit a police officer.’ Well, then they’re just waiting for me to give ‘em a hard time. And you don’t think I wasn’t set up?”

This morning Dale Crowe Junior was back in the Criminal Division of Palm Beach County Circuit Court. In a holding cell crowded with offenders wearing state-blue uniforms that were like hospital scrubs. Blue shapes standing around in the semi-dark. Kathy Baker recognized some of them. They’d step into the light to say hi through the wall of bars. Mostly black guys in there, they’d ask how she was doing. Kathy would shrug. Same old business, hanging out in bad company. She told Dale Crowe, holding open his case file, he must be in a hurry to do time. Two days out of jail he was back in.

“I haven’t even had a chance to fill out your post-sentence sheet, you’re in violation.”

“‘Cause I went to a go-go joint? Nobody said I couldn’t.”

“When were you around to tell you anything? You were suppose to report to the Probation Office, Omar Road.”

“They said I had seventy-two hours. I been going out to the sugar house, seeing how to get my job back.” Dale turned his head to one side in the noise of voices and said, “Hey, we’re trying to talk here.”

The blue shapes in the dark paid no attention to him. Kathy moved closer to the bars. She could smell Dale now.

“The police report says you were drinking.”

“One beer, that’s all. I urine-tested clean.”

“But you’re underage. You broke the law and that violates your probation.”

Dale Crowe Junior was twenty, a tall, bony-looking kid in his dark-blue scrubs. Dark hair uncombed, dumb eyes wandering, worried, but trying to look bored. Dale was from a family of offenders in and out of the system. His uncle, Elvin Crowe, had this week completed his prison time on a split sentence and was beginning his probation.

Kathy Diaz Baker was twenty-seven, a slim five-five in her off-white cotton shirtdress cinched with a belt. No makeup this morning, her dark hair permed and cut short in back, easy to manage. She spoke with a slight Hispanic accent, the Diaz part of her, that was comfortable, natural, though she could speak without a trace of it if she wanted. The Baker part of her was from a marriage that lasted fourteen months. She had met all kinds of Dale Crowes in her two years with the Florida Department of Corrections and knew what they could become. His uncle, Elvin Crowe, had recently been added to her caseload.

“I can go to jail but I can’t have a beer?”

“Listen, I spoke to your lawyer-”

“You don’t think I stop and have a few after work, driving a cane truck all day? I never get carded either, have to show any proof.”

“You through?” Kathy watched him take the bars in his hands and try to shake them. “I had a talk with your lawyer.”

“Little squirt, right? He’s a public defender.”

“Listen to me. He’s going to plead you straight up, but try to make it sound like a minor violation. It’s okay with the state attorney. She’ll leave it up to the judge, as long as you plead guilty.”

“Hey, shit, I didn’t do nothing.”

“Just listen for a minute, okay? You plead not-guilty and ask for a trial, the judge won’t like it. They’ll find you guilty anyway and then he’ll let you have it for wasting the court’s time. You understand? You plead guilty and act like you’re sorry, be polite. The judge might give you a break.”

“Let me off?”

“He’ll ask for recommendations. The state attorney will probably want you to do a little time.”

“‘Cause I had a beer?”

“Maybe ask you to do some work release, out of the Stockade. Try to be cool, okay? Let me finish. Your lawyer will recommend reinstating your probation, say what a hardworking guy you are. He won’t mention you got fired unless it comes up, but don’t lie, okay? This judge,” Kathy said, “I might as well tell you, is very weird. You never know for sure what he’s going to do. Except if you act smart and he doesn’t think you’re sorry, kiss your mom and dad good-bye, you’re gone.”

“What one have I got?”

“Judge Gibbs.”

It seemed to please him. “Bob Isom Gibbs, I know him, the one they call ‘Big.’ Election time you see his name on signs, ‘Think Big.’ He’s famous, isn’t he?”

“He makes himself known.”

“He’s the one sent my uncle Elvin away.”

“Dale, he’s put more offenders on death row than any judge in the state.” That shut him up. “What I’m trying to tell you is be polite. Okay? With this judge you don’t want to piss him off.”

Dale was shaking his head, innocent. He said, “Man, I don’t know,” in a sigh, blowing out his breath, and Kathy turned her face away. “You gonna tell him how you see this?”

“When the judge asks for recommendations, yeah, I’ll have to say something…”

“Well, that’s good. Tell him I’ve been drinking since I was fourteen years old and I know how, no problem. Listen, and tell him I’m still working out the sugar house. Have a good job and don’t want to lose it.”

“Anything else?”

“That’s all I can think of.”

“Just lie for you?”

“It wouldn’t hurt you none, would it? Say I’m working? Jesus.”

“You think I’m on your side?”

“Well, aren’t you?”

“Dale, I’m not your friend. I’m your probation officer.”

She left the holding cell, the dark shapes, the noise, passed through locked doors to a well-lighted hallway and was back in the world among sport shirts and flowered dresses, people waiting for court sessions.

“What’s the matter?”

Kathy looked up. It was Marialena Reyes with her fat briefcase, the assistant state attorney who would be prosecuting Dale Crowe in about ten minutes. She was a friend of Kathy’s, a woman in her forties, unmarried, dedicated to her work, this morning in a brown linen suit that needed to be pressed.

“I just talked to him,” Kathy said, and shook her head.

“What else is new?”

“Nothing changes. They look at me, I’m this girl who comes around with a clipboard checking up. Like a social worker.”

“It’s up to you. I’ve quit saying go back to school, get a law degree.”

“I’m in court enough as it is. What will Dale get?”

“I think a year and a day. He’ll only do ninety days, but it’s state time. Maybe it’ll scare him good.”

“He’s just a dumb kid, thinks he’s tough.”

“Sure, that’s his problem. Look at the positive side. It’s one less you’ll have in your caseload.”

“I’ll still have seventy-three. I trade Dale for his uncle Elvin. He came in Saturday, this big guy from the swamp in a cowboy hat. He sits down, starts fooling with things on my desk… He doesn’t think it’s fair he had to do ten years DOC time and now five years probation-listen to this-for shooting the wrong guy. Not the one he was after. He wants to tell me all about it sometime. His attitude, it’s like okay, so he killed a man, what’s the big deal? I can see Dale Crowe in about twenty years…”

“If he makes it,” Marialena Reyes said. “Yeah, I think he’ll get at least a year and a day. Although you never know about Gibbs. If he got laid last night he could be in a good mood. He’ll ask you for a recommendation.”

“I know, and there isn’t much I can say.”

“You get along with him? He must’ve noticed you by now.”

“We’ve never spoken outside of court. He calls me Ms. Bacar.”

“That’s close. He thinks he’s funny, so everyone humors him.”

“But I’m not Ms. Bacar,” Kathy said. “And I don’t feel I have to smile for him.”

“You don’t see him practically every day. At least I don’t have to go out with him,” Marialena Reyes said, “he likes them young. You see he was up before the Qualifications Commission again?”

“I heard something about it. Asked a woman to take off her clothes?”

“In his chambers, a public defender, a new one. Asked her to, quote, ‘show me your goodies.’ He told her he was helping select contestants for the Miss Sugar Cane Pageant and said, I believe you have what it takes.’”

“And they let him off.”

“With a reprimand. They ruled his behavior reflected a misguided sense of humor rather than social maladjustment.”

“I’m surprised,” Kathy said, “she filed a complaint.”

“Yeah, not many do. The last one was a court reporter. Not his, some other judge’s. Gibbs asked her if she wanted to play Carnival. She said she didn’t know how to play it and Big said, ‘You sit on my face and I guess your weight.’”

Kathy caught herself trying to picture it.

“Maybe he’s crazy.”

“It’s possible,” Marialena said. “What we know for sure, he’s pretty horny for a guy his age, almost sixty.”

There he was now, and to look at him he appeared harmless. About five-seven with a solemn, bony face, dark hair combed flat to his head. Maybe too dark, Kathy thought. He dyed it. A little guy in judicial robes that looked too big for him. Round-shouldered in a way that made him seem purposeful crossing to the bench. His bailiff, Robbie, a sheriff’s deputy in a uniform sport coat, told everyone to rise. Kathy glanced around. There weren’t more than a dozen spectators, friends or relatives of offenders sitting in the front row, the ones in state blue.

Everyone remained standing as Judge Bob Gibbs looked over his court, his gaze moving from the public defender, a young guy Kathy didn’t know, to a county deputy removing Dale Crowe’s handcuffs. Now he was looking this way, where Kathy stood at the prosecution table with Marialena Reyes.

He said, “Buenos días, ladies. I see we have the Latinas versus the Anglos today. Good luck, boys. You’re gonna need it.”

The young public defender smiled. Dale Crowe, standing next to him now, didn’t smile. The judge turned as his court clerk, Mary Ellen, handed him a case folder. He glanced at it and then looked toward the court reporter relaxed behind his steno machine. “You want this one in English, don’t you, Marty?”

Marty said, “Yes sir,” without moving, as deadpan about it as the judge.

Looking this way again, Gibbs said, “Ladies, is that okay with you? We take it slow and talk Southern? Else I don’t think it would be fair to the defense.”

Marialena Reyes smiled and said, for the people of the state of Florida, “I would prefer it, Your Honor.”

“Ms. Bacar, is it okay with you?”

The little bigot with his solemn face and dyed hair stared at her, waiting.

Kathy said, “It’s Baker, Judge.”

“Excuse me?”

“My name is Baker, not Bacar.”

Gibbs looked down at the case file and up again.

“It was Bacar though, huh, before you changed it?”

“It was always Baker,” Kathy said.

Let him figure it out.

The next time Kathy Baker had to speak was when Gibbs asked if the Department of Corrections was happy with Mr. Crowe entering a plea of guilty. She said, “Yes sir.”

Gibbs said, “You know it means I can revoke his probation and sentence him on the original charge, battery of a police officer. That’s a third-degree five-year felony.”

Kathy said, “Yes sir,” wondering why he was telling her instead of the defendant.

“I see by the Offense Report,” Gibbs said, “this business took place in the parking lot of the Club Peekaboo on Lake Worth Road. The officers asked Mr. Crowe for his identification… It says Mr. Crowe responded in a rude and belligerent manner.” Gibbs looked up from the case file. “How is that Club Peekaboo, Mr. Crowe? They take care of you in there?”

Dale grinned. “They sure do.”

“How about this other place, where you socked the guy?”

“I’d stay away from there, Judge.”

Kathy noticed Dale moving now, shifting from one foot to the other, anxious, beginning to have hope.

“You have size on you for a young boy,” Gibbs said. “Been working out at Glades Sugar the past year… You’re what, only a few months shy of the legal age… So, I’m gonna overlook the beer drinking. Is that all right with you, Mr. Crowe?”

Dale said, “Yes sir,” grinning.

Marialena Reyes said, “Excuse me, Your Honor, but Mr. Crowe is in violation of a trust we placed in him. I think if probation is to have any meaning, he should be given at least a nominal amount of county time.”

“Hey, Marialena,” Gibbs said, “you and I are on the same side. We both work for the state and realize a sanction is in order here. Ms. Bacar, you do too, don’t you?”

“It’s Baker,” Kathy said.

“Baker, that’s right. You changed it.”

“I think I said it was always Baker.”

She stared back at this redneck judge who wanted everyone to talk Southern.

“You insist,” Gibbs said, “I’m not gonna argue with you.”

Kathy said, “Thank you,” and saw his expression change, that hint of fun go out of his eyes.

He said, “Don’t thank me yet,” and Kathy wondered what he meant. Now he turned to Dale Crowe.

“I can overlook your beer drinking, but not the attitude you apparently have, that if someone gives you a hard time it’s okay to take a sock at him. Was it your daddy put that idea in your head? The reason I ask, I’ve had Dale Crowe Senior before this court on several occasions in the past. Either caught poaching alligators or apprehended with quantities of marijuana in his boat, coming off the lake.”

Dale said, “That’s when I was a little kid.”

“I imagine learning on your daddy’s knee,” Gibbs said, “the one the alligator didn’t bite off. I’ve had your dad, I’ve had your uncle Elvin, an individual I think of as a model repeat offender. Smuggling, armed robbery, hitting people over the head for their coin… I almost forgot the big one, a capital felony. They ever erect a statue to memorialize convicts, Elvin could be the model. And I believe I’ve had other Crowes, all of them your kin.” The judge’s gaze shifted. “Marialena, just out of curiosity, have you ever known of any good Crowes?”

“Your Honor, I don’t know that much about the family.”

“You’ve heard of them though.”

“I’ve heard the name, yes.”

“Well, you see my point. Anyway,” Gibbs said, “if there’s nothing any of you wish to offer in bar, mitigation or aggravation of what I’m about to impose, then I adjudge you guilty, Mr. Crowe. It is the judgment, sentence, and order of the law that you be confined by the Department of Corrections for five years, with credit for time served. You have a right to appeal…”

Kathy Baker said, “Your Honor?” at the same time Dale was saying, “Five years for what, hitting a guy? What was I suppose to do? The guy was all over me.”

The young public defender had his hand on Dale’s arm now as Gibbs asked him, “Who was, Mr. Crowe?”

“The bouncer, as I was coming out of the bar.”

“But I’m looking at the original charge, Mr. Crowe. Battery of a police officer, causing injury. That’s what I’m passing sentence on, your indifference to, if not utter disregard of, the law. Further, I’m gonna recommend you be sent to FSP, the Florida State Prison, where your daddy and uncle served their time. You’ll be carrying on the family tradition.”

Kathy said, “Judge, I’d like to remind the court, the defendant was on probation only two days when he was arrested.”

“That’s a good point,” Gibbs said. “It confirms what I’m saying. He doesn’t stop and think, does he?”

“What I meant, he hasn’t reported to the office yet. Find out about all the conditions he has to observe.”

Gibbs said, “That’s a violation right there, not reporting in.”

“No, that part’s okay. He still had time.”

“You haven’t talked to him before this?”

She began to see where this was going and wished she hadn’t said anything. “I saw him this morning.”

“Where, in the holding cell?”

“Yes sir.”

“So what is it you’re telling the court?”

“I don’t think it’s in the interest of the state to give him all that DOC time, five years, for something he drew probation on originally.”

“You don’t?” Gibbs said, frowning, trying to look concerned, then glancing over at his bailiff and his court clerk, his team, before looking this way again. “What would you give him?”

Playing with her. She should never have opened her mouth.

“It isn’t my place to say, Judge.”

“You think Mr. Crowe’s probation should be reinstated?”

Kathy hesitated. She wasn’t sure that would be a good idea, let him off entirely. “I just think five years-he’ll do about twenty months? That seems like a heavy sentence.”

“I asked you what you’d give him, you haven’t told us.”

“I would consider, well, a year and a day, if you think he should do DOC time.”

“You’re basing this judgment on your appraisal of his character… What else?”

“Well, his age, the offense…”

“Having talked to him,” Gibbs said, “what, about ten minutes in the holding cell? Through bars, in all that noise and confusion? I’d be interested to know what you talked about.”

“I told him his lawyer was right, he should plead guilty.”

“And what did Mr. Crowe tell you?”

“I’m not sure I know what you mean.”

“If you want I can put it hypothetically,” Gibbs said. “What I’m getting at, how does an offender looking at five years get a pretty little probation officer to sympathize with his plight? What does he say to get you on his side?”

Kathy started shaking her head before Gibbs had finished. “Judge, I’m not on his side, I even told him that.”

“He never said a word to you.”

“Well, yes, he spoke…”

“I won’t tell the court what I’m thinking and have it go in the record,” Gibbs said. “But if you’re curious-Ms. Baker, is it? If you’d like to know what I suspect, stop in my chambers after we’re through here. In the meantime,” Gibbs said, making a notation in the case file before looking up again, “the decision of the court stands.”

Kathy kept watching Gibbs. The public defender was requesting Mr. Crowe be allowed time on the street, seven days to get his affairs in order. She watched Gibbs appear to think it over and finally rule okay, as long as the defendant reported to Probation on a daily basis. Now he was looking this way again, asking Kathy if she wouldn’t mind keeping an eye on her boy. She was thinking, You don’t have to smile. You don’t even have to answer. Or she could say, Who do you mean by my boy, Judge, the defendant? She heard Dale’s voice then, raised, and looked over, Dale saying to Gibbs, “Hey, Judge? I’m gonna see about this deal. You think you’re through with me, Judge, you’re fulla shit. Hear?” She saw Gibbs leaving the courtroom past two deputies who were moving quickly toward Dale Crowe with handcuffs and shackles. It surprised her the judge didn’t say something to Dale, hold him in contempt.

Marialena Reyes touched Kathy’s arm.

“You going to see him?”

“I don’t know.”

“I think you’d better.”

“He didn’t say I had to.”

“No, but I think it would be a good idea.”

Kathy said, “I have to smile, too?”

Marialena stared at her for a moment. She said, “Do what you want,” and walked away.