Paydirt

30

" What we've got here, Your Honor, is a jurisdictional dispute," J.B. (Jailbreak) Jones was saying in his best basso profundo voice. "While the Texas court clearly retains jurisdiction over all matters pertaining to custody and visitation of the minor child, Mr. Gallagher has tried an end run, or a flea flicker if you will, in a bald-faced attempt to hornswoggle my client and rustle this case from Texas to Florida. Well, Your Honor, as we say back home, that dog won't hunt."

Christine watched her lawyer huff and puff and spout a gusher of Texas-sized cliches, all the while embellishing his drawl with flourishes and curlicues as he tended to do whenever in front of a judge or jury. They were in the chambers of the Honorable Seymour Gerstein in the Miami-Dade County Courthouse as Christine pressed her case to have Scott returned to her care and control.

Bobby sat across from her at the conference table, looking mournfully like a hound that had been banned from the house. Next to him sat his lawyer, an attractive Hispanic woman, and Christine couldn't help but wonder if there was anything going on between them. From time to time, when Bobby became agitated, the lawyer patted him gently on the arm, and Christine felt a pang of jealousy.

Oh, damn you, Bobby Gallagher! Why can't I get you out of my mind?

Carrying Christine's spear into battle was Jailbreak Jones, a man whose enormous girth nearly matched his grandiose ego. He wore a brown plaid three-piece suit, incongruously with a Western string tie. Seated at the conference table, just back from the lunch recess, Jailbreak's stomach threatened to burst the buttons of his vest. The scalp of his bald head was pink, as were his jowly cheeks. A brown Stetson sat on the table next to him.

As Jailbreak bellowed in indignation at the judge, Christine reflected on just how much she loathed being here. She didn't want to hurt Bobby any more than she already had.

Poor, misguided Bobby. I know you love our son, and you think you're the best Dad to ever place a new ball glove in your son's crib. But Daddy is right. You'll hold Scott back.

All she wanted was what was best for her son. Let him maximize his potential. Not that she didn't have second thoughts about shipping her son off to Berkshire Prep. The separation would be heart-wrenching, but hadn't her own father sent her to boarding school after her mother died? She had cried at the airport the first time she made the Dallas-to-Boston trip, but never again. The experience had made her stronger, more self reliant. Or was she just rationalizing now? Did it make this decision easier? Would she feel less guilty working weekends or coming home at nine p.m. if Scott were half the continent away instead of waiting for her latest dinner meeting to end? She didn't know.

Life was growing more difficult every day. Not her work life. That was challenging, of course, but manageable. You set goals and then surpassed them, a straight ascending line on a flow chart from where you are to where you want to be. There were no straight lines, however, in relationships. Relationships-man and woman, mother and son-were complex, contradictory, and constantly changing. There were no road maps to lead the way.

The litigation had gotten out of hand. It began as a dispute over Scott's schooling, but her father and her lawyer had shaped it into an all-out assault on Bobby, a mechanism for restricting his time with Scott. She'd argued with them, but in the end, the two men wore her down.

"Robert has no one to blame but himself," her father told her. "He likes to think he's Samson tearing down the Philistines' temple, but he's just a horse's ass crapping in his own stall."

There was nothing they wouldn't do to defeat Bobby and disgrace him. Her father waged what he called a two-front war, fighting over Scott and trying to keep Bobby from getting back his license to practice law. A private investigator had snooped in Bobby's trash, followed him to the laundry, and eavesdropped on his cellular calls.

"If I have to destroy that self-righteous prick to save my grandson, I will," her father told her.

It had become a battle between the two men for control of her precious child. She just wanted it to end.

Now she was listening to Jailbreak Jones proclaim that Bobby was a low-life scumbag who should be thankful that his ex-wife and father-in-law were willing to take on all parental responsibilities. "Alternatively, Your Honor, if this Court has jurisdiction," he sang out, "we will demonstrate on the merits that Robert C. Gallagher, a disbarred lawyer, a criminal who earns his living through illicit means, a malcontent and a miscreant, is an unfit parent, and that, while he may be entitled to certain visitation with the minor child, he should no longer enjoy the benefits of split custody, joint custody, or any control whatsoever of the boy's activities."

She looked across the table and saw the hurt in Bobby's eyes.

I'm sorry, Bobby. I'm sorry for everything.

"We have photographs of Mr. Gallagher at the racetrack in the company of known gamblers," Jones rumbled on, "some with extensive criminal records. And who does this man drag along to race tracks, taverns, gambling dens and pool halls? The minor child! The man is not a father. The man is a disease!"

Pool halls? For God's sake, Scott loves to play pool with his Dad.

Bobby's face turned red and he fidgeted in his chair. Christine closed her eyes and tried not to listen to her own lawyer, tried to wish herself into another time and another place. The anguish engulfed her. Part of her wished she had never met Bobby Gallagher, but that was ridiculous. If there'd been no Bobby, there'd be no Scott, and she loved her son with all her heart. Part of her wished she'd never divorced Bobby, but that was ridiculous, too. She had to choose between Bobby and her father. Once Bobby became the avenging angel of justice, at least in his own mind, the two men were mutually exclusive players in her life.

I had to choose Daddy. Didn't I?

Her father had insisted that she retain Jailbreak Jones, the most famous criminal lawyer in Dallas. Christine had wanted to use a female divorce lawyer, a friend from the Kingsley Center, but her father was adamant.

"Jailbreak saw me through my darkest days," Martin Kingsley had told her. "I'd trust him with my life, or even more important, my grandson's future."

Years earlier, just after the Texas City refinery explosion, Jailbreak Jones had practically become a member of the family. He was at her father's side during press conferences and appearances before the grand jury. How she had feared for her father's well-being then. Everything was at stake, his wealth, his health, his sanity. Publicity after the accident was devastating to Martin Kingsley's reputation. Seven men died at the refinery, and the newspapers blamed her father for cutting corners on safety. A federal investigation turned up dozens of workplace hazards and OSHA violations. On a tour of the burned-out shell, the Secretary of Labor called the place a "death trap for the innocent, a money machine for the guilty."

Her father had assured her that his only sin was allowing Houston Tyler to run the plant. Grand juries were impaneled. Victims' families sued. Reporters camped out on their lawn. Her father was on the verge of bankruptcy, indictment, and mental breakdown. He had fallen into a depression so deep it was as if he were lost in a thick, dark forest that the sun could never reach.

It seems like a lifetime ago.

Now, thanks to skillful lawyering-Jailbreak's-and solid business advice-hers-Daddy was posing for the cover of TIME this very morning. But still Martin Kingsley could not relax, could not enjoy his success.

"It's a long, hard climb up," he always told her, "and a damn quick fall down. I could lose everything in a heartbeat."

It was true, she thought, for all of us, particularly those who live as close to the edge as her father. The higher the peak, the steeper the precipice. A slip of the accountant's pen might draw the attention of the I.R.S.; a shadowy spot on an X-ray might foretell an excruciating death. We are so fragile, hurtling along, vaguely hoping the train doesn't jump the tracks.

"What about it, Ms. Suarez?" the judge asked. The Honorable Seymour Gerstein leaned back in his high leather chair, a spare man with rimless eyeglasses perched on his nose. Christine and Jailbreak Jones sat on one side of the conference table that formed a "T" with the judge's desk. Bobby and his lawyer sat on the other side facing them. Christine had watched the body language earlier when Bobby and Angelica Suarez had entered chambers. Bobby held out the chair for his lawyer, and she had smiled sweetly at him. Then later, when he became overwrought at something Jailbreak had said about his "unsavory" character and the fate of "the minor child," Ms. Suarez placed a calming hand over his. Was it Christine's imagination or did her hand linger a moment too long?

And damn it! Why do I even care?

"Scott Gallagher is now a resident of Florida," Angelica Suarez said. "He is enrolled in school here. His friends are here. His loving father is here. In addition, there are grave doubts as to whether the Texas court sufficiently retained jurisdiction. If we turn to the language of the order…"

She droned on for a while in that lawyerly way, picking at words here and commas there. Christine wondered about her. No wedding band, nails well manicured, an expensive business suit, Chanel perhaps. She had a gorgeous head of dark hair which she had pulled back into a bun for her court appearance, but Christine could picture her in a cocktail dress, hair down, someone Bobby would find exotic and enticing.

At least she called my son by his name, not "the minor child."

Sitting next to the judge, a young stenographer pecked away on her machine, recording every word. This is what it comes to, Christine thought. A marriage, a child, a life. We record what our formerly beloved has done and said, then paint the deeds and words on a canvas in the harshest colors possible. There will be a winner and a loser-cheers and tears-just like a football game. Trial by combat, battle by attrition. It was all so depressing.

The man I loved sits across from me, a stranger, or even worse, an enemy. How did it come to this?

Finally, the judge nodded to his court stenographer and began reciting in a senatorial timbre: "This court finds that Texas has jurisdiction over the subject matter hereof and the parties hereto. There is before me an order of the Texas court compelling the Respondent, Mr. Gallagher, to return the child to the care and custody of Ms. Gallagher for enrollment in the Berkshire Academy in Massachusetts, and thereafter to return to Dallas. I have no choice but to enforce it, and if I may say so, I would enforce its provisions on the merits even if I were free to ignore its clear dictates."

The anger smoldered inside Bobby like a spreading fire. He refused to look at Christine or her lawyer. He suddenly felt exhausted, spent. A sharp, hot pinprick of pain worked its way into his skull like a drill bit. He had invested so much of himself into his son, and now they were taking him away.

Damn! But what could I expect? My lawyer had warned me.

The judge turned to Angelica Suarez. "Counselor, I suspect you may appeal my ruling, and though I'm ruling against you on the threshold jurisdictional question, you may make a proffer of what your evidence would be on your client's fitness as a parent."

"That won't be necessary, Your Honor," Angelica said.

"What!" Bobby hissed in her ear. "Don't give up a chance to get our case on the record. We can't let the accusations against me go unrebutted on the appellate record."

She leaned close and shook her head. "That's irrelevant to jurisdiction."

"But not to the way judges decide cases," Bobby insisted. He was stunned by her decision not to protect the appellate record.

The judge waited a moment until attorney and client ceased arguing. "Alternatively Ms. Suarez, you may take a limited amount of testimony for the record."

"Put Chrissy under oath," Bobby said in a loud whisper. "Ask her if Scott loves me, if he loves spending time with me. Subpoena her prick father. Prove this is a vendetta against me."

"There is no testimony to elicit at this time," she replied to the judge.

Bobby's hands trembled like branches in a gale. Anger had turned to numb disbelief. Why was his lawyer abandoning ship? Why had everyone turned against him?

Jailbreak Jones was exchanging pleasantries with the judge about the fine bone fishing in Florida and had His Honor ever hunted wild bore? Christine was looking at Bobby, but he avoided her glance, shamed by his defeat. Angelica Suarez was packing her briefcase, seemingly in a hurry to leave the chambers.

"I'm not planning to appeal," Angelica Suarez said to Bobby in a low voice.

"Dammit! That's not your decision." His voice was loud enough to stop the conversation between the judge and the Texas lawyer. Jailbreak Jones looked directly at Angelica, smiled and nodded. It was not the smile of a victor to the vanquished, Bobby thought, but rather a congratulatory look. She turned away from him.

Now what the hell was that all about!

Bobby stood up and confronted his lawyer. "What the hell's going on?"

"It's best for you to put all of this behind you," Angelica said, trying to calm him.

"That's not your decision either!" he shouted, then stormed out of chambers.

"Hookers love the Super Bowl. Thousands of affluent men hit town. Not just beery football fans with their faces painted, either. In January [the Super Bowl site] is jammed with successful guys who feel like showing off, a city full of Charlie Sheens. The typical ticket holder is an executive or star salesman on a company-paid holiday. After a year of corporate war he may want a cocktail. He may want to loosen his tie and his wallet, roll down his limo window, do a little shouting, maybe even do his part to help make Super Bowl week the best prostitution week of the year.

— "Sex and the Super Bowl," by Kevin Cook, Playboy