“You see, if you are going to cry over every case you lose you aren’t going to make it very long. You are much better off giving up defense work and getting a job as a prosecutor. Or better yet, give up law altogether. Go be a flight attendant, jet off to some sunny location where everyone is happy because quite frankly hun, most of the people you are going to work for are going to end up in prison. And some of the people we work for are going to die. Shit! We didn’t even work for Sharif; he was Frank’s client. So the way I see it, you have two choices. Shut the fuck up, or get the fuck out.” The young woman was now bawling.

  When Joanne finished, the young woman picked up her bag from the end of the sofa and left. It reminded Joanne of her uncle’s dog. When Joanne was a kid, the dog pissed on the floor one night. Her uncle beat the dog within an inch of its life. When the beating was over, the dog walked away much the way this tart did. Joanne took pleasure in it. She hoped she would never see the woman again, not because she didn’t want to deal with the emotion of the aftermath of a brow beating like this, but simply because she hated this woman and wanted the woman to know it.

  “Tavian, make sure that bitch never comes back.”

  Tavian simply looked back at her, knowing that he wouldn’t have to worry about it.

  14

  Chad Hunt could tell that Tavian couldn’t quite believe what he was seeing. Tavian and the others had always thought of Joane as a cold fish and a bit of a hard ass, but neither Chad nor Tavian could imagine her doing what she had just done. He wondered what this girl had done to draw her ire.

  Chad was a paralegal who had been with Joanne for most of her years with the Innocence Institute. He had been there as part of the team in the glory days when wins were commonplace. Those days were now long gone, but he stayed on anyway.

  Chad knew it wasn’t Sharif. He knew she wasn't lying about not giving a shit about Sharif. She didn’t give a shit about any of the defendants she worked with, but there had to be more to the story. Some of the lawyers in the room assumed it was her way of staying sane. Chad, on the other hand, thought just the opposite: that she was on the brink of insanity. He had been with her for a while and she had never been the type that had ever forced her world view on anyone else.

  Chad thought that for the past two days she didn’t seem like herself. Or at least the self she had evolved into over the years. She had been irritable and looked like hell. In the past couple of years she had morphed from being a very attractive woman to a woman who now appeared to be aging as fast as the clock ticked. Chad had discussed the possibility of drug use with Tavian the night before at dinner, and the two men had come to the conclusion that she had a fairly severe drug habit though neither of them had first hand knowledge. Joanne had exhibited mood swings, increasingly slurred speech, and declining appearance. They both also saw another warning sign: she hadn’t handled a case in several years. Not handling a case, above all else, lead them to this conclusion. Chad knew that if she were using drugs regularly, she risked disbarment if she handled any cases. Chad looked at Tavian and knew that there was more than one person in the room that wondered if her tongue lashing was part and parcel to withdrawal.

  Chad was surprised when she had taken the lead on this case. He figured Tavian had brought it to her, thinking she would offer her help, but allow him to be the first chair. That hadn’t happened. Chad knew that Tavian had been hiding his disappointment, but he hoped Tavian would be monitoring the situation very closely.

  Chad knew emotion was a dangerous commodity when defending people sentenced to death. The crimes were always violent; the stories were always sad. He couldn’t remember ever working on a death penalty case where the victim was a child molester, and the defendant was a nun. Sure, there were good people who did bad things, and there were bad people who got killed, but never the twain did meet. Ali Sharif had kidnapped two young women who were both police officers. He had taken them to a barn in the middle of shit ass Georgia, where he tortured and raped them for two weeks before eventually killing them. These were two women who had families whose lives had been destroyed by this low life. He personally didn’t give a shit about Sharif’s conversion to Islam or his remorse. More importantly, he knew Joanne didn’t give a shit either. The emotion on display, berating down the young woman, was almost as dangerous as the young woman’s tears. The thing that Chad knew, and that Joanne and everyone else in the room did too, was that every team needed the passion of youth. Joanne needed the passion that the young woman brought to the table because there would come a time when things fell apart. When the case was at its worst, that passion would be all they had. Chad was too old to have much passion left. Joanne’s was misguided, and Tavian made rocks look firey. He feared that if Joanne chased away all the young idealists, they wouldn’t be able to survive a case like Diaz. Although Sharif was a piece of shit, Diaz was a kid doing the best he could to raise himself out of a bleak situation. Diaz was innocent. Losing the Diaz case would really mean something. Losing the Diaz case would be something they would all cry about.

  15

  Marcel’s training camp started the day Joanne had flown to Texas. Training camp meant his time was limited for things outside of boxing and school. He hadn’t spoken with or even thought about Shannon since they had class together almost two weeks ago. Now, on his way to class again, he thought about seeing her again. He wondered what she did outside of school. Despite being the closest thing to a friend he had on campus, he didn’t really know her at all.

  Marcel had considered asking Shannon out on a couple different occasions, but stopped himself. There was something about those type of encounters that changed people. What was it about the whole process of dating that could change how two people approached each other? Marcel wondered if he was dealing with fear right now or if he was simply being a realist. Was Shannon really someone who he would share some sort of fairytale romance with, they marry, have a family, and live happily ever after? If that wasn’t the case, then in all likelihood his one friend in law school would transform into the one person that he was bound to have a series of awkward encounters with. No, he wasn’t afraid. In Marcel’s world there were no fairytale endings.

  The complexity of his feelings for Shannon wasn’t the only internal storm he was dealing with. This week, each student in class would get their first big assignment. Normally school assignments didn’t have any bearing on him, but this wasn’t a normal assignment. It also didn’t help that his entire body was aching from the intensity of the workouts he had been put through twice a day, for two hours every day. It had slowed him down mentally as well as physically, and he was having a hell of a time processing everything right now.

  When he opened the door to the room, he saw that he would not be the first one to arrive for class that evening. The room was in the lower level of the school. It wasn’t a very large room, compared to the large lecture halls on the main floor. The room seated at maximum forty-five people and the class had pushed the limits of that capacity. Unlike a traditional classroom, there were not individual desks in the room. This was different than the other rooms in the lower level. Instead the room had two rows of long tables in the shape of a large U. The back row was elevated above the front row.

  Shannon was already in a seat in the center of the U in the back row, reading over some papers in front of her. Upon hearing the door open, she looked up from her papers and their glances met. A smile lit up her face and at that moment he once again considered asking her out. He took the short walk to where Shannon was sitting.

  “Hey,” He said taking a seat next to her. “Early start?”

  “I didn’t get the reading done this week,” she responded focusing back on her papers.

  “Really?” Marcel was surprised. Their friendship formed because both had a studious nature, both were focused and driven. Marcel approached everything in life like this and he assumed it is how Shannon approached her life too.

  “Been a crazy week.” She didn’t offer any more and Marcel didn’t press. He knew she needed to get the reading done, not so much for class but for her own sense of determination.

  Marcel opened his bag and took out the reading packet they had been assigned for class. He didn’t get a chance to start it before the door to the class opened and Joanne came in. She was early, which surprised him, but that wasn’t what grabbed his attention. It was her physical appearance.

  Joanne looked like hell. She had gotten off the plane two hours ago. On a normal flight she would have been in a cool, comfortable place: sleeping in a blissful narco-laced cold comfort blanket. On this trip, however, she was tormented by pain. She was also still pissed off at the conversation she had with Tavian after she set the little tramp straight in the hotel. The plane had also arrived late so she didn’t have a chance to go back to her penitentiary on Lake Minnetonka. Instead she met with a reporter from the Star Tribune who was running a piece on Sharif. It was the typical boiler plate bullshit she passed off to reporters when a case like Sharif’s came down and they lost. Explaining a loss was something she had always hated. It felt like reporters assigned the blame to her when a client was executed as opposed to assigning blame to the asshole who raped and murdered police officers.

  It was difficult for her to keep her patience with this particular prick this afternoon. In the last few hours she had concluded that sobriety and patience could not coexist. Nonetheless, she had willed herself through the interview with every ounce of politeness she could muster.

  As she made her way to St. Stevens, she thought about stopping by the Old 88, a bar on the South Side, where she knew she could get some blow at any time day or night. A little bump before class, she thought, would set her up nice. It would give her a little balance and help her push through the sleep deprivation that was starting to overcome her.

  “Holy Hannah,” Shannon whispered in shock. “Must have been a rough week.” She continued, forgetting about the reading in front of her.

  Marcel and Shannon were not the only ones in the room that noticed. Several of their classmates exchanged bewildered glances with them, and they all shared a smirk at her expense.

  “Please forgive me. I just got back from Austin. the A-I-I is down their working on a case right now, and it has been a crazy forty-eight hours. Added to which my partner Frank Dekalb’s client, Ali Sharif, was executed at 6pm tonight down in Georgia,” Joanne spoke, sensing the concern of her students. No mention of dope though.

  “Did you work on the Sharif case?” an older woman near the top of the U on the right hand side asked

  “No, Sharif wasn’t an A-I-I client, he was one of Frank’s. Sharif wasn’t innocent by any means, he was guilty as hell. He admitted his crimes and made peace with them.” Joanne’s voice sounded like she looked.

  Joanne peered out through bloodshot eyes, over the class, and up at a clock on the back wall.

  “Well, let’s get started. Class is going to be cut short tonight, however I am going to be passing around a sign-up sheet with time slots for individual interviews. Before next week I want to meet with everyone individually to go over the assignment so you will have to plan accordingly.” Her voice didn’t have the same pizzazz it had a week ago. “I am asking everyone to partner up on this assignment. Are you all familiar enough with each other to pick your own partners?” she asked awkwardly.

  The class agreed they could find partners on their own. This gave Marcel an opportunity to team up with Shannon, which meant they would get a chance to spend some time together outside of school. Maybe this could be the way around his fairy tale conundrum. Jarvis would probably be pissed, but Marcel didn’t care. They were officially in training camp and Jarvis would have pitched an absolute shit fit about him working alongside a woman that he was attracted to. Jarvis was from the old school and would have told him to pick some fella to partner up with, or at least the ugliest girl in class.

  “Want to get going on this tonight?” Shannon asked Marcel.

  “Tomorrow, a.m? I have plans tonight,” he answered, opening up his bag and stashing the reading packet back into its folder.

  “Oh, okay.” She sounded disappointed.

  “I have to work,” He explained quickly not wanting her to get the wrong idea.

  “Oh, where do you work?” Shannon asked and packed up her own papers.

  “At the ‘House of Pain’ gym. I am working with a group of kids tonight, putting them through a workout.”

  “House of Pain?” Shannon gave a curious glance.

  “Boxing gym in Northeast.”

  “You teach kids boxing?”

  “Yeah, Jarvis, my trainer, has a program for low income kids; I help.”

  Marcel was humble about his work with the kids. He loved doing it but didn’t feel it was necessary to share with the whole world. Shannon had him backed into a bit of a corner, though.

  “Wow, that’s really cool, I guess there is a lot about you I don’t know, a lot of different layers. So you’re a fighter too? I mean you said you had a trainer.” She shot him an approving smile.

  “Nah, I mean, yes I am a fighter but what you see is what you get. Not much for surprises with me. We will spend a lot more time together and you will see. I mean on this project.” He felt like an idiot.

  “Yeah, I think we will. I guess I will see you tomorrow.” Shannon got up and walked out of the room.

  16

  Marcel left the school and headed for the parking lot where he had left his motorcycle. Tonight was the first time that he wished he didn’t have to go to the gym. He loved the gym, and the work he did there. He also liked the people he met. To him, the gym was his home; his apartment was just a place he slept. Working with the kids was an especially fun time. He saw so much of himself in the boys he worked with. None of them had shit. Most had messed up family lives. For them the gym was a sanctuary; the one place where they knew they could get some food and be safe. But tonight he wanted to be working with Shannon. That made him feel a little selfish.

  Jarvis couched it as teaching the kids to eat healthy, but Marcel knew that the reason he did it was because this might be the only healthy meal the kids would get all week. Jarvis would fire up the grill in the pit, and would go to work grilling chicken or fish. The pit was an adjacent lot that he owned that housed a sand pit and some other archaic workout devices, such as a tractor tire, that he used for cross training. Jarvis would always have some kind of greens as well. This group of kids never had to be told to eat their vegetables. Marcel always thought it funny how kids always appreciate things they don’t have, even vegetables. All of this of course, was paid for out of Jarvis’ own pocket.

  Jarvis did his best to get parents involved, and they were always welcome to come in and eat. There were a couple from time to time, mostly single moms. There was also a dad who was there every week. Marcel thought he was a good dude; he was doing the best he could to raise his two sons on his own. The man reminded Marcel of his grandfather.

  A couple of the kids were already at the gym when Marcel arrived. Other than them, the place was deserted. One of the boys, Isaiah Green, was the one whose dad came every week with him. His older brother Isaac wasn’t in the gym today.

  “Marcel, what’s good?” Marcus Green, the brothers’ dad extended a hand.

  “Where’s Isaac?” Marcel took the man's hand and they embraced.

  “Man, you know that time of year, Football tryouts.” Marcus’ smile was ear to ear

  “Tryouts huh, what position is he trying out for?” Marcel went to his locker and tucked his school bag away and pulled out his workout bag.

  “Fullback and linebacker. Me personally I’d like to see him on the defensive side, given licks rather than takin em, but you know kids man, touchdown’s what everyone cares about.” The man’s gregarious personality spilled out in the words.

  More kids started to come through the door. A couple with adults, including to Marcel’s surprise a woman he faintly recognized. She was with Deshawn Thunder, a ball of energy from Little Earth, who came and worked his tail off every week. Every other night he had been dropped off by his grandmother.

  She looked at him with familiar eyes and started making his way over to him.

  “Marcel?” Her voice was soft and a little bit raspy. Marcel thought it sounded sexy which, not unexpectedly, fit the rest of her.

  “Yea,” he responded, looking long and hard at her, trying to get past the feeling of recognition to remembrance.

  “You don’t remember me. Don’t worry it was a long time ago, I guess. You were just a boy.” The woman spoke with a thick Native accent.

  Marcel dove deeper into the depths of his memory and started rifling through old files. There were places inside his head he hadn’t traveled in almost fifteen years. He dwelled on her face for a second more and finally the name appeared.

  “Tess?” he asked, remembering more names from the old days rather than actual faces. The thought of rhubarb jelly filled his head. Tess had looked after him when he was younger and he recalled how much he had hated the rhubarb jelly she would occasionally use to make him peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. He didn’t get them everyday, he had no idea what he had gotten for a snack on any other day. On the days he had gotten the rhubarb jelly though those sandwiches had been hidden under her sofa. He wondered if she had ever found them. In hindsight it had to be a hell of a mess under that couch when it was finally moved.

 

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