Free SSC (2011) The Road to Hell by Paul Levine Page B

sheepskin isn’t framed, so the edges are yellowed and torn, but it serves a purpose, covering a crack in the bathroom wall just above the commode. I like it there, a symbolic reminder of the glory of higher education, first thing every morning.
    I don’t give clients a curriculum vitae or a slick brochure extolling my virtues. I just tell them I’ve never been disbarred, committed, or convicted of moral turpitude, and the only time I was arrested, it was a case of mistaken identity—I didn’t know the guy I hit was a cop.
    I keep my office walls bare except for a couple of team pictures and a black-and-white AP wirephoto from some forgotten game. The sideline photographer caught me moving laterally, trying to keep up with the tight end going across the middle. The shutter must have clicked a split second after my cleats stuck in the turf. My right leg was bent at the knee in a direction God never intended. Nobody had hit me. It’s one of those rare football photos where the lighting is perfect and you can see right through the face mask.
    My eyes are wide, mouth open.
    Startled. No pain yet, just complete astonishment.
    The agony came later. It always does.
    What had been perfectly fine ligaments were shredded into strands of spaghetti. Doc Riggs gave me the photo on the day I retired, which is a polite way of saying I was placed on waivers and twenty-seven other teams somehow failed to notice. Because he always has a reason for everything, I asked Charlie why he went to the trouble of having the photo blown up and framed.
    “ Why do you think?” he asked right back. Sometimes, his Socratic approach can be downright irritating.
    “ You want me to remember the pain so I don’t miss the game so much.”
    “ No, you’ll do that without any prompting. As Cicero said, Cui placet obliviscitur, cui olet meminit . We forget our pleasures, we remember our sufferings.”
    “ Okay, so why—”
    “ Most of the pain we suffer we inflict on ourselves,” he said.
    I still didn’t understand. “You want me to be cautious? Doesn’t sound like you, Charlie.”
    “ I want you to examine the consequences of your actions before you act. Respice finem . You have a tendency to …”
    “ Break the china.”
    “ Precisely. And usually your own.”
    I knew I’d never be a great lawyer. I lost most of my cases as a public defender. The clients—I didn’t start calling them “customers” until they could pay—either pleaded guilty, or a jury did it for them. Occasionally, the state would violate the speedy-trial rule, or witnesses wouldn’t show, or the evidence would get lost, and someone would walk free, at least for a while.
    I can still remember my first jury trial. State of Florida v. Monroe Shackleford, Jr . Armed robbery of a liquor store. Abe Socolow was the prosecutor. More hair then, but same old Abe. Dour face, sour disposition. Lean, mean Abe in his black suit and silver handcuffs tie. “Can you identify the man with the gun?” he asked.
    “ He’s sitting right over there,” the store clerk answered, pointing directly at Shackleford.
    Outraged, my saintly client leaped to his feet and shouted, “You motherfucker, I should have blown your head off!”
    I grabbed Shackleford by an elbow and yanked him into his chair. Sheepishly, he looked toward the jury and said, “I mean, if I’d been the one you seen.”
    * * *
    Wilbert Faircloth appeared to be studying his notes. “Dr. Riggs, did there come a time when you and Mr. Lassiter became friends?”
    Charlie fidgeted in the witness chair. He’d been in enough courtrooms to know that Faircloth was attempting to discredit Charlie’s favorable testimony by showing bias. It’s the oldest trick in the cross-examination book.
    “ I took the lad under my wing, showed him around the morgue,” Charlie admitted. “He watched me perform a number of autopsies, didn’t toss his lunch even once. It took a while, but Jake learned the basics of serology, toxicology,