well-educatedcorporate executive types. Cool as a cucumber, those guys.”
“It’s hard to be cool with a tie on. Squeezes all the blood out of my brain.”
“Then loosen that top button. Because if you pull that shit in front of the judge I swear to God I’ll plead you guilty and leave you there and go work for clients who actually deserve to be saved.”
“I’ll be cool. As well as nattily turned out.”
“No. You’ll be silent. Neutral. No looks, no noises, not one tiny little peep.”
“Okay, but my stomach’s been growling all morning. This shitty coffee doesn’t help.”
I burped to prove my point.
“Unbelievable.”
——
The arraignment was an interesting theatrical performance. Jackie’s role was righteous defender of civil liberties. Deferential, while exuding confidence that the issue at hand would be easily and promptly resolved as soon as the wise and distinguished judge had a chance to merely glance at the ludicrous proposition the prosecutor was peddling as a pathetic excuse for a case. The Assistant District Attorney equaled Jackie’s confidence, but was more sparing in her commentary, as if patiently indulging Jackie’s childish flights of fancy.
Any of the third-graders sitting in the back of the courtroom, victims of a civics lesson gone terribly wrong, could see the judge was playing along with various fictions created by people for whom he had little or no professional regard.
The ADA was a tall young woman with translucent skin like Jackie’s, though with none of the ruddy blush or seditiousfields of freckles. In fact, her flesh tone was so uniform it looked applied with a spray gun. Her blonde hair was thin, longer than it would be ten years from now and securely restrained behind a hedge of hairpins that pulled the edge of her scalp tight against her skull. Her legs, on the other hand, were very nice, and she filled her light blue suit the way fashion magazines wanted every woman to think she could.
The only time she looked over at me I winked at her. She instantly flicked her eyes back to the judge.
My timing probably wasn’t all that good because that’s when she entered a charge of second-degree murder.
“Your honor,” she said, “Mr. Acquillo clearly went to Mr. Milhouser’s work site with the intention of causing him bodily harm. Transporting to the scene a construction tool that could be easily adapted to lethal purpose.”
Jackie jumped in there with a flurry of counterarguments. The judge listened as if he was trying to read
The Daily News
on a subway while Jackie blared a boom box. All I remember of the exchange was the prosecutor’s riposte.
“The People are willing to concede to Ms. Swaitkowski’s assertions if she can prove that a hammer stapler is common accoutrement among joggers plying the sand roads of North Sea,” she said, the word “accoutrement” spoken in what I fancied to be perfect Parisian French.
After that the judge cut Jackie off mid-sentence and ruled that they could hold me over for trial. Then the discussion shifted to the prosecution claiming I was poised to zip off to Brazil immediately following the proceedings, countered by Jackie’s rather poignant description of my voluntary surrender, my reduced financial circumstances, my devotion to my daughter in the City—which I wished Allison was in the audience to hear—and other proofs of my general compliance, incompetence and ineptitude,which rendered flight from prosecution not only unlikely, but sadly impossible.
The kicker to Jackie’s argument was that Burton Lewis, a towering figure in the legal profession of New York State, was standing by with his checkbook and personal assurance that I’d show up for all scheduled appointments with the court.
I must have been the ADA’s only case that day, because she quickly packed up her stuff and left the courtroom as soon as the judge passed down the weary opinion that he was happy to hold Burton’s million bucks in lieu of
“It’s hard to be cool with a tie on. Squeezes all the blood out of my brain.”
“Then loosen that top button. Because if you pull that shit in front of the judge I swear to God I’ll plead you guilty and leave you there and go work for clients who actually deserve to be saved.”
“I’ll be cool. As well as nattily turned out.”
“No. You’ll be silent. Neutral. No looks, no noises, not one tiny little peep.”
“Okay, but my stomach’s been growling all morning. This shitty coffee doesn’t help.”
I burped to prove my point.
“Unbelievable.”
——
The arraignment was an interesting theatrical performance. Jackie’s role was righteous defender of civil liberties. Deferential, while exuding confidence that the issue at hand would be easily and promptly resolved as soon as the wise and distinguished judge had a chance to merely glance at the ludicrous proposition the prosecutor was peddling as a pathetic excuse for a case. The Assistant District Attorney equaled Jackie’s confidence, but was more sparing in her commentary, as if patiently indulging Jackie’s childish flights of fancy.
Any of the third-graders sitting in the back of the courtroom, victims of a civics lesson gone terribly wrong, could see the judge was playing along with various fictions created by people for whom he had little or no professional regard.
The ADA was a tall young woman with translucent skin like Jackie’s, though with none of the ruddy blush or seditiousfields of freckles. In fact, her flesh tone was so uniform it looked applied with a spray gun. Her blonde hair was thin, longer than it would be ten years from now and securely restrained behind a hedge of hairpins that pulled the edge of her scalp tight against her skull. Her legs, on the other hand, were very nice, and she filled her light blue suit the way fashion magazines wanted every woman to think she could.
The only time she looked over at me I winked at her. She instantly flicked her eyes back to the judge.
My timing probably wasn’t all that good because that’s when she entered a charge of second-degree murder.
“Your honor,” she said, “Mr. Acquillo clearly went to Mr. Milhouser’s work site with the intention of causing him bodily harm. Transporting to the scene a construction tool that could be easily adapted to lethal purpose.”
Jackie jumped in there with a flurry of counterarguments. The judge listened as if he was trying to read
The Daily News
on a subway while Jackie blared a boom box. All I remember of the exchange was the prosecutor’s riposte.
“The People are willing to concede to Ms. Swaitkowski’s assertions if she can prove that a hammer stapler is common accoutrement among joggers plying the sand roads of North Sea,” she said, the word “accoutrement” spoken in what I fancied to be perfect Parisian French.
After that the judge cut Jackie off mid-sentence and ruled that they could hold me over for trial. Then the discussion shifted to the prosecution claiming I was poised to zip off to Brazil immediately following the proceedings, countered by Jackie’s rather poignant description of my voluntary surrender, my reduced financial circumstances, my devotion to my daughter in the City—which I wished Allison was in the audience to hear—and other proofs of my general compliance, incompetence and ineptitude,which rendered flight from prosecution not only unlikely, but sadly impossible.
The kicker to Jackie’s argument was that Burton Lewis, a towering figure in the legal profession of New York State, was standing by with his checkbook and personal assurance that I’d show up for all scheduled appointments with the court.
I must have been the ADA’s only case that day, because she quickly packed up her stuff and left the courtroom as soon as the judge passed down the weary opinion that he was happy to hold Burton’s million bucks in lieu of
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