Taking the Hits

Cruel to be kind.

There was no such thing. She had to admit that the song was catchy. You gotta be cruel to kind in the right measure. But it was just a song. 

The expression doing someone a kindness didn't always mean actually doing something genuinely kind for another person. Sure, sometimes you pointed out that someone had toilet paper on their shoe but sometimes it was telling someone who could sing that they couldn't because you didn't think they would make it Hollywood. Sometimes a person just liked to sing. Letting someone down gently was still letting them down. It wasn't called clearly communicating your expectations of each other. Her mind flashed to a face of a man. That was it's own tangent and better left like a dusty book on a high shelf that she would struggle to reach. Human cruelty. It kept at her mind like an itch. It was a rash going through all of her thoughts. Cruel summer. Don't be cruel to a heart that's true. We said it. People said it, people sang it, and there was still no more kindness in the world to show for it. 

Systems weren't built to be kind. With a heavy sigh she took a seat on the bench. She glanced around. There were a few people sitting on the benches by the fountain but the city was bustling with everyone rushing to wherever they needed to go. It was better for it that she had something to look at other than her phone or her laptop... or the sea of people in that room through the building behind her. It was a tall stone building but no built in kindness other than what she carried in with her. She ran her hands through her hair and studied the people around her. They seemed oblivious to her struggle and all the ways the real world was being so cruel. It wasn't their fault. People weren't paying attention. 

A man's face flashed before her and she felt herself gasp. Not the man she had been thinking of. 

"You scared me." She said with a nervous laugh. 

A man in a gray suit sat down beside her. 

"I brought you a coffee."

And she was the one who hadn't been paying attention. And this she was sure was a genuine kindness. 

"Thank you, Marcus."

"You were great in there."

"I feel like I'm going to lose." She looked down at the coffee.

"It's all about fighting the fight. That's why we're here." It was reassuring but it wasn't enough.

"I want to fight and I want to win." She realized how much she meant it saying it out loud. It was a thought she had had a million times but it was different saying it when she could feel the bitter taste of defeat on her tongue coming her way. "You can see how bad she needs it. I won't take the credit. I just want to do the best for her."

"That's why you're the best."

"I don't--"

"--feel like it." He finished her sentence. She looked up at him and he smiled for a moment. "I understand."

A silence lingered and they took advantage of it, taking sips of their coffee. 

"People aren't built for this. It takes a toll." He stated.

She took another sip of her coffee and avoided eye contact. 

"If I can ever help, you just say the word."

"You're doing more than you know." She answered and met his eyes. True kindness. There was no ulterior motive there. Just a pep talk.

Out of the corner of her eye she watched him look at his watch. 

"Closing arguments will start soon."

"I'll be right in."

"Take all the time you need. I'll stall if you'd like." With a wink he was gone and she was left alone sitting on the bench staring at how the light hit the water from the fountain. 

It was getting harder each time to get up from this bench like she was accumulating a weight in her soul. 

It had been and accident getting into these cases.  

She was just a keen lawyer who ended up representing one sexual assault victim and then ended up turning it into a career. Not a huge living but it gave her purpose. Her clients just needed someone strong in their corner. Someone who wholeheartedly believed them. And she always did. 

The system wasn't built to be kind. It was rigorous and hard and cruel. It wasn't built for survivors. And frankly it wasn't built for women. It was built for men. The men who made more money on the dollar for the fancy lawyers. The men who had colleagues in high places and golfed with one of the judges or was buddies with one of the cops on the case. The men who had no problem lying if it meant covering their own ass. 

She was determined to fight for these women that sought her out and she wished she could do more. 

But they needed resources. They needed to be able to hire a lawyer or afford to take the time off of work for all of the proceedings. They didn't make this system kind for a single mom. And they needed to be able to get the case to court in the first place. If the cops hadn't already made them feel like less of a human being for coming forward. Being cynical made her a great lawyer sometimes but she wanted to feel more hope. Hope that she could win. That her clients could go home and feel like something was right in the world. 

She just wanted this system to be kind but she knew that she was going to have to go in there and look at her client in the eye and prepare her for the possibility of them not winning. Not because she didn't try hard. Not because they had both done all of they could. But because the system had a lean on it. And she would fight it until she died but each conversation like this felt like its own small death. If they didn't win, they had just spent money on a fight that could have been rent and even if she gave it back, it still wouldn't help. 

The system needed to be kind. It takes all kinds. 

Hm, she smiled at herself. Some kind of wonderful. She's not the cheating kind. A kind of magic. 

She would need some kind of magic to win against the system and even though she found a distracting thought to get her to stand off the bench, she wasn't sure how long she would be able to keep this up. She had lost faith and was fighting a fight that was rigged to keep her losing. It was a good thing she was one of those lawyers who was a glutton for punishment. It would make the victory sweeter when she finally won, when one judge decides to correct the system, when the next Ruth Bader Ginsberg corrects it. Right now, she would keep being the little guy. It was braver to know you were going to keep taking punches. 

The man's face flashed before her eyes like someone was brushing off the dust of the old book. She had lost. The system had failed her. But she would go down kicking and screaming for every other person who asked her to.