Contest #218 shortlist ⭐️

43 comments

Fiction Drama Friendship

At about midnight, I walk out to the courthouse steps on Schermerhorn to bum a cigarette and swap stories with Michael. Thursdays are always busy, and I’ll be in late at arraignments, and he’ll drop a message with the bridge officer that he’s coming down. I tell the clerk I’m taking a break and head outside. 


It's odd. Speaking to the clerk, the sound of my own voice is startling. In the buzz and bustle of the courtroom the last half hour, waiting for my case—absolute silence. Locked in the anechoic chamber in the interior of my own mind.


Tonight, it’s not freezing or anything, but the November wind comes screaming up from the river and I have to pull up the flaps of my pea coat. Michael swaggers toward me, all teeth. We both know we could be fired for the conversation we’re about to have. Our supervisors wouldn’t even blink before firing us. Stoic math. The City is like that.


Michael shakes my hand, pulling me into his mile-wide grin and hugging me by the shoulder. “Tell me what this son-of-a-bitch Sanchez is doing stabbing her. What do they think you guys are going to do, slap him on the back and say she had it coming?” Michael used to want to help out these second-generation immigrant perps. To hear him talk about the way the system let them down, I’d start questioning myself. Now he just clocks in. 


These talks are our penitence. You can only live in the trenches so long, dealing day-in, day-out, with the depraved and hateful portion of the human plight before it starts to live inside you. It’s hard to explain our morbid fascination with batterers, the ironic cocktail of violence and intimacy. 


“Here’s the latest on Charlie Thomas. So Cassandra wouldn’t press charges. One of those, ‘wants to make it work’ cases. He still got processed. She made the arraignment and dissolved the order. So he was out ROR, and by the time he gets word she’s staying at her sister’s place, he’s riding high on rock and Jim Beam. An hour after he gets the news he shows up at her sister’s house with a .357 magnum. He’s got no weapons charges on his sheet, just a lot of 120s. So there he is. Nothing to stop him. The little girl hears them yelling and comes out of the living room. Charlie points at their child in common and shoots. It is an act of God. The gun explodes in his hand. The gun dealer sold him the wrong plus-p ammunition. He beats Cassandra with what’s left of the sidearm, and before it’s irreversible the kid’s screams get to him and he runs. She’s down at Lutheran Medical Center, and we’re out looking for the scumbag now.”


“Doesn’t surprise me,” Michael says. How could it? It is the same thing over and over. Men from disparate cultures, marooned on this concrete island, taking out all of their frustration on their women. Michael is what we call a true believer. He is the bringer of second chances and the vindicator of the innocent and the wicked repentant alike. He was doing the Lord’s work. I do the impression to remind him of how he used to be before it started to get to him.


“I know, it’s a shame,” I say, and without thinking I blurt out, “There’s no helping these people.” He nods. I take offense at his cynicism. 


I light his Marlboro Red for him, and we stand there looking out at these doomed buildings and people scurrying under street lamps, adding to the dusty air with those little whiffs of tobacco-induced peace. A few tiny specks of snow sleet float down and glint in the streetlight. We try to push off the slackness of all that nicotine and coffee keeping us alive through these pointless hearings. We are savages. 


I can feel it in my gut, my body getting beaten by the pressure of too many cases, too many to even read. Just going by gut instinct and first impressions—too often wrong. And somewhere inside of me, I can’t even locate there is a hole that all the feelings drain out of.


Then the call comes in. The DI gives it to me like he’s reading the weather report. Cassandra slipped into a coma at eleven seventeen, the cerebral swelling hit the motor cortex and she stopped breathing. They defibrillated for three minutes and pronounced her. So, just like that, I’ve got my first murder one. Michael listens to the call and knows what it means for both of us. 


Liz is going to kill me. Neither of us had set foot outside the City since the bar exam.   City winters can crush you. One cold night, three weeks ago, in a snowstorm, trapped in my little 500 square foot walk up, over a cheap bottle of red wine, we’d made plans. With the first snow of the season coming down hard, knowing we’d have the day off, we had conspired to get away. We had somehow gotten outside of the orb of striving, responsibility, and obligation, into our own circle. We signed up for a little Mexican getaway in Riviera Maya, right then, online. 


Intoxicated with the rush of an escape, in a frenzy of laughter, we finished two more bottles, made love, and spent the whole next day in bed, ordering in, half-watching a Humphrey Bogart marathon while talking about all of the things we could do on our trip. Liz got off of teaching at John Jay and surprised me by making me an Italian dinner when I got home and walked in the door. 


She had gone out and bought sundresses and at least five pairs of new shoes she couldn’t afford. Big gaudy ‘look at me’ shoes with different colors on their bottoms, one fancy pair for dancing, and various others for every activity we had thought of doing while on the island. We were supposed to leave on Monday for a full week.


So, this would be the second time I blew our vacation, the second time we’d had to eat the money. I thought, maybe she’d go without me, but I knew that wouldn’t work either. We hadn’t signed up for this when we turned down jobs at big firms. We were going to live life on our own terms. 


We were going to live free and have clear consciences and thumb our noses at the race for wealth and position and prosperity going on all around us. It hadn’t turned out like we thought. Our consciences were plenty heavy. Our bank accounts were nearly empty. Most nights we didn’t like ourselves very much and had trouble breaking the spell of anxiety and connecting like we had when we were young, with the world ahead of us, when we were happy. 


We only caught a little bit of the old magic on the days one of us came back with a good story to tell – and those days were like Christmas – but, even then it was mostly self-importance and honoring ourselves, and even then, we still doubted we were the ones with the white hats.


After a time, Michael looks at me and says, “I guess we better go in.” To our surprise, they caught up with Charlie Thomas. When they bring Charlie Thomas in with his hands behind him in handcuffs, he thinks he’s up on another assault, Penal Law 120. That’s normal procedure for him. He thinks he’s going home tonight. After the incident with the gun and the beating he gave her, he might not get bail, or she might insist on an order. Worst case, he does a little bit or maybe stays with his mom for a few weeks. 


He’s got no idea that he just orphaned his daughter and that a rep from OCFS is telling her that she’s going to be a ward of the state and she’s going to a group home. Charlie has a little bit of beard growing in. He’s all chin to the judge, and I can see from the counsel table that little wad of flesh on the back of his neck, beneath his shaved head.


It’s just routine. I’m the prosecutor saying he’s a flight risk and Michael is the dutiful defense attorney going on about ties to the community, the mother in Red Hook, his carpentry job. It is scripted theatre we know by rote. None of it means a thing. There’s no chance this guy is going ROR. Little chance he ever sees the light of day again. Judge Miller used to run the DA’s office, and somehow he is on arraignments tonight. Bad break for Charlie. He’s the Supervising Judge. Even if anything Michael said could resonate with Judge Miller, there’s no way Miller’s taking a chance of having the Daily News up his ass if Charlie gets on a flight back home to the Dominican Republic or worse.


On Friday, I take the R down to Red Hook to see Charlie Thomas’s mom. This is another one of those things I can get fired for. A DI should really be out here, or I should have someone with me. 


She answers in a fog, opening the door slowly, unaccustomed to guests. She’s a powerful woman. Diminutive, defiant—strong. Her back is a little hunched. Her shawl smells of Marlboro 100’s and her hair is up in an old-fashioned bun. She lives in an Asian neighborhood, but there’s kind of a divide and she’s at it. When she’s at the door, I lie and tell her I worked with her son at a carpentry place where he was working last. She’s surprised. My Spanish is no good.


I’ve been down at the senior center a few blocks down on other cases, and the older Chinese sit around all day playing mahjong. They are loud and mostly only speak Chinese. When we get there, there’s a whole pack of them shuffling and shouting, shuang, shuang, and smiling. I decide I'll take Ms. Thomas out there. I just want to know what she thinks we do with her granddaughter.


There is one part I can’t get around. She tells me she knows they had a little girl, but doesn’t even know her name is Elizabeth. She tells me she’s never met her. At least that’s all I can make out without a translator. 


The thing is, in the last three years working this gig I’ve noticed one thing that’s always bugging the hell out of me. When these beaters go on the lamb, we always pick them up at the mother’s house. It is the eeriest thing. If it's summer they’ll be out on the porch having iced tea together, waiting for us. In the winter, it’s inside with coffee. We don’t even bother going anywhere else. It’s always the mother’s house. 


The next time I see Michael is Monday morning. We run into each other in line, both getting egg wraps at Mr. Tozt at the Fulton Mall. I get a huge travel mug full of coffee to get me through the calendar call. Michael says, “So how do you like the case you have against Thomas.”


“I’ve got ballistics on the misfire, photos from the hospital, a coroner’s report, and I’m thinking I won’t even need to call the girl.”


“Nonsense. She’s the only witness. How do you feel about intent?” he says. This is his way of angling for murder two instead of murder one.


“Dead to rights, Mikey. I figure he stopped at some van and picked up that pistol that day. He wasn’t registered. He wasn’t going for target practice. That’s intent.” This is how I tell him I’m not getting a black eye in my unit for dropping the ball on my first murder, and we’re not taking any light pleas. 


He nods his head and looks down at the Jamaican girl at the counter who takes my money. Then he looks up and says, “Good luck proving that. What are you going to do, call the gun runner?”


Walking back to the courthouse Mike says, “What if he got robbed two nights ago out in the Hook by one of those Asian gangs. Say he picked up this thing because he was sleeping on the streets on account of not violating his order, that he was scared for his safety. What if he was strolling around his old block and saw Cassandra coming out of the corner bar with some sleaze-ball, and he followed the two of them to the apartment. What if he confronted them and the sleaze-ball got the hell out of there. What if I say "heat of passion?" Say, I’ve got the sleaze-ball as a witness? What then? Voluntary, fifteen to twenty-five?”


“Life, Mikey, life.”


“You don’t have the sister,” he says. “Don’t overreach. I’m not some kid you can push around.”


All day I’m thinking over what happened at Mr. Tozt. I should be feeling something about the way Michael spoke to me. Somehow, in the hazy Brooklyn streets under the glow of the cheap storefront lighting on Court Street, I am flat. Everything is flat. It is like I want to want to feel something strongly, but I’ve completely lost the ability to see things in human terms. 


It is there in the way we talk at the office about what a case is worth as if the charges are no different than blue-chip stocks bleeping up and down in the wake of evidence of the profits for the quarter. 


I bite into my egg wrap and feel the flaky egg and gooey cheese on my tongue, finishing the whole thing and tossing the wrapper in a trash bin outside the Criminal Justice Part on Schermerhorn. Eating is just texture and ritual. The food has lost its salt. I only eat out of habit, but I am not nourished by it.


That night, I take Liz out to dinner at a Tai place down Atlantic. Her eyes fixate on all the quaint details; the mats on the floor, the table settings at knee height, and the antique hookahs in the window. I tell her I love her and I’m sorry. She makes a thing with her face and takes my hand, but I am not forgiven. 


All she wanted was for me to say I wouldn’t cancel the trip, to say it was her call. Somehow that becomes apparent to me in the instant when it is too late for the knowledge to do me any good. I don’t know who I am anymore when I am with her. We eat quietly.


Then the call comes in from Scott. It sounds like he’s underwater the way he tells me in a flat voice: “Michael came down to the station an hour ago. He came down himself. Terri called it in. We sent a patrol for her, but she said she was walking to the precinct to drop it. We tried to reach you… to talk to her… see what you could do. She said she won’t press charges. But, you know what the statute says.” I see the math, the angles, the consequences, instantly – knowing how it will all go, down to the smallest detail. 


The statute says they can’t ignore a DV call. The statute demands an arrest. Seven years of higher education. Six-figure student loan debt. What does he do now? When Scott says statute it kind of sticks in my ear, even after the call ends. I think the statute wasn’t written for guys like Michael. But, the City is like that. Stoic math.


I walk out of the Tai place, through the cheap storefront lighting, the wind cutting down the side streets with an eerie howl. When I walk into the precinct, I see Michael in the detention cell, sitting on the floor with legs bent and head lowered, not wanting to look up at me. He still has on his grey suit from earlier. He’s looking ahead without seeing anything. So, this is how Michael’s career ends, I think. Scott comes to the front of the detention area. He says, “What will you do with him?”


“Full order, offer up an adjournment and anger management. See where he’s gonna stay.”


“Why don’t you process him?”


Here I am doing something I’d definitely be fired for. But, there’s a brotherhood among cops – and we are second cousins to them – and no one will ever know. I look into the cage and tell him to get up. He walks over to me. 


I take him out, take the cuffs off from the back, and turn him back around. I press his fingers one digit at a time across the electronic reader and watch the lines appear on the digital screen. As I hold his index finger down against the reader, I look into his eyes, but what I see is not shame or remorse—it is something I’ll never be able to fit neatly into a word or contain in an idea, but which will always trouble me when I deliver closing arguments from now on. 


After the prints are sent to Albany, we walk outside the precinct into the rainy Brooklyn night and I can hear sirens coming down Joralemon. It has been a wet winter. I give Michael a Marlboro Red, and we stand out there, silent for a moment. We are left alone with the peace of nicotine and fear. 


“Michael, where are you going to stay?” He looks at me and smiles for maybe the last time for a long time.


“I guess I’ll go back to my mom’s house for a while, and then in a week I’ll call and see if she’ll have me back.”


October 07, 2023 03:57

You must sign up or log in to submit a comment.

43 comments

3i Writer
09:10 Oct 12, 2023

That's a great case study.

Reply

Jonathan Page
16:05 Oct 12, 2023

Thanks 3i!

Reply

Show 0 replies
Show 1 reply
Paulene Blazey
13:49 Oct 15, 2023

Reading this story confuses me. The plot is great, lots of human psychology driving it. However, as an English person , lots in it I don't understand (jargon). A course I did recently made the point that competition stories should be tight and perfect. This isn't. The subject of the story has three different spellings, which took me out of the story. Very confused.

Reply

Jonathan Page
17:22 Oct 15, 2023

Hey Paulene. Thanks for the comment. I used the nickname Mikey, the shorthand Mike, and the full name Michael interchangeably because that's what I would do in normal life. As far as the jargon, I used real terminology and tried very hard to make it authentic without making it too overbearing or confusing. A few people commented on the jargon. I appreciate the comment and if you could let me know why you were confused, I'd try to tighten it up further. I am looking to eventually publish this story. Here are some of the jargon items I am awar...

Reply

Show 0 replies
Story Time
17:38 Oct 16, 2023

I loved the story, Jonathan. Didn't find it confusing at all. That being said, no story is perfect. I thought you inhabited the world well and I felt like you knew exactly what you were writing about, which, considering the subject, is difficult. Congratulations.

Reply

Show 0 replies
Show 2 replies
Martin Ross
14:31 Oct 14, 2023

I love a good procedural, and this one is terrific. Your knowledge of the system(s) comes through crisply and credibly, and the skillful noir narrative really drives mood and emotion. And the prompt helped give the story a different flavor. I’d love to read more cases. Well done!

Reply

Jonathan Page
17:22 Oct 15, 2023

Thanks Martin!

Reply

Show 0 replies
Show 1 reply
Hannah Lynn
03:13 Oct 14, 2023

Congratulations!! :)

Reply

Jonathan Page
17:22 Oct 15, 2023

Thanks Hannah!

Reply

Show 0 replies
Show 1 reply
Philip Ebuluofor
20:28 Oct 13, 2023

Do I repeat myself? Congrats.

Reply

Jonathan Page
21:19 Oct 13, 2023

Thanks Philip!

Reply

Show 0 replies
Show 1 reply
Karen Corr
20:03 Oct 13, 2023

Congratulations on your shortlist, Jonathan! (:

Reply

Jonathan Page
21:19 Oct 13, 2023

Thanks Karen!

Reply

Show 0 replies
Show 1 reply
Tom Davis
17:48 Oct 13, 2023

Excellent story Jonathan. It was a pleasure to read. I echo the sentiment that this is reminiscent of Michael Connolly. Hope this turns into a novel someday.

Reply

Jonathan Page
18:34 Oct 13, 2023

Thanks, Tom!

Reply

Show 0 replies
Show 1 reply
L J
21:58 Oct 12, 2023

As usual; loved it! You are starting to write like Michael Connolly! This story is gritty, realistic and powerful. All the stuff I like to read! And you are right about the beaters going home to cry to mommy. I hope this becomes a novel, I would like to hear more about what happens to crybaby Michael! So what a compliment that you read my little skit and liked it! Thanks for taking the time to read it

Reply

Jonathan Page
22:14 Oct 12, 2023

Thanks LJ!

Reply

Show 0 replies
Show 1 reply
Angela Govender
18:18 Oct 12, 2023

WOW. I love your take and your writing piece is flawless. Well done, Johnathan! This gave me goosebumps, your description of the fine details is amazing.

Reply

Jonathan Page
22:14 Oct 12, 2023

Thanks Angela!

Reply

Show 0 replies
Show 1 reply
Sophia H
14:37 Oct 12, 2023

Very thought-provoking read, because of the unique perspectives and world building. The characterization of Michael, even when he wasn't in the scene, was amazing.

Reply

Jonathan Page
16:05 Oct 12, 2023

Thanks Sophia!

Reply

Show 0 replies
Show 1 reply
Rachelle Lemay
14:09 Oct 12, 2023

You know your subject and your craft. Great read. Thanks, Jonathan.

Reply

Jonathan Page
16:05 Oct 12, 2023

Thanks Rachelle!

Reply

Show 0 replies
Show 1 reply
17:15 Oct 11, 2023

This is so good. Reads like a published novel. Your knowledge of the legal/criminal patois takes this to the next level. And the noir voice is spot on. Some great observations and truisms sprinkled throughout… “ Somehow that becomes apparent to me in the instant when it is too late for the knowledge to do me any good. ”

Reply

Jonathan Page
16:05 Oct 12, 2023

Thanks Scott!

Reply

Show 0 replies
Show 1 reply
Patrick Druid
21:41 Oct 09, 2023

I haven't finished reading it yet, but my eyes caught the word,"Schermerhorn and it made me think of Nashville. Later on,.I saw Brooklyn so this must be a different Schermerhorn

Reply

Jonathan Page
04:47 Oct 11, 2023

Thanks Patrick!

Reply

Show 0 replies
Show 1 reply
Joe Smallwood
17:23 Oct 09, 2023

I had trouble with the jargon. it might have helped to have a character where the MC had to explain the most important bits in plain English. Just a suggestion. But what pulled me along was the palpable sense of being in a meat grinder, the hopelessness of a system that always looks out for itself first, that squashes people and ends up a mockery of the ideals we like to hold on to. Like another comment here, it needs to be read twice! I can't think of a better compliment.

Reply

Jonathan Page
19:06 Oct 09, 2023

Thanks Joe! I will probably re-work this one until I get it just right. I really appreciate the feedback. I am a lawyer and worked in criminal defense and law enforcement at one point so thought I'd use the actual real terminology to make it as realistic as possible, but I could definitely tone that down and keep the story intact. There are a few I should probably highlight like 120 is the criminal code for assault. Unfortunately, with only 3,000 words I don't have much room to break down the different concepts--but I will work on it in the ...

Reply

Show 0 replies
Show 1 reply
Philip Ebuluofor
18:13 Oct 08, 2023

Fine work. I like the choice of the right words in the right places. It just captured my attention meaning I am being told to learn something here. Certainly going to go through it again later.

Reply

Jonathan Page
18:15 Oct 08, 2023

Thanks Philip!

Reply

Show 0 replies
Show 1 reply
Vee Lavinia
22:53 Aug 24, 2024

I appreciate the role that Dr. Salem played in enabling me get my wife back after she has filed for divorce. the reunion love spell is amazing that restored peace back in my marriage with positive results from the holy temple. contact salem manifest lover spell @ g mail. com….

Reply

Show 0 replies
01:33 Feb 03, 2024

Congrats on the Short List. Did you mean a Thai restaurant? Definitely know your stuff. Very authentic. I love crime/court drama.

Reply

Show 0 replies
Amanda Lieser
16:26 Nov 18, 2023

Hey Jonathan, I took the liberty of reading through a few of the comments below before choosing to write my own, because I always appreciate when someone points out something unique in my story that others haven’t quite gotten to. Personally, I really liked the jargon and perhaps that’s because I’ve worked in several different industries and have found that jargon creates the human touch for the places that you work. Yes, it can be confusing, but I think that it helps us because it shows that we, as the reader, are outsiders, looking in on ...

Reply

Show 0 replies
Marty B
00:38 Oct 19, 2023

The connection between the two lawyers was great, each side of the aisle, but just trying to get through each day. The criminal justice system treats everyone who touches it like a number, 'stoic math' and because people are not numbers it breaks them down, like it did to the MC. I liked these lines ' I am flat. Everything is flat. It is like I want to want to feel something strongly, but I’ve completely lost the ability to see things in human terms.' The ambition and verve of the MC burned up, just like the many Marlboro reds. Great s...

Reply

Show 0 replies
Geir Westrul
22:17 Oct 15, 2023

Jonathan, this was a very strong procedural. Gritty. Realistic. And I didn't see the turn coming with Michael involved in a domestic violence case (even though, given the title, perhaps I should have). It feels like the world they live in is stunting their feelings. Perhaps that is why Michael did what he did. It makes me wonder whether the narrator may even be headed for a similar situation. There are some clues in his relationship with Liz. Maybe the narrator will be heading to his mother's house one day. Congratulations on the short ...

Reply

Jonathan Page
09:11 Oct 16, 2023

Thanks, Geir!

Reply

Show 0 replies
Show 1 reply
RBE | Illustrated Short Stories | 2024-06

Bring your short stories to life

Fuse character, story, and conflict with tools in Reedsy Studio. 100% free.