Vincent James Perrone
Michelle is an attorney—the good kind. She is appointed by the court to represent a woman accused of second-degree retail fraud. This woman was caught on camera pulling her buggy through the self-checkout aisle, pretending to scan a handful of items, and walking out with several hundred dollars’ worth of unpaid goods. She did this six times before she was caught, though she is charged with the five previous incidents as well. She was also arrested for disorderly conduct several years prior.
When Michelle sits down with her client for the first time, she explains that the charge may be reduced from second-degree retail fraud to third-degree retail fraud, with contingent fees and the probability of probation.
The woman informs Michelle that she will not take the plea deal. That she has no interest in negotiating. That she is innocent.
Michelle leaves the meeting feeling rather depressed. She has had several clients demand their day in court, and for each of them the outcome of a trial is almost always unfavorable.
Following the day’s meetings, the reading and filing that accounts for so much of her work, Michelle returns home. She changes her clothes, drops the wristwatch—a graduation gift from her sentimentalist father—on the nightstand, and hastily leaves again. There is all too much of a world for her to stay inside, this evening or any other.
At the Waking Light Zen Buddhist Temple, Michelle places her shoes in a cubby in the hallway, enters with her left foot, bows, adjusts her Zabuton, bows to the seat, and bows to the room before taking her place for silent meditation. Michelle has only recently begun attending services and has yet to attain any grace in her quiet movements. Thursday night is supposed to be for those only in their spiritual infancy, though everyone in the temple this evening appears to chant in careful unison: I take the Buddha as my refuge; I take the Dharma as my refuge; I take the Sangha as my refuge. It takes a few moments for Michelle to find the rhythms of the language, to stretch her syllables to fit.
Tonight, Michelle and her cohort sit rapt while the Dharma teacher shares the parable of a young monk-in-training caught stealing from the temple. He’s caught red-handed and the other pupils request the thief’s dismissal. Their master shakes them off, suggests forgiveness. A week passes and the same student is again caught stealing and again the master disregards the matter. The other pupils grow angry, incited by the thief’s brazenness, annoyed that their master does not take action. They draft a petition, demanding expulsion of the thief and threatening to leave the temple if their demands remain unmet. After reading their petition, the master gathers his young pupils and addresses them. You are all wise and just, he says. If you wish to, you may go somewhere else to study. But your brother does not even know right from wrong. Who will teach him if I do not? I must keep him here, even if I must lose all of you. Upon hearing this, the thief wept, and the flood of tears cleansed his face, and all desire to steal vanished from him.
After the service, Michelle lingers for tea and conversation with the other amateur Buddhists. An older woman smiles at Michelle, providing a faint flash of an inexplicable, gold incisor. They exchange a warm handshake. Michelle mentions that the Dharma teacher’s lesson felt deeply synchronized with her own life. The older woman comments that all Zen stories feel that way. Michelle does not tell her about her troubles at work, feeling that the word “attorney” does not belong in a Zen temple, and instead asks what the woman does for a living. I save lives, the woman says, retrieving a state police badge from the interior of her robe.
***
The following week, Michelle again speaks to her client who has not changed her mind about fighting her shoplifting charge. Michelle reminds her that she is on camera, that she is on multiple cameras, that she is on multiple cameras multiple times, and that second-degree retail fraud carries with it a maximum of one year in jail. The woman reminds her that she is innocent.
Innocent people still go to jail, Michelle wants to say, but doesn’t. She feels an ethical responsibility to avoid disparaging the legal system when acting as appointed counsel. And, of course, she doesn’t believe the woman, despite wanting to.
On her client’s face, a faded speck of yogurt or mayonnaise commands Michelle’s attention. It’s encrusted in the shallow wrinkle at the edge of her grimace. Michelle touches her own face, but there is no detritus nor any smile lines.
That evening, Michelle dines with a friend from law school. This friend specializes in intellectual property litigation and is currently representing an agricultural corporation entangled in a legal battle with a seed cleaner. According to private investigative reports, the man has sold second-generation seeds. That is, he has legally purchased the corporation’s patented soybean seeds, harvested the crop, and utilized seeds from that crop for his profit—a practice made illegal by the FDA. Michelle’s friend is quick to admit that, when passing this law, the FDA was under the guidance and advisory of his company’s former chief executive. But the legitimacy of the law is not on trial. Michelle’s friend believes the seed cleaner will settle out of court.
Michelle is taken aback by her friend’s candor regarding the moral trappings of the situation. The friend explains that if he were not on the case, an even more ruthless attorney would take his place, and instead of requesting a mild five-figure settlement from the seed cleaner, they would look to take the entirety of his business, property, and livelihood, and the corporation would likely buy up the land, bulldoze the farmhouse, and use the space for industrial seed cultivation while providing this shrewd and brutal hypothetical attorney with a substantial bonus for his good work.
The lawyer friend comments that in law school, he came to know precisely how merciless corporate attorneys could be. Aware of this fact, he ventured he might curtail potential cruelty by attaining a prestigious position within a massive and inhumane organization.
Michelle asks if he ever thought about representing the people that these corporations go after. The friend looks quizzically at her and says in so many words that the law does not work that way.
***
When Michelle visits her shoplifting client next, a hearing date has been set. Michelle asks if her client might still consider a plea deal. The client has not considered this. Instead, she has researched winning defense strategies for shoplifting cases. The woman claims that the prosecutors will not be able to prove intent. Michelle shakes her head. The scanning? The fake scanning? And six times? There’s a recognizable pattern that would imply intent. How do they know it’s me? asks the woman. Michelle reminds her client that the store security followed her to her car and recorded her license plate. The client demands that Michelle do something about her case, and Michelle interlocks her fingers, emphasizing that she is doing all that is within her power.
You’re not a very good lawyer, Michelle’s client says, clasping her hands together on Michelle’s desk. You’re not a very good thief, Michelle doesn’t say. Her meditative practice has gifted her stoicism but not resolution.
When she is done with work that day, Michelle walks to the park near her office. It’s unseasonably warm and the park is filled mostly with young people. Couples hold hands as they pass. Teens giggle. Parents wrap their infants in elaborate scarves. Michelle thinks that these people would not steal hundreds of dollars from the grocery store and, if they did, they would not lie to their attorney remorselessly. It seems to Michelle that the world is more definite and solid than she once believed, that goodness seeps in effortlessly, that perhaps things are going the way that they are meant to. And what would that mean for the client? A lawyer doesn’t stand against god or law. They remain in service to both. That is the thought Michelle takes with her to the parking garage. Her footsteps ping delicately off the concrete walls. It sounds a like a clip of consonants expressing disapproval—tsk, tsk.
***
At the trial, Michelle chants inaudibly. The judge is a former prosecutor, and Michelle has been to his house before, has sat across from him at a solid oak table and laughed at his jokes. Her client loses the case but avoids jail time. She is sentenced to two-hundred hours of community service and a thousand dollar fine. Michelle imagines the client has neither the money, nor the time to comply, but she thanks the judge and exits the courthouse alongside her client. The client thanks Michelle for her hard work, apologizes for her behavior, and submits that they did the very best they could do. Michelle is inclined to agree.
Very late that same night, Michelle lies restlessly in bed, unable to slip away. Resigned to sleeplessness, she rises, walks to the living room, and turns on the TV. Among the ambient streams, she finds a cooking show and watches blearily. It is an old season: the celebrity judges look fresh-faced and guiltless. The contestants are asked to render a dessert using unorthodox ingredients: fresh turmeric, star anise, and fermented fish paste. Michelle is entranced by the spirit of competition and enticed by the oddity of flavors. She admires the beauty and violence of the competitors, the precision by which they move through the set-kitchen, pirouetting past their fellow chefs, dodging knives and flames, their faces aglow in the twinkle of flambé.
It is not until the show cuts to direct interviews with the contestants that an uncanny impression begins to reveal itself. She’s watched this show many times—but this episode? Unlikely. And yet, familiarity creeps in, uninhibited. On screen, a woman in a monogramed apron explicates her plans for making mochi with a standing mixer and, between words, a yellowish glint flickers in her mouth.
Michelle is struck by a memory of diving to the very bottom of the deepest section of a public pool, touching the rough, calcified bottom, and drifting toward the swim lanes. Above and upward, horizontal bodies glide like mute asteroids. She is very young in this memory, but a talented and poised swimmer, able to hold her breath for nearly two minutes. From the bottom of the pool, she watches a man make several laps above her but sees only his movements, the way he parts the water, and she feels only an odd awareness that she knows this man. It isn’t until she’s surfaced that she realizes the man is her father, wild-eyed and sunburnt, calling her name and scanning the water, rushing to the tower and grabbing the teenaged lifeguard by the corded whistle. She floats to the surface as the rest of the pool-goers are evacuated and a crowd of white-nosed attendants rush the pool to rescue her despite her protests.
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Vincent James Perrone lives in Detroit. His recent work can be found in TIMBER, A Common Well, Storm Cellar, and Heavy Feather Review. Find him at vincentjamesperrone.com and @vincentjperrone.