Another Mega Update....

So, yeah. It's been a while since my last update...I'm a horrible blogger. I know. I know.

It's not like there haven't been things to talk about. I just haven't had/made time. But I'm here now. I'm I'm ready to talk, so why don't we all sit down, pop open a Cherry Coke Zero and chat a bit?

Cool?

*************

Thanksgiving. Yeah, let's start here. Dinah and I are on a holiday rotation between her parents and mine. This year her parents get Christmas and my mother gets Thanksgiving. We started doing this so we could spend holidays with each other instead of each of us retreating to our personal tribes. And we timed our rotation to coincide with her brother's so that her family could be all together. The rotation is generally a good thing and everyone's happy. Well, my Mom doesn't like years like this when she's not with us on Christmas, but she takes it pretty well.

This year, however, a couple things happened. The first is no big deal. Dinah's brother needed to be closer to home for Christmas, which meant not being able to make her parent's then. So, they went there for Thanksgiving. Which means we don't get to see our little niece until next year sometime. And it's not a big deal, because we'll be moving up to St. Paul sometime next year and get to see a whole lot more of them....but. The niece started sleeping in a big-girl bed. It feels like she's getting older quickly. But still, not a big deal.

The second, is potentially a bigger deal. I say potentially, because I'm still not clear on how I feel about everything. Let me start at the beginning.

I think I've mentioned that I've been emailing with my father and that's been going fine. Not well. Not bad, but you know. Fine. We don't really talk about much. I mention what's going on with me and Dinah and he mentions what's going on with him and his woman-friend. We steer away from talk about my mother and treating others like shit and it's mostly okay. It's not a sharing relationship, like the one we had before. But anyway.

At some point I mentioned to my sister that I thought dad would invite me to his place for Thanksgiving dinner and after much rigamarole where my dad changed plans from visiting my grandmother (his mom) that weekend and a tense negotiation with my brother who insisted on us scheduling a time for dinner when he could be there to "keep the peace" before realizing he could not make any time that would work for anyone else, my father did invite Dinah and I to join him, my sister and his woman-friend for a Thanksgiving dinner on the Saturday after the formal holiday.

Driving up to his new house, I was nervous. I felt something in the pit of my stomach, which was either nerves or the Burger King breakfast I made everyone stop for. I'm a stress-eater, what can you do? They have an old long-haired golden dog who was out in the yard playing in the leaves and as soon as we pulled up, it started barking. And suddenly, my father came out the front door, looking older and much more like his oldest brother than I remember noticing before. What hair he hasn't lost had gotten grayer and the hearing aid he now wears was a little more noticeable. And I noticed later that he really has to look at you for the hearing aid to get you fully.

I took a deep breath and got out of the car and my dad yelled at the now excited dog, "Stay!" I suddenly stood very still and my dad looked at me thinking I don't know what. And I said, "Me too?"

And with a giggle he said, "no you can come here." And we hugged. And the afternoon was pleasant. We caught up on everything, still staying away from tough topics, mostly and yeah, it was pleasant. I say we mostly avoided tough topics because sometimes things come up. Like we were talking about politics and my Dad was saying how he supported John Edwards (politician, not crazy guy) before he found out about the affair, and I just froze for a very noticable second. And then there was a moment when my sister brought up how my dad had "lost" his medals from Vietnamn, obviously from an earlier conversation they'd had. She was advising him of someone who was helping vets find medals that had been mislaid. Well. Funny story about how my dad "lost" his medals. He threw them away. In the garbage. It happened one day when I was 12, maybe. I was doing something important and my dad was calling me into the kitchen. I said just a minute and then he got frustrated and threw the medals into the garbage. I walked over to see the medals in the garbage and I felt bad. My dad was trying to share something really personal with me. Medals he'd won serving in Vietnamn. And I'd been too busy to come. So, I fished the medals out of the garbage and polished off the gunk that had gotten on them and pinned them to my denim jacket. And later he saw me. And yelled at me about how the war had been horrible and those medals meant he was good at killing people and that was not something he was proud of. And basically made me cry for trying to be proud of him. Not that I blame him for his feelings about the war, or for maybe changing his mind about the meaning of his medals or whater. And I can even understand him being harsh about it, because he had a hard time dealing with all of that, and I can't blame him. War is something I'll hopefully never have to deal with. But, it bothered me that he didn't remember. Can't say why for sure. Just sort of a creeping suspicion that in the years i've been away from my father he went and changed. Which, hey, happens.

Yeah, but the rest of the time was pleasant. Nice. My dad's woman-friend is a nice lady. No awkwardness with her. They live in a nice place, though they'll be moving to South Dakota to be closer to his family (my family, I guess) after he retires in February. They're doing well.

Which kind of pissed me off.

They seem happy and in love and that's great for them, but my mother is working all the time, in poor health, just to try to keep it together, and he gets to buy a new house and be happy and play Yahtzee with someone else. I know it's been like 5 years since the divorce and I wish she could get on her feet and date or move or something, but I didn't promice to spend the rest of my life taking care of her and growing old with her, just to bail and get an easier life. Part of me can't blame my father and I know it's beyond the point where he should have to apologize for being happy, but it still stings.

But really. There's nothing I can do. I just don't know if not doing anything is really okay with me. It's been a long tradition in my family of not bothering others with things that bother you. It's considered selfish, I think. You just have a fight about it (even if you pretend you're fighting about something else) and then you let it blow over. And that feels like what I'm doing here. But, I don't know what else there is. There's not talking to him or there's talking to him like he's just somebody I see around. I didn't much like not talking to him, so this is what he has to offer. Fine. Not great. Not satisfying. But fine.

******************

Anyhoo. So, as I posted, I got into law school. The first school was William Mitchell, one of my top choices. And they put together a nice financial aid package that I am not sure any other school will or will want to match. And I really liked the visit I took at William Mitchell last year (August?). So, I'm thinking that's where I will be in Mid-August next year.

Last week, I heard from St. Thomas Law, also in Minnesota. They let me in and offered a nice package, but not quite what Mitchell offered. Though, they did follow up with a Christmas card and a cool winter hat. In short, they're wooing me. And I have to say, I like being wooed. I mean, sure, the hat wasn't expensive and they probably give them to all the students admitted at this point, but it's a damn nice gesture.

So, if you're reading my blog William Mitchell, I appreciate your generous financial aid and I'm about 90% sure I'm ending up there, but you want to seal this deal now? T-shirt. Baseball hat. Hell, I would even go for a pen. Not a bic, though. I'm not some cheap harlot. I want to be romanced here. This pen better click. Or. You know, there will be no consequences.

But seriously. Law school. This is big. And scary.

Next year, I'll be studying for finals and thinking about what I'm gonna spend my summer. I mean. How did I get here. I floundered out of college for years, before I met Dinah and decided I needed to get my shit together. And even after that I got fired from a job and mysteriously let go from another. I went through a year of ego-racking shit and somehow now I'm going to a really good law school and they're telling me that a good chunk of the tuition is on them. They're saying, 'it's not just that we think you could go here, we want you to go here.' This summer of going to work with the Criminal Defense attorney and studying for the LSAT--it may well be the most perfect summer I've had. Not perfect from the standpoint of everything going well in my life, but perfect in that I, for some reason, ended up exactly where I needed to be, doing exactly what I needed to. And it got me on the path I wanted to be on.

Can't say I know how it worked out. Can't take much credit for it. It just kind of feels like I made some good choices and I worked hard, but sometimes it just feels like life just opened up and welcomed me back.

Sometimes it still feels like it's so far away, the sunny fall day when I'm walking home from law school, stressed about my Contracts class where the professor is so demanding, and the brief I have to have ready for presentation, and the reading, jesus, the reading. But, I hope when that day comes I remember the days I spent in the library with the LSAT prep books. I hope I remember that it doesn't matter if Frederick Douglas speaks before Lecretia Mott or that if light 2 is off that light 4 is not on, but if light 4 is not off, light 8 is on. I hope I remember how much I enjoyed watching and preparing for that murder trial. And how I had so much trouble getting a letter of recommendation from one of my writers before I just snapped an audible and got another one. And I hope I remember this past summer, because I just have this feeling is that this is the summer everything changed. For the better. And I had some hand in that.

Shit yeah, I did.

Though, I do have to mention how perfect it was for Bruce Springsteen to release his new album, "Working on a Dream" in time for this summer. You know how I wrote in the Gumshoe about there being a time when a song comes on the radio and it's the perfect song for that moment? Well, this song was perfect for my summer. Can't explain it, but it was exactly what I was feeling. And what I needed to hear to keep myself working on those stupid games and figuring out those stupid arguments. Not saying it wouldn't have happened without the song, but it sure did make it a lot easier. Thanks Bruce. (I'm not sure how Bruce might feel about knowing he helped create yet another lawyer in the world, but....)

*************************

This whole moving to go to law school means I'm now thinking of Chicago a little differently. I'm gonna leave this incredible, exciting, expensive, corrupt, stupid, lovable city. And there's so much I haven't done. I haven't eaten at Hot Doug's. I haven't been to the Tip Top Tap. I know barely anything about the South Side of Chicago (oh secretly segragated city).

I'm gonna miss this city. Warts and all.

I must say, if the Cubs ever do win the World Series, I will be happy not to be near the pent-up crazyiness of all that. Remember when the Cubs were gonna win last time, before they choked and blamed it all on a fan? Well, during that series, I was living about half a mile north of Wrigley and the feeling of anticipation was amazing. After the game before they choked, when it still looked like the Cubs could do it, I woke up to find a car crashed through the fence and abandoned in the front yard. It had the feeling of a freaky holiday.

*************************

Whoo...

Long time no update, but I just wanted to say, my first acceptance letter to law school came!
And I'm 32!
Good day.

LSAT

Three weeks are over. The LSAC guaranteed the LSAT scores by Monday, but were kind enough to send them out yesterday. I had heard rumors that this could happen, so I was obsessively checking my email all day at work. At this point, I was still calm. Something in the back of my head told me I would be doing this on Monday, so there was no point in getting too worked up about it now.

But, it wasn't until I got home and looked at the LSAC website that I saw they had changed the status of my score email date from the 19th (Monday) to 16th (Yesterday). And panic set in. Had I given them the wrong email address? Had I typed it wrong somewhere and my score was out in the unreal reality of the web bouncing around off of porn sites and hate group message boards, dirtying up my pretty score? Do I lose my score if I don't open it soon enough? Or do they just not want to tell me my score? Was it so bad they just want me to have one nice Friday night with my family before I find it out and join a cult or start liking teeny-bopper music and dressing in pastels?

These all seemed reasonable for a while, though I think I was outwardly calm while the wife and I did laundry. When the day started, I was so excited to get the laundry done (no, I really was), but now I wasn't folding my shirts with the passion. I was just thinking about my poor lost score.

Just before going to bed to read (10.30!), I decided to check one last time and hope the prodigal score came home tomorrow. Except this time my score was there. Right at the top of my email box next to a note my father had written about how he had been sick.* I stared for a second before I took control of the suddenly unwieldy mouse and opened it up.

And there, under some words that I still haven't really read was my score.

After the test I didn't feel great about it. I thought, "Okay, that was fine. Not great". And I talked myself into being happy about that. It would have been fine. I would end up going somewhere nice and getting a good financial aid package. Probably. But this score. It's not that many points are such a move up in the percentile, but it feels huge. Law school feels more assured now, which is a nice feeling that I expect to fade in the not too distant future as I think about shoring up my personal statement, drafting up my resume, explaining my speeding ticket and waiting for them to get back to me.

But. For now it's a win. A big win. And one that I really feel like I earned with the many hours of time at the library, being the first one in as the library worker who looks like a hefty and cross-eyed Jeff Daniels let me in. The many different guidebooks I read through and worked in. The practice tests. The stress. The anxiety. Yeah. This one definitely goes in the win column.

*Note 1. Something about his age, maybe, but he likes to go into detail about having the common cold. His woman friend makes good soups, apparently. This was the only thing I learned, though his descriptions of his days watching TV and not feeling any better did paint a picture.

The Eclipse

The Chicago Film Festival started last Thursday. Dinah and I have been going for the last few years. Generally the films are all really good, though there are few clunkers in there.* But last night I saw one of my favorite films. Possibly ever.

The Eclipse.

It's and Irish film directed by Conor McPherson (pictured), who is clearly a genius.

Now, I studied in London my Junior year of college, which was an amazing time. One of the highlights of the time there was all the theater I saw. I saw some amazing plays. The Invention of Love (which was also amazing. Tom Stoppard is also a genius), Oklahoma (with Hugh Jackman, hell yeah!), Phedre, Coppenhagen, and many others. My favorite play I saw, though, was McPherson's The Weir. This play is amazing. The acting was solid. I'm a generally emotional person, but not one who cries in front of others a lot. This play definitely made me cray. (Though, I am unsure if the people I was with really knew it.) From then on, whenever I'm near a book store with a section devoted to plays, I look up McPherson to see if there's a new play of his out. I've pretty much bought everything of his I've run across. And I've really enjoyed everything. So, when we saw a fim he directed was coming to the festival, it was a given I would see it somehow.

Something McPherson does really well is incorporate the otherworldly into his plays. In The Weir, this is done through ghost stories. Other plays it's the devil, or vampires. And, while this may seem to make his plays horror-affairs, the strength of them comes from McPherson's ability to tap into the feelings and emotions of the people who are dealing with the otherworldly. Whatever the phenomona is that the characters deal with, their emotions are the focus of the story. McPherson wrote the screen play with Billy Roche, who has a small part in the film. McPherson also directed the film, as well as helped arranged some of the music, which is very haunting.

I tell you this, because The Eclipse is similar in that way. The film festival guide described the film as being about two men who are after the same woman, who is a writer of supernatural things. Or some such. And the movie is about that, but only in a supporting way. This movie, in my eyes, is really more about a man and his family getting over loss, and the supernatural plays an important part in telling the story. I don't want to give too much away, because I think everyone should see this movie if they can, but I do want to say the lead actor, Ciaran Hinds, was absolutely brilliant. It's a part that required a lot from an actor and Hinds really delivers. Every scene is pitch perfect.**

And the way the camera is used throughout the film is very interesting. Horror films, and in some ways this is a horror film, have long been places of innovation and interesting camera shots and I think that tradition can be seen here. From the way the camera pans, to the angles chosen and what's shown to the viewer in almost every shot--the cinematography was outstanding.

I say this movie is in some ways a horror film, because this movie was really scary. But the frights come not only from the appearance of something frightening, but also because of what that something represents. In other words, it's more than just about being slashed by a sports-apparrell wearing nutbag who kills because he's never been loved. The movie delves into emotions more frightening than that. It's like a mature horror movie. I really cannot overemphasize how great it was.

Please go see it.

*Note 1. Like La Mustache, which was an overwrought French film where a man, after seeing old pictures of him on a tropical island without a mustach, shaves his facial hair. It's a dramatic scene of shaving and I guess it's some sort of transformational moment or something, but guess what? None of this man's friends notice his new lack of facial hair. He become obssessed with wondering why no one notices. He eventually goes insane, moves to a tropical island and guess what? His picture is taken. And the picture is the one he saw before. What a mind fuck! Seriously, it was the worst film I've ever seen. Of course it won the fan award that year. So, I know nothing about film and the genius it takes to write a circular story. You are warned.

**Note 2. It looks like Mr. Hinds has been cast in the final two Harry Potter films. Good for him.

The killing of the past and the coming back to life...

Things can change quickly. I learned that a year ago when I was let go from my job and suddenly had to worry about money in a way that I never had to before. I was only six months into my marriage and as I walked out of the Sears Tower (which it still was back then), I was panicked that this might be a critical blow. I mean, maybe it wouldn't end it, but it certainly couldn't be good for the marriage. And, it wasn't. But after the initial shock, I was lucky to find that my wife is ridiculously supportive of me. And being supportive of me is not always an easy job. I am sometimes unable to listen to the good things about myself and instead insist on tearing myself down. In short, my wife is a saint.

This last year has been tough on me. Being fired, especially to someone raised to believe your work is as important (if not more so) to who you are as your family and such, felt like a cosmic kick in the balls. I've always thought of myself as a star. Not in a, "I can do whatever I want" or "everyone envies me" sort of way, but in a "I always succeed" sort of way. Getting let go put a huge dent in that. It's not that I never knew adversity, but it always seemed easy to handle. Things that seemed huge at the time, like getting good grades in school or getting an apartment where I wanted, they never seemed to be all that hard. I always got at least decent grades in college and there seemed like there were so many apartments that if someone else took this one before I got my deposit in, there'd be another and hey it might work out better. Right after I was let go, I thought it would be easy. Well, not easy, but not so challenging. I thought It'd take a couple weeks or so, but I'd find another, better job. As you know if you've been following the blog, that didn't happen. It was a long year of not hearing from any jobs and being disappointed by the ones I did hear from.

I was lucky to have Dinah. But I was also lucky that I reacted to my initial outsourcing with enough forethought to enter the paralegal program. I don't think I can overstate how good that was for me. Over the course of the time there, I went from having virtually no confidence about myself and my skills to really believing that everything was gonna work out again. I started to see myself as a star again. I was encouraged by my professors and I did well. And I started to think I could, and should, look higher than just what seemed the next rung up on the ladder. So, I registered for the LSAT and started getting serious about going to law school. This had all been a slow change.

But things can change quickly. And they really did this weekend. Saturday morning I took the LSAT. It felt pretty good.* I'm not sure I knocked it out of the park, but I think I did pretty well, and I think it'll be a good score to take me to some very nice law schools. I've got to wait about three weeks to get my score and put it all in perspective for sure, but for now, just having that stress gone from my day-to-day life, I'm a lot happier.

And yesterday, I went in to interview with a small firm that specializes in real-estate here in Chicago. It was a great interview process. They asked tough questions, but for some reason, I was really prepared for them. I can't say I did anything different in preparing for this interview, but I just had a lot more confidence that my experience and skills matched up. And that even though I don't know much about real-estate law, I could learn and excel. And they agreed with me. So, I start tomorrow.

The interviewers were also great at pointing out that this job will be challenging and that it's deadline driven. I will have a lot to learn in a short period of time and there's a lot of stress associated with this job. So, it's not like I'm on easy street or anything. But I'm happy to have a challenge. I'm a little worried that things might not work out. The echoes of this year do still ring in my ears, but I am starting to get that feeling that everything will be okay. Because I was lucky to invest in myself this year. And because I absolutely got lucky to be married to the woman I am. And because even the tough problems turned out to be easier to handle than they could have been.

Though, I hope I'm at the end of employment drama. Handleable, yes. Enjoyable, no.

*Note 1. Except that whoever was supposed to proctor our test didn't show up and we had to wait an hour and a half for another proctor to show up. That I didn't like so much. I did like that I was not the oldest person there, but it was a little disconcerting when I saw a college age woman waiting for the test with her parents. I can't say for sure why it bothered me when her parents kissed her good-bye and handed her her clear plastic bag with her pencils and snack. But, it really did.

Comics (or by not being afraid to fall out the sky)

When I was a little kid, just old enough to love cartoons, I went to the hall closet and grabbed an oversized towel and tied it around my neck. I then went to the kitchen, pulled a chair over to the counter and climbed up. I turned around and looked past the phone into the living room at the front door. Bending my knees slightly, I crept forward, reached my arms into the sky, cried, "Superman!" and lept.

Of course, I didn't soar away to fight Brainiac or Solomon Grundy. I hit the floor. And bounced.

My sister remembers coming in to see what had made such a loud thud, only to find me climbing up from the floor and taking the towel off. When she asked me what happened, I apparently shrugged and went outside to go ride my bike.

***********

I have thought a lot about this story lately. Partly because I have to write up my personal statement for my law school application and one of the things in vogue with these statements is to tell a story about yourself and relate it back to what kind of person you are or why you want to go to law school. So, for a couple minutes, I thought I could tell this story and relate it to my ability to deal with set backs, or my desire to push boundaries or something. This, as you may have guessed, would be a bad idea. Not only is it disengenuous, but it's more than a little trite.

So, yeah. I'm not sure if the personal statement I have now is gonna be as memorable as that story, but it's honest. And it's not so formulaic. So. There's that.

***********

Of course, another reason I've been thinking about that story is to wonder what the hell was I thinking as a kid. Honestly, sometimes I think it's a miracle I made it this far.

***********

The picture I'm displaying is by Alex Ross, who, for those of you not lucky enough to have come across his work, is the best. He is a painter who has worked extensively in the comic book genre, and, as you can see, he makes very life-like images of the superheroes he depicts.

If you're looking to see some of his best work and have a good read, I recommend Kingdom Come, which looks at the intersection of faith and superheroes (among other things). It's one of my favorite graphic novels and it owes a lot to the thought Ross puts into casting the superheroes. I say casting, because he will often model the superheroes on people he knows. And if you think my praising him is at least partly motivated by the thought of him appreciating my praise and thinking I would make a good model*, well, you know me only too well.

***********

I was never a big fan of Superman as a kid. Maybe I was before I bounced off the kitchen floor, but not after, that's for sure. I was always partial to Batman. Maybe I lacked the imagination to identify with the super-powered characters, but I think it was also because I knew I couldn't ever become one. I had accepted that I would never shoot lasers out of my eyes or be able to fly. But, maybe I would be able to be a great detective who helped people. It's not so much that I could see myself fighting people or anything. I knew better than that, but I thought I could do the other things.

As I've grown up though (and you could argue a sign of my growing up would be to stop reading comics, but whatever), I've started to feel more affinity for Superman. I don't really watch Smallville, or even follow his character in the comic books. (But, then, I'm not reading any Batman books now either.) I just like the idea of him. And how he's been portrayed in some of the books I've read (like Kingdom Come). He's not so much the cocky, all-powerful man of steel I saw him as when I was younger. He's more riddled with doubt. He's burdened by expectations--some external, but mainly internal--that he is the last, best hope of everyone. That he has to do everything better than anyone else. In short, he's much more human than I originally thought.

***********

I can't talk about my comics love without mentioning how awesome Blackest Night has been. I'm a little behind in my reading, but seriously, Geoff Johns is writing some great comic books. I mean, the premise is one of those so simple ideas that you can't believe it hasn't been done already. So, you had the Green Lanterns, who are powered by will power, right? Well, Johns takes the rest of the ROY G BIV color spectrum and gives them lanterns and emotions that power them. And then throws in black, which is run by death. Such a great idea.

His run on Green Lantern, from bringing back Hal Jordan (who has become my favorite character), to everything in Blackest Night, has been phenominal. And it's probably changed the character forever, in a great way.

*Note 1. I have often thought I would make a nice Foggy Nelson.

Yup, another Mega-update...or (I am a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar)

Look, I know this isn't what good blogs do. They give you content everyday. They give you something interesting to think about. Even if they just talk about themselves, at least they give you something to chuckle about.

And hey, I would like to be a good blog. But I'm not, right now. It's okay. It's out there now. Let's move on.

*************

Watch Glee tomorrow. Look, TV has been quite the tease for me the last couple of years. Last year, three shows I really liked got cancelled, despite the fact that they were good shows. Eli Stone, Dirty Sexy Money, and most heinously, Pushing Daisies* were all shot down. (Though Pushing Daisies is coming back in comic book form, which I am thrilled about. Seriously, this has all the markings of awesome.) So, I need this one.

FOX showed the pilot twice and I enjoyed it both times. The show delves into the realm of cheese, but purposefully. It's quirky and fun. Tomorrow's show will be the start of the first season, so seriously folks get on board. You will thank me.

*************

Some of my procrastination has been well-founded, though. I have been studying for the LSAT pretty hardcore** right now. My scores have popped up to the level I wanted them to be, so with 17 days 13 hours and 22 minutes left (as of this typing) I'm feeling pretty good about my shot of hitting this test hard. The little bit of doubt I'm having now is what's keeping me headed to the library. That's good.

The bad news about this test is that I am not allowed to wear a hat during it. And I can't bring my iPod and get all Michael Phelps (above picture) jazzed up*** before I start. I don't know why the loss of the iPod and my lucky Cardinals hat is bothering me, but...well...okay, I'm oddly superstitious. I know they're trying to keep me from cheating, but honestly, I'm not smart enough to think of a way to cheat with just my hat and an iPod, except to have a recording of Obi Wan Kenobe going on repeat just saying, "Joe! Use the contrapositive."

Sigh. Oh well.

*************

Also, last week, I got to work on a trial with the attorney I've been doing work for****. What sort of trial, you ask?

a MURDER trial.

It freaked my mom out when I told her.

So, yeah. It was really cool. I mean, I didn't, you know, get to ask questions or anything, but I reviewed documents and helped with the prep. I took notes and reviewed testimony and gave opinions on questions and such. I mean, it's probably not the biggest, bestest thing ever, but I helped. I actually caught a detail that, if it had slipped past my boss (and it probably wouldn't have) could have really messed things up for our client.

And really, more important than that, is how much I enjoyed watching it. I know it's probably not the right thing to say. I mean, it's a human tragedy playing out infront of me, but it's exciting to watch. The questioning, the answers, the manuevering. Yeah. This is where I want to be. This is what I want to do. It's been a really, really long time where I felt like I had potential. You know? I heard it so much when I was a kid. "You have potential." Potential for what I never really thought about. But now, it's like I can see it. I know it's a ways down the pike for me, but I'm working on it. And just having the direction--the beacon out there in the future somewhere--it's such a different feeling. It's better than I felt when looking at college, because now I know where I'm heading for beyond the term of school. I don't know the details yet, but I know the picture. And it was all there in that courtroom. And I can do this.

The benches were uncomfortable though. Have to say that.

*************

So, we say Extract yesterday. And I gotta say, I was hugely dissappointed. I looked at the cast--with Jason Bateman and Ben Affleck***** and JK Simmons and Kristen Wiig--I was pretty excited. And the cast did well. Bateman was solid. Affleck was good--honestly, he gives the best performance in the movie. JK Simmons and Wiig, were good, but completely under-used.

And mostly, the movie was...well, clunky. I've come to expect a little of that from Mike Judge. I like his movies, but there's a certain amount of clunk to them. I am not sure if everyone feels this way or if it's just a difference in my comedic preferences, but it's always there for me. This time, however, it wasn't just there, it was omni-present. And Judge always uses some sort of shortcut to make a character do something they normally wouldn't. It's never a solid reason, and is really part of the charm of some of the other movies, but in this case, it doesn't work. It just ends up making me feel uncomfortable and condescended to******.

Another bone of contention: the movie just seems to make fun of blue-collar workers in a way that isn't loving or empathetic, as has been the case in his other movies. And really, it's not all that funny. And with a cast like that, I just can't forgive that. So, yeah. Save your money folks.

*************

*Note 1. Oh, I noticed they were all ABC shows. Between this and Disney buying Marvel Comics, I am more than miffed at the Mouse.

**Note 2. I would say not hardcore hardcore...more like Iowa juicebar hardcore.

***Note 3. I'm sure this is how he's described it in interviews.

****Note 4. Preposition dangling free and easy.

*****Note 5. I am an unabashed Affleck fan. Say what you will haters of Affleck, but he's a good actor. And most people I've heard bash him do so because he dates hot women they cannot date. And I can understand the urge (I guess...), but I honestly don't care who he dates. As long as he's doing good work, I'm happy. My only greivence with him is he hasn't done as much work lately.

******Note 6. See Note 3.

Got Fuel to Burn, Got Roads to Drive

Well. I graduated from my paralegal program. I took my last final last Wednesday. I have one meeting left, but all my work is in, so I'm done.

It's weird to think about. For the last year, I've been working toward getting this certificate and now it's over. Overall, I have to say this program was really good for me. Even though my plan is to go to law school next year and use my certificate for only a year or so, I think the fact that it made me believe I could go to law school and succeed in law makes it worth while.

Still. I feel like it's a little like high school. I remember when I graduated, my mom was insistent that I have a graduation party. It was tradition. It was a good excuse for family to get together. And it would be fun. But, I didn't really want one. I remember telling her that I didn't really feel like I had accomplished much and that I didn't think it was worth celebrating. Her answer, after months of trying to reason with me, was, "Well. Tough."

But, yeah. Now. I really don't feel like celebrating too much. Don't get me wrong, it's a good program and I feel good about getting through it. But. I've got the LSAT to worry about and I've started writing my personal statement. And I'm still without employment. So. Yeah. I'm happy I made it (and, unless my math is wrong, I made it with honors, thank you very much), but there are miles to go...

**********

LSAT studying is going well. My pretest scores have gone up and I'm really starting to see the framework of the test and my confidence is much higher. I don't exactly know how it will translate into a score, but I feel good about it. And that's a big enough change for me to feel happy about. It's nice that I feel like my hours of study are helping.

I was really panicky about this test when I started studying. Now, I'm less panicky and more confident.

**********

Dinah and I visited Minneapolis/St. Paul last weekend and it was magnificent. It was good to see her brother and his family. Their daughter is almost two now and (this is gonna sound dumb) she's like a little person. She's walking and almost talking and it's great.

At first, she was a little shy and didn't want to play with Dinah or I, but she warmed up to us. And that was really awesome. I don't know. I grew up with distant uncles who weren't very fun or interesting, and it's really important to me that I don't be the same way. So yeah. It was great to play name that animal with her. Or where's Uncle Joe. Good fun.

But. We weren't there just to see the family (though we hadn't seen them since Christmas, which seems like forever when a kid is growing). Dinah was there to look around. And I was there to look at a couple law schools. The first school I looked at was William Mitchell Law School. I met with someone in their admissions department. I didn't know what to expect walking in, but I was really impressed. I can see myself there and I can see myself being happy.

The second place I looked at was the University of Minnesota Law School. I can also see myself there, which is confusing.

See. When I chose Grinnell, I didn't really have much of a choice, by design. I applied at two schools and I knew I wanted to go to Grinnell. I got into the other school first and went for a visit. I liked it, well enough. If I would've ended up going there, I would've been fine. But I knew it wasn't where I wanted to go. And I think that would've bothered me. But with these two schools (and I have to remember these aren't the only schools I will apply to and that we may not even be in Minneapolis/St. Paul, so there's more to think about than what I would personally be happy with...), I can see myself being happy with either one. They both have strengths that I think would fit well with what I want to do.*

Ultimately though, I think we want to be in the Minnesota/St. Paul area, and I should just be happy it looks like I've got to great options for law school. I mean, it could come down to money or one of them may not want me, but all things being equal, it's good to know I feel I could be happy at two places.

***********
The one bad thing about the MN visit was that I lost my phone. Which wasn't good. I had driven Dinah to a meeting an hour and a half early because I had my William Mitchell meeting. And while she was gonna have her meeting, I would be on my way to my U of MN meeting and I was gonna call her afterwards to see where she was and pick her up. Without a phone, this plan falls apart.
But I don't discover I've lost my phone until after I get out of my Mitchell meeting. So, I drive over to where I drop her off and wait around where I know her meeting is. After 30 minutes, I catch her, but just as she's meeting her person. So, I interrupt and we work out a new plan really quickly. Good good.
So we look all over my brother-in-law's house. We go back to Mitchell thinking I may have dropped it there. We check with their lost and found. And nothing.
Fast forward to a week later, after I've switched my phone to my old clunker phone and I'm looking through my bag to get it ready for my last class and guess what? There's my phone. Right where I'd put it.
This is not a moment I'll be writing about in my personal statement.
***********

Dinah and I saw (500) Days of Summer Saturday. Great movie. I loved this movie so much. Generally, I am not a big fan of the romantic comedy genre, but between this movie and Away We Go***, this summer has been a great time to see good, thoughtful, well-acted romantic comedies. The Harrison Ford cameo was worth the price of admission alone. And that's just the beginning of, what I have to say, was one of the most fun and honest representations of a man's feelings when he's just fallen in love. But, even without this scene, the movie is good. Really worth seeing.

***********
Yeah, so not everything is great, but I have been feeling a lot more optimistic about things. It's just really starting to feel like things are going to come together. Even if it's not going according to Plan A, I feel like there are plenty of other good things popping up that I think things will work out as we want them.
**********

*Note1. U of MN has a Law School musical every year, which I shouldn't figure into my decision, but the thought of listing "Judd from Oklahoma" on my resume...I mean, that has to be considered, right?**

**Note2. Of course it does!

***Note3. Seriously, Maya Rudolph was so great. And John Krasinski was good. Great script, great direction. I don't know if this movie is out anymore, but it's worth seeing. And certainly worth renting.

LSAT (and a baseball tangent in Note4)

On September 26 of this year, I'll be taking the LSAT. 59 days, 22 hours from this moment, I'll be locked in a room with a bunch of other people on a Saturday morning to test my ability to do some stuff that is in some way related to being an attorney. It doesn't do me any good to dwell on the question of what doing logic games has to do with taking a deposition, but I've worked in law firms for a while, and I have yet to hear an attorney complaining because he chose the wrong diagram type to use on the multiple sequencing question his client needed done in 35 minutes. I'm just putting it out there.
This is where my lack of a job becomes a plus, because I can now study pretty much everyday and not get overwhelmed with my schoolwork and my internship*. For the last couple weeks I've been going to the library for a couple hours a day (more on Friday and Saturday when there's no internship) and going through study books and doing practice tests. And my score has improved. It's not quite at the goal I set, but it now seems attainable. Which is good.
Still, though. The LSAT is hitting me in a lot of ways I didn't think it would. I used to be really good at standardized tests. I didn't really study for the SAT or the ACT. I just kind of showed up and took them. And I didn't blow them away or anything, but I did pretty well. Well enough to go to a really good school, anyway. Intellectually, I knew the LSAT would be tougher than those two, but I thought it would all come back to me. It has and it hasn't. That test-taking mindset is coming back, but that confidence still isn't there. Which I think is because I feel like there's more riding on this test than on either of those two. I knew I would go to college somewhere good. It didn't seem like a possibility that I would fail. Now, it's different. I don't think it's a big possibility that I'll stumble and mess up the test so badly that no school will have me, but it's there. And truthfully, I want to go somewhere really good. If I have to go somewhere that's of lesser regard, I'll figure it out, but really I want to go to a good law school.
But it's not just that I want to go somewhere good that makes the test more worrisome than the college entrance exams. It's also that I finally figured it out. I finally figured out what I want to do. I mean, I haven't nailed down what area of law, but I've ruled some out**. And I know I don't deserve a good score just because I've figured out at almost 32 years of age what I want to do with my life, but it's been such an odd journey for me. And to finally be able to figure out where I want to go, it's frightening to think it could be elusive because I don't read as fast as others. Or because I don't know which order the speakers at Seneca Falls should go in.***
It isn't really helping that I can get obsessed with numbers. It's partially an obsessiveness that I was born with, but it's been nurtured by a life-long love of baseball. I've spent summers wondering if a pitcher could to get their ERA under 3.00 or if a batter could notch a batting average over .300. And I remember when I in London a flatmate would leave me notes about Mark McGwire's homerun chase****. I just get obsessed with numbers. So, trying to get that magic number for the LSAT is feeding into that obsession. And it's probably not good. I mean, ultimatley, five or six years from now, that number is not going to mean that much. It's gonna be a meaningless number. I mean, numbers only represent what we let them. Right now, this number represents my future. It represents where I could be. What path I could take. And that's why I'm studying everyday and the library on Lincoln and Belmont.
******
I just set up a couple law school visits in Minneapolis. That feels good.

*Note. I have only three classes left and I've done enough hours to be done with my internship. The attorney I'm working for is letting me stick around until I find something, which is cool.
**Note2. Sorry Maritime and Admiralty law. It's not you. It's.....no. It's you.
***Note3. One of the logic games I worked yesterday was about the order the speakers must go in. Apparently, Elizabeth Cady Stanton cannot speak before or after Frederick Douglas. And if Lucretia Mott goes second then Susan B. Anthony must speak fifth. I'm sure these great people would all be comforted to know that they are making gains in the all important minutae of LSAT prep tests.
****Note4. Seriously, everyone. Let him into the Hall of Fame. He didn't do anything illegal. Ethically problematic, maybe. But there are plenty of gents in the Hall whose indiscretions were a lot more dubious than taking over the counter supplements. We're not talking about going to shady doctors who are charging thousands of dollars for their "treatment" or evading federal authorities. We're talking about something he got at a nutrition store from some dude who makes $6/hr. The hardest thing he had to evade was the child-proof cap. And this Hank Aaron talk of letting Pete Rose in and keeping the steroids guys out, is making me furious. Seriously? Mr. Aaron, I respect you and all you've accomplished, but your protests about steroids and other supplements ring a little false after watching you yukking it up with Barry Bonds (who did involve himself in illegal activities, by the way) in Pepsi commercials.
But, let's look at Mr. Aaron's argument. Pete Rose bet on baseball. That's always been the BIG NUMBER 1 DO-NOT for baseball. He bet on his team when he had the ability to affect the outcome of games. Baseball is a competition. And he would have us punish people, who in an effort to be competitive, or to gain a competitive edge, took steroids. These people wanted to compete. They wanted to win. Or they wanted the money that came from being successful at their chosen craft. They didn't do it ethically, and often did it illegally, but at least they were doing it because they wanted to play harder and do better. Rose, on the other hand, he was not looking for a competitive edge. He was the manager of a team, and he had a responsibility to put that team in a position to win every night. He has a fiduciary duty to his players and to his organization. He owes them loyalty and his best judgment. But if he's got other interests--if he's looking for cash, then can he honestly say he is not putting that interest above the interest of a player who needs a day off or pitcher who probably shouldn't go out for another inning? And I know he claims he never bet on his team to lose. But, I simply don't believe him.
The difference between the two situations is that Rose was engaging in a situation where he was threatening the basic premise of the game: that it is a competition.
McGwire, Bonds, Sosa, Clemens and all those guys who did or did not use whatever. They were trying to gain an advantage. To make the game competitive. And while it can be argued they were making the game less competitive in doing so, I think I've seen enough evidence to say that so many people were using performance enhancers that it's hard to argue an advantage existed. The only thing they threatened were the numbers. Like Aaron's 756. People argue the numbers meaningless. That's the thing. They always were meaningless. They're numbers. They only represent what we let them represent. And Aaron's remarkable journey to 756 is not now meaningless because Bonds took a more dubious path to a higher number. In fact, I would argue it's more meaningful. But. Yes, Mr. Aaron, your name is no longer the first one in the book. And I can understand why that would piss you off.

Gumshoe #8

Sorry for the long wait. This is the scene I had in my mind when I wanted to start writing the Gumshoe, so I really wanted to make sure I got somethings right. I also want to make sure I'm not being too cliche with how I'm writing this. I was talking to my mother-in-law, who also loves detective novels, though I don't think she's read the Gumshoe or is aware I have a blog. But, she was talking about some of the cliches and I got a little worried I was falling into some of them without thinking. Clearly, I am using some cliche, but I'm hoping I'm doing them in a way that makes sense and is interesting and doesn't just take the cliche for granted. But ultimately I don't know. Either way, I hope you enjoy.

It was 10 o’clock. I sat in the car outside the Holiday Inn, loving the feeling of having slept for a good long while. My plan was to sit in the El Camino, to which Ms. Fortune had been gracious enough to drive me and watch the hotel for a while. I had to see if Chance or his friend “Jim” would be there and if that led me anywhere. If I didn’t see them by 11.30 or so, then I’d head in and try to see them from across the room. There would be a big risk of being seen, because the bar was pretty small, but I couldn’t risk missing them altogether. It wasn’t much of a plan, but this whole case was making me feel like I wasn’t much of a detective.
I had parked the car out of the range of the streetlights, its warm, safe glow about a yard from my front and behind my bumper, piercing the cold fall evening. It wasn’t cold enough to freeze, but it would probably get pretty close tonight.
As I settled in, I turned on the radio to my favorite classic rock station. Not to my surprise, it had commercials running, but I remained hopeful. “Tonight is the breakthrough,” I said to myself.
There are two things I love about a stake-out. The first is being able to just sit in your car and listen to the radio. When I was young, before I staked out anything, I’d lie on my bed and listen to music for days at a time. This was before iPods, when radio ruled your life like a god. If you were poor or had spent your allowance money on baseball cards (which was often the case for me) or you didn’t have allowance or an album wasn’t being sold at the crappy mall near your house, and you wanted to hear a certain song, you just had to wait for the radio to play it. I’d lay on my broken-down bed, my hands behind my head waiting for the moment the new Prince or the old BTO came one. I’d wade through the tides of good songs that would ebb and flow with the pools of bad songs. Sometimes there’d be hours of good songs, and you’d feel so good. So alive. But all too often there’d be a lot of okay songs and some really shitty ones, but that’s how it was. It sounds strange to say now, but there wasn’t anything you could do about it. But, it taught you patience. It taught you a little something about living in a world with other people and their tastes. And, if I haven’t overstated it too much already, it taught you something about life.
And when your song came on, or when they piled those great songs back to back to back, there was no better feeling. The radio waves opened up and smiled on you. Or when you were just driving home after a fight or make-up sex and that perfect song came on. When it looked like I wasn’t going to graduate high school and Springsteen was there to pick me up or when I had made the football team won a game (which wasn’t often on the south side of Des Moines, believe me) and Guns N Roses was there, perfect in the moment, it’s a feeling you can’t get by dialing an iPod to the song you think you want. The problem with iPods is they cater to your every whim, playing whatever song you think you want to listen to. But sometimes you’re the last person in the world who knows exactly what it is you need.
Did I mention the other thing I love about stakeouts is the propensity to get lost in tangents?
I looked up at the Holiday Inn. It’s a high rise hotel that rams into the sky out of nowhere. It’s called the downtown Holiday Inn, but it’s technically not downtown. It’s kind of close, which is good enough for most everybody, I guess. I was staking out the main entrance figuring that was the best chance to catch one of the two going in. He probably had no idea that I was onto him. Probably is a word that seems to get me into trouble a lot.
It’s an odd place to meet, I thought. Like I said, it’s not really downtown. It’s not too far out of the way, but still it’s not a typical meeting place. Not with actual downtown not so far away and full of places both more chill and more hip. But, I’m not the Chamber of Commerce, so if this is where they want to meet, so be it. The top floor of the building rotates, which may be a draw for Chance or his friend from “San Francisco”. It’s the only place in our little city that does that.
It started to rain outside. First, it started in a light mist that reminded us of the spring that brought the bright vibrant greens that now died in the cold of an autumn night. The rain picked up speed and intensity and the wind joined in. I had to crack my window a little so my windows wouldn’t fog over. I squinted through the plops of water on my windshield as I stared at the entrance of the building.
I chuckled to myself when I remembered. This is where they held prom. The thought crossed my mind so casually, but the pangs of the memories made everything come back fresh.
Mindy James. She looked so gorgeous that night. Her dirty-blonde hair tied in a ribbon, curls busting loose over her ears and one down her forehead, bobbing close to her right eye. The green dress she wore was modest compared to many of the others I saw that night, but she looked fantastic. We’d been dating for a long time before this, so I think I’d forgotten how beautiful she was. But I remembered that night. Sitting in my car, as Purple Rain started pouring from the speakers and the cold autumn rain pattered around me, I remembered again how beautiful she looked on that warm spring night. And I remembered how much I’d loved her.
There’s something different about your life the first time you tell someone you love them and mean it. Something inside of you breaks, never to be made whole again.
I never meant to cause you any sorrow.
I never meant to cause you any pain.
The music started slowly, quietly. And it brought me to the time before the break-ups and the reconciliations. Before we started hitting each other and I got arrested and she dropped the charges. Before we split up for good. And way before she was dressed up in a BTO t-shirt to cover the torture that had been inflicted on my sweet Mindy.
It’s such a shame our friendship had to end.
I sat still and rigid on my seat in the front seat. My eyes closed and I could smell her perfume. I could see the curls of her hair as I brushed them over her ear and told her for the first time that I loved her. I felt her body go rigid against mine for a second before she kissed my neck and said she loved me. If I hadn’t known how it would turn out for her, I would’ve said this was the best moment of my pathetic life. I had meant it so much. And I could have actually been good for her. It didn’t have turn out that way. I could’ve been less controlling. Less angry and protective. We could’ve made it work on my police salary. Or I could’ve at least caught the monster who skewered her. I could’ve been strong enough for that. And I didn’t have to run to Chicago after. That cult. I could’ve been better. Stronger. Anything. I should’ve been.
I know times are changing.
It’s time we all reach out for something new.
And that means you too.
You say you want a leader,
But you can’t seem to make up your mind.
I think you better close it.
And let me guide you to the Purple Rain.
I felt the tears coming out of my eyes as the song retreated and Blue Oyster Cult replaced it, probably the song that would cause someone else to break down like a sentimental idiot.
I heard a quick pop that sounded like distant thunder, but I suddenly felt the clouds surround my brain and I was out.
**********
When I came to, I was tied to a chair in a dark room. I struggled just long enough to realize I was tied with rope and that whoever had done this really knew what they were doing. I looked around, trying to get my bearings. There was a little light coming in through the sheer curtains that hung over the windows. I couldn’t say for sure how long I’d been out, but I was betting it wasn’t too long and we were now in the downtown Hilton.
I noticed a bulky presence sitting on the couch in front of me.
“Chance,” I managed to spit out despite my swollen tongue. There was no response. “Look, I’m pretty sure it’s you Chance, so let’s dispense with the melodrama.”
The lump stayed silent. I took a breath and let it out loudly. I was considering how to get more light in here when I heard a smash and a doorway appeared to my right. Light streamed in from the hallway lights for a second until an imposing figure stepped in and yelled “Police. No one moves.”
A figure behind the first flipped on the lights and I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I was holding. “Detective Muldoon,” I said with a crack in my voice. “I am happy to see you.”
Her eyes stared straight past me. I turned my head back to where the lump had been. It was Chance. He’d been stabbed in the chest and on the wall above him someone had written in blood, “I only wanted 2 be some kind of friend”.

4th

Happy 233rd America.
And to celebrate, many drunken citizens will (almost?) blow off their fingers, eat way too much grilled meat, and enjoy the colorful explosions that will remind them of the wars past that we have sanitized and made glorious instead of thinking of the wars we're fighting now with troops who have no support once they get back and for whom we refuse to sacrifice anything for.
The founding fathers would be happy to see us now.

the 100th post of my blog career....

This'll be an extended general update....I apologize accordingly...
********
But, I want to know--is there anybody alive out there?
Bruce Springsteen asks this question on pretty much every live recording I've heard of him. (One of my biggest regrets is that I haven't seen him live in concert yet. This will be rectified when, you know, I have some disposable cash and he comes around. Lately, he's been holding his end of the bargain up--touring and performing...but I haven't been able to justify concert ticket money. Someday soon though.)
There's something to that question. Something simple and transcendental all at the same moment. Maybe I'm reading too much into it, but sometimes I feel like I have been asking this question of myself and I'm just finally starting to like the answer.
********
The second week of the internship is coming to a close and I'm still really liking it. I was supposed to observe some courtroom antics this week, but that didn't appear to work out. There's a small chance it could work out today, but it's teeeny tiny. This is one thing I've been looking forward to a lot. I've never observed a formal proceeding and I'm just curious about it. I mean, surely it's gotta be different than watching Law & Order. Though, if it isn't, I'll probably be okay with that, because I really liked Law & Order for a while and it would be a little nostalgic to see one again.
Anyway, I was supposed to see the beginning of a proceeding on Tuesday. But, then I learned a little something about the justice system. Apparently, it's a little backed up these days. Okay, so we show up to what's called a "black-line room" to get scheduled a judge and a room. We're early on in the list and there's every expectation that we'll get assigned everything we need in time to start picking a jury and doing preliminary stuff the same day. Except. They run our of judges. I mean, it makes sense that it could happen, but it's not something that you'd think would happen. Of course, that's probably because it never happened on Law & Order.
So, we wait for a while. We're just sitting there while the court goes about its business. The judge is hearing motions and dealing with other things, but we're on hold there for a couple of hours. Then the attorney I'm working with decides to send us (there was another paralegal intern with me) back to the office to do some work, because we're not really learning that much (though it was interesting). He says they may end up assigning us something, but he's unsure how it'll work out.
He tells us the same thing Wednesday, but by this morning, the case is pushed back a couple months. But for two days the attorneys sat around waiting to start a trial at any moment. And so did the clients and witnesses. But, that's how things work out sometimes.
*********
Otherwise, the internship is going well, I think. I'm still looking around for jobs figuring that it'll take a while for someone to get back to me and interview me and decide to hire me, and by that time I could be done (or almost done and put in a couple weeks notice) with the internship.
So, I applied for a job through the Chicago Daily Law Bulletin. The job looked like a job with a small firm, but they didn't reveal who they were. Which is pretty common from what I've seen. A couple days later, I hear from a staffing agency. Apparently they are "handling this for a client". It is a little shady to look like you're something you're not, but okay. The agency is a reputable place, so I know it's not gonna be weird in any bad way. And the position is a permanent one, which I would really prefer over any sort of temping.
Anyway, I tried to catch on with them right after I was let go last year. I met with a nice guy there, but he never seemed to get me into any interviews. Which I sort of understand now. My resume was okay, but it's not like I was close to my degree or I had anything that particularly jumped out at anyone. And the economy was in the crapper. So, okay, I understand, I guess.
But, the guy who called me after receiving my application was a different guy. Seemed excited and thought I would be a good fit. So, he asks me to come in. I tell him Friday (the day I don't work my internship) and we agree. He's gonna send me an email confirmation and we're good to go. I'm kind of excited, because in describing the firm, he said a lot of things I wanted to hear. He even gave me a salary range that was right in the heart of the range I thought I should make, so, this sounds all good. I figure that I haven't heard from them in a while, so I've been sorted out of the computers or whatever.
But, then I don't get the email confirmation. So, I call back and I quickly see I have not been sorted out of the computer, I'm switched to the first guy I met with. So, I don't know. Hopefully he can get me in somewhere, but I'm not holding out hope.
At least someone was interested, even if it wasn't the person I really wanted interested. And it's not like I'm not making my own inquiries, I guess. So. Yeah, just keeping my chin up.
********
It turned hot this week. Which, I'm not thrilled about. It's been a long, cool spring, so I shouldn't complain, but I will. See I can walk to my internship, which is great. The thought of walking to work will forever be a goal of mine. But this week, I've seen the major drawback--being a little (or a lot) sweaty when I get to work. I'm sure it's not great in the winter either, but last week, when it was a warm spring day, with a slight breeze blowing through the trees along Ravenswood Avenue (which, despite the train tracks running along one side, feels like a calm country lane), that was worth it.
**********
Can you believe I've posted on this blog 100 times? Sure they've mostly been whiney and they've all been self-indulgent, but still 100 times is pretty decent.
So. Having written 100 posts makes me start to think about what I'm doing this for. I think at first, I wanted to have a place to publicly think about the things that were going on in my life. I especially focused on things that were going wrong, like work and family stuff. That's certainly been a theme, but I think I've tried to do more it as things have gone on. I think I've tried to show off my writing and have some fun. And during the times when I've been dow or didn't feel particularly interesting or fun, I've stayed away from the blog. I mean, it's not fun writing (or reading I'd imagine) about how I'm depressed or uninteresting.
Going forward, I think that's probably going to be how things are. I don't want to just bitch about things unless I have something interesting to add to things. I want to have a more standard schedule, but I don't want this to become a chore. Still, I think when I settle into a job and graduate from my program, I'll be able to get into a more regular schdule. That's the goal.
*******
My weight is going down. Slowly. I've lost another pound and another half inch off my tummy. I haven't been running as much, but I'm walking to work. And just being at my internship has taken away a lot of the time I'm tempted to eat stupidly. It also helps that there's no food or candy in the office. No vending machines, no dishes full of offerings. Nothing. I know where ever I next work, there will most likely be someone throwing out the candy dish, hoping to get me into their sugary, fatty cell with them, if only for a moment while I'm walking by, slowing only to grab a piece and smile guiltily. But, I'm hoping I'm getting in the habit of not succumbing to the sweet, loving goodness. We'll see.
*******

Post 99: It's an ugly world out there.

It's been a busy time for me lately. I've been interviewing like nobody's business, so it's a good type of busy.
Anyway, interviewing for internships has been pretty cool really. I applied for 16 or so internships (though some of these ended up not wanting to offer a position, so I'm not sure exactly how many were viable options for me) and got calls from three of them. I interviewed with the first one and it went well. Really well. In fact, the more I thought about it, it went too well. I showed up, dressed up all nice-like and it was pretty much settled that the paralegal I interviewed with wanted me to work there. Her interviewing style wasn't so much to ask questions of me as to tell me how awesome I am and how she could really use a person like me around. Which, I liked hearing, believe you me, but. Well. It was a little unsettling. I almost felt like she was trying to sell me on working there, which wasn't a tough sell. But. The problem with this internship was gonna be the long and thorough background check they do. She was hoping to "zip" me through in 6 weeks.
The second internship was with an attorney who had me in class. He sent me an email telling me I was accepted, no interview was necessary. I went in just to talk about when I'd come in and such , but I started the next Monday.
And it's mostly been awesome. I've been doing a lot of research and some organizing...but a couple days I got to work on some petitions for clemency and expungment. Which was really nice. It was the first time I really got to feel like I was helping someone do something meaningful. And the attorney really seems to like the way I write, which is also thrilling. It's been a long time since I've felt this good about what I've been doing. And so when I have to do the organization stuff, I don't mind. I actually kind of enjoy it because it means I can find the other stuff I need easier. I mean, I sort of knew this line of work was the right move for me, but I didn't expect it to feel this good.
And the feeling of accomplishment and happiness from helping (even though it's in only a small, small way) someone who has turned their life around like the gentlemen who we're helping get their records cleared, that's a good feeling. Good enough that I'm sure that when I get out of law school, that's a feeling I want to have about the type of law I choose. So, yeah. That's good. Very good.
Of course, today was not so good. It all started out so well. I was proof-reading a brief that we were going to file today and I got to take it to the people we were gonna have file it for us. Things got a little sticky, when some of the materials we needed weren't in the filing (which I don't think was my fault, but it wasn't not my fault either...if that makes sense), but I quickly dealt with the parts of it I could and headed back to the office.
And then I started working on the case I'd been dreading. It wasn't anything pressing, but he'd given it to me Thursday (I don't go in on Friday) for me to do today. Obviously the brief that gets filed today takes precedence, but even if it hadn't, this was something I was saving for the end of the day. I can't really say what the case is about because of confidentiality concerns, but it's not a pretty case. And there are some not pretty pictures I saw today that shook me up a bit.
Intellectually, I know that everyone deserves a good attorney, especially since the accused in this case may not be guilty, I mean, I really don't know. But, wow. I wish I could have not seen the pictures. I was reading through the rest of the case and it wasn't good, but I could think of it as almost fiction. Or with the same way that I view documentaries on true crimes. There's a distance. But seeing it like that, right up in my face, and especially because I didn't know those pictures existed or were there, it takes the distance right out of it. I wasn't sitting on my couch eating popcorn and wondering how in the world this happens, or reading a book in a clinical library setting. There suddenly wasn't anything standing between me and the meanness in this world.
Well, I just haven't figure out a way to get past it yet. Which makes sense, I guess.
Anyway, tomorrow I get to observe a case, which will be awesome. I haven't ever seen a formal proceeding, so I'm looking forward to it. I just can't decide what to wear...

Another General Update...or I'm working on interesting stuff, but don't have anything ready...

• Started my last semester of paralegal classes this week. It's off to an odd start as one of the classes I may end up dropping if I get an internship. The program is offering 30 or so of them, and I applied for 16 of those, so...we'll see. Of course, there's always the prospect that I'll get one of the jobs I've inquired into, in which case I will keep the class I would drop and not do an internship. Of course, that's only if everything works out in a neat and timely fashion. If it doesn't and I've already accepted an internship, then I'll probably have to look at how to either drop my internship or finish it up quickly enough to start my job. But if it happens early enough I may be able to switch back into the class and call no harm no foul. We'll see. It's a lot of balls in the air.
• Only two classes (or one and the internship) left. So far I've gotten honors grades in the other six courses. So that's good. I only need to get honors in one class (or the internship) to graduate with honors and join the secret paralegal fraternity. (It's not a secret, but I cannot remember what the name of it is.) I really want this, so it feels nice to be getting close to this.
• It was nice to have reading to do today. I've found I really like having things to do and having some structure to my day. This being unemployed thing gets in the way of that. And having a week off (like last week) wasn't as relaxing and rejuvenating for me as it seemed for others in my program.
• I've been running a lot lately. About 14+ miles the last three weeks and I'll probably hit that again this week. Been feeling pretty good about it and I am losing a bit of weight (though my eating hasn't been as disciplined as I would've hoped), but I tell you I can't see it most of the time. I feel better, I guess. But when I look in the mirror, I go right to my belly and see all the trouble spots, so I'm trying to focus on the numbers. I'm trying to shed 15 pounds this summer and bring my stomach in about 3 inches. So far I'm down 1 pound and 1 inch. So. That's good. I'm gonna keep updating this here to keep track and to keep somewhat accountable. Or something.
• I've started studying for the LSAT, which I will be taking in September. I'm not yet completely afraid of the test, but I can see why I will be as it gets closer.
• I also requested a lot of information from law schools I'm interested in. Now, that frightens me. I don't look back on applying to colleges and wish I could do it again, but now I'm looking to get into even more discerning places (though Grinnell was pretty discerning) feeling a lot less confident about my ability to get in (not to mention paying for it). But signing up for the test and getting information is good. It makes me feel like I'm doing something to move my life forward.
• That's the worst thing about being unemployed for me. I feel like my time is slushing by me and I'm not doing anything of note or importance. I'm not working toward anything. And because there's so much in the air (what lawschool will I end up at, will I get in where I want to go, will I do well on the LSAT, will I land a good job, will I get a good internship, will I get a good internship then a good job, and on and on), I'm just a little anxious about everything.
• Gumshoe should come out early next week. Or later next week. But most likely next week.
• Sorry this entry is a bit of a downer. I'm mostly doing okay. I've just never been someone who deals with change or transition without getting nervous. And there's a lot of transitioning and a lot of change. I think I'm getting better at it. But you know, strikes and gutters man.

Gumshoe 7

It's extra long today. It probably won't be this long in the future, but I hope you enjoy.

“Well, what do you know about this?” Clarence said once Chance and Edna had left the room. The color had left his face and I could see this shook him up. Clarence stood by me during the havoc my life became after Mindy James died and everything was turned upside down. But. Even after you’ve been proven innocent beyond any doubt, being suspected of something like that still rests in everyone’s mind. They associate you with murder, even long after it’s been settled. He could have done it. If it weren’t for someone else actually having done it, it could have been him. It’s not logical, but when you’re dealing with the ending of a human life, very few things are logical.
“Search me.” I said. Jane Hernandez had been my last girlfriend. The one whose leaving depressed me enough to listen to Phil Collins for a couple days. And during one of those days ‘Simon Flettering’ came into my life.
“Are you still…were you still dating?”
“We’d broken up less than a week ago. It had been very amicable. She wanted to go, I’d wanted her to stay, but she left anyway. There wasn’t anything more to it than that. I didn’t harbor any ill will. I was hurt and I missed her, but not in an angry way.” My voice was shaky and I found it hard to look into Clarence’s eyes. It’s never easy for me to open up to someone about my feelings. Even though I’ve known Clarence for pretty much all my life, we’ve never talked too much about how we feel about things. The closest we got was when he told me he was thinking about marrying Brenda. I remember him clearly saying she was “a treasure”, before clamming up, probably afraid I was gonna give him some shit about it. I stayed quiet though. Mostly because I was embarrassed that he’d been so busy with his life but still managed to find his perfect woman and I’d been knocking around being stupid and refusing to grow up.
“Okay.” He said, his composure seeming to come back to him with every breath he took. “Okay. So.” We went over everything quickly. The last time I saw her. Everything we said during the break-up. My version of events. Where I had been and who I had been with for the last week. Everything. And when we were ready, he went to the door and knocked.
After a minute or two, Edna opened the door and she and Chance walked through and sat at the table. Edna was carrying a pad of paper. They let the room settle for a second and Clarence spoke first.
“My client broke up with Ms. Hernandez less than a week ago. It was an amicable break-up. She initiated the break-up, and [gumshoe] tried to talk her out of it, but she insisted. She walked away without any incident. He’s had no contact with her since then. If you narrow down the time of…well, we are willing to provide you with his whereabouts since the break-up.”
For the quickest second, I thought I saw a grin cross Chance’s face. I suppose seeing the tone of one of the biggest attorneys in the state turn so quickly will do that to someone who was so recently on the bad end of it.
“That’d be great,” Edna said as she pulled a pen from inside her coat pocket and clicked it quickly. Clarence and I rolled through everything with her. Apparently, Jane had been murdered three nights ago, two days after our break-up. Which was good for me, because I had an alibi. But it was bad for me, because Clarence was my alibi. Which meant, I’m out of a lawyer, because he’s now a witness in this investigation. And just as I was thinking that, I got another sinking feeling.
“I’ll just let you know now,” Clarence said, his bluster back up, “just in case it comes up. Anything we said in here, is still covered by attorney-client privilege and I can find dozens of cases that say that as long as we both believe we’re protected by the privilege we are.”
“Unless you’re aiding and abetting a crime.” Chance looked at me for the first time since the interrogation started. “But, how about we let the attorney’s sort that out.”
Clarence had his phone out and was dialing. “Exactly.”
It took twenty minutes for three lawyers from Clarence’s firm to arrive. Twenty minutes of Clarence telling me not to say anything and Chance asking questions anyway. Edna, for her part, sat quietly watching everyone, the look of a curious cat fixed to her face.
Attorneys come running when one of their own is in trouble. And they bring out the big artillery. They’re like cops that way. When Chance and Edna heard the attorneys were here, they left Clarence and I in the interview room where we sat quietly listening to the argument grow and fall outside.
It took Clarence’s friends about an hour of yelling at Chance and Edna. Having them call their higher-ups, who called their attorneys, who got together and debated, called the higher-ups back who then called Chance and Edna. Finally, the attorneys came into us. Leading the way was a young attorney wearing a smart blue suit. Her eyes sat behind thick black glasses and her hair was pulled away from her face. She carried a dark leather messenger bag, its strap hanging underneath. Altogether, if I had to pick someone out of a crowd to be my attorney, I’d pick her. The two who followed could’ve been clones. Black suits, black sculpted hair and the boyish good looks of kids just out of law school. Still, though, they had the confident look of people who know they’re going to walk into a shitty situation and come away with a win. I was suddenly feeling a lot better about this situation.
They were followed in by Chance and Edna—both of whom looked like they’d just been smacked around for a couple weeks.
“Fortune,” Clarence said in a greeting that was more an order.
“Mr. Knox. The police have been kind enough to release you and Mr. [Gumshoe]. You’re free to go.” She turned to me, “[Gumshoe], you’re not allowed to leave the state.”
She paused, so I said, “sure.”
“Great. Any further contact they want with you is to come through my office.” She extended her hand to me. “I’m your new lawyer. Stella Fortune. It’s nice to meet you.”
We exchanged a good firm hand shake. “Good to meet you.”
“Thank you Ms. Fortune.” Clarence said. “[Gumshoe], we still on for drinks this week?”
“Far as I know,” I said with a shrug.
“Okay. I’ll leave you alone with your attorney.” He said as he moved toward the door, the two clones falling in line behind him. As he was about to touch the door, he looked directly at Chance. “You’ll want to leave him alone with his attorney as well?”
Chance leveled his face at the Big Man, a look of sheer anger on his face. Whatever had started between these two tonight was something big. The whole room was silent as the two men stood looking at each other, waiting for the other to back away.
Chance’s upper lip curled as the door to the room opened. A young uniformed cop stuck his head in with a chipper edge that said he’d probably just come on duty and had no idea how tense this situation was. “Mr. Greer? Jim from San Francisco called the front desk looking for you. He said to tell you he’ll meet you at the Holiday Inn hotel bar at 11 tonight.” He started to close the door, but stuck it back in quickly. “Downtown,” he said before he turned and left.
Chance blinked and took a second. “Thanks.”
Clarence and clones walked quickly through the door following the uniform. Chance gave them a ten second head start before heading out. And Edna stayed long enough to give me a stern look of disapproval before I was alone with Ms. Fortune.
The door had barely shut behind Edna when my attorney asked, “So, did you do it?”
I smiled at her, “Not even a little bit.” Clarence had once told me he never asked his clients if they did it. He said it made him a better attorney to believe they didn’t, even when the facts overwhelmingly pointed out that they did do it. But, from my point of view—you know as someone who’s being investigated for murder—there’s something nice about telling your attorney you aren’t guilty. It helps that it’s true, but still.
“Good. Why don’t we go somewhere that’ll be a bit more comfortable and we can go over everything I’m assuming you told Mr. Knox.” It felt good to get out of the interview room. Just the space of the room outside felt so liberating and I stretched my arms above my head.
When I was outside, I was surprised to see the streetlights had retreated into the grayness of another cloudy day. Another day starting out leaving a police station. Great. This was a habit that needed breaking.
We ended up heading to a diner not far away. It was a cute little dinner. Stools and a counter sat in front of the grill and booths laying by the windows. The waitress was about 55, maybe less—I have a hard time taking off the aging the chronic smoking had done to her. She had wrinkles around everything and her gray hair had been died a beautiful shade of orange. She took our orders, calling me ‘honey’ and Ms. Fortune ‘dearie’ and coughing into her notepad every four seconds. I ordered coffee and a donut. Stella eggs with a side of hash browns and toast. An old jukebox sat in the far corner next to the unisex bathroom and a door that had a sign taped to it which read, “Employee’s Onley”. All in all, this was the perfect place to be right now.
After we went over everything I’d told Clarence and she asked pretty much the same questions, she flipped her notepad to the first clear page and asked me, “So, what the hell is going on here?” I rubbed my suddenly droopy eyes. “I haven’t the foggiest. But it seems like I’m right in the middle of all this.”
“Someone’s framing you.”
“Maybe.” The jukebox in the corner kicked on. A little Blue Oyster Cult. I was liking this place even more.
“You don’t think you’re being framed?” She said as she started to doodle on her notepad.
“I did. But now I’m wondering. If you wanted to frame me, you’d have to get something better on me than being near the first place and having my fingerprints of the second. It doesn’t look good, but I can explain both. You’d need hard evidence.”
“Jane was the first victim, so your fingerprints were at the first. And that’s pretty hard evidence.”
“Yeah,” I sighed. “I guess it is. But, there’s still a lot that doesn’t make sense.”
“Like why is this killer killing people the same way as Aaron Masters did back in the day?” I looked at her pad of paper and saw she was drawing a picture of a stick figure chained up.
“I hate to sound narcissistic, but that’s gotta be to get at me.”
“Well, hold on. Maybe this killer is related to him. A son or something, you know, carrying on the family business.” She looked up from her drawing.
“Yeah, but then everything else is a coincidence?” I said.
“No. Maybe. Well, they could be after you because you put their father—or maybe it’s just someone they look up to and you put them away.”
“But, I didn’t. I was gone by then.”
Her face dropped and I wasn’t sure if the disappointment was from not being right or because I had to remind her that I ran away before Aaron Masters was caught. Someday, I’m hoping I’ll have to remind people of my mistakes less. “That’s true.”
A still moment settled over the diner as Blue Oyster Cult left and the jukebox was still for a second. “Hey,” she looked up at me again, “what is up with writing lyrics on the walls of the crime scenes?”
“After they caught him, Masters said he liked to whistle while he worked, and he wanted everyone to know what song he was killing the person to.” I said.
“Gorgeous.” She said as she went back to her doodling.
“Yeah. We spent hours trying to think about how the lyrics would help us find him or assess his state of mind or figure out where he was meeting these people, but we came up with nothing. Even after talking to him, state doctors think it was completely random. I mean on lyric was Van Morrison, another was something the Andrews Sisters sang. The last one was Meatloaf. It just never came together to mean anything.”
She let that hang in the air for a second before saying, “So, you’ve been following this case, well, Masters really, but you’ve been following it for a long time.”
I glared at the jukebox as I heard the opening of “I Would Do Anything for Love” come on. Just my damned luck.
“I’m sorry,” she said after I’d stared at the jukebox for an uncomfortable amount of time. “I was just—“
“No. It’s not you,” I said hoarsely. Something in my head moved. “The last victim had a Meatloaf lyric. These two victims have Meatloaf lyrics. Why?”
“That’s a good question.” She said and looked at me.
“I was out on the prowl down by the edge of the track --And like a son of a jackal I’m a leader of the pack.” I spoke the lyrics quietly as she looked at me quizzically. “It’s from All Revved up with No Place to Go by Meatloaf. It’s what they found on the wall there.”
After her eyes shifted, I said, “It’s off Bat Out of Hell.”
“Okay.” She thought for a moment. “There’s something about that last kill then. Something that this guy is fixated on.”
“Yeah.” I said. The tired was starting to crash on me. We sat there for a while quietly finishing up our breakfasts. Well, I’d finished my donut and had started begging off the coffee, hoping I’d get some sleep in later, but she was still working on her hash browns. It took an hour or so, but Meatloaf stopped and some Electric Light Orchestra came on making me smile. A good, honest smile. I hadn’t smiled in a long while.
After she’d scooped up the last of her food, she said, “Flettering. That’s such an odd name. You think that’s dutch?” She started scribbling his name with a big S and F.
SF. I was feeling that thing in my head move again.
San Francisco.
“Why does a man who’s never been out of the state have a friend from San Francisco staying at the downtown Holiday Inn?” I said as something started to click together in my head.
“What?” She said.
“Chance told me he’s never been out of the state, but he’s got a buddy in from San Francisco? Seems a bit odd. And it might be just a coincidence that San Francisco and Simon Flettering have the same initials.”
“It’s probably a coincidence. It’s probably a friend who has been out of the state.” I knew she was being very logical, but it had already rooted in my mind.
“But, it was so odd. Jim from San Francisco. If it’s his friend, then why not just say ‘Jim called’?” It was all starting to click in my mind. “And he’s from Indianola.”
“Indianola?”
I put down some money on the table and stood up. “Sorry, I’ve got a hunch I’ve gotta play.”
“Where are you headed?”
“First I’m going home to get a nap. Then, I’m gonna stake out the Holiday Inn.”
“As your attorney, I would have to advise you to keep away from anything having to do with this case.”
“As your client,” I said smirking at her as I backed toward the door, “I would have to advise you to be ready for a call in the next couple of days. Cause I’ve either figured this out or I’m getting into a lot of trouble.”
I started toward the door, but turned back to her quickly. “Oh, can I get a ride back to my car?”

Gumshoe 6

I'm sort of getting on a roll, so hopefully this will be coming out pretty regularly for the next couple of weeks anyway.

The Big Man.
As I sat there looking at the walls of the same interview room I’d been in only the night before, he was all I could think about. He’s called that not because of his height or weight, but because he was a heavyweight in the local legal community. Normally, I wouldn’t be able to afford someone of his caliber, but I’d known him since he was just Clarence Knox of Studebaker Elementary. Nothing big about him—just another kid trying to make it through the day with his lunch money and dignity. And in one of the few lucky decisions of my life, I had made a friend of him and stopped some of the other kids from picking on him.
And we were virtually inseparable since then. We were on the same little league teams. We went to middle school and high school together, played on the same varsity teams (though I got a lot more playing time). We took the same classes (though he did a lot better in them). We drank Icehouse or Hawkeye Vodka or Tortilla Tequila together as we went to the same parties. He went to college while I started at the academy, but we still stayed in touch. I visited him a couple times. He graduated his college class as valedictorian and went on to law school, as I was pounding my beat. And even as he’s become one of the more respected legal minds in the state and earned the nickname “Big Man” with high-profile wins and a boat load of the state’s biggest names as clients, we still have a weekly drink (unless either of us have a huge case that’s won’t allow it, but we haven’t missed many weeks). He’s drinking good whiskey, and I’m drinking good beer, but other than that, things are pretty much the same as they were when we were sitting at the ugly orange tables in the cafeteria of Studebaker.
And now he represents me when I run into the occassional scrape. Won’t charge me either. That thought had me smiling widely even before I heard him walk into the police station boom at either Edna or Chance, or both.
“He has the right to an attorney whether he’s charged or not, and you both know it. If either of you want to continue working in this department doing more than handing out jaywalking tickets, you’ll point me in the right direction and give me five minutes with him.” It’s hard to believe anyone ever tried to pick on Clarence. Sometimes I think part of the reason he’s such a passionate advocate is because he remembers having his face pushed in the grass and knowing there wasn’t anything he could do about it.
After a moment of silence, the door to the interview room swung open and Clarence walked through. His hand grabbed the edge of the door and he slammed the door behind him as Chance stood there looking in at the back of the Big Man’s head.
“I swear, if it weren’t for thug cops I wouldn’t even want to be a lawyer.” He said as the redness drained from his face and a smile snuck up the left side of his face.
“You always make an impression Ck.” I’ve always called him Ck. I guess I could call him Big Man, but it doesn’t really seem to encapsulate the man like the dumb nickname he’s had since he was 8.
“That I do.” He took a deep breath and let it out as he sat at the table across from me. “So. What’s this all about?”
I ran down the whole story for him, from the mysterious client to the check at the first crime scene and the arrival at the second crime scene. He took some quick notes and when I was fiinished he looked at me. “So,” he said quizzically, “they have nothing concrete on you, but they’ve dragged you down here twice to talk about it?”
“Basically.”
“Well. You should’ve called me last time, because then there wouldn’t be a this time.”
“Gotta be friendly with some cops in my business CK.”
“If you say so. Well, when they come back in, I want you to say nothing. If you say anything we’ll be here for another half hour. You stay quiet, we’re out of here in five minutes.”
“Got it.” We sat quietly for a second while we waited. “So how’s Brenda?”
“She’s good. You know, keeping busy.” Brenda was his wife. They’d met in college when they were working in the library together. First time I met her, she hated me. Couldn’t really blame her, because the first impression she got of me was when I called Clarence to bail me out after my incident with Mindy James. But, I’d managed to win her over after years of trying. “She isn’t happy unless she’s working.”
The door swung open and Edna stepped through. “You two ready to chat?”
Chance walked in behind her slowly and closed the door quietly behind him. Clarence moved around to the seat beside me and sat smiling up at her. “As much as we’d like to cooperate with your investigation, we don’t think we can be of anymore help. So, we’ll be going.”
She smiled back at him. “I think you’re both gonna want to stick around.”
Chance sat down, quietly, intently staring at the Big Man. I’m guessing Chance hadn’t been talked to like that in a long while.
“Any particular reason for that?”
“We found his fingerprints at the site of the most recent murder.” The breath jumped out of my mouth as if I’d been punched in the chest, but Clarence didn’t bat an eyelash.
“That could mean just about anything.” It probably did mean I was staying around a little longer, I thought to myself.
“Well. Finding his fingerprints at one murder. Finding him at the other. Yeah, that could mean something.” She said as she pulled her chair out slowly and sat down. “What it means now is that your client is sticking around for a while.”
She set a file down on the table and my eyes went to it. Plain brown paper file. No writing on it. I could tell there was something in it, but I couldn’t tell what. Which is just what she wanted. For all I know she’s got her grocery list and a phone bill in there.
“So, why would we find your fingerprints at the scene of a murder [gumshoe]?” Her face hadn’t stopped smiling since she walked in. Chance, on the other hand, hadn’t stopped looking at Clarence.
A good lawyer doesn’t let you answer a question unless he knows the answer or he knows you won’t hurt yourself. Clarence gave me a nod, knowing I wouldn’t be dumb enough to incriminate myself on this question.
“If I knew where we were talking about, I might be able to help you guys out.” I remained polite, as if what this was turning out to be wasn’t a worry to me.
“We’ll get to that.” Chance spoke so quietly I wasn’t sure he’d spoken for a minute.
“Yes,” Edna continued. “Let’s start with telling you some facts.” This was a game Edna liked to play with suspects. She’d lay out some of the facts, keep tight control over the information, and lay it out in a way that made the suspect look completely guilty. “First we’ve got evidence of you being at both crime scenes. Then we’ve got the similarities of this case to the one you were a suspect in not all that long ago. Then we’ve got your lame alibi, which doesn’t stand up and no jury would believe. That’s almost enough to get you convicted right there.”
She paused. Clarence and I sat there quietly.
“Of course, then you visit the first crime scene. That doesn’t help you look innocent.”
“I’m sure I could make the case that it doesn’t make your partner look all that suspicious either.” Clarence spoke. “And nothing else is anything more than circumstantial evidence that doesn’t add up to anything. Please, get somewhere or we’re leaving.”
“So, you don’t recognize the apartment complex?” Chance spoke, but still didn’t take his eyes off of Clarence.
Clarence shook his head and I stopped before I even realized I was about to answer. “Don’t answer that.”
“It’s always the innocent guys who hide behind their lawyer.” It was the first moment that Clarence actually took notice of Chance’s continued glare. For a second I thought they were gonna start punching each other, but then Clarence shrugged it off and turned back to Edna.
“Detective Muldoon, we’ve run into each other more than once and I’ve never jerked you around. And I’ve liked that you’ve never jerked me around. So please, let’s dispense with all this. You’re not going to get a confession from my [gumshoe]. So, if you want to ask some questions, just give me a reason to stay.”
She sized him up. “We just found the body of Jane Hernandez.”
His voice trembled only a little bit, but it was enough for me to know the Big Man was worried. “I’m gonna need a moment alone with my client before we can answer your questions.”