I'm on my way, I don't know where I'm going, but I'm on my way...

I'm quite contented. Of late, I really have felt that I am finally on the path I was meant to be on. I was meant to go to law school. I was meant to be in St. Paul. The dark years of my mid and late twenties seem to have given way to what now looks like a bright future.
There are plenty of things I do not know about my future. But I've really started to feel happy and oppromistic about the possibilities. And it's probably because I feel like there will be possibilities. Choices, I can make for myself. Places I can go that I didn't think I could go before.
This past weekend Dinah and I went to Washington D.C., because she had a work event Wednesday morning. We went early to see some of her family and to look around a bit. I had never been to the Supreme Court, so we decided to go Monday morning and try to be around for the handing down of decisions. Long story short, we missed that, but still went to the court. And it was great. It's a beautiful building and I found myself inspired. I wanted to see as much of the building and the people as I could. I wanted to take it all in. We sat down in the cafeteria for lunch and I situated us next to the employees only tables in the back, just so I could hear what these people were talking about. As you would expect, there is a great amount of secrecy regarding decisions and such, so there was nothing about that kind of talk*. There were two guys who were discussing how to get a powerpoint demonstration to work. And there were two women (who I think may have been clerks) who were talking about their plans for the weekend. I felt myself really comforted by this. I've been reading Jeffrey Toobin's The Nine, which I highly recommend, and in combination with this display, I decided I really want to clerk for a Supreme Court Justice.
Now, I know I'm a titanically long-long-shot for anything like that. I don't go to a school that any of the current Justices** went to, or one that is considered to be among the tip-top of academic schools. I am an older student, and therefor less likely to be able to take a year away from my life after law school. And, I have no idea how to apply. That's probably not a good sign. Not to mention it's, you know, kind of a highly sought after opportunity.
However. I think this would be an amazing opportunity. And one I think I would thrive in. I can't get it out of my mind. To be in that environment and to watch the great legal minds of our time make sense of the problems that come before them would be astounding.
But. Yeah. I keep trying to temper my desire with the knowledge that there are about 36 people who get this opportunity every year. Out of hundreds, possibly thousands of applications. And while I might apply to all nine justices--and I would accept the opportunity to clerk for any of them--I know my views on the law are probably enough to eliminate me from 3 of them out right. So, now I'm down to 24 slots that I might have a shot at. And I'd have to get a good clerkship the summer before as well.

But I somehow still think I could land one. I'm very dumb this way. But this is good news. Even if i don't make it (and the odds are certainly looking that way), I like that I now feel like I can. It's a nice difference.

**********

One of the things I really wanted to do at the Court was visit the Public Information Office, which gives out recent opinions from the court. That Monday, they were releasing the opinions they had handed down that day.

When we went to the court, I was wearing flip-flops and shorts and a polo. It was in the high-eighties and humid as hell in DC, so I was dressed appropriately for the weather and for being a tourist to the court. And in my opionion, I was dressed just fine to go ask for a couple of opinions I had been following on SCOTUS blog (a must for anyone interested in what the Supreme Court is up to). However, when I started down the hallway to the the office, a security guard at the door stopped Dinah, who in turn called ahead to me. The guard said there was nothing down ther and when I told him what I was looking for, he seemed taken aback and said, "yeah, that's down that way." And the woman who was working the office, seemed surprised as well, as no doubt any reporters who had been interested in those decisions had already come by. She, at first, thought I was lost as well. But I got the decisions I was looking for. And I've read them both and understood them, more or less.

I think in the past, I might have given up at the security guard's comment. Or that I would have been offended that I was being discounted because I was obviously just a tourist. But, the difference for me now is I'm not just a tourist. And I know that I can go get those decisions***. It's a big difference.

*Note 1. Which is good. It would definitely be bad if tourists from all over the country were privvy to the legal thinking of the Court.
**Note 2. Chief Justice Warren Burger was a William Mitchell graduate. Though, I have no idea if he had many clerks from Mitchell during his time on the court.

***Note 3. Anyone can. Completely open to the public.

Gumshoe #9

So, yeah. I did not forget about this.
"So, you're stopping?" Bruce was pretty upset. As we sat in the tenderloin place on Army Post Rd--the only place he eats other than his home--I could tell he was upset. We'd barely ordered when he started in on asking about the case. I hadn't really felt like talking about it. In the two days since I came to next to Chance's body--complete with a new body piercing in his chest--I had been pretty busy, but a lot of that busy was trying to not attract attention.
"I'm not stopping." I tried to calm him, but I knew it would not work. Bruce calls himself a "libratarian", but his interpretation of that way of thinking is--let's say--a lot more paranoid than others who might self-apply that label. One of the side effects of Bruce's brand of "libratarianism" is that he thinks that people are always out to get him. People with power. People with nothing better to do. People who don't rest. And if these people were out to get him, it only stood to reason that they were out to get everyone else as well.
"It's been two days," I said quietly as the waitress set down the tenderloins. I pegged her age at around 40, but it was hard to say because she was obviously someone who had lived pretty hard in her younger days. The kind of living that she probably regrets now. The kind of living I regret in my own experience.
"Two days. Might as well be two months," he said forcing the wad of french fries down his throat. "There's a killer out to get you."
"Yeah," I said with a shrug.
"So? What are you doing?"
"I'm keeping in contact with Edna and the cops. I was just down there today, but--"
"Yeah. The cops will surely get to this. It's not like they've been trying to pin all this on you."
"I think being found tied up in the room with the corpse of someone who was at-least and accomplice has cleared my name."
"That was the corpse of a cop. And they'll find a way to close that case one way or the other. If that means you go down..."
Bruce was probably right. I was probably still the best suspect the police had. Especially with the desperation to solve a case that comes in the killing of a cop--even one who was dirty--I couldn't count on the someone coming up with some ridiculous theory where I killed Chance and tied myself up. Or that I had a partner tie me up. Or that I was double-jointed and had three hands. Des Moines doesn't get as harsh a look as other cities when it comes to the honesty of our police force. And mostly that is for good reason. But there are secrets in this city that are hidden from the street light's glare.
"Bruce," I said interupting him, "what do you remember about that mess with that Princess from South of Grand back about 10 years ago?"
He shrugged. "This is what you want to talk about? Ancient history?"
"Mary Claire Parsons-Kitt. Iowa royalty, or as close as we come to it. Until she was murdered by her husband." I said quietly. "Didn't she have a kid. A boy?"
"Yeah. Maybe she did." He said with growing confusion.
I reached into the bag sitting beside me and pulled out a police personell file. "Yes. She did. His name was Chadwick G. Parsons. Seems as though he was a model kid. Did well in highschool and was prom king. Was halfway through college at Simpson College in Indianola, doing very well, when the whole mess with her murder went down. Seemed to throw his life off track until young Chadwick enrolled himself into the police academy and seemingly devoted himself to truth, justice and tracking down bad-guys. Of course, he'd changed his name to Chance Greer, probably to avoid the publicity of all that stuff."
Bruce smiled at me. "How do you know?"
"When I was down at the police station today, I thought I might use that opportunity to do a little research." I said smirking at him. "I appreciate the pep-talk, but I called you here more to see if you could run some names for me."
"What names?" He said, taking a thick sip from his strawberry shake.
"Well, I did a little digging. According to the gossip columns of the time, he didn't get along with his step-siblings, so he took his share of the estate and stayed in Indianola. So, I'm thinking, what does Indianola have to do with anything?"
"And?"
"And the key to this whole thing is the last victim. Whoever this guy is, he keeps refrencing the last murder in Aaron Master's career. The Meatloaf. The style of the killing. It's all about that last guy. Geoffrey Franks. A single father from Indianola."
"So you want me to?" As I looked at Bruce, I saw something out of the corner of my eye.
"Run down these names. Friends, family and business associates who might all be more than a little miffed at a cop who quit a case just before Mr. Franks was taken." There was a man sitting at the counter reading a newspaper. At first I didn't know what it was that caught my eye. The man was no one I recognized. Just another gu living on the South Side of Des Moines, coming in here to get a good bit of unhealthy food before he went out to his day.
"So, you think that's the motive?"
"That's my guess." The newspaper crinkled in his hand as he turned to the next section and that's when I saw something that made me smile.
"You got any front-runners?"
"No. I was thinking it would be Frank's kid, so I checked on that, but she's been in New York for the past 15 years living with an aunt. So. It's up in the air."
"Okay, then why the big smile?" Bruce said. "You aren't having a stroke are you?"
"No. I think I just found an old friend. An old friend who I'm going to go punch in the face." I dropped twenty bucks on the table to cover lunch and said good-bye to Bruce.

Okay Phoenix, you're not all bad...

So last night, Dinah and I went to a restaurant for dinner. We'd decided to get Mexican food because there are not a lot of good Mexican places in St. Paul (surprise!). Sometime during her conference, it was recommended that Dinah and I go to Los Dos Molinos. It was supposed to be authentic and spicy. As you can see from the website, they consider themselves to be New Mexican style cuisine. I am not sure if they mean it's a new type of Mexican cuisine or cuisine from the state of New Mexico. Either way though, it was good.
I can't speak that much for whether it's authentic, being that I'm from Iowa and I've spent a lot of my life in the midwest, but it was certainly spicy. And good. Oh my was it good. I got the pork-filled chile relleno and Dinah had an enchilada and tamale. Her enchilada and my relleno were both covered with a fried egg, which I don't ever remember seeing before, but it was genius.
This was seriously the best Mexican food I have ever had. I left with sweat dampening my neck, ears and hair, but I finished the meal because it was so good. I left thinking that for all the oddity I feel about Arizona, meals like this make me think I could probably live in an area that has snakes. Well, maybe not probably.
And for people in New York, they apparently have a location out there. Well worth a try.

Fearful in Phoenix...

Fear can be paralyzing. Or it can spur people to action, though often that action is short-sighted and doesn't often help deal with the actual problems that need help.
It was with mixed emotions that I joined Dinah for her work conference in Arizona this week. As I'm sure everyone knows, Arizona has recently passed into law a controversial new statute that makes racial profiling very likely and, I would argue, almost expected. I applauded as Mayor Coleman of St. Paul protested by cancelling all scheduled trips by St. Paul officials to Arizona. But, her conference had already been scheduled and I really wanted to go with her. So, I guess I threw the politics aside, partially figuring that whatever small amount of money we spent here would not provide much solace for the other people who have stuck with their principles.
What I didn't count on was the oddness I would feel when I got here. I have been to Arizona once before, when I was ten. Ten was a tough year for me personally. It was during that year that I was being molested. And even though I am twenty-plus years and some counseling beyond that, I have to say the odd reminder of seeing the landscape and the memory it evokes in me has had a weird effect. It's not the same kind of re-living it or re-feeling the shame and resentment that I felt in the past. It's something else. Something more elusive and less direct. But somehow this has not made it a powerless, fleeting feeling.
I suspect a lot of its power comes from the fact that I didn't expect it. Usually, I know when an approaching situation could compromise the comfort I have built for myself with this situation. And while, yes, I knew I had been in this state while in the middle of the situation, but I could not and did not believe it would refresh everything this way. What I find encouraging, though, is that it I don't feel as helpless or paralyzed by it. It's there. It's bothersome. But it isn't ruling me. I'm still having a good time.
With that aside though, I have to say Arizona is weird. I know that my view of the state is tinted by those experiences and situations, but I think I would still find Arizona odd if I weren't thinking about those things. First of all, I cannot shake the feeling that people were not meant to live here. It's hot. Really hot. Why does anyone want to live in 90 plus degree weather for 8 months? It's nice for a weekend. It's tolerable for a month. But 8 months?
And then there's the wildlife. Coyotes and cougars are cool. Vultures are okay. But scorpions? No. And rattlesnakes? Uh-fucking-uh. I am afraid of snakes. Deathly afraid. So when Dinah and I were driving around the Apache Trail yesterday, getting out at intervals to look at the stunning landscape and such, I could not get over the fact that there are snakes around there. Like right around there. It would not have been out of the question for me to see one. I didn't. Which I am very thankful for. But it still stopped me from being able to walk out on paths that had too much plantlife nearby. I am stubborn enough that I tried to walk out on some of them, but it was with shallow breath, my arms bent, my shoulders high and tight, and my eyes scanning the path ahead of my for any movement or possible hiding spots. Which is to say I was definitely not in control of my feelings. At one point, I saw a hole and had to turn back to the car. To be fair, this was a snake hole, but there was no other sign and Dinah had just walked over it with no problem. And she had seen it as well. So. Yeah. Not good for me.
Still...I've been spending a nice amount of time beside the pool reading and struggling with keeping my paleness from burning. And that has been very nice.