Chapter 41 Here Comes the Judge
Matt was a courtroom virgin. He’d seen the places depicted on TV and in movies, everything from the shambly one in Night Court to the stately one in To Kill A Mockingbird, and knew that they came in varying shapes and sizes.
Still, to have his legal cherry popped in this lousy forum was a major disappointment—like thinking you were going to bed with Tony Danza and then finding Danny DeVito there instead.
And this was the courthouse where Colton’s fate would be decided—but not that day.
That day Matt, Garland, and Paul were there for a more pedestrian purpose.
Garland sported a new suit, the fabric and cut of which conveyed a quiet, bespoke elegance. He strutted with slightly more jaunt than normal.
He shepherded Matt and Paul up the templar steps and into the building’s soaring limestone and granite lobby.
So far, so good, Matt thought, imagining the courtrooms spilling from such a space. He paused to study the wagon hub chandeliers dangling overhead.
Paul fretted, hands clenched, eyes on the floor. This was his first time in a courthouse, too, but, unlike Matt, he wasn’t just a spectator.
A flashy lawyer swooped in and clapped Garland on the back. Matt was reminded of Arnie Becker from LA Law: blow-dried 80’s hair, fake tan.
“Stone-Dancer, my man! Every time I turn on the TV these days, there you are! If my wife were here, she’d be asking for your autograph!”
Garland laughed good-naturedly. “Good morning, Bennett. I would have thought your wife would be too busy with her Junior League to watch TV.”
It was flashy lawyer’s turn to laugh—a forced, throaty guffaw. “Good one, Stone-Dancer! Good one! Listen, I’m late for court. Call my office and schedule something. Let’s talk about your joining the firm—as an associate for now, but on a partner track!”
“Sure thing,” Garland said.
“Who’s that?” Paul asked once the guy was gone.
Garland shrugged. “He’s senior partner at the third largest firm in town.
I applied there right after I passed the Bar.
Didn’t even get an interview. I’ve crossed paths with him several times in the past few years, and he’s never even acknowledged my existence.
He even ignored me after I got on the Today show.
It wasn’t until this latest round of high-profile cases that he’s bothered to learn my name.
My last name. You caught that, didn’t you? ”
“Still,” Matt said, “partner at a big firm could be in your future, Stone-Dancer!”
Garland wasn’t amused. “He just wants me to be his rainmaker, that’s all. His firm’s client base is the old money, country club set—mainly blue-haired old ladies who tweak their wills to provide for their cats. And once the blue-hairs die, it isn’t like their cats are going to need lawyers!”
“I’ve got new clients walking through the door every day,” Garland continued, “so much so that I’ve just hired two associates. Bennett’s firm is shrinking and mine is growing, and he knows it.”
Matt was happy for Garland’s sake. Stone-Dancer and Associates was a real thing now.
Garland led them to a bank of four elevators. One had an out-of-service sign on the door.
“The fancy, ceremonial courtrooms are upstairs,” he said. “We’re going down.”
They descended to the basement and emerged into a wide, stolid hall. Two vending machines leaned against one wall. Lavatories had to be nearby—judging by the smell.
“We’re here,” Garland said. He pushed open a wooden door and ushered them into the courtroom.
Matt was underwhelmed. This room—with its water-stained drop ceiling and fluorescent lighting—made the hallway seem elegant. Danny DeVito might as well have been standing there in the buff, flabby arms outstretched, a wilted rose between his teeth.
Honestly, Matt shouldn’t have been surprised. The whole state operated on the boom-and-bust cyclical oil calendar, which left the prairie pock-marked with half-finished vanity projects, as if a Goliath-sized toddler had scattered Legos in his wake.
The state capitol itself was the only domeless one in the union.
The state had run out of money in the 1930’s, and six decades later, rather than finish the job, had decided to take a certain perverse pride in the permanent “Under Construction” feel of the place.
Yeah, Oklahoma: where the state song came from a Rodgers and Hammerstein musical, but Broadway was for fags; where there were more churches than cockleburs, but the cheats who had sneaked across the lines during the Land Runs—the “Sooners”—were celebrated as patron saints; where hard work and thrift got lip service, but thieving oil barons were venerated; and where everyone got teary-eyed during “The Star Spangled Banner,” but where—as recently as 1988—the confederate flag had fluttered at the capitol grounds—matter and anti-matter co-existing without canceling each other out.
They took their seats on one of the benches.
Paul hunched forward, worried.
Garland elbowed him. “Have a little faith in your lawyer, dude. Want to know what I think? My bet is that at tonight’s party we’re going to be celebrating two things: Bella’s TV debut AND your win today.”
Paul gave a weak smile.
There was no “Hear ye, hear ye” like on TV, not even a bailiff calling “Order in the Court.” Just a grumpy judge who took his seat and drummed his fingers impatiently while his clerk got situated. Eventually, he gaveled the show into session.
Garland studied the judge’s every word, every facial expression.
He’d told Matt and Paul that he’d not previously appeared before this one.
Courthouse scuttlebutt had it that the guy was an unrepentant peckerhead: temperamental, opinionated, someone who enjoyed browbeating lawyers, the kind who would have taken pride in being a “hanging judge” in Territorial days.
Garland had to find the key to the judge’s cold heart.
Three other cases—all involving appeals of driver’s license suspensions—were denied, their clients and lawyers sent packing.
Bang went the gavel.
“Next,” barked the Judge.
“In Re Paul Olsson!” called the clerk.
Matt looked around at the thinning crowd in the courtroom. At this rate, the judge would clear the day’s docket before lunchtime.
Garland leaned over and whispered in Paul’s ear.
Paul nodded.
Matt wondered what had been said.
“IN RE PAUL OLSSON!” called the clerk a second time.
Garland stood majestically, buttoned his suit jacket. “Garland Stone-Dancer for the petitioner, Judge.”
The judge scowled at Garland through bifocal lenses. “A hyphenated sur-name, counselor? How faddishly modern and simultaneously un-Oklahoman.”
“It’s Native American, judge, so definitely not modern and simultaneously as Oklahoman as it gets.”
Matt suppressed a laugh. Garland did not suffer fools. All the same, Matt wondered if confrontation was the best strategy where this judge was concerned.
The judge frowned. “I’m not buying the hyphenated Indian bit, but I’ll meet you halfway, Mr. Dancing Rock. See how that works? No hyphen required. Now, I assume one of these gentlemen” –he pointed his gavel towards Matt and Paul—“is your client. Am I supposed to guess which one it is?”
“It’s me, Judge, Your Honor, Sir.” Paul scrambled to his feet, bungled a salute, and then shoved his hands in his pockets sheepishly.
Garland sighed, as though embarrassed by Paul’s behavior, then stepped sideways, putting distance between them. “My client’s the goofy one, Judge.”
The judge eyed Paul with suspicion, then growled at Garland. “Dancing Rock, is your client even eighteen? I won’t hesitate to fine you for contempt if you’re trying to pull a fast one on me.”
“It’s legit, Judge. Mr. Olsson’s birth certificate is attached to the pleadings.”
The judge rifled through the paperwork, held up the birth certificate to the light. “A name change, is it? Why would a barely legal kid need to do that?”
“That’s what I’d like to know, too, Judge. I took this case pro-bono as a favor to a friend. I don’t get it, but the kid wants a sealed name change. It’s in the pleadings.”
Matt was puzzled. Why was Garland being such a dick?
“Sealed?” the judge snapped. “I’ve presided over dozens of name changes. Maybe even a hundred. Only two have passed the smell test to be sealed.”
Garland shrugged. “That’s what he wants, Judge. I told him we shouldn’t waste your time. I’ll be glad to make a motion to strike that if you want.”
“Hold your horses, Dancing Rock! I don’t know how your tribe does business, but here in Oklahoma, we don’t like to give a guy the bum rush. Now, hush and let me review the pleadings.”
The judge busied himself skimming the documents before him.
Garland checked his watch, as if he were ready to pack up and leave.
Paul, still standing, fidgeted, rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet.
Matt—seated on the hard bench, in the dumpy courtroom, in the smelly basement of the granite butt plug that was the County Courthouse, in the capitol city of the Sooner State—just regretted this whole shit show, all of which was his doing.
None of this was as he’d imagined it when he’d hatched the idea at Nicholas’s and Bradley’s Halloween party, of arranging this freebie name change for his friend.
He’d assumed Paul would be thrilled with the plan. Nope, not until after Christmas break back at home with psycho dad.
So, game on with the name change, which Matt—there he went assuming again—thought was a straight-forward process. How hard could it be?
Cue the lawyer.
Option 1: File your paperwork, then put notice in a newspaper advising everyone of your plan, including current name and proposed new name.
Wait ten days, then show up at court and roll the dice and hope you didn’t get a peckerhead judge.
Fine and dandy if you were just some schmuck unlucky enough to have been christened Ichabod or Beelzebub or you were a moon-worshipping hippie who wanted to be reborn a Celeste.
But, if what you really needed was something akin to witness protection, a new identity—if you were a Paul, in other words, or an abused wife or girlfriend—then maybe the newspaper thing wasn’t a good idea.
Option 2: File your paperwork and ask a judge to seal it, as in letting you pass “Go,” collect your new name, and skip the whole newspaper notice bit.
Obviously, judges had to make sure you weren’t trying to skirt the sex offender registry or outrun creditors, but, barring that, per the law, this was an option—just not one the judges liked.
And Paul needed his sealed. If his father found out, there would be HOLY HELL to pay.
“Okay, Dancing Rock.” The judge’s eyes were bug-like behind his bifocals.
“According to the pleadings, your client’s father has relentlessly bullied, harassed, and stalked him, making everyone refer to him as R2-D2, which stands for—” the judge consulted the pleadings—“Retarded, Robot, Dick Diddler. If that’s true—about the father—your client might qualify to have this sealed. ”
“But, judge,” Garland protested, pointing to Paul, “just look at the guy, he is kinda, um, the ‘R’-word. No offense.”
Paul stopped fidgeting. His shoulders slumped.
Matt realized, belatedly, what Garland was doing: out-peckerheading the judge, forcing the guy to be the grown-up in the room.
Matt guessed that had something to do with what Garland had whispered to Paul.
Still, it angered him that the judge had to be tricked into doing the right thing, that Paul had to hear these insults even one last time.
Yeah, Paul had Asperger’s Syndrome, but he was absolutely the smartest guy Matt knew.
Without Paul’s insights, Colton Langley would still pose a threat to the GM.
Matt stood and put an arm around his friend’s shoulder.
“See, Judge,” Garland said, pointing at Matt, “that other part about dick diddling is true, too. That’s my client’s boyfriend.”
There were scattered snickers from the gallery.
The judge angrily gaveled the room to silence.
“Young man,” the judge addressed Paul, “if I swear you in, will you testify truthfully about these allegations?”
Paul nodded.
Garland stepped forward and offered a small stack of papers to the Judge.
“You might want to read these, too, Judge. These are notarized affidavits from schoolteachers, neighbors, and church members attesting that the father insisted that they only refer to his son as R2-D2. They thought it was a cute nickname. You know, because of the Star Wars robot.”
Fifteen minutes later Paul Olsson, Junior ceased to exist.
In his place Paul Robert (Bobby) Fisher began—not, however, without the Judge’s asking whether he knew he had picked a Jewish name.