A criminal matter might get her attention but she knows that most lead nowhere. So few of the accused can afford a fee. She’ll lead the caller through her standard questions to determine whether or not they can pay.
Someone’s been injured? Now we’re talking. She’ll go into her sympathy mode and extract all manner of information. She won’t let them off the phone until she’s picked them clean and gained their trust. If the facts fall into place and the case shows real potential, she’ll promise to have Mr. Rudd stop by the hospital that very afternoon.
If the caller is a judge or some other important person, she treats them with great respect, ends the call, and immediately sends me a text message. I pay her $500 a month in cash and an occasional bonus when I settle a good car wreck. Partner, too, is paid in cash.
Miss Luella’s people were from Alabama and she learned to cook the southern way. At least twice a month she’ll fry chicken and boil collards and bake corn bread and I’ll eat until I can hardly breathe. She and Partner have managed to transform the small, cheap, mass-produced apartment into a home, a place of warmth. There is a sadness, though, a cloud that hangs like a thick fog and will not go away. Partner is only thirty-eight, but he has a nineteen-year-old son at Old Roseburg. Jameel is serving ten years for gang-related crap, and he’s the reason for our visit today.
After we do the paperwork and get patted down, Partner and I walk half a mile along sidewalks lined with chain link and razor wire to Camp D, a tough unit. We go through security again and deal with grim-faced guards who would like nothing better than to turn us away. Because Partner is a certified paralegal and carries the paperwork to prove it, he is allowed into the visiting wing with me. A guard selects a consultation room for attorneys and we take our seats facing a screen.
Attorneys can visit anytime, with notice, while the families are limited to Sunday afternoons only. As we wait, Partner, who says little, now says even less. We check on Jameel at least once a month, and the visits take a toll on my confidant. He carries heavy burdens because he blames himself for many of his son’s problems. The kid was headed for trouble, but after Partner’s acquittal the cops and prosecutors were out for revenge. Kill a cop, even in self-defense, and you make some nasty enemies. When Jameel was arrested, there was no room for negotiation. The max was ten years and the prosecutors wouldn’t budge. I represented him, pro bono of course, but there was nothing I could do. He was caught with a backpack full of pot.
“Only nine years to go,” Partner says softly as we stare at the screen. “Man oh man. I lie awake at night and wonder what he’ll be like in nine years. Twenty-eight years old and back on the streets. No job, no education, no skills, no hope, no nothing. Just another convict looking for trouble.”
“Maybe not,” I say cautiously, though I have little to add. Partner knows this world far better than me. “He’ll have a father waiting on him, and a grandmother. I’ll be around, I hope. Between the three of us we’ll think of something.”
“Maybe you’ll need another paralegal by then,” he says with a rare smile, though a brief one.
“Never know.”
A door opens on the other side and Jameel walks through it, followed by a guard. The guard slowly unsnaps the handcuffs and looks at us. “Morning, Hank,” I say.
“Hello, Rudd,” he says. Hank is one of the good guys, according to Jameel. I suppose it’s some sort of commentary on my law practice that I’m on such good terms with some of the prison guards. Some, but certainly not all.
“Take your time,” he says and disappears. The length of the visit is determined by Hank and Hank alone, and since I’m nice to him he doesn’t care how long we stay. I’ve had hard-asses say things like “You got one hour, max,” or “Make it quick,” but not Hank.
Jameel smiles at us and says, “Thanks for coming.”
“Hello, son,” Partner says properly.
“Great to see you, Jameel,” I say.
He falls into a plastic chair. The kid is six feet five, skinny, and seemingly made out of rubber. Partner is six two and built like a fireplug. He says the kid’s mother is tall and lanky. She’s been out of the picture for years, vanished into the black hole of street life. She has a brother who played basketball at a small college, and Partner has always assumed Jameel came from that gene pool. He was six three in the ninth grade and scouts were beginning to notice. At some point, though, he discovered pot and crack and forgot about the game.
