New York Lawyer
November 30, 2007

Most stories begin with a death, a birth, or a marriage. Mine begins with all three. Many mysteries start with a body. Mine starts with four. That’s just how I do things, i.e., more than necessary. But it’s unintentional, I assure you. I’ve never had much control over the things that happen to me.

As it happens, I was working as an immigration lawyer at a very little firm downtown. I won’t go into how that came to be, but suffice to say it was entirely unplanned. And I mean unplanned in the sense that I was supposed to be in Reno dealing blackjack. One morning I woke up with the worst hangover and a diploma. And there it was. Things happen. The center cannot hold type of thing.

So I was waiting for my client and she was late even by my standards. I called her cell a few times and although I enjoyed listening to three minutes of Shakira each time (no message, just music) I would rather just have seen her. We’re weren’t in immigration court that day, we were actually supposed to be meeting at 14 Boerum for an administrative hearing to pursue her citizen son’s due process rights with regards to his public assistance benefits which had gone haywire the month before. I have kind of a full-service practice, which is my own damn fault.

I was waiting outside because you can’t eat inside and I am usually eating. I am always drinking a cup of coffee. As I was watching out for her enormous stroller (laden with every possible item that might be needed by her son in the next roughly seventeen years) and her even larger belly, I realized that my woman’s intuition was sorely lacking. Mrs.G. had to be giving birth. She was at least nine months pregnant, if not the full ten.

Sure enough, when I called her caseworker at the homeless shelter, I was told that Mrs. G. had gone into the hospital at two in the morning and was a new mother to a little girl. I was annoyed at first – why hadn’t she called me to tell me she wouldn’t be coming to her fair hearing? Didn’t she realize that I had a life? It took a full fifteen seconds for me to realize that I was the one without a life.

As I gave up the donut (okay, stuck it in my blazer pocket) and hid my coffee in my black leather shoulder bag, balancing it carefully upright and folding over the plastic tab (that did not, as it turns out go very well for my files, as I remembered the coffee only much later), I thought about the lives my clients conduct while I am running around for them. I went inside and adjourned the hearing, explaining that my client was in labor. A bit of a white lie, but “she just gave birth” might not have worked as an excuse. “In labor” had a much better ring of indisposability.

My clients fall in love, my clients get married, my clients have babies. Not all of these things, and not in that order always. Do I do any of these things? No. But I also make deadlines, keep appointments, and pay my bills and my taxes and have never been caught committing a crime.

Back out on the street again I was still in a huff over wasted time although honestly I had blocked off my whole morning for the hearing, and somewhere down deep smarting over the fact that Mrs. G. had not even called me about the baby when I swear I was one of the only people she knew in the entire city – or for that matter, the entire country. I know her whole life story and every piece of quantifiable data available on her – anything that can be entered on a line or checked in a box – but I am not her friend. I’m her abogada.

I passed by the guys hawking bridal bouquets on the sidewalk and remembered to pull the donut out of my jacket. Something about the white petals triggered a memory that there was white powder puffing throughout the navy fabric of my second-best non-court suit. (There is a vast hierarchy of suits in my closet. Shoes, too. E.g., administrative hearings only warrant flats, not heels, so I was moving at apace.)

My head was down, focused on consuming the donut, as I crossed the street against the light. I almost met my end with a city bus. That would have made for five bodies, and no narrator. So luckily, sometimes things don’t happen.

I pounded down the stairs (this is probably when the coffee became dislodged and drenched my redweld but the forensic evidence is sketchy) into the subway and swiped my card so quickly that I slammed my hip hard against the bar when the card failed. That was going to leave a mighty bruise. Right next to all the others earned from the exact same activity. I tried again, and entered easily. That first time was just to mess with me.

I wandered around the labyrinth until I found the correct platform for returning to Manhattan. Milling around on the platform were the usual mix of people leaving the courthouse stop, so I will leave it to your imagination to fill in the various stereotypes. But there were folks who looked like lawyers, and folks who looked like clients, and folks who looked like public servants or law enforcement.

At the far end of the platform a fight was going on. Four people, three men and one woman, were all screaming at each other. I could catch specific accusatory phrases. It wasn’t just crazy people. They were mad.

Now if you live here, then I don’t need to explain that I opted not to try and mediate this dispute. I am not a traveling superhero. I don’t use my powers of negotiation to break up subway platform fights. If someone wants to come into my office and drop off a retainer, then so be it. No one was paying me to be there, not even Mrs. G., whom I’d decided to let off the hook for my time. Maternity special.

I did start watching the fight. Now, again, if you live here, then I don’t need to explain that other people’s lives, if conducted in public or with the shades open, are free entertainment permitted to be observed by others (just don’t comment on what you see, it’s not your business). I noticed that the woman was carrying one of those sidewalk bouquets. She was flinging it around as she gesticulated, and the integrity of the bouquet was quickly eroding. My eyes caught the sparkle in her hair – some sort of little headband veil. A bride. I could not tell which of the men had been her groom, but presumably one of them. One of the men looked like he could be her brother, or some close relative. I realized that the men were all dressed in what could pass for “business casual” – black dockers and dark button-down shirts. A wedding party.

The fight was heating up, whatever it was about. “I can’t believe you! I can’t believe you!” One man was shouting over and over, in the general direction of the other three. “How could I? How could you?” yelled back the bride.

I was just giving silent thanks that no one was pushing or shoving when it started. One man hit his two hands against another man’s chest – testing him. The test worked in that the second man was more than willing to push him back. Within seconds, the group of four was a mass of kicking and hitting.

To the credit of the crowd, this is when people did start to try to help. Someone grabbed one of the guys, who quickly threw the interloper off his back. Surprised by the man’s strength, the interloper then went for the woman, presumably to protect her from all the blows. But she was swinging them, too, and fought being dragged away. The bride was able to wiggle away and join back in, arms flying. Then two more strangers tried to pry away the men and were rebuffed. This was a fight the participants really wanted. I could hear various insults, “traitor!” and “whore!” among them – the latter actually yelled by the woman at one of the men.

Distracting all of us but the combatants was the train swiftly approaching. Everyone but the battling wedding party turned to watch for the train. In that instance we all lost sight of what was going to happen, although you must have a clear view. Seconds before the train arrived, four figures went hurtling through the air, over the edge, and onto the tracks.

There was literally no time between that vision and the train. If I actually saw it happen, then I have blocked it out like torts and property.

The doors opened and no one got on. It was a shared state of shock. Could the four have possibly survived? One of them? Where were they? Between the rails? On the rails? Did we want to wait and see? How could we not?

A few people exited the train and passed on by. Finally someone from the platform spoke, cursing a long “holy” and then a drawn-out choice expletive. We stood clear of closing doors as instructed. The train moved on. I don’t think the conductor had any idea what had just happened.

I turned my head and then turned back and then turned my head again. I wished that I wasn’t going to look, but I knew I would. I knew I couldn’t not look. I hate myself.

So I will spare you what I saw but what I saw was not good. Let’s leave it there. When I was little my mother used to pack me peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for lunch on wonder bread. The little plastic baggies would always get stuck under my biology book and my gym shoes. I will leave you with that.

Then movement. A very diverse group of people was suddenly of one mind. We did not want that thing to move. But we did want it to move. Ok, a very diverse group of people was suddenly of two minds.

An arm. Something still clearly-defined as an arm was moving. And then there was a lurch and the thing emerged from other matter as a seemingly intact human being. A collective audible sigh. Then someone yelled, “Get up!” which was really not that helpful, as the person was already rising to standing. It was the bride, the most sympathetic character who could have risen from the rails, if only for her gender and size. Being petite had probably saved her. That, and being underneath the pile.

A man who looked like off-duty private security (some sort of quasi-cop uniform) jumped off the edge and started to reach for her. That ended the stupor. We were no where near a manned booth, but people ran for the nearest one, screaming that there was an accident. Someone tried the payphone, but it was out of order. Many cellphones flipped open and people who could get underground service starting calling “911” (ok some people just called friends) or running to find service.

I just stood there and watched. I had no skill set for this type of thing. Comes from thinking you have a life but really just having a blackberry.

You always have to wait forever for a train, but this was the one day ever that a second train was already on its way. “Really, God?” I asked. The security guard was closing in on the bride, his arm out-reached, her arm extended in kind. Surely they would stop this train in time. Someone had to have alerted the train by now.

She stumbled and fell into his chest. I could see how short she really was, and I wondered if she were really an adult. He wrapped his arms around her, and turned back to the platform. He was going to need someone else to help. Dammit. I went over to the edge and looked into his eyes. We could all hear the train. “Lift her up,” I said, accepting destiny.

I could sense people amassing behind me to help me lift her. The security guard hefted her up and I put my arms around her waist and pulled. People behind me pulled me, grabbing onto my various well-nourished limbs. We plopped onto the cement.

A tall man lent a hand to the security guard and pulled him up in one fluid movement. Much more graceful than what I had just done. The bride, soaked in blood, was now on top of me. So much for second-best non-court suit.

The train came to a grinding halt. It would have stopped in time anyway.

Her head rose off of my stomach. You’re not going to believe this, but she looked pissed. I almost wished I could throw her back on the tracks. She looked like she wanted to kill me.

A second later a cop appeared from nowhere snatched her off of me. The same tall man that had so deftly rescued the security guard pulled me up, shoulder bag and all.

“Thank you,” I said.

“You’re welcome,” said the tall man, who looked now maybe nineteen as I came face to face with him. Was the whole world younger than me? When had it become a nation of teenagers?

“What the hell just happened?” I meant in general.

He tilted his head to the side thoughtfully. “I think that lady just killed three guys.”

I thought that was an odd way to put it, but he did not give me a chance to question him. The tall man moved on, back to his private life, done interfering with other people’s business.

A group was crowded around the security guard, giving him props.

I decided to just get out of the subway and so I fled, even when the cops tried to stop me to ask me questions. Even though I’m an officer of the court.

I took a taxi back to my office. Special treat for watching three people get squished by a speeding subway day. Red letter day. Red splotches on my suit day, too. Our secretary flipped out when she saw me. The accident was already on the internet and she knew more about it than I did and I was there.

The three dead men were Tom Smith, Bill Brown, and Jack Lee. Sounded like three alias to me. The woman was Barbie Lee Smith, very newly Mrs. Tom Smith. Jack had been her brother, Bill their first cousin. Barbie was in the hospital with what they were reporting as “minor lacerations.” She wasn’t eighteen, but had had her parents’ permission to get married.

A message was already waiting for my on my voicemail. I thought it might be Mrs. G. or my afternoon client meeting, Mr.V. Nope, it was the police. Of all things, I had dropped a business card at the scene. People had described a large woman in a suit who looked like a lawyer as being the one who yanked up Barbie Smith. They wanted to speak with me. (Note: was I large? I asked my secretary to order in some pizza so I would have something to eat while I pondered that.)

There was already cold coffee from the night before on my desk (I realize that I probably shouldn’t drink milk that was left out overnight but I figure the milk wasn’t that fresh when the guy in the cart put it in in the first place) so I drank that. I have an oral fixation or a caffeine addiction. Or both.

I really didn’t think I had much to say to the police, but I didn’t have too much time to think about that when Mr.V. called. Probably to cancel I thought. Because clients are inconsiderate people who don’t realize that I have a life here (and how long does it take to get some pizza up here anyway?) Turns out it was, as he put it, “his one phone call.” I wanted to tell him that I don’t do criminal work, but how could I? Or that this was definitely not enumerated on the engagement letter we had executed six months earlier.

I found out where he was, and faked like I knew how to get there and what to do next. That’s what secretaries are for – they somehow know all that stuff. It certainly isn’t taught in law school. As far as I recall. Which again, is one of the fuzzy times for me.

This was turning into a fantastic day. Mrs.G. bails on me to give birth. Mr.V. bails on me to get arrested. Three people decide to die in front of me. One bloody bride decides to give me a death stare seconds after I had saved her life and provided a very soft place to land.

I did think to ask Mr.V – delicately – what it is that they said he had done.

The response was frantic, “They say I killed him!”

“Who?”

“My boss!”

Well, when God takes a holiday he takes a real vacation. Mr.V. worked in the household of a very wealthy, very well-connected investment banker. “Ok” was all I could say. I told him not to talk to anyone there except to say his lawyer was coming and refuse to talk to anyone until I got there.

And then I opened my bag. Coffee everywhere. My blackberry was non-responsive. My notes, taken in felt pen, were ruined. And at the bottom of the bag, jumbled in with everything else, was an impossibly big diamond ring that in no way, shape, or form belonged to me.

And this was only Tuesday.