How I Spent Inauguration Day

I was in Pointe Coupee Parish on Inauguration Day. The courthouse in that rural venue is a squat concrete structure built by the WPA in 1939 and appears hunkered down on its square for the long haul, notwithstanding its quaint domed cupola. During Ike’s 2nd term, the clock on the courthouse cupola fetched up somehow and so --since Sputnik or thereabouts-- its been 10:05 on False River, the large oxbow lake upon which the courthouse faces. Inside, the corridors are wide with light rose hued terrazzo floors trimmed with dark green – highly polished. When you get there early—as I do—you can hear yourself making progress down the hall on those floors. The courthouse deputies there are all older men carrying coffee, many speaking to each other in French – shifting effortlessly back to English to chat with the interlopers. Some are black and some are white but none are young.

Judge Robin Free’s courtroom is on the 2nd floor and I’m set to try a petitory action there this morning – an action which will finally determine who actually and legally owns Lots 419 and 420 in Island Woods subdivision there in Pointe Coupee. This is “drywall lawyering,” I call it. It’s heavy work cutting, angling and lifting all the reams of paper required to establish title and you end up feeling dusty somehow. It’s not what I generally do, so it’s interesting. Plus, I really like my client, Len Greene, think he has the better title and I therefore plan to get the fella squatting on these lots labeled a trespasser and sent packing.

I like my Judge, too. I’ve known Robin since 1985 when he was a law clerk for another District Judge, Jack Marrioneaux, down in Iberville Parish. I defended a lady in Plaquemine, the Parish seat, who had been charged with embezzling money from the local gas company where she’d worked for 26 years. That trial took 2 weeks and so we’d gotten to know each other well then, finding ourselves bonding over several odd incidents occurring during the trial. Like what happened during voir dire. This was waaaaaay before TLC and, as a young lawyer, I had an ardent, competitive spirit in my heart toward the young ADA, Allen Myles, who I nicknamed “Bullet” because of his shaved, polished, bald, copper-brown pate. Early during the voir dire, I thought “Bullet” was making remarks which poisoned the entire venire, so I stopped the process and moved –and I have no idea where this came from-- that we conduct voir dire one sequestered juror at a time. No one else in the room, just us and the single juror. The flustered ADA—having never heard such a motion—didn’t really know what to say. Neither did I, but I said something. Judge Marrioneaux looked at his law clerk, Robin, who just shrugged. The Judge shrugged back and granted the motion after about 10 seconds of reflection. So, that’s the way we did it. It took 2 days. (We also bonded over another incident in the middle of trial where a juror told the Judge to get fucked, but that’s another story for another day. )

Judge Free and I bonded yet again in the Island Woods case he’s set to adjudicate today, too. We had an earlier hearing on who should have possession (an issue legally differentiated from ownership) of Lot 419 and we won. Given this, we promptly alleged the other fellow was encroaching on 419 from 420 and we had a survey and pictures which showed this. The other guy and his lawyer disagreed. I had the defendant on the stand, looking at my pictures showing some pretty blatant encroachment, when he said: “You know, if you’d look at MY pictures, you’d see I’m on my side of the line. They’re right here on my laptop.” He extracted his laptop from his satchel and fired it up. Judge Free and I watched as the screen lit up and he marched through the windows folders necessary to get to the pics, which appear in due course and we go through them, maneuvering the laptop onto the bench so Robin can see them clearly. Soon, Judge Free himself is scrolling through the pictures as we watch when suddenly—BANG—there’s a picture of a fat, naked dame holding a 16 ounce Bud Ice sitting on the defendant’s couch wearin’ not so much as a blush. Remaining clothed is really best for some people. A moment of silence ensues. “Oh….that’s just a friend,” says the defendant. “Mus’ be a pretty good frien’!” says the Judge, with his beautiful Cajun accent.

This sorta stuff seems to happen when I’m in front of Robin for some reason. When I left the courthouse after that hearing, I was walking to my car when I heard my name being called from amid the huge oak trees surrounding the courthouse: “Hey, Clary….Clary….” I peer through the trees to see Judge Free leaning out of an open 2nd story courthouse window, his robes fluttering in the breeze. “Well, hey, Judge, “ I say. He shakes his head at me slowly, a smile on his handsome face and we make eye contact for a moment or two. Then, he says: “Lord, Jim…are you ever gonna bring me a NORMAL case?” I allow as how I’ll try and he slips back into his chambers, shaking his head and chuckling as he slides his window down.

Anyway, it’s not a normal day today. It’s Inauguration Day, like I was sayin’. Barack Obama, our first African-American President, is being sworn in today. As I wait for my turn at bat, the morning advances laboriously through the packed docket. It will be some time before our starting gun goes off, so my client and I wander from Robin’s courtroom and across the hall to see that the double-doors to the Judges’ Conference Room are wide open. Judge Jim Best is in there. Some other folks are there, too – some black and some white. Some ladies and some men. All different ages, but a lot of older folks. They are all sitting and quietly watching a TV set up in there, which is usually used to view DWI field sobriety and attendant breath tests. Len and I wander in and join them, dragging in chairs from the corridor.

Senator Diane Feinstein is emceeing the Inauguration ritual. Joe Biden is sworn in. Then Feinstein says: “And now, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, John R. Roberts, Jr., will swear in Senator Barack Obama as President of the United States. Would you please stand?”

Judge Jim Best, his eyes riveted to the TV, slowly stands. The clerks stand. The deputies stand. Len and I stand. Everybody stands.

Nobody speaks.

Barack takes the oath, becoming President Obama before our eyes. We all remain quietly standing as we watch his Inaugural Address. When he’s done, and as the crowd on the TV reacts, everyone in the room—all unknown to me except Judge Best and my client—start shaking hands. I do too. There are tears in the eyes of some of the old African-American deputies, who struggle with their emotions, their Pointe Coupee Parish Sheriff’s Deputy caps crushed in their hands.

“Well,” Judge Best says, “Here we go.”

Indeed, sir.

Here we go, indeed.

And that was how I spent Inauguration Day.

J.R.

Departure of 2008, LSU, Hunting, Peering into 2009 and Other Salient Year-End Points

So, 2008 is over.

Good riddance, I would like to say, contaminated as 2008 was by the proximity of the 7 years preceding it. Its been a lousy decade in general, thus far, so the sooner we get one of the shitty years over, done and behind us, the better for all concerned. That's what I WANT to say, with a dismissive wave of the hand. Except that---as I get older and hear the whispers of mortality every so often in my ear---I sometimes measure out the years ever more carefully, wanting to hold onto even the shitty ones. That’s a bitch.

But, they pass anyway. The moving finger, having writ, moves on.

Some say 2008 ended in New York when that big, sparkling ball dropped in Times Square or maybe it was when that nut on a souped up motorcycle jumped over a fake Arc de Triomphe in Vegas. The fact that 2008 escaped into the mists of history is undeniable even though I admit to being asleep at the time...which says more about where I am in my earthly walk at this point in my life than anything else, probably. Its departure was in all the papers, I do know that. You could look it up.

Actually, I think the year started to make its getaway in the Atlanta darkness while the LSU Fightin’ Tigers were giving the Orkin treatment to a vaunted Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets top ranked triple-option team in the Chik-fil-A Peach Bowl. Let us not study upon that LSU victory too assiduously lest we find ourselves “living in the past,” like the old folks.

We should turn our eyes forward…..to the future.

Before we DO that, though, we probably should nonetheless mention that LSU won the nationally televised contest 38-3 and played the last quarter and a half with 2nd and 3rd Teamers. It probably wouldn’t hurt to recollect that the Yellow Jackets had the No. 3 offense in the country, with a finely honed, sparkling triple option attack – a menacing, relentless attack that had mowed down Tech’s opponents all year. I see no reason not to observe, in all humility, that the Bayou Bengals stuffed that triple option attack into an old brown grocery bag and beat these self-styled ACC Tech wonder-boys like a series of rented mules.

Truly, though, that’s enough.

We should turn our gaze toward the horizon and reflect upon the august majesty of the FUTURE, hoping that 2009 will usher in the beginning of a beautiful new era….except, before we get all paralyzed with forward-lookin' reflection, maybe we should remember that LSU started a true freshman QB, Jordan Jefferson, who was named the 2008 Peach Bowl MVP. After we do all THAT, we can embrace the future, plant our feet and affect a steely-eyed Robert Mitchum gaze and what not.

You don’t want to rush into those sorts of planted stares, however.

You might take a pre-stare moment to observe that LSU totally wrecked Tech early, building a 35-3 lead by halftime on its way to a 38-3 pump-handle beating, handing the 14th-ranked Yellow Jackets their most lopsided loss in three seasons of football. Then you can stare all you want.

I spend a lot of reflective, solitary hours in the woods hunting whitetail deer at the end of every year. Although I have a fancy-shmancy custom built rifle that’s a beauty to behold, I more frequently shoulder my old misbehaving 30-06 as part of my hunting get-up, which includes an orange cap with fluffy ear muffs. Sadly, I am not kidding. I expect to receive any day a cease-and-desist order from Warner Brothers for co-opting the trademarked Elmer Fudd “look.”

I don’t like to fire my rifle very much anymore. For one thing, it’s loud and I’ve come to appreciate silence far more than when I was a younger man. For another, killing living creatures has long since lost whatever odd allure it once occupied in my heart. Unless, I am out of venison. Then, all bets are off. I didn’t claw my way to the top of the food chain to survive on vegetables.

I do like spending that special time with my Dad, however. Experiencing Jimmy Clary’s youthful 75-year-old exuberance while on the hunt or while we’re knockin’ around our camp keeps me constantly tickled. He says stuff that somebody ought to be writing down.

Like the time we were cooking white beans in the camp kitchen.

“Man, I love white beans,” one of the guys hunting with us observed, standing behind Pop as he stirred the pot. “But, white beans give me gas. Do white beans give you gas, Jimmy?”

“Sheeeit,” came Jimmy’s distracted reply. “I’m over 70. The purest Kentwood Spring Water gives me gas.”

See? Somebody needs to write that shit down.

Another reason why I rarely squeeze the trigger on my old Ruger 30-06 is because –somehow—the weapon comes with its own laugh track and is a near cousin to the Allen Pepperbox Revolver carried by a guy named Bemis, who traveled West by stagecoach with Mark Twain. As Twain recollected:

“George Bemis . . . wore in his belt an old original "Allen" revolver, such as irreverent people called a "pepper-box." Simply drawing the trigger back, one thence cocked and fired the pistol. As the trigger came back, the hammer would begin to rise and the barrel to turn over, and presently down would drop the hammer, and away would speed the ball. To aim along the turning barrel and hit the thing aimed at was a feat which was probably never done with an "Allen" in the world. But George's was a reliable weapon, nevertheless, because, as one of the stage-drivers afterward said, "If she didn't get what she went after, she would fetch something else." And so she did. She went after a deuce of spades nailed against a tree, once, and fetched a mule standing about thirty yards to the left of it. Bemis did not want the mule; but the owner came out with a double-barreled shotgun and persuaded him to buy it, anyhow. It was a cheerful weapon--the "Allen." Sometimes all its six barrels would go off at once, and then there was no safe place in all the region round about, but behind it…” ---- Mark Twain, Roughing It

I would say this adequately sums up my 30-06. Many a whitetail has looked up after I have loudly launched a round downrange toward his general area. As the ovine scampers unmarred into the thick woods, I can imagine him muttering: “What in the fuck was THAT whistling by my haunches, several feet to the left?!?”

But, I digress.

I must shed my Elmer Fudd persona and return to the Robert Mitchum glare….not the baggy-eyed look he had when he was arrested in a hazy swirl of marijuana smoke back in the day, but the dreamy gaze he had on the 1955 movie poster for Man With the Gun.

Now, THAT’S a “look,” an affected countenance appropriate for peering into 2009.

Being in the winter woods is a good time for peering too. You can hear your own breathing when you quietly slip into the pre-dawn loam. I like watching the new day seep silently into the forest, waiting to hear the first bird announce his presence with some distinctive call, which ---I am reliably informed by the bird experts--- is an announcement roughly translating into: “Hey, all you other dickhead birds. This tree here is mine and so is everything else I can see. I mean EVERYthing. That worm? Those bugs? Those dames? ALL mine! Capish? If any other of you pissbubbles come into my territory, I am gonna open a can of whupass on you similar to the brutal beating given to the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets by a rejuvenated LSU Fightin’ Tiger Team in the 2008 Chik-fil-A Peach Bowl!”

I believe I have the translation recited correctly.

Anyway…the point is that the end-of-the-year holidays have relaxed their annual grip around my windpipe. I feel the clammy fingers receding, as if 2008 is whispering to me: “OK, OK….you win for now, J.R. We’ll let you make it through another winter…but…..one day you’ll be tired and we’ll be game. As Joe Louis said about Billy Conn, J.R., you can RUN but you can’t HIDE. Not forever. One day we are gonna open a can of whupass on you similar to the brutal beating given to the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets by a rejuvenated LSU Fightin’ Tiger Team in the 2008 Chik-fil-A Peach Bowl.”

That’s what I hear in the woods.

Or, maybe it was just a bird.

---J.R.