Osler's Razor

Chapter Eight: Spring

Man builds from ego, and no city thinks more of itself than Chicago, where no physical barriers demand that the city stretch upward rather than outward.

The buildings of Chicago are ordered by sheer mass. Unlike New York, where the Chrysler Building was likely to be mentioned before the World Trade Center (while both were still standing), in Chicago it is the weight and volume of the Sears Tower which is perhaps most notable to visitors and natives. The shadow of the behemoth stretches down across the remainder of the Loop, down to the Lake in the late evening. Many of those in the long shadow are completely unaware that they are in it, huddled as they are into the canyons of Jackson or Van Buren streets.

The shadow fascinated me. On my way to the distant lot where I often parked, I would watch the masses of people pass in and out of the shadow of the tower. As an early June day faded to gray, Tenerife Baker was one of those standing in the long, dark shadow. She stood in front of the Federal Building, looking up at the black monolith. She had no business that evening, but the next day was to bring her first and most important case, on the Eighteenth floor of that building. Having watched the building as the light played over the far side of it, she smiled and disappeared back into the shadow with the rest of the hurrying crowd.

The next morning found Tenerife sitting at counsel table, a junior associate, Max Stevens next to her. Behind Tenerife sat her Mother, who had arrived on the train from Memphis the night before, wearing a new dress. Next to her was my place, and I hunched forward on the pew of the spectator's gallery, trying to see what the opposing counsel, a man and a woman, looked like.

The players were in place, save for the Judge himself. I had never witnessed the opening of a trial before. The side door to the Judge's chambers opened and shut as clerks and others stepped in and out, each eying the crowd before disappearing through the door. Finally, the Deputy Clerk pushed his way through the side entrance, announcing sternly that "The United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois is now in session, Judge James Stapleton presiding." With that, the Judge came into the room, ascended to the high seat of the bench, and asked the assembled gathering to sit down.

"Today we pick a jury, and tomorrow we have opening arguments. I think it's no secret that there have been a lot of pre-trial problems with this case, but we're going to hear it. Marshall, please bring in the veniremen." The Judge spoke in a loud, firm voice, and the elderly Marshall jumped at his command, striding over to a side door and ushering in seventy-some people who filled the blocked-off rows of the rear part of the courtroom's gallery.

Nodding to the jury panel the Judge continued. "We're here to hear a civil case today. I will now tell you what the case is about, and we will be asking each of you several questions. Most of you will not be serving on this jury. I know that many of you do not want to be here, and that you would rather not serve on a jury. I do not want you to tell me that. Almost all of the people who have served on juries before me tell me that it is a good experience, that they are glad that they got picked. So don't treat it as a death sentence, please."

"The case we will be trying in this courtroom was brought by Mr. Dennis Smith, who is also known as Ennis Trigg. For the purposes of this trial we will refer to him as Dennis Smith, for it was under this name that the suit was originally brought. Dennis Smith claimed that while imprisoned, he was subjected to cruel and unusual punishment, which is prohibited by the constitution. Specifically, Mr. Smith alleged that he was given tuberculosis by the prison authorities, and that he did not receive proper medical attention. Mr. Smith has died since he filed this case, in circumstances that are not relevant to this action, and the case has been brought to trial by his estate, which will be referred to here as the Estate of Dennis Smith. The defendants in this case are those prison officials who developed and implemented the policy that Mister Smith claimed lead to his becoming infected with tuberculosis. My first question to you, all of you, is whether or not you have ever known Mr. Dennis Smith or Mr. Ennis Trigg."

None of the veniremen raised their hands. The Judge scanned the group, and the questioning continued for the rest of the day. I huddled with Tenerife and Max Stevens during the breaks to ask them questions about the procedure. The day closed with a jury chosen, and I drove back to the large house in Kenilworth, down the familiar roads.

Tenerife had charged me with watching our jury carefully during selection. The strongest personality was a thick man who had described his job as foreman at a candy factory. When he said "candy," he had said it slowly, as if challenging anyone stupid enough to make fun of him to do so. He would be our foreman.

At the house, I found my Father sitting at the breakfast room table, reading the newspaper and drinking a cup of coffee. I sat down across the table from him, and Red Trigg looked up from the newspaper. "How'd it go?" the older man asked.

"Incredible. I can't believe how good Tenerife is, Pop. She's got this way of being polite and tough all at once that is really effective. They chose the jury; we've got some characters. It was different than I thought, too, because most of the people were from way out there in Kane County and places like that; crop-dusters and truck drivers and things."

"That's because it's federal court," Red Trigg explained. "They draw the jury from all over the place. How's the Judge?"

I shrugged. "I dunno. He's got everything under control, anyways. He doesn't seem unstable or anything." I looked over the table at my father, who had a wry smile.

"The funny thing is, Buddy, that Ennis would have hated this. He thought the whole legal thing was a sham, that people should resolve their disputes without suing. You knew him; Ennis would rather slug it out on a streetcorner, I think."

The mention of Ennis still made me shiver. When my Father had come for us, I had cleaned as much of the house as I could stand. I returned to Chicago with him, believing his disclaimers of knowledge about Ennis' plan. He said that he had gone to Sedalia to check on the place and contract for a new roof. He had harbored Ennis there, and maintained the house, but was aghast at the plan, and had hired a local black lawyer to undue what Ennis had done to that point.

I felt that I was often being pulled between my father and Ennis' ghost, and that I had a certain loyalty to and need to defend Ennis. "Pop, Ennis wasn't a total cretin, and there's a lot to be said for his approach. The only problem here is that you can't get into a fistfight with the whole state prison system and have that make a difference. He knew about this suit, and he participated in discovery. You know that."

"I do know that, Buddy," he said, nodding gently. "It just seems odd to me that he would bring a suit at all. He just seemed like more of an earthy guy, that's all."

I felt my defensiveness rise again. "That's really an oversimplification, Pop, and you know it. Ennis said what he thought was right or wrong, not that he didn't have secrets, but that's what he said. If he's saying it through a civil case, than that's how he says it. At least you never wondered where it was that he stood."

"Unless you mean geographically," he parried.

Laughing uneasily at the macabre joke, I went to the kitchen and poured myself some coffee. The smell of the coffee made me visualize chopping wood, near to the water. There was the distinct feeling that my life had been bisected, with half of my history in Chicago, with my father and Lisa, and the other half on the island, where I could be accepted as I was and had a place to step into without struggle. Back at the table, we lapsed into silence again. Excusing myself, I retreated to my room and pulled a book from the shelf, Plato's Republic, again. I was haunted by Ennis' question of whether the meaning of literature could exceed what is remembered of the words, but the book itself did not hold the answer.

The next day, I returned to the courtroom. Tenerife looked poised and ready. The opening would be crucial in presenting sympathies to the jury. As I watched her, I couldn't help but wonder where her true sympathies lay. She would have hated Ennis, not only for what he had done, but for his personality. She seemed to block that our, however, when she thought of him as a client, and focused on the part of him that was an underdog, a person who had been wronged.

"Ladies and gentlemen," Tenerife began, dispensing with the usual stream of thank-you-for-attending comments, "this case is about what exceeds the limits of acceptable behavior in how prisoners are treated. At issue is not whether Dennis Smith committed a crime; he did. He was serving time in a state prison for the crime that he did commit, and we do not dispute that placing a man in prison for a specified period of time is right and proper if he is found guilty of a crime. What we object to, and what the Constitution forbids, is the imposition of a punishment beyond serving time, punishment which is meted out arbitrarily and unfairly by prison authorities who have only been charged with holding a man. What, specifically, we are talking about is the decision of these defendants to inject Dennis Smith with a substance which they knew would lead to him contracting tuberculosis. What you will find, once the evidence is presented, is that, first, Dennis Smith was given tuberculosis by the defendants; second, that these defendants knew that their action would likely lead to Dennis Smith contracting tuberculosis, and third, that intentionally infecting a prisoner with tuberculosis constitutes cruel and unusual punishment, in violation of the Constitution of the United States."

Continuing, Tenerife described the evidence that would be laid out: The testimony of Tony Parsons, the medical records, and expert testimony that would state that any competent doctor would know that frequent, multiple injections of a tuberculosis test would infect a patient with the disease. Finishing her opening, Tenerife turned towards me, and I flashed her the high sign. I soon realized, however, that she was smiling at her mother, who sat beside me. The older woman beamed; she was finally getting to see the fruition of the education she and her husband had pushed on their children in the hard dirt of the Delta.

The state's attorney who was handling the case was a rotund older man who had little rapport with the jury. His opening was completely consumed by the standard for a Constitutional violation, which, as he explained repeatedly, was one of "willful" rather than "negligent" action or inaction. Tenerife had anticipated this, and her opening had clearly alleged that the defendants had willfully done what they did.

As the defense attorney for the State was presenting his case, Tenerife turned around from the table and motioned to me. I leaned towards her; it was obvious that she wanted to speak with me. Squeezing out of the gallery, I made my way to the plaintiff's table, crouching down next to Tenerife's chair. Tenerife had just bent over to whisper in my ear when the Judge's voice interrupted the State's attorney and caused us to look up at the bench.

"Who are you?" the Judge asked loudly, looking at me.

I stood up next to the table and straightened my tie. "I'm David Trigg, your honor," I said, my voice shaky, "I'm Ennis Trigg's, Dennis Smith's nephew. I lived with him."

"Let's save these little conferences for the breaks, David," the Judge decreed coldly. "I don't want people constantly running from the gallery up to counsel table in the middle of arguments." Turning back to the defense counsel, the Judge waved his hand. "Proceed."

I tripped back to my seat in the gallery, my face a bright pink, as the other spectators stared at this newly-identified man in their midst. Sitting down, I tried to look straight ahead, avoiding the eyes of the others in the gallery. The State's attorney finished, having not left much of an impression, and sat heavily back down in his chair. The Judge called a break, and the attorneys and court-watchers retreated to the hallway.

I headed for Tenerife through the crowd, grabbing her shoulder as she talked in hushed tones to Max Stevens. "What did you want?" Tenerife brushed me off with a wave. "Don't worry, Buddy, it wasn't anything," she explained quickly, turning back to Max, who was holding a sheaf of papers.

I was in no mood to give up. "I get yelled at by the Judge, and you say it was nothing?" I said, my voice rising. "It sure seemed like there was something on your mind."

Tenerife turned towards me with a severe look. In a shouting whisper, she said, "It was a distraction, Buddy. I hoped what happened would happen. When you represent an estate, the best thing you can have in front of the jury is the people who are part of the family, who can humanize the deceased. Those people see you, they think that this Ennis-Dennis must have been a decent guy. So it worked how I wanted to work. Now get the hell out of here so I can talk to Max."

The tone of her voice spoke more of annoyance than anger, but I was left feeling somewhat used. I walked down the hall to the water fountain. Near the fountain, a window was open, and the soft, warm air of June came in off of the plains. In South Carolina, I thought, the heat would already be nearly unbearable. It seemed that summer officially started too late; by the start of June, all of the things that make summer what it is have already occurred, and the twenty or so days before the official start of the season seemed ridiculous. My father would say, as we planned a car trip years ago, that de facto summer long proceeds summer de jure, and so much the better.

The warm air pulled me inexorably out of the courthouse, and I gave up on the idea of watching the initial testimony being presented. Instead, I went outside and walked down to Grant Park. The fountains had begun their summer's dance, and I sat at the edge of one for an hour, looking at the passing people and thinking about my plan.

Tony Parsons sealed the case for us. He was brilliant on the stand, telling of Ennis' coughing and the failure of the guards to so much as answer his pleas for attention. In the end, it was probably this failure, rather than the shaky idea that the authorities had given him the disease, which had swayed the jury.

The other key witness turned out to be the Doctor for the prison, who admitted that he knew that repeated testing for tuberculosis could lead to infection, that he had reported this to his superiors the previous year, and that he thought that the testing could well have lead to "Dennis'" sickness. The State knew that this was coming, which was why they had based their defense on the standard, claiming that the actions of any one official were merely negligent. Clearly, the jury did not buy this logic. In less than a week the trial was over, the jury leaving the box for less than half an hour before returning with a $170,000 verdict for the estate.

Tenerife left the courthouse with a satisfied smile, having soundly whipped the State in her first major case. As she had thought, the Doctor had fudged his initial report, and the State had underestimated his value to her. She and Max treated themselves to dinner at the Everest Room in celebration, but I was not there. In fact, I was with Lisa, arguing in Lincoln Park Zoo.

The zoo was an oddly appropriate place for such a fight. People of all ages and temperaments swept around us, many of them involved in fights of their own, though few were on a similar topic. As the cubs and joeys and other newborn animals were being brought out to the world, we fought over the naming of a child that had not been conceived. After returning to Chicago, I had found that we could survive a fight, and though the issues were not always resolved, there was a tiny bit of a bond built with the end of each discussion which we survived.

This particular argument was, of course, over a hypothetical. I wanted to name the someday-maybe-once-we-get-our-act-together child Micah, after the Doctor who had healed me. "It's perfect," I explained, "it means something to me, it sounds great, it's a little different, and it's Old Testament."

"Old Testament. Don't give me that, Buddy. This is not a Jewish thing. Just as long as you don't name him after yourself, you can't do that. I just think that Larry would be a great name for a kid. Don't ask me to explain it, but when I imagine a little boy, my little boy, I always just call him Larry. Micah means something to you, Larry means something to me." With a flip of her hand, Lisa walked over to the side of the pond where paddlewheel boats are kept.

Pursuing her, I did not relent. "Well, I just think that Micah could mean something to both of us. I'm sorry about the snotty Old Testament crack, but it is sort of, I don't know,... ecumenical."

Lisa stepped to the edge of the pond, in front of an elderly woman who was feeding birds from a bag of bread. "Buddy, your problem is that you always assume that whatever it is that you want, that's what I'll want automatically. I have my own hopes, too, and you can't just walk all over that."

In deference to her annoyance, I struck a more concilliatory tone. "So, Larry, Micah, whatever. I wasn't pushing anything over on you, it's just a suggestion. I go to school, and it seems like everybody is named David. That's just why I think that giving a kid a name that's a little different might be a good thing."

Before Lisa could respond, her finger already in the air, the elderly woman spoke. "You two are in love," she said dreamily.

"What?" I asked, turning. Lisa, dumbfounded, also turned to look at the old woman with her hair tied up in a scarf.

"You two are in love," the woman repeated, this time in a matter-of-fact tone. "I can tell."

We turned fully towards the woman. "How can you tell?" asked Lisa.

"The argument, I hear your argument. Not the words, the way you say it. If people saw the love in argument, they wouldn't break up so often. I was in love, and when my husband died that's what I missed the most. He never hit me, never left me, but he never once let me get away with a lazy or selfish thought. That was love."

I was at a loss as to what to say. "I never really thought about it that way," I finally mumbled.

"But it makes sense," Lisa chimed in, "So I guess we don't have to worry about it so much. Not that we did before."

"Just go on your way," said the old lady, looking back to the birds. "I just felt I had to say that."

The interruption stifled the slight anger each of us had begun to feel, and we walked around the perimeter of the pond towards the Loop, Lisa's hand grazing mine as we walked. The palm of her hand, the locus of our first touching, was still the part of her which most aroused me. Sometimes I kissed her palm, and her fingers curled inward toward my face in response, touching my cheek. I had never been much of a hand-holder, but Lisa had converted me.

We walked back to the building on LaSalle Street, returning around six. Lisa had cut out of work for a walk at my suggestion, and I had a few things to pick up from my old cubicle. I had lost my job at Taylor, Toth & Moore during my long absence, and did not ask for it back, other than to attend the trial on behalf of the estate. Technically, I was there as the client. I had started to work full-time at a florist upon my wintertime return to Chicago, and had moved in with Lisa. I knew that my time in Chicago would be short, and decided against seeking more permanent employment out of the fear that it would soon be interrupted.

I knew that the trial had ended, and that the jury had gone out, as someone had told Lisa before we had left earlier in the afternoon. Rather than returning home and waiting for Tenerife's call, I lugged my paper bag full of possessions up to her office, let myself in, and sat down in her chair. The sun, though still shining down on the city, had fallen towards the prairie, and the shadow of the Sears tower stretched Eastward out past Tenerife's window.

I sat down on her swivel chair, facing the broad picture windows. Thank God for Mies Van Der Rohe, who blessed Chicago with the glass boxes which may look dated from the outside, but which allow for a wonderful view from the inside. On the Lake, sailboats headed for the harbor close to Navy Pier, their sails full. I had never been a sailor, precisely because the best thing about the boats was the way that they looked from the shore.

Inside the office, I thought through my plan again, and how it was that I would present it to Lisa. I knew that I had to return to South Carolina, but I did not want to leave her. Time had not faded my feelings.

As dusk fell over the city, I waited in the large black chair, looking out over the streets as the crowds thinned and the lights came on in the buildings and over the streets. There was a ballet to it, almost, that I had never had the chance to see from such a vantage point. The streetlights on a given avenue would go on consecutively, moving to the West in a slow but deliberate progression. Slowly, ever westward, tracking the fading sunlight.

Turning from the window in the now-dark office, I looked at the pictures which Tenerife had lined up on her credenza, behind her desk. The largest one was of her mother and father, standing in front of a hotel with their children sitting before them. Tenerife looked to be about fifteen in the picture, a tall, gawky teen-ager with eyeglasses which could only have been fashionable, even in Mississippi, in the 1970's. Next to that was one of Tenerife with a man whom I did not know, dressed to the teeth. Tenerife had her arm looped through his, and wore a hat which made her look a little like Zora Neal Hurston. If we had been lovers, I would have treasured this picture.

The door opened silently, and Tenerife stood watching me as I held a photo of her brother, soaring over a high jump bar. "He set the state record," she said loudly, startling me. "There was nothing he couldn't do out on the track. He still lives down there, coaching track at the high school I went to. He saved my life once, and I asked him what I could do to thank him. He said that when I get rich and famous for being so smart, I should keep a picture of him on my desk. Well, today's as close as I'm going to get, and there he is, front and center."

Tenerife sat down on the molded wooden chair on the client's side of her desk. "This is a new perspective for me," she said brightly, "I guess it seems a little more intimidating from here than it does from over there."

"Tell me about it," I said darkly. "That's the only way that I ever saw anybody around here."

"Buddy, I don't don't think you have any problem with this firm, because Ms. Tenerife Baker of Taylor, Toth and Moore has made you a rich man. Well, not rich, but a little better off. The jury came back with $170,000, and you'll get about $100,000 of that, everything that we don't get. Happy?"

I hadn't been thinking about the verdict; still I was glad for her. "Yeah, I'm happy."

Tenerife looked puzzled. "Honestly, Buddy, I thought that this might get more of a reaction out of you. This is no chump change. That's about the best that we'd hoped for."

I shook my head. "It's not the money, Tenerife. That's good, but it doesn't fix everything. He's still dead. I think about that every day. He had a part of me that he handed to me while I was down there, and now I've got it. Can you tell? Do I seem different?"

"With all the lights turned out, I can't even see you, Buddy. No, I know what you mean. A sense of yourself. Sure, you're different. You're more than just your Daddy's lost sheep now."

"That's a big part of it, I guess. I just feel like I know who I am. Like somebody gave me a chance. You know, it's funny, but I knew that he was going to leave me the house and his estate. I knew that when he took me to where he kept his will. He had this little television, but the inside of it was hollow, and he kept his papers in there. He took me into the den to show me that, and it was the only time I saw him in there with the books. He just said 'hey, here it is', explained his philosophy of life, and that was it. So I knew. The funny thing is that I don't know how he knew that it was going to be me that went down there, how he knew that I would identify with it and with him. It could have been my brother Michael."

Tenerife shook her head. "It wouldn't have been Michael. He knew. Dennis wanted a son, but he didn't get one. He watched you here, came in after he left the prison. He used to hang out at that malt shop across the street. I knew who he was, but I didn't say anything because I knew he was broken out of the big house..."

"What," I interrupted, "'big house'?"

"You know, prison. Slang. Anyways, he put me up to sending you down there. I knew your Uncle pretty well, and I knew that if I covered my tracks well enough your father wouldn't catch on. He did, in the end, figure it out, but by then the whole thing was set and there was nothing he could say. To tell you the truth, I think your Dad had real mixed feelings about you going down there. It was almost as if he wanted you to go. When I told him, he nodded and said 'oh, all right,' like that was what he had expected all along. Personally, I hated the racist bastard and I can't say I'm sad that he's dead. He tried not to show that side to me, but I knew men like him in Mississippi, and that's something that's mighty hard to hide."

"You keep setting me up, Tenerife," I said, without anger. "But you brought back the cash. You're right about him being a racist bastard, though. Not that he ever said anything about it, not directly. But I could just tell. For one thing, he had the luxury of just ignoring the rest of the plantation, so he did."

Tenerife stood up, picked up her bag, and turned to the door. "All I know, Buddy," she said before leaving, "is that you did the right thing."

"What did I do?" I asked. But she was gone, down the hall and out to the elevator. I did not chase her, but fell back in her chair, looking out over the sky and the boats and the plane coming into Meigs Field. Again, my eyes returned to the photo of her in the round hat, laughing, which I would have stolen had I been her lover.