Play Dead

I wake up at six a.m. and turn the television on. There on CNN is Yogi’s beautiful, pathetic mug, with the graphic across the bottom asking “Stay of Execution?” Their details are sketchy but accurate, having already gleaned from Vince’s story the main facts, including our legal actions.

The phone starts ringing, as I knew it would, and I find myself fielding calls from what seems like every media outlet in the free world. My standard response is that I will have a great deal to say on this later, and I arrange late morning interviews to take place at the animal shelter with the main cable networks. I have appeared on all of them as a celebrity legal commentator at various times during the past two years, so my involvement with this case provides a level of comfort for them to cover it.

I finally make it into the shower, and I spend the endless minute waiting for the conditioner to sink in, by happily reflecting on how perfectly this is going. In less than a day, I’ve made an entire country, or at least the media of an entire country, sit up and take notice.

I am Andy, the all-powerful.

The phone rings as I’m turning the water off, and I decide to ignore it. I’ve already done enough to reach saturation coverage, and I’m not going to have time for any more.

I let the machine pick up, and after a few seconds I hear a woman’s voice. “Andy, it’s Rita.”

The caller is Rita Gordon, the clerk at the Passaic County Courthouse, and the only reason that venerable institution operates with any efficiency at all. I once had an affair with Rita that could be characterized as brief, since it lasted only about forty-five minutes. But those were forty-five great minutes.

I pick up the phone. “Rita, sorry I screened the call. I thought you were Katie Couric.”

I don’t think Rita and I have ever engaged in a conversation that was not dominated by banter of some sort. Until now. “Andy, Hatchet wants to see you right away.”

That one sentence renders obsolete all my gloating about the perfection of my legal and public relations effort. “Hatchet was assigned this case? Is that what you’re telling me?” I ask.

“That’s what I’m telling you.”

Judge Henry Henderson has been called “Hatchet” for as long as I can remember. One doesn’t get nicknames by accident, and they are generally quite revealing. You won’t find demure librarians named Darla “the Sledgehammer” Smiley, or nannies dubbed Mary “the Exterminator” Poppins. And there won’t be many professional wrestlers with names like Brutus “Little Kitten” Rockingham.

Legend goes that Hatchet got his name by chopping off the testicles of lawyers who annoyed him. My belief is that this is just urban myth, but that doesn’t mean that if given the opportunity I would want to rummage through his desk drawers.

“How pissed is he?” I ask.

“I would say somewhere between very and totally.”

“When should I come in?” I ask.

“Let’s put it this way. If you’re not here by the time I finish this sentence, you’re late.”

By that standard, I’m late for my meeting with Hatchet, but not by much. I’m down at the courthouse and ushered into his chambers within a half hour of receiving the call. Since the courthouse is twenty minutes from my house, that’s pretty good.

Hatchet keeps his office very dark; the drapes are closed, and only a small lamp on his desk provides any light at all. If it’s meant to disconcert and intimidate attorneys, it achieves its goal. Yet if the stories I hear are true, I am less afraid of Hatchet than are most of my colleagues. For example, I haven’t pissed in my pants yet.

Hatchet etiquette requires letting him speak first, so I just stand there waiting for the barrage. Finally, after about thirty seconds that feel like three thousand, he looks up. “Do you know what time it is?” he asks.

I look at my watch. “Eight forty-five. I got here as soon as I-”

He interrupts. “Do you know how long I’ve been up?”

“I’m sorry, Your Honor, but I have no idea.”

“Four hours. My wife woke me at four forty-five.”

This is a stunning piece of news. Not that Hatchet has been up since early this morning, but that he has a wife. Someone actually sleeps with this man. I find myself picturing a female leaning over in bed and saying, “Hatchet, dear, it’s almost five a.m.-time to get up.” It’s not a pretty image.

“I assume this is somehow my fault?” I ask.

“She woke me to say that I cannot kill some poor dog. I assumed she was talking about an attorney, until she showed me what she was watching on the television.”

“She sounds like a very compassionate person, who doesn’t sleep much,” I say.

Hatchet takes off his glasses and peers at me. “Are you trying to turn my court into a circus? A sideshow?”

“No, sir. Never. Definitely not. No way.”

“Then why are you representing a dog?”

“Because if I don’t, he’ll be killed. And that would be unjust. And it would make many people unhappy, including me and Mrs. Hatch-Henderson.”